another ultra-light death

[Jeff Grossman]

Frédéric Mabileau perished on Aug 31. He lost control as he approached Saumur airport. EN, FR. Other winemakers in Saint Nicolas de Bourgueil are figuring out ways to help his widow get through the imminent harvest.

For those who may not remember, Didier Dagueneau also died in an ultra-light.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

While the black bunting is already out, two more deaths:
Alain Voge, a Rhone legend click
The Spanish wine industry click (...or nearly)

 

[MLipton]

And so another N Rhône icon passes away. Perhaps only Gerard Chave remains of the old guard?

Mark Lipton

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by MLipton:
And so another N Rhône icon passes away. Perhaps only Gerard Chave remains of the old guard?

Mark Lipton

I don’t think of Gérard as old guard. I had thought when Marcel Juge passed away, he was the last of the real old guard. But I was reminded that Raymond Trollat was still around and approaching 90. Trollat may be the very last from the N Rhône. I understand he was making and selling wine as a young man before the St. Joseph appellation was established in the 50s.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Bernard Faurie is still alive, as is Bernard Levet. I think.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
The Spanish wine industry click (...or nearly)

And the bad news in Spain just keeps on coming... plantings of many grape varieties indigenous to Spain are falling while 'the usual suspects' continue the march towards world vinous boredom domination.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:
And so another N Rhône icon passes away. Perhaps only Gerard Chave remains of the old guard?

Mark Lipton

I don’t think of Gérard as old guard. I had thought when Marcel Juge passed away, he was the last of the real old guard. But I was reminded that Raymond Trollat was still around and approaching 90. Trollat may be the very last from the N Rhône. I understand he was making and selling wine as a young man before the St. Joseph appellation was established in the 50s.

Well, yeah, we can debate what constitutes the "old guard" endlessly since there is no set definition. FTR, Gerard Chave is now 84, making him older than Voge was, though perhaps not old enough for your definition. To me, the "old guard" were the guys making wine when I first paid attention to the wines of the N Rhone. Yes, most all of them were Kermit Lynch imports at that time.

Mark Lipton

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:
And so another N Rhône icon passes away. Perhaps only Gerard Chave remains of the old guard?

Mark Lipton

I don’t think of Gérard as old guard. I had thought when Marcel Juge passed away, he was the last of the real old guard. But I was reminded that Raymond Trollat was still around and approaching 90. Trollat may be the very last from the N Rhône. I understand he was making and selling wine as a young man before the St. Joseph appellation was established in the 50s.

Well, yeah, we can debate what constitutes the "old guard" endlessly since there is no set definition. FTR, Gerard Chave is now 84, making him older than Voge was, though perhaps not old enough for your definition. To me, the "old guard" were the guys making wine when I first paid attention to the wines of the N Rhone. Yes, most all of them were Kermit Lynch imports at that time.

Mark Lipton

Yup. I didn’t really consider Voge old guard.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by MLipton:
And so another N Rhône icon passes away. Perhaps only Gerard Chave remains of the old guard?

Mark Lipton

I don’t think of Gérard as old guard. I had thought when Marcel Juge passed away, he was the last of the real old guard. But I was reminded that Raymond Trollat was still around and approaching 90. Trollat may be the very last from the N Rhône. I understand he was making and selling wine as a young man before the St. Joseph appellation was established in the 50s.

Well, yeah, we can debate what constitutes the "old guard" endlessly since there is no set definition. FTR, Gerard Chave is now 84, making him older than Voge was, though perhaps not old enough for your definition. To me, the "old guard" were the guys making wine when I first paid attention to the wines of the N Rhone. Yes, most all of them were Kermit Lynch imports at that time.

Mark Lipton

Yup. I didn’t really consider Voge old guard.

I guess another working definition for them is that they're older than me, an increasingly shrinking demographic.

Mark Lipton
(incipient geezer)

 

[Jeff Grossman]

How about this definition?: They remember the time before domain bottling was common, and they took it on themselves to try it.

 

[Jayson Cohen]

Jeff, i think that could work.

Speaking of an ultra light death, COVID killed the Jeebus Board. This one though, we hope, is ripe for eventual resurrection.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How about this definition?: They remember the time before domain bottling was common, and they took it on themselves to try it.

I don't know about the Northern Rhone, but in the Southern Rhone this would put numbers of people in their 40s and 50s in the old guard, given the increase in the number of domaines first in the late 80s and early 90s and then in the late 90s and early aughts. Did domaine bottling become more widespread earlier in the Northern Rhone?

