Saturday, 24 October, 2009

 

All my things are packed and in storage, the house is up for rent, and Thursday the 22^nd I said farewell to England and headed to Belgium.  In Bruges I met up with Paul, one of the trio of Belgians who had been staying in the gite at Domaine Anne Gros during the harvest, and Sharon, an australian woman in the wine trade who also stayed at the gite, whom I met only on the last day. 

 

It being about 16:00, clearly a glass of wine was in order, and we found the tiny but charming Est Wijnbar (www.wijnbarest.be), climbed the near vertical stairway to the first floor and settled to review the wine list.  Whilst Paul was rounding up three copies of the full list, I glanced at the short list of current recommendations posted on every table, and was very pleased to see Casal Branco’s rosé on their top pick list.  (See my entry in May about the visit to the estate in the Ribatejo, north of Lisbon.) 

 

In the event, we drank a Pfalz Riesling 1996 [details to follow] which was wonderful – a very lemon curd quality to me – very tangy and fresh and crisp, but with that slightly buttery unctiousness on the palate – the malo lactic clearly worked!

 

From there we wandered on through the twilit town, Paul giving us a bit of a scenic tour – and Bruges is astonishingly scenic, every inch of it charming and lovely.  We wandered over bridges and canals, through parks, past churches, down cobbled streets past countless chocolate shops and finally to the B&B where they were staying – very charming (my hotel we will ignore – central and clean, but an utterly charmless business hotel, teddy bear on the pillow notwithstanding, ugh!).  Sharon ran upstairs to fetch a bottle she had brought from Burgundy, and Paul borrowed glasses from the landlady (he had a corkscrew on him, wise man).  We backtracked to a park with some stone tables and benches and laid out our spread – a baguette purchased in Bruges, two varieties of goat’s cheese I had bought in Portugal and carried home to England then brought on with me to Bruges, and Sharon’s bottle of Nuits St. Georges, Les Demodes, Domaine Jean Pierre Bony 2007 – she had stayed at the domaine before coming to Anne Gros’ and knew the wine maker well. 

 

This particular vinyard, Les Demodes, is at the top of the hill, last one before the woods, and is the last Nuits St. Georges vinyard up there before you cross the line north into Vosne Romanée, just above Aux Malconsorts.  The wine was excellent, maybe not possessed of the latent power to give it the long and complex life you would expect of a premier cru, but coming out of the villages part of the vinyard (the strip closest to the woods) it had wonderful balance and flavours, and did fine by me – warming me nicely, sitting there on a stone bench in a chilly park after dark in Bruges in October. 

 

Food and wine finished we returned the glasses to the landlady, and Sharon turned in, but Paul and I carried on for dinner.  We backtracked to a wine bar and restaurant we had passed earlier – through the windows I had seen an open fire on a raised hearth that I found irresistable.  I think my body is in shock and denial, going from 30° and blazing sun on the beach or in the mountains of Portugal to cold and damp and dark and about 9° in Belgium in less than ten days.

 

After thawing out my hands in front of the fire, to the amusement of the other diners, Paul and I settled down to serious considerations.  I entrusted the wine choice to him, as his knowledge of domaines and makers, particularly in Burgundy, is encyclopedic.  We opted to share an entrecôte, his share blue, mine à point, and he ordered a Marsannay 2002, Domaine Phillipe Charlopin-Parizot.  This wine is made from vines in the Montchenvoy climat, which is considered one of the finest lieux-dits of Marsannay.  And it tasted it, stunning, I would never have imagined it came from Marsannay, would have guessed Nuits St. Georges.  The steak was accompanied by jacket potatoes, wrapped in foil and roasted in the open fire.  Noting that Paul had finished his, the host kindly offered seconds which were gratefully received and enjoyed.  I’ve never known a restaurant offer seconds!

 

Thoroughly enjoyed wine, food and company all afternoon and evening long, and Paul and I were the last to leave this little restaurant.  If you are in Bruges, find it – not only for the food and wine, but for the excuse to wander and enjoy the town, away from the main market place and all:  Heer Halewyn, Walplein 10.

