For the fizzheads

So, a quick report on the evening. I signed right up, only learning later that he would be doing a more laidback pouring at Marlow & Sons the previous evening. It was just as well, because on 2/29, I was at death's door from repeat excess and it was just the quiet evening in I needed to put my feet back in the starting blocks.

The dinner at Corkbuzz was well-paired food/wine-wise, I found, though there was only one champagne per course. Each wine was perfect in balance and tone. Dang, this guy is doing great stuff. The space was loud, though, and there was a raucous (pace my mom, who always used that word on us to get us to quiet down) wine dinner through a thin partition, so that was sub-optimal.

I hadn't caught up with Aurélien since JPD and I had visited him in Nov. 2013, just after the birth of his daughter, so after the dinner, the others scattered and we repaired to the bar to talk and share a bottle of nicely weird 2013 Roche Bézigon chenin. He is such a fabulous person to talk about champagne with, and was wonderfully generous with his time, as ever.

After a heavy round of wine-store and restaurant tasting appointments while in NYC, he is off later today for Boston. Just a note to those north of here....
 
[In re: Roche-Bézigon, the US importer notes: "When [Jean-Christophe Garnier] started to buy vineyards in Saint Lambert Du Lattay, a small prestigious village in the heart of the Layon (where Mosse, Pithon, and Les Griottes come from) he started with two parcels of Chenin, then acquired a third one. Les Clavieres producing his generic dry Chenin, Bezigon and La Roche his upper cuvees on different soils. After 9 years getting more and more precise with the raising of his wines, he decided to blend both La Roche and Bezigon in a big foudre instead of old barrels. 2011 was the first released of that marriage and brought up a stunning wine, perfect balance between the two previous cuvees. JC pushes the maturity to its extreme, at the limit of the botrytis, then presses the grapes for two to three days in apple press to allow a skin contact and a hint of oxydative notes as well as a whisper of VA."]

Those last bits were quite true, but, y'know, I like a bit of appley oxidative VA stuff, when it's held together by a firm backbone of something. A.L. thought the nose was crazy, but that it really came together on the palate.
 
Hm, I would say that both are working with a same eye to good viticulture and natural winery practice, though Lassaigne is in a riper place. (Though we did joke last night that with global warming, it's soon all going to be Petit Meslier.)

Laherte was very attuned to the way different growers farm, echoing his own care to that.
 
He also works with different varieties in different sites (including one with all 7 allowed varieties in Champagne), and Lassaigne is planted almost exclusively to chardonnay, with anecdotal pinot noir.

But their approach to low-to-no dosage, less use of malo, old oak, etc. is of a similar ethos.
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
less use of malo
Click to expand...

Wehh-ïll, since malo tends to happen naturally (unless it's very cold in the cellar or the grapes have very little malic acid to begin with), the expression "less use of malo" (which one does see around) seems like an inversion of sorts - as if "using less malo" was somehow less interventionist - when it's the blocking of something natural (using sterile filtration or, heaven forbid, SO2). Discuss among your elves.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Wehh-ïll, since malo tends to happen naturally (unless it's very cold in the cellar or the grapes have very little malic acid to begin with), the expression "less use of malo" (which one does see around) seems like an inversion of sorts - as if "using less malo" was somehow less interventionist - when it's the blocking of something natural (using sterile filtration or, heaven forbid, SO2). Discuss among your elves.
Click to expand...
Way-ull, the elves at Ucky Davis sure talk (pdf) like the winemaker has a wide range of options to actively encourage or discourage it.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Wehh-ïll, since malo tends to happen naturally (unless it's very cold in the cellar or the grapes have very little malic acid to begin with), the expression "less use of malo" (which one does see around) seems like an inversion of sorts - as if "using less malo" was somehow less interventionist - when it's the blocking of something natural (using sterile filtration or, heaven forbid, SO2). Discuss among your elves.
Click to expand...
Way-ull, the elves at Ucky Davis sure talk (pdf) like the winemaker has a wide range of options to actively encourage or discourage it.
Click to expand...

Thanks, fascinating how complex the malo subject is.

Winemakers also have a wide range of yeast options, yet natural winemakers avoid additions and subtractions, preferring ambient. In that context, perhaps malos should just happen if they feel like it, without encouragement or discouragement.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
perhaps malos should just happen if they feel like it, without encouragement or discouragement.
Click to expand...

That's the approach of Anselme Selosse, for example. I remember one time tasting with him, and he got some wine with a thief and said, almost like a bemused parent, "Est-ce qu'il a décidé de faire sa malo ?"
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:
He also works with different varieties in different sites (including one with all 7 allowed varieties in Champagne)
Click to expand...

Laherte was pouring les 7 at The Big Glou - I'm not sure which base vintage - and it was one of the highlights out of all the wines there for me.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top