Wines of the week: 2 creative wines from southern France

2 wines from Château de Gaure, a white (on the left) and a red

I tend to like wines that stand out from the crowd, and, when this happens both by their external apparel and their essence (in other words their flavours) then I tend to like them even more.

Although the labels of the above wines are undoubtedly daring, I do not actually like them very much. Aesthetics is a very personal field, and I find these labels gaudy with all that gold splashed around. This does not prevent these wines from standing out for what they have to say, namely their balance and the intensity of their flavours and aromas. I suppose it can go that way with beauty: it may need a defect or two to show up, as a contrast, a kind of provocation, the marvels of its qualities. One could talk about a "beauty" spot, which mars an otherwise perfect visage, thus lending it an even greater degree of wonder.

Château de Gaure is an estate that lies in the Pyrenean foothills, above the town of Limoux. It has vineyards in two separate appellations: Limoux, which is in the Languedoc region, and another in neighbouring Roussillon. If you want to know more about it, here is the link to their website, unfortunately only in French: http://www.chateaudegaure.com/

Both the wines I tasted can be placed in what I would call the mid-price bracket, as they retail for around 15 euros a bottle in France. Naturally if you usually buy wines which are priced at 30 euros or above, this will seem quite inexpensive. On the other hand, if you never spend more than 10 euros on a bottle, then this price may seem to be the height of wasteful folly. Mid-price is an abstract concept that needs to be linked to your own frame of reference, so I am being a little ego-centric here. 

Neither of these wines has a regional appellation. They are both simply designated "Vin de France". Geographically speaking the white seemingly comes from the Limoux region, and the red from the Roussillon, but the producer is not allowed to mention this fact on the labels as he has not obtained the regional seal of approval for some technical reason. Administration, including wine administration, can be ridiculously rigid in France and here is another example of the "tall poppy syndrome", whereby wines that are far superior to most others from a particular appellation are refused their "agrément" (in other words the authorization to call themselves by their geographical appellation) because they stand out above the crowd. In this case it would seem to be due to a little excess residual sugar in the wines, yet this in no way mars what to me appear as well-balanced and quite delicious wines. Gaure is not the only estate to have had their wines rejected by officialdom in this way, as they have many illustrious collegues. Isn't it about time that local potentates stopped meddling and allowed winemakers to produce the wines they see fit to produce, letting markets decide whether the wines are "good" or not? 

What impressed me about both the wines I tasted was their intensity and balance. The white (which is called Oppidum on the hard-to-read back label) is made from a blend of chardonnay, chenin blanc and mauzac. Even served a little too warm it feels deeply crisp and fresh through its strong acidity that gives it great backbone. The fruit flavours are luscious with just a tad of sweetness on the palate, but totally free from any heaviness. In fact the finish is dry in a slightly chalky way, just surrounded by the sensation of ripe fruit.

The red, named Pour mon Père (meaning "For my Father"), uses a blend of Carignan, Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre. It is very vibrant with intense flavours of berry fruit that have a spicy, stony edge to them. Its balance hovers between fruit and structure. In fact it is is more taught than luscious and should keep well, provided that this wine remains stable. I say this because both the white and the red seemed a little gassy, causing their corks to come out with a pop when the bottles were re-opened after a couple of days in the fridge for a second tasting.

I expect that the white should be drunk young for the sheer pleasure it provides now. The red has the capacity to keep well for a few years, with the reserve mentioned above about its stability in time.

Who are you?

This blog has now been going for 7 months, so I decided to have a look at the statistics that Google generously provide. These are available to us bloggers on a daily basis, and with a considerable degree of detail. I occasionally take a look at them, and I suddenly thought that it might be of interest to you readers to have some idea of who you are (at least where you come from), and what have been the most visited posts on this blog.

Firstly I would like to thank you all for visiting, and a few of you for having become followers. I had no idea when I started this that there would be as many of you as this. Maybe there could be some more followers, but one cannot have everything!

Of course one can construe statistics in all kinds of ways. Didn't a famous British Prime Minister once say: "there are three kinds of lies; lies, damn lies and statistics, and the worst of the three is the last kind."? In the case of a blog like this one, which talks of a wide variety of topics, statistics probably owe as much to hasard as to any deliberate attempt to reach a particular audience. I have no real idea how blog articles become known, and therefore I have never done anything to "tweak" the results or the figures. I am sure that some specialist could give me tips on this, but I am not sure that I want to go this way. In fact I am perfectly happy for people just to discover this blog and either stay with it regularly, visit it occasionally, or move on if they are not interested at all. It is not a commercial operation and therefore I have no interest in boosting the numbers of those who visit (apart from boosting my own ego of course!).

