Menu Pineau (Arbois/Orbois) - Loire Valley, France

Menu Pineau was not a grape that I intentionally set out to try.  When I bought the bottle that I'll be reviewing below, I thought that it was made mostly from the Romorantin grape with a dash of something called Orbois tossed in for good measure.  It's a French wine that is bottled as a vin de table, which means that the producer is not allowed to mention any grape names, vintage information or regional information on the front or the back labels, so all I had to go on was the store owner's word.  When I got home later and looked the wine up online, the producer's website indicated that the grape mixture was actually the reverse of what the shop owner had told me (about 80% Menu Pineau and 20% Romorantin)*.  This actually turned out to be a great thing for me, since I had a few other examples of Romorantin to write about and had nothing from the Menu Pineau grape, so the result of the happy accident is today's post.

Menu Pineau is a very old grape that has been cultivated in the Loire Valley since at least the 16th Century, where it was first mentioned in print by François Rabelais.  When I went to tag today's entry, I was surprised to see that I already had an Arbois tag, since I didn't remember ever writing about this grape before, but it turns out that I have previously used the Arbois tag to refer to the Arbois sub-region of the Jura and not to the grape.  The two names are apparently completely unrelated, as Menu Pineau has not ever been cultivated in the Jura, according to Robinson & Co. in Wine Grapes.  They say that the Arbois/Orbois name is a corruption of the name Herbois, which is what the grape was called in the Loir-et-Cher region where it is most widely grown.  In the local dialect, Herbois was spelled/pronounced Orboé or Orboué, which ultimately became Orbois and then Arbois.  It is officially known as Orbois in France, as Arbois Blanc in the VIVC database, and as Menu Pineau in Wine Grapes.

The Menu Pineau name may lead you to believe that it is somehow related to Pinot Noir or to the Pinot family of grapes, but that doesn't appear to be the case.  It was named Menu Pineau to differentiate it from Gros Pineau, which is another name for Chenin Blanc, which is widely grown in many of the same areas as Menu Pineau.  Gros means large and menu means small, while Pineau (or Pineau de la Loire) has just historically been one of Chenin Blanc's many names.  Menu Pineau does seem to have a parent/offspring relationship with Gouais Blanc, the other half of the famous Pinot x Gouais duo (see my post on Romorantin for more details) that was responsible for so many of the grapes we enjoy today.  This means that Menu Pineau is a half-sibling of all the grapes from that crossing, but more amazingly, is also at least a half sibling of at least 78 other grapes.  This study (in French...the link is to the download page, which will allow you to DL the entire bulletin...the relevant paper is the first one in the bulletin) shows that Gouais Blanc shares 50% of its DNA markers with these 78 grapes, meaning that it is likely one of the parents for nearly all of them.  The list includes such luminaries as Riesling, Furmint, Jacquère, Frâncuşă,  Grolleau, Colombard, Folle Blanche, and Muscadelle, among many others.

Menu Pineau is authorized for use in a handful of AOC wines in the northern Loire Valley, but it is being phased out of at least one major one.  As of 2016, Menu Pineau will be forbidden in AOC wines from Touraine (as will all other white grapes not named Sauvignon...only Sauvignon Gris and Sauvignon Blanc will be permitted).  Sauvignon Blanc has actually supplanted Menu Pineau in most of the areas in which the grape was once widely cultivated, as plantings in France have fallen from almost 1500 hectares in 1968 to fewer than 300 hectares in 2004.  It is generally faulted for having low acidity, and when it shows up, it typically shows up as a minor blending component to cut the acid of its more popular running-mates Chenin Blanc and Sauvignon Blanc.  There are a handful of producers making varietal wines from the grape, but I haven't been able to track any of them down.

I was able to pick up the 2007 Julien Courtois "Originel" bottling, which, as mentioned above, is about 80% Menu Pineau and 20% Romorantin.  This wine is bottled as a vin de table, so the vintage information is buried in a lot number on the back of the bottle (and I may be misinterpreting it), while the grape breakdown comes from the producer's website.  I picked this bottle up from my friends at the Wine Bottega for around $35.  In the glass the wine was a medium golden bronze color and was a little bit hazy.  The nose was intense with apple cider, peach and honeysuckle aromas.  On the palate the wine was on the fuller side of medium with fairly high acidity.  There were flavors of apple cider and fresh cut green apples along with apricot, honey and lemony citrus.  The acidity was surprisingly sharp here and was a bit too much to handle at room temperature.  Cellar temp or just slightly colder was the way to go, as the flavors became very muted at fridge temp.  I really liked the balance between the fresh fruits and the slight oxidation in the wine and found the wine enjoyable on the whole.  It is a bit pricey, but I don't think it's overpriced for what you get.  It's actually a great Fall wine that would probably provide a lot of interesting pairings at the Thanksgiving table, if you're looking for a nice oddball wine to serve your guests.

