Wine and Travel E-Notes-April 2008
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 Photos from Bordeaux and Burgundy

We just spent a fabulous week meeting old and new friends in Bordeaux and Burgundy.  Here are a couple of photos from our trip.  The first is with Frederic, sommelier from Chateau Lafite Rothschild.  We're tasting a lovely vintage in the impressive barrel room.  The second was a fun day watching the bottling at Chateau Lynch Bages; where they explained that even though the image of the chateau on the labels on their red production always seems the same, there are slight variations every year to combat counterfeit merchandise (a growing problem in the industry).  The third image is Pierre, my husband, in front of the famous vineyards of the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti in Burgundy, the mythic site for many and considered the most expensive parcel of real estate in the world!  Do you have photos from one of our tours?  Please send them to info@wine-tours-france.com if you would like to share them with our subscribers!

VISITING THE CHAMPAGNE REGION

Mary Kirk-Bonnet, Wine Expert Guide for French Wine Explorers

Champagne: the word itself conjures up images of effervescence, luxury and celebration!  It's the drink of choice for the most memorable moments in our lives-marriages, promotions, the passing into a new year. With this in mind, visiting the Champagne region, for many, is like taking a pilgrimage to this unique place where dreams are made. Most visitors already have a favourite brand that they enjoy sipping and can't wait to discover the birthplace of their special bubbly. The Champagne region is only a 75 minute drive from Paris, and makes for a nice day trip from the French capital. It is also a wine region where one can easily spend a few days, exploring the beauty of the hillsides, discovering the rich local history, enjoying its warm hospitality and tasting wonderful champagne-what could be better?!

Most of the bigger Champagne houses are located in either Reims or Epernay. Reims is a larger town which was badly bombed during World War I. It is also home to one of the most beautiful French Gothic cathedrals, Notre Dame de Reims, a site where many French kings were coronated. Epernay is a smaller, champagne-producing town south of Reims that has its own charm including the impressive "Avenue de Champagne", a sort of "Champs Elysées" of Champagne houses. Visiting a larger champagne house located in one of these two towns is a required stop to gain a full appreciation of champagne production. Since champagne is identified with luxury, visits to these larger houses are most often quite elegant affairs with guides in designer clothing giving tours through impressively large aging cellars, short movies or talks that describe the champagne making process and fancy tasting rooms where visitors can enjoy flutes of the bubbly elixir. One quickly understands how the major houses have created the worldwide success champagne is famous for, from important technological contributions to the trade to global marketing campaigns.  Visitors are always impressed walking through the miles of underground galleries, carved right into the chalky subsoil-some quarries even dating from Roman times!  Seeing the millions of bottles of champagne stacked up, slowly aging in these dark, slightly humid cellars is quite awe-inspiring-but its also true that one starts to grasps, perhaps for the first time, the sheer volumes that are produced by the big-name brands-and one can't help to think of how automated and industrialized the wine making process might be, even though the end-product can be very qualitative.  

There is another side to the Champagne region which offers a different experience and deserves equal attention from visitors who are truly passionate about champagne.  This is the world of artisanally-produced grower champagne. While the large champagne houses buy the majority of the grapes they need from growers to produce their champagne, there are over 5000 grape growers in Champagne, of whom just over 2000 produce and bottle their own champagne. These winegrowers are located in the picturesque villages that dot the following four main Champagne regions:

-the Montagne de Reims vineyards are located on a plateau between Reims and Epernay. Pinot Noir finds its terroir of choice here. Growers who have their vines in famous villages such as Bouzy, Aÿ, and Ambonnay often produce powerful, vinous champagnes.

-the Cote des Blancs ("white hillsides") vineyards are located south of Epernay. These vineyards are especially suited to the white Chardonnay grape. Flower-filled villages such as Oger, Mesnil sur Oger, and Cramant, are surrounded by hillsides that provide excellent exposure for the chardonnay vines. Many elegant and fresh 100% Chardonnay champagne (Blanc de Blanc) are produced in this region.  

