by Caro Feely
Flush with ideas from the wine-and-food-pairing experience in Napa, we invited Dave and Amanda to join us to come up with pairings to offer as one of our wine experiences. This would be 'ready to wear' rather than haute couture, since we couldn't afford to hire a Brian Streeter-style professional chef for Terroir Feely. Maybe one day.
I lined up local organic specialities like smoked trout, a small, white goat cheese from down the road, smoked duck finely sliced, and black chocolate, along with the nine wines that typically make up the Feely range in a given year.
A few months earlier, as we tackled the challenge of planning the annual bottling, Seán and I had spent many evenings brainstorming about the brand and names for our wines. A loyal client of five years had called and asked 'is that Château… um…?' It was the call to action we needed. If he couldn't say the name to us on the phone, he couldn't tell his friends about us. I read that one of the reasons Château Lafite, a premier grand cru classé in the Médoc, did so well in China was because it was easy for Chinese speakers to say. Our old name, Château Haut Garrigue, was a mouthful few could say and even fewer could remember. We took the leap to change the brand to Feely, our family name, something we had been discussing for years but had been too scared to do.
I was horrified that we hadn't grabbed the bull by the horns sooner; we had wasted five years of marketing, including the windfall television show, on a bad brand name. It was a wonder we were still in business. Barry O'Brien, our friend in Dublin and an astute businessman, had said call it Feely Wines right at the start. To maintain the ideas that we were a French vineyard and producing natural wine, we made it Terroir Feely, sending the message that 'it's not about the chateau, it's about the terroir'.
Since we were making a major change, we decided to brainstorm the names of the cuvées in order to give each wine an identity rather than a varietal. I wanted the wine names to reflect what they were about. Our everyday white blend of sémillon and sauvignon blanc, for example, was called 'Luminosité' to reflect not only the colour of the wine and a light but fulfilling flavour, but also the change of colour that we had noticed in the soil since going biodynamic. It was as if it had light reflecting in it, luminosity, a beauty that it didn't have before. We started the pairing evening with our méthode traditionelle, or MT, a blend of sémillon and sauvignon blanc like the Luminosité, but fermented a second time in the bottle to create the bubbles, as with real champagne.
'That tastes great to me,' said Dave, tasting it with the salty chips I had set out on the table.
Amanda and Seán nodded in agreement. Each of us had a pencil and paper for our own notes but I was the master note-taker, jotting down my own observations but also capturing key points made by our official tasting team.
'It's the acidity in the champagne setting off the fat of the chips, and the salt of the chips setting off the fruitiness and acidity of the champagne,' I said, touting some of my new knowledge. 'It's a classic pairing.' 'Highlighted by Marilyn Monroe in The Seven Year Itch,' said Amanda.
'Wow, you are good!' I said, pouring the next wine, Sincérité, so-called because our pure sauvignon blanc grown on limestone was sincerity: straight-talking, linear, direct, sometimes a little difficult at first but with a depth of flavour and a truth to its terroir that made it one of my favourites. 'That is superb, Madame Feely,' said Dave after taking a sip.
'It's the master winemaker,' I said, then tasted, sensing the level of acidity in the back of my cheeks and on the sides of the back half of my tongue, a lip-smacking, cheek-drawing-in tartness that made my mouth water as it did with lemon juice. Slipping a tiny sliver of the fresh white goat cheese into my mouth, I experienced a burst of flavour. The fruitiness of the wine came forward and the flavours of the cheese were enhanced. 'That really brings out the gooseberry,' said Seán.
'I think Sincérité would be good with a light fish dish served with lemon, too, Caro,' said Amanda. I made a note. 'I wish we had some sauvignon blanc,' she went on. 'That's the first thing we'll be planting when we create a new vineyard. Oh, I almost forgot! I can eat cheese tonight! I have found this amazing little pill that protects me from the lactose for the odd splurge.' She reached for a sliver of the goat cheese. 'How are things going?' I said.
