Castor Membership April 2022: The Monotony of Excellence and The Burden of Expectation
“The Monotony of Excellence”
Terra Alta White Blend “Mas d’en Pol”, Celler Xavier Clua, Spain 2020
Both as a classical music student and later as a sommelier, I often wondered: is true greatness only achieved by unrelenting immersion? Does one have to stumble into class unshowered because they spent the whole night analyzing Beethoven’s 9th Symphony; must one ignore all aspects of practical life and walk the streets mumbling the geographical subzones of obscure wine regions until passersby think they’re in need of an on-the-spot psych evaluation? I myself have always been too curious about too many different things to sequester my brain in such a way, but many of the people whom I’ve met in both the arts and wine worlds that I would describe as geniuses are precisely that: so dedicated to their “thing” that their prodigious talents seem rote, monotonous, even…dare I say it…a little boring? Xavier Clua, of his eponymous winery in Catalunya, is just such a man, one whose tireless zeal for his craft leaves him (in my humble opinion) with some blind spots in his ability to appreciate the wine world, but it’s that same commitment to a certain style of winemaking that has had me hooked on his ho-hum brilliance for the past 12 years.
We’ve been driving and driving and still no Terra Alta…the wine region that claims to be fiercely Catalan in its language, culture, and wine seems to be too far-flung to be so; all of the highway signs are now pointing to Valencia and more southerly points. Even the landscape is different here; a set of rolling hills and wind turbines dotting the ridgeline are about the only breaks the grapevines have from unrelenting sun and heat; it’s easy to see why much of Terra Alta’s wine production is devoted to low-cost, grocery store offerings that take advantage of the easily ripening fruit, ignoring the out-of-whack alcoholic finishes and oxidative, dried-out mouthfeels that come along for the ride. At last, Jonas Gustafsson, my host and owner of Vin de Terra Imports, pulls the car up to a large, burgundy-colored iron gate with the word we’ve been waiting to see: CLUA.
Xavier Clua was born here in Catalunya but studied winemaking in Bordeaux at a time when the Bordelaise taught a regimen of exacting standards but also austerity and restraint when it comes to cellar work. That training is evident in a tasting of his entire lineup; all of the wines have a purity of fruit and are much more relaxed with regard to alcohol than other wines from the region, both in actual ABV and the way that alcohol content translates on the palate. A good-natured man but quick to turn cynical (half of Xavier’s sentences in describing winemaking begin with “Yes, but the problem is…”), Xavier clearly believes there is one path to achieving great wines, a search for great acid content and earthy textural notes, at the expense of heft and bombast that would probably make him both more famous and a lesser winemaker. Xavier and his wife, Rose (herself a Bordeaux-trained winemaker who met Xavier at enology school) have taken this to heart in their offerings, and his wines buck the mass-produced muck I outline previously to truly express Terra Alta as a place of wonderfully sophisticated and balanced wines. Heritage has certainly aided him: Xavier’s winery is in the village of Vilalba des Arcs (“the high village”), and he boasts some of the few vineyard sites in the area with both elevation (all of Terra Alta is high country, hence its name, but here with the sun beating down any additional altitude is a huge advantage) and protection. Also, his family has been at this for a bit, so he is fortunate to have older vines at work, some dating back to the early 1960s. Most highly prized is a single vineyard of Garnatxa (Grenache) Blanca from 1962 that he uses to craft his signature white, “Il.lusio", which remains the cleanest, freshsest, most crystalline example of white Grenache I’ve ever tasted from anywhere in the world. Here in Catalunya, Garnatxa Blanca is the principle white grape planted for still wine production, for all the good and bad that fact entails.