 

[Jayson Cohen]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How about this definition?: They remember the time before domain bottling was common, and they took it on themselves to try it.

I don't know about the Northern Rhone, but in the Southern Rhone this would put numbers of people in their 40s and 50s in the old guard, given the increase in the number of domaines first in the late 80s and early 90s and then in the late 90s and early aughts. Did domaine bottling become more widespread earlier in the Northern Rhone?

In my mind we are talking the 1950s and ‘60s at latest when N Rhône growers started down this path. Anyway for me it’s more like the winemakers who learned their craft when they were kids from the growers making wine in the late 19th century rather than anything about domaine bottling. But it coincides.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

originally posted by Jayson Cohen:

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
How about this definition?: They remember the time before domain bottling was common, and they took it on themselves to try it.

I don't know about the Northern Rhone, but in the Southern Rhone this would put numbers of people in their 40s and 50s in the old guard, given the increase in the number of domaines first in the late 80s and early 90s and then in the late 90s and early aughts. Did domaine bottling become more widespread earlier in the Northern Rhone?

In my mind we are talking the 1950s and ‘60s at latest when N Rhône growers started down this path. Anyway for me it’s more like the winemakers who learned their craft when they were kids from the growers making wine in the late 19th century rather than anything about domaine bottling. But it coincides.

Assuming you learned from your grandfather, who would have had to have been born in say 1880 to be making wine before 1900, the latest such a winemaker could be born would be around 1930-1935. They would indeed be old guard.

 

[MLipton]

In all seriousness, I would apply the term old guard to those who learned to make wine using traditional methodology (old foudres, hand harvesting, etc) and didn’t later change their ways in accord with the spoofulation of wine in the ‘80s and beyond.

Mark Lipton

 

[Jeff Grossman]

Jayson, your defn goes back into the era of the recovery from phylloxera. Late 19th-C winemakers had to learn it all over again. (And they didn't just go straight to grafting - they were fooling around with hybrids, like M. Baco, and burying toads near each vine "to draw out the poison"....)

Mark's defn is epiphenomenal (=> they didn't go all spoofy when they had the chance) but apt.

...reading...

I'm not sure these guys learned from their grandfathers:
- Noel Verset was born in 1919 and started vineyard work when he was 12, so maybe. Domain bottling began in the 1980s.
- George Jasmin took over his father's domain in 1935. The father had come to Ampuis in the 19th-C and won medals for his domain-bottled wine in 1909. (Patrick is George's grandson.)
- Etienne Guigal arrived in Ampuis in 1924 at age 14 to work for Vidal-Fleury. He founded his domain in 1946.
- Auguste Clape was born in 1925, his first harvest was 1949. He started domain bottling in 1955, and finally attended a Burgundy viticulture school in the 1970s.
- Alain Voge was born in 1939 and started work in the vines in 1961.
- Gerard Chave was born in 1935 and started work in the vines in the 1960s.
- Robert Michel was born in 1946 and started work in the vines in the 1960s. His father did their first domain bottling in 1956.
- Joseph Jamet didn't buy vines until 1950.

According to Rene Rostaing, there were five of the old guard who bottled their own wine: "Jean Dervieux, the grandfather Barge, the grandfather Jasmin, the grandfather Duplessis and someone who no longer exists, André Drevon."

And I learned (or re-learned):
- Guillaume Gilles is Marcel Juge's grandson, apprenticed at Robert Michel and Chave, and bought vines from Michel.
- Eric Texier found Brezeme because he took advice from Trollat and Juge.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

I don't think Mark's definition is epiphenomenal. If a winemaker has a chance to go spoofy and does not, that may well constitute being old guard as the term is usually defined.

I also think your enhanced history tends to support Jayson in identifying a generation, roughly who started out either in the second 25 years of C20 and started domaine bottling sometime in the third quarter. Unsurprisingly, very few of them are left and many of the new names are their sons and grandsons, as you also show.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I don't think Mark's definition is epiphenomenal.

You're right. I should have described it as behavioral.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I also think your enhanced history tends to support Jayson in identifying a generation, roughly who started out either in the second 25 years of C20 and started domaine bottling sometime in the third quarter. Unsurprisingly, very few of them are left and many of the new names are their sons and grandsons, as you also show.

But Jayson claimed that they learned from the grandfathers, which I don't think they did.

 

[Jonathan Loesberg]

True, that was a bit of romanticizing.