If only we could all speak the same language...

Don’t know about you, but every time I have a discussion with an American or a European or a Kiwi etc., I’m confronted to the conversions and to making sense to everyone… accent aside!

If you are like me, here are few conversions you'll be glad to have under the thumb:

Celcius to Fahrenheit
Tc=(5/9)x(Tf-32)
-17.22C = 1F

Hectares to Acres
1 hectare = 2.47 acres

Kilometres to Miles
1 kilometre = 0.62 miles

Hectolitres to Gallons
1 hectolitre = 100 litres = 26.418 US gallons = 22 Imperial gallons

Metres to Feet
1 metre = 3.28 feet

Millimetres to Inches
1 millimetre = 0.039 inches

Tonne to Tons
1 tonne = 1.10 tons

Now we could understand each other… that was if we were leaving in a perfect and easy world !
So no... some talk in hectolitres per hectare, others in tons per hectare or per acre, etc.

Yields
Europe and South America (which use the metric system), productions are usually expressed in hectolitres. As for yields, it is expressed in hectolitre per hectare.
NZ expresses the yield in tonne per hectare.
The US, which doesn’t use the metric system, expresses yields in tons per hectare.

1 hectolitre = 0.183 US tons = 0.166 tonne
100 hectolitre = 18.3 US tons = 16.64 tonne

40 hectolitres per hectare = 2. 96 tons per acre = 6.655 per hectare
2 tons per acre = 27 hectolitre per hectare = 4.49 hectolitre per hectare

Now you can happily understand the whole mathematic world of wine! Mind you, after few glasses everyone speaks the same language anyway…

Vertical Bel Echo

Here's the second part of that vertical tasting of the Clos Henri Vineyard wines.

Tasting notes of the Bel Echo wines, in two words:

Bel Echo Sauvignon Blanc

2008: Just bottled. Nice chalky minerality, white pepper on the nose. Round mouth balanced by a nice acidity and a fruit intense without being exhuberant.

2007: very similar notes of evolution than on the Clos Henri. Nice roundness, hint of chalky minerality, nice fruit.

2006: had smokey aromas, as if we ever had used oak barrels. Instead none of this wine saw ny oak. And the mouth had that slight smokiness as well, and nicely rounded.

2005: again, the smokey side shows, slightly less than 06. and the mouth was quite similar. Very subtle and elegant.

Generally, it appears that the Bel Echo which mainly is grown on clays, is rounder and has more weight and more fruit intensity. It is interesting to note these lovely smokey aromas comin after few years... to check in the next years!

Bel Echo Pinot Noir - only 2 vintages produced yet, so although they are interesting, I'd wait few more vintages to begin drawing conclusions on their evolutions.

Vertical of Clos Henri Vineyard

Two days ago we have done a vertical of the Clos Henri wines (Clos Henri and Bel Echo ranges)- first wines were made in 2003. So no crazy old bottles full of dust, but a very interesting line up of wines to enable us to learn about the evolution of our wines and understand better our terroir (yes, i work at Clos Henri Vineyard), and how to improve our work in the vineyard.
Who was part of that tasting? our winemaker, our viticulturist, the viticulturist from our french parent company (owners and winemakers in Sancerre - Domaine Henri Bourgeois), the viticulture consultant from France, and myself.

Tasting notes in two words (comments on the Clos Henri only for today):

Clos Henri Sauvignon Blanc

2008: just bottled, has a great concentration (ripe fruit harvested before the heavy rains - no dilution for us!), great texture and minerality, floral. Objectively, a great drop! But patience, the release is in January/February.

2007: very good balance, again good minerality and nice freshness that holds it all. Nice textured sauvignon.

2006: less expressive than the others, more subtle, but again very nice minerality and very elegant.

2005: our little favourite (after the 08!), wonderful expression of sauvignon, generally good balance and minerality, with still nice freshness. Slight honey suckle starting to show.

2004: it's round, round round, complexe. The less mineral of all. Bit more honeysuckle showing.

2003: to our pleasure, still fantastic, showing incredible honey and roundness. To drink in the next year.

Globally, we achieved an elegant style of sauvignon with great texture and minerality, and they evolve nicely gaining in roundness and getting honeysuckle aromas.

Clos Henri Pinot Noir

2008: not part of the tasting as it is not yet bottled indeed! [But blend tastings recently done, were actually showing a great fruit. With blocks from the hillsite on clay showing particularly good concentration and complexity. And block from the stoney soils showing nice finesse, little red fruit, natural smokiness]

2007: our favourite. Great balance, vibrant, complex, nice freshness, supple tannins still that need a bit of time to soften a bit more. Very elegant. Release only in few months as well.