A grape that is the core of cherished and expensive white wines throughout the world (white blends from Chateauneuf-du-Pape probably being the most famous example), white Grenache possesses huge weight and ripeness, with alluring aromatics of fresh herbs and flowers, making for a potentially dazzling full-bodied white wine. Trouble is, as made by most winemakers, the huge weight often lacks the acidity to counterbalance the alcohol, the ripe fruit is rendered desiccated and bruised by winemaking processes such as racking that don’t take into account Garnatxa Blanca’s tendency to oxidize easily, and the herbal/floral notes can at times be concentrated to cartoonish levels, like putting a six foot basket of lilies in a hall closet. The whole effect is one of stupefaction, and years of tasting and serving expensive grenache blancs has seen me invariably witness guests (and myself) drink a glass with a sense of forced appreciation rather than enjoyment-and a glass is usually where it ends, as the wine’s none-too-subtle weight causes palate fatigue for most. Xavier Clua is acutely aware of this, and has his production of Garnatxa Blanca down to a science: vintage after vintage, from entry-level to upper-tier, whether blended or solo, the Garnatxa Blanca is singularly outstanding: fresh, vibrant tree fruits, non-fruit complexities like ginger and asian spices, all framed in a distinctly earth-driven mouthfeel with a note of textural spritz that practically begs your palate to seek out and consume the contents of any bottle of Clua within reach.
As we tour the single (albeit large) vineyard that produces the wine for Xavier’s “Mas d’en Pol” white blend, it is startling to see soil contrast laid out in such an obvious way that you can actually see it: the upper half of the vines producing red grapes are laid out on a burnt-orange carpet of “argilos” (clay in Catalan), and then a small hill changes the soil immediately to “calcari” (calcaire), where the Garnatxa Blanca, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc vines are trained. Xavier isn’t hesitant about invoking the establishment rules of soil types matching certain varietals. Later at lunch, we discuss winemaking through a linguistic stew of mostly French with dashes of Catalan and English thrown in, and it’s clear that Xavier’s mind is made up when it comes to what constitutes great wine: he scoffs at skin-contacted orange wines, and the subject of so-called natural wines is met with a terse “those wines taste unfinished”. The music guy in me feels like Xavier Clua is Sinatra listening to Elvis, an artist watching the upstarts break the rules with great success before calling it “phony and false”. But the sommelier in me, the one who is finishing with delight his glass of Mas d’en Pol and scouring the restaurant’s beverage station for another bottle, just wants Xavier Clua to keep doing it His Way-D.
Celler Xavier Clua Terra Alta White Blend “Mas d’en Pol” 2020
Country of Origin: Spain
Location: Terra Alta is the southernmost section of Catalunya, about a 2.5 hour drive from Barcelona. The climate is more in keeping with the region of Valencia than the rest of the Catalan region. Xavier’s vineyards are located on one some of the highest elevations in the appellation, which spares them some of the area’s summer scalding. The Mas d’en Pol vineyard is a large single area with two terraces for white and red grapes, respectively.
Soil: The soil for the white grapes in Mas d’en Pol is almost exclusively calcaire.
Grape Varieties: 65% Garnatxa Blanca, 20% Chardonnay, 15% Sauvignon Blanc
Winemaking: Hand-harvested and fermented/vinified in stainless steel tanks. Xavier’s strict controlling of fermenting temperatures and use of one vessel for fermenting and aging keeps the wine from oxidizing and preserves it’s laser-like freshness and acid.
Aging: Six months in the aforementioned stainless steel tanks.
Flavors and Foods: Through restaurant, import, and now retail work, Clua’s Mas d’en Pol White has for over 10 years been my definition of the term “home wine”; this is a house wine that will please everyone that walks through your door, and have them remarking on how delicious it is and asking you about it for some time after their visit. White peach and dried apricot from the Garnatxa Blanca are present immediately on the nose, along with the grape’s signature (for me, anyway) candied ginger element as well. The Mas d’en Pol is a blend where the three grapes really comparmentalize themselves on the palate: The juicy, exotic fruits of the Garnatxa Blanca on the attack, a mid-palate of expanding body from the Chardonnay, and then a steely finish with a hint of kaffir lime and a spritzy texture from the Sauvignon Blanc. The Mas d’en Pol excels in virtually any application: aperitif, accompaniment to flaky whitefish dishes, and white meat offerings that are cooked indoors (sous vide pork tenderloin, dutch oven chicken).
