August 2003
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A Northern Harvest With J-C safely on a plane to Europe Saansie was now in charge of day to day operations, but with a list of jobs as long as his arm. The pruning had to be finished off and the year round tasks of weeding and taking out the invasive trees were on going. In the meantime we were anxious to hear reports from the Northern Hemisphere. After disappearing off the radar screen in London, Paris and various other places for a week (connecting up with old SA chums apparently!) J-C resurfaced in Lyon and was picked up by his hosts of the next three months. His hosts own a small Domaine in Cote Rotie with 4ha of Syrah and also make 5 barrels of Viognier each year. Their red wine, simply called Cote Rotie - after the incredibly steep "Roasted Slopes" the vines grow on - is easily one of the most elegant Syrahs in the world, structured like a great round velvety Burgundy, but perfumed and spiced, but made in extremely small quantities. The Domaine is in the village of Verenay, between Valence and Ampuis, about 30km south of Lyon. It has been rated as "outstanding" (5 stars) by Parker, standing side by side with the best on offer from Renee Rostaing, Chapoutier and Guigal. The wine has been described as among the most profound of the appellation and vintages are regularly awarded over 90 points out of 100. They use 50% new oak (small barrels) for between 18 and 24 months. The cellar is small but has deep cool maturation cellars which are among the coldest in the region, allowing the wine to mature slowly without any severe temperature changes. J-C was given a very chic flat with everything he needed. They also gave him the use of their old van (that looked and went like Postman Pat's) and bicycles to use during his stay. He was there to work and learn. This was a really great chance for him to broaden his experience, to see how a great Syrah is made and bring his new found knowledge back to Tulbagh for the benefit of TMV. He arrived during one of the hottest summers on record and normally would have been busy in the vineyards doing crop thinning, canopy management and de-weeding, but because it had been so hot and dry there was not that much growth. This was fortunate as not even this lover of vines really enjoys de-weeding and gets enough of it in Tulbagh. The heat also meant that the vendage (harvest) was expected to be about 10 days earlier this year. He was given all the usual apprentice jobs in a cellar and his first - like for all apprentices - was to wash the floors and drains, a kind of initiation. Usually just before vendage they rack and bottle the previous year's Viognier and the Cote Rotie from the vintage before last. So this year they would be racking and bottling Cote Rotie 2001 and J-C arrived just in time (due to the early vendage) to experience this crucial phase. Interestingly enough, most of the wine is sold in French restaurants, and so about half of it is bottled in demis (375ml). Apart from what was going on at work there was also the whole novel experience of living and working in rural France to absorb. His hostess was a machine in the kitchen and the food was fantastic, a real eye opener. He tried to learn as much as he could whenever he had the chance to see her do her stuff. On the language front he struggled, and although his hosts spoke pretty good English (and didn't seem to mind doing so), he had to improve. Luckily, his hostess used to be a teacher and took him under her wing and he is having French lessons every second evening for an hour or two. There were other local social customs to get used to. For example he went swimming. Not that amazing in itself, but he had to wear Speedos! It was madness, everybody was off to the local pool and J-C came downstairs wearing his boardies. They first looked at him, then at each other and went "Mon Dieu! Non non non! Ou est votre speedo?" Apparently to swim at a municipal pool you have to wear them. J-C obviously doesn't own such things, so he feigned disappointment and said he'd go and swim in the Rhone. This was not to be and they shipped him off to the local sports shop. In the end (the very end) they persuaded him to squeeze himself in to a particularly skimpy pair and he just pretended to be French and strutted around like everyone else. There were parts of him exposed that hadn't seen daylight for many years! Of course this story is not to be repeated to his SA mates. Much of the local competitive and social sport takes place on the River Rhone. It is ideal as the river is pretty clean, wide and the waters are calm due to the lochs built to control the flow. Water skiing and fishing are big sports and they also have modern rowing but more popular is rowing in big flat wooden boats with 2 rowers and 2 passengers. The action is the same as conventional rowing with a bending of the knees, but the seats are just flat benches which have been well polished over the years. J-C tried it but his butt hurt for 5 days afterwards. He wasn't told that most people actually wear 2 pairs of pants while doing it. Another interesting sport is called Joute - basically jousting on boats. It's really spectacular and skilful. Guillome, the son of his hosts, is pretty hot at it and is in the final of some big French Joute championships. Fortunately before J-C could get involved in drowning himself Jouting on the Rhone harvest was upon them. They finished off all the bottling just in time to start harvesting the Condrieu. By the end of the month it was all safely in barrel, just starting to ferment (oak fermentation). There were only 4 barrels this year due to all the sorting they did and one barrel was made separately from just the raisin like berries that were separated from the other berries. Talk about micro attention to detail. The raisins on the southern sides of the bunches were cut out berry by berry, bunch for bunch and pressed separately into this barrel at 31 degrees balling. They are going to let it simply ferment until the yeast give up and bottle it separately with a residual sugar to balance out the higher alcohol. Most of the appellations in France are pretty strict when it comes to tolerated sugar levels, but fortunately Condrieu has no set levels - wines are generally dry, but can have residual sugar. It is one of the few regions that are even allowed to make a vendange tardive. At the end of the month they started to harvest the reds to try to achieve alcohols of about 13%. The French in this part of the country don't like much more than that! Maturity was carefully monitored - not by simply squeezing a grape, looking at the moon and chewing a stem. They did a lot of sampling and working in some extremely steep parcels high above the Rhone was not for the faint hearted. Mountain climbing gear was pretty much needed. J-C was slowly finding his feet on the mad lunar slopes. The work was tough. They were harvesting the steepest slope you can possibly drag yourself up (you only harvest going uphill - it's too steep to go down) while carrying two buckets of precious grapes with them. People came home with badly grazed knees and shins and J-C got a wound to be proud of - a nice deep cut in the elbow from a fall trying to walk downhill. They actually get all the harvesters to sign insurance forms. There were however compensations - taking a break in the shade of a cherry tree with croissants, cheese, ham and wine - with the view of the Rhone winding past in the valley below. For J-C it was magic to be a part of. Every Saturday, one of the oldest and biggest markets in France took place just over the Rhone, in the streets of Vienne. It was a good place to walk around and the variety and colour of the produce was amazing. From Condrieu down to the bottom of St Joseph the vineyards are bordered by a big forested national park that isn't fenced off and contains many of the smaller national roads and villages. There were many walking and cycling trails on the roads and through the fields and forests so it was a marvelous place to cycle through, and even though it is seriously hilly country that means you get great views of the Rhone Valley. Saansie did a great job on the farm and kept the rest of the team happy and occupied. The expenses were a lot lower for the month as well which was one advantage of having J-C out of the country. Copyright © 2000 Tulbagh Solutions. All rights reserved. |
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