Another Weekend, Another Salon des Vins, Part One

I must warn you dear Audience, that chronological order has been disturbed. I wrote this piece on the plane for Chicago but posted my ruminations on Chicago prior to finishing this one.

So it is the last weekend of November, and yes, le planning for the weekend is wine, but before Sunday at Porte de Versailles for the Salon, we had to have the Prince Consort’s birthday dinner en famille. Normally not too gruesome and with better than edible food, this evening proved to be no exception. Dinner was a blanquette de veau, particularly tender and the sauce was very light and delectable. Served with it was a 2002 Irancy that, combined with the blanquette, created one of those ethereal dining moments when everything just comes together. All I could taste, hear or see was my plate, my fork and the wine. Beyond that all was grey as if it had been dipped into the blanquette sauce.

Irancy is a thin elegant Burgundy that is one of the few red wines from that region which can be made from grapes other than the Pinot Noir. I must admit that I do not know if this particular bottle contained more than Pinot, but I would hazard that it did not from the taste. The village of Irancy is northwest of Beaune, near Chablis, and these wines have a higher degree of minerality than many red Burgundies. I find Irancy to be particularly good, but you, dear Audience, will remember that I enjoy greatly these thinner, feminine Burgundies. Here though, I must note here that the ‘femininity’ of Irancy is not that of the Chambolle or Volnay. There is none of the feeling of great power sheathed in a velvet glove as with those. No, I find simply a finesse or, well yes, an elegance that sets Irancy in a class with Fixin and only one or two other Burgundies.

The evening ran late and we struggled to wake up on Sunday in order to join the Chef Cousin at the convention center at Porte de Versailles for the 29e Salon des Vins des Vignerons Indépendants, or the Twenty-ninth Wines of Independent Winemakers Salon. The Paris Expo Center - Porte de Versailles is enormous with numerous buildings and wide avenues. It makes NYC’s Javits Center look like a Smerf house. The Chef Cousin had already spent Saturday there and had agreed to return primarily to accompany us around. Avid readers will remember that the previous weekend’s Salon had taken place on two peniches in the Seine. That gathering was child’s play by comparison to today’s expo. The listing of the weekend's participants filled a Zagat-sized book. There were rows and rows, and each row contained more than 40 booths on each side of the aisle.

In addition to tasting wine from the Chef Cousin’s suppliers, I had one or two names that I had picked up from the time I spend glued to the French wine auction sites. In particular, I was intrigued to try a Chablis producer whose late ‘90s Premier Cru I had watched sell recently, not cheaply but fairly priced. Armed with the map of the Salon and a list of names, we headed of to taste white wine first. The Chablis producer was our first stop. By the name of Moreau Naudet, they have a reasonable sized production including a Petit Chablis, two different Chablis villages, four Premier Cru named for their parcelles - Vaillons, Montmains, Forets, and Montee de Tonnerre, and a Grand Cru "Valmur." We tasted 2004 and 2005, but by the second day of a well-attended Salon, there remained only one or two of their wines to try. This is no great surprise because we all know now that 2005 is one of those mythic, perfect years that everyone must taste, if not also own. The Petit Chablis 2005 was a nice balance of mineral and tannin; the price to quality ratio was very good. In 1er Cru, we only tasted the Forets which was pleasant if not a bit austere for my taste. I was interested also in the Vaillons, and although there was none to taste, the winemaker described it as fruitier that the Forets. I will watch for their wine to appear again at auction.

From Mordet, we headed to Guillemard Clerc, a husband and wife domain in Puligny-Montrachet. I had recently purchased six bottles of their 1999 Puligny-Montrachet Les Reuchaux but have not had a chance to taste it. I wanted to learn a bit more about them, hopefully to know whether to watch for more of their production at auction. It was a bit shocking to observe how this couple interfaced with the public. Now intime members of the Audience will know that I do not find the French very focused on service and niceties. I can only imagine that French became the language of diplomacy more by default (the sole solid monachy with language that is so flowery that one can speak for hours without saying anything) and less because crisis were resolved. Nevertheless, the Clercs took 'French Service' to a new level; faced with diminished stock thanks to the well-attended Salon, the couple (looking like throw-backs to the ‘80s including her carefully applied heavy blue eye shadow and bleached blonde hair) were simply and obviously lying to wishful ‘tasters’ who did not meet approval following a not-so-subtle up-and-down regard. We had passed muster – something about the Chef Cousin’s boyish demeanor gets him past many guards – and as we stood there tasting a variety of whites and reds, numerous others were turned away with a “No, we have nothing left…” We had the pleasure of tasting several Puligny-Montrachet (one 1er Cru and two Villages), two different Beaune Premier Cru - 2004 and 2005 - and a Clos de Vougeot. The latter is always a Grand Cru and I find it difficult to extrapolate from such a young wine how it will mature over the next ten - fifteen years, but I did appreciate it. Interestingly, the 2004 Beaune seemed almost drinkable. Maybe theirs will not age very well. Drunk next to the 2005; however, the 2004 paled by comparison. It was much less concentrated and missed much of the body already apparent in the 2005.

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