Cos D'Estournel and Chateau D'Yquem

Yesterday we did the first of our Bordeaux wine tours.

First off, let me say that wine tasting and touring is a completely different animal here than it is in Napa and Sonoma:

First off, many of the Chateaux and vineyard properties are gated, with locked gates, and you often can't even get in without an appointment. For both of our tours and tastings, we were the only ones there.

Second, they don't charge you for the tour or tasting, at least the two we went to so far didn't; that might not be true for all of them.

Third, they don't have a tasting room. The woman at Chateau D'Yquem didn't even know what that was, we had to describe it to her. So you can't just walk in off the street, pay money and taste a sampling of all of a certain winery's wines.

Fourth, a lot of the Chateaux don't even sell their wines on the property. You have to buy them somewhere else.

In an effort to keep the posts short(er), I won't describe in detail both wineries from yesterday, I will instead just talk about Chateau D'Yquem (photo above), since that visit was absolutely fascinating.

As I believe I have mentioned before, I am completely obsessed with the botrytis (noble rot) sweet wines, and Chateau D'Yquem, it seems, produces some of the best of these wines in the Sauternes area. I have not tasted loads and loads of Sauternes, partly because they can be pricey, so I can't say for certain if they deserve their reputation and pricetag, but all I can say is, I was impressed.

I knew that trying to make a botrytis wine was difficult, because since the fungus is naturally occurring, the wineries cannot know if they will have a proper infestation of it or not from one year to the next, but I never realized just how complicated and how exacting making these wines is.

Chateau D'Yquem uses Semillon and Sauvignon Blanc grapes for their sweet wines; on the property, there are different sections of soil, so some of the grapes are growing in clay soil, some in limestone, some in gravel and, I believe, some in sand, though I will have to double-check.

The Sauvignon Blanc grapes and the Semillon will taste different, depending on which soil they have grown in, which adds depth and complexity to the wine.

When it comes time to pick the grapes, that's when things get complicated. First of all, there can be three different types of rot that will infect a cluster: grey rot, which turns the fruit to dust; sour rot which causes the fruit to burst and turn to vinegar; and finally the botrytis, or "noble rot", which shrivels the fruit but turns it to sugary deliciousness.

The pickers must be able to distinguish which rot is which, but it doesn't stop there. Botrytis infects a grape cluster at different rates, so the picking of these grapes can take up to 11 different passes.

The pickers will look at the bunch, determine which sections of the cluster have just the right amount of rot, cut those away, and leave the rest. They will return multiple times to pick additional clusters as the rot develops on them. Interestingly, the woman who took us on our tour said that very often the women pickers do a better job of cutting away just the right section of grapes due to usually having smaller, more nimble fingers. It's more like having to be a good seamstress than a picker.

Each time the botrytis grapes are picked, a fermentation is begun, separate ones for the Semillon grapes and Sauvignon Blanc. This means that at some points they can have up to 40 different fermentations happening, since there is a different one for each day of picking and for each grape varietal.

The fermantation must be stopped at just the right time to maintain the right balance of sweetness, acidity and alcohol. The wine is then blended, aged in new French oak barrels (each barrel is only used one year for the sweet wine, after which it is used for the dry wine they also produce), and blended again.

After learning all of this, I suddenly felt that maybe the steep pricetag wasn't so steep. Then came time for the tasting.

She gave us a taste of 2007, which is one of the less expensive vintages, but was absolutely delicious nonetheless. Sweet, but not too sweet, with a bright fresh acidity, and amazing notes of dried and fresh apricot, honeysuckle, and vanilla. I would drink this as an aperatif, an appetizer wine with foie gras or cheeses, and as a dessert wine.

In fact, let's be honest, I would just stick a straw in the bottle and drink it all day. It's absolutely delicious. And it can be both a drink-it-now wine and an investment. Because of the balance of sugar, acid and alcohol, these wines age beautifully. Our guide said she tasted a 1904 D'Yquem and it was incredible. Some day...

Heat Wave

Hello from the Bordeaux region of France.

We are staying at the beautiful Chateau Biac in the small town of Langoiran, in part of an old stone cottage complete with small kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, living and dining room.

It is part of a larger complex and winery which we have not toured yet, but plan to before we leave.

I will include pictures later, but right now we are too busy melting to even go outside to take any shots. It reached 100 degrees today, and yesterday it wasn't much cooler. Of course there is no air conditioning, and we don't even have a fan, so let me tell you, it is hot in the room at night.

It's also airless because we can't keep the windows open because then the mosquitos get in, so the windows are closed all night. And, because of the heat, the bugs are coming out in droves. Last night we had a line of tiny ants going from under the front door, all the way across the living and dining room, to a hole in the stone wall.

There were multiple large beetles sashaying along the floor, too, but by far the worst moment came when I was rinsing my mouth out over the sink after brushing my teeth, leaning forward, and a millipede came out of the emergency overflow hole in the sink, almost right up into my face.

I shrieked, I really did. In nine years of being together, Steve said he'd never heard me make a sound like that before.

I'm not normally afraid of millipedes, but that sucker came dangerously close to jumping into my open mouth, and of course, when i saw those tentacles appearing, the first thing I thought was that it was a big roach.