2006: dark fruit, spices, round and bit more volume. Supple tannins, well integrated.

2005: again a little favourite (after 07), fantastic to drink now, but has the structure to go on ageing. Great integration of the oak and tannins. more volume again. Savoury, spices, begining of truffle notes.

2004 and 2003: although they were showing beautifully in their first year or 2 and promising great future, well it is just too bad to say that they weren't up to our expectations anymore. Not much more fruit, the wines looked a bit tired. We attribute it to maybe the young age of the vines at the time. We did 2 barrels of 03, not much more of 04.

Globally, nice fruit, and apart from the 03 and 04, great structures and nice evolution of both the structure and the aromas and volumes in mouth. The part of wine in new oak has been decreasing year after year, good choice there as well.

We generally want to improve the alcohol content in the wines (experimentations in the vineyard) and keep elegance in the styles. But we were all very satisfied with what has been done so far, and the potential we see for the future.

Objectively again, lucky me to be working there!

Wine news - Introduction to Sensewine

Hi all,

You'll find on the blog associated to my email few ideas that I regularly publish. It goes from tasting notes, to marketing thoughts, or a simple idea that came to my mind... all about wine indeed. With the idea of making sense of and when we talk about wine, giving sense to it for everyone, experiencing wine with all our senses - basically to sense wine...

I know how annoying emails with links to blogs can be, especially when they arrived too regularly on your box! So i just do a selection of my friends and people I enjoyed meeting, and will randomly change who i send the news to. So you'll know this blog exist, but it won't harrass you - i'll just remind it to you from time to time. Of course i'll be happy if you post any comment, and to hear any suggestion.

Lastly published: Wine and Architecture (the venture of Castellare and Rothschild), notes on Chateau de Pibarnon 98 ...

Sensewinely yours,

Nelly

Rocca di Frassinello - when Architecture meets Wine

When architecture meets wine, there is always the danger of having a beautiful winery that is not functionnal and makes the cellar crew growl. However, you also get wineries that are thought from an esthetic point of view, meet the landscape and that are technically coherent while bringing a pleasant flow in the rythm of work, especially appreciated during harvest. Any architect would now comment, that the purpose of architecture is certainly not just esthetic anyway.

The winery Rocca di Frassinello is a recent venture between the italian Domini Castellare and the french Barons de Rothschild. Their winery was designed by the famous italian architect Renzo Piano and built from 2005 to 2007.

Here, the reception area sits outside during harvest. The huge plateform makes it easy for trucks and fenwicks to bring the fresh fruits.

The harvest is then processed by gravity, directly into the lever under.

Located in Tuscany, in the Maremma between Bolgheri and Scansano (this would ring a bell if you know Super-Tuscans) - they grow cabernet sauvignon, merlot and sangiovese. Each of Castellare and Rothschild bringing his specific know-how to make wines of great expression.

Have a deep look at the 2005 vintage if you have the opportunity. All labels worth the try.

The heart of the winery is the impressive barrel hall - huge space, imposing volume, that transforms barrels into a crowd around a stadium. When you stand right at the centre of it, you have an amazing feeling of being watched and maybe even acclaimed by this crowd. A special energy is catalysed in that point. Rare sensation, when you think of your crowd afterwards.

Chateau de Pibarnon 1998...

It is something i didn't want on my blog, listing wines and giving my opinion on them - as if my opinion was important! But, even though my opinion doesn't matter, well I have to say I enjoyed this wine thouroughly - so i share about it.

It is a producer i've loved for a while, I discovered the Bandol appelation through Chateau de Pibarnon, and i come back to it with pleasure every time i get the opportunity. Being in New Zealand, it's not the kind of bottle you find in every wine shop, and old vintages are at a premium. So i found this wine in my cellar in France!

Here are the notes i took:
Nose: dry meat, dry figs, garrigue, dry leaves. Ripe fruit, but the main component of this wine is not its fruit.
Mouth: the aromas follow the nose. The oak is completely integrated, and there is still a nice acidity, that keeps it all alive. The tannins are integrated and still a touch dry (not green, but from the oak and structure), more precisely tight. The end of mouth is long and continues on a very ripe fruit - notes of port and maury, and notes of black truffle.
Conclusion: Very good example of Bandol with 10 years of age, voluptuous and with all the power you expect from Bandol. The structure is masculine but rounded by the time. Every element seems to have taken the time harmoniously. The tannic structure is well present, the fruit has not completely disappeared and remains with subtletly showing complexity between the garrigue / dry meat and the ripe fruit. Nice volume without too much roundness, nice presence in the mouth. Will age few years more...

