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FEATURES
22. THE MAGIC OF AUSONE
Built on ancient Roman foundations, Ausone is the smallest property in St-Emilion, and its wines are among the most sought after in the world 34. THE MARLBOROUGH MAN
Guy Woodward meets celebrated cinematographer and wine producer Michael Seresin 40. STILL BEAUTIFUL
Nina Caplan finds the mystery of malt in a modern masterpiece: the Macallan distillery
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48. BURGUNDY STONE BY STONE
64. A CONNOISSEUR’S FEAST
The drystone walls of Burgundy are as ancient and complex as the vineyards they divide, Jasper Morris MW discovers
A three-star chef, the best hotel in Paris, and wines that date back to the Napoleonic Wars. Adam Lechmere dines out 71. THE COLLECTION
58. CHARDONNAY FINDS ITS PERFECT BALANCE
From lush to skinny and back again: things have never been better for Chardonnay lovers
Our team of experts recommends the finest wines and spirits – from icon Champagne and Beaujolais, to triple-malt vodka and artisan gin 92. ROOT COUTURE
France’s best chefs sit at his (muddy) feet. What’s Asafumi Yamashita’s secret?
MI CHE L JOLY; M A RK P OWE R /M AG N UM P HOTO S; FAC UN D O BU STA M A NT E ; AL E XA ND R E PE TZOL D ; G ÉR A RD UF ÉR AS ; JI LL I A N E DE LSTE IN ; T IM H A L L
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8 R OD E RI CK M IL LS ; CA M ER A P RES S; Z A NE MEYE R /FA ITH X LV II ; © LI U B OL I N RU I NA RT; D EB O RA H WASTIE ; 4 COR N ER S I M AG ES
REGULARS
4. CONTRIBUTORS 7. IWSC LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Joe Fattorini profiles Jancis Robinson OBE MW 8. PHOTOGRAPHY
Now you see them, now you don’t: Liu Bolin’s fascinating trompe l’oeil
98. SUPER-INGREDIENT
104. URBAN LEGENDS
Who really understands the myriad complexities of salt?
Rob Sandall on the remarkable bankability of the Banksy generation
100. GOURMET FOCUS
Natasha Hughes MW finds the beating heart of French truffle country 103. LEARN IN A DAY
Zoe Williams delves into the ancient craft of butchery
108. A DAY WITH THE ARTISAN
That’s got to be a record: Will Hodgkinson meets the master of analogue 112. BACK PAGE
17. CLUB O SELECTS
Anti-alcohol art
From gourmet whisky to gourmet tours, our pick of the exclusive, the artisan and the downright luxurious
COV E R P H OTO G R A P H H I D I N G I N T H E V I N E YA R D S WITH THE RUINART C E L L A R M A ST E R ; C R E D I T © LIU BOLIN RUINART
CLUB OENOLOGIQUE
info@cluboenologique.com
EDITORIAL EDITOR
Contributors
Adam Lechmere WINE DIRECTOR
Christelle Guibert EDITORIAL EXECUTIVE
Laurel Bibby CONSULTANT EDITORS
Rebecca Gibb MW Guy Woodward
WRITERS JANE ANSON
JOE FATTORINI
Jane Anson is author, coauthor or translator of over a dozen wine and travel books, including the definitive Bordeaux Legends and the forthcoming Inside Bordeaux.
Joe Fattorini is the presenter of The Wine Show and a wine merchant with Fields, Morris & Verdin.
SUBEDITOR
FIONA BECKETT
David Tombesi-Walton at Sands Publishing Solutions
Award-winning food and drink writer Fiona Beckett is wine columnist for the Guardian and author of 25 books. She also publishes the website matchingfoodandwine.com and is co-founder of the wine podcast Bâtonnage.
HEAD OF MARKETING
Amy Garcia DESIGN CREATIVE DIRECTOR
Rashna Mody Clark PICTURE DIRECTOR
Caroline Metcalfe DESIGN
Rashna Mody Clark Design: Anna Wiewiora, Miguel Batista, Nely Plaza, George Harvey
NINA CAPLAN
Nina Caplan is a wine and travel writer; her book The Wandering Vine: Wine, The Romans and Me is Louis Roederer Wine Book of the Year. She lives in London and Burgundy. ELAINE CHUKAN BROWN
BRANDING forpeople PRINTING REPRO
Elaine Chukan Brown is a writer, speaker, and illustrator. She serves as the American specialist for JancisRobinson.com and is a contributing writer to Wine & Spirits magazine.
Eric Ladd at XY Digital
writes about drinks for a range of magazines and websites. He is also the author of the historical thriller Hare. ROB SANDALL
WILL HODGKINSON
Will Hodgkinson is author of The House Is Full if Yogis, Guitar Man, Song Man and The Ballad of Britain. He is chief rock and pop critic for The Times. NATASHA HUGHES MW
Natasha Hughes has worked in the wine business for 20 years, combining writing, consultancy, events, education and judging. She can’t believe she gets paid to do this stuff.
Rob Sandall has written within the worlds of art, music, books and ballet for more than a decade, splitting his time between rare first editions, urban and contemporary exhibitions and lavish live performances. ZOE WILLIAMS
Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist. She was named Restaurant Reviewer of the Year 2014 for her work in the Sunday Telegraph – it sounds like a long time ago, but it still counts.
JASPER MORRIS MW
An MW since 1985, Jasper Morris has enjoyed a 40-year career in wine. His André Simon prize-winning book Inside Burgundy is now complemented by the website InsideBurgundy.com. PETER RANSCOMBE
GUY WOODWARD
Guy Woodward is the former editor of Decanter, where he worked for 10 years. He went on to edit Food and Travel magazine and now edits various customer magazines of London’s premier luxury retailer Harrods.
When he’s not asking geeky questions in vineyards or distilleries, Peter Ranscombe
PRINTER
Wyndeham Grange SUBSCRIPTIONS
PHOTOGRAPHERS, ARTISTS AND ILLUSTRATORS
Newsstand Magazines
LIU BOLIN
MICHEL JOLY
GÉRARD UFÉRAS
cluboenologique.com/subs
Liu Bolin is a Chinese performance artist and photographer. He studied at Shandong Academy of Fine Arts, specialising in sculpture, and at the Central Academy of Fine Arts.
Self-taught photographer Michel Joly is recognised for his work with light. Since moving to Burgundy in 1995, he makes the world of fine wine the focus of a large portion of his work.
Gérard Uféras is a Parisbased photographer and portraitist. He has won several awards and exhibited in prestigious locations both in France and abroad, including the Maison Européenne de la Photographie and the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
Facebook @cluboenologique Instagram @cluboenologique Twitter @cluboenologique Email: info@cluboenologique.com / news@cluboenologique.com ISSN 2631-4630. Club Oenologique is published quarterly by The Conversion Group. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without written permission is strictly prohibited. The title Club Oenologique is registered in Great Britain as a trademark. Every care is taken in compiling the contents of this publication, but the proprietors assume no responsibility in the effects arising there from. No responsibility is accepted for loss or damage of manuscripts and illustrations submitted for publication. Views expressed are not necessarily those of the proprietors. Proprietors reserve the right to refuse advertisements.
FACUNDO BUSTAMANTE
TIM HALL
Facundo Bustamante is a food, still-life and lifestyle photographer with more than 17 years’ experience in the creative industries. He is currently based in London.
Tim Hall is a British fine-art photographer specialising in travel, landscape and portraiture. His work is a lyrical response to the places he has visited and the people who inhabit them.
JILLIAN EDELSTEIN
London-based photographer Jillian Edelstein has seen her portraiture appear in many publications and exhibited internationally at venues including the National Portrait Gallery. She is also the author of the award-winning book Truth and Lies.
RODERICK MILLS
Roderick Mills is a practising artist, illustrator, educator, writer and curator based in London. A graduate of the Royal College of Art, he exhibits widely and writes and speaks on illustration internationally.
DEBBIE WASTIE
Debbie Wastie has a background in graphic design, working mainly in the charity sector before leaving full-time work to pursue photography. She now designs still-life images.
Editor’s letter
he word ‘magazine’ comes down to us from the Arabic makhzin, which means ‘storehouse’. The idea exists in many languages, and it usually keeps its original sense: of repository, warehouse, or shop (magasin, magazzino, almacen). In English, it means – precisely – the object you’re holding in your hands. But the old meaning still lingers. Look up ‘storehouse’ in a thesaurus, and you soon lose yourself. Storage, the safekeeping of stuff, is one of humanity’s oldest concepts, of course, so you’d expect an abundance of words and derivations to describe it. Gathering, garnering, accumulation, abundance, preservation, stabling, stowage, boxroom, lumber room, cellar… And there’s magazine again, in the sense of a store of ammunition. Each word holds a world of meaning. Think of an Arabic storehouse, and you immediately think of display, of corridors lined with carpets, copper bowls and sacks of aromatic spice. You think of cornucopia, of variety, abundance – and you also think of serendipity, of surprise. The love of browsing a bookshop is inextricably linked with the pleasure of chance discoveries. Above all, a storehouse is tangible. It’s not digital. You can’t feel or smell a web page in the same way you can feel those carpets and smell those spices and, indeed, the pages in front of you. Club Oenologique celebrates the sheer tangibility of beautiful things: the unctuous joy of a wine that was put down before the French Revolution, the physical heft of a Burgundy drystone wall, the early morning heat of a St-Emilion vineyard, or The Macallan distillery’s vast concrete supports, so lovely that they made a man weep. And it’s not just whisky and wine – there are recordings on vinyl, and butchery, and some astonishing urban art. Not forgetting Champagne, and Beaujolais, and gin, vodka, bourbon… With Club Oenologique, we want to celebrate not only the beautiful but the artisanal and the practical. So, yes, we’re about rarity – some of it very expensive indeed – but we also want to talk about the making of these things, to honour the people who apply generations of learning to their craft. And we want to speak to you, the discerning consumer, who are bound to appreciate this repository of the interesting, the scarce, and the expertly made.
ADAM LECHMERE OCTOBER 2018
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Please drink responsibly - www.rare-champagne.com
J O E FAT TO R I N I TA K E S A N A F F E C T I O N AT E LO O K AT T H E WO M A N H E C A L L S ‘ T H E O P R A H O F W I N E ’
IWSC LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD
Jancis Robinson OBE MW WO R DS
I L LU S TR ATI O N
J O E FAT TO R I N I
RODERICK MILLS
once watched Jancis and a group of wine-media notables on a bus in Argentina. I was on my first ever wine judging trip, sitting next to David Smith, the former ITN White House correspondent turned winemaker, a man who toured the world on Air Force One with the cream of political hacks. He had a journalist’s eye for detail: ‘You know, in all my time in the White House press corps, I’ve never seen such an obvious hierarchy among journalists. Or someone so clearly at the top of it.’ He’d noticed that as the rest of the group jostled for position, Jancis was ne plus ultra. At dinner that night, David tested his theory. ‘So what do you think of this wine, Jancis?’ he asked. Later he revealed how much he enjoyed the Bateman-cartoon faces of everyone around the table: ‘The Man Who Asked Jancis if the Wine Was Any Good’. Note: not ‘Jancis Robinson’; just ‘Jancis’, like Madonna, Sting, Bono. The Oprah of wine. To be monony mous, it helps if your name is unusual – and Jancis as a name is vanishingly rare. But you also have to back it up
with some serious talent. We never hear about the off-key Madonnas or apathetic Oprahs. Jancis is a taster and critic of extra ordinary consistency, a writer for whom the word ‘prolific’ might have been invented, and an online pioneer. Her fearsome work ethic has made her website one of the most profit able businesses in the wine trade. Her magisterial Oxford Companion to Wine confirmed her as the most authoritative voice on wine of any generation. It’s hard to think of any one who’s had so much success from people’s passion for the grape. If you haven’t met Jancis, your first encounter may be the self-confessed workaholic who sits to one side at tastings, deeply focused, shunning the gossip of those who dream of succeeding her. But ask anyone who has spent a bit of time with Jancis, and you’ll hear how funny she is. Her humour peeks out of her writing, too. I’m reliably informed that this trait is inherited from her father. It’s also true to her roots – not the slick, knowing humour of a metro politan back ground, but the understated raised
eyebrow of an upbringing in northern Penrith. When Jancis turns on her Cumbrian accent, it’s the real thing. I once asked one of her family what they serve if Jancis comes for dinner. First-growth claret and tournedos Rossini? ‘No, a well-made spaghetti bolognese and Chianti Classico.’ I’ve been lucky enough to work with Jancis. Filming The Wine Show, she was funny and warm. An in-joke with a cameraman made it to the final cut. She was generous and professional and never complained about long hours in the sun. At the end of the day, Matthew Goode, James Purefoy and the various brawny members of the crew were playing volleyball in the pool. Jancis didn’t join in. She sat in a sun lounger in an Issey Miyake beach gown, reading the Financial Times. As I glanced over, the pink pages dropped an inch, and the formidable, austere figure of authority peered at the dozen glistening men leaping about the pool. And she smiled. The International Wine & Spirit Com petition is a sister company to Club Oenologique.
LIFE AT A GLANCE
1968–71 studies maths and philosophy at Oxford University | 1976–80 editor of Wine & Spirit magazine | 1983 The Wine Programme (Channel 4) | 1984 becomes MW | 1990–present Financial Times wine correspondent | 1994 Oxford Companion to Wine | 1995 Jancis Robinson’s Wine Course (BBC) | 1998 Vintners’ Tales (BBC) | 2000 launches JancisRobinson. com | 2001 The World Atlas of Wine 5th ed | 2003 appointed OBE | 2012 Wine Grapes, with Julia Harding MW and José Vouillamoz | 2018 IWSC LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
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Hiding in the vineyards with the Ruinar t cellar master Frédéric Panaïotis (on left); Credit © Liu Bolin Ruinar t
The invisible man ARTIST
WO R DS
LIU BOLIN
L AU R E L B I B BY
A M A S T E R O F T R O M P E L’ O E I L , LIU BOLIN PUTS THE TEAMS AT R U I N A RT C E N T R E STAG E – AND THEN MAKES THEM DISAPPEAR
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Hiding in the gyropalettes with riddler Pablo Lopez; Credit © Liu Bolin Ruinar t
Born in Shandong in 1973, performance artist and photographer Liu Bolin is Champagne Ruinart’s Artist of the Year. These striking images, which can take up to 10 hours to prepare, were created during a residence at Ruinart in August 2017. Bolin highlights the expertise of the Champagne workers – from labelling operators, to cellar master – demonstrating their close relationship with nature by camouflaging them, literally blending them into their natural environment. ‘From the vineyards to the cellars, Ruinart winemakers draw the best from nature without causing harm,’ said the artist, who puts himself into each shot. ‘I wanted to use this series to showcase their work.’
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Deep underground; Credit © Liu Bolin Ruinar t
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Disgorgement production-line workers Hélèna Keller, Olivier Mousset and Patricia Jacquemard; Credit © Liu Bolin Ruinar t
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FIVE STAR DINING
IN WASHINGTON, D.C.
The recipient of one star from the prestigious Michelin Guide and five stars from Forbes, Plume features innovative dishes that are crafted utilizing traditional techniques. Our seasonal restaurant menus take inspiration from the harvest of Thomas Jefferson’s kitchen gardens at Monticello. Dine in a cozy nook or a table by our inviting fireplace and choose from over 1,300 wine labels that include over 50 vintages that Jefferson himself enjoyed in his time.
Plume at The Jefferson, Washington, D.C. 1200 16th St. NW | 202.448.2300
www.plumedc.com | plume@jeffersondc.com
2018
O CLUB SELECTS
The bottles OUR PICK OF THE MOST EXCLUSIVE AND INTRIGUING B O T T L E S AVA I L A B L E T H I S S E A S O N
STAG PARTY It’s been a busy year for whisky collectors, with a series of single-cask malts getting the wake-up call after half a century; Highlands-based distillery Dalmore set the pace with the release of its 45-year-old whisky. Having spent part of its life in barrels that once kept the superlative 1963 vintage of Graham’s Port, this extraordinary nectar is packaged in a suitably exquisite Baccarat crystal decanter adorned with the distinctive Dalmore stag. Make space on your drinks trolley for what Dalmore’s somewhat partisan master distiller Richard Paterson describes as ‘flawless perfection’. £10,000/$13,050 thedalmore. com; specialist whisky retailers
CHAMPAGNE CHARLIE Champagne house Charles Heidsieck unveiled its debut Blanc des Millénaires in 1993, and vintage blanc de blancs releases since then have been very rare. Just four vintages – 1983, 1985, 1990 and 1995 – have been given the nod… until now. With the emergence of the 2004 vintage, Heidsieck is parting with a handful of bottles from each Blanc des Millénaires vintage to create the Collection Crayères 2018. The five-bottle vertical is made even more appetizing with a selection of vintage blanc de blancs dating back to 1979. £2,700/$3,525 Hedonism Wines, specialist retailers
A CASE OF SYRAH? Long revered as Australia’s grand master of reds, a bottle of 1951 Grange, the first vintage ever produced by Penfolds, was sold at auction for a record-breaking A$67,000 (£36,300/€41,300) earlier this year. Syrah continues to play the lead role in this cross-district blend, but there is a new addition for 2014. Fruit from Wrattonbully – a little-known wine region that has long been in the shadow of neighbouring Coonawarra – has made the Grange grade for the first time. Richly textured yet elegant, the Aussies would call this a ‘bloody ripper’. £589/$769 Berry Bros & Rudd, Lay & Wheeler, Justerini & Brooks, The Wine Society
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O CLUB SELECTS
The devices OUR PICK OF THE MOST EXCLUSIVE AND INTRIGUING D E V I C E S AVA I L A B L E T H I S S E A S O N
MORE BANG (& OLUFSEN) FOR YOUR BUCK
TIME MACHINE Ralph Lauren is the epitome of the American dream: the son of immigrant parents from Belarus, Lauren grew up in the Bronx; his luxury empire is entirely self-made. Now 79, he is celebrating 50 years in fashion with a limited run of handcrafted timepieces inspired by the American West. The collection includes a distinctive silver pocket watch that took four days to engrave by hand. Time isn’t on your side if you want one: there were only 50 produced. $44,000 ralphlauren.com
THE OPENER Via needle and argon gas, the revolutionary Coravin allows wine lovers to sample their wine collection without removing the cork. The newly released Model Eleven refines the precision of its winepreservation system. The sleeker, ultra-modern design makes it easier to handle than previous incarnations, and it’s also much cleverer: it can talk to your phone via Bluetooth to tell you when to change the argon gas capsule (the secret to keeping the wine fresh), and the app suggests food, music and movie pairings based on the wines in your cellar. £899/$1,170 coravin.com; Harrods, Selfridges, Fortnum & Mason, Majestic Wine, Harvey Nichols
Sound systems should be heard and not seen, but the latest speakers from Bang & Olufsen are a feast for the eyes, as well as the ears. The discerning Danish company has released two futuristic smart speakers, BeoSound 1 and 2, delivering sumptuous sound quality and the bellsand-whistles technology you’d expect in 2018. It has an Apple AirPlay 2 built in, so you can stream your favourite tunes, and Google Assistant to answer your questions, provide directions and update you on the football scores. The refined cylindrical frame – with no wires attached on the larger BeoSound 1 model – makes this a functional design piece in any music lover’s home. £1,250/$1,630 (BeoSound 1) and £1,650/$2,150 (BeoSound 2) bang-olufsen. com; Bang & Olufsen stores worldwide
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Kathryn Sargent A modern tailoring house with traditional Savile Row values at its core.
