Tour de Belfort

Le Vin La Table: wine & cooking classes for all

Muriel — Thu, 22 Nov 2012 13:38:00 +0100

Last summer we were delighted to welcome British gourmet Chef Jason Palin to our Tour de Belfort vineyard in France. We had an amazing time trying Jason’s lovely cooking with our wines and inspired, decided to set up wine & cooking workshops in our vines for future summers.

Summer didn’t last and it was soon time to pack and head back to Cheshire, leaving my parents to harvest our grapes back at the vineyard. Coming off the ferry, the custom officer was very surprised when we admitted we were on our way home... not just heading for a holiday visit to England! But despite the rain, the cold, the greys and dark greens... we love living here too.

We unpacked our new 2011 vintage and sharing a glass with Jason under the British sky, inspired again, we decided to launch our idea right here in the UK. A French vineyard bringing its wines on your table... but with a twist as you will first cook your dinner with our gourmet Chef.

We found the perfect little place in Hale for our exciting new venture and in a few weeks time we will be ready to offer you a unique wine and food experience at our first English wine & cooking workshop venue. We are particularly excited as we believe our concept is the first of its kind in the UK, with an independent French winemaker opening a direct outlet to the public. We have decieded to call it “Le Vin, La Table”; the wine, the table.

Muriel will take you on a journey from our grapes to your glass, unveiling the stories and travels of aromas, flavours and blends in our award-winning, natural Tour de Belfort wines.

Jason will guide you through tasty recipes, teach you to cook and think like a Chef, pairing all his menus with our wines of course - and with a variety of courses available you are sure to find one that suits you level and taste.

And Marlies will present you lots of “yummies” and “pressies” for you to find the ideal Christmas gift alongside our wines on sale.

Opening is on the 17th December and we would welcome you all during the week with a glass of our new Tour de Belfort white or rosé bubbles. We are already taking bookings for our first workshops. Do please call or email us if you would like to book or enquire, we have lots of proposals to adapt for 1,2,.. 6, 8 ... up to 14 guests. Check menus idea and click here.

Hope to see you soon in Hale at “Le Vin, La Table”!

10 Broomfield Lane - Hale - WA15 9AQ

September Newsletter

Andrew — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 09:07:00 +0100

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Our new vintage has arrived!

Muriel — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 09:24:00 +0100

For the first time we can offer you a full collection of blends, colours, vintages and lots of choice for every taste (or nearly!).
Three years ago we harvested our first red grapes and started our Tour de Belfort adventure with Malbec, blending it to create our 2009 vintage which received top awards and a gold medal. All the hours spent pruning and cutting the vines, pulling weeds and leaves by hand, sorting grapes bunch by bunch, were really worthwhile. But it’s a challenge to be taken seriously in the big wine world when making wine for the first generation, and back then it was first year and first bottle! Still, we are very proud that our Malbec blend has made it to the tables of the luxurious Soneva Fushi Maldives Island, on super yacht Salu, the Berliner restaurant “La Bonne Franquette”, the Four Star Gonville Hotel in Cambridge, Newspaper and Magazine review columns and to lots of happy homes.

We went back into our beloved vines the following year and many more rows later have successfully harvested Malbec, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, Sauvignon Gris, Semillon and Chardonnay. So many choices to create our 2010 vintage! In January we sat excitedly around our big table, measuring, blending and best of all tasting each grape variety to create our new red, white and rosé. With our growing collection of new wines we joined Oz Clarke, Tim Atkin and Ollie Smith in their Three Wine Men wine events in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. We really enjoy these events, surrounded by amazing wines and best of all sharing ours directly with wine lovers.

The following summer we received an unexpected visit from our famous French wine critic Michel Bettane. We were over the moon at his positive comments and on his expert recommendation decided to produce our first oak barrel wines. Using barrels adds more complexity to the wine…and to the winemaking! No more temperature control or protection from oxygen, and it is a fine art to manage the right balance where oak sustains and improves the grape variety aromas without overpowering it.

2011 is the year of our Grand Vin, a special limited release with only 300 bottles of pure Malbec and pure Chardonnay. 2012 is also the year we received the “Grand Prix de l’Excellence” des Oenologues de France for our red blend – bringing a total of 10 top awards for our 3 vintages. We hope to share a glass with you somewhere soon; at one of our events, in your home, from our website or in Greg’s organic wine shop D Vine Cellars in London. For more reviews read the Cambridge Wine Blogger or our review page. Santé!

Harvest begins

Eugene — Sat, 15 Sep 2012 15:48:00 +0100

During September our harvest team meet most mornings in the vineyard at 6.30am to receive instructions for picking. We started early this year, harvesting a selection of our Chardonnay grapes at an alcohol level of 11.5 which is lower than our usual standards of ripeness, since it is destined for sparkling wine, which we will produce this year for the first time.

To achieve a good quality sparkling wine it is important not to pick at the slight higher alcohol level that we use in our regular blended white wine or our Grand Vin Chardonnay.
The first batch of grapes left the vineyard and crossed the still sleeping village of Belfort du Quercy on the way to the winery before the sun could warm up the fruit. Before being pressed, all grapes were then checked by hand on the sorting table, as always, to ensure perfect fruit in our wine.

Every year is different and 2012 is no exception, rain in spring, high heat in the summer, from one extreme to the other within a few weeks! Last year was the opposite, so warm in June we thought harvest would happen in August until the rain and fresh temperatures hit us in July. Our only strength as an organic and natural wine maker is that we can pamper every grape and select the ones we use, choosing every day the plot to pick at optimum maturity. This is what natural wine is all about: a constant interaction between nature and man, and to be up to the challenge nature presents us with.