Portrait of this wine: It's a rough man talking to you in the eyes with a gentle tone in his nostalgic voice.

http://www.pibarnon.com/

Visit of Poli Distillerie - Veneto

In Veneto, at Schiavon sits the Poli Distillerie - A beautiful artisan distillery, owned by the Poli family who has for generations developed its distillation systems to acquire the best as possible. Nicely guided through the whole distillery process by Alessandro Villanova, in charge of Extern Relations, I got to understand the history of the family with Grappa, and the love and passion they put into it. The concern of search for ultimate quality, from the raw materials (coming from the surroundings: by memory Bassano, Breganze, Barostica) to the improvement of the distillery system is evidence when you visit the place. Continuous improvements of the system with the use of fresh pomace and discontinuous cycle, however still in the tradition as the old steam cauldrons in copper were kept, and certainly were the secrets of distilling too. Jacopo Poli, the actual head of the family, kindly took some time to meet me and to talk without rush, at a moment that was definitely difficult as they were in the middle of harvest.

The wide tasting at the end of the distillery tour was very enjoyable as well, as you get to taste the different eaux de vie, and grappas Poli makes. What a pleasure for the senses, and that even if you were not tasting – I was though indeed! I particularly loved the Classical Grappa, I would say it is the essence of Grappa as you imagine it when you feel like a purely defined grappa both in the aromas and the mouthfeel. I also loved the special Jacopo Poli range, and particularly the Grappa aged in oak which brings that unusual structure, and luscious oak aromas melted in classical grappa aromas. Both of these grappas were showing subtlety and elegance in a pleasant voluptuous warmth without heat.

I also enjoyed seeing the good balance between tradition and modernity, in the systems again, but also in the marketing: researched packaging with sober and elegant lines – in phase with the modern customer, but still showing the historical roots of this family business; the use of the name of Jacopo Poli as a new modern value to the business; the tasting room and the new Grappa museum; the examples are numerous. The attention to detail is definitely showing at every step.

Once again, I have been touched by the generosity of italians, in the present case Jacopo and Alessandro, and from the beginning to the end of this very personal visit, I have felt I was in a family affair, led by tradition and willing to be part of its time. A thoughtful business, led by love and passion for its know-how and its region.

Only one last thing to say: Grazie mille.

Travel with me in San Gimignano

I went for a quick visit in San Gimignano to give a hand harvesting the famous Vernacia for the winery of Monte Oliveto which is partly owned by the father of Lorenzo Zonin (see article below). A little building of stones shows an old piano and few tables that invite visitors to taste and buy wines. Guests also have the possibility to stay in a renovated farm of stones, in a traditional though clear and modern style with view on the hills of vineyards on one side and on the village of San Gimigniano on the other side. Vernacia and olive oil are produced there, on gentle hills flowing one after the other in nuances of greens, greys and yellows.
The rain came after the first day, so my time there was short, but there again: a very nice vineyard of high vines (fruit wire at around 1.5m high), all in slope.

Close your eyes and travel with me: Coming up and down the slope, with the perfume of soft mint wildly growing in some of the rows, under the shocking hot sun shining above our heads while our shoulders show signs of stiffness, and the sound of the few ten people cutting the grapes and dropping the cases in the truck while chatting, laughing and at times shouting at loud voices.

Few days in Tuscany…

In Maremma, at Podere San Cristoforo:

In Toscana for two weeks. What a joy! I’m here to help a friend during his harvest. In the boutique winery of Podere San Cristoforo of Lorenzo Zonin. Beautiful treasure of a vineyard, full of warm colours and of passion for the vineyard and the wine. I have a wonderful feeling of plenitude and happiness. Work happens, but time is taken, and every task is done with pleasure and without an ounce of stress, in real simplicity. There is a complete harmony between Lorenzo, his head winemaker Davide and winemaker Eugenio – the flow in the work and sequences of tasks is fluid, they help and listen to each other. All the energy is concentrated into having an enjoyable time making the wine they really feel enthusiasm and love for.