No 6 BROOK STREET 1st FLOOR, MAYFAIR LONDON, W1S 1BB
At Kathryn Sargent Bespoke Tailoring the focus is on traditional Savile Row craftsmanship and luxury customer service for both men and women. Each garment created is a collaboration between the client and Kathryn, ensuring a unique beautifully tailored result.
www.kathrynsargent.com Tel: +44 (0) 207 4932450 Mobile: +44 (0) 7846 047133
O CLUB SELECTS
The experiences
O U R P I C K O F T H E M O S T E X C L U S I V E A N D I N T R I G U I N G E X P E R I E N C E S AVA I L A B L E T H I S S E A S O N
WINTER WINE WONDERLAND If you’re not on the glitzy slopes of St Moritz or Courchevel and prefer winter sun, head to the Naples Winter Wine Festival in Florida. Lots have yet to be finalised for 2019, but at the most recent event, paddles were raised to bag superlative winery experiences from Spain to South Africa, with first-class travel trimmings thrown in. It isn’t just wine on offer: the first eighth-generation Rolls-Royce Phantom in the world and a custom-designed McLaren 720S were auctioned, while some of Bordeaux’s most illustrious châteaux teamed up with Chopard jewellery to create a trip across France, ending with a red-carpet experience at Cannes Film Festival.
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The festival runs 25–27 January 2019, with prices from $12,500 per couple. napleswinefestival.com
LEAVING (IT ALL BEHIND) ON A JET PLANE
The ultimate in luxury guided holidays, Four Seasons Private Jet Experience creates packages that start with an on-board chef serving five-star fare. There are four ultra-luxe holidays planned for 2019, with a waiting list for two of them. The next trip (9–24 February) starts in Miami with a gala dinner at the former home of Gianni Versace before a two-week tour of the Papagayo Peninsula, Buenos Aires, Bogotá and the Galápagos Islands.
GOURMET SUMMIT Switzerland’s most glamorous Alpine resort, St Moritz has long been the winter playground of the rich and famous. Perfectly groomed pistes provide the setting for the fur-hat-wearing glitterati to show off their parallel turns before indulging in the town’s epicurean delights. Serious foodies dust down their Fendi skiwear in January for the annual St Moritz Gourmet Festival. Since 1994, many of the world’s top chefs have created a snowstorm off the piste, and tickets for the 2019 event (running 11–19 January) will go like artisanal hot cakes. stmoritz-gourmetfestival.ch/en
The cost of the package is $98,000 per person (double occupancy). fourseasons.com/privatejet
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B U I LT O N A N C I E N T R O M A N F O U N D A T I O N S , I T ’ S T H E S M A L L E S T P R O P E R T Y I N S T- E M I L I O N , A N D
The magic of Ausone WO R DS
P H OTO G R A P H S
JA N E A N S O N
TIM HALL
ITS WINES ARE AMONG THE MOST SOUGHT AFTER – AND THE MOST EXPENSIVE – IN THE WORLD
W
Pauline Vauthier at the stables Ecurie Olivier Rober t; opposite: Château Ausone, with (bottom left) Christophe tending vines
earing New Balance trainers, khaki shorts and a plain polo shirt, Pauline Vauthier is trailed by two bounding Weimaraners called Cork and Gucci. It’s 11am, but she has already been up for seven hours, out in the vineyards since 4am. It doesn’t take long to understand why, because the heat has climbed up close to 40C (104F) by the time we are walking the rows, exploring the celebrated soils of Château Ausone, and enjoying the view they afford over the Unesco World Heritage village of St-Emilion. It’s clearly too hot for vineyard workers to be outside, and yet there is work to be done, so setting the alarm clock early is the best they can do. We are at one of the highest points of the village here, close to 80m above sea level on the edge of a limestone plateau above the Dordogne Valley, 50km east of Bordeaux city. This plateau is the source of the honeyed stone that marks so much of St-Emilion’s economic, religious and cultural history. The medieval village is set on a hill, with cobbled streets that are honeycombed by a series of quarries that saw the first extraction of limestone during the Middle Ages. The stone was used to support a religious community that built Europe’s largest monolithic church into the hill and, later, to build many of the houses and public buildings not only in St-Emilion but in Libourne, Bordeaux and beyond. Vauthier’s father Alain and his friends spent their childhood riding their bikes under the streets, passing from one château to another through a ribbon of tunnels, although most are closed off today. The quarries beneath Ausone stretch for 8,000 sq m (86,000 sq ft) and head down to a depth of 25m. Today, only the highest level is accessible, used to store
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The Ausone vines heavy with grapes just before harvest
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oak barrels filled with the most recent vintages of the wine. ‘The magic of Ausone begins and ends with our terroir,’ Vauthier says, referring to soils that are 10% on the plateau and 90% on steep southeast-facing slopes that offer excellent sun-ripening opportunities for the grapes. ‘Limestone is perfect for allowing the right amount of water to get to the vines. It has a porous quality that draws moisture away when too much rain falls and passes it back to the roots when conditions get too dry.’ Today, the pilgrims that once walked these streets have been replaced by tourists and wine lovers, drawn by the history, the views and one of the most revered gourmet names in France. That is because this same limestone – shot through with fossilised oysters and seashells left behind by waters that covered this spot 30 million years ago – is also remarkably well suited for growing vines that turn out richly complex, well-balanced and liltingly fresh wines that go the distance, growing in interest for decades after bottling. Just over 200 people live permanently within the city walls of St-Emilion, but there are three Michelin-starred restaurants and 700 wineries, with the most hallowed 82 names rewarded in a quality ranking that dates back to the 1950s and includes Ausone’s neighbours such as châteaux Pavie, Angélus, La Gaffelière, Quintus, Figeac, Canon, Belair-Monange and Cheval Blanc. These are among the most sought-after names in wine, with UK prices reaching into the hundreds of pounds for a single bottle and their vineyards exchanging hands for millions of euros per hectare. Ausone sets the standard: six bottles of the 2015 vintage will cost you around £5,000 ($6,600). A single bottle of the 2005 will set you back just under £2,000 ($2,650) if you shop around carefully. It stands out in other ways, too. Across St-Emilion, the majority of estates are planted largely to the luscious, red-fruited Merlot grape, but here at Ausone that grape is matched in more than half the vineyard by Cabernet Franc, which gives elegance, lift and violettinged aromatics that elevate the expression of the entire wine.
Vine-clad hills Ausone is one of only four first growths – or premier grand cru classé A, as they are known locally – within the classification. It is the smallest of them, at 7ha, and also the one with the oldest history. The name, which first appears in local archives in 1529, refers back to the Roman poet Decimus Magnus Ausonius, and remains of a Roman villa have been found at the feet of Ausone’s slopes. It’s a reminder of the 2,000 continual years of Bordeaux winemaking, since the Romans first cultivated vines. It’s not exactly a straight line linking one to the other. We know Ausonius was awarded a consulate, the highest Roman honour, in Bordeaux in 379 and is best known for his poetry and writings about the region, in which he describes the ‘vineclad hills’, and we know his parents-in-law came from St-Emilion. But we don’t know for certain that he owned the Roman villa whose remains lie at the base of these slopes. Just two years ago, remains of Roman walls and other artefacts were discovered when a plot was pulled up for replanting. A team of archaeologists is currently analysing the find, deciding if it will be worth further disturbing land valued at more than €8 million ($9.2m) per hectare. What is certain is that Ausone stands on a spot that has been highly prized for centuries, ‘and whoever changed the name to Ausone in the 17th century (it stands in the former hamlet of La Madeleine and was known under this name previously) was clearly a history buff and no doubt aware of the link that this place has with antiquity’, is how historian Olivier Lescorce puts it. Local archives contain a document dating from 1341, written on behalf of King Edward III of England, giving permission for an Elie de Lescours to build a fortified
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The magic of Ausone begins and ends with our terroir
The spire of St-Emilion’s monolithic church with grapevines in the foreground
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Just over 200 people live in St-Emilion, but there are
Above: a hazy St-Emilion morning; left: shadows on the roofs as the sun begins to break through
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Right: the main entrance to the cellars at Ausone; below: a view across the rooftops of St-Emilion
three Michelin-starred restaurants and 700 wineries
house where Ausone now stands. Other documents attest that the house was destroyed for the security of the town at the start of the Hundred Years’ War because it was located just outside of the walls, so could be used by enemy soldiers to attack the citizens within. The current château dates from the 17th century, and there are remains in the gardens of both a medieval burial ground and parts of a former 13thcentury rotunda with a still-vibrant fresco of the Last Judgment. Château Ausone has had just three families in ownership over five centuries, and Pauline is the 12th generation of Vauthiers and their ancestors. This is a place that gets under your skin, so it’s not surprising that she is involved in every detail – from upkeep of the dry-stone walls at the edge of the vineyard, to working with specialists to protect its historical remains and carrying out essential daily vineyard tasks. Turning the soil, trimming leaves, tracking berry ripening – these jobs are not done by the owner at most prestigious Bordeaux châteaux, which are increasingly in the hands of company directors with business degrees who focus on the big picture and employ vineyard managers, consultants and staff for the practical work. Pauline Vauthier, in contrast, has been working since the age of 16, first in the dairy industry while doing an agricultural diploma then, from 18, switching to a winemaking degree, working at various estates across St-Emilion before joining the family property in 2005. ‘My favourite thing is to be outside working,’ she says. ‘I’m in the office when I need to be, but I don’t enjoy the tastings and the travel that are essential to running an estate like this. Like my father, I prefer to be discreet.’ When she’s not in the winery, she’s riding horses – training five times a week and taking part in at least three competitions a month between February and September, when the focus at the château is less intense than during harvest and the early stages of making the new vintage. It helps her to stay at one remove from the pressures involved in running a St-Emilion first growth but also reveals her steely nature, as she tells me that when she stops competing, she will stop riding. ‘The pleasure is in the chase,’ she says with less of a smile that I expected. The Vauthiers are part of the core of long-term families of St-Emilion. Pauline’s sister Anne-Charlotte is also at the estate, having moved back from Paris two years ago, while her other sister Constance is an equine vet. Their brother Edouard is
Top: oak fermenters awaiting the harvest; left: the 200-yearold cellar; opposite: the ancient cellar, with bottles dating back to 1849
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JANE ANSON’S RECOMMENDATIONS
The exceptional
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CHATEAU AUSONE PREMIER GRAND CRU CLASSE A 2005 Take a brilliant vintage and add in the magic of Ausone, and you’ll start to understand what the limestone plateau of St-Emilion can deliver. This is all hidden power and fragrant layered fruit, so perfectly drawn that you can discern the spiced flesh of loganberry, raspberry, blueberry – luscious, persistent, mouthwatering. Drink 2018-2040.
The classic
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CHATEAU AUSONE PREMIER GRAND CRU CLASSE A 2008 Wonderful lift and floating fruit, the power builds and climbs upwards from start to finish, with silky tannins and a kick of salinity that comes from the limestone. It performs the neat Ausone trick of being both plush and expansive, yet with unquestionable purity and focus. Drink now and until 2036.
The underrated
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returning to St-Emilion from the Philippines in 2019 to develop wine tourism at the family’s other properties. Families like this are increasingly rare, as banks, insurance companies and overseas investors have all arrived over the past few decades. Land prices have spiralled upwards – the Vauthiers bought neighbouring estate Château La Clotte just a few years ago, in 2014, for example, at €3 million ($3.46m) per hectare, a price that has now risen to a minimum of €5 million. Ten years ago that figure would have been closer to €1 million. It has created an environment that can be riven with rivalry and pressure, particularly as the classification is redone every 10 years, with the possibility of being moved up or down according to quality and market position. Ausone has been a first growth since the initial ranking in the 1950s and is in no danger of losing that status, but it’s clear that Pauline’s inward focus and drive are assets. ‘When you are being judged so visibly – particularly in such a small town, where everyone knows each other – there are always people who are critical or jealous,’ she says. ‘But I really don’t care. I live my life and get on with my work. There is a pressure, of course, but I just do my job.’
This is easily one of the wines of the vintage, even if that is not exactly the highest praise for a year when heatwave temperatures meant that many wines are now past their peak. Ausone showed a freshness at the time of bottling that it has maintained through the intervening years. You get the tell-tale spice and exoticism of extremely ripe fruit, but there is a core of gentle, rolling acidity and a salinity that draws you on. Drink 2018-2030.
The favourite
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CHATEAU AUSONE PREMIER GRAND CRU CLASSÉ A 2016 The epitome of perfumed finesse, this has a clarity of expression that runs right through the delicate but fleshy raspberry and smoke-tinged palate. It showcases the succulent power that is the signature of the vintage but is boosted and given extra lift by the limestone terroir. Stunning, with enormous persistence. Drink 2028-2042.
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H E ’ S C R E AT E D T H E B I G - S C R E E N BAC K D R O P F O R E V E RY T H I N G F R O M B U G SY M A LO N E TO H A R RY P OT T E R , B U T I T I S V I N E YA R D S T H A T P R O V I D E C E L E B R AT E D C I N E M ATO G R A P H E R MICHAEL SERESIN WITH HIS IDEAL C A N VA S. A N D A S G U Y W O O D WA R D H E A R S, H E H A S S O M E ST R O N G V I E W S W H E N I T C O M E S TO CRAFTING THE RIGHT APPROACH
INTERVIEW
The Marlborough man Life could have been very different for Michael Seresin. When the renowned cinematographer was 16, he spent an afternoon at the New Zealand Department of Education’s career-advisory service in Wellington. Seresin was at boarding school outside the city and saw an opportunity both for an urban adventure and to skip class for half a day. The young student dutifully filled out the 10-page form before enjoying a few hours on the streets of the capital and returning to school to wait for – or more likely forget about – the subsequent counsel. Three months later, he was summoned back. ‘Most people were told they should be a policeman or whatever,’ the cinematographer and winery owner says, 60 years on. ‘With me, they had absolutely no idea.’ The only vocation the adviser could come up with was agriculture. ‘I was quite surprised at the time,’ he says. ‘Then again, I’d always enjoyed gardening – I had this little vegetable garden when I was eight or nine, and I liked seeing things grow.’ Seresin has seen lots of things grow since. We are sitting in the conservatory of his four-storey house in London’s chichi Maida Vale, home to various children and cats and with a sprawling garden. ‘I’ve let the whole thing go,’ he says. ‘On purpose. I don’t mow the lawn, I don’t do anything: it’s all overgrown. It’s filled with bees and butterflies and everything – we’ve even got a fox. It’s wild, but I love it.’ It’s a telling insight – and typical of Seresin’s seemingly default laid-back demeanour. Dressed casually in T-shirt and jeans, he’s a young 76-yearold. His dialogue is warm, familiar, and dotted with expletives and indiscreet asides. WO R DS
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JILLIAN EDELSTEIN
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It’s a curious predisposition given the precision of Seresin’s day job. He has been an in-demand cinematographer since the mid-1970s, when he forged a long-lasting and productive relationship with the director Alan Parker. Seresin’s oeuvre includes such films as Bugsy Malone, Midnight Express and Angela’s Ashes, plus, more recently, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and two Planet of the Apes films. Yet despite his highly technical profession, one gets the impression he is, at heart, an instinctive, impulsive individual – a man who appreciates life’s simple pleasures. Founding Marlborough-based Seresin Estate in 1992 was no vanity project. The enterprise was slightly romantic, almost naive – traits that were evident on his arrival in Europe in the mid-1960s. Seresin made the journey from New Zealand to Italy by boat and, on arriving in Rome, immediately headed for the nearest coffee shop. ‘Caffè Roma,’ he says. ‘I still remember it. All I could see was bottles of wine and whisky and gin and aperitivi and digestivi. But everybody’s just having coffee, juice or a glass of water with lemon. When I was growing up in New Zealand, the liquor laws were strict, and there was a Calvinist approach. Liquor was the root of all evil. But in Italy you could walk into a café, sit down and have a coffee and a croissant, or a glass of wine or whatever. Wine was just part of life.’ Immediately he decided this was the life for him. But after a year absorbing Rome’s neo-realism film scene – while not actually working much – Seresin moved to London (‘a little regretfully, frankly’). He slept on a friend’s floor before getting ‘a horrible flat in Willesden Green for five quid a week’. Within a short time, though, it proved a sage move. ‘I did very well very quickly – whether through luck or talent, I don’t know.’ But one thing bothered him: he found the same attitude to alcohol that he had encountered back home. ‘There was a mystery about wine perpetuated by quite a lot of people. It’s still there, in many ways. You’d hear people say, “Oh, wine – only poofs drink wine.”’ Perhaps pining for Italy’s more enlightened approach, he bought a holiday home in Tuscany and befriended an eccentric Genoese count who would invite him to his rambling farmhouse and serve his own wine. ‘He had 5 acres [2ha], and they’d harvest the grapes, crush them in the barn, use a small basket press and age it. We’d go over and have lunch and a bottle of his wine, surrounded by the vines. And I thought it was amazing.’ A similar episode with the family behind the rather grander Badia a Coltibuono (‘We went for lunch, but we didn’t realise they had a castle’) further whetted his appetite, and a starry-eyed Seresin started looking to buy a vineyard blissfully unaware of the challenges. ‘I didn’t do a business plan – I wouldn’t know how to. I just thought, you buy 10 acres of land, you plant grapes, you look after them, you make the wine and you sell it.’
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Clockwise from left: bottles in Seresin’s cellar; Raupo Creek vineyard; Seresin in his cellar; tending his soil at Raupo; sheep at Raupo Creek
PH OTO GRA PHS: JILLIAN EDELSTEIN
There was a mystery about wine perpetuated by a lot of people
Seresin among the hills and wild countr yside that surround Raupo Creek vineyard
I just thought, you buy 10 acres of land, you plant grapes, you look after Even he soon realised, though, that pursuing his dream in Italy without knowledge of the area or the language wasn’t viable – not least with the demise of the Chianti wine region’s fortunes. Several years later, Seresin was in San Francisco, having dinner at Chez Panisse with a friend who told him about a New Zealand wine he’d had. ‘It’s called Cloudy Bay,’ the friend said. ‘You should try it.’ So, Seresin, who happened to be on his way to his homeland, did. ‘I’m not a huge fan of Sauvignon Blanc,’ he says. ‘But I liked this.’ Within a few months, he had bought 68 hectares in Marlborough, two of which he planted to Cabernet. ‘That’s how stupid I was,’ he says. Two years later, he planted Pinot Noir. Seresin has never claimed to be a wine expert – ‘It allows me to ask stupid questions’ – but as the saying goes, he knows what he likes. Or rather, what he wants. Often, this has followed an alternative, non-conformist approach, so he majored on Pinot Noir, not Sauvignon Blanc; his Sauvignon was – and still is – laced with Semillon and partially barrel-fermented; and within a year, he had gone organic. It was, he admits, an idealistic decision,
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based on a smattering of research in Tuscany and an instinctive aversion to chemicals. ‘I literally phoned up one night and told the manager, who in those days was also the winemaker and the viticulturist, “We’re going organic.” He wasn’t too happy about it – but I’d seen the spray calendar on the wall: January 1st, spray with this; January 15th, spray with that; January 22nd, whatever. If you spent 50 grand a year with the agrochemical companies, you got a free fridge.’ The estate manager left shortly afterwards. Today, Seresin is not just organic but biodynamic – one of only two New Zealand estates (along with Millton Vineyards) in Nicolas Joly’s La Renaissance des Appellations group of terroir-driven, organic producers. It is, according to sustainable wine expert Monty Waldin, one of the finest examples of a large-scale biodynamic winery, producing around 700,000 bottles a year. Such a commitment is no small undertaking. So why do it? ‘I once asked Anne-Claude Leflaive the same,’ Seresin replies. ‘She just said, “If you can grow grapes and make wine without chemicals, why not?”’
