This winemaker

G

Guilhaume gerard

Guilhaume gerard
"Here’s my hypothesis: The winery has a mediocre, young-vine Roussanne vineyard so they threw a bunch of oak chips in a tank and figured the American Market would gobble it up. The fruit lacked concentration so just like so many California Chardonnay producers, Oak was employed as the savior rather than a complementary element. What’s even worse, the winery rushed their 2010 product to market without giving the Oak a chance to integrate one bit. From Scott’s tech sheet I learned the vines were 25 years old. This makes sense because, generally, only vines 50 years and older can generate the concentration needed to make a beautiful 100% Roussanne in the shorter French growing season. This winemaker, Eric Texier further tailored the oaky white wine to the American market by labeling the wine Roussanne, as God knows Americans are too stupid to understand what a Cotes du Rhone Blanc might be. The only other atrocity I’ve seen come out of France of this caliber is a Vin de Pays labeled “Shiraz”, luckily there wasn’t a brown bag over this wine so I avoided tasting it."

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www.stolpmanvineyards.com
 
With regard to a later flight of reds, the author writes, "Wine number 2 was another disaster from Texier Brezeme from 30 year old vines... It’s unacceptable that these wines aged so poorly and I only hope they are in a temporary dumb phase, but I can’t imagine the rotten fruit bouncing back."
 
Given the dark color of the wine, I'd speculate that it had been cooked at some point in its travels. None of that excuses the comments, however. He and David Z make quite the dynamic duo.

Mark Lipton
(kinda regretting his visit to Stolpman now)
 
1.Based on what's on the website, I gather that he's not actually the winemaker, just the guy who sells mommy and daddy's wine.

2. He talks about Q2V (quality to value) ratio. I get QPR (quality/price ratio), but isn't Q2V by definition going to be 1 (or some constant representing the ratio of the units of measurement)? If not, can someone explain it to me?

3. Too bad Helen Turley and John Wetlaufer weren't at the tasting to give their brilliant insights (or are they just holding them until the next newsletter?).
 
I love that this young "Rhone Ranger" doesn't know "Chateauneuf" is one word. Good lord. Can he read? Did he dictate the blog post?
 
Anyhow, Levi's podcast interview today with Eric is extremely interesting. You would never know he had drunk half a bottle of '90 Verset as a warmup. Do be sure to check it out.

Also, he reveals his secret techniques with oak chips.
 
Eric,

If you have the chance. The one thing I didn't follow from the fab podcast was why your stems began to mature faster in Brezeme. Could you elaborate a bit for us?

Thanks,

Joe
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Anyhow, Levi's podcast interview today with Eric is extremely interesting. You would never know he had drunk half a bottle of '90 Verset as a warmup. Do be sure to check it out.

Also, he reveals his secret techniques with oak chips.
Click to expand...

And '97 Chave and that fabu Selosse. Never mind the '07 prestige Ganevat.
 
Shit! I buy my oak chips from 221 years old sunk french battle ship that was made 100% from Foret de Tronçais, under Napoleon technical control.
This alows me to use tinajas for the ageing AND to get an incredibly refined oak taste.
This wine should please both camps. And this is what I get... Time to move to beer making.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
One clarificationEric,

If you have the chance. The one thing I didn't follow from the fab podcast was why your stems began to mature faster in Brezeme. Could you elaborate a bit for us?

Thanks,

Joe
Click to expand...

I have noticed, in my Brezeme vineyard, that after 3-4 years of my new growing program :
- no more use of roundup or any chemical weeders,
- no more addition of fertilizer no even compost,
- growing a legume and cereal cover crop between the rows

as my soil got alive again (the main indicator for me being the speed of decomposition of vine shoots after pruning), the stems began to ripen earlier each year.
In 2008, the year I feel we reached some sort of balance, the stems were totaly ripe - grey/brown -, way before the berries themselves, which allowed me to keep the stems with a huge 10.5% of alcohol!
In 2009, we compared the ripeness of the stems with my neighbors during the harvest season : on the heavily chemically weeded vines, they did get the same ripeness of stems a whole month after me.
I picked at 22-22.5 brix, during the second week of september, with totally dry dark brown/grey stems and didn't destem at all.
Most of the growers I know picked 1-2 weeks after me at 24-25 and had to destem because the stem were still fluorescent green. One of them picked with ripe stems at 26.5 with very high pHs and over-ripeness typical aromas.
I have no explanation for that, but it is a fact. And many growers (not much though) involved into permaculture style of growing have noticed the same.

When I took the Brezeme vineyard back in 2002, I couldn't get rid of the pruned shoots, even after crushing them. Like most of the growers, I'd have to burn them.
Now they turn white (mold) within 2 weeks and get totally decomposed within 1.5 month. There is a strong correlation between this and the ripening pace of the stems, as I observe them.

BTW, since my first vintage, I've always got ripe stems in St Julien in Saint Alban, where no chemical weeding was ever used.

Hope this helps
 
Nice.

And I couldn't thank Eric enough for that two sentence interlude about Germany.
 
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