'Oh, all right,' said Amanda. 'You know how it is, Caro, don't you? Our first planning-permission request was rejected. We feel like we are scrambling to keep up in the vineyard.'
I knew exactly what they were going through.
'Don't worry! It gets better. But don't say I didn't warn ya!' I said as I poured Générosité, the barrel-aged blend from ancient sémillon vines.
They laughed. They had read the draft of my no-holds-barred account of our tough first three years. 'That is all roundness, vanilla and grilled peach with sweet spice,' said Amanda. 'With a touch of smoke in the finish,' said Seán.
'Wow. You are right, Seán. My gosh, that is really smoky in the finish,' said Amanda.
'Do you know why?' I asked.
'No, tell me,' said Amanda.
'Where this sémillon grows there is a seam of silex that runs from the plateau down the slope and the smell is a smoky note of flintstone.'
'Really?' said Dave looking sceptical. 'I thought all that guff about minerality was a load of bollocks.'
'Dave! It's totally for real!' I said. 'I heard Claude Bourguignon, one of the top soil scientists in France recently. He explained that at one and two metres below the earth's surface are critters that eat rocks for a living. They excrete the rocks as soluble minerals, thus making them available to plants.'
'No way!' said Amanda.
'Yes! And farming chemically kills those critters and other soil life. When he explained it, I felt like jumping up in the hall full of people and shouting "hallelujah!" I knew I tasted minerality in some wines but with all the naysayers… ' – I looked meaningfully at Dave – '… I had begun to question myself.'
'Incredible,' said Amanda.
'I'll get his book that has photos of the critters,' I said and ran off to find it.
The death of the critters is also one of the reasons our food has become poorer in fundamental minerals, despite being richer in calories. People were taking more vitamin supplements than ever before to compensate for the lack of good, vital food, but they didn't offer the same value as the real thing.
'Pretty scary-looking little devils, aren't they?' said Amanda as I showed them the photos on my return.
'But, oh so good; Bourguignon says doing what the critters do for free in a healthy soil would take several hundred man hours of work per acre per year. Hearing him I felt the same as I had after watching the bee documentary that showed orchards in China being hand-pollinated after their bee populations had been decimated by pesticides.'
Bourguignon didn't hold out much hope for the earth, but he was doing his best to turn the tide. I knew that, like him, I had to do more to communicate the real cost of industrial agriculture.
The Générosité wine was a total contrast to Sincérité. The age brought aromas that were more cooked fruit than fresh fruit, and the overlay of spice and vanilla from the oak was accompanied by a little trace of wood tannin.
'Whatever about the rocks bollocks, it tastes good to me,' said Dave, taking a piece of home-made bread with the smoky, smooth nuns' cheese Echourgnac and a taste of the wine, then slowly chanting 'yum yum'.
'I feel like we're taking part in a strange religious ritual,' I said.
'I am,' said Dave. 'Food is a religion for me.'
We laughed and I poured our La Source 'no sulphites added' red wine.
As with the sauvignon blanc, a sliver of goat cheese brought a heavenly burst of berry flavour that enhanced both the cheese and the wine. Amanda pointed at the dark chocolate on the table, then at the wine, and nodded vigorously. She had a fantastic nose and palate and was a great chef who could turn out lactose-, gluten- and meat-free wonders. I took note of everything she said that evening. She was right, the chocolate and La Source
pairing was black magic, a dangerous discovery for me.
It was risky to make no-sulphite-added wines; without extreme care, one could produce wines that had oxidative notes, almost sherry-like. But there was a clear health benefit and, when well made, the no-sulphite wines offered fresher fruit. This one was like biting into a handful of fresh-picked blackberries. Sulphites are an inflammatory that can contribute to a headache the morning after. Not only that, they kill the natural vitamin B present in the wine, something that helps the human liver to process the alcohol more efficiently. So far we hadn't tried to make no-sulphite white wines. Reds had tannins that helped preserve them, making it slightly less risky. The tannins are antioxidants and protect the wine, thus increasing its ageing potential, but they can mask flavour.
