Weekend in St Emilion

[curlywurlyfi]

Hello all. Have never posted in the Wine Forum before, but I am just back from a long weekend in St Emilion (Bordeaux), and now that my liver has had a couple of days to deflate, I thought I would give you a small account of my trip.

My brother and I went as a surprise for my father, who was there to be intronized into the Jurade de St Emilion. Basically, this means he will be an (unofficial) ambassador for their wines. Which suits him very well, and me too, as he is extremely fond of St Emilion wines and particularly likes to share them with family and friends! He was there with a group of Maltese friends in the charge of Michael Tabone, a Maltese wine merchant who organizes a week’s trip every year to St Emilion and Armagnac, with tastings, chateau visits, armagnac tastings and truly vast meals. I went with them in 2002 and gained a pound for every day I was there, which may give you some idea.

I met my brother Jock at Bordeaux Airport and we drove to the hotel outside Libourne. My parents were sitting having a drink in the lobby, and I heard my father, who had believed that neither my brother nor I could attend the ceremony, say wistfully “There’s a chap there that looks very like Jock…” Cue much laughter from my mother, followed by surprise and delight from my father. The whole group apart from my dad had been in on the secret and were congratulating themselves that no-one had let it slip. I knew many of them from the last trip, so there was much hugging and kissing and back-slapping.

Then it was onto the bus and off for a tasting and dinner at Chateau Angelus. You have to hand it to the French – they show absolutely no fear when catering for large groups. Where in the UK or the US would you have a large party (30 people) being served a no-choice menu that kicked off with feuilleté de riz de veau aux morilles? Mushrooms? Sweetbreads? PASTRY??? The Atkins lobby would beat you to death with a pie-crust. The wines were very good, with the 2001 tasting before dinner and the 95 and 97 with the duck and cheese. The owner of Angelus, Hubert de Bouard, talked us through them, asking us to take particular note of the Angelus house style with the mint overtone at the end. He also gave us a Fleur de Bouard, which is a new vineyard that he and his wife have recently bought for producing wines to drink companionably, rather than seriously. I will say now that while I like wine, as my liver constantly reminds me, and particularly St Emilion wine, I am no good at describing it afterwards. So I can confidently tell you the Fleur de Bouard was very soft and drinkable, but the 97 Angelus was particularly good – quite tannic, but with lots of black fruit on the nose. I preferred it to the 95 (which Parker gives 95 points – so sue me).

Angelus 95 and 97

The following morning, we had a tour of St Emilion with an opportunity to shop (delicious macaroons, and unfortunately umbrellas, since it was very showery) and then walked up through the top of the town to Chateau La Serre for an aperitif. It sits between Ch Ausone and Ch Trottevielle, so is in good company. Luc and Beatrice d’Arfeuille treated us to their 2001 to accompany foie gras that Mme d'Arfeuille had made herself (a Michel Guerard recipe which calls for marinating in a mixure of port, armagnac and sherry, along with nutmeg and white pepper). This was delicious and proved for me that one need not always drink sweet wines with foie gras. She and I had a long conversation about food, though I stopped short of trying to explain eGullet to her (why! why!), mainly agreeing that it is all very well to have new and interesting fusion cuisine if you have correspondingly untraditional wine, but to show off a classic Bordeaux wine, you need a classic French dish. Cue long discussion about the best way of cooking foie gras, what really goes into a blanquette de veau; the difficulty of finding good bread, Charlotte Russe, the lampreys that she fishes herself in the Dordogne…

View from the terrace of Ch La Serre. Ch Auzones is on the small promontory on the right

View over St Emilion

We then waddled back down into the town for lunch (as if we weren’t full of foie gras) at L’Envers du Décor, a wine bar/brasserie owned by the proprietor of Chateau Soutard, where the group had been for dinner the previous night. Pate maison (with delicious onion marmalade); confit of duck, then cheese. The restaurant is constantly mentioned in guides to dining in St Emilion, and it was good, but extremely slow service. With this we had a 1996 Soutard, which was beautiful – soft and long.

After this, it was back to the hotel at about 4pm for a nap to prepare ourselves for dinner with Francois and Marielle Sulzer at Chateau La Bonnelle. Their son, Olivier, and his wife Diane, have often been to Malta to stay with the Tabones so we were received ‘en famille’ and it was a much less formal affair than the previous evening. We were in the garden with the dog (a beautiful and beautifully behaved Weimaraner); the children were running in and out, and the aperitif was served very informally on the garden table. The Sulzers offered us their ‘clairet’ – a rosé which they are not allowed to sell – it is made for private consumption only. With this they gave us some tiny prawns about half an inch long that had been boiled with star anise and which you ate, heads and all; boiled sea snails with a bowl of garlic mayonnaise; olive and parmesan biscuits; cubes of melon and best of all for the seafood-loving Maltese (honestly they are like big seagulls) four huge baskets of oysters.

