Weekend des Grands Amateurs, Bordeaux

I'm sitting in my hotel in Bordeaux, exhausted and exhilarated by the last few days of events of Le Weekend des Grands Amateurs.
It's a weekend for wine lovers, not professionals. Today as I sat next to Chateau Branaire-Ducru co-owner, Patrick Maroteaux, at a delicious four course lunch, he told me, "It's very important for the winery owner to be open to wine lovers.". It's not surprising that Mr. Maroteaux was one of the founding organizers of the weekend, now in its fifth year.
The weekend started yesterday morning with a six and a half hour grand tasting on the river walkway near Chartrons, a historic wine merchant district. I have never tasted so many wines from exceptional houses all at once: Chateau Angelus, Chateau Giscours, Chateau Beychevelle, Chateau Talbot, Chateau Lynch-Bages, Chateau Pichon-Longueville, more than 100 in all. I myself tasted 75 wines, the majority with notes. It took me four and a half hours with three breaks, and only bread & cheese to sustain me.
Of course I didn't drink all that wine. I and the vast majority of attendees made good use of the silver pedestal spitoons, which were emptied frequently. My favorites included: 04 Chateau Canon-la-Gaffeliere 04, 03 Chateau Dassault, 01 Chateau La Tour Figeac (all from St. Emillion ); 02 Chateau Beauregard, 01 Chateau Petit Village, and most of the 07s from Pomerol; 03 Chateau Brane-Catenac, 02 Chateau Dauzac (Margaux), 02 Chateau Lynch Bages & Chateau Pontet-Canet (Pauillac).
Dinner last night was at a beautiful Sauternes wine estate, Chateau Guirard. Its drive is striking, lined with tall trees. One of the owners, Xavier Planty, greeted us warmly & cordially hosted another elaborate meal that lasted four hours. Today, the last event was a wine tour. I chose the Medoc, legendary red wine region on the left bank of the Gironde River.
In addition to lovely tastings & gracious winemakers, the tour was also higly enjoyable because it offered the chance to meet & mingle with an international assortment of wine lovers. On the bus back to Bordeaux, I befriended French, Swiss & British wine lovers. And that was one of the surprise benefits of the weekend: sharing it all with my fellow amateurs.

Wine Speaker - My New Role

I just finished unpacking from a great weekend at the St. Michael’s Winefest, the first annual wine festival in St. Michaels, Maryland. St. Michaels is a charming, historic town on Maryland’s eastern shore with cute boutiques, good restaurants, and very friendly locals.

I had gone to their previous wine festival for the past three years. When I saw that this year’s event had a new format, I noticed there were no speakers. I love teaching wine classes, so I offered my services. Soon I was engaged to speak at a floating wine event.

On a mild evening at the end of April, I set sail on the Patriot, a cheerful vessel owned by John Marrah. A lovely selection of wines had been chosen for the event, and I introduced each as it was poured:
- Bellinis
- White Bordeaux
- Chassagne Montrachet
- Vino Nobile de Montepulciano
- Brunello de Montalcino

The crowd mingled and sipped as the Patriot glided on smooth-as-glass water, out past million dollar waterfront homes and onto the lovely Cheasapeake Bay. A two piece band had the crowd swaying their hips on the upper deck, while on the lower deck attendees lounged in casual groups and caught up with old friends.

It was a wonderful trip, the kind you wish would last longer than it does. The next day as I poured French wines at the Kemp House Inn, I heard many people remark on what a lovely time they had on the Patriot. I was pleased to be the speaker for the event this year, and I look forward to being a wine speaker again next year in St. Michaels.

If you would like to engage my services as a speaker at a wine event, please contact me at dianeletulle(at)gmail(dot)com.

Le Du's Wines Bring French Twist to NYC Wine Scene

Le Du's wines is owned by one of the world's most famous sommeliers. From 1995-2004 Jean Luc Le Du was head sommelier of the gastronomic mecca, Restaurant Daniel, owned by famed restauranteur Daniel Boulud. He was awarded the James Beard Foundation 2003 Award for "Outstanding Wine Service". But Jean Luc had dreams beyond the prestigious restaurant.

For four years the wine shop as been an airy and attractive place to buy wine, enjoy wine tastings, as well as take classes in the chilly back room, which is temperature controlled to preserve the finest wine in the store (bring a sweater or jacket).

