The chateau at Le Pape is an 18^th century chartreuse style building but some reports say that the estate dates back to the 12th century and was once owned by the Bishop of Bazas, who would later became Pope Clement V, whom Chateau Pape Clement is named after. I’m hoping to learn more about Le Pape’s history.

Le Pape has been owned by Patrick Monjanel since 1998 and prior to that it was owned by Anthony Perrin between 1983 – 1997. Perrin helped his family build up a portfolio of estates, rediscovering chateaux and restoring them to their former glory. The family owned Chateaux Carbonnieux, Le Sartre, Haut Vigneau, Bois Martin, Tour Leognan and Lafont Menaut. He was also President of the Union des Grands Crus from 1992 -1994 and was instrumental in the creation of the Pessac Leognan appellation as a subregion of the Graves appellation, in 1987.

Chateau Haut Bailly have said in a press release that Managing Director Veronique Sanders would now run both properties, while technical director Gabriel Vialar – who has worked at both Chateaux Mouton Rothschild and Smith Haut Lafitte – will be in charge of technical decisions at Le Pape:

“We plan in the near future to begin an investment programme which will allow the Château to be counted among the best in the appellation.”

There are no plans to integrate the vines of Le Pape into Haut Bailly and Veronique Sanders has confirmed to Decanter.com that they “intend to conserve the identity of this beautiful estate.”

According to Haut Bailly’s website:

“Planned investments in the near future should give Château Le Pape a strong identity and elevate it among the best of the appellation. “We will start with an in-depth soil survey in the vineyard”, explains Gabriel Vialard, Technical Manager of Château Haut-Bailly. “Then we would like to renovate the cellars and the château.”

The transaction should provide the promising terroir of Château Le Pape with all the experience and expertise of a Grand Cru Classé.”

Having met Veronique, Gabriel and their teams at Haut Bailly I am very sure that their dexterity, passion and tenacity will turn Chateau Le Pape into a more highly recognised Chateau and one to look out for in the future. I wish them well and at some point in time I look forward to tasting wines from their new acquisition.

Three builders renovating a house belonging to

The house was being renovated to provide accommodation for grape pickers and Philippe Baijot, CEO of Alexander Bonnet has said the treasure could have been cash payments secreted away during the time of American prohibition:

“Maybe it is linked to exports to the U.S. under the prohibition, we can imagine that they were paid in cash due to the ban of the importation of wines and other alcoholic beverages.”

Alexandre Bonnet have owned the building since 1981 and the gold coins have been transferred to the vault of a bank. The Champagne House is considering naming its latest vintage “Hidden Treasure”.

The beneficiaries of the treasure would be the builders who discovered the coins and the property owner – Champagne Lanson.

The house is located at 2 Rue Saint-Claude and was apparently owned a company named Moussec prior to the 1960s. Apparently the company was one of the very first to make sparkling wines at Les Riceys (the village is famed for the rare still wine Rosé de Riceys) and was involved in sensational lawsuits between 1921 – 23 against the Marne, resulting in the company’s ruin.

A local historian has come up with an alternative explanation for the secret cache of gold coins. A certain M. Rivollier connected to the company is thought to have bought unsold grapes or grape must in Les Riceys, concentrated them down to a paste and exported them to England. The solidified paste would have avoided heavy taxes and customs duties normally payable on wine. The concentrate was then rehydrated in England, activated with yeasts from Rivollier’s Parisian laboratory and sold as sparkling wine on the English market.

Oddly enough I have heard tales that this practice continues today – I would be very interested if anyone could enlighten me further!

The

Jinshan Zhang has also owned a 250 acre vineyard in China since 1998 and wants to plant 700 acres more.

Grand Mouëys lies in Capian, in the Entre Deux Mers and the estate comprises of 420 acres of woods, meadows and gardens of which 148 acres are set aside to vines. The château produces red wines under the Premier Cotes de Bordeaux appellation, white Bordeaux and Clairet. The Second Wine is named Les Templiers. The grape varieties grown are Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Muscadelle.

The château is said to rest on a Gallo-Roman villa of the first century AD which disappeared after the Visigoth invasion of 407. A medieval legend has it that the Château once belonged to the Knights Templar who hid treasure in an underground passage that joined to the abbey of La Sauve Majeure. The château building itself is in neo-gothic style having been rebuilt in the 19^th century after a fire.