 

And then I slept off all of that, and started again on Friday… met up with Sharon and Paul in the morning, had a good wander along the Coupure canal, picking out dream properties for Paul to buy in Bruges, and then refreshed ourselves at a café where we could sit beside the canal basking in the sun, with chardonnay (Sharon), beer (Paul), and hot chocolate (me… what can I say, I don’t have a strong head for alcohol to begin with, and after five days of packing and cleaning, and near total food and sleep deprivation, I had to pace myself!).  The waiter was visibly shocked by my order, but managed to find some hot cocoa.

 

We then met up with Christiaan and Martine, the couple who also stayed at Anne Gros’ gite in September, and had done some harvesting at Domaine Lucie et August Lignier in Morey St. Denis.  We stopped at a tiny and very old (the oldest?) pub in Bruges for a glass of beer.  I tried it, but it was too bitter for me.  After that, we went on to lunch at Refter, Molenmeers 2 ( http://bistrorefter.com ).

 

Sharon and Paul took control of the wine list, Martine and Christiaan explained the menu to Sharon and me, and I just thoroughly enjoyed every minute and mouthful.  I started with some croquettes made with tiny shrimp in a creamy sauce, and then had a perfect cod filet on a bed of snow peas, with whipped potatoes on the side – both dishes which I was told were very typically belgian.  Paul started with the largest oysters I think I have ever seen.

 

We tried three different bottles of wine – first Rey Santo Rueda by Javier Sanz 2008 – was very good, cut through and complemented the creamy croquettes for me.  See his website for more detailed tasting notes:  http://www.jsviticultor.com/index.php?producto=1573528&section=catalogo&pagina=producto&idioma=en

 

Second wine was from the Loire, Reuilly Clos des Messieurs 2007 Domaine Lafond, which was generally agreed to be the star of the three choices.  So much so I don’t seem to have made any notes about the third wine, actually, and I can’t even recall what region it came from.  It was white…

 

From there, we staggered across the street to a lovely hotel and restaurant and out onto their terrace alongside the canal for coffee and sunshine.  Five happy well fed wine lovers:  Christiaan, Sharon and Paul standing, Martine and Cynthia seated.

 

 

Martine and Christiaan had to return home, to the south of Belgium, to rescue children from school or something, I admit I went back to my hotel to sleep off this meal, and I think Sharon and Paul went on to another pub or wine bar.

 

At 20:00 Sharon and Paul and I re-convened for another fabulous meal at Den Dyver, Dijver 5 ( http://www.dijver.be ).  This restaurant is known especially for making and pairing all its foods with regional Belgian beers – luckily for me, they also will pair each course with a wine, as I really cannot bear beer (I’m sorry Paul!  I tried!).

 

The most fascinating taste sensation of the evening for me was the aperitif – imagine a kir royale, but instead of cassis they used a liqueur made from hops, called Fleur de Bière.  Being from Kent, which was always the heart of the hops growing, drying and marketing in England, I couldn’t resist trying it. The liqueur did not noticeably change the colour of the champagne – and I was hard put to it to describe the flavour.  Sharon and Paul tried it and both instantly said quinine.  I’ve never had a G&T so I would never have spotted that.  This aperitif was lovely, I recommend you try it if you get the chance.  I was a little afraid the liqueur might have that bitterness that puts me off beer, but it does not.  We were told the  liqueur is only available commercially, within the restaurant trade, but the maitre d’ kindly gave us the information to try to source it, as Paul has many contacts in the trade.  With any luck, some day you may be able to try it chez moi.

 

There followed another fabulous meal.  I did things a little backwards, and started with a game paté which was excellent and also rather beautifully presented – one large finger of paté was atop a puddle of fig conserve and in turn topped with a finger of wholemeal nut bread, and set at an angle to that was another finger of bread topped with the paté.  This was served with a Las Niñas Syrah, a chilean wine from the Colchugua Valley, I’m afraid I didn’t catch the vintage.  Very supple, black and dark red fruit, slightly compotey, and muted spice notes, it almost felt like a merlot.  For me it was too soft to really work with the paté, I would have liked something more tannic and assertive, but it was a pleasant wine, and I did enjoy it.  I looked up the wine on the internet, and the domaine is an interesting one, have a look:  http://www.vinalasninas.cl/

 

The next course was fish, a perfectly cooked very tender bit of brill, some roasted whole new potatoes, and some excellent fennel and snow peas.  Alongside the food was a stripe of a tomato coulis which was made with a belgian beer, and gave it a flavour like the rouille used in bouillabaise – that very savory orangey brown sauce of garlic, saffron, olive oil and cayenne.  Really lovely.  The wine was Verdicchio di Matelica La Monacesca, from Fattoria la Monacesca in the Marche, again I missed the vintage.  Very good with the fish, and Sharon enjoyed it as her aperitif, and I think Paul enjoyed it when we let him have a sip of ours…

 

We were too full to have a third course, just sat there finishing all the various glasses of wine and beer on our table… and then staggered home to our respective lodgings.