*I want to be clear that I think it's amazing how much most wine shop workers know and remember about their stock off the top of their heads, especially considering the crazy kinds of questions I sometimes throw at them.  Matt at the Wine Bottega is an unbelievable fount of knowledge and this anecdote isn't intended to cast any aspersions on him or his store.  The whole crew at the Bottega are insanely knowledgeable and just all around good people.  The anecdote is merely to explain a happy accident that resulted in me getting something more interesting than I bargained for (I had a similar experience with the Kanzler grape as well).  Not all mistakes are bad things...think about the discovery of penicillin or Champagne or possibly even wine itself for examples of mistakes or accidental discoveries leading to wonderful new things.

Savagnin: Two Modern Expressions - Arbois, Jura, France

Savagnin is a tough grape to write about.  It has the difficult double-distinction of being a very old vine and of being genetically unstable.  Put the two together and you get a recipe for widespread mutation over a long period of time which, of course, leads to confusion.  We'll do what we can with it, though, and see what light we can shed.

Savagnin is currently best known for its role in white wines of all sorts in the Jura region of France.  The French ampelographer Pierre Galet, though, had a hunch that the grape known as Savagnin in the Jura might actually be the same as a grape called Traminer from the Südtirol region of Italy despite minor differences between the leaf shapes and chemical makeup of the two plants.  Traminer, named for the town of Tramin in Südtirol, was once widely planted throughout Germany, Alsace, Hungary and Austria, though it is rare to come across a grape by that name today (the grape called Traminer in Austria is actually Roter Veltliner, a totally unrelated grape).  Recent DNA profiling has proven that Traminer and Savagnin are actually one and the same grape.

And that's the end of the easy part.  Somewhere along the line, a Savagnin plant mutated into a vine that grew pink-skinned instead of green-skinned berries.  This pink-skinned version is known as Red Traminer or Savagnin Rose.  At some other point in its history, this pink-skinned version mutated again and picked up a much headier, more muscat-like aroma and spicier flavor profile and thus Gewürztraminer was born.  Over time, people in many places confused the Red Traminer vines and the Gewürztraminer vines, since visually they look nearly identical, to the extent that it is currently theorized that many of the vines known in Germany as Gewürztraminer may actually be Red Traminer and they point to the German Gewürztraminer's tendency to have muted aromatics as proof.  There's also an obscure grape in Alsace called Klevener de Heiligenstein which is also believed to be Red Traminer, though this grape is not related at all to the grape called Klevner in Alsace which is actually Pinot Blanc.

We're not done yet.  There are other grapes grown in eastern Europe that may or may not be Savagnin or a mutation of it.  There's a grape called Frankisch in Austria, one called Heida or Païen in Switzerland, and one called Formentin in Hungary that may be Savagnin or one of its clonal variants.  In the cru of Ayze in the Savoie region of France, a sparkling wine is made from a grape called Gringet that has long been thought to be identical to Savagnin, but which is now believed to be something totally different.  In Australia, much of what had been grown as Albarino is in actuality Savagnin, though the two grapes are not genetically related.  The Savagnin Noir of the Jura is none other than Pinot Noir, which Savagnin is somehow related to somewhere down the line.  Savagnin is also thought to have some link to Viognier, though the exact familial relationship is unclear.

And all that only covers trying to figure out exactly what Savagnin is as a grape.  Once you actually get into the Jura and try to navigate the enormous number of different styles that the grape can be put to, well, then things get really crazy.  I'll get into some of the more traditional styles that Savagnin is put to in a post later this week.  Today, though, I'm going to be looking at two wines that are made in a more modern style in the Jura.

The first is a wine made from 100% Savagnin grapes that are vinified in a more or less straightforward white wine style.  The grapes are picked and selected before being partially fermented in temperature controlled stainless steel.  The partially fermented juice is then moved to neutral oak barrels, where malolactic fermentation also occurs.  Usually in the Jura, when white wines are placed into barrels, as the juice evaporates through the pores in the wood, the barrel is left alone so there is an increasing headspace in the barrel that allows oxygen (and sometimes a yeast film) to come into contact with the wine.  To make this wine, though, the barrels were topped up every 10 days to prevent oxidation and dosed with SO2 to prevent the voile from forming and to preserve the fruit characteristics of the grape. This is a very unusual, very modern way of treating Savagnin grapes in the Jura and this bottling is the only example of that style that I've been able to find (though I know others exist).