Grand Mouëys has been in the hands of the Bömers family since 1989. The family also used to own the Reidemeister & Ulrichs Company in Bremen, an important wine merchants in Germany dating from 1831. The distribution of the wines of Château du Grand Mouëys is carried out by its subsidiary company “Caves des Grands Vins Français ” (CAVIF) – which presumably has also been purchased by Jinshan Zhang. He has said that he would like to sell other Bordelaise wines, reaching 1 million bottles in total.

The château has also been run as a hotel and Jinshn Zhang has big plans in wine tourism. The eight guest rooms of the castle will be completely revamped to accommodate Chinese tourists. An up scale restaurant with Chinese and French cuisine, spa, tennis and golf are also scheduled.

Jinshan Zhang owns a travel agency and wants to bring 10,000 Chinese tourists a year to Bordeaux to discover his château. He has planted an additional 50 acres to augment the estate’s original 148 acres of vines and intends to export 90% of production to China and retain 10% for France and Europe. Stéphane Derenoncourt has been brought in as wine consultant.

However not all of them were engulfed by urbanisation.  Pockets of vines survived.  The vineyard of Le Clos Montmartre sits at the foot of Sacré-Coeur.  In the Middle Ages the hill was covered in vines planted by Adelaide de Savoie, the sister of the Pope, in the first half of the 12th  century. The Abbey of Montmartre continued to make wine there until the late 1400′s when, ruined by war, the nuns were forced to sell off their land to commercial wine makers.

In the early 1920′s the vineyard was in danger of being swallowed up by buildings and caused a public outcry.  The artist François Poulbot led an effort to save the garden of singer and comedian Aristide Bruant (best known as the man in the black hat and red scarf in the famous Toulouse-Lautrec poster) from a real estate development plan. As a result, the Clos Montmartre was established as public land, and replanted in vines in 1933 to honour its heritage. The following year, the first vendange (grape harvest) of the reborn Clos Montmartre was celebrated, as it has been ever since, in the middle of October. The sale of the wine goes to charity.

Today there are around 200 vineyards in the  Île-de-France  covering 30 acres.  Nearly two thirds of the vineyards are run by associations or individuals, and third by local authorities.

“Local vintners now want these Ile de France wines awarded a new official “patrimonial” stamp of approval, as practically all are currently breaking draconian French laws on planting restrictions.

“The vast majority could theoretically be ordered to grub up at any time,” said Patrice Bersac, president of l’association des vignerons franciliens réunis (the association of united Parisian and Ile de France winemakers).

He wants French authorities to take inspiration from an initiative in London in which grapes are collected from numerous gardens of the capital to create an authorised blend.

Chateau Tooting produced by the Urban Wine Company has been given the thumbs up by experts, with the rosé described as “crisp, dry and elegant”.

“The French (wine growing) policy is outdated and unbearable. You English, meanwhile are able to take more liberties with rules on planting vines. I admire your freedom and sense of humour – you certainly need it to make wine in the UK,” he told The Daily Telegraph.

A report from James Scott in

The undercroft stocked a vintage of Bordeaux wine called Gascony Red. The historical region of Gascony overlapped what we now know as Bordeaux from the left bank of the Garonne, south and east of the city down to the Pyrenees. Centuries ago Gascony’s wines were well known. When Henry of Anjou married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152, he also acquired Gascony. Two years later, when he became King of England, England acquired Gascony, and with it, all of the vineyards of Bordeaux for the next 300 years.

By 1300 half of Bristol’s wine trade was in the hands of Gascon vintners. The year 1308-1309 marked the peak of the Bordeaux port exports with almost 103,000 tons of Gascon wines leaving its quays. In the 1950s, Bordeaux was only exporting half that amount in total!

Records show 736,000 gallons of wine was shipped to Winchelsea, East Sussex in the early 1300s and it is thought some of this wine would have been transported to Wye via Tenterden.

It is not known when the wine store closed but an Elizabethan house existed above it until 1875. Owner Patrick Keegan is hoping to open the grade-II listed cellar to the public and restoration works have been under way for the past 18 months. The scheme has gained support and funding from English Heritage, the Sustainable Development Fund, Wye Historical Society and Wye Parish Council.