Here we go with a round-up of the various hit parades:

First of all, over 50,000 pages of More than just wine have been visited since I published my first article in mid October 2010. I should add that my own visits are naturally excluded from all these figures. Things started very slowly and then grew steadily to the point when the number of visitors per month currently stands at 10,500, and the number of countries concerened continues to grow.

1). Countries who have provided the most visitors (and the numbers of these)  
USA: 9650
France (where I live): 7345
India: 6520
UK: 5576
Canada: 1505
Germany: 1445
Spain: 1383
Australia: 1032
Lebanon: 755
Italy: 701

2). Most popular articles, their section on the blog and the number of visits
Cricket World Cup (the sports page): 6954
As time goes by (life and that): 1698
Steve McQueen (life and that): 1679
Down the Loire to Nantes (places to go): 1653
Bordeaux the magnificent (places to go): 1330
Isle of Man TT course with Guy Martin anybody? (motorbikes and other objects): 1177
Infinity in art (painting and stuff): 1172
Sachin Tendulkar, a great cricket player (the sports page): 1064
Billie is best (sounds good): 1008
New Year's bike resolution (motorbikes and other objects): 995
Photography and its influence on painting (painting and stuff): 911

3). Articles which have sollicited the most comments  
Cross-dressing ancestors (life and that): 19 comments
Why the term "natural" wine is absurd (wine, vin and vino): 17
Wines that are different (wine, vin and vino): 16
Work while you sleep (life and that): 15
Rugby 6 nations: what counts most (the sports page): 15
Let's crunch again (the sports page): 14
Girls on motorcycles 4 (motorbikes and other objects): 13

Attentive readers will probably note the extraordinary popularity of the article on the recent Cricket World Cup, which was won by India, one of the host countries. This is very clearly linked to the third place now held by India in terms of visiting countries of origin. Imagine what might happen should I ever choose to write about some joyful event in China.

Now for all of you who have had the patience to read all this useless information, here is a little present. Remember the title? Does it remind you of something? Those were the days....

The almost abstract beauty of Bordeaux wine architecture

A couple of recent visits to Bordeaux impressed me, once again, with the care and attention to detail that has been taken, over recent years, in terms of archicture, its details and its restoration, and the art works that are now part of the decor of so many Bordeaux châteaux that you visit. Sure they have the money to do this. But they also have the taste to do things right, and this doesn't happen everywhere. There is something that seemes to have always linked top Bordeaux wines to architecture. This aspect is part and parcel of their brand image, and one only has to look at a few labels to see this. In this case, the 5 first growths, only one doesn't have a building on its label (Mouton Rothschild).

Over recent years, considerable investments have been made to pursue this connection between art, architecture, and the wine estates of Bordeaux. Here are a few images to prove my point, and there are so many more examples...

This is a secondary building on the estate of Château Labegorce, in Margaux

This a a painting by the Spanish artist Tapies, hung in the old winery at Château Lynch Bages, Pauillac. The hanging of this exhibition is perfect and fits in so well with the place.

And below are a couple of details from the same place...

The ones below were taken at Château La Louvière, in the Graves region (Pessac-Leognan)

Visiting top Bordeaux châteaux these days can be likened to visiting an art gallery, and the wines are usually very good too. Only problem is I cannot afford them any more !

all photos by David Cobbold

Seal and soul

I have been enjoying the Soul album (that is the title) of the Nigerian-born singer Seal for some time now. This is one of my favourite titles on the album, which is comprised of retakes of (mostly) classic soul hits. This one is by Sam Cooke, another all-time great. Soul lives! And you should also hear Seal's retakes of some Otis Redding numbers. Totally respectful and yet totally individual. The man is very good.

STAND BY ME -SEAL Vidéo lorlive57 sélectionnée dans Musique

When the night has come
And the land is dark
And the moon is the only light we'll see
No I won't be afraid, no I won't be afraid
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

So darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh now now stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me

If the sky that we look upon
Should tumble and fall
Or the mountains should crumble to the sea
I won't cry, I won't cry, no I won't shed a tear
Just as long as you stand, stand by me

And darlin', darlin', stand by me, oh stand by me
Stand by me, stand by me, stand by me, yeah

Whenever you're in trouble won't you stand by me, oh now now, stand by me

Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me
Darlin', darlin', stand by me, stand by me
Oh stand by me, stand by me, stand by me

The underdog lives on in rugby

No pictures for this post as the games are too recent for me to be able to find any on the web.

This is just a short and general comment on the three games I watched this weekend. Both the English and the French rugby championships are now in their final phases or have finished.

