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September, 2002
This month's wine explorations:
The popularity of our Best of Bordeaux tours continues; in fact our May 2003 tour is already sold out. However, if you've been dreaming of tasting at the top chateaus of Bordeaux, including the fabled First Growths, you still have another chance to join us in 2003. From July 20-26, we'll present essentially the same itinerary as our May 2003 tour, including tastings at the most prestigious chateaus like
Latour, Margaux, Haut-Brion, Mouton Rothschild and others. Tours of the chateaus are extensive, often lasting 1 1/2 hours, and tastings are done both in barrel and in bottle - this is a great opportunity to try the latest vintages to see if you want to buy futures! Between
tastings, you'll enjoy fantastic gourmet meals in some of the region's best restaurants. Accommodations are at the elegant Hotel de Normandie in downtown Bordeaux, and are available in both 3 star and 4 star classes.
For more information, please see our Best of Bordeaux web page
Full schedule of wine tours for 2003
When buying French wines, many people rely on vintage charts to tell them what were the "best" years. Then they buy only wines from these years. As a sommelier, I believe that you're missing out if you buy only the so-called "best" years. To start, it's important to understand what makes a year good or not. It's a matter of weather: the weather has to be hot, sunny and dry in the last part of the growing season, roughly August and September, to bring grapes to full maturity and keep rot and fungus from growing and damaging the grapes. But the winegrower and the winemaker also contribute to making the best, or the worst, of the existing conditions and harvest. Even in the "best" years, some winemakers will work better than others, producing better quality wine than their neighbors. The existence of microclimates within a wine region can cause some areas to produce extremely well while others produce less well. It is therefore too simplistic to think that a "great" year is great everywhere in a region (especially in such a vast region like Bordeaux), and consistently great from one estate to another. That's why the vintage charts are really only good as a basic guideline.
Usually, the great years are those that can be aged, and in fact, need to be aged to be appreciated. So what does one drink while one is waiting for those great wines to reach their optimum maturity? How about a "lesser" year! Just because there are "great" years, that doesn't mean that all the other years were terrible. They may also have been excellent, but perhaps the aging potential is less, so they'll be ready to drink sooner. Of course, the final reason to not only buy the great years has to do with the realities of one's pocketbook. Most of us can't afford to drink only 1990 Château Lafite Rothschild all the time. A good tactic is to buy the "lesser" years (I prefer to say "less great") of the major chateaus, and the best years of the second or third tier chateaus. In some places in France, like the Southern Rhône Valley, there are few bad years - the weather is so sunny, dry and hot in August and September that the wines are consistently good from year to year, so you don't have to worry so much about vintage (except perhaps for 2002, due to unusual catastrophic flooding that has devestated this year's grape harvest). In this day and age, the existance of modern oenology (wine science) has all but banished the occurence of bad years.
We are pleased to announce our collaboration with Food & Wine Magazine's Connoisseur Club for our Cooking and Wine in Provence program, April 23-29, 2003. We'll be making two special offers to Connoisseur Club members for this great week of gastronomic exploration in southern France: a 10% discount on the price of the tour, and a special gift basket filled with Provençal goodies and an autographed copy of one of chef Tamara Milstein's best-selling cookbooks.
YOU can benefit from this special offer by signing up to become a Connoisseur Club member. Just go to their web site, and follow the simple instructions. The $49.95 one-year membership fee will be covered many times over by the savings you'll perceive on our Cooking & Wine program. It's a great deal, so don't miss out!
More information about Cooking & Wine in Provence 2003.
In keeping with this month's Bordeaux emphasis, I thought I'd talk about a new favorite appellation of mine. Montagne Saint Emilion is one of the "satelites" of the Saint Emilion appellation, found on the famous "Right Bank" of Bordeaux, just to the north of the Dordogne river in the area called the Libournais. The satelites are four distinct appellations to the northeast of Saint Emilion: Puissegain Saint Emilion, Saint Georges Saint Emilion, Lussac Saint Emilion, and finally Montagne Saint Emilion, which is built on a small hill (not really a mountain, but the highest point in this area). Montagne is a particularly qualitative appellation, producing wines that, while lacking the complexity and concentration of the best Saint Emilion's, can be quite appealing, great with food, and a terrific value. They are made mostly from Merlot, like Saint Emilion wines, with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc in the blend as well. The wines have supple tannins, great fruit and, at their best, an elegance approaching that of a good quality Saint Emilion. As is always the case in any region, you can find excellent producers in any appellation, as well as bad ones - for that reason, I've had some pretty mediocre Saint Emilions, and some pretty exceptional Montagne Saint Emilions.
Montagne Saint Emilion goes great with steak, lamb chops - grilled meats that do not have heavy sauces (reserve your better Saint Emilions for those). Aromas of black currants, forrest floor, leather and vegetation make a nice complement to an aromatic beef stew, for example. A good one to try is Vieux Château Saint André. I recently had a 1997, which was drinking very nicely and probably will drink well for another 2 years or so. In about 2 years, watch also for Château Acapella, a new "garage" producer who is just now harvesting his first vintage, and promises to be a winner.
An interesting site about the satelites of Saint Emilion.
If you see one of our itineraries that you'd love to take, but the dates just don't work for you, we can customize it and do it for you as a private wine tour on your dates! All you have to do is get a minimum of 4 people together, and you're all set. Choose your dates and the region(s) you'd like to visit, and we'll take care of all the details, from transportation to gourmet meals to fine hotels. You'll be accompanied throughout by one of our bilingual wine expert guides, who will give you lots of great information about the regions and their wines, and offer you the best customer service from beginning to end. Of course, tastings at the best wineries in France will be the main activity, but we can also include local sights of interest, cooking classes, and some free time to just relax if you like.
For wine and gourmet clubs and societies, a group tour can be the highlight of your yearly activities. We can schedule special tastings and classes appropriate for those who have a higher level of wine and food interest and knowledge, to challenge your members to learn more while enjoying a relaxing and fun gastronomic adventure in France.
More information is available here.
Until next month's explorations . . .
Best regards,
Please contact us for more information about our wine tour programs:
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