The undercroft’s function as a wine cellar was not confirmed until the project’s architect Ptolemy Dean, who featured in BBC TV programmes Restoration and The Perfect Village, discovered broken bricks at the foot of the entrance steps in late October. Canterbury Archaeologial Trust later confirmed the damaged brickwork was the result of huge barrels being rolled down the steps. The cellar would have stocked wine imported in 225 litre barrels known as ‘barriques’, which would have weighed more than quarter of a tonne.

Stone masons have already restored the ceiling of the vaulted chamber, using chalk sourced from nearby Crundale. The next stage of the project is to move the grade-II listed K6 red telephone box which currently blocks the entrance to the steps leading down to the undercroft. Accessed by a spiral stair, the vaulted chamber is 17ft 10ins by 14ft 10ins, and features a central rose shaped roof boss.

Once works are completed Mr Keegan hopes to import Bordeaux wines from the appellations Pomerol, Saint Emilion and Margaux.

]]> http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/an-800-year-old-wine-shop-to-re-open-in-wye-and-sell-bordeaux-%e2%80%93-again/feed/ 0 http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/new-eu-rules-for-organic-wine-agreed/ http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/new-eu-rules-for-organic-wine-agreed/#comments Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:03:31 +0000 Nick http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/?p=2989 Continue reading →]]> New EU rules for Organic Wine have been agreed in the Standing Committee on Organic Farming (SCOF) and will apply from the 2012 harvest. Organic wine growers will be now be allowed to use the term “organic wine” on their labels. The labels must also show the EU-organic-logo and the code number of their certifier, and must respect other wine labelling rules.

Apparently up until this point the EU did not have rules for organic wine, only for “wine from organic grapes.” Those rules did not cover wine-making practices, i.e. the whole process from grape to wine. 

According to the press release:

“The new rules have the advantage of improved transparency and better consumer recognition. They will not only help to facilitate the internal market, but also to strengthen the position of EU organic wines at international level, since many other wine producing countries (USA, Chile, Australia, South Africa) have already established standards for organic wines. With this piece of legislation, the EU organic farming is now complete and covers all agricultural products.”

“The new regulation establishes a subset of oenological (wine-making) practices and substances for organic wines defined in the Wine Common Market Organisation (CMO) regulation 606/2009. For example, sorbic acid and desulfurication will not be allowed and the level of sulphites in organic wine must be at least 30-50 mg per litre lower than their conventional equivalent (depending on the residual sugar content). Other than this subset of specifications, the general wine-making rules defined in the Wine CMO regulation will also apply. As well as these wine-making practices, “organic wine” must of course also be produced using organic grapes.”

In 2009 the organic agricultural area in the EU-27 was 8.6 million hectares – 4.7% of the total utilised agricultural area. The share is over 10% in Austria, Sweden, Lithuania and the Czech Republic. Figures for 2008, show that there were 190,700 organic holdings – roughly 1.5% of all holdings.

In 2010, the overall organic grape production area was estimated at more than 75,000 ha, relative to a total wine area of nearly 3.5 million ha. The biggest organic grape areas were noted in Italy (30,341 ha), followed by France (21,403 ha) and Spain (17,665 ha).

]]> http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/new-eu-rules-for-organic-wine-agreed/feed/ 0 http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/haut-brions-fifth-wine-%e2%80%93-chateau-quintus/ http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/haut-brions-fifth-wine-%e2%80%93-chateau-quintus/#comments Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:53:08 +0000 Nick http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/?p=2981 Continue reading →]]> Last summer Domaines Clarence Dillon, owners of Chateau Haut Brion, purchased Chateau Tertre Daugay in Saint Emilion and Decanter.com have reported that it is to be renamed Chateau Quintus. The name Quintus (meaning “the Fifth” in Latin) was chosen as it is now the company’s fifth wine:

“The Gallo-Romans, creators of the vineyards of Saint-Emilion, had the habit of naming their fifth child Quintus … Domaine Clarence Dillon has decided to pay homage to its glorious predecessors by re-baptising their growth Château Quintus.”

The Second Wine is thought to be called Le Dragon de Quintus – presumably due to the fact that the chateau stands on the site of a watch tower built to defend the village of Saint Emilion.

The decision to buy the estate is based on realising its sleeping potential. Tertre Daugay was originally part of a much larger estate which lay over the Daugay Hill. The Daugay hill has given its name to 3 chateaux, Chateaux Tertre Daugay (at the summit of the hill), Daugay and Carteau Côtes Daugay (located on the south west slopes of the hill).

