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Chile

Chile currently has about 132 hectares of vineyards that make 4,500 hectaliters of wine per year. Because most of Chile is free from Phylloxera, many winemakers are using original vitis vinifera vines that have been around for 100 years or more. The average Chilean consumes 14 gallons of wine a year, which dwarfs the United States paltry 2 gallons per capita, and beats out England’s 12 gallons per year. This combined with a great deal of foreign investement, has made Chile an ideal place to grow and export wine. Chile is just beginning to capitalize on these ideal circumstances.

Chile’s most common grape varieties, include Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Moscatel, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pais, and Merlot. The climate varies considerably throughout the country, due to the altitude of the Andes mountain range, and the coastal microclimates. The Humboldt current is a major influence on wine production, bringing cooling artic winds to the vineyard areas. The top quality wines in Chile come from areas with deep limestone soils.

South America

South America is a huge wine producer. It has about 450,000 hectares under vine, which is more than the United States, Australia, and New Zealand combined! Crazy huh? You probably had no idea. It’s interesting to note that most of South America is a climate totally unable to support grape growing, yet it’s still able to be second only to Europe in total wine production. There are only 4 main countries producing quality wine today– Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay.

The history of winemaking in South America goes back 500 years, to the time of the Conquistadores. Missionaries brought vine cuttings with them and the church was often involved in making wine, which was an integral part of sacremental ceremonies. The colonists from Spain also began to produce wine, as Spanish wine rarely made it over the seas without spoiling. When Phylloxera reared it’s ugly head and nearly destroyed all of European wine production, South American vines somehow remained untouched. During that period, South American wine production went through the roof, as it became the only source of wine available in the whole world. To this day many winemakers in South America do not have to deal with the expense of vine-grafting phylloxera has made a neccessity everywhere else in the world.

From Bourdeaux to South America?

It might seem odd to some that I’m cruising along in France, doing Bourdeaux, and all of the sudden I jump to South America. You might even wonder, “hey did’t that guy actually go to Alsace?” Well, yes, that’s true, and I even took some nice pictures of wineries there. And usually classes focus on France first, it being the nexus of all that is wine. But I’ve started taking a class at the American Sommelier Association on Viticulture and Vinification, and they have decided to start with the New World instead of France. This is a departure from their normal course of study. They say they’re doing it this way, because they feel their students are more familiar with new world wines than French wines. It’s an experiment, and I’m one of the guinea pigs. I’m all for it. There’s a test every week, so this gives me newfound inspiration to update my blog every week with what I’m studying.

Without further ado, here comes South America!

Book Review: Wine and War

Since I’ve just read this fascinating book, I’ve decided to post my very first book review. Wine and War is the compelling tale of how French people protected their wine from the Nazis during the World War II occupation. I was a history major in college, specializing in modern German history, so it’s pretty clear I was going to enjoy this book. But I think anyone who’s interested in history of that type as well as the history of winemaking would find this book irresistible. It’s written by Don and Petie Kladstrup, a husband and wife team living in France writing about wine and food. They spent quite a bit of time traveling around France talking, in many cases, directly to the people that lived through the occupation, to get their stories about what happened. Rather than presenting these stories as individual anecdotes, however, they weave the tales together into one complete narrative that gives you the whole story of the war and its effect on wine production in France. In that sense the book reads like a gripping novel: it’s a real page turner you can’t put down. I don’t want to spoil the book too much, but I will give you a few teasers from the book.

Winemakers in France knew that the Germans were bitter at their defeat in World War I, and would be looking to exact revenge. Many winemakers spent the frantic days just before the occupation taking their most prized bottles, moving them to deeper areas of their cellars, and then walling off of those areas with brick so the Nazis wouldn’t find them. The winemakers’ children gathered spiders and brought them to the new wall so they would spread cobwebs and make the wall look old and dusty. Winemakers also found ways to deceive the Germans throughout the war. Germany claimed France as its crown jewel and demanded its winemakers provide German high society with their finest bottles. The French winemakers placed grand cru labels on their worst wines (which were really terrible, wartime conditions do not make for good harvests) and shipped them to the Germans, many of whom were clueless about what good wine was,  so they drank and savored every last drop!