The wine that I'm talking about is the 2008 Domaine de la Tournelle "Fleur de Savagnin" which I was able to pick up from my friends at the Wine Bottega for about $33. This is a small, biodynamic estate located in the town of Arbois in northern Jura.  In the glass, the wine was a medium gold color with a very aromatic nose of peaches and apricots, honey, melon, honeysuckle and flowers.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with high acidity and flavors of lemon, grapefruit, honeysuckle, apricot, ripe apples, creamy citrus and a touch of nuttiness.  The wine was wonderfully balanced as the creamy mouthfeel was grounded very nicely with a solid, nervy vein of acidity which can be distractingly high as the wine warms towards room temperature.  The flavors and aromas were complex and well-integrated.  Overall, this was an exceptional experience and is definitely something to seek out if the oxidized white wines from the Jura aren't exactly to your liking.  Even if you are a fan of the nutty white wines of the Jura, check this out to get a sense for the grape in a more unadulterated format.

The second wine that I was able to try is the 2007 Philippe Bornard "L'Ivresse de Noé," or, "The Inebriation of Noah."  This wine is made from late-harvested (in November) Savagnin grapes that are also vinified in a non-oxidative style.  I was able to pick up a 500mL bottle from my friends at the Wine Bottega for about $40.  In the glass, the wine is a medium gold color with a powerfully aromatic nose of grapefruit and citrus peel, buttery hazelnuts, honey and ripe apples.  On the palate, the wine was full bodied with high acidity and flavors of apple, pineapple, lemon curd, honey and a touch of nuttiness.  The wine is just off-dry, though it's tough to notice it thanks to the bracing acidity.  This is a decadent experience to drink and is probably one of my favorite wines of the past year.  Intense, ripe, honeyed fruits drape themselves all over your palate and linger for what feels like an eternity.  If I could afford to drink this every day, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I'm writing this post and a related Savagnin post (which you can read here) to celebrate the publication of a bit I wrote on the Jura for the AG Wine team for use in their wine app.  You can check out AG Wine's website here or you can go here to download the app for your iPhone or iPad.  It's definitely one of the most informative and useful wine apps that I've used and I enthusiastically recommend it for people interested in learning more about wine and less about wine scores.  I've also written the section on Alsace and the section for Savoie as well.  Their free Wine News app also syndicates my posts so you can follow Fringe Wine and many other great writers on the go for free.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do not receive any financial compensation from AG Wine for any of the content or promotion that I provide to them.

An additional note, this post has been translated into Ukrainian and that translation can be read here.

Poulsard - Arbois, Jura, France

Yesterday we talked a bit about one of the Jura's two unusual red grapes Trousseau.  Today we'll visit with Trousseau's lesser known and, in many ways, more provincial running-mate Poulsard (often spelled Ploussard by many Jura producers).  I say more provincial because while Trousseau can be found (albeit in limited quantities) in a few other wine regions throughout the world, Poulsard is found virtually nowhere else on earth outside of a small area in eastern France.

There are several good reasons for that, and almost all of them have to do with the grape's skin.  As you can see from the picture on the left, Poulsard is a very thin-skinned grape, which has a lot of consequences both in the winery and in the vineyard.  In the winery, the grapes tend to produce very lightly colored wines that can resemble rosé wines more than full-throttle reds.  The grape has so little pigmentation that it is often bolstered with fellow thin-skinned grape Pinot Noir to provide a bit of extra color and extraction.  This isn't a problem in itself, but it is a problem in the marketplace where dense reds are what many consumers are looking for.  That's a style of wine that Poulsard just isn't ever going to make.

In the vineyard, the thin skins mean that the grape is difficult to grow.  The only thing that is protecting the juice inside of each berry is the grape's skin and the thinner that skin is, the more susceptible the grapes are to a variety of diseases.  Poulsard is particularly vulnerable to various fungal diseases and rot, which makes sense as these are all diseases that tend to thrive when there is a breach in the skin at some point and the sugary juice is exposed to whatever pathogens are floating around in the air.  Couple these problems with the vine's tendency to yield irregularly and it starts to make sense that plantings of the grape are declining.  Poulsard was, at one time, the most planted grape in the Jura but it has recently fallen to number two behind Chardonnay.

