Missouri’s Wine Renaissance

Posted on October 12, 2011
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Take the family to absorb Missouri’s rich heritage of the Lewis & Clark expedition, the Missouri River, the Katy Trail, German settlers, Daniel Boone, the arts and crafts center of St. Charles, and the wine renaissance.

From St. Louis, I began my wine area exploration in the eastern part of Missouri. After five days, I visited 18 wineries with Missouri’s attitude, ‘show me,’ quickly discovering it’s all about hospitality and having fun.

Ste. Genevieve Winery, which is a bed and breakfast upstairs, is owned by Chris Hoffmeister and his enologist daughter Elaine Mooney. Their long-term goal is to produce more hybrid wine (Norton, Chambourcin, Chardonel, Catawba, Seyval Blanc and Vidal Blanc) in their 13-acre vineyard, but today at Ste. Genevieve it’s all about wines made from 100 percent fruit with no flavorings or syrups. The blackberry and the cranberry are outstanding.

Cave Vineyards grows four grape varieties on its 14 acres. A saltpeter cave where the early French settlers mined saltpeter for gunpowder is now often inhabited by wine enthusiasts enjoying the sounds of a babbling brook and a taste of Traminette or Norton.

Chaumette Winery is French in heritage, with its colonial building style, its merchandise from Provence in the tasting room, and wines produced reminiscent of French Rhones. Opened less than five years ago, Chaumette is producing 6000 cases from 30 acres of vines.

Well worth a stop is Charleville Vineyard with the picturesque view, ultra casual atmosphere and the most down-to-earth people. Just down the road, Crown Valley is the only Missouri winery with a French winemaker, Philippe Daguisy. The winery opened in 2003 followed by Crown Ridge, a 55-acre estate featuring an elegant restaurant, banquet facility, lodging, and tiger habitat.

Less than 100 miles west, Peaceful Bend owners Clyde Gill and Katie Nott live above their winery, a weathered grey barn, on the Meramec River. Occasionally tasters arrive by canoe. Their life-altering experience was starting the Chamber Music Festival in the winery after realizing that the acoustics were nearly perfect. Locals come in tuxedos or jeans and the cat may stroll across the stage. The red wines here are awesome.

The Wine Business News recently listed St. James Winery as a ‘hot’ winery, producing the most wine in Missouri. They have a self-serve tasting room where 30 percent of their production is sold.

Traveling north toward the Missouri River and the capitol, Jefferson City, I visited a 1000 case winery, Native Stone. Owners Cara and Larry Stauffer suggested how to drink their Norton Port. “Melt chocolate. Dip edge of glass into the chocolate. Put in refrigerator. Add port and get in hot tub. Be sure to tell someone you are in the hot tub so they can get you out.”

To the north and slightly west of Columbia, Les Bourgeois Vineyards at Rocheport is the third largest winery in Missouri. Although many tasters say they want to drink dry, sweet wines such as the Riverboat Red, are 65 percent of sales.

Heading back east toward St. Louis discover the German village of Hermann with its clock towers and church steeples. The first Germans settlers arrived in 1836 to an impossible farming wilderness. Resourceful of necessity, they planted grapevines on the craggy hillsides and began making wine.

Just outside of town on the 20-mile Hermann Wine Trail along the Missouri River is OakGlen [hq], founded in 1859 by the father of Missouri wine making, George Husmann. Adam Puchta Winery was started in 1855 by Tim Puchta’s great-great-grandfather, an immigrant from Bulgaria. They produce 23,000 cases and can’t begin to keep up with the demand. Tim’s philosophy is to try harder to promote a food and wine culture. “We encourage families to come and bring a picnic basket.”

Jim and Betty Held reopened Stone Hill in 1965 and are joined by three of their children who hold degrees in enology and viticulture. As Missouri’s second biggest winery they sell 70 percent of their production out of three locations including Branson. Their Missouri sparkling wine is the best.

Hermannhof, built in 1852 as a brewery, produces our favorite Missouri wines — an appley Chardonel, a smooth, dry, orange zesty Chambourcin, and a Vignoles full of peaches and crisp acids.