This year we face more variable maturity than in the past due to the weather; maturity is varying within the same grape variety and from plot to plot. This is a real winemaker’s year, requiring constant adjustments and daily decision-making.

We feel confident that 2012 will be another good year for us, and our winery is full of lovely fermentation smells from the tanks and the barrels.

August Newsletter

Andrew — Sat, 01 Sep 2012 10:30:00 +0100

Here is a copy of our latest newsletter which we send out once a month. If you would like to keep in touch click here and provide your name and email. We will only send you relevant emails, no spam just wine, and we will never share your details.

Gourmet Chef Jason Palin in our vines

Muriel — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 13:44:00 +0100

We celebrated the Olympics in Belfort du Quercy with British gourmet chef Jason Palin. On his way to the United States Jason stayed a few weeks in our vines. Luckily for us Jason was inspired by our beautiful scenery and has delighted our visitors with new recipes, guided by his admiration of our local three Michelin Star French Chef: Michel Guerard. Cooking exclusively with local produce, Jason created light, aromatic, simply delicious dishes.

We are now dreaming of a Tour de Belfort summer cook school and have already booked Jason for next year. Jason will share with you chefs secrets gathered from many years of cooking around the world in search of fabby ingredient’s and cooking methods and from stages in some of the most renowned kitchens including Raymond Blanc’s Le Manor.

Hope you join us next summer to cook around a glass of Tour de Belfort!

In the meantime, Jason works in Cheshire, organizing cookery skill courses and even better, private dinner parties in your home. http://www.gourmetgusto.co.uk

Spring in the rain, summer in the sun?

Muriel — Sun, 01 Jul 2012 13:38:00 +0100

Just like in the uk or nearly! We had lots of rain in spring. This is always a problem for our organic vineyard, because of the appearance of mildew - very unwanted brown rot - especially if heavy rainfall is followed by a warm spell. Thankfully we were able to control the mildew by using a trace element based on boron (2%) and orange peel. This foliar combination is authorized in organic agriculture, entirely biodegradable and with a citrus odour. It worked! And by now the hot summer has finally settled in our Quercy region saving our vines from further concerns.

We are back working in the rows to prepare the quality of our 2012 vintage. The most important task of our team has been to manually undertake the disbudding of the vines to drastically reduce the yield. Indeed we want our young wines, planted in 2005 to feed only 4 to 6 grape-bunches, to get healthy grapes without any stress on them, especially considering our usually hot summers. This is not only a vital step towards quality but also the vital way to ensure our vines will grow very old.

July is the month of the "green harvest" to further control yield, before every grape-bunch gets sorted by hand in August in order to achieve a homogeneous maturity in September. We also eliminate at this time excess leaves to check vegetation.

If you visit us we can offer you a taste of our honey. Our bee hives in the centre of the vineyard are full of honey producing activity.

Last year in the same period we expected to harvest 15 days earlier than usual but this year we expect our hand-picking to start about 15 days later. Never a dull year in the vines!

Three Wine Men - Edinburgh

Andrew — Sat, 30 Jun 2012 18:14:00 +0100

The Signet Library is an iconic building in the centre of Edinburgh's old town and the venue for the first Three Wine Men event held in the city over the weekend of 23 & 24th June.

Steeped in history, the building, with its lower and upper libraries, was completed in 1822 in time for the celebrated visit to Edinburgh of King George IV who described the upper library as “the finest drawing room in Europe". The library is home to the prestigious Society of Writers to her Majesty’s Signet (also known as the WS Society), an association of Scottish lawyers and one of the oldest professional bodies in the world. The Society’s origins lie in the 15th century as the “writers” of documents sealed with “the Signet”, the private seal of the Scottish kings – members are known as “Writers to the Signet” or “WS”.

We gathered in the upper library, a beautiful room, lined with classical pillars, casement bookcases, and surrounded by a an upper balcony with ornate balustrade. The centrepiece is a cupola painting depicting Apollo and the Muses alongside a selection of poets, orators, historians and philosophers across the ages, including Burns, Shakespeare, Newton and Bacon.

A thoroughly enjoyable event, as in Manchester. We have posted more photos on Flickr. Next event is in London at Lords Cricket ground on 22 & 23rd September, you buy tickets here.

Three Wine Men - Manchester

Andrew — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 08:55:00 +0100

The event held at MOSI (Manchester Museum of Science and Industry) over the weekend of 26/27 the May was the first of 6 during 2012 and was a great success with over 1000 wine lovers sharing our passion, discovering our wine and many others. Glorious weather (where's that gone now) outside didn't deter visitors coming with all three sessions packed with wine lovers. Everyone seemed to have fun with the highlight as ever being Oz, Tim and Olly mingling around and guiding wine tastings.

We have posted some photos on Flickr and took a small video of Tim Atkin talking about our new release rose. There are more photos on the Three Wine Men website.

We are off to Edinburgh with them on 23 & 24th June so do come along if you live nearby. After this it is London in September, Cardiff in October and back to Manchester & London for a second time in December. You can buy tickets for all the events here.

3 millésimes et 10 médailles

Muriel — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:51:00 +0100

Il était une fois un château pour une belle princesse... mais c’était en 1280!!

En 1990 Eugène offre cette charmante ruine à sa femme. Enfouies dans les ronces du petit village Belfort du Quercy, ces pierres nous ramènent à l’histoire de notre famille qui vit sur ces terres depuis de nombreuses générations.