The upside for Poulsard is that it is a very versatile grape once it gets to the winery.  Sure, the light style is a barrier to producing blockbusters, but it lends itself very well to sparkling wines (such as the Crémant du Jura written about earlier) and it adds a nice red berry fruit character to the vin de paille wines made in the area without being overwhelming.  The red wines made from the grape also happen to be excellent with a little chill on them and are wonderful for summertime (I don't know what the weather is like where you are, but we're in the mid-90's here lately and the thought of chugging a Syrah or Cabernet Sauvignon makes me a little nauseous right now).

I was able to try two different Poulsard based wines, both of which I picked up from my friends at The Wine Bottega.  The first was a 2009 Michel Gahier from Arbois, Jura, that I picked up for about $25.  In the glass, the wine was a medium pink color.  The nose was moderately open with aromas of raspberries, wet tea leaves and damp earth.  On the palate the wine was on the lighter side of medium with fairly high acid and, surprisingly, a little bit of tannic grip to it.  Right out of the bottle, the wine was a little tight and tasted fairly thin but it opened up quickly with flavors of wild strawberries, tart cherries, raspberries and black tea.  This was kind of the mirror image of yesterday's Trousseau from Gahier which was wild and savage on the nose but came up a little short on the palate.  The nose on this wine never really erupted but the palate was full of juicy red fruit with a little earthiness to ground it.  Again, the comparison point for this is probably Pinot Noir or possibly something like Schiava.

The second bottle I tried was a NV bottling from Philippe Bornard called "Tant-Mieux."  This was a fizzy Poulsard that was bottled under crown cap and clocked in at 9.5% alcohol.  It's bottled as table wine, presumably because of the fizz, which I'm guessing isn't allowed in the Jura DOC.  The bottle set me back about $35.  In the glass, the wine was a dark salmon pink color with pretty substantial bubbles.  The nose was pretty assertive and tasted kind of like strawberries and a slightly funky cheese.  I know that doesn't sound particularly appetizing, but it was definitely working here.  On the palate the wine was light and was maybe a little sweeter than off-dry with nice acidity.  There was a lot of nice strawberry fruit and, overall, the wine kind of made think about what it would be like to drink fizzy strawberry jam.  My guess is that it would be pretty similar to drinking this.  This doesn't have a lot of complexity or depth, but it's very delicious and sometimes that's enough.  The price tag is a little steep for this and I don't know that I'd pay that much for it on a consistent basis, but  it was definitely enjoyable and was the perfect thing to drink after I mowed the lawn in the 90 degree heat.

I also would like to point out that I have written the section on the Jura for AG Wine's iPhone app.  The piece is currently in the final editing stages and should be up on the app soon.  If you buy the app now, you will receive all future updates with new regions for free.  You can check out AG Wine's website here or you can go here to download the app for your iPhone or iPad.  It's definitely one of the most informative and useful wine apps that I've used and I enthusiastically recommend it for people interested in learning more about wine and less about wine scores.  I've also written the section on Alsace and the upcoming section for Savoie as well.  Their free Wine News app also syndicates my posts so you can follow Fringe Wine and many other great writers on the go for free.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do not receive any financial compensation from AG Wine for any of the content or promotion that I provide to them.

Trousseau - Arbois, Jura, France

If you do a Google image search for Trousseau, you might be surprised at what pops up.  It seems there is a company that makes bridal dresses who goes by the name Modern Trousseau, trousseau being another name for the outfit of a bride, apparently (the grape, it turns out, is named for this reason...the shape of the bunch apparently looks "packed up" like a wedding dress). Searching for its other well-known synonym "Bastardo" leads you down an entirely different pathway, as there is (or was, I don't really know) a pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies named Antonio Bastardo.  The crossroads of the world can sometimes amaze you.

But obviously we're not here to talk about wedding dresses or obscure Phillies pitchers.  We're here today to talk about the grape Trousseau and its place in the Jura (we've briefly visited Trousseau in a Crémant de Jura post).  As mentioned above, Trousseau is known as Bastardo in Portugal where it is allowed as part of the Port blend.  It's grown in small quantities in Australia and California as well, but it's not a very important grape in either of those places.  It's not very popular with growers because it yields irregularly, but it is a good fit for the Jura because it buds late and misses many of the early spring frosts common to the region.