In Defiance on the outskirts of St. Louis, Becky and Ken Miller’s Sugar Creek produces another favorite Chambourcin, like a light red Zinfandel, but softer and rounder and not so foxy. The Cynthiana (Norton) is full of black cherry and blueberry.

Augusta Winery has a Vidal Blanc with crisp fruit and floral flavors that linger. Montelle, has a full, fruity, fragrant Chardonel with perfume of apple and pear. Having won awards at many competitions, Missouri’s star is Mount Pleasant’s Tawny Port that speaks of butterscotch and caramel and might remind you of sherry.

SEE THIS WEB SITE
www.missouriwine.org

[As originally published in the Fort Worth Business Press.]

Taste the Stars, Continued

Posted on September 15, 2011
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If you wonder, why should I buy Champagne instead of sparkling wine? Because ‘it’s the real thing.’

Philippe Wibrotte, Champagne Bureau (CIVC) public relations director says it better. “It boils down to the difference between great and good. Great gives you something more of history, myth, legend, and a different sort of pleasure. You buy a dream.” And you taste the stars!

Since the strength of the Champagne region is making collective decisions on the technical and economic side, membership in the CIVC for growers and Champagne houses is compulsory. There’s a carbon footprint of sustainability, preservation of terroir, water management, and energy. Climatic challenges include monitoring 36 weather stations. A poster cleverly explains with graphics how climate conditions have changed from 1800 – 2005 showing bloomers to bikinis hanging on a clothesline.

On the economic side the CIVC has recently agreed to make the Champagne bottle a little lighter. They continually track and share data on exports and vineyards. Agreements are made by two chairmen, one from the growers and another from the Champagne houses. They have an executive committee, but it is the Ministry of Agriculture that is the referee. Decisions become law if the Ministry of Agriculture agrees. The 20 million Euro budget is made up exclusively from the region by taxing each grape and each bottle a tiny amount.

Armed with a better understanding of Champagne regulations, more questions of winery professionals reeled in my head.

Champagne Collet, a cooperative of growers in Ay, was my next stop. Marketing director, Carl Cercellier, has relaunched Collet with a new name (formerly Champagne Raoul Collet) and new strategic positioning including distribution in California, Colorado, Nevada, and Michigan. He said “I was born in Reims, left, but came back. What do you do here? You work with Champagne. Besides that these people have passion. Our eyes light up and our hands fly when we talk about Champagne. For myself, this passion extends to art and music.

“Our winemaker from Poland, besides being a history and tennis freak, is always looking for new ways within the limits of Champagne. No red wine here. He has a different toybox from winemakers in Bordeaux or the Rhone.” It’s unique that wires are raised by hand vertically for guiding the tendrils of the vines. Red chimneys protrude above ground in the middle of the vineyards to vent the caves.

Collet Blanc de Blanc with its pear, peach and rhubarb aroma is long in the mouth and refreshing like most Chardonnays, but my favorite is Grand Art Brut. Maybe it is the bright red label, or is it the fact that the grapes in the bottle come from 30 or 40 villages each year. Its fine, fast bubbles left a fresh and light, soft and round taste in the mouth. Delicious!

Bollinger makes powerful, rich, mouth filling wines because every Champagne they make has at least 60 percent Pinot Noir. I was greeted with one of those as I joined a small group of Norwegian distributors tasting La Grande Annee Rose Brut 2002.

Special Cuvee with more color and a richness of roasted apple and ripe spicy fruit is the most representative blend of the house. La Grande Annee Brut 2002 is surprisingly light and silky with a crisp structure that is clean and long. Their icon wine is R.D. matched by no other for its depth and complexity. It’s also famous as James Bond’s favorite.

A key to Bollinger’s aromatic bombs is the small yield of the vines. Their main stem of rootstock travels in a horizontal fashion giving birth to another sideways root that becomes a plant.

Bollinger and Roederer both own 60 percent of their grape supply which is unusual. In Champagne only 11 percent of vineyards are owned by Houses while 89 percent are owned by growers. Almost all wine at Bollinger goes into oak barrels, but only into old neutral barrels from Burgundy. No barrel makers exist except at Bollinger and this cooper only repairs the barrels.

