I get it, really I do. But. Wine lovers rejecting Bordeaux is akin to Americans hating on George Washington. It’s an integral part of wine’s history, its mystique, and its hold on our imaginations. Plus a lot of it tastes really, really good.

I was fortunate to experience this first hand a few weeks ago, when Snooth Editor-in-Chief Gregory Dal Piaz opened a few choice Bordeaux for a group of wine writers. The line up included:

1986 Cos d’Estournel (a little stern, but likeable)

1989 Cos d’Estournel (velvety and seductive, if a bit hollow)

1986 Lynch-Bages (corked, alas)

1988 Château Meyney

1989 Château Meyney (my favorite of the bunch – well-balanced, highly drinkable, and remarkably fresh)

1990 Château Meyney

No single wine was perfect, but each offered a snapshot of what Bordeaux can offer: elegance, balance, structure and, of course, longevity. Old-fashioned virtues, I guess, but ones that every wine lover should learn to appreciate.

Besides, without Bordeaux, what would the cool kids have to rebel against?

However. When I got an invitation to meet Michel Chapoutier and taste his Bila-Haut wines two weeks ago, I simply couldn’t pass it up. I’m not big into  wine “celebrities,” but Chapoutier is someone I’ve always wanted to meet. One, because I like his wines. And two, because he’s an intriguing character. He’s crazy ambitious — outside of his native Rhône Valley, the guy has business interests in Australia, Portugal, and China, just to name a few, plus he’s investigating opportunities in England. Chapoutier says he’s looking for opportunities there to create a lower alcohol white wine, somewhat surprising for a guy who’s made his name on robust reds from warmer climes. Plus, the guy is not afraid to speak his mind. (Check out this interview, for example.) Good wines, and a guy who makes for good copy — how could I pass it up?

The wines, which hail from Chapoutier’s holdings in Rousillon did not disappoint. And neither did the man himself. Here are some highlights of the afternoon’s tasting. (The reds are a blend of Syrah, Grenache and

The Wines

Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Rouge, Côtes de Roussillon Villages 2009, $13. Syrah/Grenache/Carignan. This is the entry level wine, and a darn good one. I’ve had it and written about it before. I like hearing Chapoutier talk about using Carignan in the blend as a condiment — too much of this much-maligned variety common to France’s south introduces an overwhelming vegetal/animal/smoky element to the wine, which Chapoutier is against. He’s admittedly not a big fan of the grape and compared its character to the smoky finish on bourbon. This was kind of a revelation for me; I’m similarly ambivalent about Carignan and bourbon, and now I see that they both have a similar taste profile I can do without.

Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Blanc Côtes de Roussillon 2009, $13. A mix of Macabeu, Grenache Blanc and Grenache Gris, it’s a nice enough, well-made wine, with  a refreshing hint of bitterness on the finish that seems almost Italian, but it didn’t do much for me. It’s probably a psychological block on my part as much as anything — the idea of white wines from the Rousillon, the sunniest spot in France and better known for its big reds and dessert wines, is a tough for me to get my head around.

My favorite was the Domaine de Bila-Haut L’Esquerda 2008. (You can read my review here.) Syrah/Grenache/Carignan, with a smaller percentage of Carignan than the straight up Bila-Haut Rouge. It’s a lot of wine for $18–really a terrific value. Chapoutier cites the smell of “summer rain on hot stone” as a characteristic of his Bila-Haut wines, and that aroma is in full effect here. (If that scent isn’t evocative for you, think of the smell of wet slate paving stones around a swimming pool on a hot day and you get the idea.)

Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Occultum Lapidem Côtes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France 2008, $25. Syrah/Grenache/Carignan. Again, another mental block on my part with this wine. To me it smelled exactly — and I mean exactly — like those Mon Chéri chocolate-covered cherries. Beyond that, I wasn’t getting much and I’m guessing it will take a bit of time for this wine to evolve.

Les Vignes de Bila-Haut Visitere Interiore Terrae Côtes du Roussillon Villages Latour de France 2008, $125. Grenache/Syrah. I’m not a very musical person, but sometimes I think about wines in terms of treble and bass. Champagne or Riesling, for example, are wines with a lot of treble, for lack of a better way of putting it. Deep, mellow and elegant, this is a wine with a lot of bass. I enjoyed it a lot, but the price tag seems a bit on the steep side — time will tell if it lives up to it.

