Tag Archives: france

A Tale of Two Wineries . . . and a Super-Cool Resto

Posted on by
Reply

It’s a cold and rainy day in the Ubaye Valley, so I thought it was time to stop procrastinating and start writing before I forget how to do it. Yikes, I’m oh-for-two-plus months, for cripes sakes, although, for the record, I did spend 10 splendid days covering the U.S. Clay Courts tennis at River Oaks. I’m terribly backed up both on wine touts – never mind that, oh yes, I’ve found plenty of time to consume wine – and timely sports takes. It feels like the Rockets’ disjointed, ultimately disappointing season has been over for the weeks and the Astros’ thus-far lamentable season would already be over if the American League wasn’t chock full of so many mediocre teams, the local lads included.

Losing Carlos Corea for the year to a torn Achilles tendon was a tough lick, an injury added to myriad insults, most of them pitching-related. So is having to watch, albeit from afar here in Victor Wembanyama’s homeland, as the 7-4 French phenom completes an MVP-worthy season for San Antonio. In the pre-draft-lottery world, Wemby would have been a Rocket, the second coming of Hakeem Olajuwon. But no. Now, behind Wemby, whose Game 3 heroics against the Timberwolves will be discussed for years (as might his Game 4 ejection, which proved pivotal in Minnesota’s tying the series at 2-all), the Spurs seem certain to add to their collection of five NBA titles.

Until he’s done – no telling how many years down the road – the Rockets won’t even be the best team in Texas. While the Texans might be able to claim same in the football world given the Dallas Cowboys’ entrenched Jerry Jones-induced ineptitude, that’s not saying much, is it? Their latest draft seemed to go well, but when you take a guard with your first-round pick coming off another shortfall season, you can’t expect folks to go dancing in the streets.

I will point out, however, that the last two guards drafted in the first round by an NFL team in Houston are in the Hall of Fame today. That would be Oilers Bruce Matthews (1983) and Mike Munchak (1982), of course. A tough act to follow for the latest, Keylan Rutledge, to be sure. But I must also point out that neither Matthews nor Munchak helped the Oilers get even as far as the AFC Championship Game, never mind the eternally elusive Super Bowl.     

Anyway, thinking about all of the above makes me want a drink, meaning this seems the proper juncture to turn our attention to wine, a much happier, more uplifting topic.      

A pair of early spring tastings at AOC Selections introduced me to two excellent small producers that previously weren’t even on my radar screen, Paul Déthune in Champagne and Agricola Brandini in Italy’s Langhe. In both cases, the presenters were excellent, exceedingly knowledgable communicators, Sophie Déthune for the former and Giovanna Bagnasco for the latter. More importantly, the family wines they were in Houston to sell were eminently worthy of being praised to the heavens.

The Déthune Brut, made by Sophie’s husband Paul from their Grand Cru fruit in Ambonnay – Krug is a neighbor – had won a double gold medal in the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo’s International Wine Competition, and she was more than ready to milk same for all it was worth, arriving at the tasting in a Stetson and a Texas-sized belt buckle. She even gave us a rousing “yee-haw!”

I decided right then Debbie and I would be detouring from Paris through Ambonnay en route to our little Alpine hideway, and 19 Déthune bottles came south with us. These are killer bubbles across the board – the rosé is the best I’ve tasted in a very long time – and they can be found at AOC as well as at Six Twists, the worth-a-trip champagne bar in the heart of Fredericksburg.

Interestingly, they don’t distribute in France save for what’s sold at the winery. With only 50,000 bottles produced annually, Déthune’s focus is global. However, they do ship to private customers who visit the winery. That was very good news for the Robertsons because our door-to-door journey exceeded eight hours and cost me $225 in tolls and gas, which now costs more than $12 per gallon here . . . thanks to you know who.

Brandini, in turn, is now in the Houston market thanks the efforts of AOC’s Master Sommelier Brandon Kerne, who, bless him, is as crazy about Piemontese wines as I am.  

Giovanna was as reserved as Sophie was out there, but she, too, knows her stuff. Although Brandini was launched by her father back in 2007 when she and her sister Serena were still in high school, today it’s their show all the way. They offer a full lineup of whites, reds and bubbles from the Alta Langa, and, as with Déthune, the quality/value ratio could not be better.