The thing with tasting wine and food together is that it is difficult to spit. Tasting back and forth that night I was surprised we remembered anything. Luckily I was writing furiously as we tasted.
We ended the evening with our Saussignac Premier Or, a golden, unctuous dessert wine with waves of passion fruit, apricot, spices and acacia honey, and a lift of acidity in the finish to cut through the residual sugar. For perfect pairing, matching the characteristics of the food and the wine on three key principles seemed to be the secret: balancing the weight of the wine with the richness of the food; having at least as much acidity in the wine as in the food; and reinforcing, complementing or contrasting aromas or flavours. The naturally sweet Saussignac with Roquefort blue cheese was a classic contrast pairing. I said a quiet thanks to the monks who originally discovered the botrytis dessert wine magic and made our hills famous.
We tasted and laughed until we almost cried, exchanging stories from the ten days we were away and catching up generally. While we laughed again at Dave's description of Sophia translating the fire chief's words, I felt a stab of guilt and fear for our daughters, then quickly quashed it. We had to learn to let them fly on their own. We could not always be with them. They were both unfazed by the experience; in fact, Sophia was quite proud of her contribution.
As spring was due to arrive, Thierry Daulhiac and I pulled into a sodden parking lot and picked our way through mud to find our places among the trestle tables around the outer edge of a large event tent, set up on the lawn of a small organic grand cru estate in Saint-Émilion. I noted my table was on the corner where the tent edges met and an icy wind swept through. We hulked our boxes of samples and cooler boxes through the sludge.
En Primeurs Bio was a show held by our local organic winegrowers association, organised each year at the same time as the grands crus classés showed their new vintage to the wine professionals of the world. Grand cru classé, a Bordeaux construct that denoted highly rated vineyards, was most famous in Médoc to the north of Bordeaux city and Saint-Émilion to the east; but it was also in place in Graves, south of the city, and in Sauternes, the sweet-wine southern end of Graves. The En Primeurs was an opportunity for the grands crus classés and the most well-known brands of the region to pre-sell their wines. Some of the chateaux sold 80 per cent of their wine this way, while it was still in the barrel and a long way from being bottled.
This fantastic way to finance the costs of barrel-ageing and bottling was unfortunately unavailable to those of us who needed it most. The En Primeurs Bio show was not to sell, but merely to present our wines while a large portion of the world's fine-wine buyers and journalists were in town.
As the day progressed, the weather worsened and the mud encroached despite wooden pallets set up as a makeshift walkway. Like the previous show I'd attended, this one brought little footfall. The few buyers that passed through wanted to taste Saint-Émilions and Pomerols, not Bergeracs. I shared more of my wine with other growers than with potential buyers. At the table opposite, Thierry was next to Laurent Lazare, an iconic winegrower in the Bergerac region. I had read about him, visited his vineyard and tasted his wines but never met the man himself. Thierry introduced us.
After the usual pleasant introductory exchanges he asked to taste our wines. Despite the major challenges Seán had faced, we were happy with the vintage. The whites were mineral and had the acidity to carry off the higher alcohol of the hot vintage, and the reds had finesse. He nodded to each of the whites, then held out his glass for the reds. I gave him the barrel-red and he nodded again and held it out for the merlot. I poured. He swished and spat.
'You'll never sell this. This isn't what the market wants today. There is something seriously wrong with this wine. There is something wrong with the winegrower. You'll never sell this. Where are you? I must come and visit you.'
I felt like I had been punched in the gut. Tears welled up but I fought them back, adamant that I would not cry. After a few more blows Laurent took off, leaving me to my devastation, a false smile fixed to my face to stop the true feeling from exploding out.