And millipedes move fast, they move really fast, and I'm sorry but all those legs are a bit creepy. And as I sat in bed reading, I couldn't stop myself from imagining that as soon as the lights went out and I fell asleep, that millipede and maybe a few of its friends, were going to crawl into my ear and burrow into my brain.

Needless to say, I got up and watched a movie.

Wine for Flash Cards

First things first: I will be modifying my posting schedule a little. I will be adding new posts Monday-Thursday evenings, and sending out my reminder email on Friday mornings. Hope that works for you, too!

I have been having a few flash-car-related mishaps lately. As I'm sure you know, the whole idea of flash cards is that you write a question on one side of an index card, and the answer on the other side of the same card. In this way, you can test yourself. I, however, have been so intently writing down all of the questions and answers, and paying such attention to getting down all of the information, that I have accidentally been writing the questions and answers on the same side of the card. Adding to this embarrassment is the fact that it took me almost four weeks to realize my mistake.

The consequence of this little oversight is that my poor husband now has to test me on all the information on these cards. Which brings us to the second flash card-related-issue: as I believe I have already mentioned, my handwriting is, um, bad. After almost 9 years together, Steve is remarkably adept at deciphering my scrawl, but even he periodically hits a snag. Recent study sessions have gone like this: Steve asking me to name a producer or area in France, and me not being sure and asking him to give me a hint in the form of the first letter of the answer. Steve then looks at the flash card and says: "I can't", to which I reply: "What do you mean, you can't?", to which he says: "Well, it's either a 'P' or a 'B' or a 'G". Undeterred, I suggest he give me the second letter instead. Long pause. A look from the flash card to me. Me to the flash card. Then, "I can't".

The best one of these was when he asked me to name a "grar cnu". When I told him that it was actually "grand cru", Steve announced that my handwriting is atrocious. This is, of course, completely 'tnue'.

Today in class we enjoyed some of the dry white and sweet wines of Bordeaux. My wine for flash cards is a Clos Le Thibaut Monbazillac 2003. This is technically a wine from the Soudouest, but it was included in our Bordeaux extravaganza. It is a sweet botrytis wine made from Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadel. This one has wonderful aromas of ripe fig, passionfruit, lychee, pineapple, kumquat and honey with lychee, pineapple and apricot on the palate. It really is a lovely wine, and though it falls a little flat on the finish, at $18 a bottle, you can't go wrong.

Let me know what you think!

Wine for Learning to Learn

I had two textbook anxiety dreams last night. In the first, a friend of mine that I knew in high school invited everyone but me to a party. In the second, I was at an audition for which I was completely unprepared. I couldn't remember my monologue, had forgotten to bring headshots and didn't actually know what I was auditioning for. I raced home to get my pictures and monologue, and parked illegally outside the building. When I emerged, I not only had a $200 ticket, but also, the road behind my car had been completely dug up, making a deep crater. The back wheel of the car was was hanging over one edge, turning, and I wondered how I was ever going to be able to drive the car forward with that wheel hanging off. Hmmmm....hanging over the edge...no way to go back, no way to move forward...wheels spinning. A little on the nose? I will have to chat with my subconscious about being a little more original.

Why the anxiety dreams? What is starting to happen suddenly became clear last night after a long talk with Steve: I have begun learning for this class to pass the test, as opposed to learning to gain useful information as I move forward in the wine biz. Once I realized that, I also realized that it has not just happened to me, but to everyone else in the class as well. For the first two weeks we were all excited and open, taking everything in and having fun with tasting and smelling and exploring the wines. Then we had the first test, and it all went downhill from there. Based on the class averages and stats David, our teacher gave us, nobody was particularly thrilled with their results. Ever since then, there has been a certain tension in the classroom, a certain low-level panic. People were asking each other how they had done on the test, trying to assure themselves they weren't the only one who hadn't done so well.

I have fallen victim to it as well; what started out as an adventure to see how much I could immerse myself in wine, and how much I could learn has now become all about making sure I don't fail the Certified Sommelier Exam. If I have learned anything over the years, it is that studying for an exam is not the same as taking in and absorbing information. The desire to pass a test, to do well, to get good grades, to not fail can be so strong, and instead of opening me up to knowledge and information, it shuts me down, makes me tense, makes it almost impossible to open myself up to taking in new thoughts, ideas, tastes, and smells.

I am vowing from here on out to try to not obsess so much about whether or not I pass the Certified Exam. Because really, what does it matter if I pass it this time or I don't? Will that change what I have learned, all the new wines I have been exposed to? No. And if I don't pass it this first time out, and I want to try it again the next time they offer it, then I can. This course is so intense it is essentially cramming years of wine study into eleven weeks. Considering that I had basically no wine knowledge at all when I started, that is a LOT of new information I am trying to take in. I have never tasted 95% of the wines we are trying, have never even heard of many of the grape varietals.

So I am going to give myself a break. I am going to try and get back to what brought me to this class in the first place: a desire to learn about wine. Nothing more, nothing less.

We tried 12 wines today, and honestly by the end I had total palate fatigue (I don't know if this is a real term, but it should be). So no wine recommendation today, but tomorrow we start Bordeaux. I have never tried a Bordeaux wine before; from what I hear, they are pretty special! I'll let you know what I learn.