la gramiere

Back to the vineyards. After a very rainy end of October, which we needed very badly, last week we started plouging again. Yes, it was the end of November but we had to wait until "Northern Planting Time" in the biodynamic planting calendar. In simpler terms, it's when the moon is descending, but it also has to with with the position of the constellations in relation to the moon. We use Maria Thun's Biodynamic planting calendar in order to plan all of our vineyard work. My husband Matt is going to be a "guest blogger" and explain more about what we did in the vineyards. Meanwhile back in the "cave" or winery, also in conjunction with the descending moon, we racked each of the vats off of the lees. Racking is the process of transferring wine from one vat to another in order to remove the lees, or small particles of grapes, skins, seeds, the random yellow jacket, etc. that have settled to the bottom of the vat. Once the majority of the wine has been transferred to another empty vat, there is a pretty good layer of purplish-pink sludge at the bottom, these are the lees. Here in France, as a way to control alcohol production and to levee yet another tax on wineries, you are required to keep these lees and then take them to the distillery where they will be distilled into industrial alcohol. So I sloshed the lees out of the vats and transferred them into a big blue plastic barrel where they are now waiting to be taken to the distillery. Now the wine is ready to sleep for the winter, it will stay there until spring time when the temperatures warm up and then, hopefully the malolactic fermentation will finish all by itself after which we'll be ready to blend! Lots to look forward to.....

Arbois and popcorn, ever thought of it? Neither had I until tonight. We had a big lunch so we didn't really feel like cooking dinner. Matt had already opened a bottle of Arbois "Le Moulin" 2003 from Tissot, so hey, why not? The wine is delicious, a blend of Poulsard, Trousseau and Pinot Noir, from 2003, the year of the heat wave over here. It has a lovely dark ruby color and is oh so pleasant to quaff. Amazingly enough, it was a great match to some freshly popped corn! You see, there is still some American in us! It's nice sometimes to enjoy good old American food! (If you can call it that...)

             

                   

 

The most interesting part of our visit to Domaine André et Mireille Tissot was getting to see the grapes drying for the vin de paille, or literally "straw wine."  Vin de Paille, or some form of it is made in many European countries, the most well-known is probably Italy's Amarone. In the Arbois appellation, both red and white grapes are used to make the wine. The grapes are harvested and then laid in shallow wooden crates lined with straw. These crates are then placed in the attic of the winery and left for several months. Along with leaving the windows open, most wineries have powerful fans installed to keep the air circulating in order prevent the grapes from molding. The grapes normally spend about three months drying, sometimes more depending on the producer. At the end they look more like raisins than grapes, they are then pressed and fermented into a delicously concentrated dessert wine! This wine appellation is so interesting, in such a small area they produce white, red and rosé, plus dessert wine, fortified wine, and even spirits made by distilling the grape skins and then aging the resulting elixir in oak barrels for several years, much like a cognac or armagnac. But wait! I've saved the best and most interesting for last: Vin Jaune.   Vin Jaune translates literally to "yellow wine" and it is truly yellow. It is a special appellation all to itself and is made only from the savignin grape. The grapes are harvested, pressed and then put into 228 liter barrels and left to age for a minimum of 6 years and 3 months! During this time the wines are not touched! While the wine sleeps, a very magical thing takes place, a yeast called a voile, or veil, develops on the surface of the wine which imparts a unique nutty flavor and protects the wine from oxidizing, much the same as a Spanish sherry. The wine slowly evaporates over the 6 years and is never topped up, which is usually what needs to be done to keep a normal wine from oxidizing or turning to vinegar in barrel, but the special "voile" keeps that from happening. Every February in Arbois there is a festival to celebrate "La Percée du Vin Jaune" which is when they pierce through the voile and taste the vin jaune for the first time. This festival is now on my list of things to do, maybe even this year! (Note: I copied this photo from a blog called www.wineterroirs.com by French photographer Bertrand Calce, it's very interesting, check it out!)

Mini vacation

             

                   

 

Yes, it's true, we left our new wine for a few days on it's own so that we could relax a bit and enjoy a few hours of sunshine before the days grow short and the temperatures start to dip. We decided to go to a town called Arbois which is in the Jura region, about half way in between Burgundy and Switzerland. Is it a wine region? But of course! One of the more complicated and obscure in France. They make white, red, and rosé from 5 different grape varieties. The whites are made from Chardonnay and Savignin (no, that is not a typo) the reds from Poulsard, (or Ploussard, they have two ways of spelling it!) Trousseau and Pinot Noir. You definitely have to have an open mind when you start to consider these wines, they are unlike anything I have ever tasted, but the more you drink them the better you understand them, they are amazingly complex and well worth the time it takes to comprehend. We visited one of the most talked about producers in the area at their shop in the center of Arbois. Stéphane Tissot is the man that is making wine lovers talk about Arbois these days, so we went to check out his wines. Little did we know, he's a fellow organic and biodynamic wine man! One of the wines we were most interested in is a cuvée that he makes with no sulfur added at all. There is quite a movement here in France to produce a small quantity of wine without sulfur, you can get some pretty interesting wines and some pretty awful ones too. Sulfur dioxide is what we add to wine protect the grapes from spoiling during vinification and to protect the wine from oxidizing when it's finished fermenting, basically it's a natural preservative. I say natural because it is a natural compound, but also because it is allowed in Organic wine making in low amounts, and we do use it. Wines that are made without sulfur can be wonderful, they just have to be handled carefully as they can easily oxidize, spoil, or even re-ferment if the wine is not completely dry. Many people have low tolerance for added sulfur in wines, so if the amount of sulfur can be lowered or even eliminated, why not? It is necessary to be reasonable though, it's hard to imagine large quantities of unsulfured wine ever being shipped long distances since the risk of spoilage is so great. Anyway... back to Arbois: They didn't have any of this particular bottling at the shop in the center of town, so the saleswoman called up to the winery to see if we could run up to get some. Luckily Mme Tissot, Stéphane's mother, was there even though it was a holiday weekend. She very graciously gave us a tour of the winery and sold us our bottles of the unsulfured cuvée. More about Arbois next time, it was such fun, I'll have to split it into two posts....maybe three!