The English championship final was played yesterday (Saturday) between the Leicester Tigers and the Saracens, from London. It was a replay of last years final between the same two teams, but this time the Saracens won, having made most of the play and then by just hanging on in an interminable last sequence, defending courageously their goal line against incessant pick and go pummelling by Leicester. Until then however the match had been, for the most part, very pleasant to watch and Saracens deserved their win, showing far more initiative and play than Leicester, who were solid but very uninspired favourites for this game. This is the first time the London team has won an English championship.

The French final will be played next Saturday. It will be between Toulouse, who convincingly beat Clermont, last year's champion, in the semi-final payed on Friday evening, and Montpellier, surprising victors of Racing Metro, one of the two Paris teams. The latter was a heart-stopper of a game that saw Montpellier win by just one point (26/25) right at the end of the game. Clearly the underdogs, they also showed more flair and, finally, guts to believe in their chances to the finish. They dominated the first half before Racing pulled back and went ahead in the second half, looking to have the game tied up 5 minutes from the end. Montpellier never gave up however and deserved their victory.

So out of the three games, two were won by the underdogs. I like the message that this delivers for sport and for the rest.

Toulouse are clear favourites for the French final. They will have had one more day to recuperate than Montpellier. They also have huge experience of final stage of top competitions, as well as a very cohesive team. But Montpellier, unless they have exhausted themslves in yesterday's game where they gave just about everything, could cause another upset. They have nothing to lose and have shown that they can beat any team in France this year, provided they manage to hold their discipline, clearly their weak point. 

When does life become still?

First an apology to regular followers of this blog for not having posted much recently. It must seem as if I have been trying to illustrate today's title. In fact my life has been far from still on the professional front over recent weeks, and hence I have had little time to write articles and put together images.

Walking past an art gallery window late last night and seeing a fine Dutch still life in the window triggered off a thought process about this theme for painters.

Why is it called "still" life? I suppose because the objects being painted could not move of their own accord. So why call it "life" then? Surely living things move? The French call this genre "nature morte", which literally means "dead nature". In a way a more accurate term, although perhaps a little morbid.

I suppose by far the greatest masters of this painting subject have been 17th century Dutch painters such as Willem Kalf (above and below). One can but admire not only the incredible technical mastery of this work, but also the beauty of the colours and the subtlety of the composition. Dead nature? No way! Just the joy of looking at fine (or simple) objects and feeling through one's eyes the textures, colours and shapes as surely as if one was touching, smelling or tasting them.

A contemporary Dutch painter called Karl Zipser somehow perpetuates this tradition with his photographic-like yet very refined paintings of fruit that have a magical sense of stillness and timelessness about them.

 

Between these dates, and in a different spirit, we have the equally powerful work of Paul Cézanne, who produced, around the turn of the 19th and 20th century, dozens of paintings and drawings of (mainly) apples which are quite exemplary in the way they give life to the suject, not trying to copy nature, but to create another form of object with a life of its own on the canvas or the sheet of paper.

Not only does the technique of painting change here, there is also a shift in the conventions of composition: for instance, in the painting above, when the plate with biscuits is allowed to break out of the frame on the right, or the Japanese influenced use of space. And there is also the simplicity of the setup, close to that of the painters own life.

And you do not have to "finish" a painting or make the surface smooth to give it an incredibly intense "reality" of its own. This man is a master!

Next time you eat some fruit, think of these....

  

The Gironde estuary, near Bordeaux

Crossing the Gironde by the ferry that takes you from Lamarque (between Margaux and Saint Julien), on the left bank, to Blaye on the right bank. The currents alter the colour of the water, brownish yellow from the silt on the banks to grey-blue as one encounters deeper water in the centre of the estuary. It is down this stretch of water that the wines of Bordeaux built their history, travelling via the Atlantic at the mouth of the estuary to markets further north. 

The most beautiful motorcycle ever made?

I am doing this partly for those of you who have not already seen this machine (ie, those who do not get Bike Exif or Southsiders or le Dépassionné, or maybe other bike-orientated blogs that circulate). I am also doing it because, depite the fact that I am not necessarily a fan of show bikes, which are often all show and no go, I find this machine so beautifully made and designed that it just takes my breath away.

This Falcon one-off is a totally hand-built remake of the legendary Vincent Black Shadow, with just about everything except the engine (and that has been carefully rebuilt with performance parts) specifically designed and made using modern materials, whilst remaining inspired by original Vincent parts. It is as much a piece of sculpture as it is a motorcycle. I have no idea how it rides, and it looks as if one should not attempt more than a few miles on it at one time, but it just looks so.....