-the Vallée de la Marne (Marne Valley) vineyards are planted on the hillsides which follow the Marne river valley and run westward from Chateau Thierry to Epernay. Pinot Meunier is the main grape planted here, although you can also find Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.  Champagnes that are majority Pinot Meunier tend to be fleshy and fruity. There are many champagne-producing villages such as Cumières, Oeuilly or the picturesque village of Hautvillers, with its impressive, plunging views of the vineyards down below.  

-the Cote des Bar, (Bar hillsides) vineyards are located south-east of the town of Troyes on the pleasant hills surrounding grape growers' villages and are mostly planted with the Pinot Noir grape, with a bit of Chardonnay. The typical village of Les Riceys is where the rare Rosé des Riceys, a still rosé appellation in Champagne, is produced.   

In order to get a complete view of the world of serious champagne production, it is essential to get "out of town" and into the vineyards. Driving through the different regions of Champagne takes the visitor through beautiful rolling landscapes with rows of planted vines, charming villages and into the homes of hospitable and passionate champagne producers!  The winegrower or a family member will often be the one to welcome visitors. They are keen to share with you their knowledge and passion of the champagne they produce (with simultaneous translation from your sommelier-guide, if needed-of course!).  At different estates, you can see modern pneumatic presses as well as traditional wooden presses, hand-riddling tables and gyropalettes (modern machines which automate the riddling step), and stainless steel, concrete or wooden vats. Visitors witness a mixture of tradition and modernity at these family-owned estates-properties passed on from generation to generation and that tell a story.

Being out in the villages also gives you the chance to walk through the adjoining vineyards, touch the soil and chalk, study the hillsides that the vines are planted on with their varied exposures and learn about the different climatic influences and how they affect the vines. You can observe a mosaic of terroirs that exist and gain a better understanding of how the three grape varieties of Champagne: Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Chardonnay can express themselves so differently according to where and by whom they are planted. In grower-producer champagne, a specific terroir expresses itself in the wine-similar to what you find in other great wine-producing regions.  Champagne lovers appreciate the authenticity and originality of these wines, born from a unique terroir and individual personality.  

The big brands of Champagne and the grower-producers co-exist in a kind of synergy here. The houses need grapes from the growers and the smaller winegrowers need the publicity and image campaigns of the larger houses to make their product known-both sides are winners. What they have in common is the place where champagne is born.This wine region which offers visitors diverse types of wine touring experiences. Whether one wants to explore the prestigious world of big champagne houses or the more down-to earth side of a grower-producer's home, you can find what you are looking for, and more, in this is a delightful region not be overlooked by wine enthusiasts or those new to wine. Come discover where the magic of champagne begins-in all its extravagance and sincerity!   Spaces still left on our Burgundy/Champagne tour in May, for more information, please click here  Burgundy/Champagne Prestige  

Private day tours to the wine regions
Led by our wine expert guides, this is a great way to experience our superlative service.  We now offer day tours in most of the wine regions for those with limited time, in port in a wine region during a cruise, or just looking to do something different. Our guests benefit from our wine expert guides' extensive knowledge of French wine, and intimate, first-hand knowledge of all that the French wine regions have to offer. Find your dream day tour here:  Private Day Excursions

Bordeaux Futures-a different perspective

By Dewey Markham, Jr. Wine Expert Guide for French Wine Explorers

Each spring, Bordeaux becomes the focus of attention when it stages a gathering unique in the world of wine: its futures tastings. A long-standing tradition in the local trade, this is now an occasion which has greatly evolved from its almost confidential origins. Other regions have events where the wine trade and the outside world come together for a special event, such as Burgundy's Hospice de Beaune each November, but for its large scale and commercial significance Bordeaux is in a class of its own.

From its role as an annual, mercantile ritual, the futures tasting has become a major event that is a mixture of hard-nosed commerce and professional pastime. Formerly a closed-world affair, now thousands of people from around the world converge on the Bordeaux region for a concentrated week of wine tasting.

