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Terroiriste Wine Club Selections

    May 2013: Red

2008 Quinta do Infantado Touriga Nacional/Tinta Roriz/Touriga Francesca

       Douro, Portugal

 

Slopes and Schist and Slate

 

At first blush, the wines of Sancerre and the Douro Valley could not be more different.  Sancerre is a cool climate producing primarily crisp, rapier-like wines from just two varieties [and most of that white].  The slopes are smooth and the soil limestone.  Most wine is domain bottled by small estates. On the flat lands nearby, many other crops grow.  The Douro is hot, dry and remote.  It is known principally for its dark, tannic, fortified sweet wines produced from a dizziying array of varieties, some of which are unidentified at many farms or quintas.  The ground is schist, slate and barely decomposed granite with very little soil.  The vines are planted on terraces right above the river.   The region is too unforgivingly hot, steep and arid for any other crops.  Most grapes grown here ultimately end up in wines bottled by the large English and Anglo-Portuguese firms headquartered downstream in the town of Vila Nova de Gaia, just outside Porto.  

However, just as Sancerre, at its acme, depends for its essential character on a very particular soil type appearing in very steeply sloping vineyards, so do the wines of Douro depend on the slate and schist terraces rising up from the river.  

 

Quinta do Infantado

 

This property is hardly the best known in the Douro Valley, though it has a long history.  Infantado was established in 1816. The Roseira family purchased it in the late 19th century, and sold their grapes, as virtually every small property did, to the large houses with the very familiar names – Taylor Fladgate, Graham’s, Dow’s, Fonseca and the like.  In 1979 they made the then extraordinary decision to estate bottle their own wines.  At the time, any Port intended for export had to be bottled in Villa Nova de Gaia and, as most small firms could not afford facilities at their quinta and in town, they sold their grapes the large houses.  This law was changed in 1986 and now the wines of Quinta do Infantado have begun developing an international reputation.  Most small quintas could not take this extraordinary step.  Douro vineyards receive an official rating from A to F, A being the highest rating [duh], and prices paid by the large houses are based on these ratings.  All of Infantado’s vineyards are rated A.  These vineyards are in the Cima Corgo sub-zone of the Douro, just west of Pinhão.  This is the most highly esteemed spot in the entire region.  This dry red wine is a blend touriga nacional, tinta roriz and touriga francesca, farmed organically, crushed by foot in stone lagares and vinified without the addition of cultured yeast or any other chemical additive.  It is possible the wine could be more delicious, but that is not self-evident how it could be.  At 12% alcohol, it is refreshing, yet rich and juicy and bursting with personality.  There is every reason to believe it will do what excellent, bright red wines will do – complement a reasonable dish served with it.

 

 

Terroiriste Wine Club Selections

    May 2013: White

2011 Gérard Boulay Sancerre Sauvignon Blanc

       Loire Valley, France

 

Three Hour[s from] Tours …

 

… and we arrive at an entirely different sort of desert island occupied by Gilligan and Company [though a professor may come in handy in a moment or two].  This is the desert island where we must choose one wine to drink for the rest of our lives.  The choice from this seat is a Sancerre from Chavignol.  Few wines engage the olfactors and intellect with such vigor.  Here, we find ourselves roughly in the very center of France.  In the valleys in and around Chavignol and the striking and historic hilltop town of Sancerre, bands of Kimmeridgian chalk peak out through the Earth’s crust.  This Kimmeridgian chalk is a porous layer of fossilized sea creatures laid down roughly 150 million years ago during the late Jurassic period.  It is for all intents and purposes, the same geologic formation which surfaces in Chablis, Germany’s Franconia, southern Champagne’s Aube, England’s Dorset coast and the White Cliffs of Dover.  Sancerre and Vouvray are the two most celebrated white wines of the Loire Valley, but Sancerre shares has much more in common with, and is much closer to, Chablis, just an hour to northeast.  [Tours, the main city near Vouvray, is three hours to the west.]  The terroir is Kimmeridgian chalk.  Wines from the greatest sites in both areas are simultaneously rich and exert an electric raciness.  They taste of chalk and lime peel and white flowers.  And they are very long lived.  This chalky limestone, composed of calcium carbonate, appears in many of the greatest winemaking regions around the world.  Or more properly stated, winemakers have found that this soil type, combined with a hospitable climate and other favorable factors, can produce exceptional terroir for viticulture.  There are three distinct soil sub-types in Sancerre, all of which contain significant limestone, but differ in the amount of gravel, marl and flint.  

 

The tiny hamlet of Chavignol is widely, though not officially, considered a Cru of Sancerre, producing the most long-lived, detailed and powerful wines in the region.  This is the area with the purest concentration of Kimmeridgian chalk.  Many a geek consider Chavignol the greatest spot on Earth for sauvignon blanc.  The most famous vineyards sites in Sancerre are here – Mont Damné, Cul de Beaujeu, and La Grand Côte.  The most famous families are here – the Cotats, the Vatans, the Boulays.  The Sancerrois, and the Boulay family, have known this spot is special for quite some time.  As noted on the bottle, the Boulays have been farming these slopes since 1380!!!  Their 22 acres include property in all the great sites.  The youngest vines on the domain were planted in 1972 and many date to the 1930’s.  All are farmed organically.  All the wines are vinified very simply, though very fastidiously. This wine in particular derives from a number of small hillside parcels in Chavignol, and reveals all the elements that might make permanent residence on a desert island tolerable – rapier like acidity, richness, persistence, flavors and aromas of mandarin, pink grapefruit, lime and lilac.  Sancerre as a foil for varied cuisine is formidable as well.  A few birds might populate the island and they would be more than fair game.  With seafood, there could be no better partner, especially if prepared with citrus, lemongrass, Asian spices and, bien sur, Ginger.

 

April Wine Club Notes

4/1/2013

March Wine Club Notes

3/1/2013

February Wine Club Notes

2/1/2013

January Wine Club Notes

1/1/2013

December Wine Club Notes

12/1/2012

November Wine Club Notes

11/21/2012

October Wine Club Notes

11/3/2012

September Wine Club Notes

9/1/2012

August Wine Club Notes

8/1/2012

July Wine Club Notes

7/21/2012