Am I not lucky to have met them? Indeed i am! Now have a look at: http://www.poderesancristoforo.it/

Taken in the action of the harvest...

Few photos taken in the last week at Podere San Cristoforo. http://www.poderesancristoforo.it/

The 4 Ps indeed...

Yes, i had a comment from a good friend, who told me that the idea developped about quality recently was obviously making sense. Thank you for this comment by the way, this permits me to explain more clearly what i meant :)
Obvious indeed, he reminded me of the 4 P (that well known rule of marketing, about placing your product strategically thinking about : Product, Place or Distribution, Promotion and Price).

Indeed, yes. But what is not, is that in the end, wineries can become so passionate about their wines and so sure of their own quality, that they forget about the 4P, and end up trusting their quality will do the job.

My warning is : running a business with passion and enthusiasm mustn't hide the strategic side of the business. Balance might be a good key...

Note sur le gout

Have you ever thought about these tasteless tomatoes you find at the supermarket ? Why are they for sale? Because consumers want to buy tomatoes that have regular shapes, are easy to cut, and not floppy. Tasteless apples? Same, they have to have regular shapes, must be crunchy, and not have any imperfection in their pigmentation.
Pre-conclusion: people are actually ready to pay for tasteless veggies because they are more convenient.
Or maybe there is something else (out of the economical situation of supply and demand, let’s not get into that as it’s not at all the purpose of this note). For example - Why do some people prefer peaches to nectarines? A simple observation: these two fruits have a very similar taste, people would eventually say they like both, however you have the peach against the nectarine addicts.
If this is not the taste, then what? The texture of the flesh: one soft, the other crunchy; the texture of the skin: one naked and waxed, the other velvety and smooth; the colour : one shinny and bright, the other pastel with a vale.
Conclusion: Texture and colour are complete components of the “taste” factor, and can easily win over the flavour itself.

Our helpful wine writers

Here you are at the wine shop, unable to make the slightest choice. You’ve been there 10 minutes, hanging like a ghost in front of the many bottles. No matter how much you actually know about wine, you always get lost when it is about making the purchase decision. To a certain level of understanding, as for example one would know that if he decides to buy a Gouttes d’Or, he will be buying a chardonnay from the AOC of Meursault in Burgundy which would most certainly have seen oak, whereas another person will understand it as a white wine with prestige from Burgundy, and another will see it’s a french white wine but seeing the high price it should be a good wine. In the end though, you just have to trust either the name, the appealing label or the price indicator. Apparently, you should also change wine shop, because a proper wine shop wouldn’t let you hang around for that long without giving you the proper advice – but okay, maybe it’s the closest to your home.

Anyway, there comes one of the wine writer’s role. With this little “shelf-talker”: 91pts, a nice list of flavours you will find in this wine, drink until 2010. That’s helpful. No matter what we think about it, and how un/accurate this can be. Have you ever realised that once you’ve bought the wine, you don’t even try to find any of the flavours described on the shelf-talker? And if you ever try to, you rarely find them anyway (ah, yes, the wine writer doesn’t have your tastebuds or your taste memories/library!).
So the wine writer helps you make the right choice. If you are happy, you might listen to his advice again next time you are in this shop, or maybe you would have forgotten his name – there will be another 91 pts ranked anyway.
Fortunately, the wine writer’s role goes further than that.

A matter of quality

Let’s talk for few minutes about the american market. More than any other market, your wine needs to be well positionned and you need to have media coverage. If you have the right price, the right points from the influencial magazines or wine writers, then you’re on stage!

After that, whatever the quality in the bottle. Not saying that if you have great ranks means that you have great quality, but it doesn’t mean the contrary either. I am not talking about great names of grand cru and other of the sort, or reknown wineries – but of the others. Now, the hard part is for the wines that are actually delivering quality but have not been discovered by the writers.
For these, no matter the quality in the bottle, they’d better have a very good price positionning. Well, if the wine is not known, the winery is not either, even if the appelation is recognised, you’d better be at a middle or low price range. You are asked for these ranks from wine writer or magazines, and you are asked for an eye catching packaging.
Basically, and I think it’s been the greatest lesson I learnt in the USA: the quality doesn’t matter.

Tough luck for the wineries who always thought they just had to produce quality, and they would always get recognition for it. It doesn’t work this way. More precisely, I should add quality alone doesn’t matter. It is important, but it’s not enough when it’s time to sell your wine, great quality without sales and marketing strategy doesn’t sell. Quality will help to sell that second bottle, but not the first one.

