Savouring the Memories
By 3D Wines Partner - Helen Davies
Have you ever sat in a restaurant and been mesmerised by a wine list offering hundreds of bottles of wine? Your food choice suggests you need a red, you know you like French, you might have an established preference for say left bank Bordeaux or big southern Rhône reds, but when attempting to narrow it down further, well, the decision gets a little trickier, possibly dare I say even random.
My wine education had been long and not particularly productive. I have certainly tasted a lot! Once I drank something I liked - usually on someone else’s recommendation - I would independently return to it on a restaurant or wine merchant’s list. Keen to enhance my knowledge, I attended wine tastings and attempted to read and digest mighty tomes on wine, I followed the columns of esteemed wine journalists and bought the occasional copy of Decanter magazine. However, I really started to learn about wine when I went to France, met the winemaker, drove through all the villages where the vines grew and drank the wine in situ.
I remember my first time in Gevrey-Chambertin. Being a big ‘name’ in the UK, I had of course drunk it, but had I been subjected to any detailed questioning on its provenance, I would have known it was a burgundy but that would have been pretty much the extent of my knowledge. Now when I think of Gevrey-Chambertin, I recall the time that I sat on a sun-warmed vineyard wall, one glorious unseasonably mild March afternoon. From my vantage point, and with the help of the wine guidebook, I surveyed all the vineyards as far as I could see and got to grips with weighty matters such as the differences between grand cru and premier cru plots. As the afternoon drew in and the temperature cooled, wood-smoke from some old vine fires perfumed the village and I headed off in search of a glass of the various wines from the plots I had studied so intently!
When I see Pouilly-Fuissé on a label, I recall my first drive up to the village of Vergisson, standing outside in the cold whilst taking photos of the vines covered in three-day-old snow. The sharp frost on the ground caused the flinty soil to sparkle, the valley positively glistened. As I tasted the wines from the various heights of the slopes I started to understand how the terroir affected the wines even within the same domaine.
Navigating my way through a region, I have worked out where each village is in relation to its neighbours. I am able to appreciate the topography and geology after having parked the car somewhere and hunted up and down and around the village for the winemaker, whose sign I always seem to miss. I recall the time of year I was there and the weather conditions, and have less cause to resort to ‘tables in a book’ to work out if the year was a good one or not.
The most wonderful thing about going to France and ‘kicking the vines’ is that every time I now drink a bottle of wine I have a positive memory to go with it - such as sitting outside the domaine on the winemaker’s antique garden furniture listening intently as he casually mentioned names of smart London restaurants that have sold his wines whilst quaffing my way through his most recent vintage. Back home as soon as I open the bottle and taste the wine I am transported back to that wonderful tasting.