Notes

1. For some reason, I am not able to enlarge these pictures, which came from the Bike Exif site. Maybe this will change and I can let you see more detail in the future.

2. The last picture shows the bike without the fuel tank so that you can admire the frame and general set-up. It is delivered with a second, larger fuel tank as well as the one in the first picture.

3. It is produced by Falcon motorcycles, in California: a company set up to built just ten individual bikes at a rate of one per year, each one based on a "classic" bike from the past. 

http://www.falconmotorcycles.com/

4. I have no idea how much it costs, but certainly a small fortune. The owner is a lucky person.

end of rugby season blues

Given the image above, taken at a recent Stade Français versus Agen game at the Charlety stadium in Paris, another suitable title for this article could well be "The blues of a Stade Français supporter".

Indeed, I have 2 good reasons to have those good old rugby blues at the moment. The team I have supported for a number of years, because I live in Paris and walked to the old Jean Bouin stadium to see games, has seemingly lost, we hope temporarily, that mysterious ingredient that one could name its "soul and spirit", as well as quite a slice of its rugby skills. It is also, seemingly, losing players faster than it is acquiring new ones. This is largely due to financial difficulties which I hope will be temporary.

The national French Premeier League, called Top 14, is drawing to its final stages with just the semi-finals and the final to be played. Stade Français was nowhere near qualifying for this phase, and in fact finished at a miserable 11th position out of 14, its lowest since it regained the top division (and won the championship) in 1998. It has since been French champion another 4 times.  Well, the wheel turns, and you cannot win all the time, but the performances of Stade Français Paris have usually been quite dispiriting to watch this year.

The team has however managed to limp into the final of the Amlin Challange, a kind of second division European cup, where it will play the London team of Harlequins, which ironically was the team I supported when I lived in London years ago. The game will be played next Friday evening in Wales, and, to be honest, I would not put any money on Stade Français to win this game, especially as the Quins went and beat Munster in Ireland in the semi-final.

So I have those end-of-season rugby blues, double dose. Yet I will watch and cheer my team in front of a TV screen in some bar or pub in Bordeaux where I have to be this coming weekend. I will also try to wach the other games to come, both the Heineken Cup (the prime European cup, whose final will be between Leinster and Northampton), as well as the three final stage games of the French championship. I just love watching this game, as much as I enjoyed playing it.

People ask me why I don't change allegiance and support the Metro Racing team (the other top Paris rugby team). Well, although I have a lot of respect for that team and enjoy seeing them play, I do have some loyalty and I will remain a Stade Français supporter, despite the current hard times. I mean do you just give up and stop playing because you are losing a game? And, when the new Jean Bouin will finally get built, I can again walk to see my games of rugby. 

wine in Luxemburg

I was recently in Luxemburg to be a judge at a major international wine competition (the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles, which is a very well-organsied event) and I had a little spare time to visit some of the vineyards and one of the producers. Actually this is by far the largest producer, a cooperative wine cellar whose production accounts for some two thirds of the wine from this tiny country. Unfortunately it is, by what I tasted, far from being the best, but at least I was able to get a look at the often spectacular vineyards that lie along the left bank of the Mosel river, even if I was appalled by the percentage of them still being "dealt with" in terms of weed control by chemicals.

I am not a fanatic of the "all organic" approach, but I do believe that soils should be properly cared for. I also know these vineyards are very steep, but there must have been other techniques in use before the discovery of this chemical and seemingly lazy approach since the vineyards here are very old.

A Luxemburg Mosel vineyard which uses the old single stake system, but whose soil has unfortunately been turned into a kind of dead concrete by constant use of weedkiller and no work on the soil.

The wines that come from vineyards like the one above are not exactly fascinating! Most of what is produced at this cooperative is sparkling wine. These appear to win plenty of medals at international competitions like the one for which I was judging, but I did find the ones that I tasted during my visit there particularly underwhelming. Maybe they have other stuff available.

peace along the border, looking across the Mosel towards Germany

 

The Mosel at this point forms the border between Luxemburg and Germany. Rising in France, it continues into Germany and many very fine wines come from the spectacular slopes that rise above it, north of the town of Trier. But, for the moment, I must say that the wines of Luxemburg are a bit of an enigma to me. I have yet to taste one that really inspires me, although I did try a few very decent still white wines and an good rosé made from pinot noir. Maybe I did not try the best, or perhaps producers here are a bit lazy, given the relative ease with which thy can sell their produce in the local market.

 

Marketing gadgets seem, at times, to take pride of place over quality wine-making

At least they make wines, as the pipes on the tanks say so...

and wine knows no frontiers, as we should know...

 

all photographs by David Cobbold