 

Many thanks to all of you who made my stay in Bruges so wonderful, but especially to Paul, for being such a marvellous guide to all things belgian, wine and food related, and for letting me nick his photos to use in this blog entry! 

 

Closing image – Bruges by night, standing on a bridge over canal.

 

Tuesday, 13 October 2009

 

Another gloriously sunny day, warm but not quite as hot as yesterday, a good breeze helped to keep things a little more comfortable than yesterday. 

 

Had the tour of the wine making process at Quinta de la Rosa, beginning at the stone lagares (wading pools) where the grapes are trodden (after sorting and de-stalking).  These are also fitted with a mechanism for doing the remontage – imagine a steel bar across the width of the lagares on tracks so it can be drawn and positioned over either of three lagares.  The bar is rigged to draw up the wine into the bar and spray it back down over the cap, forcing the cap back down a bit to extract more colour and tannins.  After the wine has fermented partially (leaving a lot of natural sugars), the aguardente (a grape brandy of 70% alcohol) is blended with the must in the lagar to arrest the fermentation – hence the combination of high sugar content but also high alcohol levels of ports.  Then the whole lot is tranferred to stainless steel tanks for final pressing, and then the wine is run off into a variety of oak barrels (small like the burgundians), pipes (barrels of typically 550 litres, used for tawnies and potential vintage ports) and balseiros (immense standing barrels to hold 40,000 to 100,000 litres – used for rubies, typically) in the armazem (cave or store room) downstairs.

 

Two things about Quinta de la Rosa – one is, as an independent quinta, they age all their ports in the Douro, at the quinta – no tankers trucking it all down to Gaia in the spring after harvest like Taylor’s et al.  Thinking about our access to the lagares and then going down a ladder into the armazem, it must be built into the hill on three sides, if not totally underground – so cooler conditions than many who age wines in the Douro above ground.  Second, perched in between the immense pipes were a half dozen smaller casks.  You may have bought a case of name brand port to put down for your child or godchild the year it’s born – the Berqvists MAKE a designated lot of port with the name and birth year of the grandchild painted in beautiful calligraphy on the cask end, which will rest in the armazem till time to bottle.  How wonderful.

 

Another type of container for aging the port are balões – there were none at Quinta de la Rosa but I spotted a nice pair as I was walking through Pinhão:

 

 

These concrete tanks are also known as mamas, ginas or lollabrigidas.  I’m sure you can see why… who said the Portuguese don’t have a sense of humour?

 

After the tour of the wine making process, I had another wander round some vinyards – this time the ones nearest the house, Vale Grande, for starters.  The pruning and training of the vines is exquisite:

 

 

At first glance it looks as if one vine is trained all along the lower wire.  In fact, from each vine trunk one cane is bent to the right and tied down along the lower wire – and the cane is cut just abutting the next vine.  From these canes, pairs of shoots are trained up between the upper wires in overlapping V formations.

 

Here is a more detailed shot:

 

 

Hopefully you can see what I am talking about.  It really is meticulously done, and beautiful to behold.

 

And, of course… my trip would not be complete without…

 

 

The cutest little tractors you ever did see.  I mean tiny – that one with the little red wagon behind it would fit inside the cab of a french tractor.  These things are necessarily miniature here, as they are designed to work in between rows of vines, and keep a low centre of gravity, which is much safer on these steep hills than the very high vine-straddling french models.  The tractors are used for ploughing and spraying only, all pruning and harvesting are done by hand – and that is true throughout the Douro.  The landscape just doesn’t permit any alternative. 

