WHY WINE : A wonderful 'petit rouge'
CHATEAU D'O
The French, when they are interested in wine, like to find what they call a bon petit vin, a good little wine.
A bon petit vin is a favourite, a bottle to keep for the visit of a good friend, a member of the family with high status, or simply a nice little Sunday meal. Many favourite persons and things in French are "little" as in mon petit cheri, ma petite cherie, and the endless litanies of affectionate names reserved for animals, children, lovers and, in the best cases, spouses. A boyfriend is a petit ami even if the lucky guy is six feet tall.
One of the pleasures of travelling in many wine producing countries of Europe is to discover these petits vins, many of them never bottled, but served straight from the cask, in a carafe, with a simple meal of local specialties. Until the wine became an expensive curiosity I never saw a Beaujolais nouveaux in a bottle.
In the south, in the vast expense of the Languedoc Roussillon, much of the production was consumed on the spot, served in unlabelled bottles that were used and reused from meal to meal. The bons petits restaurants had their favourite vignerons - winemakers - who would deliver the wine in barrels. In most cases these wines were only available in the region of production.
Bordeaux is rich with many such little wines, but today they are mostly bottled and sold at stiff prices.
Of special interest to those who want good wine and fair prices are the peripheral regions of the Cotes de Bourg, Cotes de Castillon, Cotes de Blaye and Canon Fronsac. This is indeed the world of choice for les bons petits vins, which are not going to hurt your bank account.
The Cotes de Bourg is especially worthy of your attention. The wines come from the right bank of the Dordogne, at the points where it meets the Gironde. The vineyards spread around the small town of Bourg produce some of the best petits vins of France, usually superior to those of Blaye and sometimes on a par with more exalted wines bearing the Medoc appellation. The soil is a mixture of clay and limestone. The total production of the Cotes de Bourg is around 31 million bottles of generally good and sometimes superb quality.
A few months ago a friend brought me a bottle of Cotes de Bourg. I left it to rest for a while in my old wine cabinet. The visit of another friend showing up with a nice piece of cheese was the perfect occasion to open this 2002 Chateau Peychaud Maisonneuve.
Life is not simple. There are two Chateau Peychaud. One is a Bordeaux Superieur of great quality, from an old vineyard recognisable by its blue label (the wine was once the property of a Navy man who designed the label). It is an excellent wine, and you should try it if you ever find it.
Our Chateau Peychaud is a Cotes de Bourg though, and the work of Bernard Germain, the sixth in a long generation of winemakers. Most of the grapes come from old vines and the late sun of September 2002 did wonders for the merlot (75% of the wine) and the late ripping cabernet sauvignon. The wine is both delicate and forceful, with residual tannin, and a softness that owes, of course, much to the merlot. Not all 2002 are that good but the best benefited from concentration (because of the smaller yield) and the late sun.
Bernard Germain likes to say that "tradition rhymes with exception". In this case it means a very typical Bordeaux with great qualities, rich red fruits and that leathery flavour of Bordeaux.
Such wines can age from two to five years, and this Chateau Peychaud is now perfectly ready. It would have been a bit fresh to ask my friend how much he paid for that wine but I know he bought it in Bangkok. I believe it was worth every satang he spent on it.
An excellent petit vin if there ever was one, it will go well with pates and red meat. And that should make your petit ami or amie very happy, if you will forgive me this impromptu petite French lesson.
Have an excellent year 2007. May it be a bonne petite annee for all of us.
Bangkok Post
Friday January 12, 2007
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