The Man

Chapoutier held forth, entertainingly, on everything from the history of the AOC system, to his love of granite soils, to his tête de veau recipe. (He wasn’t giving any too many specifics, but I made him promise to whip some up for me if I ever pay him a visit.)

Here are some of my favorites:

On the overintellectualization of wine: “one does not need to be a gynecologist to make love to a woman.”

On the role of obvious fruit in a wine: “fruit is to wine what disco is to music.”

“You know why Chave [iconic Rhône winemaker Gérard Chave, that is] is a great winemaker? Because he is a great cook!”

After tasting his Bila-Haut white: “C’est bien ça..the only problem? It is too inexpensive.”

The experience went something like this: following a very pleasant half-hour of chatting with fellow invitees/bloggers and the supremely charming Jean-Marc Gallot, president of Ruinart, we took our places, which were set thusly:

Each of the 8 vials in the box contained a different scent, which, according to the brain trust (nose trust?) over at International Flavors + Fragrances, was present in Ruinart’s Blanc de Blanc champagne. It was our job to identify each of the smells and match them to the correct answer on a pre-printed list of 16 different aromas. Of course, we each had a glass of the Blanc de Blanc to help us along.

With Gallot teasing/encouraging us, we sniffed and scribbled away. Was #2 lemon…or grapefruit? The table arrangements held clues — like this little pot of pink peppercorns:

You’ve heard of blind tastings? This was more of a “blind smelling,” which put our collective olfactory skills to the test.

1. The folks over at LVMH are some damn fine marketers. Ruinart is the oldest continuous champagne house, and one with a slightly below-the-radar profile here in the U.S. This event was the perfect way to position Ruinart as a “boutique” brand, less mainstream than Moët or Veuve-Clicquot, but more accessible than Dom Pérignon or Krug. Gallot is the perfect guy to lead the charge. He has that all-too-rare combination (at least in the wine business) of American openness and French, well, Frenchiness. When I asked him what he liked to drink when he wasn’t drinking champagne he said he loved Bordeaux but…was beginning to really enjoy Burgundy. In New York, where obscurity is often touted as a virtue, and it’s nearly impossible to keep up with whatever the wine hipsters are drinking (“What you mean you’ve never had Grolleau? That was so 2010!”) it’s refreshing to remember that one can very happily stick to the classics. (If one has the budget for it, that is.)

2. Delicacy and simplicity are not the same thing. The chief virtue of Ruinart’s Blanc de Blanc is its finesse. Made from 100% Chardonnay — that’s what “Blanc de Blanc” means — this champagne is definitely on the lighter, crisper, end of the spectrum, which is the style I prefer. I think of champagnes like this as “lacy,” although I’m not sure how helpful that comparison is for anyone else. Nonetheless, it’s fair to argue that most of the smells they gave us were somehow present in the wine itself. I might take issue with the white peach, and I definitely wasn’t buying the pineapple (not coincidentally, the only one I got wrong), but ginger, jasmine, cardamom? Why not? Just because a wine is delicate or subtle, that doesn’t mean it can’t have a lot going on. I think it’s particularly difficult to detect this complexity in champagne, where texture (i.e., those bubbles) rather than aroma/flavor, makes the strongest first impression. Hence my classification of this wine as “lacy.” If that word doesn’t make intuitive sense to you, so be it: but I’d encourage you to pay as much attention to a wine’s texture as to its flavor. This is easiest to do with the extremes — say, sparkling at one end of the continuum and port at the other — but it’s not too hard to detect the silkiness of a good Pinot Noir or the roughness of a too-young Barolo or Bordeaux.

3. Wine bloggers are a competitive bunch. I’ve been to some fancy schools over the years and live in a city filled with Type A personalities, but nothing compares to a roomful of wine writers trying to out-smell and out-taste each other. I’m not sure why that is. Perhaps the subjectivity of wine-tasting makes it all the more important that we state our opinions with authority? Or because an evening of sipping champagne in each other’s pleasant company doesn’t feel enough like work, so we have to be extra-serious in our wine analysis? Whatever the reason, I’ll cop to it as much as the next wine blogger. God knows, I’m still annoyed I only got 7 out of 8 right. Do you think I can turn in an extra-credit assignment?