Seresin’s 80ha estate is akin to an Old World farm – something you feel probably delights the Europhile Seresin. It currently boasts 1,500 olive trees, vegetable gardens, 50 sheep, several dozen chickens and a handful of cows and goats, ‘all of which feed into the organic and biodynamic culture’. Seresin is not evangelical about the practice, saying merely, ‘If the soil is treated with respect, it will both act and react accordingly. And you get a very different quality of person working for you when you’re organic.’ This brings us to his appointment of former Yealands winemaker Tamra Kelly-Washington. What made him pick her? ‘Firstly, I don’t have to deal with testosterone. She actually started her career with us, then went off and learned the mechanics of it. She’s worked outside New Zealand; she’s quite urbane, quite sophisticated. And she’s got a work ethos from her time in Italy, where they’re farmers, not 9-to-5 winemakers.’ That work ethic and immersion in the vineyard is important to Seresin. When he was considering candidates, he was wary of winemakers with an impressive degree who would sit in an office analysing pH levels. ‘You know how a farm dog gets up of a morning, sniffs around, checks where the wind’s coming from, where the other dogs are before it takes its first pee? That’s what I need: people who have an intuitive, instinctive understanding. And that’s harder to find in the New World.’ More than anything, though, he adds, ‘I really like her as a
them, you make the wine and you sell it person.’ Which is more than he can say about KellyWashington’s former employer, whose sustainable credentials he pillories. (‘An industrial grape grower’ is one of his more generous depictions of Peter Yealands.) The ‘industrial’ approach is anathema to Seresin. It’s partly why he sold the Renwick-based winery building to a consortium led by two young winemakers. ‘It was getting too big. It’s a 1,300-tonne winery. We were using about a third of it, and it was a pain in the arse – the joy had gone out of it.’ Seresin has retained a contract to make wine there, and the new owners will use it as a hub for a clutch of different producers to make small parcels of wine. He also sold the original Noa vineyard, next to the winery, and plans to focus on a sizeable single vineyard, Raupo Creek. On the north-facing slopes of Marlborough’s Omaka Valley, Seresin’s vines currently carpet 53ha of the Raupo Creek estate, which has already proven its premium Pinot Noir credentials. ‘It’s less staff, fewer worries, less of everything – and at this point in my life, I just want to get joy out of it. It’s like that philosopher said, small is beautiful.’
CHRISTELLE GUIBERT TASTES SERESIN ESTATE SERESIN, MARAMA 2015, MARLBOROUGH
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Sourced from its oldest Sauvignon vines, Marama is not your run-of-the-mill Sauvignon Blanc. Barrelfermentation gives additional complexity and a broad mouthfeel. Expect white stone fruit, honeyed notes and focused acidity. This is a food-friendly Sauvignon that will age gracefully. (14%) £26.99 Selfridges, La Zouch SERESIN, SAUVIGNON BLANC 2016, MARLBOROUGH
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If you think you are not into New Zealand Sauvignon, then prepare to have your mind changed. Sourced from 18 different parcels, this has the classic varietal Sauvignon trademarks of gooseberries and herbaceousness, but the overall impression is subtle. The addition of a small amount of Semillon and a small proportion of barrel-fermented wine brings extra dimensions and richness. Great on its own or with food. (13.5%) £17.99 NZ Cellar, Wholefoods, Booths, Handford Wines, House of NZ Wines SERESIN, RAUPO CREEK PINOT NOIR 2013, MARLBOROUGH
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From a steep slope on the dense soils of the Omaka Valley, the vines have been rigorously cropped to provide just one bottle per vine. The result is smooth and full of flavour. It offers ripe red-fruit flavours supported by soft tannins, subtle oak and a spicy finish. (13.5%) £34 Hedonism, Lay & Wheeler, House of NZ Wines, Noble Grape, Real Ale SERESIN, CHIAROSCURO 2013, MARLBOROUGH
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Literally meaning ‘light-dark’ in Italian, chiaroscuro is a technique used to dramatic effect in the works of Leonardo da Vinci and Caravaggio. Seresin has adopted the lighting term for this unusual co‑fermented cuvée that brings together Pinot Gris, Riesling and Chardonnay. The blend creates an expressive, vivid and harmonious white; floral notes combine with spice on the richly textured palate. The finish is long and intense. Only 750 bottles were produced, so get in quick. (12.5%) £28.99 Great Grog, Hay Wines, Noble Grape, Wanderlust Wine SERESIN, RAUPO CREEK PINOT NOIR 2013, MARLBOROUGH
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This wine is all about elegance and purity. Its bright fruit, silky mouthfeel and supple tannins make it very inviting, with an intriguing lick of complexity on the long finish. Fewer than 2,000 bottles were produced. (13.5%) £67 Hedonism, Lay & Wheeler, NZ Cellar, Cru Wines
Still beautiful
YO U H A R D LY N O T I C E THE MACALLAN’S NEW D I ST I L L E RY – U N T I L YO U G E T I N S I D E . N I N A M YS T E RY O F M A LT I N A MODERN MASTERPIECE.
WO R DS NINA CAPLAN
JOAS S OUZA , COURTESY OF RO GERS STIRK HARB OUR + PARTN ERS
CAPLAN DISCOVERS THE
The timber roof of the still house at The Macallan distiller y
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The Macallan distiller y and visitor experience on the Easter Elchies estate, home to the single malt since 1824
is room for more tanks, if desired. ‘You just take out another wall,’ says architect Graham Stirk. ‘It’s very tidy.’ Since the new distillery is effectively starting from scratch, everything had to be replicated for identical results. The Macallan’s distinctive ‘curiously small’ stills were handmade by the company’s longtime copper specialist Forsyths, from ‘death masks’ of the old stills in the former distillery. The atmosphere of the barrel room is calibrated so that the whisky ages the same way. Why go to such trouble? The obvious solution would have been to extend the old distillery and add more warehouses to the windowless 1930s structures among the grass behind the house. They will be adding warehouses, in fact, but Grier believes that a company that claims to enhance your life should do nothing that isn’t life-enhancing – certainly not a visitor experience. And when Grier believes something, he usually manages to convert those around him. They held an architecture competition, he tells me as we walk up that grey path. It was a tempting but difficult commission: all those pipes, all those warehouses. Stirk and Toby Jeavons show me the computer rendering
IAN BEVAN
he drive from Aberdeen to Craigellachie is beautiful, past pale gold barley fields, foaming streams and hills jagged with silhouetted pines. We pass Mortlach distillery, then Glenfiddich, then the Balvenie; Glenlivet is a pleasant halfhour walk away and is open to the public, unlike the majority of Speyside’s 50 distilleries. The Macallan’s new distillery does not shout as you drive through the grounds. The architects were instructed to ‘reveal the mystery’, and they have done so in the most subtle way. It’s the presence of triangular windows in what look like gentle hills near the River Spey that makes you look twice: they turn out not to be gentle hills at all, but part of Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners’ attempt to create the distillery to end all distilleries. Ken Grier, The Macallan’s creative director, meets us in Easter Elchies, a mellow 18thcentury house that The Macallan – founded in 1824 but owned since 1999 by spirits company Edrington – refers to as its spiritual home. He is genial, greying, slightly downcast. He has spent more than 20 years building The Macallan into a global brand; after six years creating this wonder of the Scotch world, at a final bill of £140 million ($185m), he announced his retirement. Our September meeting is his last official duty. From a first-floor bedroom, I catch my first real sight of the new building. A glowing grey path of polished Belgian concrete narrows towards an entrance cut into those repurposed hills, which seem to hover above a wall of dark glass. It’s stunning – and slightly scary. Visitors walk up the path, into the future. That future will contain abundant Macallan. Production can increase by a third, and there
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Grier understands tangential solutions. He is a photography fan who has turned his passion into a marketing plan. There have been special editions of The Macallan with photographs by Rankin, Mario Testino, Annie Liebovitz. Six Magnum photographers documented the building’s construction: there’s now a permanent gallery in the distillery and there will, of course, be an accompanying special edition. If your product needs to stand apart from competitors, you can learn plenty from photographers who now compete, theoretically, with anyone with an iPhone. We eat a light lunch of haggis croquettes and local charcuterie in the main space, so vast it could fit the dome of St Paul’s. Beside us, a glass wall rises into the stratosphere; 840 rare
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Weeks before our arrival, The Macallan released Genesis, a limited edition of 2,500 bottles. The initial price was £495 ($650)
The architects’ elevations for The Macallan distiller y: southeast, nor thwest, nor theast and southwest
RO GERS STIRK HARB OUR + PARTNERS
for their original pitch: it’s marvellous. The turf peels off the hill to show the copper stills and mash tun inside. The building’s shape resembles a burial cairn, an obeisance to Scotland’s ancient past. When you enter the enormous circular space with another, enclosed circle at its centre, you are walking into a modern rendering of a broch, the double-walled, Scottish fortress that was the pinnacle of Iron Age wall construction. ‘We wanted Scottish, but not kilts and sporrans,’ says Stirk. ‘It needed to be something of the land.’ The learning curve was steep: ‘The pipework connections are mind-boggling,’ says Jeavons. Wasn’t it daunting, especially given the premium placed on renewable energy and sustainability? Well, yes, says Stirk, ‘but then Heathrow was our first airport; the British Museum our first museum extension.’ Sometimes, a little naivety can enable you to come at a problem from a new angle.
JOAS S OUZA , COURTESY OF RO GERS STIRK HARB OUR + PARTN ERS; IAN BEVAN
bottles of The Macallan glow within it. The sense of power, of possibility, is awesome. ‘We moved half a million tonnes of earth then put it all back, as landscaping,’ says Grier. There are 30m (100ft) concrete fins buried beneath, holding the structure up. ‘When they were covered, I had a little cry,’ says Grier. ‘They’re so beautiful, and nobody will ever seem them.’ They will, though, because there’s a photograph of them in the gallery – a different perspective on The Macallan’s brand idea of mystery and revelation. They are doing something right. The Macallan is the third-biggest single malt by volume, and collectors love it. Weeks before our arrival, The Macallan released Genesis, a limited edition of 2,500 bottles, to mark the distillery’s opening. People camped outside the new gates; the police closed roads. The initial price was £495 ($650); it has risen considerably since. Inside, there’s a signed lithographic print of the distillery, on archival paper from a 15th-century Italian mill. Grier didn’t quite make clear, when he asked for
Top: the view towards the production facility; middle: rows of The Macallan on display; bottom: axial view of the still houses
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Stirk’s signature, that he would need it so many times. ‘It took him three days,’ he says, impressed but unrepentant. Grier gestures towards an enormous glass wall, the giant stills visible beyond. This was the solution to keeping visitors connected to the process, which proved complicated, with the safety issues of visitors near explosive spirit. It’s free-standing, says Jeavons. ‘If the roof collapsed, it’d stay up.’ In case of fire, gallons of water will pour down it. Checking this cost £300,000 ($396,000). I arrived wondering how one spent £140 million on a building, but I’m starting to understand. We wind up the internal wood-lined staircase for the tour. We are high enough to peer down into the mash tun – Speyside’s biggest – and the washbacks, which get through 600 tonnes
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of barley a week, some of it home-grown. The wash is split between two short-necked spirit stills per washback, producing a heavy, dense vapour; this makes the signature rich Macallan style. The new building has 36 of them. All this technical information is conveyed by a guide and a series of iPad-operated installations. One, of Easter Elchies, opens like a doll’s house to show the interior; the real house stands behind, like an oversized imitation – or a photograph. There’s no break in the view: just glass, loosely inserted into the undulating wooden roof to prevent cracking, because, says Jeavons, ‘that roof has plenty of bounce’. Stirk shows me the cross section of the building, roof undulating repetitively until the entrance, where it rises slightly higher. ‘It’s like a heartbeat on a graph,’ he says – and it is.
The question, with a four-figure whisky: is it worth it?
JOAS S OUZA , COURTESY OF RO GERS STIRK HA RB OUR + PA RT NERS; MARK P OWER / MAGNUM PHOTO S
Opposite: the steam pipework and process machiner y beneath the still house; below: a model of a burning cask at the distiller y
There are two walk-in circular spaces, like upended barrels, with film installations; they’re superbly done, a real enhancement to the informal tasting that follows. We return downstairs and enter the circular centre. It’s very dark until an eerie noise begins and lights start to bounce, illuminating individual barrels. The performance swells to a cunningly lit finale as the rows of barrels burst into view. It’s theatre, but also a reminder of what a fabulous invention – by the Gauls, fellow Celts to the Scots – the barrel is. As the lights fade, Grier is silhouetted against a barrel backdrop. ‘That’s the problem,’ he says. ‘I love it all too much.’ This dream made stone and glass, wood and whisky, is his legacy – a modern manifestation of an idea at least as old as the cairns. Before we leave, he offers a dram: Macallan No. 6, aged in first-fill sherry casks, presented in a slender Lalique decanter, creamy, dark, aromatic with figs and dates, costing around £2,500 ($3,300). The question – with a fourfigure whisky, as with a nine-figure distillery – lingers like a perfume: is it worth it? Grier has tried to make the experience about more than cash and, to do so, has persuaded his employers to build a mind-blowingly expensive and complex building that celebrates the seeming simplicity of a ‘big shed buried below ground’ (Stirk) and a production process that’s ‘basically boiling a big kettle’ (Grier). The result is a startlingly modern construction honouring a centuries-old product that places a premium on ageing. It’s a complete contradiction. But then so, arguably, is the notion of paying a fortune for a drink created to soothe the ills of tax-dodging Highland peasants. Branding is partly about standing out, partly about polishing history. And this distillery achieves both, with elegance.
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Clos de Vougeot in the Côte de Nuits, winter
Burgundy
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stone by stone WO R DS
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T H E D RYS T O N E WA L L S O F B U R G U N DY A R E A S A N C I E N T A N D A S C O M P L E X A S T H E V I N E YA R D S T H E Y D I V I D E , A S J A S P E R M O R R I S M W D I S C O V E R S
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ontrary to rumour, I do not spend my entire life with my nose in a glass of wine or a reference book, teasing out some complicated aspect of Burgundian history. My leisure moments are spent taking down the relics of drystone walls – collapsed by age, weather, errant animals or passing motorists – and reassembling them in the prescribed manner, without cement, mortar or other external aid. It’s a deeply rewarding activity that keeps me in touch with the core of Burgundy. Is it an art, or a science? I’m not really sure, any more than when the same question is applied to winemaking. The optimum result comes from a blend of the two. Both require an infinite capacity for taking pains. Both also rely on intuition, knowing by sight that this stone in the pile will fit just there in the wall. I do something very similar when looking through my cellar to decide what to drink: I gaze at various bottles until one of them tells me it is their turn tonight. Unless the bottle is faulty, or the stone is cracked, it usually turns out to be a good choice. The key principle in building a drystone wall is to let the stones support each other. Each divide between two stones should be covered by a stone in the layer above; the two sides of the wall have a layer of minor stones between them, but they should not be free-standing: at intervals, they must be connected with an interlocking stone. My building blocks are the fractured, fissured, fossilised stones that have come out of some part of the Burgundian landscape at some point in the past century or two. The stones are made up of the same sort of variations on a clay-limestone theme as constitute the mother rock of the Côte. It is not simply a question of clay or limestone – or indeed marl, which is the intermediate structure between clay and
Clos St- Jacques, in Gevrey-Chamber tin
Clos de Vougeot, with Les Amoureuses in the foreground
limestone, found in various strata throughout the Côte and usually well suited to white wine production. Equally important is the particular nature of the rock. Comblanchien, Prémeaux or Chassagne limestone is particularly hard and is frequently quarried for building blocks and marble. Dalle nacrée translates as pearly flagstone, while Ostrea accuminata is full of little oyster shells. Calcaire à entroques (crinoidal limestone) entombs fossilised marine plants, and white oolite has egg-shaped stones. Annoyingly, it is rare that any one vineyard sits squarely on a single type of rock so that the wines therefrom can suggest a definition of what that individual rock type can bring. The concept of ‘minerality’ in wine needs to be taken as a metaphor rather than as evidence of the uptake of any specific minerals from the subsoil. Even if we could see a connection, it’s another big step to understand causation. The ability of soil or rock to impart texture or flavour to wine is a subject that will be debated for decades to come. The vineyards themselves form a magical mosaic patchwork. The individual plots follow the topography, while the viticultural choices of the vigneron help pick out one patch from another. The variety seems without end in Burgundy. Even the word for a vineyard offers multiple options in Burgundian French. You might hear cru, climat or lieu-dit, the subtle differences between which are often smudged. Cru, or ‘growth’, connotes a vineyard with a classification, as in premier cru or grand cru, the top of the hierarchy. Lieu-dit reflects the English ‘place name’ and refers to any named patch of ground, whether vineyard or not. By usage, it tends to refer these days to a named vineyard that does not have a cru classification. The buzzword, however, is climat. Dating from the 16th century, this word of Greek origin was revived to add gravitas to the (successful) application to Unesco to classify the Côte d’Or vineyards as a World Heritage Site. ‘Each climat is a vine plot, with its own microclimate and specific geological conditions, that has been carefully marked out and named over the centuries,’ according to Climats du Vignoble de
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Above: Cor ton-Charlemagne; below: Savigny-lès-Beaune
Above: the hill of Cor ton; below: Ladoix-Serrigny from the hill of Cor ton
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Starlings take flight above the hill of Cor ton
Bourgogne, the official body responsible for securing the Unesco listing. There are well over a thousand different vineyards within the classification, but it’s more than just the vines that count. All the cultural aspects of this famous wine region have helped seal the deal, including, indeed, the drystone walls that frequently divide one vineyard from another – walls that were often built from stones pulled out of the soil to enable the land to be cultivated and planted with vines. How do you make sense of 1,247 different vineyards? They don’t all have separate names, and that tells us something, too. In fact, certain names reappear in most villages and can give quite an indication of what to expect, especially where they have been formed by words denoting a particular soil type or rock formation. Les Argillières and Les Argillats refer to vineyards with a high clay content, so expect deeper-coloured red wines with a solid, tannic structure. In contrast, across many villages there are frequent references to Les Cras and Caillerets, the former denoting limestone rock; the latter, the small stones that have been chipped off into the soil. Whether or not we should treat minerality in wine as a metaphor, there’s little doubt that wines from stonily named vineyards tend to be chiselled in style. Les Perrières also appears to reflect stones in the soil, though actually this was the name used in the Middle Ages for a quarry producing limestone blocks for the local houses. Doubtless some of the offcuts went into the drystone walls. Sometimes there was so much to clear out that the stones were just heaped up in banks known locally as murgers – a name that surfaces in Nuits-St-Georges and in St-Aubin, where the stones often form the shape of canine teeth, hence the premier cru Les Murgers des Dents de Chien, produced by domaines Hubert Lamy and JeanClaude Bachelet & Fils. There are some inelegant names scattered around the Côte. They rarely feature on labels – not only for their lack of euphonious harmony but equally because the wines from those corners are the least enjoyable of their communes. It’s not an accident. Have you ever seen, let alone enjoyed, a bottle of Meursault En Gargouillot? Are you surprised to discover that the least attractive terroirs of Aloxe-Corton can be found in Les Citernes and Les Crapousuets? Not far away, in Savigny-lès-Beaune, Les Ratausses and Ez Connardises somehow fail to thrill. Better to search out vineyards such as Les Joyeuses in Ladoix or Les Amoureuses in Chambolle-Musigny, if you can afford the latter. Is it any surprise that wines in Beaune or Corton from Les Bressandes, a word that caresses the tongue, slide silkily down the throat? Certain vineyards intrigue: where exactly did these names come from? When I come across Derrière Chez Edouard in St-Aubin, I want to know who Edouard was and why he was famous enough to have the vineyard behind his house named after him. And here’s a bottle of Sous le Bois de Noël et Belles Filles, in PernandVergelesses: what were the daughters-in-law getting up to in the Christmas Wood, and didn’t they get rather cold? Nor do we know how and why premier cru Clos de la Maréchale in Nuits-St-Georges got its name. It once belonged to Delphine MareyMonge, sister-in-law of the unmarried Maréchal Stanislas Marey-Monge, a Marshal of France. Might she have kept house for him and so been nicknamed Madame La Maréchale? Searching for these answers is like gazing at a pile of stones to find the perfect one to fit the precise hole in a layer of your drystone wall. The solution is in there somewhere; you just have to wait for it to reveal itself. All these vineyards are gloriously intertwined in the mosaic that causes so much pleasure to the eye of the drystone-waller. Sometimes they cross commune borders, and you find spelling varies between the two halves of the vineyard. Thus Frémiets and Fremiers (Volnay/Pommard) or Encegnières and Enseignières (Chassagne/ Puligny), though this does not stop recalcitrant growers from choosing yet other variations for their own labels. Producers can’t always remember how they spell a particular vineyard, so it can vary from one vintage to another. We can’t all be perfect – not even Burgundian winemakers. Subtle flaws shouldn’t stop us enjoying the view of a drystone wall, though it might be fractionally less than perpendicular, nor the taste of a bottle of Burgundy with a tiny imperfection due to vintage variability or human foible. I love them for what they are.