In the 19^th century the vineyard had become very well known – between 1844 – 1848 it was included amongst the 14 most sought-after and most expensive wines of Saint Emilion; won a gold medal the Universal Exposition of Paris in 1867 and from 1868 onwards it was known as a Saint Emilion First Growth (as noted by the trade in Cocks & Feret books from 1868 – 1949).

In 1909 it seems the estate was divided into Daugay and Tertre Daugay. The recent history of Daugay is entwined with that of Chateau Angelus. In 1920, Maurice de Bouard de Laforest, owner of Angelus, purchased the 12 acres of Daugay with his sister Henriette and his brother-in-law Paul Romieux. The vineyard was absorbed into that of Angelus until 1985 when Daugay returned to being an autonomous château. Since 2006 Hélène Grenié de Boüard has run the estate – her husband, Jean-Bernard Grenié, also co-owns Chateau Angélus along with his cousin Hubert de Bouard de Laforest.

From 1909 Tertre Daugay passed through a couple of wine makers hands and from 1955 to 2006 was ranked as a Grand Cru Classé. However by 1978 it had fallen into neglect and was purchased at auction by Count Léo de Malet-Roquefort. The Malet-Roquefort family are one of the oldest in Saint Emilion and have owned the First GrowthChateau La Gaffeliere for over 4 centuries (they also own the Saint Emilion Grand Cru Château Armens, the Bordeaux Supérieur La Chapelle d’Aliénor – previously known as Château Maracan – and negociant Maison Malet Roquefort).

Quintus has nearly 40 acres of vines which neighbour Chateaux Matras, l’Arrosée and Fonplegade. The grapes planted are 60% Merlot and 40% Cabernet Franc – with some parcels having vines 100 years old. The chateau produces 60,000 bottles of the first wine and 13,300 bottles of the second label. The technical team at Haut Brion will oversee wine making at Quintus.

]]> http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/haut-brions-fifth-wine-%e2%80%93-chateau-quintus/feed/ 0 http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/its-all-in-the-name-3/ http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/its-all-in-the-name-3/#comments Mon, 06 Feb 2012 14:17:31 +0000 Nick http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/?p=2973 Continue reading →]]> Canadian researchers have found that the name of a wine can have an effect on it’s taste. Antonia Mantonakis, associate professor at Brock University in Ontario, and her research group gave 134 test subjects identical wine under the same conditions in Brock’s consumer perception and cognition lab. One group were told that their wine was from the easily pronounced Titakis Winery and the other group were told that their wine was from the harder to pronounce Tselepou Winery. If you are wondering (like I was at this point) whether the wineries actually exist – yes, they do and they are both Greek.

Both names begin with a T and both have three syllables but Tselepou is harder to pronounce as it has unusual letter combinations (unless you speak Greek, of course). Interestingly more people pointed to the complicated name as tasting better, rating Tselepou Winery higher on a scale of 1 to 7.

After the experiment, participants were given a short quiz to gauge their knowledge of wine. Those with more wine knowledge in particular showed greater willingness to buy the wine from the hard-to-pronounce winery.

“It’s interesting how consumers perceive things,” Mantonakis said in a statement. “Something like the sound of a name can elicit a thought, and that thought can influence the perception of how something tastes.”

The idea behind the study is that a hard to pronounce name denotes rarity, ie that the wine is special – more exotic if you like.

“As such, we predicted that wine associated with a difficult-to-pronounce winery name would be associated with greater taste perceptions, and a higher willingness to pay.”

“Marketers are consistently searching for new innovative ways to maintain relationships with consumers, develop new relationships, and ultimately stimulate purchases. The current research findings suggest that the meta-cognitive cue of fluency can be leveraged to attain such a goal.”

There are lots of factors that go into the marketing of a wine and this research provides a new tool for marketers.

The average age of the test subjects was 24 and I do wonder if the research would have had different results if a selection of older people had been made.

The findings are scheduled to be presented at the annual Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute Lecture Series on February 8th.

Pink Champagne has become associated with Valentine’s Day over the years and surveys have shown that women prefer the gift of champagne on Valentine’s Day above flowers and chocolate. It’s quite ironic to think that Champagne was invented by a monk! However it now seems that Pink Champagne is associated with another much desired item – the Diamond.