The wine in question is Fleurie, one of the cru of Beaujolais. We’re not talking bubblegum fruity Beaujolais Nouveau here. Fleurie, and the other 9 crus (=subregions, more or less) of Beaujolais produce fruity, highly satisfying, and highly undervalued wines. Miss Vicky’s 2007 Fleurie fits squarely in this category. Fresh, with subtle fruit and more than a hint of earthiness, this wine practically screams fall. (Keats’ “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness” and all that.) It would be great with roast chicken or any straightforward poultry or light pork dish.

It’s priced at $18.80/bottle, and available only online. And if you email me at sasha@spinthebottleny I will send you the free shipping code. And let me know what you think!

In the meantime, check out this vid Miss Vicky (that’s Anne-Victoire to you) made of this year’s harvest, which looks to have been both exhausting and a pretty kick-ass time.

France is at its best when it manages to combine this old school adherence to tradition and standards with open-mindedness and energy. I thought of this a few weeks ago when Anne-Victoire Monrozier, aka Miss Vicky, stormed our shores with bottles of her father’s fresh, elegant Fleurie in hand.

I enjoyed the wine, but what really struck me was her aptitude for “le marketing” — not something that comes easily to a lot of smaller French winemakers. She traveled from Walla to Napa to the Lower East Side to promote the wine and deployed a truly impressive social media blitz. (Plus come on, how cute is this label?)

So Miss Vicky, I salute your embodiment of all my favorite French traits–and hope more and more of your compatriots follow your lead.

Santé!

Most of us are probably familiar with Chapoutier from his great value Belleruche Côtes-du-Rhône, both red and white. Usually available for around $10-$12, these are some of the best bang-for-your-buck wines available on the market. You could do worse than to stock up on a few bottles of these for your summer BBQ needs. Chapoutier makes a staggeringly wide variety of wines from the Rhône, Provence, and Languedoc-Roussillon — with some side projects in Australia and Portugal for good measure — and somehow manages to keep the overall quality level high. (Chapoutier might attribute this success, at least in part, to his commitment to biodynamic winemaking.) Chapoutier seems like a bit of a live wire, and I love reading interviews with him.

I’ve had many of Chapoutier’s wines over the years, and tonight Paul and I cracked open this Les Vignes de Bila-Haut. This wine hails from the Roussillon, the hot, sun-drenched region along France’s eastern border with Spain that produces big, ripe wines. This wine is a blend of Syrah, Grenache, and Carignan, all grapes that flourish in the heat. The wine is inky, lip-staining purple, and the aromas are deep, dark, and earthy: blackberries,cocoa, smoke, and dried thyme. On the palate, the Carignan is a little too front-and-center for me: traditionally a low-quality variety used for bulk wines, Carignan can produce good wines when it comes from old vines, as it does here. But even when Carignan rises to the occasion, it still has this rough, rustic edge to it that reminds me of the mediocre, cheap Côtes-du-Rhône that I used to drink way too much of in my misspent youth, to hangover-inducing effect.

Nonetheless, this is really enjoyable wine for a mere $14. On his site, Chapoutier recommends drinking the wine with a “nice piece of beef” or grilled meat, which we interpreted to mean bacon cheeseburgers from the grill. It was a pretty fortuitous match. I think Michel would approve.

Not since my brother Lee gave me a ticket to the Beastie Boys Hello Nasty show at MSG (3 rows in front of Mike D’s parents, FYI) has so much awesomeness fallen in my lap. This is a 1997 La Landonne Côte Rôtie from Etienne Guigal, one of the greatest wines of the northern Rhône, my hands-down favorite wine region. It’s 100% Syrah and can stand up to many, many years in the cellar. It’s also far north of my usual price range, even when I’m feeling spendy: the going rate for this guy is about $400.

These wines are terrific with deep, earthy, gamey flavors, and in a perfect world I would have whipped up a salmis of squab or venison sausage, but this is not a perfect world and instead we threw some delicious rib eyes on the grill. We decanted the wine 90 minutes before drinking to separate it from its sediment and to open it up a bit. (Again, in a perfect world, this probably should have been closer to 2-3 hours, but the wine, and my guests, were forgiving.)