Above: the Louis Latour Cor ton Grancey cuverie at Aloxe-Cor ton; opposite: stars over the hill of Cor ton
Chardonnay finds its perfect balance C A L I F O R N I A C H A R D O N N AY H A S S W U N G F R O M L U S H T O S K I N N Y A N D B A C K A G A I N I N T H E PA S T T W O D E C A D E S, A N D F I N A L LY T H E P E N D U L U M H A S C O M E T O R E S T WO R DS E L A I N E C H U K A N B R OW N
hardonnay’s reputation has morphed repeatedly in recent decades. It’s been as subject to fashion as clothing choices on the high street, swinging between bold and ripe styles in the early 2000s to the lean and racy wines of the past decade. With such swiftly changing style trends, many began to believe the variety couldn’t be taken seriously. But more recently, winemakers have begun to find a happy middle ground, balancing mouthwatering flavour with respect
for what the vineyard gives them. This polarity of Chardonnay styles is an evolution that has taken place not only in California but in New Zealand and Australia, and wherever the variety is found in the New World. But its journey has not been smooth. In California, Chardonnay became white wine royalty in the 1980s; drinkers couldn’t get enough of the state’s bright, ripe fruit flavours. But as its popularity grew, so did its style, with wines by the
HIRS CH V INEYARD S
Vineyard laid out for planting at Hirsch Vineyards, Sonoma Coast
end of the 1990s and early 2000s becoming not only riper but also richer, almost always with a signature buttery and oak-spice flavour. ‘Bigger flavours were the taste of the day,’ says Andy Smith, viticulturist and wine maker at DuMOL in Sonoma’s Russian River Valley. ‘In the late 1990s and early 2000s, chefs were cooking with lots of pork fat and richness. The wines reflected that.’ As the wines became larger, so did the backlash: the Anything But Chardonnay (ABC) movement formed, and two California vintners, Jasmine Hirsch and Rajat Parr, decided they’d had enough. In 2011, the pair created a countermovement promoting a different option for California wine. In Pursuit of Balance (IPOB) lasted only five years and had just 36 members at its close, but in that short time it gave rise to more controversy and discussion than an event its size seemed to merit. The impact of the annual IPOB programme in California – and its counterpart events all over the world – was greater than the sum of its parts.
admits the limits of restraint. By picking before the grapes were fully ripe, Parr found himself making wines that had mouth-clenching acidity but were thin on flavour. ‘We thought at the time it was correct,’ he says. But without the weight in the wine that comes from riper fruit, the balance of freshness and generosity was out of sync. Nevertheless, the popularity of IPOB moved the needle. The richest California wines began to shift, never losing their opulence but gaining freshness. At the same time, the IPOB revolutionaries also seemed to find better balance, not only delivering acidity but also rediscovering pleasure, their wines regaining enough size to carry nuance and savour. Parr, for example, learned a valuable lesson in 2015, a season when low yields made it difficult to pick grapes fast enough to stay ahead of their ripening (less fruit on the vine means quicker ripening) and capture the perfect balance of acidity and flavour. The faster the fruit gets ripe, the richer its flavours and the lower
Originally concentrating on Pinot Noir, IPOB famously showcased wines of restraint, offerings that broke the California stereotype. Then they added Chardonnay to the roster, ultimately influencing the conversation on style for California wines more broadly. Wines from producers all over the state, and across all varieties, began to change. Despite its early focus on Pinot Noir, IPOB arguably had an even stronger influence on Chardonnay. For its critics, the impact of IPOB was an exercise in worry. Has its legacy left us with skinny wines, pulsing with acidity and freshness but lacking in flavour? For a time, it seemed the naysayers were right. Some of the wines at the group’s annual tasting seemed more intent on preserving acidity than serving up flavour. Even its own co‑founder Parr, a sommelier turned winemaker in Santa Barbara County,
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its natural freshness and acidity. ‘We picked what we thought was too late, thought it was too ripe, but the wines are perfect,’ says Parr. The experience changed his view of balance, and the style has evolved as a result. ‘It will be interesting to see in 10 to 15 years which [vintages] are most successful,’ says Sashi Moorman, Parr’s partner in Sandhi and Domaine de la Côte. But explorations of style are not confined only to the members of IPOB. At White Rock Vineyards in Napa Valley, winemaker Christopher Vandendriessche admits to shifting his winemaking over time. While his parents founded the winery in the mid-1970s, Vandendriessche has been the winemaker since 1999. ‘The 1999 and 2000 vintages were very rich, even heavy. They were harder to drink.’ What the wines were missing was freshness. But Vandendriessche recognises the importance of also respecting the legacy of a place.
MICHEL JOLY
We are making lighter wines with aromatic perfume
‘Because we are a family business, I like to do very, very slow changes over time,’ he says. He gradually made the family’s Chardonnay less lush and opulent, with a deft balance of rich flavour and ample freshness. The changes at White Rock resemble changes made at other California wineries. ‘We were young guys in the 1990s,’ says DuMOL’s Smith. ‘Many of us started making rich wines. Now, we are making lighter wines with aromatic perfume. Everything is different.’ That shift has not come at the expense of flavor at DuMOL. Instead, it comes with an appreciation of California richness and textural presence, while increasing mouth watering freshness in the wines. It also means allowing the fruit to shine with less new oak. ‘We’ve pulled back the wines as the farming has improved, too,’ Smith adds. In other words, the choices he’s made in his winemaking – like how ripe to make the wines or how much richness to add by using new oak – have also depended on how he’s farmed the vineyard. ‘You can’t just say, “I am going to pick at lower potential alcohols’ [to make lighter wines].” You have to take a few years getting in tune with the farming, the soil health and the vine balance.’ California Chardonnay has never had a broader range of styles, and it’s
reappearing on restaurant wine lists, which have tended not to list more than one Chardonnay. ‘It now seems to be relevant among high-end wine consumers,’ Hirsch says. The idea of ABC has never seemed so irrelevant – and the greatest exponents of the grape never more relevant. Names like Stony Hill, Hanzell, Au Bon Climat and Mount Eden: ‘Through all these trends, those wineries were still making these steely, crunchy, refreshing Chardonnays with flavour,’ Parr says. ‘They deserve huge respect. They’ve been making admirable wines for over 30 years.’ Their endurance through the wild changes of taste and fashion have ensured their place in the winemaking pantheon. They have also helped us remember how to take Chardonnay seriously.
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MICHEL JOLY
As the wines became larger, so did the backlash
Ten great California Chardonnays CERITAS TROUT GULCH 2016, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS
HANZELL 2015, SONOMA VALLEY
Ample fruit density with resplendent acidity. Opening quite lean and racy, the wine gains richer accents of light caramel. (12.3%) £45 Blast Vintners
Comfortably integrating barrel influence with ripe fruit, this delivers baked orchard fruits, crushed nut accents and a rounded palate. Long finish. (14.1%) £41.17 Armit Wines (selected vintages only)
SANDHI 2015, STA RITA HILLS A dancing balance of orchard fruits, crushed almonds and fresh citrus. It offers lifted aromatics and unctuous flavours, with nuance and length. (12%) £40 Cult Wines Ltd, The Wine Society, Pinot & Chardo STONY HILL 2014, NAPA VALLEY Stony Hill’s style hasn’t changed since its inception in the 1950s. Crisp and fresh in youth, this is full of fresh citrus and orchard fruits, offering a mouth-tingling sensation on the long finish. With bottle age, it gains richness. (13%) £37 not available in the UK; stonyhillvineyard.com HIRSCH VINEYARDS 2016, SONOMA COAST Grown in a mountain vineyard close to the Pacific Ocean, the wine carries the character of its unusual site. Flavours of crisp apple, ripe pear, and a rub of grapefruit pith, it has real backbone and texture. (12.9%) £70 Pinot & Chardo (selected vintages only) MATTHIASSON MICHAEL MARA VINEYARD 2014, SONOMA COAST Grown on a rugged and rocky site, this is full of texture and drive, a striking balance of palate weight and ethereal lift. (13%) £45.83 Roberson Wine Retail (selected vintages)
WHITE ROCK VINEYARDS 2016, NAPA VALLEY Plenty of palate presence and flavour density without overextraction. Notes of grapefruit pith and ripe pear sprinkled with baking spice. The palate is textural with a long, stimulating finish. (14.3%) £31 not available in the UK; whiterockvineyards.com AU BON CLIMAT SANFORD & BENEDICT 2016, SANTA YNEZ VALLEY Structure and finesse, with subtle fruits, fresh herbs, and mouthwatering sapidity. This wine will develop even greater complexity with age. (13–14%) £35.41 AG Wines (selected vintages only) MOUNT EDEN VINEYARDS 2014, SANTA CRUZ MOUNTAINS Structured, fresh, and flavoursome. With perfumed citrus aromatics and a generous palate of baked pear, dusty earth and a squeeze of lemon, this wine is lengthy and giving. (13.5%) £53.33 Roberson Wine Retail DuMOL 2015, RUSSIAN RIVER VALLEY Floral aromatics are followed by a palate of citrus and botanical accents woven through richer flavours of warm, crushed hazelnuts and spiced lemon curd. Abundant acidity carries the wine to a long finish. (14.36%) £54.17 The Good Wine Shop, Fine+Rare, Raeburn Fine Wines (selected vintages only)
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A connoisseur’s feast WO R DS
P H OTO G R A P H S
A DA M L E C H M E R E
GÉRARD UFÉRAS
A T H R E E - STA R C H E F A S P E R S O N A L H O ST AT T H E B E ST H OT E L I N PA R I S A N D W I N E S T H AT D AT E B A C K T O T H E N A P O L E O N I C WA R S – A D A M L E C H M E R E A D J U S T S H I S R E A L I T Y Above: the private dining room at the George V; opposite: a selection of the wines served
A Facing page Top right: chef Christian Le Squer in the kitchen; middle: the Clos de Goisses 1975 being prepared; bottom left: Omar Khan greets his guests; bottom right: the writer behind a thicket of glasses
ll wine lovers have a story they like to tell. Mine involves the claret-loving drummer of Iron Maiden, the band’s end-of-tour gig in Moscow and an aftershow party I never attended. Others may remember a famous bottle, or a brush with winemaking royalty. Iron Maiden has now been superseded by an event in Paris on a gorgeous late summer evening. As a wine writer, I’ve had my share of opportunities to taste fascinating wines: ancient Ports and shipwrecked Champagnes, verticals of Petrus and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, venerable Sherries, sprightly 70-year-olds from Coonawarra and Napa, cobwebbed bottles from the cellars of Chateau Musar. The Paris Legends dinner introduced me to a whole new world. Omar Khan is a collector and bon viveur, what the French call an amateur de vin, serious enough about wine to have an annual spend easily reaching seven figures. An affable, sociable type, he loves to show fine wines to groups of like-minded people. Today, at the George V in Paris, he’s hosting the fifth dinner of a series he calls Convivia. The 11-strong group includes London financiers fresh from Eurostar, a lawyer who has just brokered the purchase of a clutch of Bordeaux châteaux, a property developer, a New York wine merchant. They have in common a love of fine wine and the very finest food, as well as a willingness to pay several thousand pounds to enjoy bottles that no one is likely to see twice in a lifetime. ‘I want to create a kaleidoscope of wines that are rare and eminent,’ Khan tells me. ‘They are intriguing with their age and pedigree, and they are something a genuine wine lover will look at and say, “I cannot imagine another evening when I could possibly taste another range of wines like this.” But they are not all trophies. This is an evening for connoisseurs, not those looking for bragging rights.’ There’s a ’47, sure, but it’s from Burgundy. It’s a good but not great vintage, and it’s not nearly as sought after as Bordeaux from the same year. There’s a ’59 and a ’29, but they’re
Legendary wines DOMAINE DE LA ROMANÉE-CONTI, MONTRACHET GRAND CRU 1973, BURGUNDY, FRANCE A marvel of complexity and elegance, with apple freshness, some very ripe tropical fruit and stillsteely acidity. Evolved but wonderfully fresh. CHÂTEAU COS D’ESTOURNEL 1900, ST-ESTÈPHE, BORDEAUX, FRANCE Buoyant, the tannins soft, with fine red cherry and hints of mint. A magnificent wine, still powerful, though sensuous now. DOMAINE DE LA ROMANÉE-CONTI, LA TÂCHE GRAND CRU 1947, BURGUNDY, FRANCE Probably the finest wine of the evening; opulent red fruit and those lovely dried petal notes that bespeak a venerable though lipsmackingly fresh and juicy old age. Energy undimmed. CHÂTEAU D’YQUEM 1934, SAUTERNES, FRANCE Nearing its century, it is the colour of polished copper, the palate with a sublime heft of acidity to hold its caramel and orange-flower flavours. What a gorgeous wine, like all great Sauternes a study in contrasts – salinity and sweetness, voluptuousness and acidity. LARIOS, MÁLAGA 1780, SAN MARTIN, SPAIN A surreal experience, a wine that, for 250 years, has been evolving to this zenith, a symphony of toffee and preserved orange, unctuous mouthfeel, the whole shot through with racy acidity.
The list
(in order of appearance) Bollinger RD 1979 (in magnum), Champagne, France Charles Heidsieck Brut 1945, Champagne, France Philipponnat Clos des Goisses 1975, Champagne, France Remoissenet Montrachet Grand Cru 1970, Burgundy, France Remoissenet Bâtard Montrachet Grand Cru 1972, Burgundy, France Domaine de la RomanéeConti Montrachet Grand Cru 1973, Burgundy, France Château Laville Haut-Brion 1966, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux, France Château Rayas Blanc 1976, Châteauneufdu-Pape, France Mandive Vigo 1814, Porto, Portugal Bouchard Père & Fils Corton Grand Cru 1896, Burgundy, France Château Calon Segur 1893, St-Estèphe, Bordeaux, France Château Lafite Rothschild 1880, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France Château Cos d’Estournel 1900, St-Estèphe, Bordeaux, France Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé, Musigny Grand Cru 1935, Burgundy, France Domaine de la RomanéeConti, La Tâche Grand Cru 1947, Burgundy, France Joseph Drouhin ChambolleMusigny Premier Cru Les Amoureuses 1948, Burgundy, France
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Rhônes, not Bordeaux or Burgundy, where wines from those vintages are among the greatest ever made. Of course, at any gathering of this sort, provenance is a question that hangs heavy in the air. Memories of the great wine frauds of the past 20 years – from the infamous Jefferson bottles, to the forger Rudy Kurniawan – are still raw. Khan is aware of this, which is why he stresses the difference between connois seurs’ wines and collectors’ wines. These wines are intriguing, but they aren’t prime targets for counterfeiters. ‘You’d be hard put to persuade me there’s a market for them. They’re not the kind of wines the really big collectors want to dine out on.’ After the cages are twisted from magnums of an electric Bollinger RD 1979, we file into dinner. Two more Champagnes: Charles Heidsieck 1945 and Philipponnat Clos des Goisses 1975. Both astonish. The ’45, its mousse by now a mere memory, is the colour of Palo Cortado with a Sherry-like nose to match, the palate vivacious, concentrated – a venerable wine. The ’75 is fresh as hedgerows after rain, with perfume of passion fruit, potpourri and rosewater. We’re being looked after by one of the best chefs in France, the Michelin three-star Christian Le Squer, who has
just sent out Dublin Bay prawns that I can only describe as an epiphany of succulence. The first major flight is prepared: a trio of eminent white Burgundies with DRC Montrachet pre-eminent. Then a leap to Bordeaux, and the ’66 Laville Haut-Brion (the label was discontinued after 2008 – the grapes now go into La Mission HautBrion): honeyed, beautifully dry and balanced. Next, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, with the spicy and exotic Château Rayas; it’s as if a curtain in an elegant, faded drawing room has been pulled open to reveal a sensuous boudoir beyond. The atmosphere is not one of veneration; rather, one of restrained glee, astonishment – and occasional resigned disappointment. The Mandive Vigo that begins the next flight pre-dates the Battle of Waterloo and with its luscious molasses would be easily taken for a good Pedro Ximénez. But then a fall to earth: the 1896 Corton is on the wane, and the Calon Ségur is dead on arrival; the Lafite Rothschild – 1880 – thrills many at the table with its violet-andstrawberry perfume, but to me it’s the mortal sweetness of bottled rot. But then the Cos d’Estournel, a youth compared to the rest of the flight, is buoyant, the tannins soft, with fine red cherry and hints of mint. It is a magnificent wine.
Guests assemble on the terrace at the George V
The list (cont)
Domaine de la RomanéeConti, Romanée Conti 1961, Burgundy, France Domaine Marquis d’Angerville, Volnay Premier Cru Clos des Ducs 1964, Burgundy, France Château Ausone, Premier Grand Cru Classé 1955, St-Emilion, France Château Trotanoy 1955, Pomerol, France Château Latour à Pomerol 1955, Pomerol, France Château La Mission HautBrion 1955, Pessac-Léognan, Bordeaux, France
Dead soldiers: the line-up at the end of dinner
Château Mouton Rothschild 1955, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France Château Lafite Rothschild 1955, Pauillac, Bordeaux, France
There are now plates of delicate veal sweetbreads on the table, vying for space with a forest of glasses. We dip in and out of previous vintages (some – the DRC – reveal depths only hinted at half an hour before), argue, lay down opinions. A prewar Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé Musigny seduces with spice and Turkish delight; then the ’47 La Tâche, which, in a flight of soaring brilliance, is the finest of the evening for many around the table. One of the joys of a tasting like this is that many of the wines are outside of almost everyone’s ken. ‘Who has ever tasted a 1780 Málaga?’ Khan asks. So it is with the next flight. In Bordeaux, 1955 was a fine year that produced some excellent wines, but they are very seldom shown. Opening with the Ausone is perhaps a mistake. Its astonishing prices (nowadays releases start at €600/$690 a bottle) seem to raise a few hackles. ‘The most overrated château in Bordeaux,’ one of the company mutters. No matter. This bottle was intense with fine potpourri on the mid-palate, with an agreeable finish that our host describes as a ‘waning lushness’. In contrast, La Mission Haut-Brion is wonderfully alive, as is the Mouton Rothschild, which is the highlight of a hedonistic flight of classified growths and prized Pomerols.