The practice of sampling the new vintage is centuries old and closely linked with the winemaking process itself. Here's a brief, basic timetable to better understand why: in September the grapes are picked; alcoholic fermentation lasts into October; November sees the winemakers putting their red wines through a second, malolactic fermentation (the process by which a wine's sharp malic acid is transformed to a smoother lactic acid); in December the winemakers taste the various lots and make a preliminary decision to decide which are good enough to become the château's best wine; in January the wine is transfered into barrels, and three months later it has finished its first racking which renders the wine less cloudy than when it first went into oak.

Now, at last, the wine is far enough into its aging to be tasted for the first time for some accurate idea of its ultimate quality. Formerly, half-bottle samples would leave the châteaux and make their way to the Bordeaux brokers and négociants, who would develop an idea of each wine's commercial worth. After some haggling between the châteaux and the négociants (with the useful intercession of the brokers to help the two sides reach a fair price), the wine would be sold.

Today, the same process continues and the futures tastings are still the method by which a wine's initial price is set. The difference today, however, is that Bordeaux's 400 négociants and 60 brokers are not the only ones who get to taste the young wine; many "outsiders" have become take part in the game as well. They come to Bordeaux to get a first impression of wines they will not see again for another two years.

This opening up of the futures tastings began several decades ago as an interest in wine grew among drinkers in numerous new markets around the world, such as the United States, Japan and Southeast Asia. Now thousands of importers, distributors, sommeliers, retailers and, perhaps most important of all, journalists come to Bordeaux during the first week of April. For the most recent vintages, 5,000 people came each year to make the rounds of tastings held throughout the region.

The major event is the tasting staged by the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, the organization created in 1973 and today brings together over 120 of the region's most prestigious châteaux. These estates are the elite of the wine world, closely followed by dedicated Bordeaux lovers and even those who are just beginning to develop an appreciation for the region.

The UGC, as the group is often called, has had to adapt to the ever-increasing interest in its invitation-only tasting--although the plural tastings would be more accurate since the event is now spread over the entire Bordeaux region.

Getting 5,000 people into one venue to taste all the UGC wines would be impossible--there is no space big enough to welcome such a large crowd. Thus, the tastings are organized by appellation or by region, where one château with the necessary space will be the staging area for all the UGC wines from that area.

The host châteaux change from year to year in order to evenly distribute the organization of such a large-scale operation, but the method is always the same: if tasters wish to try the wines from, say, Pauillac, they must go to the château showcasing the UGC wines for that appellation. There, owners or representatives from each château will be waiting to pour samples of their new wines and answer questions about the vintage.

Then, should tasters wish to try the wines from Sauternes, for example, they must drive down to there for a similar experience. It's the same story for Saint-Emilion: a drive there is the prerequisite for sampling those UGC wines. It is understandable that each year's event requires the better part of a week; it would be impossible to cover all of Bordeaux in a single day.

Because the UGC tastings draw so many people to Bordeaux, other châteaux have used the opportunity to stage their own events which bring their wines to the attention of these influential visitors. Thus, individual appellations like Saint-Emilion Grand Cru and the Côtes de Castillon offer tasters the chance to get a fuller idea of how successful the vintage is. (The Castillon tasting is a particular favorite among those who have not had their fill of wine for the day: it's an informal evening event held at a local restaurant with a generous offering of hors d'œuvres and good jazz.)

The first week of April is an exciting time to be in Bordeaux for any wine enthusiast. Not only does it offer the opportunity to personally experience such great wines, but as an added plus it allows drinkers to form their own impressions of the vintage before the major magazines have weighed in with their opinions. In this way, when the wines finally wend their way through the distribution chain to local retailers who offer their customers futures weeks later, the process of buying a case or two becomes less of a leap of faith and more of an informed purchase.

Learn more about the futures frenzy while staying in a private chateau on our Bordeaux Prestige Tour in May, please click here for more information: Bordeaux Prestige Tour.

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