Castor Membership March 2022: Everything Old is New Again
Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence White, Domaine d’Eole, France 2018
In the wine world, grape-growing regions often fall victim to their own branding, and the Southern French area of Provence is no exception: hear or read the word Provence and your mind is calibrated to conjure up instantaneous images of beach-side promenades, lavender-dotted cliffsides above the brilliant blue Mediterranean, and gallons of barely pink rose being quaffed on outdoor patios. And while Provence is certainly those things, it is in fact so much more, evidenced for me when importer Olivier Daubresse and I first pulled up to the little village of Eygalieres to visit a winery that I’d worked with for over a decade: Domaine d’Eole.
If you’ve ever had visions of leaving the hustle and bustle behind and retiring to a quaint little town in the South of France, your brain without knowing it probably cut and pasted Eygalieres into your psyche. Located in the Northwest corner of the large Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence winemaking region, Eygalieres is the kind of European village where there is one coffee shop in the morning to which everyone goes for an obligatory morning beverage (this close to the Mediterranean, it’s espresso and perhaps a bread with olive oil substituted in for coffee and something buttered). During said visit, you will know everyone in the coffee shop and literally walk around and greet them all in turn-none of this anti-social Starbucksian avoidance behind the wall of a laptop or cellphone. This is the morning routine of Christian Raymont, former owner of Domaine d’Eole and our host for our visit (it helps that his girlfriend, a salt-of-the-earth fiftysomething named Mimi, is the barista). A gentleman in the truest sense in his mid-60s, Christian has recently sold the domaine that he purchased in 1996 but still keeps a close relationship to the winery and its winemaker of nearly 30 years, Mattias Witmer. As we leave the cafe and begin the short drive to Domaine d’Eole, I’m reminded of how I’ve been working with this winery for years (first serving and then selling), and now I’m finally getting to see the source of the great wines I’ve been surprising my guests with.
Domaine d’Eole is Provencal, but it is also continental, and that is an education in itself. The winery is located in the shadow of the Alpilles mountain range (French diminutive for “Little Alps”), and the vineyards take up both the valley floor around the mountains and several pockets of steep slopes in the hills themselves, lined between stretches of alpine-forested wild country. The domaine obviously identifies as Provencal, and the wines express the more nuanced aromatic character of the region rather than the bulkier offerings of the neighboring Rhone Valley, yet here in the northwest corner of the Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence appellation we are actually closer to Chateauneuf-du-Pape than the Mediterranean. The blend of different sites is encompassed within a very unique microclimate that allows the rose of Domaine d’Eole to have a more concentrated character than its beachfront counterparts, the red wines to comprise both bigger and less oxidative fruit because of more even ripening, and the whites to be both sizable in body yet equally refreshing.
In white wines of the South of France, Grenache Blanc reigns supreme in most blends, but for Domaine d’Eole the grape that makes the entry-level Eole Blanc so intoxicating is Rolle, a Southern French synonym for Vermentino. Known chiefly to wine lovers from examples in mainland Italy, Sardinia, and Corsica, Vermentino’s match to this windswept, rugged landscape is perfect, producing a bevy of fresh stone fruit mixed with lively acid and a distinct herbal character which is both less agressive than, say, a Sauvignon Blanc and at the same time more authentic; when you taste fresh thyme in the Domaine d’Eole white it’s like someone literally ground it up from the hills neighboring the vineyards and dropped it into the glass. Tasting inside the domaine’s cellar, the reverence that both Christian and winemaker Mattias have for the Vermentino is strong, and the “only-I-can-read-these” notes scrawled in my tiny tasting book put me firmly in their camp: “structure and acid out of these grapes: how?”, “tastes like it should be more expensive”.
Later after dinner, as Olivier and I make our way back to Christian’s home and confer on our impressions of the wines tasted that day (of which Olivier generously allows me, his subordinate, no small amount of opinionated input), we stop at a small chapel on the outskirts of Eygalieres. In the fading light we climb a small slope to the 12th century Chapelle Saint Sixte; bathed in hues of blue and grey from the dimming sun and evening cloudcover, the atmosphere is so tangible it has a sound. Olivier tells me that his daughter Celine, now nearly 30, was christened in this chapel. As we watch the remaining vestiges of the day vanish and then head back to Christian’s for one last glass and the obligatory late-evening soccer match on tv, my mind wonders whether Provence should pursue some new branding, for while I know there are other more-famous parts of the region and certainly other amazing wine producers, my mental postcard of this day, with this winery and these men, still lingers with me in such a way that I couldn’t start my own company and not share a little piece of it-D.
Domaine d’Eole White Blend, Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence 2018
Country of Origin: France
Location: As mentioned above, Domaine d’Eole is located outside of the village of Eygalieres in the northwest corner of the Coteaux d’Aix-en-Provence appellation.
Soil: Calcaire, with strong topsoil of pebbles.
Grape Varieties: 60% Rolle (Vermentino), 40% Grenache Blanc
Winemaking: Hand-harvested and fermented/vinified in stainless steel tanks. The grapes are pressed directly and lees contact is largely avoided, adding to the more refreshing texture, as Grenache Blanc is a grape that becomes easily oxidized and fatiguing on the palate-thankfully not here!
Aging: The Eole blanc is aged for five months in stainless steel tanks before bottling.
Flavors and Foods: The nose of the excellent 2018 vintage (for me the best the domaine has yet made) is a mix of stone fruit (white peach) and invigorating herbal notes (sage/thyme, always fresh). As mentioned above, the wine feels like an aperitif and a dinner wine rolled into one bottle, as the heft and quince/stone fruit from the full-bodied Grenache Blanc mingle with the salty citrus of the Vermentino. This wine is a more ambitious food pairing match than most white Provence wines (think branzino with olive oil and lemon brought inside and roasted in the oven rather than grilled sardines), and the body/mouthfeel make it substantive enough to pair with a whole chicken as well (spatchcocked and grilled with lemon and herbs is both faster and a better fit than the oven).