There is a serious side to the book as well. All joking aside, this book gives you an excellent view on just how important the wine business is to France. The only thing I can think to compare it to in the United States is the auto industry. Wine production is that important in France: the country actually makes policy decisions based how it will effect the industry. This is something we in America don’t relate to at all as far as wine is concerned. When you consider this, it makes sense that the French would go to such extreme lengths to protect their industry. It’s easy to sneer and laugh at the French, as many do, for laying down their arms so quickly and hiding in their wine cellars, protecting their precious collections. But those collections represented the effort of decades of work, and millions of dollars in assets, the fruits of which provided a living for millions of French families. Imagine if a foreign country invaded here, and began requisitioning and exporting all of our cars, dating back 20-30 years? Then imagine if they took over all the factories in Detroit and took all the production of those plants for themselves. Our country would fall apart. Fortunately for the French, wine bottles are a little easier to hide than cars!

Later in the war, many of the French winemakers became integral parts of the resistance, offering up their caves for hiding troops. They even smuggled soldiers and spies across enemy lines inside oak barrels used to make wine. Wine producers also helped the Allied forces, by providing information on wine shipments to the German army, a real time indicator of troop movements and buildups that kept the Allies one step ahead.

When I was a history major, I learned that history is not just about what the important rulers did on such and such a date. That’s high school social studies and I always found it boring and tedious. Real history is about what it was like to live in a certain time. What difficulties did the people on the ground encounter? How did they navigate their daily lives? This is exactly the kind of information Wine and War provides, and the Kladstrups do it in a way that really brings those people’s stories home, as only the  best history texts can.  It’s a very moving and intimate portrait of what it was like to live through German occupation, and at the same it brings the importance of the wine industry in France into stark relief. If you love history, you’ll love this book; if you also love wine, well then you’ll be in heaven. Enjoy!

Garage Wines

Garage wines are a new movement in French wines. They involve very small production amounts, usually from the right bank area. The winemaker takes exquisite care in every step of the process, with almost no consideration for the cost involved. They are usually made with predominently Merlot in the blend, and are aged in new Oak barrels. These wines can be ordinary or exceptional, and some of them, when backed by the right marketing, have attracted large followings. Because the supply is so small, they can command price even higher than top classified wines of Bordeaux. If you want to sound fancy, you can call the people who make these wines Garagistes, but make sure you bust out your best french accent to achieve maximum pretentious effect.

Other Classification Systems

The areas outside of Médoc and Sauternes have their own classification systems. This is part of what makes French wine so difficult to understand. The only way to get your head around it is basically to memorize everything, unfortunately. Here are how the other areas of Bordeaux classify themselves:

Graves

In 1959, Graves decided to classify its wines with separate lists for red and white wines. There is no ranking of wines here, but anything included in the list is allowed to call itself Cru Classé, Chateau Haut-Brion is on this list, although it also has the right to use its 1855 classification. It was the only wine to be included in 1855 that was outside of the Médoc and Sauternes.

Saint-Emilion

This is probably the most confusing system in Bordeaux. The best wines are classified in a separate AC called Saint-Emilion Grand Cru. Inside this AC, the Château are grouped into three subdivisions: Gramd Cru, Grand Cru Classé, and Premier Grand Cru Classé. Premier Grand Cru is then divided into Grand Cru Classé A and B. Confused yet? This system, unike in the Médoc, is flexible. Wines are evaluated every 10 years to see if they deserve to be promoted or demoted within the system, and new wines may apply once a year for entry into the system.

Cru Bourgeois Classification

Because the 1855 classification only included a small number of wineries, in 1939 the Cru Bourgeois system was introduced. It includes over 200 properties and is divided between 9 Cru Bourgeois Exceptionnel, 87 Cru Bourgeois Supérieur, and 151 Cru Bourgeois. The system was updated to include new wines in 1978, and again in 2003. The idea is that the list will updated once about every ten years or so.

The 1855 Classification

In 1855, Paris was holding a universal exhibition, kind of a world’s fair. They decided it would be a good idea to show off their finest wines to the world, so they realized they needed to decide on exactly which wines were the best. They decided to approach the bordeaux chamber of commerce and asked them which wines should be included. The chamber of commerce then delegated the task of classifying the best wines to several brokers. The brokers looked at unofficial classifications and the prices wines were fetching on the open market in the Médoc and Sauternes only, and as a result they listed 61 Chateaux into Cru Classés, which are arranged in a hierarchy of 5 ranks. The crazy thing about the hodgepodge classification, is that there have been very few changes in it since 1855, and the system is still practically universally accepted today. The 5 ranks are as follows:

Premier Crus (or first growth)

The Premier Crus include the chateaux of Haut-Brion, Latour, Lafite, Mouton-Rothschild, and Margaux. You’ve probably heard of some of these names, they’re quite famous and their top wines are very expensive. Haut-Brion is the only chateau outside of the Médoc to be included, and Mouton-Rothschild was a second growth until 1973. This is the only time since 1855 that a château has ever been reclassified, due to the grit and determination of the Baron Philippe de Rothschild, a savvy and determined banking mogul who had to use all his power and influence to lobby for the change. The French are really attached to their wine laws!

