Loire near Sancerre: Narioo will change its course for London!

I saw Eric Narioo, le grand fromage of Les Caves de Pyrène and also one of the movers behind restaurants/wine bars Brawn and Terroir, at the Oddbins CVA meeting. Eric arrived slightly late, heard the announcement that HMRC were not supporting the CVA and left. Fortunately Les Caves are only in for £7138.87.

As Eric left he told me briefly about a new eating place venture that they plan to open in October, which will feature only food and wine from the Loire. "We will be bringing the Loire to London from the Auvergne right down to Nantes.'

I hope to get more details from Eric soon.

Further downstream: Loire@Saumur

Confluence of the Loire and Vienne@Candes Saint Martin (above and below)

Domaine de Bablut: Chenin Blanc mid-October 2009 raisins dorés and start of botrytis

3rd October 2009

1970 Clos du Bourg Moelleux

CRM's birthday so we have a few friends around to help us try a few bottles. We started with the 1970 Clos du Bourg Moelleux, Vouvray, Gaston Huet. Golden coloured, lightly sweet, honeyed with a wonderful fresh minerality. Certainly not a wine to serve with a dessert but perfect as an apéritif accompanied by canapés of home-made chicken liver paté. There was a view that this was starting to dry out but I think that came from a misapprehension that this was once much sweeter than it is now. Not sure whether we have anymore 1970 but I'm confident that it will keep a considerable while yet.

1976 Le Haut-Lieu Moelleux

Also for the apéritif we had the 1976 Le Haut-Lieu Moelleux, Vouvray, Gaston Huet. As the 1976 is richer than the 1970, I served this second. Despite the level being down an inch or so the 1976 was still fine – honeyed, quite rich and long lasting – a little deeper in colour to the 1970 but neither show their age. Both were lovely but my preference would go to the 1970 because of its precise minerality, which is a signature of wines from the Clos du Bourg. Having more clay at Le Haut Lieu the wines tend to be a little heavier without quite the finesse of Le Mont and Le Clos du Bourg. Both bottles were bought in the early 1980s.

1989 Selections des Grains Nobles, Domaine des Aubuisières, Bernard Fouquet

After this we moved away from the Loire until the dessert – a couple of fruit tarts from the excellent Serge Granger in Montrichard. The 1989 SGN from Bernard Fouquet is now showing well. Unlike the 1990s, the 1989s went through a long dumb stage from which they have now emerged . The 89 SGN has very attractive apricot and honeyed fruit with refreshing mineral acidity in the finish. It was best on its own – not quite rich enough for the tarts. Perhaps Le Marigny – the richer cuvée would have been a better choice.

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The day before (2nd October) we had had an impromptu tour of the Huet cellars when we dropped in to see how the start of the harvest was going. We had just picked up friends, Annie and John, from Tours Airport and Noël kindly suggested that Johan Le Calonnec, who is involved in the direct wine sales from the new tasting room and, very importantly, puts labels on venerable old bottles, would show us round. Here are a few photos.

Johan with Annie – he can now tell jokes in English!

The 62 bottles that remain of the 1936 Moelleux

53 remaining of the 1947

An old wooden press in the higher part of the cellars

Related articles:
The Wine Doctor: Two from Huet dining out winedr.blogspot.com/2009/11/two-from-huet-dining-out.html

Interesting reflections on wine blogging and why do it by Hervé Lalau here on Chroniques Vineuses. Hervé's site is now averaging 500 visitors a day, which is 15,000 a month and around 180,000 a year. There are plenty of wine trade magazines that would be delighted with such a readership.

I have Jim's Loire for many of the same reasons as Hervé cites, especially as it allows me to cover much more and more regularly about La Loire than I have ever been able to do in print. Furthermore the opportunities in the specialist print media in the UK have shrunk as magazines has disappeared or been amalgamated. Jim's Loire allows me to visit producers and for me to be reasonably confident that I will be able to write about them on this blog, although I have to acknowledge that it can be some time after the visit that I have time to write it up. Indeed I'm aware that I have still have to write a number of reports on visits to producers like Pascal Potaire (to be completed), the Puzelats, the Lamberts at Domaine Saint-Just (Saumur) and Antoine Simoneau (Saint-Georges-sur-Cher). Unfortunately (or fortunately) other work gets in the way.

Visits to Jim's Loire average out at around 180 a day over the past four months, which is encouraging as it is still less than 11 months since we launched it.

I have always been amazed by the number of messages I have received and continue to receive from my first website – www.investdrinks.org. I haven't averaged it out but I probably get three or four messages a week at least from people who have been cold called by wine investment companies, emailing me to ask whether the company is legitimate and whether they are being offered a good deal. My advice is never to buy from any wine investment company that calls you out of the blue. If you live in the UK you can block unsolicited cold calls by registering with the Telephone Preference Service, which is a free service.

I'm also staggered by the success of some of these wine investment cold callers, managing to persuade people to write five-figure and, occasionally, six-figure cheques to companies they know little or nothing about and for wines they have sometimes only vaguely heard of and for which they are quite often paying well over the going rate. From time to time there are examples when the cold calling company doesn't even bother to buy the wine – just pockets the money and disappears.

Robert Beynat

Like Hervé I'm convinced by the significance of the net not just for communication but for commerce as well, unlike Robert Beynat, le grand fromage of Vinexpo, who at the press conference at the end of Vinexpo dismissed internet wine sales saying that the net will 'never be anything other than a marginal circuit for sales.' I don't know if this is what Robert really meant to say but it provoked considerable, often biting, comment at the end of this Decanter news story.

This comment gives a flavour
‘Coming from the country that invented the Maginot Line and whose most interesting wine trade group is the quasi-terrorist KRAV, comments like Mr. Beynat's do not surprise me. When French wine production is surpassed by Argentina or Hungary maybe they will start getting it.'
Brendan Chudik, San Francsico’

La Loire and the Château d'Amboise

From today's La Nouvelle République:

'Les Rendez-vous du patrimoine mondial célèbrent jusqu'au 8 juillet le paysage culturel du Val de Loire, avec un temps fort, samedi à Amboise.

Ce sera la fête, samedi 27 juin à Amboise avec l'arrivée à proximité du pont, du radeau « Liger » qui descend le fleuve royal, tel un fil conducteur de ces Rendez-vous du patrimoine mondial. Le programme de la journée comprend plusieurs pôles.

Un village : un village éphémère des patrimoines du Val de Loire accueillera les associations locales, les collectivités territoriales et un marché du terroir pour s'approvisionner avant le pique-nique du soir.'

Further details here in La Nouvelle Republique.

Apparently the grapes from this spectacular but blitzed vineyard go to a leading sparkling wine producer in Saumur
UNESCO World Heritage site!!

Three photos from vineyards at St Georges des Sept Voies (near Gennes on the D751 road to Saint-Jean-de-Mauvrets and towards Angers) have also been blitzed with weedkiller. Some have this year's fashionable orange colour – great for punks' hair but not for vineyards..........

Photos: Cathy Shore