Costieres des Nimes Red, Chateau la Tour de Beraud, France 2018
I first knew I was going to take a stab at a wine career in the mid-2000s; I was going to music school in Indiana and working at a restaurant that-when I started working there-was one of the best in town. Although I loved my time at school and my work at the restaurant, I kept returning in my spare time to a little family-run wine bar that was housed inside of an old meat-packing warehouse. The family were warm, welcoming, and quirky in the way that only a family who spends their entire day within 50 feet of each other could be. The wine bar’s General Manager was named Joel, and he had a really fantastic skill for someone in hospitality-within five minutes of your arrival at the bar, he systematically scraped any stress-related negativity off of your shoulders and made you feel like you belonged, that you were a part of something (side note: Joel was so good at being hospitable that he was a groomsman in my wedding and nearly twenty years later I consider him one of my very best friends).
It didn’t take long for my restaurant employment to go south-a divorce of the husband/wife ownership team, a concept change, and the lack of resources that both of these events brought on turned the once-idyllic hot spot into a rough place to work, and so in the latter part of my first year at school I found myself walking into the wine bar, plopping myself in front of Joel and the ownership family and asking for a job. Their response: “We were wondering how long it was gonna take you to ask.” Hired on the spot, my first day included a tasting with the owner of an Indianapolis-based importer named Stephane who hailed originally from a region known for wine since Roman times-the town of Nimes in the Southern Rhone Valley. Proud of his heritage, Stephane would routinely bring us selections from the Costieres de Nimes appellation; I distinctly remember lessons of the area’s 2,000 year history of cultivation, and loved particularly the bistro-ready red wines, which would feature an appellation-required amount of either savory, aromatic Syrah or spicy, austere Mourvedre-grapes that were supplanted in neighboring Rhone appellations in favor of the ultra-ripe, red-fruit dominant Grenache. I was drawn to the Nimes wines because although I love Grenache-based wines also, the presence of the Syrah and Mourvedre led, for me, to more tastes and smells each time I picked up the glass. The wines of Stephane’s company still stick in my sensory memory bank, and it was a pleasure later in life to stand at the Palais des Papes in Avignon and, under the twilight of a fading clouded sunset in January, stare southwest down the Rhone River towards Nimes and reflect on the fact that my little wine bar job had become my professional life.
It’s only natural that when you work somewhere for a considerable period of time you become a little insular-as hard as you try to stay tuned into what’s going on around you, you inevitably become fixated on your “part of the world”. Last year, when I decided to step away from my job and begin the journey that culminated in my starting Gemini Wine Company, I realized I needed to broaden my wine-drinking horizons if I was going to properly achieve my new goals. So, I started visiting some wine stores in the area where friends worked, and rediscovering regions that I hadn’t worked with/tried in some time. One of the first to cross my path was a family-owned property called Chateau La Tour de Beraud, located in Beaucaire, a commune on the Rhone river in the Southern Rhone Valley. The winery, run by family scion Francois Collard since 1990, bottles its wines under the appellation-you guessed it-Costieres de Nimes. And just like that, it was like someone put me in a time capsule back to that midwestern wine bar, where I was tasting great-quality red wines from Syrah and Mourvedre again-just as delicious and simply approachable as I remembered, equally at home with a cut of savory red meat or a slice of spicy pizza.
It’s my pleasure to introduce to Virginia as a Gemini Wine Company exclusive the red blend from Chateau La Tour de Beraud; I hope you enjoy it and discover that when it comes to the simple pleasure of a glass of wine with a meal, everything old is indeed new again-D.
Chateau La Tour de Beraud Red Blend, Costieres de Nimes 2018
Country of Origin: France
Location: Chateau La Tour de Beraud is located in Beaucaire, on the western side of the Rhone River, east of Nimes (about halfway between Avignon and Arles). The name of the winery refers to a 14th century fire tower that stands at the top of the plateau where the vineyards are located. The vineyards enjoy a fantastic microclimate wherein the heat of the Rhone Valley sun is mitigated by both the Mistral wind from the North and cooling Mediterranean breezes from the south.
Soil: A locally-named alluvial soil called Gress (rounded pebbles with a sandy core).
Grape Varieties: 45% Grenache, 30% Syrah, 15% Mourvedre, 10% Marselan.
Winemaking: Manual harvest; traditional press and a maceration/fermentation on the skins for 2-3 weeks.
Aging: La Tour de Beraud’s red again espouses tradition in aging for 12 months in concrete vats, which was the historical alternative to expensive oak barrels in the economically-depressed South of France. The added benefit in modern times is that with so many wines dominated by wood, aging in concrete smooths out tannin structure rather than adding to it, and preserves an intrinsic freshness that I really love for aromatic grapes like Syrah and Mourvedre, allowing all of their non-fruit savoriness to shine through.
Flavors and Foods: Nose of fresh herbs (thyme, fresh sage) and what is sometimes called “varietal” spice (i.e. spice notes not from oak). That theme continues on the palate: red cherries and currants, a little blueberry compote from the Syrah, and savory baking spices (think more nutmeg and cardamom than vanilla). Bistro cuts of steak (flat-iron, skirt, anything without too much marbling) as well as red-sauce pasta dishes are the order of the day-thoughts of this wine with the earthy, salty notes of anchovies and capers present in pasta puttanesca have me ready to stop my day and break out the dutch oven!
Availability: La Tour de Beraud’s red is present in Maryland and DC but this is its first foray into Virginia-enjoy and don’t hesitate to let me know if you’d like some more!