Into the final straight and a flight of Rhônes, led by the region’s titans, Chapoutier, Guigal and Jaboulet Aîné. The oldest wine of the flight, 1929 Chatel du Roy Châteauneuf-du-Pape, is still very much alive. ‘Improbably delightful,’ someone murmurs. The wines delight in equal measure: dried flowers, sweet dried raspberry and old armoire (as the Americans say) are the leitmotifs of the flight. Le Squer has now conjured a Mediterranean dish of lamb and harissa sausage that doesn’t so much match the Hermitage as affirm it. An inspired chef will match not only flavour but texture. (Later, Le Squer worked a miracle with the ’34 Yquem, producing a soufflé as light as spindrift with a juicy bloodorange core.) How to finish such an evening? Why, with a tongue-caressing Málaga that was made when Nelson was a midshipman. It’s often said that one of the wonders of wine is that it brings history to life. With every vintage, you’re tasting the essence of that year – so in the past few hours we have experienced the Napoleonic Wars and seen a frock-coated Gladstone in Downing Street; we’ve witnessed the end of a war in Champagne and the beginning of a century in St-Estèphe. It’s been quite a trip.
Cave du Val, Chatel du Roy 1929, Châteauneufdu-Pape, France Chapoutier Côte-Rôtie Grande Cuvée 1950, CôteRôtie, Rhône, France Paul Jaboulet Aîné, Hermitage La Chapelle 1959, Rhône, France Château Mont-Redon 1978 Châteauneuf-du-Pape, France E Guigal, La Landonne 1979, Côte-Rôtie, Rhône France Larios, Málaga 1780, San Martin, Spain Porto Garrafeira 1886, Porto, Portugal Château Climens 1936, Barsac, France Château d’Yquem 1934, Sauternes, France
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We have a HOME in Hong Kong
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Club Oenologique
Collection 1 P H OTO G R A P H S FAC U N D O B U S TA M A N T E
What is the Club Oenologique Collection? Our aim is to provide you with an expert selection of the very best. This means not just iconic wines with longestablished pedigrees within the wine world’s collective memory. We also want to bring you the less well-known, those special bottles beloved by people with an eye to the eclectic and the overlooked. In this first edition we present you with the best of Champagne and Beaujolais, two regions with historically differing fortunes and profiles. Champagne’s reputation is assured; if you scratch beneath the surface, you’ll find Beaujolais, too, has its great terroirs, its great vignerons and its great wines. Our panel tastings are conducted by a team of experts, each selected for their specialised knowledge. The wines are tasted blind; tasters know only the category (in this case, vintage or non-vintage, style, and cuvée type). The wines are scored separately, discussed and sometimes hotly debated, and a collective score is agreed on. For our tasting features, we ask a leading taster to make a personal selection of the very best that the chosen region, grape or style has to offer. The wines are not tasted blind, but they are assessed and scored by a critic with specialist knowledge of the wine in question. In this issue, we have also combed through the results of the International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC), choosing – out of a host of winners – wines and spirits that stood out for us. Our scoring system rewards the following qualities: harmony, texture, layers of complexity, finesse, nuance and surprise. All tasting notes and scores are a snapshot of the wine in the glass on that day, at that moment in its evolution. The best wines and domaines offer consistency, but all wine is constantly evolving, and even the best can be capricious. Similarly, the drink dates offered are an indication of the wine’s development rather than a hard law of physics. Scores alone are not everything and can be misleading in isolation. Scores should always be read alongside the notes in order to fully understand the critic’s view. I hope this first edition of Club Oenologique’s expert selection will inspire you to add to and develop your cellar.
100 99 98 97 96 95 94 93 92 91 90 89 88 87 86 85 84 83 82 81 80
100–98 Extraordinary An extraordinary wine that is profound, unique and above all emotionally inspiring. By definition, it is the reference for a classic wine of its variety or style.
97–95 Outstanding An outstanding wine of exceptional complexity and characteristics, as well as remarkable personality. A classic example of its style or variety.
94–90 Excellent An accomplished wine with considerable complexity and character. A wine with personality that will provide a memorable drinking experience.
89–85 Good A strong wine that offers solid quality. A wine that provides a highly enjoyable drinking experience. Goodvalue and everyday wines will often fall into this category.
84–80 Average A perfectly well-made wine but of average quality; a safe wine with little or no distinction and excitement. A wine that provides straightforward drinking.
79–70 Below average A wine with noticeable flaws; one that is bland or lacking character. A wine not worth your attention.
C H R I S TE L L E G U I B E R T
69–50 Avoid A wine with faults, or a wine that is unbalanced or unpleasant.
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The tasters ESSI AVELLAN MW
XAVIER ROUSSET MS
Essi Avellan MW is a Champagne specialist, journalist, educator and wine judge. She has authored several wine books and is a jury member at the Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships.
Xavier Rousset is a Master Sommelier, restaurateur and consultant. With over 20 years’ experience in the industry, Xavier often judges and speaks on key industry panels and also acts as a mentor for young sommeliers.
PETER LIEM
CHRISTELLE GUIBERT
Peter Liem is a wine writer based in Champagne and New York City. He is the author of ChampagneGuide. net and the James Beard Awardwinning book Champagne.
Christelle Guibert, wine director for the Conversion Group and Club Oenologique, has worked in the wine trade all her professional life. As well as her day job, she tends 1ha of Melon de Bourgogne in Muscadet, where she produces 2,000 bottles of a wine called Terre de Gneiss.
CE P HAS
JAMIE GOODE Jamie Goode is a London-based wine journalist and author of four books. As well as a weekly column with the Sunday Express, he writes for a range of publications and publishes www.wineanorak.com
PANEL TASTING
Icon Champagne I NT R O D U C T I O N
C H A M PAG N E R E V I E W E D BY
E S S I AV E L L A N M W
E S S I AV E L L A N M W, P E TE R L I E M , X AV I E R R O U S S E T M S A N D C H R I S TE L L E G U I B E R T
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F R O M A £ 5 0 J A C Q U E S S O N T O A £ 5 0 0 S A LO N A N D B E YO N D , W E H AV E TA S T E D 3 6 P R E S T I G E C U V É E , V I N TA G E A N D N O N - V I N T A G E C H A M P A G N E S : O N E O F T H E W O R L D ’ S G R E A T W I N E R E G I O N S I N A L L I T S W O N D E R F U L VA R I E T Y
This was a Champagne lover’s dream tasting, a line-up of the best of the best. The panel’s pleasurable task was to find the fairest of them all. Spanning a total of 14 vintages, the Champagne region’s claim to the title of world’s best sparkling-wine region looked stronger than ever. Perhaps the biggest test of a fine-wine region’s credentials is its performance when the elements conspire against its producers. In 2004, the vines were laden with a huge crop, and a cool summer cast some early concern over its potential, but the wines keep on surprising us with their elegance and vivacity: both Charles Heidsieck’s Blanc des Millénaires and vintage Krug were stars of the tasting. Ranging from just under £50 to an eye-watering £1,650 for a magnum of Armand de Brignac’s Blanc de Blancs NV (a blend of the 2005, 2006 and 2008 vintages), it is fascinating to see how some of the region’s most expensive prestige cuvées fare against lower-priced peers. Wines including Bollinger’s Vieilles Vignes Françaises and Salon 2006 performed satisfactorily but not as flashily as their £400 price tags might suggest. The star of the show was a refined and complex magnum of Rare 1998. Rare is the Piper-Heidsieck cuvée that will become a brand in its own right when cellar master Régis Camus switches his attention to focus solely on this little-known gem. At 20 years old, the wine was full of energy and divinely textured. The runner-up in this prestigious tasting was Deutz’s stylish and precise Amour de Deutz Blanc de Blancs from the excellent 2008 vintage. The season produced wines of great refinement and energy, which was reflected in our scores: four cuvées achieved 93 points or more. It’s now time to stock your cellar, as 2008 is the current release for many houses – and top of your shopping list
should certainly be Louis Roederer’s Cristal, for its sheer purity; for another expression of excellence, PiperHeidsieck’s vintage is ready to drink. A note of caution: the clear glass bottles used for Amour de Deutz and Cristal are prone to light-strike, and our first bottle of Amour carried the nasty, cabbage-like flavour associated with the issue. In an effort to avoid this, make sure you only buy bottles that have been stored in a box, with the protective cellophane still wrapped around the bottles. When it comes to the best value, Delamotte’s Blanc de Blancs 2008 impressed, outshining more expensive and prestigious cuvées, including its iconic sibling Salon 2006. It is always intriguing to taste a house’s prestige cuvée next to its less expensive vintage blend. Prestige often beats the vintage in these duels, but in the case of Gosset and Philipponnat the roles were reversed. In many instances, however, a prestige cuvée underperforms due to its lack of maturity rather than absolute quality – Philipponnat’s characterful Clos des Goisses, for example, needs 10 to 20 years following its release to express its soulfulness. Interestingly, the Krugs – the Grande Cuvée Edition 166 and the 2004 vintage – were almost on a par. This reinforces the original vision of the house’s founder, who aimed to make two cuvées of equal quality: a vintage and a multi-vintage. Krug’s recent introduction of edition numbering for its Grande Cuvée is also having the intended effect, putting it in the ranks of the most collectible Champagnes. Less famous non-vintage expressions also held their own in the tasting: congratulations to both Jacquesson Cuvée No. 741 and R de Ruinart for performing so well. At less than £50 a bottle, the pair demonstrated that Champagne lovers don’t need to spend a fortune to drink the very highest quality.
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
75
Prestige cuvée
ARMAND DE BRIGNAC, BLANC DE BLANCS 2008 (MAGNUM)
91
BILLECARTSALMON, CUVÉE NICOLAS FRANÇOIS 2006
93
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £1,650
From 2018 To 2028
This wine has huge complexity and has developed gracefully. Richly aromatic, offering sweet fruit, nuts and the honeyed tones of evolution, as well as a whiff of gunpowder. Full, round and fresh, dried fruit and honey flavours linger on the long finish. (EA) 12.5%
Creamy and opulent, expressing the ripeness of the 2006 vintage. This is forward and extroverted yet firm and vivid in structure, with a long, fragrant finish. Showing well now, it might age longer than you think. (PL) 12%
Selfridges
Champagne Direct
96
DEUTZ, AMOUR DE DEUTZ 2008 From 2020 To 2035
RRP £150
There’s an arresting depth and completeness about this wine. Superbly refined and aristocratic, there’s not a hair out of place. Complex and vivid, with a demanding personality and elegant texture. The finish is long and energetic. (PL) 12% Friarwood Fine Wines
DOM PÉRIGNON 2009
RRP £120
BOLLINGER, VIEILLES VIGNES FRANÇAISES 2006 From 2020 To 2025
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
RRP £595
Richly aromatic, deep and almost melancholic, this has a powerful, oxidative nose reminiscent of dried fruit, nuts and oak-derived woody characters. Highly concentrated, but even at more than a decade old it needs more time to display its full complexity. (EA) 12% The Finest Bubble
92
DRAPPIER, GRANDE SENDRÉE 2008
92
CHARLES HEIDSIECK, BLANC DES MILLÉNAIRES 2004 From 2025 To 2035
94
RRP £175
A perfectly balanced 2004 offering poise and elegance in abundance. Wonderfully textured, with many layers of complex flavours and great length. Remains youthful and precise, with plenty of potential for evolution. (XR) 12% Harrods, Hedonism, Farr Vintners
GOSSET, CELEBRIS 2007
88
From 2020 To 2030 RRP £125
From 2018 To 2030 RRP £82
From 2018 To 2022
This is a rich, powerful and spicy Champagne, but it is still shy on the nose and needs more time to reveal its full glory. (XR) 12.5%
A layered and complex 2008 vintage, offering bold red fruit flavours and spice derived from the slight preponderance of Pinot Noir in this blend. Impeccable balance and great length signal its class, and there’s plenty more to come. (XR) 12%
Full, firm and structured, this is laden with bruised apple, spice and vanilla characters. Long, concentrated finish with firm acidity. (EA) 12%
The Finest Bubble
Berkmann Wine Cellars, Hedonism
76
91
RRP £125
BI Wines and Spirits, Cru World Wine, Farr Vintners, Fine + Rare, Lay & Wheeler
KRUG 2004
95
LAURENT-PERRIER, GRAND SIÈCLE, MULTI-VINTAGE
91
LOUIS ROEDERER, CRISTAL 2008
93
PHILIPPONNAT, CLOS DES GOISSES 2007
88
97
PIPERHEIDSIECK, RARE 1998 (MAGNUM)
From 2025 To 2040 RRP £220
From 2018 To 2028 RRP £90–120
From 2020 To 2040 RRP £225
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £113.27
From 2018 To 2035
Even at 14 years old, this is so youthful and primary, really wrapped up in its structural frame. It is almost painful to drink now, with an austere character, yet it hints at superb depth and detail to come, with a long, resonant finish. Adolescent but will blossom in adulthood. (PL) 12%
Restrained style with a certain richness of texture but not weight. Expect brioche-like lees-derived characters alongside subtle fruit flavours on the palate. Modest complexity persists on the fine finish. (PL) 12%
An elegant expression. Refined in texture and sporting a taut structure, this remains restrained and ungiving at the moment, but its class is clear to see: tremendous potential for beauty in the long term. (XR) 12%
Reticent on the nose but fuller on the palate, with ample depth and creamy, opulent texture. Showing well now, with a slightly savoury undertone and fine length. (PL) 12.5%
At 20 years old, this is amazingly complex, with layer upon layer of intense flavours ranging from honey and beeswax to candied fruit and sweet spices. Beautiful texture in the mouth, with vibrant acidity on the finish. (XR) 12%
Hedonism, The Finest Bubble
Justerini & Brooks
RRP £335
Harrods, Hedonism, The Finest Bubble
Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, Selfridges
The Finest Bubble
POL ROGER, CUVÉE SIR WINSTON CHURCHILL 2006
91
RUINART, DOM RUINART 2006
93
SALON, LE MESNIL, BLANC DE BLANCS 2006
93
93
TAITTINGER, COMTES DE CHAMPAGNE BLANC DE BLANCS 2007
VEUVE CLICQUOT, LA GRANDE DAME 2006
92
RRP £122
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £125–160
From 2020 To 2030 RRP £500
From 2018 To 2030 RRP £153.85
From 2018 To 2025
Curiously exotic, with ripe flavours of crystallised ginger, tropical citrus fruit and green mango. Generous in feel, it still maintains tension and focus. There’s a bitterness and austerity on the finish that modernists will love (and classicists will not). (PL) 12.5%
Full, rich, monumental nose filled with spicy tones, vanilla and sweet fruitiness. Richly textured and almost still wine-like in character, this is drinking well now. (EA) 12.5%
This blanc de blancs is still on the back foot, showing no signs of development yet, despite being harvested 12 years ago. Fragrant, floral and fruity, it remains taut, with potential for development. (XR) 12%
Stunningly aromatic, with rich floral tones, baking spices, honey and subtle smoky notes. Full-bodied, expressive and characterful, this is a gourmand Comtes complete with a steely backbone providing line and length. (EA) 12.5%
Generous and delicious to drink, thanks to its juicy and fruity character. It is not hugely complex, although it may gain more nuance with bottle age. But it feels like it’s always going to be a big, slavering puppy. (PL) 12.5%
From 2018 To 2025
The Finest Bubble
Clos19, Harrods, The Finest Bubble
The Finest Bubble
To be released in 2019
Field & Fawcett, Majestic Wine, The Finest Bubble
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
77
Vintage and non-vintage
BILLECARTSALMON 2007 From 2018 To 2023
88 RRP £65
The 2007 vintage is idiosyncratic for offering both ripeness and greenness. That peculiar relationship is in evidence here: it has a certain richness and texture, yet there is an underlying sweet herb element running alongside. Accessible and charming. (PL) 12%
BOLLINGER, LA GRANDE ANNÉE 2007 From 2018 To 2024
90 RRP £75
A rich Pinot-dominant Champagne with oak-derived tones complementing the complex fruit-and-nutty flavours. Drinking well now, this is a food-friendly Champagne. (XR) 12% Berry Bros & Rudd, Hedonism, The Finest Bubble, The Wine Society
Champagne Direct, Harvey Nichols, Hedonism, JN Wine
DEUTZ, HOMMAGE À WILLIAM DEUTZ 2010 From 2018 To 2024
89 RRP £95
A full-bodied, muscular style, with rich, deep flavours reminiscent of apple, baked peach, vanilla and spice. Long and firm, although somewhat onedimensional. (EA) 12% Chelsea Vintners, Nickolls & Perks, Soho Wines, Vinum
78
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
91
DRAPPIER, MILLÉSIME EXCEPTION 2012 From 2020 To 2028
RRP £57
93
CHARLES HEIDSIECK 2006
DELAMOTTE, BLANC DE BLANCS 2008
93
From 2018 To 2024 RRP £93.99
From 2018 To 2030 RRP £59.95
This is unusually taut and focused for the vintage. It offers harmony on the palate, harnessing the richness of the vintage with notable grace. While it isn’t super-long on the finish, it feels balanced and light on its feet. Drink now, with pleasure. (PL) 12%
This blanc de blancs has immediate appeal: serving up a beautifully toasty nose, with pastry characters emerging with age. It is mellow, caressing the palate with its softness yet remaining delicate. There is a fine line of acidity on the long finish. (EA) 12%
Fortnum & Mason, Hedonism, IG Wines
Corney & Barrow
GOSSET, GRAND MILLÉSIME 2006 From 2018 To 2024
89 RRP £69
A pure, elegant and precise Champagne that still needs more time in bottle to fulfil its true potential. It has a beautiful mouthfeel, with floral, chalky and mineral characters tied up by firm acidity providing a fresh, structured finish. (XR) 12%
Characteristic of the vintage, this is full, round and forward. The wine is well judged, with a refined texture and harmonious balance. It won’t be the most complex or profound Champagne you’ve ever tasted, but it is satisfying and delicious. (PL) 12%
Berkmann Wine Cellars
Fortnum & Mason, Handfords, Hedonism, Lea & Sandeman, Selfridges, Wimbledon Wine Cellar
JACQUESSON, CUVÉE NO. 741 NV From 2018
To 2028
91 RRP £50
This 2013-dominant blend is fermented and aged in oak foudres producing a harmonious, complex and creamy wine. Expect bruised apple, honey and yeast-like characters with a chalky note. Starting to open up and reveal its complexity but has plenty of time on its side. (XR) 12% Hedonism, The Good Wine Shop, The Finest Bubble
KRUG, GRANDE CUVÉE, EDITION 166 NV From 2018 To 2025
94 RRP £145
Rich, ripe and concentrated style, with huge complexity and an appetising creamy texture. While the oak tones are rather overt on the nose, the palate reveals great integration and elegance. The finish is long, with great acidity. This is a highly complex wine that will reward more time in bottle. (XR) 12%
LAURENTPERRIER 2007
91
LOUIS ROEDERER 2012
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £53.99
From 2018 To 2025
There is lovely restraint on the nose; it is still youthful and reductive. Fine creamy palate, with pristine fruit, spice and a whiff of gunpowder. While young, it is drinking well now and for the next five to seven years. (EA) 12%
89 RRP £70
MOЁT & CHANDON, GRAND VINTAGE 2009
91
PHILIPPONNAT, 1522 2008
90
From 2018 To 2030 RRP £50–65
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £62.32
Taut and lively style, driven by its tense acidity. Although not showing a lot of depth at the moment, it is fresh and vivacious with a mouthwatering finish. (PL) 12%
This is a wine built to last, with its muscular structure and reductive edge. It is filled with opulent fruit and a fine, gunpowder-like fragrance. The conclusion is dry and racy. (EA) 12.5%
Fortnum & Mason, Harrods, Selfridges
Clos19, Harrods, Majestic, The Finest Bubble