Below the Premier Crus are the Deuxièmes Crus (second growth) including 14 châteaux, the Troisièmes Crus (third growth) including 14 châteaux, the Quatrièmes Crus (fourth growth) including 10 châteaux, and the Cinquièmes Crus (fifth growth) including 18 châteaux. If you’d like to see a list of all the Chateaux, I found a nice one here.

Sauternes also received 3 ranks, with Château d’Yquem by itself at the top as a Premier Grand Cru Classé with 11 Châteaux below it classified as first growth, and 14 Châteaux as second growth.

En Primeur Sales

The way wine sales of high-end Bordeaux wines works can be a bit strange sometimes. It works a bit like a stock market, complete with speculating investors and plenty of penny stocks that never amount to anything as far as value. For a prestigious Bordeaux Chateau, cash flow can be a difficult issue, as much of the capital is tied up in the product. To reduce this exposure to risk, the winery will often engage in en primeur sales. To do this, they hold the bottled wine until after the critics have rated it, usually about 2 years after the harvest. They will then test the market with a what is called a tranche. The initial tranche price will be somewhat lower than those that follow, which gives the opportunity for a savvy investor to make a good investment. A lot of times there is so much demand for these wines that the opportunity to buy these wines is determined by a lottery system. You’d probably better think twice about getting involved in this market by yourself though.  Just like the stock market, there are professionals that make a living brokering these wine deals and investments and it’s definitely recommended to have their help.

Bordeaux Areas

As you can see in the map above, Bordeaux is divided into three main areas. Well, actually maybe it doesn’t look like that at all when you look at that map, does it! This is where things start to get very complicated. The first thing you should notice is the main body of water coming into the landmass, called the Gironde estuary. In case you’re like me and have no idea what an estuary is, it’s the part of a river where the river and the sea mix, so it’s a mix of salty and fresh water. Learn something new every day huh? It’s even labled on the map. The Dordogne and Garonne rivers, which unfortunately are not labeled on that map, are the two forks splitting off of the Gironde to the south and southeast. These rivers help break up Bordeaux into the three areas I’m talking about:

The Left Bank

Everything west and south of the Garonne and the Gironde is what’s called the left bank of Bordeaux. Starting at the north with the Médoc AC, the soil is mostly clay, with some outcroppings of gravel. The Médoc AC is generally of lower quality, with higher yields, than the areas immediately to the south. The most respected AC’s in this part of the left bank are Sainte-Éstephe, Pauillac, Saint-Julien, Margaux, and finally the Haut-Médoc. These areas will have lower yields than the Médoc. The southern area of the left bank consists of Graves and Sauternes at the furthest southern point. Graves produces red wines in the north where the soil is mostly gravel and white wines further south where the soil is more sandy. Wines from Graves are a little bit lighter in body and more fragrant than from the Haut-Médoc. In the very top of Graves, Pessac-Léognan is the AC that houses all of the best vineyards of the area, where all the Cru Classé châteaux are located. Red wine from the left bank is almost always a blend consisting mainly of Cabernet Sauvignon, with some lesser amounts of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. Dry white wine is mostly Sauvignon Blanc, which is often blended with Sèmillon. Sweet wines, which come from Sauternes and Barsac in the south is a blend dominated by Sèmillon, with some Sauvignon Blanc and Muscadelle blended in. These grapes will always be botrityzed, which occurs as a result of the mists coming off the nearby Garonne river.

Between the Garonne and Dordogne

The area between the two forks splitting off the Gironde estuary is called Entre-Doux-Mers, which means between two seas. This area produces mostly dry white wines from a blend of Sèmillon and Sauvignon Blanc.  In Saint-Croix-du-Mont, they make a sweet wine very similar to what is made in Sauternes. This sweet wine is usually less complex than Sauternes however, because their side of the Garonne river does not get as much botrytis as the Sauternes side. The Premières Côtes de Bordeaux area makes mostly simple dry red wines dominated by Merlot in the blend.

The Right Bank

The area to the east and North of the Dardogne is the right bank of Bordeaux. This areas produces red wine almost exclusively, and the blend here is dominated by Merlot, with some Cabernet Franc taking a role as well. The most important AC in this area is Saint-Emilion. Pomerol is another important AC, and produces some of the most expensive wines in all of Bordeaux. The other AC’s on the right bank, including, Bourg, Blaye, Fronsac and Canon-Fronsac, produce wines that can represent an excellent value at much lower price points.