As for the Jura, well, the Jura is different.  Let's go ahead and get that statement out of the way because it is uncontroversially true.  At tastings of Jura wines, you should be presented with the red wines first before you work your way up to the whites as the red wines are frequently made in a much lighter style and tend to resemble rosé wines in color more so than reds.  To give you an idea, the thin skinned and pale Pinot Noir is used in the Jura to provide extra color and structure to the red wines of the region (especially those made from the Poulsard grape).  That's how light many of the reds from here can be.  The whites, on the other hand, are usually introduced to wood at some point along their way and, very often, are intentionally oxidized to some degree.  We'll talk a bit more about that when we get to Savagnin on this site.

The point is that the Jura is weird and, frankly, it's not for everybody.  The distinctive nutty tang of oxidation is, technically speaking, a fault in the wine and some people just can't get past that.  The red wines are un-apologetically light in color and body and don't carry the new-world hall marks of over-extraction and oak-blanketing.  Jura wines are old-school, plain and simple, and some people just can't get on board with that.  And that's fine.  There's just more for me, I guess.

Before I get to the wines I tried, I do want to talk for a minute about the place I got them.  The place is the Wine Bottega in the North End of Boston and if you like wine, this is the kind of place you can't afford not to go to.  The staff are incredibly knowledgeable and friendly and their selection is out of this world.  They have tastings at least once a week and at those tastings they put on a master class for each region and producer that they are profiling.  You won't find Parker and Spectator scores plastered all over the place, but you will find witty, informative blurbs on an astonishing number of bottles to let you know what you might expect when you pull the cork.  This place has become my go-to wine shop in the Boston area and I've been spending so much time there over the past few months they may need to start charging me rent. Nearly every bottle from the Jura that I'll be writing about over the next few days were picked up from the Wine Bottega.  They have more bottles from the Jura than probably anybody else in Massachusetts so if you're curious about the region, start here and put yourself in their hands.  They won't lead you astray.

The first bottle was from Michel Gahier in Arbois, Jura (the town at the very top of the region that has its own DOC and which is the go-to place for Jura reds).  I will say that wines from the Jura don't come cheap, as this bottle set me back $32.  They are unique and fascinating, though, so I don't mind spending the money.  In the glass, this wine had a pale ruby color.  It was explosively aromatic with wild, brambly red fruit, dusky raspberry, wild strawberry, tea leaves, damp herbs and musky leather.  "Perfumed" is too nice a word for what was going on here.  This was wildly and savagely aromatic and absolutely intoxicating to smell.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with high acid and no tannins.  There was wild strawberry and light raspberry fruit with some forest floor/wet tea leaves flavors as well.  It was not as explosive on the palate as it was on the nose, but was very nice.  Cool weather Pinot Noir is a good comparison point here, so if you're a fan of that kind of thing, give this a shot.

The second bottle I tried was a 2005 Domaine Rolet Pere et Fils from Arbois which I got at Bin Ends for about $19.  The wine had a pale ruby color and a delicate nose of strawberry and raspberry fruit.  The nose here was much more restrained than in the prior bottle, possibly because of the bottle age but also possibly because I think Rolet is tends to be a little cleaner and more polished than some of the other producers of the Jura.  On the palate, the wine was medium bodied with acid on the higher side of medium and very low tannins.  There was some dusky strawberry fruit with some red cherry and a little bit of baking spice and forest floor character to it.  The fruit was very pure here and much cleaner and more polished than the Gahier bottling.  If you twisted my arm about it, I'd probably say that this was a better made wine, technically speaking, but that something gets lost sometimes with pure technical virtuosity.  This wine was definitely a little cleaner and smooth around the edges, but it just wasn't as interesting as the Gahier bottling to me.  The analogue to cool weather Pinot Noir is much more pronounced here and this would be a good introduction for those of you who aren't yet ready to throw your hands up and let the Jura take you on a wild ride.  But for those who want to take a little walk on the wild side, go check out my friends at the Bottega and let them hook you up.  I can't imagine you'll be disappointed.

I also would like to point out that I have written the section on the Jura for AG Wine's iPhone app.  The piece is currently in the final editing stages and should be up on the app soon.  If you buy the app now, you will receive all future updates with new regions for free.  You can check out AG Wine's website here or you can go here to download the app for your iPhone or iPad.  It's definitely one of the most informative and useful wine apps that I've used and I enthusiastically recommend it for people interested in learning more about wine and less about wine scores.  I've also written the section on Alsace and the upcoming section for Savoie as well.  Their free Wine News app also syndicates my posts so you can follow Fringe Wine and many other great writers on the go for free.  In the interest of full disclosure, I do not receive any financial compensation from AG Wine for any of the content or promotion that I provide to them.