Availability: The 2020 vintage is nearing its conclusion so if you enjoy this wine as much as I expect you to please don’t hesitate to contact me for more!
“The Burden of Expectation”
Lalande de Pomerol, Chateau Vieux Chaigneau 2016
I guess this month’s Castor wines have me thinking philosophically-another pondering: should wine regions always be as they historically represent themselves? Is there room for moving forward, pushing the boundaries of what a particular set of viticultural and climactic circumstances can offer? Of course, for decades now we have seen winemakers around the world defy convention, appellation rules and regulations, etc., but in today’s wine world, arguably an estate’s biggest obstacle when deciding whether to uphold tradition or go rogue is…the wine industry itself.
The wine industry right now is at a crossroads; as Washington Post wine critic Dave McIntyre pointed out in a February column, wine consumption among millennials is on the decline. The issue at hand: younger consumers who don’t identify with wine’s perceived “luxury” status of chateaus, villas, and wealth, and yet the alternative is a once-underground-but-now-ridiculously-trendy movement towards “natural” or “clean” wines, movements which (as Mr. McIntyre deftly notes) imply that no producers to this point in the history of wine have complied with such terms, with this claim trumpeted by wine professionals who somehow became wine professionals despite, apparently, only dealing in unnatural and dirty products, and now that they’ve ascended to a place of authority merely engage in the same sort of snobbery heretofore reserved for upper-crust sommeliers and crusty wine writers. Throw in a sales industry growing more corporate-minded by the minute that has absconded with both of these philosophies and proceeded to pit them against each other and you have a recipe for disaster: a wine industry that has resorted to in-fighting and cannibalizing itself in a waning market share piece of the overall alcoholic beverage pie.
The bottom line for me: I agree with Mr. McIntyre that the wine industry does need to evolve, but perhaps the way in which we evolve should be by creating awareness and opportunity for celebrated traditions rather than seeking to abandon them altogether. We do this by creating travel and educational opportunities and giving access to the greatest wines in the world so that young sommeliers can see for themselves what all the fuss is about and make their own decisions on whether it’s warranted. We work on the democratization and inclusiveness of our male-dominated industry, so that females and members of the BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities who want to offer their amazing talents and perspectives can do so. And we remember that, for all of our insistence on evolution in a supposedly stagnant industry, many young people around the world are at this very moment stepping into the shoes of someone who came before them and attempting to continue the legacy of their region, their culture, their family. These young winemakers are often indebted to the past in their pursuit of their own future, and to ignore their work just because it represents “tradition” is to ignore the economic reality that they face and that their hope of a prosperous life depends on. And so, having said all of that I’ll get off my soapbox and we’ll take a look at just one such couple, Charlotte and Valentin Genere Milhade, and the grappling with tradition and evolution in one of the most historically prestigious wine regions in the world-Bordeaux.
Bordeaux has been a swinging flavor pendulum since I began my career in wine; tradition called for wines that were austere and backward in their youth, yet capable of aging for decades, and often requiring such cellaring to be drunk at their peak, or even pleasurable at all. As consumers began thirsting for younger, more fruit-forward wines and cellaring became less feasible for most due to space and budget, many Bordeaux producers switched gears stylistically to meet this demand, and a new crop of chateaux also emerged with wines that tried to emulate the huge, forward profiles of the New World and, lacking the climate to do so, just ended up producing sticky, saccharine, overly-oaked blends of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc that at best amounted to a severe overcorrection. Thankfully, there has been a happy meeting in the middle for many producers, and this stylistic armistice has always been arguably easier to achieve on the Right Bank of the Gironde River, and particularly in Pomerol and Lalande de Pomerol, where the bright, viscous red fruit of Merlot reigns supreme in most producers’ blends. The question for winemakers like those of Chateau Vieux Chaigneau is: which expectation of consumers tastebuds are you going to fulfill? For Charlotte and Valentin, the answer comes in the vineyard practices, and in the tradition established by the remarkably similar couple who came before them, Colette and Bernard Berlureau.