 

To the left is a miniature bulldozer – for sculpting and maintaining the taludes (the angled banks between vine plateaus) and doubtless access roads too.  Yesterday I was thinking that vinyard maintenance here is a sort of triathlon – not only are there the actual vines to maintain all year round, but the landscaping and road and drainage works must also need year round attention. 

 

I went for a walk into Pinhão, then across the bridge and along the south shore of the river, opposite Quinta de la Rosa.  From the bridge I got a good photo of the area where I was walking yesterday:

 

 

In the centre you can just about see two white buildings – the one on the right says Calem – another port shipper (see Turista entry from July).  The Calem family used to own Quinta de Foz, which basically is that hillside vinyard.  On top of the middle shoulder of hill above those buildings you might just barely be able to make out another house against the trees behind – Casa Vedeal – which is part of Quinta de Foz.  Yesterday I walked up past the two small white buildings and then zig zagged up that hill along the patamares, walking back and forth from south-facing to east- to north-facing sides (the right-hand folds of hill in this picture) all the way up to Casa Vedeal.  And back down again.  The very first picture posted on yesterday’s blog was taken from most of the way up that hill, looking south to the opposite bank of the river.

 

When I got to the south bank myself this afternoon, I had a marvellous view of Quinta de la Rosa:

 

 

Above the two long red roofs you see the line of six windows with black shutters – that’s the guest house – my room was the third window (actually french door) from the right.  To the left of the roofs are two small houses that are let to larger groups.  Under the roofs are the lagares and presses, and below them are the cellars where the wines are stored, which extend under the two guest houses as well. 

 

The family’s own house is a bit further downriver, to the left of the buildings above:

 

 

The beautifully trained vines described above are from the patamares just below the house.  If I am understanding the information sheet in my room correctly, that vinyard above the house, tucked into the fold of the hill, is the Vale do Inferno, and was planted by the great grandfather of the present generation owner before the First World War.

 

Still further down river are some wonderful and very steep socalcos:  

 

 

Looking at the hills all day, and at the photos again this evening, I keep thinking of the challenges of managing the harvest from the different microclimates.  Because of the height of the hills, you get very different conditions from top to bottom, due to sheer altitude (up to 450 metres at Q de la R).  Then there’s the fact a single row of vines can wrap around a hillside from south facing over the river (think about the mists rising from the river in the autumns, and the varying degrees of effect from bottom to top of the vinyards above) to east facing to north facing (differing degrees of sun all around the curve of the hill, effects of proximity to the facing hillsides).  And then the fact that most vinyards are a mixture of grape varieties – so each vine reacting differently, according to the inherent qualities of the variety – greater susceptibility to heat, to damp, etc. etc.  Look at the folds of hills and the shadows cast (hours of sunlight on any given vines), just in the photo above, or the first photo posted yesterday.  Mind boggling. 

 

Going back to the first photo of the quinta, the left most tall skinny pine marks the eastern end of a long, narrow slightly curved pool built into one of the patamares – where I had a lovely swim to cool off after all the walking, and then dozed in the sun on a long deck chair.  Bliss.

 

Farewell Pinhão

 

Wednesday, 14 October 2009

 

Was up and out and walking to the train station this morning at 7:00 am – still deep blue night skies but only two planets showing and the crescent moon on its back above the hill opposite my window.  As I walked, I could hear fish jumping in the river and a rooster crowing from somewhere above Pinhão. 

 

Coming back in the train, paying closer attention to landscape – you can definitely see the change from the Cima Corgo to the Baixa Corgo – in the Cima Corgo around Pinhão it is visibly drier, rockier, and the plants besides vines and low scrub are really only olive and pine trees.  Once past Corvelinhas, the village that more or less marks the dividing line between the two, though you are still in hills, it all feels much more green, there is a lot more land that is simply forest – a mixture of deciduous and conifer.  Much more fertile – the visible effects of the generally higher rainfall in that area.  Fascinating.  This photo taken Monday from the train when we first came down to the Douro, so Baixa Corgo – I think if you compare this to all the other photos of the area around Pinhão you can see what I mean.

 

 

 

As with my first visit to Burgundy, things I have read about and understood intellectually now made visible make so much more sense to me.  It’s like connecting the dots – seeing all these things I’ve been told affect the flavour and quality of the wine, now I can really comprehend the connections.  When I drink the wine now, I picture the landscape.