The wine is selected with great care and the staff is passionate about their choices. One of the wonderful qualities about Le Du's is that there is great wine at all price points, and they are not ones to scoff at a fantastic $10 bottle - in fact, wines that present an excellent price to value ratio are reason to celebrate.

But if you do want to buy something really rare, perhaps a case of Romanee-Conti, Jean Luc can also help you with that.
Le Du's Wines seems to pull off the impossible balancing act between sophisticated selections and a down to earth attitude. It's a must for wine lovers traveling in the West Village neighborhood.

Le Du's Wines
600 Washington Street
New York, NY, 10014
212-924-6999

2010 New York Wine Expo

The third annual New York Wine Expo was held on the last weekend in February at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City. The huge event featured hundreds of wines to try. Among the regions featured at this year's show were: Cotes du Rhone, France; Portugal; Castilla-La Mancha, Spain; New Zealand; Greece; Hungary; and New York State.

This is a huge consumer wine show, and hundreds of wine lovers converged on the Expo to try new wines, sample delicious foods, and have some fun. In addition to the long rows of tasting tables, the event featured small scale seminars, which offered a deeper understanding of certain wine regions.

At the "Portugal and the rise of Touriga Nacional" seminar, Michael Weiss, wine book author and chairman of wine studies at the Culinary Institute of America at Hyde Park, gave an informative talk on Portuguese wine today. In addition to providing an introduction to Touriga Nacional, probably the best known of Portugal's red table wine grapes, he also spoke about the country's wine regions, including the Tejo, Beiras, Douro, and Alentejo.

John Bandman, instructor and certified sommelier, presented a seminar on Cotes du Rhone to a packed room of French wine enthusiasts. He discussed differences between the Southern Rhone, which grows riper grapes and whose cuisine is more Mediterranean, and Northern Rhone, which has grapes that have more subtle flavors and whose cuisine has a greater amount of hearty dishes such as stews. One of the best things about Cotes du Rhones wines is their price: many can be had in the $12-$30 range.

The wine certainly was the focus, but there was some delicious food being sampled as well. Hudson Valley Foie Gras was grilling up slivers of goose liver on site and serving them hot. This company supplies foie gras to many local restaurants, and their products are available at better grocery stores. Wild Alaska Seafood provided samples of a delicious seafood pasta as well as copious recipe books for using sustainable seafood from the state.

In all, the New York Wine Expo provided a full weekend for wine lovers to sip, sample, and enjoy.

Dinner with Bordeaux Wine Makers in New York City

Anyone who considers the French serious and stuffy had better rethink their assessment. At a Wine Families of Bordeaux Dinner at the Robert Smith Hotel, I laughed myself silly chatting with French winemakers over a lovely three course meal accompanied by some of their recently released wines. These men and women are delightful, open, and friendly. I heartily recommend drinking their wine and taking a trip to Bordeaux to visit them at their wine estates.

To my right at dinner was Didier Marcelis of Chateau Serilhan in Saint-Estephe. Smart, funny and an excellent English speaker, Didier provided an insider's view of the winemaking life in Bordeaux. At this point many of the estates in the Medoc are owned by individuals far flung around the globe. As he said, he is one of the "Last of the Mohicans," being a winemaker who still chooses to live in the area. For Didier and many others, making money is not the motivation to stay in this business. Indeed the love and pride that the winery owner feels for his or her wine are the strongest motivators. An example of this is a French expression used at Bordeaux's famous barrel sampling event, En Primeurs. When someone asks winemakers how people are judging their wines, they are asked, "How are you tasting?" not "How is your wine tasting?" According to Didier, this is not an accident of language; the identification with one's wine is very real.

I also had the pleasure of getting to know Jean-Daniel Debart of Chateau Cablanc. This animated and very amusing man has a comical Facebook page where he takes on the role of Docteur Cablanc. Judging from the winery brochure, the estate looks like a great visit for families, as there are arranged treasure hunts, games, and more.

I would be remiss if I did not also note that seated to my left was Jane Anson, Bordeaux correspondent for decanter.com, and a very accomplished wine writer and keen observer of the Bordeaux wine scene. I had met Jane in Bordeaux two years ago and was pleased that she remembered me. Since then, we've had some internet interaction through blogs and Twitter, but nothing beats catching up in person.
The other wineries represented at the event were:

Chateau Paloumey
Chateau Beau Rivage
Chateau Brethous
Chateau du Cros
Chateau Gamage
Chateau Minvielle

The dinner marked the end of a week of events for the winemakers, who had come to New York to make contacts, find distributors, and expand their consumer base. To that end, the dinner was preceded by a free wine tasting, which was publicized widely to local members of Corkd, an interactive wine site that encourages members to share reviews of wine and interact on and offline. The winemakers also learned a thing or two about social media from Corkd staff, including CEO Lindsay Rongo.

