The hot-headed winemakers of Languedoc-Roussillon are making interesting wines
By John Schreiner
March 5, 2006
The wine industry is the last place where one expects to find terrorism – unless you are speaking of Languedoc-Roussillon, a massive wine region in south-western France with 300,000 hectares of vines and a crippling wine surplus.
There exists here what the media always calls a “shadowy” organization, the Comité Régional d’Action Viticole (CRAV). Last fall, it took responsibility for breaking open tanks at a large co-operative winery, so that 750,000 litres of wine drained away.
There have been many other acts of sabotage during the past year by CRAV or by like-minded individuals. This included an attack on a tanker full of Spanish wine. The fuel tank was holed by a gun shot and the fuel was set on fire at the same time as 30,000 litres of wine was spilled. Dynamite has been thrown at French agriculture ministry offices. And numerous demonstrations have been organized as vintners try to get government help with surpluses so great that, or so it is reported, some winemakers facing bankruptcy have committed suicide.
This is France’s most volatile wine region. Just ask California winemaker Robert Mondavi. In 2000, his corporation decided to establish a winery near the village of Aniane (population 2,000). Now the south of France makes a great deal of inexpensive wine, and always has. The Mondavi family figured that, with good viticulture and new world winemaking, they could produce premium wine. They signed a 99-year lease with Aniane on a forested hillside above the village.
Were the locals grateful? Not on your life. Some suggested that Mondavi would ruin French winemaking just as McDonalds was ruining French cuisine. Silly? Absolutely, but the firestorm of protest eventually sent the Americans packing.
All of these anecdotes reflect the parochial dark side of winemaking in Languedoc. The flip side is that they also reflect the fierce pride of the region – a pride that is driving the region to solve its problems in the only way that makes long-term sense: make better wines.
It is being done. Some of the finer wines from Languedoc were featured during the recent Vancouver Playhouse International Wine Festival. Among other things, these wines have the quality/price relationship that consumers find attractive. You can’t always say that about French wine.
One of those who helped drive the Mondavi group from Aniane was Philippe Salasc, a charismatic winemaker and sometime local politician. “He destroyed his place but he did not destroy mine,” Salasc said last week, referring to the Mondavi group’s subsequent financial implosion.
The comment struck me as typical of the south’s intemperance. However, I am prepared to cut him some slack because his wines are excellent.
Salasc, who was born in 1958, went to work in the cellars of Château de Capion in 1974, under the tutelage of his father and grandfather. By the time the family sold the winery in 1996 (to a South African!), he figured he had run out of winemaking challenges there.
“In the south, we came from nothing,” Salasc said, speaking of that state of much of the winemaking in Languedoc when he began his career. “Languedoc had no reputation.”
It certainly has a reputation today, although whether it is for wines or for wine activism is the question.
When Salasc was not fulminating against Mondavi, he joined in making wine at a premium producer in the south called Château Grès Saint Paul. He also helped the French actor, Gerard Dépardieu, establish a small winery in the south.
Languedoc does not have, and probably never will have, the reputation of Bordeaux. (Needless to say, there is little love lost between the two regions. Last fall, another of Lanquedoc’s hotheads snapped: “We continue to uproot [vines], we send millions of hectolitres to be distilled, while the Bordelaise stuff themselves and twirl their moustaches.”)
For the consumer, the more modest reputation means you can actually afford to drink wines from the south on more than special occasions. And the quality of the wines now is much better than the reputation.
Only one of the dozen wines presented in the festival’s south of France seminar is actually listed, unfortunately. This is Château des Erles Cuvée des Ardoise 2003 ($18.99 in the liquor board specialty stores). This property is owned by Jacques & François Lurton, members of the Bordeaux family that has been highly successful making affordable wines in the south of France as well as in South America.
The wine is easy-drinking, with flavours of cherries and with a refreshing delicacy on the palate. I gave it 86 points and rate it as a good value wine.
The wines that Salasc is making at Grès Saint Paul are special order wines that can be found, when they are here, in the Liberty wine stores. An impressive red was Grès Saint Paul Antonin 2002, a blend of 80% Syrah and 10% each of Grenache and Mouvedre ($28). This is a gorgeous red, with dark cherries, plums and spice and with a polished, elegant texture (88).
Equally impressive was Château Capion Le Juge 2001 ($30), currently not listed but being brought in by the agent for restaurants. Another Syrah/Grenache blend, this is a big, dark, leathery red, with plums and spice framed by oak and mineral notes. 89
Wines like this, not CRAV terrorism, represent the future of Languedoc. Their success at the recent wine festival should mean more will be available in Canada.
goodgrog@shaw.ca
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