The wine. Well, it started off on a distinctly musty, grandmother’s basement/Miss Havisham note that was actually much more pleasant than it sounds. Slowly, more conventionally attractive aromas and flavors came to the fore: black cherry, coffee, mocha. The texture was seductive and velvety, the finish was almost sweet. Then, something funny happened. All of the wine’s distinct elements – tannins, alcohol, fruit, acidity — somehow became one, like old friends who have known each other so long they finish each other’s sentences. Without getting too Zen about it, the wine didn’t taste or smell like anything except…itself. It had its own unique scent, like the smell of your 6th grade homeroom or your first bad boyfriend.

Thankfully, the wine was much, much better than 6th grade or bad boyfriends. Unlike both of those destabilizing experiences, the La Landonne is deeply reassuring. Somewhere in the world, this wine will have you know, people still care about quality, longevity, and doing things correctly — without sacrificing excitement. Perfectly balanced and harmonious, the La Landonne still offered an intensity and richness that showier wines aspire to, but rarely attain.

At the end of the meal, Gary stuck his nose into the empty decanter. “I’m so sorry it’s gone!” Me too, Gary. Me too.

Many of these wines are, like sherry, made with deliberate oxidation. That means the winemaker intentionally, and very carefully, exposes them to oxygen during the winemaking/aging process. (Too much oxygen is usually the enemy of wine–think of how a cut apple browns when it’s exposed to air and you get the idea.) But if you carefully manage the wine’s exposure to oxygen, you get a nutty, tangy, almost salty quality to them. The fanciest and most expensive Jura wine from the Savagnin grape is called vin jaune — literally, “yellow wine.” From reputation, I know that these wines are incredibly long-lived and oddly spicy. Sadly, I have never had the opportunity to try one (although if anyone out there has a bottle in their cellar they’d like to share, don’t be afraid to drop me a line). Happily, though, I did have a chance to try this Côtes du Jura Les Chassagnes Ouillé ($28) from Phiippe Bornard, a biodynamic producer. A few things to know about this wine before you dig in: first, it has this very cool wax seal, which you can easily cut through with the little knife attachment on your corkscrew.

Second, the wine is not crystal clear. There’s definitely some cloudiness, here but it’s nothing to worry about — it’s typical of the wine style and this producer’s non-interventionist wine making approach.

The wine itself is tangy and saline, like the aftertaste of spending the day at the beach. There’s some citrus and stone fruit and honey here too, but it’s really the sherry-like twanginess that stays with you. It’s a terrific match for cheeses, particularly one of its mountain compatriots, such as Comté, or an aged Gouda.

It was kind of a tale of two cities. Paris had a few highlights — this very simple fig and mozzarella salad at Autour d’un Verre, a little wine bar in the 9th arrondisement, was awesome. The mozzarella was insanely creamy (I have a theory it was actually burrata, which is mozzarella enhanced — as if it needed any help – by cream in the center), the figs were perfect, and a drizzle of olive oil brought the whole thing together.

The restaurant itself, however, was kind of my worst nightmare. The crowd was somehow hipster-y and yet uncool – as if they had all just stepped off a Lucky magazine photo shoot.  The tables were lined up tightly against both walls and you couldn’t help but jostle your neighbor. Between that and the dingy yellow lighting, it felt like dining on the R Train at rush hour.

Despite the “wine bar” tag, the waiter was absolutely zero help when I asked him to compare and contrast two bottles on the list. He said the equivalent of “they’re both fine” and left it at that. I ended up going with La Treille Muscate, from Corbières in the Languedoc, in the foothills of the Pyrenees.

It delivered a nice smoky, herbal, blackberry kick, and for about $30, the price was right. Our mains were fine, we both ordered a kind of Scandanavian meatball concoction. OK, yeah, I know, so that was kind of a misorder on our part, but it was either that, fish in creamy sauce — my nemesis — or confit de canard, and at that point we were thoroughly duck-ed out. One of the few other upsides of the place was that we bonded a bit with our neighbors about the surly waiter. Nonetheless, we left feeling harried and unsatisfied.

