Tasting at Signature Bio
I was
invited to take preside at an wine competition last week, namely Signature Bio,
the 25th organic wine competition for the wines of Languedoc
Roussillon. Organic wines are becoming
increasingly important in the Languedoc; after all the region has a fantastic
climatic advantage over the rest of France, with more hours of sunshine, and
also winds that will dry up any lingering humidity after the rain. However,
this year might prove problematic if the weather continues to be as cool and
temperamental as it has been over the last few weeks. And the figures speak for themselves, in
2001 there were 279 producers registered as organic, with 3764 hectares, and by
2011 the figures had risen to 1199 estates with 19.907 hectares. And at Millésime Bio earlier this year I spoke to several
people for whom 2012 was their first year of production as organic wine growers.
We were 60 ‘wine
professionals’ including two other local MWs, Matthew Stubbs from Vinécole, and
Juliet Bruce-Jones, but no wine growers, judging 234 wines. I was on a friendly table, with Alex Francis,
who I first met at a wine fair in Chablis more years ago than either of us care to
remember; he now runs Vins y Vinos. There
was Jacqueline Bonnet, whom I know from tasting the wines of Château Perdiguier;
she is an oenologist and has tasted at almost every competition over the past
25 years. Sam Stratham is an Australian
who grows organic grapes, at Rosnay estate in New South Wales, but has yet to
make his own wine, and the fifth member of the table was Alban Marjotte from
the Gruissan tourist office. And our wines were 2012 reds.
We were told that if they were not yet been bottled, they were ready for
bottling. The first few wines were ripe
and fruity and in some cases quite alcoholic.
Roussillon I thought, ripe Grenache, so when the wines were unveiled I
was somewhat thrown to find that they were Côtes du Rhone, and that there was also
a Lirac. But those are not in the
Languedoc, I remonstrated. Oh yes, they
are, I was told. They are in the Gard,
and that department is part of the Languedoc …… I gave up protesting. I know when I am losing a battle in the face of French bureaucracy, but I did
feel that including Côtes du Rhone created a misleading impression alongside more structured Languedoc
wines.
I have
tasted for Decanter’s World Wine Awards for the last ten years, and that is undoubtedly one of the
most professionally organised competitions around. So I am always quite intrigued to see how
other competitions work – my table had 18 wines to taste, so not an arduous
morning, by any means. And we were told
that we could not award more than six medals.
In fact that was not an issue – we only wanted to give five, a gold, a
silver, and three bronzes. The
recommended marks for medals also perturbed me.
Gold started at 16 out of 20, whereas for Decanter it is 18.5 out of
20. In fact that was not an issue
either; we just marked: category of medal or no medal.
A small
group of us then had to retaste the seventeen wines that had been awarded a
gold medal and pick out two wines for a special mention. Fortunately I did not have to exercise any
great powers of diplomacy here – we were pretty unanimous and would have liked
to have awarded three special mentions.
One of them was an absolutely delicious Costières de Nimes that came
from my table – Terres des Chardons, Marginal and the other was a Rivesaltes
Grenat 2010 from Domaine la Rourède. And
the third wine that missed a special mention by a whisker was a Languedoc AC Domaine
de Costes-Cirgues. I am not sure if I
am supposed to mention that, but the wine did stand out above the other gold
medals. In fact I liked it so much that I have arranged a cellar visit, so more anon.
I feel
strongly that allowances should not be made because a wine is organic. A wine is good, or it is not. And I found the same faults in organic wines
as in non-organic wines. There were
wines which suffered from an excess of oak, with drying fruit, or an excess of alcohol,
and even some green flavours, but the best had lovely fruit and typified the
best of the Languedoc, confirminged the exciting potential for organic wines
in Languedoc-Roussillon.
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