So unfortunately quality alone is not relevant when you talk sales. Sad when you believe in your wine, but this is the market reality.

“Wine is history, emotion”…

How does one get to put meaning behind words…

How many times have you heard that wine is history, that wine is emotion?... More than you can remember. Obviously, after a while you get to understand this ‘romantic’ part of the wine in all the history/story sense and all the emotional ways. And indeed, this romantic part of wine is very charming, if not deep and fascinating.

Well I recently learnt the lesson… the hard way, or more precisely the tearful way. I am no ‘cryer’, but it has been stronger than me. Here’s the story – and you will not cry because it’s not sad, but I did because it was emotion and history: I deeply got into wine recently, however in my home wine has never been present on the table (contrary to all good French family) until 1991. My father was a sparkling water drinker, and my mother always thought he had to add up a bit of fun alcohol in society but he loved his water bubbles. I don’t know which bug bit him; but in 1990 he began to buy magazines about wine, and finally began to buy wine and all the necessary equipment. Rapidly, he got to know all the Bordeaux secrets and used to talk me through his growing cellar. I guess that’s when wine began to interest me, even though I couldn’t understand it, I was around 11 years old and red wine used to taste like pine forest leaving a rough feeling on my tongue. Well, my father loved his wines, and got some beautiful labels – L’angelus 94 (not one of their best vintage though), Ducru Beaucaillou 95, Lynch Bages 90, Chateau Pape Clement 90 … and more. Never crazy enough, he’s always bought beautiful wines, but never the 1er crus or so. Anyway, with time it’s always been one of my great expectations: to one day be able to open one of these bottles and try them.

But for cash matters (my father hates the idea of a loan, so cash is his solution), he discovered he could sell his wines in auction on internet. Evidently, wines are gone very quickly! And he told me the news. I listened quietly, felt tears rolling down my cheeks, finally hung up the phone and exploded in tears. This made me understand that although I had been waiting for years to taste these wines, I was profoundly sad not because I would miss the tasting, but because they were part of my story; they were the beginning of my passion. And I have lost a part of my history as well as a part of my future, because if they were still in the cellar at home, I would still be expecting to drink them one day with people I love to share good moments. So these few bottles were charged of huge emotions, and somehow even tough they are not mine anymore, they will always be that story, part of my wine life. I might actually have the opportunity one day to taste these same wines, but it will never be the same since the emotional charge will be completely different.

More emotions will come, for sure…

Who I am in few words…

27th of December... I had just turned 27, and decided to start a blog. Things leading to another, work over my head, trips here and there, and finally my poor blog ended up with 2 posts after some 8 months. Ah, working on this blog requires some time. So there I am again, with new objectives. But first, a little description of who your devoted blogger is:

I have been acquainted with wine for just a few years, 5 exactly. I began drinking sweet white wines - nice, easy and for a woman slightly more elegant than drinking beer out of a bottle. (Nothing wrong with beer, I actually love them too.) Little by little I began asking myself questions about it, without ever being able to understand it. Always very studious at school, this was a subject I couldn't get through books, no matter how small and easy these were. I should also probably mention that I’m from France, which is certainly not the easiest country when you want to start understanding wine.So 5 years ago, after a business school, I decided to specialise myself in wine marketing, and this has been the greatest decision of my life, so far (leaving room for some more is certainly a good idea…). I started a year of travel around more than 20 countries from Sweden to Hungary, through Germany, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Australia etc... and all this while studying – basically a concrete education based on daily tastings directly from the source. Stopping from time to time in universities (very rarely though), meeting the different actors of the wine industry and most of the time going from wineries to wineries wisely listening to the winemakers, viticulturist, sales and marketing people, or owners and catching every possible answer to my questions. Sounds like a dream? Indeed it's been great.

Books would have taught me about theories, but I got to feel wine in every sense: with my nose and palate, but also through the stories and the people. I got to feel wine from Where it was from, from Why it tasted a specific way, from Who were the people behind the wine and What it was made with and from. The wine in a glass always brings up these 4 W questions to me, some wines will answer more than one of them, but only a beautiful wine answers these 4 questions truly. That was actually the name of my first blog – wineandthe4w.over-blog.com.

Fresh start.

Before I end this introduction up, I’m here to share information and don’t pretend knowing everything since I actually know such a little compared to what I still have to learn, and that’s why I love so much wine!

All this being said, so many of these blogs or websites already exist! Why creating another one and most importantly how different will that be? …