Bandol, on the other hand, was dreamy. We stayed Les Quatres Saisons, this bed & breakfast near Le Castellet, a slightly Disneyfied fortified medieval village a few minutes away from Bandol. The Web site truly does not do it justice — this is the first time I’ve ever been to  a hotel that looked much more beautiful in person than it did online. Our little duplex suite, which had a spacious deck looking out onto the vineyards of Bandol, was beyond charming, and the setting was incredibly peaceful.

However, the highlight of staying at Les Quatres Saisons was the nightly dinner 3-course dinner. No choices, just whatever happened to look good that day at the market. Always a gamble, but luckily, the market highlights during our stay included pretty mainstream selections — no snails or liver or sea urchin. There were some welcome stylish touches — a very cool “tapas de volaille” starter that was a variation on a theme of poultry: smoked duck over spicy couscous, a tiny, zesty chicken wing, duck sausage over deliciously olive oil drenched vegetables, a chicken and duck terrine with a chunk of foie gras in the center — but nothing was overworked. Desserts were exceptional, and I managed to get a shot of Paul’s moelleux au chocolat before he devoured it.

Extra props to Didier and Patrice for making such an effort with the food when, as you can see from the lead photo of this post, they really could have phoned it in. The could have relied on the beautiful setting to justify the 40-euro per person price tag and left it at that. Instead, they put forth a million elegant little touches — the very aromatherapeutic logs of pine burning in their outdoor oven, the apéritif of local vin d’orange (orange-scented fortified wine) and Muscat to open the meal — that made the dinners so memorable. My dream for my 40th birthday is come back here with Paul and a few of our besties. Presumably at that point I’ll have even less tolerance for BS, and Didier and Patrice’s no-fuss elegance will be that much more welcome.

11 or under: mediocre wines–Three faults make a wine mediocre: a lack of concentration, a lack of maturity, or a lack of balance.

from 11.5 to 13: correct wines–Correct wines are technically sound, without faults, and have adequate concentration and balance. They provide a minimum of pleasure upon tasting.

from 13.5 to 15: good wines–Wines that comes from a well-executed vinification, along with a good terroir, a high-quality grape variety, and usually from good vintage. They are pleasant to drink.

From 15.5 to 17: great wines–Great wines are for special occasions. Their personality comes from a great match of terroir, grape varietal, vinification technique, vintage, and winemaker.

From 17.5 to 19.5: exceptional wines–With their strong personality, exceptional wines are distinguished by their elegance, their complexity, and their strength. Only a few of these wines appear each year, and only in great vintages.

20: dream wines–Excellence itself. These are wines that one comes across but rarely. They provide an unparalleled expression of terroir. They are the ultimate benchmarks of quality for their complexity and their elegance. They are distinguished by their ability to age.

What I love about this system is its rigor and its emphasis on complexity, balance, and terroir. In my classes, a lot of times people will ask me “what makes a wine great?” It’s one of the best questions I get, and these descriptions really get at some answers. First, complexity — a great wine (or even a very good one) should be about more than one thing. If it just smells like, say, strawberries, and tastes the same, it might be a decent wine, but not much more than that. However, if it smells like strawberries, cherries, earth, and maybe a little bit like black pepper, and then tastes like all of those things, plus some licorice too…well, then, we’re getting somewhere. Then, balance. You could have a wine that tastes and smells like all those things, but if the wine is out of balance, then you won’t be able to enjoy those aromas or flavors because the acidity or the alcohol or tannins will stick out like a sore thumb. Next is terroir. Strictly speaking, terroir is the happy marriage between a climate, soil, and grape that are made from each other. It’s tough to explain what terroir tastes like, but the best word I can think of is “specificity.” So back to the strawberries–the wine won’t just taste like any old strawberries, but those really ripe strawberries you got from the green market that one time, and the cherries remind you of the sour cherry jam your friend brought you back from Michigan, and the licorice is like that crazy-intense Swedish licorice. I know that sounds a little out there, but it’s amazing to see even the most analytical, taciturn people in my classes come up with these kind of associations after a little bit of prodding. (And, OK, after a glass of wine.) The final piece of the puzzle is aging. So a wine that today tastes like strawberries ten years from now might taste like some incredible combination of leather and mushrooms and smoke and burning leaves…I know, I know, not things you usually think of in wine, or things that sounds particularly appealing, but you’ll have to trust me on this one. I rarely taste wines with a lot of age on them, although we did get to try one in Bandol. More on that in my next post.