Singers croon about April in Paris, but December is the month for wine lovers. That’s the month of France’s largest wine fair, the Salon National des Vins: Caves Particulieres. Winemakers on holiday and consumers looking for a taste of something new, or something trusted and familiar, generate a convivial atmosphere.
“I don’t come here just to sell my wines,” said Maurice Barthelme of Domaine Albert Mann in Alsace. “I also want to see what the Parisians are doing and go out with friends.”
The late fall fair is a break in a tough winemaking schedule. The harvest is in and the vines are pruned, so someone else can watch over the fermentation temperatures. The winemakers, many with their families, head for Paris.
Hugs and handshakes abounded at Barthelme’s stand and throughout the salon.
“Look at them,” said Confederation President Francois Gerardin, who runs Chateau Le Fage in Bergerac. He was pointing to the crowd. “They’re all smiling! If you’d run into the same people in the Metro, they wouldn’t look the same.”
Consumers were happy with good reason. They were chatting face-to-face with their favorite vintners, trying new wines and loading up their carts with a case or two for home. They weren’t keeping track of how many Parker- or Wine Spectator-approved vintages they’ve tasted.
Famous wines and their makers do attend the salon, but you’d miss a lot by blindly seeking them out.
“I’m not hunting fancy labels,” said M. Desnais, a computer specialist at Case Inc.’s French operations. “Here, all the winemakers put their bottles on the table, and in that way they’re all equal. I taste and I make up my own mind.”
“Factory wines don’t have any charm,” chimed in Jean Delbin, a retired office worker. “I follow my taste and my wallet. The expensive wines aren’t necessarily the best.”
The fair is organized by the National Confederation of Individual Wineries. The members are largely family-owned businesses from more than 250 of France’s wine-producing regions, or appellations. What sets Confederation members apart from cooperatives and bulk wine producers is a charter that requires members to protect the environment, to work and harvest from their own vineyards, to bottle and sell their own wines and receive the public.
The Confederation’s members and many French consumers believe that wine quality suffers at les co-ops, which mix grapes or wines produced by different vineyards. Co-op growers also are accused of tailoring their practices to getting large state subsidies, rather than to making tasty wines.
Seeking out wines with the Confederation logo won’t protect you from disappointing French wines, but it can help you navigate among the more obscure appellations and lesser-known producers.
A visitor needs a strategy to get the most out of the six-day fair, which this year had more than 1,000 vintners, each offering an average of six bottlings. Even the thirstiest visitor can see that the math is daunting: To taste them all, you’d have to taste almost two wines per minute every hour (the fair runs 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.) of every day.
Even if possible (there are spitting buckets at each booth), that approach would leave no time for chatting with the producers, several of whom know some English and all of whom are most gracious in listening to anyone who wants to try out rusty French. You’d also have to forget investigating the foie gras stands or stopping off for some French fast food inside the fairgrounds–smoked duck breast or or pork rillettes spread on a baguette.
The fair abounds with different styles and varieties that never make it to the U.S. market, many of which are rooted in long family traditions. The quality of many moderately priced wines is also striking.
Perhaps the fair’s selection of regional sparkling wines illustrates this diversity. French regional sparklers live in the shadow of Champagne, but some of them are well-made, good-value wines. Others are just simply exotic. The fair offered 56 Alsatian sparkling wines (based on a bounty of grape varieties, such as riesling, pinot blanc or pinot noir), seven sparkling Bordeaux, five Cremant de Die (Rhone), 10 sparkling Jura (from several varieties, including the local poulsard noir and chardonnay), and 19 Cremant de Loire (largely chenin blanc).
The Pineau des Charantes is another example of a familiar French wine rarely sold in America. This fortified wine combines a winemaker’s brandy with unfermented grape juice. The “old” pineaux (aged more than 10 years) can be delightful, with explosive, complex fruit, honey and subtle brandy flavors, making them marvelous aperitifs. Vignoble Grateaud presented outstanding “old” (12 years) and “very old” (18 years) pineaux at the fair.
Many attending the fair use their time to get to know specific regions better. The Rhone Valley is always well-represented, and this year more than 70 Cotes du Rhone and 24 Chateauneuf du Pape producers came.
Winemakers seem to be able to find something good to say about each vintage. Maybe they’re sensitive to the old saw: “There’s never a bad vintage, just bad winemakers.” The broad smiles among all of the Rhone producers, though, spoke volumes about what they thought about their 1998s. Almost all winemakers compared the 1998 wines to the excellent 1990s.
Le Domaine Les Grands Bois, with vineyards in Cairanne, stood out as an exceptional 1998. Some producers reported that their 1998s were being snapped up and would soon disappear from the French market. A good strategy for U.S. consumers might be to try the 1997s, which should be drinkable now, to determine which 1998s are a good bet to buy when they arrive in U.S. stores.
The 1998 Chateauneuf du Pape wines, more expensive than their Cotes du Rhone little brothers, were remarkable. The friendly Coulon family from Domaine de Beaurenard offered a rose, a peppery 1998 Cotes du Rhone Rasteau, a 1998 white Chateauneuf with rich melons and citrus flavors (production is too small to export), red Chateauneufs from 1997 and 1998, and a 1997 special cuvee red, the Boisrenard.
The reds easily lived up to their growing reputations, with a beautiful color and deep blackberry-cherry aromas that follow through in the flavor. The 1997 is more forward and less tannic than the 1998. The 1998 Bosquet des Papes is not yet in the bottle, but Maurice Boiron brought a barrel sample to the fair. The grenache flavors leapt from the glass. If this wine stays together when bottled, it should be an excellent choice for consumers who enjoy exceptionally perfumed wines.
Wine critic Robert Parker has asserted that Alsatian wines remain good value, with only the sweet late-harvest wines fetching stiff prices. The 1998 vintage was difficult in Alsace. Still, Domaine Albert Mann and Vignoble Andre Scherer presented several good 1998s: a gewurztraminer and a riesling, respectively. Alsatian wineries can also be first-class makers of cherry, pear, plum and other fruit brandies. Seventeen wineries offered such eaux de vie at the fair, including some made from gewurztraminer. It’s a wonderful winter crowd-pleaser, especially for wine lovers, served ice-cold after dinner.
French Chablis has a strong personality. It’s made from the same grape as America’s favorite white wine, chardonnay. A side-by-side comparison of the two gives a good lesson on the effect of climate and geography on a wine. The 1998 Chablis Vieilles Vignes from Francine and Olivier Savary represented good value at the fair, with strong minerals, rich fruit and a long finish.
The National Confederation of Individual Wineries has already begun planning next year’s wine fairs. (There’s a smaller fair in the spring.) People interested in a vacation of good eating and drinking might give the nod to the winter fair. It’s larger and occurs the same time as the Salon Saveurs, which features over 200 producers of French food products (meats, cheeses, salt gourmet spices, chocolates, olive oils, mustards, nuts, etc.) and cooking equipment. Keep an eye on dates and development of programs by visiting the confederation’s Web site, www.caves-particulieres.com.