I offered tastes of the battered wine to Thierry and Franck Pascal, both winegrowers I respected, and asked for their opinion. They thought the wine had minerality and finesse. I knew them both well enough for them to be honest. Franck wasn't known for pulling his punches. Their feedback helped, but I was gutted, drained, whipped.
'Don't worry, Caro,' said Thierry. 'Laurent did the same to me in front of a large group of winegrowers many years ago. It was my first vintage, I was so proud of it and he assassinated it. He is known for this.'
In this tight-knit winegrower community things were not easily forgotten. Perhaps his feedback was honest and he felt it would help us, but right then I couldn't see anything but the tears on the edges of my eyes. Thierry and I dissected the day while travelling home – what the visitors were like, who we saw, the other winegrowers, and my horrendous experience both with the glacial wind spattering rain onto me all day and the encounter with Laurent Lazare. En route, the cold overwhelmed me and I started to shiver, my throat sore and my muscles aching. The following day I was racked with fever. I would never forget Lazare's unprovoked attack on our wine. It affected me perhaps even more than when a wine buyer called our first white vintage 'thin, Italian style'.
A couple of days later I was over my flu and Sébastian brought a contact of his to quote for the internal walls. He seemed solid and personable. At the end of the meeting he gave me his card. It announced 'Lionel Lazare'.
As soon as he left, I asked Sébastian if he was one of the Lazares.
'Yes, he is a son of the famous winegrower, Laurent,' he said.
Horror flashed across my face. If Sébastian picked it up, he said nothing. I liked Lionel a lot less, but told myself to grow up.
In France, children are responsible for their parents and vice versa; if a son or daughter runs up gambling debts, the parents are responsible and, if the parents run up debts, the adult children are responsible. There were some hilarious films about this law and it did instil a sense of responsibility to family. Lionel was, in a strictly French sense, responsible. But I resolved not to hold it against him.
The same day, Sébastian brought his mason friend, Thomas de Conti, to meet us. He was dark with curly hair, a wiry body and thoughtful, like a poet. We talked through our ideas and Sébastian's initial drawings. Thomas had good ideas for bringing the old walls and the new structure together in an aesthetic manner. He listened to what we wanted and I instantly took to him. Having two friends used to working together on the project made a lot of sense.
The project plans were advancing, my ideas for complementary tourist activities like the wine and food pairing were taking shape, and Seán was well into his second year of conversion to biodynamic agriculture. The work in the vineyard and winery was becoming instinctive with the power of experience. It felt like our fight after the trip to Alsace and Burgundy was from another life. Working on the plans for the building project was bringing us back together.
Chapter 17
Saint-Émilion Stories
While Sébastian and Véronique drew up detailed plans and the planning application, I gathered quotes, calculated the
overall budget and put together the aid application. We wanted the buildings to be ecological: large roof overhangs for shade in summer; expansive windows to capture the winter sun on tiles, allowing natural light to flood in and making the most of the vineyard views; and natural materials and colours while keeping the original stone walls.
With the plans in hand I measured out the space and set up tables and chairs in the empty area where the old lean-to was and visualised the new building. Seán thought I was mad but I needed to imagine how many people it would seat, to know that we were planning the right thing.
Thinking of all the work we had put into renovating the lean-to and surrounding terrace, I felt sad because we would now have to undo what had been done. When we arrived it had been an old, rotting wooden shed, the earth floor covered with rubbish, the ceiling and walls strung with massive cobwebs that made me think of the giant spiders in Harry Potter. At the back end there had been a pigsty and a hole-in-the-ground toilet; an area Seán had since transformed into a modern bathroom with the composting loo – same idea, different look. We had removed the rotting planks and created a tasting-room terrace with a white concrete floor, with a rockery area and diamond-shaped paving squares at the entrance. I'd spent days humping rocks and painting the exposed wood of the ceiling with whitewash. Now the space would become the new tasting room. We were entering a new era. The old had to make way for the new.