In the garden at Ch La Bonnelle

We moved inside for dinner of barbecued milk-fed veal chops and petits pois and broad beans a la francaise, and a 1994 La Bonnelle. We progressed to an entire wheel of Brie that Marielle had brought down on the train from Meaux, thus alienating the entire carriage, and at this point we ran out of wine, so Olivier went to the cave and pulled out some of the unlabelled and still dusty bottles ‘pour continuer avec la meme annee’. Then we had strawberry sorbet with enormous fresh strawberries and macaroons, both made by Diane. It was scarcely possible that we had eaten so much after such an enormous lunch but… the Maltese Are Not Afraid Of Eating!

The following morning was the day of the intronization ceremony and the Proclamation of the New Wine (ie the 2003), and we gathered shortly before 10am in the Jardins de la Mairie (the town hall garden).

Jurade setting off

The Jurade gathered and processed down the hill behind a band of piccolo-playing minstrels (which quite frankly I could have done without, and since when were spandex leggings mediaeval anyway) and then up to the Eglise Collegiale (the town's main church) for mass. This was charming, with the priest making space in his service to ask for God’s blessing on a couple who had been married for 60 years. Then back down the hill to the monolithic church (a church hewn out of one enormous block of rock; this is the biggest example in Europe) where the intronizations were to take place. About 60 people, mainly French but also from Canada, Malta, Scotland, England, Belgium and Slovakia were made Vigneron D’Honneur or Prud’homme. Much speechifying, draping with robes and small morsels of sheep, and then back up the hill to the mayor’s garden for a champagne reception. I do love the French – no rubbishing about with half-assed champagnes – Laurent Perrier for 500 people, no problem.

Myself + family in the garden. You can just make out the ceremonial sash on my father's left shoulder

Then, lunch. My god. The point about the Fete de Printemps lunch is that since it is a once-a-year event, the St Emilion wine producers fight for the honour of providing the wines. And again, they give no quarter to lowest common denominator catering.

Menu, with accompanying wine

Miroir de betteraves, homard et feves du jardin - this was a small amount of only-just set beetroot jelly trembling in a martini glass, with two or three chunks of lobster, broad beans and marinated thinly-sliced onion on top

- St Emilion 2001, Union de Producteurs de St Emilion

- L'Esquisse de la Tour Figeac 1999, SC Chateau la Tour Figeac

- Le D de Dassault 1998, SARL Chateau Dassault

Lamproie a la Bordelaise - lamprey in red wine + shallot sauce. The sauce was delicious, but the fish was a little strongly-flavoured for my taste

- Chateau Gros Caillou 1999, Grand Cru, SCEA Vignobles Jacques Dupuy

- Chateau de Ferrand 1998, Grand Cru, SA Ferrand

- Chateau Haut Rocher 1998, Grand Cru, Jean de Monteil

Pigeon roti a la farce fine truffee, petits pois et petites legumes grillees - a beautiful piece of pink pigeon, stuffed with chopped mushrooms, accompanied with tiny grilled aubergines, half a tiny red pepper and a baby fennel

- Chateau Franc Mayne 1998, Grand Cru Classe, Georgy Fourcroy + Associes

- Chateau Grand Mayne 1998, Grand Cru Classe, GFA JP Nony

- Chateau La Couspaude 1996, Grand Cru Classe, Vignobles Aubert

Fromages

- Chateau Magdelaine 1990, Premier Grand Cru Classe, Jean-Pierre Moueix

- Chateau Figeac 1983, Premier Grand Cru Classe, Thierry Manoncourt

Sorbets fraise, framboise, basilic, bergamote et leurs croustillants - the basil sorbet was particularly good

Cafe, macarons, caneles

Certainly, there were wines on this menu that I will never taste again. The La Magdelaine, which was light and elegant, smelling of honey, with an almost port flavour to it, and which went so beautifully with the cheese, retails at around GBP100 per bottle. The Figeac – a much stronger, darker wine - is not far behind. There were also some I would never wish to taste again – for example, L'Esquisse de la Tour Figeac had absolutely no structure and fell away to nothing in the mouth. The La Couspaude was over – very flat, and a curious rubber nose. For me the highlight was the Grand Mayne, a big dark wine, with beautiful structure. Frankly you should count yourselves lucky that I was still able to taste anything at this stage, let alone actually take notes.

The wines at lunch

So lunch was over by about 5pm and we somehow located the bus and went back to the hotel. And, though I am still finding this hard to believe, we were up again at 8pm for gin and tonics to prepare our stomachs for what the hotel had laughingly billed as “a small barbecue”. Which started off with charcuterie, jambon de Bayonne and rillettes, wound through rice salad, chunks of grilled beef and duck heart kebabs, and finished with tarte aux pommes, chocolat mousse cake and pithiviers. And cheese, in case we were still hungry. Oh yes.

Anyway, my brother drove me back to the airport on Monday morning and I flew into Gatwick and went straight home to bed. And here I am in the office, it is Wednesday morning about 10am and when I am not typing I find myself looking around and clutching the air with my right hand. Yes, I am waiting for someone to pass me a glass of wine. Au secours…

Fi

[Really Nice!]

Absolutely wonderful!