Sleek and lively offering, driven by its firm acid structure. The red fruit flavours are ripe but need more time to emerge fully. There’s an appealing undertow of savoury minerality. Nuanced, long finish. (PL) 12.5%
Majestic, Oddbins, Waitrose
Justerini & Brooks
The Finest Bubble
PIPERHEIDSIECK 2008
93
POL ROGER, BRUT VINTAGE 2009
91
RUINART, R DE RUINART NV
90
TAITTINGER 2012
91
VEUVE CLICQUOT 2008
91
From 2020 To 2030 RRP £69
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £65–70
From 2018 To 2028 RRP £50–58
From 2018 To 2028 RRP £58.75
From 2018 To 2028 RRP £55–68
Taut and intense, this is developing slowly but has all the right components for maturing gracefully, with a beautiful creamy texture and a fine line of acidity. Harmonious and long. (XR) 12%
Smart and well made, this is a floral style that packs plenty of concentration into its delicate core. Layers of complexity suggest this refined and youthful 2009 will age well. (EA) 12.5%
Lively and taut, this is fairly delicate in weight, driven by a racy spine of acidity that elongates the finish. Complemented by a slightly creamy texture, this is a refined and harmoniously built cuvée. (PL) 12%
At just six years old, this is still extremely youthful and a touch reductive. The nose has great purity, reminiscent of white and yellow fruits, with beautiful patisserie-like scents supporting. The soft, creamy palate is sewn up with a fine line of acidity on the long finish. (EA) 12.5%
This shows both the richness and the structure of the 2012 vintage; its ripe fruit anchored by savoury umami notes. Vibrant and fresh, with the potential to develop more complexity with age. The finish is refined and long. (PL) 12%
Champagne Direct, The Finest Bubble
Berry Bros & Rudd, Hedonism, Jeroboams, Justerini & Brooks, The Wine Society
Champagne Direct, Clos19, Harrods, Master of Malt
John Lewis, The Wine Society
Clos19, Eton Vintners, Harrods, Majestic, Master of Malt, Millesima, Tannico
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
79
TASTING FEATURE
Grower Champagne I NT R O D U C T I O N A N D R E CO M M E N DATI O N S BY P E TE R L I E M
T H E R I S E I N P R O M I N E N C E O F G R OW E R C H A M PAG N E I S E M P H A S I S I N G T H E I M P O R TA N C E O F W I N E M A K I N G , T E R R O I R A N D V I T I C U LT U R E
Champagne is more diverse today than ever before, in terms of both style and types of producers. In particular, the rise in prominence of grower Champagne has transformed the market, giving aficionados grea ter access to smaller producers and allowing us to explore the intrica cies of the region in unprecedented depth and detail. Grower Champagnes also highlight the importance of winemaking, ter roir and viticulture – things that are frequently talked about in other wine regions but are not always part of the Champagne discussion. The term ‘grower Champagne’ refers to Champagne made by the same people who tended the grapes; it can also be called estate-bottled Champagne or domaine-bottled Champagne. The reason for this differentiation lies in the traditional structure of the Champagne busi ness: historically, vineyards were largely owned by growers, who sold their grapes to the Champagne houses that make and sell finished Champagnes. Other growers would become part of a cooperative, band ing together to share resources, but the number of grower estates that produced and marketed their own Champagne remained a small minority. In truth, these lines have never been clearly drawn: nearly all Champagne houses possess at least some vineyards in addition to pur chasing grapes from growers, and
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many growers would often make a little wine of their own. The number of Champagneproducing growers increased in times of economic stress, when négociants were buying fewer grapes – in the 1930s, for example, and in the period just after World War II. In the 1970s and 1980s, more growers increased estate production out of an interest in winemaking and also with an eye towards profitability. The late 1990s and 2000s saw an explosion of new Champagneproducing estates. Over the years, the Champagne styles being produced by houses and growers have diverged: grower/ producers have often had more latitude to experiment due to their smaller size, initiating a prolifera tion of single-vineyard Champagnes and lower-dosage Champagnes, for example. In addition, owning and farming vineyards enables control over viticultural processes from start to finish, and grower estates have largely led the movement towards increasing the quality of viticulture in Champagne. Geography plays a role as well: most négociant houses have traditionally blended their wines from vineyards across the Champagne region, whereas most grower estates produce wine from a smaller area, simply because that’s where their vineyards are located. This doesn’t mean that grower Champagne is necessarily more
terroir-expressive, but at its best, it can offer more focused snapshots of the region – intriguing for lovers of Champagne’s terroir. In France and the United Kingdom, grower Champagne has sometimes been thought to put value over qual ity, leading to an inferior product. This is far from the truth: grower estates produce some of the finest wines in the region. More recently, fine-wine importers and retailers have success fully marketed grower Champagne as a niche category, one that embodies virtues of artisanality, authenticity and terroir expression. And this has led to other miscon ceptions, notably a romanticisation and glorification of grower Cham pagne as intrinsically superior to that of traditional houses. This is also not true; for one thing, the idea of grower Champagne is hardly uniform, since it encompasses a vast spectrum of producers, all with highly dispa rate philosophies, methodologies and levels of quality. Ultimately, the real distinction should be between high-quality Champagne produ cers and mediocre ones, no matter whether they are grower estates or négociants. The proliferation of grower Champagne, though, has caused us to view the region in a new light and to acknowledge its tremen dous diversity of character, and it has brought greater attention to the appellation and to Champagne’s vir tues as a real wine.
The scarce G A L L ERY STO CK
AGRAPART, VÉNUS, BRUT NATURE BLANC DE BLANCS 2010 From 2018 To 2025
96 RRP £120
GEORGES LAVAL, LES LONGUES VIOLES, BRUT NATURE 2012 From 2022 To 2037
97
JACQUES SELOSSE, AŸ, LA CÔTE FARON, EXTRA BRUT NV
98
RRP £433
From 2018 To 2035 RRP£250–335
Pascal Agrapart is one of Champagne’s most celebrated wine growers, and his top wine, Vénus, is a pure Chardonnay from the vineyard of La Fosse in Avize, which he ploughs entirely by horse rather than tractor. It’s a racy, energetic Champagne, driven by its salty, briny chalkiness, and it unfolds on the palate with stunning complexity, grace and length. While 2010 was not the easiest vintage in Champagne, Agrapart demonstrates what can be achieved with conscientious viticulture and top-class winemaking. 12%
The tiny Laval estate in the village of Cumières has been certified organic since 1971, and today Vincent Laval makes fewer than 15,000 bottles of Champagne a year. This is the first release of a new single-vineyard Champagne from Les Longues Violes, a parcel of old-vine Pinot Moir and Pinot Meunier. It’s dark and vivid in tone, marked by a vibrant energy that feels driven by viticulture and soil, and it’s long and densely fragrant on the finish, showing a remarkable refinement and complexity. 12%
Christopher Keiller, Farr Vintners, Tannico, Vine Trail
Fine & Rare Wines
The most renowned grower of all, Anselme Selosse makes Champagnes unlike any other, marked by a mouth-filling richness and kaleidoscopic complexity of flavour. In this wine, Pinot Noir from the vineyard of La Côte Faron is aged in a solera system similar to Sherry, blending multiple vintages together in barrel. The current release contains all vintages from 2010 to 1994, creating a multidimensional array of layers on the palate that persist with marvellous length and detail, anchored by spicy, saline notes of soil. 12% Fine & Rare Wines, Hedonism Wines, Seckford Wines
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81
The classic
BÉRÊCHE & FILS, CAMPANIA REMENSIS, EXTRA BRUT ROSÉ 2014
93
CHARTOGNETAILLET, LES BARRES, EXTRA BRUT 2013
EGLY-OURIET, BRUT BLANC DE NOIRS GRAND CRU NV
94
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £51.54
From 2018 To 2023 RRP POA
From 2018 To 2030 RRP £76.67
Campania Remensis, named in reference to the old Roman name for the area around Reims, is one of the finest rosés being made in Champagne today. The Bérêche family created this cuvée in the 2009 vintage from their vineyards in the village of Ormes. Made of roughly two thirds Pinot Noir and one third Chardonnay, it includes a small percentage of red wine, giving it a pale, elegant hue. It’s intense in flavour yet delicate in weight, finishing with tense, energetic length. 12%
Pinot Meunier has experienced a renewed recognition over the past decade, and one of the brightest stars in the new Meunier firmament is Alexandre Chartogne’s Les Barres, sourced from a parcel of ungrafted vines planted in 1952. Ungrafted vines in Champagne are rare, and these are able to survive on their own rootstocks due to the vineyard’s sandy soils. They produce a vivid, elegantly textured Champagne – one that demonstrates a subtle refinement and keenly expresses a sense of place. 12%
Since taking over his family’s estate in 1982, Francis Egly has gained worldwide acclaim for his powerful, richly flavoured Champagnes. The most sought-after wine in his cellar is this old-vine blanc de noirs made from Pinot Noir in the vineyard of Les Crayères in Ambonnay, planted in 1946 and 1947. Fermented entirely in barrique, this is an authoritative, densely knit Champagne, yet the chalkiness of the soils here imparts a finesse and vivacity that keep all the components in harmonious balance. 12%
Vine Trail
Vine Trail
82
93
C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
Justerini & Brooks, Pinot & Chardo, R&B Wines, Tannico, WineBuyers. com, Z&B Vintners
94
98
93
JACQUES LASSAIGNE, LE COTET, EXTRA BRUT BLANC DE BLANCS NV
PIERRE PÉTERS, LES CHÉTILLONS, BRUT BLANC DE BLANCS GRAND CRU 2008
VILMART & CIE, GRAND CELLIER D’OR BRUT PREMIER CRU 2013
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £55
From 2023 To 2040 RRP £208.33
From 2023 To 2040 RRP £41
A superb viticulturist and winemaker of rare talent, Emmanuel Lassaigne purchases some grapes in addition to cultivating his own vines in the village of Montgueux, yet this singlevineyard Champagne from Le Cotet, a parcel just next to the winery, is all estategrown. It’s complicated in its composition – the current edition contains seven vintages from 2013 back to 2002 – but it’s singular in its expression, balancing Montgueux’s typically creamy, exotic flavours with a fierce chalkiness and an elegantly focused, streamlined structure. 12%
Rodolphe Péters is the fourth generation of his family to make wine at this iconic estate in the village of Le Mesnil-sur-Oger. The Péters family has bottled Les Chétillons as a singlevineyard Champagne since 1971, combining three different parcels of 40- to 70-year-old vines within this storied site. A wine of exceptional complexity and finesse, the 2008 shows the concentrated ripeness of the vintage yet balances this with a deft poise and chalk-driven elegance, feeling brilliantly incisive and pure. 12%
Désiré Vilmart began estatebottling Champagne as early as 1890, and today his greatgreat-grandson, Laurent Champs, is at the helm of the family estate, making Champagnes of exemplary quality. His Grand Cellier d’Or is a vintage-dated blend of 80% Chardonnay and 20% Pinot Noir, all from the vineyard of Blanches Voies in Rilly-la-Montagne, and its vinification in oak barrels amplifies its intrinsic richness and depth. It’s structured for ageing, needing time to show its full complexity and expression. 12%
Sold out in UK
Gauntley Wine, Lay & Wheeler Wine Merchants, Mayfly Wine Co
Christopher Keiller, In Vino Veritas, The Good Wine Shop, Vine Trail
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83
The discovered
BARRAT-MASSON, LES MARGANNES, BRUT NATURE NV
BENOÎT DÉHU, LA RUE DES NOYERS, BRUT NATURE NV
90
LACOURTE-GODBILLON CHAILLOTS, HAUTES VIGNES, BRUT PREMIER CRU 2013
91
From 2018 To 2023 RRP £51.99
From 2018 To 2025 RRP £70
From 2018 To 2023 RRP £284.37
There aren’t a lot of grower-producers in the area around Sézanne, south of the Côte des Blancs, as most growers sell their grapes to négociants. Aurélie Barrat and her husband Loïc Masson began making Champagne in 2011, producing distinctive wines such as this Les Margannes, a pure chardonnay from organically grown chardonnay vines in the village of Bethon. The current release is all 2013, showing fragrant, high-toned flavours of apple, guava and fresh ginger, accented by a bright, saline chalkiness. 12%
An eighth-generation vine grower, Benoît Déhu runs his family’s house of Déhu Père & Fils and has also produced Champagnes under his own label since 2011. La Rue des Noyers is a pure Meunier from a biodynamically farmed vineyard of the same name in Fossoy, in the Vallée de la Marne, fermented and aged in oak barrels. The current release is based on 2014, and it’s broad and ample in feel, combining a generous demeanour with nuanced layers of flavour. 12%
Géraldine Lacourte and her husband Richard Désvignes took over the Lacourte family estate in 2006, and today they are crafting vibrant, soil-expressive Champagnes from 8.5ha of vines. This cuvée is pure Chardonnay from two 40-year-old parcels in the villages of Écueil, Chaillots and Hautes Vignes, and it was fermented entirely in oak, giving it a rich texture and silky finesse. It feels tense and energetic underneath its pungent fruit, finishing with brisk, stony minerality and excellent length. 12%
The Winery UK
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The Fine Wine Co
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MOUZON-LEROUX, L’INCANDESCENT EXTRA BRUT ROSÉ DE SAIGNÉE GRAND CRU NV
SUENEN, OIRY, EXTRA BRUT BLANC DE BLANCS GRAND CRU NV
From 2018 To 2023 RRP £69.95
From 2018 To 2021 RRP £34.08
From 2018 To 2024 RRP £35
While Frédéric Minière’s parents sold their grapes to the local cooperative, he began making his own Champagne in 2007. Symbiose is made from his two oldest parcels of vines, one Pinot Noir and one Chardonnay, located on sandy limestone soils in the far north of the Champagne appellation. The 2008 is full of fresh primary fruit, showing the high acidity typical of the vintage yet also feeling richly textured and subtly nuanced, with a hidden complexity waiting to emerge. 12.5%
Sébastien Mouzon’s family has been growing vines since 1776, and today he farms 10ha, largely in the village of Verzy. His rosé is 100% Pinot Noir from 2013, macerated on its skins for 18 hours to produce a limpid salmon colour. It’s generous in flavour, its bold red fruit accented by hints of game and spice, and it finishes with an intense and persistent chalkiness typical of this sector of the Montagne de Reims. 12.5%
Aurélien Suenen has attracted worldwide attention since taking over his family’s estate in 2006, yet it’s in the past couple of years that he’s shown us what he’s really capable of, as he’s restructured his entire line-up of Champagnes. He now makes two different non-vintage blanc de blancs, differentiated by terroir. This one, currently based on the 2014 harvest, comes entirely from the village of Oiry, and it is incisive and pure, with a piercing minerality and a sleekly racy build. 12%
MINIÈRE SYMBIOSE, EXTRA BRUT 2008
Not available in the UK
Vine Trail
The Finest Bubble
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TASTING FEATURE
Beaujolais renaissance I NTR O D U C TI O N A N D R E CO M M E N DAT I O N S BY JA M I E G O O D E
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O N E O F T H E LOV E L I E ST W I N E R E G I O N S O F F R A N C E I S S H A K I N G O F F T H E C U R S E O F B E AU J O L A I S N O U V E AU A N D R E B U I L D I N G
4 COR N ER S I M AG ES
I T S R E P U T A T I O N A S A P R O D U C E R O F L I G H T, S E D U C T I V E , W O R L D - B E A T I N G R E D W I N E S
A love story is at the heart of a revo lution in one of France’s most under rated wine regions. David Chapel, the son of a Michelin three-star restaurateur, began to take an interest in wine. His father was friends with Marcel Lapierre, a famous grower in the region, and so David went to work in the family’s cellar. One day in 2013, Michele, a wine buyer from New York, came to visit. She was late for her appointment, and because the Lapierres had already left for the day, cellar hand David filled in. It was love at first sight: David moved to New York within a month. Three years later, now married, they moved back to Beaujolais and set up Domaine Chapel. They are now part of a band of young, ambitious producers putting Beaujolais back on the fine-wine map and rekindling the world’s love affair with the region’s wines. Beaujolais is long overdue some affection. In a sense, it’s only got itself to blame. During the 1970s and 1980s, most people knew the region solely through Beaujolais Nouveau, a fruity concoction released to a fanfare world wide almost indecently soon after harvest. The grapes were hurried through the fermentation process, and the wine was bottled and shipped in time to be sold on the third Thursday in November. Beaujolais Nouveau Day was a big deal; we’re all familiar with the annual scenes of tweedy wine merchants finding ever-more inventive ways of getting the wine to London. The craze has passed in Europe, but there are still enthusiasts like the Japanese, who soak up 6 million bottles or so; Nouveau still
accounts for a third of Beaujolais produced. The region has suffered because of it and still struggles to attract serious wine drinkers. Depressed prices meant that pro ducers took an industrial approach, relying on herbicides and chemical fertilizers rather than tending their vineyards in an organic, hands-on way. What’s more, technology took control in the winery, and the human touch was lost. Then, the emergence of Australia and the New World meant that consumers could have their pick of simple, fruity – and voluptuous – red wines. The good news is that a revival has taken place in Beaujolais. A new generation of wine producers diligently caring for their vineyards and making compelling wines has brought the wine world’s attention back to this charming region. The roots of this revival began in the 1980s with a group of five wine makers – Marcel Lapierre, Jean-Paul Thévenet, Jean Foillard, Guy Breton and Yvon Métras – who are now legendary names in the region. They took inspiration from scientist and local wine producer Jules Chauvet, who is widely regarded as the father of natural wine. Chauvet believed in farming organically and then making wines without any additives – even the almost universal preservative sulphur dioxide. The gang of five’s wines were com pelling, and it became apparent that Gamay grown in Beaujolais was capable of great things when it was paid the attention it deserved. The quintet’s influence spread; there has
been a revival of the old ways of mak ing Beaujolais, from turning over the soils with ploughs rather than using herbicides, to the use of concrete tanks and large oak vats for fermen tation. The region has also benefited from a growing worldwide interest in the Gamay grape. Producers in other countries now want a slice of Gamay glory, particularly as lighter red wine styles are gaining in popularity. Beaujolais is split into 12 different appellations. At the bottom of the hierarchy there’s basic Beaujolais, then Beaujolais Villages. At the top of the quality pyramid are 10 different crus, bearing the lovely names of the towns and landmarks of this most seductive of landscapes: St-Amour, Juliénas, Chénas, Moulin-à-Vent, Fleurie, Chiroubles, Morgon, Régnié, Brouilly and Côte de Brouilly. The crus are more expensive than Beaujolais or Beaujolais Villages, but some superb vineyards sit within these less prestigious appellations, and in the hands of a good producer they can make great wines. In terms of style, Beaujolais can vary from light-coloured and per fumed to rich and dense, because of the different soil types and winemaking techniques. Morgon and Moulin-àVent, for example, can make chunky, powerful wines that repay ageing, while St-Amour and Fleurie are better known for their imme diately charming, prettier styles. Whatever your taste, there really is something for everyone in Beaujolais, and there has never been a better time to discover – or rediscover – the wines of this region.