 

At the train station in Pinhão are wonderful azulejos – the tile panels painted with a variety of scenes, mostly to do with the harvest, and inside there is a little museum like display of photos and texts about the vinyards and history of the region.  I copied down this wonderful quote – Miguel Torga is the nom de plume for a 20^th century portuguese writer of poetry, short stories and a diary.  He died in 1995, no date was indicated on the placard with this quote.  I think this is wonderfully apt.

 

Diario III

 

Pinhão, September 25^th.  Impossible to imagine a more beautiful thing in the world than the Valley of Pinhão when the first autumn colours visit the place.  The people take a look from the top and seem not to be on earth anymore.

 

They lean forward over a precipice of colours and, deep down, see two rivers which still their thirst with one another.  But there has never been dropped a line about this, no legend embedding such splendour, never ever a poet travelled through with his lyre.

 

 

Monday, 12 October 2009

 

Guess where I am at last?

 

 

 

In Pinhão.  I took the train from Oporto, which wound north, then east, then back south to the Douro, then east right along the river to Regua, then on to Pinhão.  Absolutely spectacular journey, recommend it highly.

 

A little Douro geography lesson for those who aren’t familiar… wish I had a map to patch in here, will work on that. 

 

From Oporto to Regua, as the crow flies (NOT as the river winds) is roughly 43 miles, to Pinhão about 55, to Pocinho about 80 miles.  The vinyard district for grapes for port (and increasingly for unfortified Douro wines as well) begins about 38 miles from Oporto, the eastern side of a mountain range called Serra do Marão.  From there to Pocinho there are three distinct regions, first the Baixo Corgo, then the Cima Corgo, then the Douro Superior.  Baixo and Cima mean lower and upper, or below and above, the Corgo River.  Strictly the Cima Corgo begins a bit further east than the point where the Corgo River comes into the Douro at Regua.

 

The difference in regions is primarily climate and to a lesser degree terrain, which of course hugely affects the grapes and therefore the style of wine that can be made.

 

The Baixo Corgo is in the shadow of the Serra do Marão, so it is the coolest and wettest area, and very fertile.  As you continue east the rainfall drops pretty dramatically (weather systems typically work from west to east, off the Atlantic) and the land is progressively both drier and stonier (less fertile).  If you are familiar with the climate descriptions used to describe wine regions, then the Baixo Corgo has almost an Atlantic climate (wet, mild, not too dramatic fluctuations in temperature either winter to summer or even day to night), the Cima Corgo has a Continental / Mediterranean climate (hot summers and days, cold winters and nights, less rainfall generally), and the Douro Superior is the eastern end, up to the border with Spain, and has a more extreme Continental climate, with drought a serious problem; also sheer access was a problem until the past twenty or thirty years.

 

Which translates in wine style terms to:  Baixo Corgo is high volume, lower intensity of flavour – good for creating a lighter, simpler style of wine or for blending and balancing more intense grapes from elsewhere; think Ruby and basic Tawnies.  Cima Corgo is greater intensity and complexity of flavour – the heart of the region, all the major producers have properties here – think of your top end rubies, aged tawnies, your vintage and LBVs (late bottled vintage).  The climate of the Douro Superior is of course the most stressful – which creates the most powerful intensity of flavour, but in small quantities, so again, think of your vintage and LBV ports, and blending into your premium tawnies.

 

Pinhão is the heart of the Cima Corgo.  Now you know where I am and why.

 

Arrived about noon, had lunch and some sleep (almost no sleep in Oporto the past couple nights between traffic, howling dogs and my own thoughts once the other things woke me up in the middle of the night), and then set out to explore.

 

I am staying at Quinta de la Rosa, about 2 km walk west from Pinhão train station, on the north bank of the Douro.  Very charming accomodation, do stay there if you can; it’s right on the river.  From the Quinta I basically started walking uphill to the north (well more towards the sky than towards the north it seemed).