Marilyn Monroe’s rendition of Diamond’s Are A Girl’s Best Friend may need updating as a rare Pink Champagne Diamond broke world records in 2010 fetching $45.75 million (£29 million), virtually doubling the previous record to become the most expensive stone ever sold auction. The rectangular step-cut pink diamond weighs 24.78 carats and was sold by Sotheby’s to top diamond trader Laurence Graff. It’s now known as the Graff Pink.

Most of the world’s Champagne Diamonds come from the Argyle Diamond Mine in the Ragged Ranges in the Kimberley region of remote north of Western Australia. Champagne Diamonds range from light straw to deep rich cognac in colour. Pink Champagne Diamonds are amongst the most rare and valuable – an extremely small proportion of Argyle Diamonds production is pink in colour, in fact less than one tenth of 1% is classified “Pink”. These stones display slight to bold flashes of pink in their fire and come in three ranges of shades, from Light, to Medium and Dark Pink Champagne.

You might think that Pink Champagne Diamonds are a modern fashion with celebrities such as Jennifer Lopez, Salma Hayek and Beyonce wearing them but the largest Pink Diamond dates back to 1642: The Darya-i-Nur or Sea of Light. The Darya-i-Nur is also the largest Pink Diamond in the world at about 185 carats and was part of the crown jewels of India until 1739 when it was taken by the invading Persian army and carried to Iran where it remains today.

So . . . as you see Pink Champagne really is a girl’s best friend.

]]> http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/valentines-day-%e2%80%93-pink-champagne-is-a-girls-best-friend/feed/ 0 http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/will-china-find-another-lafite/ http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/2012/02/will-china-find-another-lafite/#comments Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:25:46 +0000 Nick http://bordeaux-undiscovered.co.uk/blog/?p=2953 Continue reading →]]> It’s been reported that the Chinese love affair with top flight Bordeaux is starting to lose it’s appeal as lots go unsold at auctions. Reasons given are the disenchantment with inflated prices and a growing appreciation of other wines. Burgundy is being mooted as the next big thing.

Of course the Chinese will start to look for other wines, learn more about the different drinks on offer and experiment with alternatives. It’s a natural process. However a press release about a small production cult wine from New Zealand caught my attention recently: “Destiny Bay Wine Ranked with the Finest French Bordeaux by Chinese Collectors and Enthusiasts”:

“Destiny Bay Vineyards reported today that Chinese wine distributors, buoyed by praise comparing Magna Praemia to first growth French Bordeaux wines, have purchased all of the remaining 2004 vintage Magna Praemia Cabernet blend and have begun negotiations for the remaining 2005 vintage. Chinese wine critic, Frank Li, in a front page article for the Oriental Weekly, a Chinese language newspaper in Auckland, confirmed reports that Bordeaux collectors in China were referring to Magna Praemia as the “Lafite of New Zealand.”

Whether it’s “the Lafite of New Zealand” or not Magna Praemia (Latin for “Great Rewards”) is an exceptional wine and has justifiably been receiving international acclaim:

“This is not the first time our Magna Praemia blend has been favourably ranked with First Growth Bordeaux wines,” said Mike Spratt, co-founder of Destiny Bay Vineyards. “Several months ago Gerard Basset, an internationally recognized Master of Wine and holder of four U.K. and European Best Sommelier titles, including World’s Best Sommelier, visited the vineyard and methodically tasted Destiny Bay’s 2006, 2007 and 2008 vintages. Praising Magna Praemia, Mr. Basset said that in a blind tasting he would have identified the 2006 as an elegant Left Bank Bordeaux, the 2007 as a fine First Growth Bordeaux and the 2008 as a top Super Tuscan.”

According to Brett Taylor, Destiny Bay’s Director of Global Distribution, Chinese collectors were visiting and quietly acquiring Magna Praemia throughout 2011:

“Shortly after the Oriental Weekly article appeared, Chinese distributors began scheduling visits to the vineyard. All of the remaining 2004 vintage of both Magna Praemia and Mystae were quickly sold to China from both our New Zealand and the United States warehouses. This was followed by non-exclusive distribution partnerships in Shanghai with Shanghai HOCRES LTD and in Guangzhou with Kiwi Wines.”

Should Bordeaux be worried?