Mostly corks and a few crown-caps, are used on bottles aging in the cellar. Corks help for gradual oxidation as the tiniest bit of air seeps through the cork, increasing the aging potential of the Champagne. These steps plus extended aging seal the Bollinger Style.

It was lights out at Pol Roget in Epernay, and in the caves at that. Actually, no one was more surprised than Laurent d’Harcourt, Director of Exports, who was explaining every detail of the life of the 8.5 million bottles in cellar inventory. I took it as a moment when the spirit of Pol Roget was revealed.

Perhaps it was the excitement that Pol Roget Brut Reserve Non Vintage was served at Prince William and Kate’s wedding reception….a Champagne that has aromas of white flowers, and a taste that is fruity and floral with slight yeasty overtones. Or maybe it’s the uniqueness of the Sir Winston Churchill connection.

Churchill and Odette Pol Roget met in 1945 when he began calling Pol Roget “the most drinkable address in the world.” Ten years after his death in 1965, the family created an exceptional cuvee in his honor that depicts what he would wish to drink. The composition of Cuvee Sir Winston Churchill is part of the savoir-faire and mystery that remains today. It is made with grapes coming from vineyards from the time of Churchill.

Not to be missed is a stop at Champagne Launois in Les Mesnil-Sur-Oger. Yes, enjoy the round and ripe Oeil de Predrix, or the clean fresh Veuve Clemence with an aroma of violets, but the museum collection of wine and Champagne memorabilia is magnificent. What an incredible surprise. Begun in 1976 by Bernard Launois, more than a dozen rooms are full of treasures, each with a theme from presses, tools, laboratory equipment, corks (tree trunk included!), plows, barrels,and bottles. Tours depart at specific times, so call first.

Wine is a life philosophy for Yannick Doyard, who is passionate about the history, ethics, and current affairs of Champagne. His grandfather, Maurice Doyard, was one of the founders of the CIVC in 1941. Champagne Doyard is located in Vertus in the Cote des Blancs area where some of the best Chardonnay is grown. Doyard is an outstanding bubbly.

Doyard Cuvee Vendemiaire Brut is a revolutionary Chardonnay cuvee with 50 percent of the juice aged in used Burgundy barrels and then bottled and placed in the cellar for five years. Charming with more minerality than richness, the acidity, distinctly lemon, is refreshing in aftertaste. Doyard calls the Extra Brut his ID. He knows what to expect after its maturity of seven years in the cellar. It’s still fresh, but slightly heavier in the mouth with layered complexity.

Doyard says “I like to keep any intervention at a minimum. Let the juice bloom from having the best terroir, the best vines, and the best grapes.” Enjoy some Champagne in the newly remodeled reception room complete with fireplace, and then go to one of the five guest rooms in an adjacent building and stay several days to visit this area near Epernay.

Your taste buds will thank you.

[Originally published in the Fort Wort Business Press.]

Taste the Stars

Posted on August 31, 2011
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If asked my overall impression of Champagne, I would answer, it’s all about charm and intelligence, enthusiasm and sensuality, with some grandeur, mysticism, and emotion stirred in. This covers it from the terroir and the sense of place, to the people who make Champagne.

Hear the stories from the masters, know their lifestyles and passions, and taste the stars in the glass.

Nothing — walls, curtains, even upholstery — has changed in the elegant lounge room at Deutz Champagne, decorated by William Deutz’s daughter, Marie, in the 1860s. Between sips of flowery, fruity Deutz Brut Classic, the more yeasty in aroma but fresher in taste Blanc de Blanc 2004, and the hearty, rich, complex Cuvee William Deutz 1999, Chef de Caves Michel Davesne, made an eye-opening comment. “One hectare (2.5 acres) of vineyards in Champagne is roughly the same price as Premier Cru in Burgundy, between one and 1.4 million dollars.”

When asked how his relationship with Champagne began, Davesne said “I was born here.” This was a common thread with many Champagne winery professionals. Davesne revealed his photography passion when he commented on the many photos I was taking of people, the wines, and the landscape.

Owner Antoine Malassagne of Lenoble took me down three steep staircases (56 feet below ground) to the cellars which house 1.5 million bottles. He explained something crucial in this business — all Champagne houses need a good bank. Malassagne’s passion showed in his verbiage when he explained in my terms… “the size of fermenting tanks are the same as the need for different size saucepans in the kitchen, and the oak barrels are the spice and the seasonings.”