Chateau Vieux Chaigneau’s story begins in 1979, when Bernard Berlureau, an aspiring winegrower who came from a family full of them, met his wife Colette and founded Chateau Vieux Chaigneau. The couple’s first stay on their new 6ha property came on their wedding night. Together they cultivated the estate for the next 35 years, but because they didn’t have children, they found themselves wanting to pass their estate on to like-minded people. Enter Valentin and Charlotte, who met in Montpellier while they were both studying agricultural engineering. Charlotte, like Bernard, also came from a family of growers, and when the two couples met, they realized that they shared similar life paths and philosophies on taking care of the land and the vines. In 2014, Charlotte and Valentin got married, and although they didn’t spend their first night as husband and wife on the property, they were able to become owners of the Chateau that same year. From Valentin working sustainably in the vineyards to Charlotte overseeing the vinification process in the cellar, their lives are both a testament to the traditions of their families and the new family they have started since finding the property of their dreams. When you taste their wine, a blend of that sumptuous Merlot with Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc, you can attest to a melding of time-honored techniques and modern sensibilities. Perhaps meeting (and exceeding) expectations isn’t so cumbersome after all-D.
Chateau Vieux Chaigneau Lalande de Pomerol 2016
Country of Origin: France
Location: Chateau Vieux Chaigneau is located in the Lalande de Pomerol commune of Neac, just north of the Pomerol appellation. Its 6 ha property is situated facing south and offers one of the premier terroirs in the Lalande de Pomerol area.
Soil: Vieux Chaigneau is rather unique in the Lalande de Pomerol appellation because it sits on a plateau much like the most famous properties of the more-celebrated Pomerol to the south. And just like the Pomerol Plateau, the Vieux Chaigneau property possesses some of the same clay soil that differentiates it from the gravelly terrain of its neighbors.
Grape Varieties: The 2016 vintage is a blend of 76% Merlot, 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 9% Cabernet Franc.
Winemaking: Valentin emphasizes green harvest work in the vineyards to bring in the best, concentrated fruit from his estate. The individual grapes are pressed and fermented separately in concrete vats with pumping over of the juice performed.
Aging: The wines of Chateau Vieux Chaigneau are aged for 12 months, with half of the juice spending that time in oak barrels. The wine then spends a further 6 months in bottle before release.
Flavors and Foods: The Vieux Chaigneau impressed me immediately with its “best of both worlds” profile; this wine has all the dark voluptuous fruit that fans of big red wines could ask for (“who put the Priorat in my Lalande de Pomerol?”), and yet maintains a sense of balance and place with its earthy, soil-driven complexity. I think their choice to have only half of the wine aged in oak barrel is also inspired, because it allows the fruit to maintain some freshness and avoid the dried-out, lactic notes of oxidation. Purple notes of damson plum and mission figs, plus blackberry compote, acai berry, and cassis all carry over from nose to palate, and that distinctly Bordeaux earth note of rocky soil is there in droves to mitigate the fruit. Clove, allspice powder, tobacco leaf, and chocolate (more cocoa powder really than anything confectionary) add to the complexity-this wine gives you something new with each sip. Food pairings can lean towards more marbled cuts of beef or pork in order to give the tannins of the wine the fat they’re looking for-ribeye steak, beef short ribs, or decadent pork belly all would be excellent.
Service and Cellar: The 2016 vintage on the Right Bank of Bordeaux was one of spectacular quality, and the wines are sizable even in Lalande de Pomerol. Accordingly, even with the five years of bottle age, the Vieux Chaigneau does best with a decant of at least an hour if you can swing it prior to serving. Cellar temperature of 57-60 degrees does a great job of further softening the wine-if your home setup allows you to decant the wine and leave it in a cooler place while it unfurls, that’s the best of both worlds. Should your patience, wine storage space, and sense of restraint allow you, the Chateau Vieux Chaigneau is going to be delicious for the next decade to come.