 

Met my first grapes very shortly:

 

 

I was told Quinta de la Rosa started their harvest in mid-August and finished about three weeks ago, so these must have been unripe at harvest time and left behind.  So I had no compunction about tasting them – wonderfully intensely sweet and flavourful.  These were about the size of blueberries and the bunch was not very tightly packed – all the bunches I saw were quite loose, not like most pinot noir at all.  Pips and skin made a higher percentage of the mouthful than the flesh, but if you are willing to chew a bit, the pips and skin are good to eat too, very flavourful.  Often with pinot noir I found the pips almost jawbreaking and gave up and spat them out, or if I did chew through them, found them a bit bitter.  I have to say, I sampled a fair few grapes today, and all of them were thoroughly edible, though some were less intensely flavoured than this first lot.  No idea re varieties.  Tomorrow I will attend the tour and tasting at 11:00 am, and hopefully learn more.  [Learned that this vinyard is a mix of varieties, so still can’t be sure.]

 

All of this area is mountainous – what you see in that first photo is what I am surrounded by here.  The vines are planted on terraces, called patamares.  For centuries pre-phylloxera, the terraces were built with dry stone retaining walls, as much as anything as a way to use up all the stone excavated to create the flat terraces, and there were only a couple rows of vines per terrace – one, two, maybe three at most.

 

 

That is actually part of the view from the window of my room, to the hillside opposite.  You can see the wonderful old stone walls, and the vinyards, and olive trees as well.

 

When the vinyards all had to be torn out and re-planted post phylloxera the cost of labour had risen somewhat since prior centuries, so other methods were adopted.  First they made broader terraces, called socalcos, of 10 or 20 rows of vines on an incline between retaining walls, like these on the right side:  

 

 

By the mid 20^th century labour costs had risen further, so stone walls were out of the question, and they returned to the narrow and flat patamares, with two rows of vines, but built atop steeply angled banks (taludes), not walls – god bless bulldozers.  Erosion can be a problem, as can weed control but… beats building miles of stone walls.

 

 

Another nice view of a talude:

 

 

 

Which brings me to schist.  You want stoney soil for your grapes?  This is stone heaven.  Schist is a generic term for any sort of rock that forms (and breaks up) in layers (think about mica) – here it is clay based, and quite acidic.  And wandering around, it is mostly rock underfoot, there is some clay dust, and I saw one or two patches of slimey very clay silt-ey mud on the roads, but most of all, it’s rock.  And a good thing about rock in any vinyard is heat retention and reflection back up to the grapes, aiding ripening and minimising the impact of temperature swings from day to night.

 

 

More schist under the vines.  But look carefully – see to the left of the wooden post a dark blue triangular bit?  That is the broken stump of a blue schist post – another piece of it is lying just to the right of the foot of the vine.  This type of schist is very very hard, and is most common at the far eastern end of the Douro.  I saw hundreds of these stone posts throughout the vinyards, though as they break they are being replaced with wood.

 

 

Here, an intact blue schist post, and alongside it a vine which was cut down, and a new spur trained up from the stump – string was taped to the stump and then tied up to the first wire of the trellis, and the cane trained up along the string till it was long enough to be caught in the trellis wires.  Beyond, a nice eyeful of patamares.

 

 

Here, baby vines probably only a year or two old – notice the deep depressions dug out around them, called caldeiras.  These collect and channel water down to the roots of the young vines as they become established.  Given the dry climate, new vines are watered by hand during the first few years to give them a fighting chance until their roots are deep, broad and strong enough to find sufficient water for themselves. 

 

And when they grow up to be big and strong…

 

 

In another year or so like the first vine on the left, and after that, in about 20 years’ time, like the next one along the row.  The vines here are trained much higher than in Burgundy – three rows of wires here, the bottom wire is below my hip, the middle around my second rib counting up from the waist, and the top wire around my shoulder or even chin in some cases (I’m 5’6” or 1.65 m).  Versus in Burgundy, generally two rows of wires, first around knee height and the upper wire was under my armpit – I could lean over the top and cut on the other side of a row if necessary.

 

Finally, a view from halfway up this hill, looking north by east towards Pinhão on the banks of the river.  Those are vine wires across the middle of the photo by the way, not cable car cables!

 

Sunday, 11 October 2009

 

After a day in Lisbon and three in Oporto, and still no leads on job front, betook myself to the beach today – Vila do Conde, north of Oporto on the Atlantic coast.  And in case you can’t tell from the picture – around 30 degrees and cloudlessly sunny.  So glad I packed the bikini, even if the business attire was all a waste of space in the pack…