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ANTOINE SUNIER 2016 RÉGNIÉ
From 2018 To 2022
RRP £21
The younger brother of Julien Sunier (see opposite) makes stunning wines from organically farmed plots. This is juicy and lively, with fresh, sappy raspberry fruit. It shows good concentration, the sweet mid-palate offset by a subtle herbal note. There’s an attractive wildness to this wine. 12.5% Bottle Apostle, Hook and Ford, The Sample
From 2018 To 2022
RRP £12
Aged just 31 in 2017, David Large is yet another new star in the region. This Côte de Brouilly has real density in the mouth, with fine raspberry and cherry fruit flavours. While it is pretty, it also has structure: grainy and delicious. 14% Not available in the UK
From 2018 To 2020
RRP £22
Being the son of one of the members of original Beaujolais gang, it is only natural that the young Charly Thévenet is one to watch. Farmed biodynamically at 350m altitude, this richly perfumed Gamay has a sappy undergrowth edge alongside the supple, elegant red cherry fruit. Finely structured. 13%
CHÂTEAU THIVIN, LES SEPT VIGNES 2016 CÔTE DE BROUILLY From 2018 To 2024
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RRP £16
Château Thivin is one of the most consistent Beaujolais domaines, owned by the same family since 1877. This wine is produced from seven different parcels and shows focus and purity of fruit; expect cherry and raspberry aromas. Fine-grained tannic grip on the finish. 13% Alpine Wines, Old Butcher’s Wine Cellar
Roberson Wine
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DAVID LARGE, HEARTBREAKER 2017 CÔTE DE BROUILLY
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CHARLY THÉVENET, CUVÉE GRAIN ET GRANIT 2016 RÉGNIÉ
DOMAINE CHAPEL 2017 BEAUJOLAIS VILLAGES From 2018 To 2020
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CLOTAIRE MICHAL, LA NAPOLÉON 2016 BEAUJOLAIS VILLAGES From 2018 To 2024
RRP £13
Michal used to work in Cornas, and there’s definitely a hint of the northern Rhône in the glass, which probably comes from 40-year-old vines on sandy granitic soils. Fresh and focused, with lovely concentration of vivid red cherry and raspberry fruit. This is direct and structured, with a grainy, savoury edge. 12% Not available in the UK
93 RRP £20
David Chapel and his American wife Michele Smith-Chapel are exciting newcomers: 2017 marked the duo’s second vintage. The result is a beautifully elegant Gamay. It is pretty, supple and fresh with flavours of red cherry and spices. One to watch. 13% Not available in the UK
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DOMAINE DES BRAVES 2017 RÉGNIÉ From 2018 To 2021
RRP £15
Concentrated with vivid black cherry, blackcurrant, plum and spice notes. Fresh yet intense; offering a rich palate with delicate floral overtones. 12.5% Not available in the UK
DOMAINE DES MARRANS 2016 FLEURIE From 2018 To 2024
92 RRP £14
From pink granite soils, this is vinified using traditional semi-carbonic maceration, where most of the berries are left intact and begin an internal fermentation that preserves bright fruity flavours. It is incredibly supple and expressive, offering fine spice and sweet red cherry fruit in a smooth package. Structured, with bright acidity. 12.5% Tanners Wine Merchants
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DOMAINE MARC DELIENNE, ABBAYE ROAD 2015 FLEURIE From 2018 To 2022
93 RRP £24
The first vintage from this domaine is beautifully aromatic with fine, fresh floral notes. Great concentration and finesse in the mouth, with rich yet fine flavours reminiscent of raspberries, cherries, herbs and spices. This is a lovely wine. 12% Christopher Keiller
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DOMAINE MARCEL LAPIERRE 2016 MORGON From 2018 To 2024
RRP £21
Marcel Lapierre died in 2010, and his children now run the estate. This 2016 is supple and fine with an attractive spicy edge adding extra complexity to the robust cherry and plum fruit. It’s really expressive with lovely complexity and a fine-grained texture. Hailsham Cellars, Noble Green Wines, Noel Young Wines
JEAN FOILLARD, CÔTE DU PY 2016 MORGON, BEAUJOLAIS From 2018 To 2024
95 RRP £25
A compelling example of the famous Côte du Py terroir from a renowned Beaujolais producer. It is aromatic and sappy, with floral, berry fruit and spice notes; excellent purity and firm structure. 13% AG Wines, Buon Vino, The Solent Cellar, Vinatis UK
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JULIEN SUNIER 2016 MORGON
From 2018 To 2021
RRP £19
Julien Sunier is the eldest of two brothers making delectable wines in Beaujolais. This Morgon is sappy and expressive, offering cherry and raspberry fruit flavours. Smooth and elegant, with a slightly warming finish. 12% Roberson Wine Retail
DOMAINE MEE GODARD, CORCELETTE 2015 MORGON From 2018 To 2024
93 RRP £14
DOMAINE RICHARD ROTTIERS 2016 MOULIN-À-VENT From 2018 To 2024
92 RRP £15
From 2018 To 2022
Mee Godard is making some of the most exciting wines in Beaujolais since moving to Morgon in 2013. This has great concentration of bold blackcurrant and blackberry fruit, but it is really balanced with an attractive, grainy structure. 13%
The grapes for this wine were destemmed but not crushed, and they were macerated for 14 days in cement tanks, to make a fresh, elegant wine despite its structured framework of tannin. Dense, with cherry fruit flavours and fine-grained texture. 13%
Crump, Richmond & Shaw Fine Wines
Frazier’s Wine Merchants, Latimer Vintners, Weavers of Nottingham
PAUL-HENRI THILLARDON, CHASSIGNOL 2016 CHÉNAS From 2018 To 2023
94 RRP £19
PIERRE COTTON 2016 BROUILLY
From 2018 To 2021
93 RRP £21
Pierre Cotton is one of the next generation of ambitious wine growers, and this wine is made from 65-year-old vines on pink granite soils. Wholebunch fermentation has resulted in a beautifully floral Gamay with lovely density of sweet cherry and raspberry fruit flavours. 12.5%
Latimer Vintners
Blast Vintners
RRP £26
From biodynamically farmed old vines, this has a perfumed nose with fine herbs, pretty red cherries and some hints of undergrowth. However, the beauty of this wine is its mouthfeel: the palate is light, elegant and rounded. 12.5% Not available in the UK
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YVON MÉTRAS 2016 FLEURIE
From 2018 To 2025
The young Paul-Henri Thillardon is an emerging star. From the lesser-known Chénas cru, this is an assertive, bright and spicy wine, grown on quartz and granite soils. It’s bold, with vibrant acidity too. The finish is fresh and intense, with a savoury edge. 12%
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GUY BRETON, VIEILLES VIGNES 2016 MORGON
RRP £46
Yvon Métras makes some of the most sought-after wines in Beaujolais. This Fleurie, made with no added sulphites, has a perfumed and open nose, offering sweet red cherries with hints of herbs and spice. It’s supple and elegant. 12% Not available in the UK
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IWSC unmissable spirits
O U R S E L E CT I O N O F W I N N E R S F R O M T H E I N T E R N AT I O N A L W I N E & S P I R I T C O M P E T I T I O N ( I W S C ), O U R S I ST E R O RGA N I SAT I O N
KI NO BI KYOTO DRY GIN
SCAPEGRACE GOLD
ADNAMS LONGSHORE TRIPLE MALT VODKA
TULLAMORE DEW 18 YEARS OLD
Contemporary Gin Trophy RRP £44.95
London Dry Gin Trophy RRP £55.33
Vodka Trophy RRP £32.95
Worldwide Whiskey Trophy RRP £85.45
Creamy lemon and lime, along with soft, subtle spice. A graceful texture, with a light sweetness to start, followed by a dash of vanilla and chamomile, then a peppery leafiness, before a long menthol finish. 45.7%
This has the classic juniper burr running through it, joined by powerful but balanced spice and root flavours – a complex, teasing expression demanding of attention on the palate. Making gin this good is not easy or accidental. 57%
The incredible softness and elegance of this vodka places it above the rest. It exhibits an elegant, silky palate with just the right balance between the character of the base material and the smoothness and mouthfeel of the overall product. 45%
Master of Malt, Amazon
The Whisky Exchange
Clear apple juice at first, with gorse and pear followed by light tropical fruits. The palate is more tropical fruits plus vanilla and oak spices; the finish, hints of leather but with more tropical fruits and chewing gum. Full flavoured, with elegance and balance. Outstanding. 41.3%
THE BALVENIE THIRTY SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY
BALLANTINE’S GLENTAUCHERS 15 YEARS OLD SINGLE MALT SCOTCH WHISKY
WL WELLER 12 YEARS OLD KENTUCKY STRAIGHT BOURBON WHISKEY
TROIS RIVIÈRES VSOP RESERVE SPECIALE
Single Malt Scotch Whisky Over 15 Years Old Trophy RRP £697.61
Single Malt Scotch Whisky 15 Years And Under Trophy RRP £56.95
Bourbon Trophy RRP £45
Rum Trophy RRP £48.75
On the nose, freshly opened cigar box, antique leather furniture and an old study. The palate is rich in royal heather honey with juicy, fresh mango and intense strawberries. The flavours complement each other perfectly. 47.3%
Complex and satisfying with layers of spicy fruit cake, juicy mango, guava and passion fruit. However, it is not all about the fruit. Beautiful creamy, spicy oak, with aromatic dried tobacco leaves and delicious sweet and bitter, coarsecut marmalade. 40%
Great memories of the candy shop. Floral, sweet and vanilla, with hints of white chocolate. The palate is expressive and deep, with sweet candy and spicy notes; the finish is cedarwood and cinnamon. A beautiful expression of an aged whiskey. 45%
This little belter is poised, balanced, elegant and very good in the glass. Although there is limited Agricole character, the relationship between spirit, wood character and maturity is sublime. It drinks wonderfully and is a brilliant sipping rum. 40%
Master of Malt
The Whisky Exchange
The Whisky Exchange
Master of Malt, Amazon, The Whisky Exchange
Master of Malt, The Whisky Exchange
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IWSC unmissable wines
KIT’S COTY, COEUR DE CUVÉE 2013 KENT, ENGLAND
CHÂTEAU BROWN, PESSAC-LÉOGNAN 2016 BORDEAUX, FRANCE
LA CHABLISIENNE, CHÂTEAU GRENOUILLES 2014 CHABLIS GRAND CRU, FRANCE
HERRENBERG RIESLING SPÄTLESE FRUCHTIG 2015 MOSEL, GERMANY
Gold Outstanding RRP £84.95
Gold Outstanding RRP £37.99
Gold RRP £55
Gold RRP £20
A beautifully complex, pure wine, with the deep notes of hazelnuts and honey of long ageing. Wonderful structure and lovely maturity make this a benchmark English fizz. Mid-palate broadness from the subtle use of oak adds an extra dimension to the persistent and balanced finish. 12%
An absolute classic – what more could this offer? Beautiful creamy, smoky notes, great length and balance. Good use of oak, fresh and in perfect harmony. 13.5%
There is real weight and structure to this Chablis. The intensity and purity of the fruit is a delight, with hazelnut and lemon characters sitting on top of a beautiful, textured wine. The tension and freshness are well judged in this complete wine. 13%
Pale lemon hue; aromatic, white cherry, gentle apricot, a little green apple and lime zest. Medium-dry on the palate, well defined, with racy acidity supporting concentration of flavours, a hint of petrol indicating some age, balance and length. A star with an excellent future. 8%
Ellis of Richmond
Millésima
The Whisky Exchange
Howard Ripley
GROOT CONSTANTIA, GOUVERNEURS RESERVE 2015 SOUTH AFRICA
SERRE NUOVE DELL’ORNELLAIA 2015 ITALY
BERONIA III AC, RIOJA 2015 SPAIN
BLANDY’S FRASQUEIRA BUAL 1957 MADEIRA
Gold RRP £29.99
Gold Outstanding RRP £41.80
Gold RRP £41.99
Gold Outstanding RRP £290
Deep and dense ruby colour. Classy aromas of cedar, cloves, blackberry and blackcurrant leaves. Plentiful fine elegant tannins frame the black fruits perfectly. Solid streak of herbal acidity keeps the palate fresh while you appreciate this understated yet powerful wine. 14%
Deepest and darkest red. Sumptuous bouquet, ripe, intense and fragrant with minty herbal nuances. Fine, rich velvety texture; power, density and great depth, with mellow first palate and dry, generous flavours. A sublime expression of Merlot. 13.5%
Black-olive-and-chocolate nose; this is a wonderful wine with layers of meaty savoury fruit intertwined with sweet milk chocolate, mint and Madagascan vanilla. Huge concentration and a beautiful soft palate with just enough grip from tannins. Very, very long seductive finish. 14.5%
Extraordinary colour: brown through green on the rim! Subtle and seductive on the nose. On the palate, it starts soft then grows to a climax rarely experienced in anything but the oldest and rarest of fortified wines. Sweet but with perfect acid balance – close to perfect Bual. 20%
Gonzalez Byass
John E Fells & Sons
Hallgarten & Novum Wines
Hedonism, Berry Bros & Rudd
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Root couture
F O R A S A F U M I YA M A S H I T A , T H E S E C R E T O F G R OW I N G M I C H E L I N - STA R R E D V E G I S N OT A B O U T LOV E B U T U N D E R STA N D I N G T H E N E E D S O F T H E P L A N T WO R DS JA N E A N S O N
Above: the kabu, a white Japanese variant of the turnip; opposite: Yamashita with a kabu
LAURENT GRA NDADA N
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L AU RE N T G R AN DA DAN ; CA RR IE S OLO MO N; A LE XA N DRE PE T ZO L D
Yamashita’s vegetables deliver an emotion
urnips – that’s what turned the eyes of the world towards a modest farm in the village of Chapet, 50km to the west of Paris. More specifically, it was the kabu, a Japanese white turnip. Although this variety is admittedly sweeter and softer than most European turnips, it is still difficult to believe that this most humble of root vegetables propelled a Japanese farmer to the highest reaches of French gastronomy. Today, Asafumi Yamashita fends off calls from the media on a daily basis. He’s been profiled in everything from the New York Times to Grazia. His vegetables end up on the plates of the greatest three-star Michelin chefs in Paris: Pascal Barbot at L’Astrance and Pierre Gagnaire at, well, Pierre Gagnaire. But that’s just the list of chefs that he works with. Don’t forget those he doesn’t supply. Laurent Delarbre at La Tour d’Argent was on the list, but when the chef changed last year, the restaurant lost its vegetable supplier at the same time. He is also on record as refusing to work with both Alain Ducasse and the late Joël Robuchon. This is because he will only work with chefs who are fully present in their kitchens, so he can chat with them when he drops off his produce twice a week, Tuesdays and Fridays. ‘Many chefs are good at theory and at technical knowledge,’ he tells me as we meet one sunny September Friday, just a few minutes’ walk from the Champs-Elysée. ‘But not many truly appreciate the taste of the food they are preparing. The ones who do are the ones I want to work with.’ This is haute couture vegetable farming. Yamashita selects which produce is perfectly ripe in that season and on that particular day, and he sells it to the chefs at a price that he sets. (Think 10 times your average vegetable budget, and go up from there.) All of this means quantities are necessarily small. His delivery van is a Suzuki Splash, a car that looks pleasingly like a root vegetable – it’s possibly the least glamorous vehicle you can buy. This
All his vegetables are grown on land that Yamashita tilled and farmed himself, from scratch
Opposite: pea shoots; above, clockwise from top left: Yamashita’s golden tomato; Yamashita with cucumber flower; chilli pepper ‘Murasaki Togarashi’; tomato seedling C LU B O E N O LO G I Q U E
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gives you a better idea of Yamashita than the media acclaim and the prices he charges. You’ll get an even better idea when you arrive at his farm. Set in a leafy backstreet as the village of Chapet turns into slightly straggly countryside, it is about as far from Michelin-starred polish as you can imagine: a former hunting lodge, apparently, but a decidedly small one if so, with an unobtrusive sign out front and simple whitewashed walls. A huge fig tree stands to one side, a sprawling vine growing Japanese table grapes, and a sign saying, in English, French and Japanese, ‘Beware of the bees.’ Honey production is a new thing this year, with the first few pots being snapped up immediately by the Amir of Qatar at his Paris residence, where the temporary chef de cuisine is Sylvain Sendra, ex-Itinéraires and – you guessed it – another Michelin-starred client. The vegetables are set on a sloped field behind the house, perhaps 0.2ha in size, with rows of corn, sugar peas, green beans, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, carrots and cherry
tomatoes – around 50 different varieties in total, some in plastic tunnels, others with bird netting, others in greenhouses. All are grown on land that Yamashita tilled and farmed himself, from scratch. He wasn’t born into this and has no relatives who worked in agriculture. His mother was an artist, his father a timber merchant, and he studied history of art in Paris before specialising first in growing bonsai trees and then turning to vegetables 15 years ago, aged 40, learning through trial and error and with a great deal of patience. Once a year he returns to Japan to find new seeds, but he chooses not to grow specific Japanese varieties. ‘People ask me what is my secret, whether it is love for what I do that makes the difference. I reply that you don’t need love to grow vegetables. Love is too unstable an emotion for this. To really grow great produce, the motivation needs to be higher: you have to do it for its own sake.’ As we walk through the farm, he gestures to the ground. ‘The soil here is heavy with clay, complicated to work, north facing.
Bottom left: petit vert, a variety of cabbage; bottom right: kinjiso, or Okinawan spinach
The most important thing for attaining quality is knowing how to anticipate the needs of the plant
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RA PHA E L DAU TI GN Y; A L E XA ND RE PE TZO L D; L AU RE N T G R A NDA DA N; CA R R IE S O LO M O N; JACQ U ES G AVA R D ; CA R R IE S O LO M O N
This is in no way the ideal for growing anything. And yet… It needs close attention, which may help. The most important thing for attaining quality is knowing how to anticipate the needs of the plant, and knowing how to wait. There is a similar philosophy with bonsai perhaps, but there is a world of difference between growing and eating. For me, the focus of everything is on the taste. You need to be steady, to remain constant even as the weather changes, as your mood changes. ‘Since I began,’ he continues, ‘the approach of the great chefs has moved on. Vegetables are no longer just an accompaniment to a piece of protein. Previously they were a condiment in Europe, in a supporting role, but now the best chefs realise they have a power all of their own. If I have played a small role in that, I am happy.’ You can visit Yamashita’s table d’hôte at which his wife Naomi cooks Japanese recipes with his vegetables. La Ferme Yamashita is open weekends from May to October. Chemin des Trois-Poiriers, 78130 Chapet, France. +33 1 30 91 98 75
Anticlockwise from top left: Yamashita’s vegetables used in recipes by chef William Ledeuil; Tomorokoshi corn, daikon and kabu, with fresh goat’s cheese, arbutus honey, pomegranate and redcurrants; Yamashita with Hokkaido spinach and kabocha squash
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WO R DS
P H OTO G R A P H S
FIONA BECKETT
D E B O R A H WA S T I E
Salt
SUPER-INGREDIENT
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W H O R E A L LY U N D E R S TA N D S THE MYRIAD COMPLEXITIES O F S O D I U M C H LO R I D E ?