Aromas in the Brut Nature were so huge, my face drew back from the glass. Malassagne explained that he was not a bubbly producer, but first and foremost he made the best still wines possible. From the creamy, buttery style of the Blanc de Blanc, to the masculine, heavy-textured Le Millesime 2006, it is unbelievable how the tasters blend the still wines and imagine the taste difference with bubbles and mousse in three, six, eight, or ten years!

Jumping ahead in time, Oliver Picard, a fifth generation winemaker, built Champagne Collard-Picard five years ago. He and his wife own 15 hectares making about 100,000 bottles. No cave here, all contemporary and air conditioned. And what a handsome, smiling, energetic couple!

The concept of enjoying Champagne during the whole meal was explained by Picard. “Collard-Picard Cuvee Dom Picard, made from Chardonnay, is an ideal beginning because of its freshness and light texture.” Cuvee Selection Brut is full of kumquat and peach so thoughts went to salad and shellfish. Brut Cuvee Prestige, made from half white (Chardonnay) and half black grapes (Pinot Meunier and Pinot Noir), is a bit heartier for fattier fish such as salmon or trout. Vintage Champagne 2005 is rich and masculine, filling the mouth, so delicious with pork, veal or even lamb. The Rose Premier is bone dry, perfect for a piece of firm cheese and red berries sprinkled with pepper.

Of Picard’s work time, 50 percent is spent in the vineyard, 20 percent in the winery, and 30 percent on winery business. During treasured family time, he is fanatic about sharing his passions, sports cars and golf, with his two sons.

Five years ago French Bank Credit Agricole du Nord Est and several Taittinger family heirs brought this Champagne house back into the family fold for a price of about $850 million. A year before, Taittinger and its assets including the famous Hotel de Crillion in Paris, were sold to Starwood Capital Group.

Today, again a family affair, Pierre-Emmanuel Taittinger is at the helm as President while daughter Vitalie is artistic director, and son, Clovis, director of exports. Vitalie said “My father has strong values with a sense of duty and family. He loves the arts and music. My mother, Claire, a musician, has an open table at home with winery customers and her musician friends. We have shared a lot around that table complete with Dad’s tremendous ability for story telling.” It is obvious that being part of Taittinger is a life adventure that brings happiness along with bubbles. Besides being dedicated to her husband and two small children, Vitalie loves to read, cook, hike, and plan family holidays.

At Taittinger (pronounced té-tin-gé) all 5,000,000 bottles sold each year in about 100 countries are blended with a large portion of Chardonnay. Taittinger caves, 65 feet deep below the city of Reims, are from Roman times and extend for more than six miles. The caves house about 19,000,000 bottles. Styles go from the fresh, not too heavy Brut Reserve which sleeps in the caves for three to four years, to the rich, elegant, luxurious Comtes de Champagne that matures in the caves for at least 10 years before release. Worth the splurge!

Vilmart Champagne, a family house since 1890, has moved forward like the speed of light since 1995 when Laurent Champs took the helm. It’s all about nature and the grape. Champs uses no ground cover, only natural grasses, and no herbicides or pesticides. Vines are low in Champagne. Maturing of the clusters comes from the sun reflecting on the whitish chalk soil. Champs said “Harvest is going to be early this year, perhaps between August 25 and 28 because it has been so warm”

Vilmart’s Grand Reserve, a blend of two vintages, was a surprise. Although 70 percent Pinot Noir, it was light, elegant, still citric and freshened the mouth. Grand Cellier Brut with white flowers in the nose and kumquat on the palate, was a great comparison made from 70 percent Chardonnay and blended from three vintages. Pinot Noir came forth in the dark, dried fruit aftertaste.

Champs shines with the last two I tasted. Grand Cellier d’Or 2005 is sleek, smart, and elegant like a fashionable lady, while Coeur de Cuvee 2002 is complex and luscious with a more mature attitude. Watch for Vilmart — with their sustainable agriculture and refined use of oak, this small player is sneaking up on the big boys.

More Champagne discoveries next week…

[Originally published in the Fort Worth Business Press.]