It looked like the training paid off right away. By the end of the evening, winemakers were creating Twitter accounts, discussing ideas for blogs, and talking about their Facebook pages. Look for these intrepid winemakers both online and on the shelves of your local wine shop.

Douro! Douro! Douro!

Why not shout about the wines from the Douro (rhymes with Toro) Valley in northern Portugal? They are surprising, exciting, unique.

I’ve just returned from two days in the region. The landscape includes a meandering river, sweeping valleys, terraced vineyards, and winding roads that aren’t for the faint of heart (especially when driven by Portuguese bus drivers, who love to tailgate).

Port wine, a fortified beverage that is often aged for years, has been produced in the area since the 1600s. But table wines are babies – they’ve only been made for 15 years! There are some white wines produced in the Douro, but it’s the reds that play the leading role.

When young, the red wines of Douro can be too much for many palates- certainly mine. The acidity makes the side of your mouth tingle, the fruit is powerful, but rough, the tannins are sometimes out of control, and there can be bitter flavors and stalky vegetable notes that don’t work. However, when in the hands of a skilled winemaker and when given a few years to mature and a few hours to decant, the wines are delightfully approachable and always food friendly. In fact, I believe that drinking them without food does them a disservice. I found that when I was eating – whether a full meal or a few marcona almonds-- the wines uniformly tasted better. The very high acid in the wines makes them great matches with many foods.

One of the controversies in this very young wine region is what to grow and how to blend it. Touriga Nacional is a popular grape variety that produces a full bodied, inky dark red. Many Portuguese wine makers are making single variety wines with it. However this is a departure from tradition in the Douro, where field blends are commonly fermented. I was unfamiliar with this practice, but learned that older vineyards have a huge variety of grapes--as many as 50 or more--mixed together in the fields. In those vineyards, the winemaker waits until everything ripens then ferments it all together.

Many winemakers are getting away from that tradition in an attempt to serve a market that expects to see grape varieties listed on the label. They’re replanting old vineyards with five common varieties in order to make new style wines. When I met Cristiano Van Zeller from Quinta do Vale dona Maria, he said this was a mistake. His field blend wines are gorgeous, so he makes a good point. Personally, I think that the tradition of field blends is one of the aspects that makes Portuguese table wines unique.

It will be fascinating to watch and taste the development of this up-and-coming wine region. Just remember to decant!

Seven Hills, Lots of Wine, EWBC Anticipation

I am packing my bags, downloading ISpeak Portuguese, and counting the hours until I fly into Lisbon this Friday morning. The object of my anticipation is the European Wine Bloggers Conference.

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting California twice for the North American Wine Bloggers Conference, and I’m really looking forward to its sister conference across the pond. I have to hand it to Gabriella and Ryan Opaz and Robert MacIntosh, conference organizers, for putting together a stellar weekend.

One of the best things about these conferences is that they give wine bloggers the opportunity to meet. The friends I’ve made in this funny little world of online wine writing have always delighted me with their intelligence, humor, and joie de vivre.

I’m thrilled that the conference site is Lisbon. I’ve never been to this European capital, and I’m glad that the conference has given me the excuse to go. From its historic monuments to its seven hills, Lisbon looks quite magical. I’ll have to squeeze in as much touring as I can during my brief stay.

When I heard about the Saturday night dinner it sealed my decision to attend. We will be dining at Restaurant 11. I recently purchased a top 10 book of Lisbon, and the number one restaurant cited was –you guessed it—Restaurant 11. At last count, 15 courses were being planned with appropriately matched wines.

After the conference, there will be three straight days of vineyard tours, including two days in the beautiful Douro Valley. I am always thrilled to visit the lands where grapes are grown, to speak to the winemakers, and to get a sense of the place that goes into a wine. This truly enriches the experience of wine for me and inspires my writing.

Not to be forgotten in all this touring, interacting, and dining, is Portuguese wine. At the North American wine bloggers conference I had the opportunity to taste a lot of wonderful, full bodied red Portuguese wines. These were rich in fruit and tannin and extremely good values for the money. I can’t wait to visit the land where they were made.