3 ways to use salt BAKING FISH You’d think baking in salt would make a fish inedible, but the scales protect it, creating a snug crust that keeps the flesh moist and flavourful. Mix salt with egg white, pile it under, up and around the fish, work out the cooking timings and crack open the hard-baked crust at the end.
BRINING CHICKEN OR TURKEY If you’ve never tried brining – immersing a piece of meat in a solution of salt, sugar and spices – try it on something small like a pork chop, and see the difference in flavour. Emboldened, you might want to try a chicken or even your Christmas or Thanksgiving turkey. It will also make it more tender.
ENHANCING SWEETNESS
If anything could claim to be a superingredient, it’s sodium chloride, a mineral that is essential to the healthy functioning of the human body and the oldest seasoning of all. Salt’s use dates back to several centuries BC. Roman soldiers were issued with salt rations, and it may even have been part of their pay – the salarium argentum, or salary. Before refrigeration, salt was the only way to preserve food, key to surviving long, hard winters. Parma ham and Parmesan wouldn’t exist without salt, and even 70-day-old steaks are viable now, thanks to Himalayan salt chambers. Salt comes from two main sources – the sea and ancient salt deposits, which are mined. For culinary use, the most prized are the sea salts obtained by boiling sea water or letting it evaporate naturally. Rarer is fleur de sel, obtained by skimming the surface of salt pans, a painstaking process done by hand; it has a slightly damp texture and consistency. Sel gris is harvested in a similar fashion, but it picks up extra minerals in the process, causing its greyish colour.
Some parts of the world – the salt marshes of Olonne-sur-Mer on the west coast of France, and Maldon in Essex, for example – are famous for their salt. Others, such as Sel de Guerande and Halen Môn in Anglesey, even have their own appellation in the form of protected designation of origin. As with olive oil, you ideally need more than one type of salt for cooking. Avoid basic table salt; it contains anti-caking agents and has the least natural flavour. Use kosher or coarse sea salt for adding to cooking water, and use fine sea salt for baking. For finishing a dish or adding crunch, use sea-salt flakes that you can crumble between your fingers. One of the biggest misconceptions is that you add salt to make food taste salty; in fact, you use it to heighten other flavours. ‘Salt has a greater impact on flavour than any other ingredient,’ writes Samin Nosrat in her bestselling book Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, in which she devotes a whole chapter to the subject. ‘When food tastes flat, the most common culprit is underseasoning.’
Just as salt enhances savoury flavours, it can accentuate sweetness. The obvious example is salted caramel, but salt’s ability to reduce the sensation of bitterness means it can also highlight the rich chocolatey flavour of a high-cocoa-solids chocolate bar. A pinch added to brownies and chocolate-chip cookies will make them more delicious.
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CUISINE
Black velvet
Top, from left: The hill town of Aups; a truffle pig (most truffle hunting is now done by dogs); truffles for sale and sampling; Maison de la Truffe
WHERE TO LEARN ABOUT BLACK TRUFFLES
T H E W H I T E T R U F F L E I S T H E S T A R , T H E Y S A Y, B U T T H E D E L I CAT E R E ST R A I N T O F I T S B L AC K C O U S I N CA N B E A D E L I G H T. N A T A S H A H U G H E S M W F I N D S T H E B E AT I N G H E A RT O F F R E N C H T R U F F L E C O U N T RY WO R DS
A LAMY; 4 CORNERS IMAGES; MAIS ON DE LA T RUFFE DE AUP S ET V ERDUN; 123RF; CAMERA PRESS /LAIF/REBECCA MA RSHA LL
N ATA S H A H U G H E S M W
For the truly greedy among us, the arrival of winter heralds at least one great benefit. Truffles begin arriving in the marketplace in late autumn, bringing with them a fanfare of articles focusing on their incredible aromas, their ability to titivate a plate of pasta into a gourmet triumph and their eyewatering prices. In most instances, attention is focused firmly on Alba’s hedonistically perfumed white truffles, but according to Club Gascon’s chefpatron Pascal Aussignac, we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring the black truffles of his home country. ‘White truffles have very pungent, in-your-face-flavours, so I use them with fatty, mild ingredients – things like risotto or white chocolate – as these allow the truffle to be the star of the show,’ he says. ‘Black truffles are more restrained, more like a seasoning, so they are far more versatile – not to mention several times cheaper. I use them to flavour strong sauces made with wine or put them in a stuffing for a roast meat dish.’ France’s black truffles are often generically known as Périgord truffles, but despite the strong links with the southwest of the country, most French truffles are actually produced
in southern France. Truffles have always had an important part to play in local culture and gastronomy, and the beating heart of the Provençal truffle scene is the delightful hill town of Aups. From November on, right through to March, Thursday mornings in Aups are truffle mornings. In days gone by, the truffle market was dominated by local farmers, who would turn up with hand held scales and sacks of aromatic fungi, which they sold from their car boots. These days the market is a slightly more formal affair, with producers manning stalls in the main square. Towards the end of January, just as the fungi are reaching their perfumed peak, the town hosts a truffle festival. This features not only the truffle market – enhanced by the addition of other local produce – but also trufflehunting demonstrations, competitions to find the best truffle-hunting hound and plentiful opportunities to taste dishes larded with slivers of truffle. So, even though Provence’s truffles may not gather all the attention that their spotlight-loving white cousins enjoy, a few days spent in Aups this winter may well spark a long and enduring relationship with the region’s subtle, mysterious black diamonds.
Aups’s Maison de la Truffe (maisondelatruffe-verdon.fr), just off the main square, acts as a museum and reference centre for those interested in furthering their acquaintance with black diamonds but who don’t have the time to travel out to the countryside. Those seeking deeper insights into the truffle scene might want to visit a local producer. Both the Domaine de Majastre (domaine-demajastre.fr) and Le Lointain offer group visits that include trufflehunting demonstrations (complete with furry friend) and tastings. For a bespoke introduction to truffles, though, Jessica Collins (letablier83@gmail.com) offers tailor-made tours adapted to your interests and schedule. Collins, an English native who has lived in the area for most of her life, used to farm and forage for wild truffles professionally. She now uses that experience to lead intrepid gourmets on visits to truffle farms and forests while sharing her insights on a wide variety of truffle-related topics. WHERE TO TRY If your enthusiasm for truffles is limited to a purely gastronomic appreciation, many of the local restaurants offer trufflefocused menus during the winter months. Chez Bruno in Lorgues (restaurantbruno.com) is probably the best known – it’s certainly the grandest and most formal of the local restaurants – but La Table in Tourtour has been turning heads in recent years, thanks to its more contemporary take on the truffle theme. WHERE TO BUY The obvious places to buy truffles are either at the Thursday market or directly from any producer you visit. Curiously, in a town so devoted to the black diamonds, there’s precious little to buy in terms of pre-prepared truffle-laced goodies. The Maison de la Truffe is the only game in town in this context, so pop in to stock up on truffle salts, oils, vinegars, mustards and other aromatic culinary delights. Jessica Collins is also happy to advise on purchases, and she organises truffle-themed cooking classes on request.
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Charles Heidsieck Brut Réserve is remarkable due to the inclusion of 40% reserve wines from a multitude of vintages and a minimum five year’s ageing in vast and rare Crayères (chalk cellars)*. Charles Heidsieck is one of the world’s most awarded champagnes. Just like his wine, Charles was a man of style and depth, of conviction and character. *Charles Heidsieck Crayères (chalk cellars) are part of the historical sites of the UNESCO’s world heritage list.
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Charles Heidsieck Champagne
CharlesHeidsieckChampagne
BUTCHERY
A joint venture F R O M S H O U L D E R A N D C H U M P TO S H A N K, S C R AG A N D D E C K L E, Z O E W I L L I A M S D E LV E S I N T O T H E A N C I E N T A R T O F B U T C H E R Y
he first rule of learning butchery is that it cannot be taught. I lurked the corridors of Turner & George – from their mafia-esque walk-in cold room and Dickensian shop front, to one of the Hawksmoors they supply – and it took me ages to work out what they were actually saying: we can tell you what we do; we can show you how we do it; we can let you have a go; but between there and mastery is an incredibly long road of maybe a decade. You might just as well try to train as a pathologist in an afternoon. That isn’t to say I learned nothing; I learned a lot. I learned what a deckle steak is (it’s the kind of curved cuff of meat around a rib-eye) and where I could locate it on my own body. ‘The myology of a cow and a sheep is pretty similar; you’re pretty similar,’ Richard Turner, (joint) head of everything, told me. ‘There’s no way you could get a steak from that bit of my body,’ I said. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be so scraggy on a cow, but sure, I could eat it.’ I learned what myology means – muscle structure – and that when you see pink spots on a pork chop, it’s a sign
of how stressed the pig was in its final minutes. It won’t taste as good, partly because, if you’re a proper human, it will taste of your own remorse. From Sophie Cumber, the 31-yearold butcher who teaches many of the courses, I learned that once a carcass is broken down – separated into its ‘primals’ – when you hit a bone, you don’t just plough on through it. You go around it. This sounds easier than it is. Cumber started her butchery career on sausages; they all do. Doing this for a living, it can be years before anyone will let you loose on a full animal. ‘The difference when you’re teaching people for a hobby is that they’ll be taking the meat home with them.’ Breaking down lamb is where a butcher would get to after a year, and a hobbyist starts: its primals are shoulder, scrag and middle, breast, best end, loin, chump, leg and shank. I asked John Darlingnash, a 29-yearold who started butchery at 14, who would have a head start: if someone came in who thought they were shithot at carving, would they be better placed to separate a shoulder from
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I L LU S TR ATI O N
ZO E W I L L I A M S
RODERICK MILLS
the rest? He thought for a long time, then said, ‘Anyone who thinks they’re shit-hot at anything is probably not going to learn very fast.’ So, sure, you can learn to distin guish between one bit and another, and a more mathematical mind than mine could retain where to draw the line. But if you want to under stand this in a gestalt way, the most enlightening thing you can do is just watch someone who’s been working with meat more than half his life cut up a chicken. The knives have to be sharper than a kung fu movie, but you’re not really cutting; you’re just finding your way in and letting the meat come apart by itself. Its own weight will show you where its seams are. Darlingnash often has the meat half-hanging off the chopping board, the better to read its mysteries. The walk-in cold room is not for the squeamish or the easily daunted; but butchery itself isn’t icky or daunting so much as absolute poetry, when you see it done right. When you do it yourself, it’s more like a road sign written in Welsh.
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Urban legends
I T U S E D T O B E K N O W N A S S T R E E T A R T, B U T I T ’ S N OW AT T R A C T I N G S E R I O U S C O L L E C TO R S.
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R O B SA N DA L L LO O K S AT T H E R E M A R K A B L E
R O B S A N DA L L
B A N K A B I L I T Y O F T H E B A N K SY G E N E R AT I O N
It’s perhaps wrong to say that urban art is ‘back’, because in truth it never really went away. But since the boom triggered by Banksy in the early 2000s, collectors have faced considerable challenges in picking out those artists most likely to succeed. That is partly down to the nuances of terminology surrounding the scene in the first place, as Moniker Art Fair director Tina Ziegler points out. ‘“Street art”, as a term in itself, hasn’t been doing enough for a long time now,’ she says. ‘A great many artists in the urban and contemporary scene certainly still have strong connections to the street. But as techniques, ambitions and the public’s interest have changed, it’s become such a broad spread. The term street art just doesn’t cover it.’ Moniker has steadily consolidated across nine editions held annually in Shoreditch, London, and a tenth most recently in New York. Its success is down to rising collector interest in work that takes as many cues from the 18th century as it does from the city streets. ‘Fine art is one part of the scene that’s enjoying a renaissance of sorts – techniques and styles that evoke earlier artistic history but within modern contexts,’ says Ziegler. She adds that the stylistic shift has been brought about by the opportunities for those artists who have best understood how to leverage the power of social media. ‘You have students of fine art taking to the streets, because murals and other public artwork are more likely to be picked up on Instagram, and that can get them the buzz they need either to sell art directly or to catch the attention of galleries and fairs.’
DA NILO DI N UC CI / VES OD; V ES OD; ASS O C IATI MALATESTA / VES OD
Opposite: work under way on Vesod’s Light on the Horizon, in Campobasso; below: Vesod’s Fragile, in Imola; bottom right: Light on the Horizon
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Streets paved with gold And what of potential returns in a market that, at first glance, seems dangerously prone to flux? It’s down to finding the artists on the edge of blowing up commercially – and cracking that code is key to securing significant dividends. Many of the artists exhibited at Moniker this year, including celebrated muralist Vesod, sell original artworks at the £5,000 mark ($6,600), with pieces by relative newcomers such as Kaili Smith available for around £3,500 ($4,600). With a relatively low buy-in, artists who capture the public’s imagination can find their works soaring in value. Stik, whose best-known work is A Couple Hold Hands in the Street, a mural in a Shoreditch doorway, debuted at Moniker in 2011 with works priced at £1,000 ($1,320); his pieces now fetch upwards of £20,000 ($26,400). Movement in returns can be quick, too. Faith XLVII, who appeared this year in Moniker’s installation room, initially exhibited in 2014 with works for sale at £3,000 ($3,960) that are now sold for twice the price. C215 began in 2012 with works at £2,000 ($2,640) that now sell at £10,000–20,000 ($13,200–26,400). Clearly, then, there are gains to be made, but curatorial nous is needed. The success of fairs like Moniker can be largely attributed to filling those gaps in collectors’ knowledge. And the very public nature of urban art acts as its own form of PR, taking exhibitions onto the streets themselves. We might never see another Banksy, but faith in urban art’s long-term viability has never been stronger.
ZA NE MEYER; ZIPPY D OWNING / COLA BS / FAIT H XLVII; FAITH XLVII; A NDREA C ENTONZE / VES OD
Opposite: 580– 265 BC, in Athens; right: Salus Populi Suprema Lex Esto, on Skid Row, LA – both works by Faith XLVII
Above left: 21.10.15 (deconstruction of a photograph; detail), in Munich; left: 315–307 BC, Detroit – both by Faith XLVII; above: Fili, in Milan, by Vesod
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A DAY WITH THE ARTISAN
Into the groove V I N Y L I S T H E O N LY O P T I O N F O R T R U E M U S I C LOV E R S. WILL HODGKINSON MEETS THE M A ST E R O F A N A LO G U E
WO R DS WILL HODGKINSON
‘We offer the complete audiophile experience, from recording to playback,’ says Darrel Sheinman, who in 2008 left a lucrative career as a maritime security specialist to set up Gearbox, a label, analogue and digital recording studio, mastering facility, vinyl cutting plant, record label and even turntable manufacturer occupying a tiny space in Tileyard Studios in London’s King’s Cross. Gearbox is filled with the kind of equipment that helped make Sgt Pepper great: an ultrarare 1969 Studer H37 valve-powered tape machine, a 1959 Telefunken mixing desk, the same 1967 Scully lathe Blue Note cut their jazz classics on, and an EMT 948 turntable that was formerly owned by BBC’s Bush House, widely considered the best ever made. If you want to record your music, have it taped and mastered on high-end equipment, pressed onto vinyl and have somewhere to hear the finished product, Gearbox is the place. ‘After the maritime security became a bit too dangerous, I just thought, I want to do something I really love,’ says Sheinman, who went into vinyl production after seeing poorquality records flood the reissue market. ‘In 2008 I secured the rights to sessions recorded at the BBC by [British jazz giants] Tubby Hayes and Joe Harriott. It kicked off from there.’ Sheinman built the studio in 2012. Recent releases include a Thelonious Monk taping of a legendary 1963 concert in Copenhagen and an album by the West Virginia jazz-funkers Butcher Brown, recorded live at Gearbox and cut direct to disc on the lathe. Specialising in jazz but stretching into folk and pop, Gearbox is not so much a haven for vinyl elitists as it is a vanguard of audio quality. With both analogue and digital recording and mastering facilities, it is not for vintage purists either. The Gearbox turntable may have a 60s-style valve amplifier, but it also has Bluetooth and wifi. Sheinman sees Gearbox not as a journey into the past but as an opportunity to bring the craftsmanship
Opposite: Darrel reaching for an archive take; this page, from top: mastering engineer Caspar Sutton- Jones at the mastering desk; the studio lathe cutting a groove; Darrel at the mixing desk; the Scully lathe; Darrel overseeing a cut
of making records into the modern age. ‘I bought the Studer H37, and it was so great that I had to build a studio around it,’ he says. ‘[Famed Amy Winehouse producer] Mark Ronson was building a studio next door, so we made a decision to link up, and now a band can record in Mark’s live room and cut direct to disc or tape in here. Only good musicians need apply, because you cannot clean up afterwards. That is the philosophy of Gearbox: to capture music as a snapshot in time. Production here is not about cobbling together bits of samples. It is about getting the right sound.’ Gearbox is, however, operating at a time when the average person is content to listen to music as a tiny digital file on their phone. The luxurious warmth of valve amplifiers may be eulogised by audiophiles, but isn’t this artisanal approach just one big folly? ‘If you listen to a piece of music that is recorded well, mastered well and finished well, and then you compare it to something recorded badly, mastered badly and played back badly, you will appreciate the difference,’ says Sheinman. ‘It’s experiential. You sit there before a great stereo or CD player, and the sound is so much better that you will engage. The challenge is getting people to that point.’ Gearbox is still a bijou concern. On my visit to the cramped studio/mastering facility/ record label, all four lab-coated employees are working within a few feet of each other: one prepares the lathe to cut a master disc, another signs for a shipment of turntables, a third prepares the Studer C37 for a mastering session, and Sheinman is talking to me. But demand is increasing as more people realise just what has been lost in the name of technology and convenience. ‘The goal is simple: to get the best sound possible,’ Sheinman concludes. Gearbox proves that when it comes to making records, as with so much in life, the hand-crafted wins over the mass produced any day of the week.
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MIC HEL JOLY
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That Russia has a love/hate relationship with alcohol is a universal truth. Vodka is its national drink – it’s treated as a medicine, foodstuff and essential part of any social gathering – but that hasn’t stopped successive Russian and Soviet regimes from trying to curtail its consumption or introduce outright bans. The tsars began prohibition in 1914, and the Communists embraced it, initially to preserve grain supplies and later to turn drunken peasant labourers into Stalin’s factory workers. Russians turned instead to home brewing and distilling, and bootleg hooch flooded cities along with the rural migrants that were its most enthusiastic market. State-controlled alcohol production accounted for a quarter of government income before the 1914 ban; missing the revenue, the Communists began to reintroduce alcohol between 1921 and 1925. Temperance was still periodically promoted, as in this 1970s poster by Vadim Volikov, proclaiming ‘Let Us Get Drunkenness Out of Our Lives!’ When Mikhail Gorbachev came to power in 1985, he ordered a final crackdown on vodka. His measures, which severely restricted sales of vodka, lasted two years and were deeply unpopular. Gorbachev’s successor Boris Yeltsin (famously a drinker) made access to vodka one of his campaign pledges.
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