As evening approached, we were on our way to see Ted’s good friend Nico Rebut, a former sommelier of great talent and repute who has since become a very successful wine distributor in Paris. Each week, he makes the five-hour drive or train ride from the Alps to Paris, his primary market and where he also consults quite a few...[ read more ]
Ted comes from a deeply religious background and after he left the fold, he shifted his faith to that in nature, and he believes that the most conscious winemakers cede control to this bigger force. But as Masson had touched upon with his need for flexibility during tough times, this clearly presents a quandary when people need to pay the...[ read more ]
Masson took us to his production building and gestured quickly at his variety of medium-sized wine tanks (none of his wines are vinified or aged in oak barrels) before leading us into his cellar, a dark, ground-level little room adjacent to the one with all the equipment. The walls were roughly spackled, with rounded corners to the ceiling, giving a...[ read more ]
Just to the south of Apremont is Mont Granier, a colossal roughly-hewn trapezoid of limestone with a thick evergreen forest at its base. Its sheer cliffs suggest the usual erosion and fall away, but in 1248, the entire twenty-three hundred foot north face of the mountain broke off. The resulting rockslide rumbled across many miles, destroyed five villages and killed...[ read more ]
Our morning started at Domaine Simon Bize with Chisa Bize. This domaine has always had one of my favorite labels in Burgundy and it would've been one of the last I'd ever hoped for a change. Chisa pulled out some bottles to taste and lo and behold a new label! Somehow she managed to improve what was already a timeless...[ read more ]
It’s harvest time, and one big question many winemakers have is whether to use stems in their wines, or not! This week, we borrowed a little commentary from Jordan Mackay, our Inside Source Editor and Inside Source Wine Club Writer, on this fun topic for #SciFri. "To rile up a Pinot Noir producer you need only mention two simple words:...[ read more ]
What is loess? That off-white, fine-grain soil known as loess finds its way into many wine regions in the vicinity of the Alps. Loess in Western Europe is largely a result of Alpine glaciers grinding rocks into a fine-grained crystalline powder, often rich in calcium. It’s light and easily kicked up by the wind. Once blown in and deposited, its...[ read more ]
What is dry-farming? We asked our friend, Ryan Stirm @stirmwineco, a viticulturalist, soil scientist and winemaker. “Dry-farming is the practice of farming without the use of supplemental irrigation— relying completely on the rainfall (and subterranean water) that occurs on the plot of land being farmed. Drip irrigation as we know it was invented and developed in Israel in the 1960's...[ read more ]
Would you believe me if I told you that France’s Loire River used to run through Paris? It’s true—well, kinda… Here’s a more accurate expnation: Before the Alps were the towering mountains they are today—meaning before the African continent bulldozed into Europe—most of the rivers in northern France flowed off the Massif Central to the north and into what we...[ read more ]
In the US and most of the New World, spraying copper sulfate is not a required vineyard treatment. In Europe it is, and it's used during the vegetative growth cycle in rainy periods to combat Downy Mildew, a fungus that, like the global problem of Powdery Mildew, feasts on the plant’s chlorophyll. Downy Mildew is transported by water, so if...[ read more ]
Why do many famous French rock types sound like the names of mansions on Downton Abbey?? In wine, we often hear rocks in France described with English names: Kimmeridgian, Portlandian, Devonian. This is simply because much of the early work on geologic time was done by geologists in England, and they used the names of the local places where they...[ read more ]