One difference, though, is significant. The Grand Cru Ambonnay dirt is crazy expensive to acquire. Brandini, however, is located in what used to be considered the Langhe’s low-rent district on the “wrong” western side of La Morra – too high and often too cold with blustery winds blowing in off the Alps, which on a clear day provide a glorious backdrop. Thirty years ago, the property seemed better suited for a housing development (one had, in fact, been planned nearby) than for planting grapes. But because of climate change, the terroir is well nigh perfect for nebbiolo, barbera, et. al.

Brandini’s mantra? To quote from their website: “We have always believed that organic is a way of life rather than a method of production. We believe in the importance of this philosophy in order to leave the ground in better conditions than we found it. Our grapes are grown in full respect of the wonderful land that hosts us, of the people who work there and of the consumer who choose us. Sometimes, to follow an ideal, one must have the courage to face more difficult paths.”

Dad may not have been a winemaker, but he was a visionary and he had complete faith in his daughters, who didn’t disappoint him. Today, the Brandini complex includes a lovely boutique hotel and a stylish restaurant called Coltivare. (The herb garden is pictured above.) Yep, same spelling as the one in Houston’s Heights.

Speaking of restaurants, less than 15 minutes away is an extraordinary new spot from the Ceretto family, whose Piazza Duomo in Alba has three Michelin stars. Nestled in the middle of one of the Barolo’s most heralded vineyards, Le Brunate lifts brunch into a whole new stratum. I say brunch because the resto is only open from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m., hence day drinking is required.

Full disclosure: Debbie and I have been friends with Roberta Ceretto, her dad Bruno and her siblings for more than 30 years so total objectivity isn’t possible, but . . . wow. Just wow. Superb food – and wine, of course – in the most breathtaking wine-country setting imaginable. And you enter between two original Francesco Clemente sculptures, shown at the top. What could possibly go wrong?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

My next missive will speak specifically about the wines from the aforementioned producers and others that have tantalized my taste buds this spring.   

Bonjour from paradise!

Posted on by
Reply

Oops! Written in early May, this missive never got published, it seems. So here ya go. Would be terrible to deprive you of all my wisdom . . .

I know, finally. But it has been a crazy few months for the Robertsons what with our pursuit of a long-stay French visa (so far, so good), a couple weeks hunkered down at the Houston Open and the U.S. Clay Courts (two of my favorite venues), an H-town move (complicated, yet well worth the trouble) and then traveling to France, which proved to be the biggest, most bizarre adventure of them all.

We’ll never be completely certain what happened, but my being “unresponsive” to a flight attendant was apparently deemed reason enough to turn a full United Houston-to-Frankfurt flight around over the Atlantic. We wound up landing in Boston, where things only got weirder. Two days later, following multiple consultations with medical professionals — doctors, EMTs and even an ambulance crew lugging a stretcher — each of whom pronounced me fit as a fiddle, we finally made it to France.

Now here I sit at our dining room table in the Ubaye Valley, contemplating the most beautiful view in the world, at least in my humble opinion. This lovely place, about 65 miles inland from Nice in Haute Provence, has been our home away from home since 1998 and only becomes more special with each visit in large part because our circle of friends, like-minded souls all of them, keeps expanding. We fell in love with the landscape years ago, but now it’s actually more about the people.

Although I probably sound naïve saying this, the Ubaye seems the safest of havens in this screwed up world of ours. While you can’t escape the news here, it almost feels OK to ignore it. The 12th-century church tower seen in the photo above still stands despite lots of bad stuff happening through the centuries. That’s reassuring, Still, it was a bit unnerving the other morning when a couple of sound-barrier-breaking French fighter jets screamed through the valley seemingly a couple hundred feet over my head.

Da hell?

Admittedly, I was curious how the locals we don’t know well would relate to us given what’s going on with the MAGA jackasses back in the USA. They are, to be sure, horrified by what they see on television and read in their newspapers. But, if anything, it has made them all the more welcoming. They can feel our pain. It has been hugs all around on almost a daily basis.

The Barcelonnette “suburb” of Saint Pons (population 400) will be our home base through October, but we are hoping to wander further afield than we have in the past, when our Ubaye hours felt all too limited. For starters, we’ll be visiting Marseille, where we’ll spend an evening with our great friend Claude Gouron, who has photographed the Ubaye probably more than anyone ever but now splits his time between Barcelonnette and Marseille. There his partner, the lovely Samira, lives and works as a ceramic artist . . . never mind that she’s legally blind.

For years, decades even, I went to extreme lengths to avoid Marseille. Remember Gene Hackman in the French Connection? Right, scary. But Claude introduced me to the city’s myriad charms, equal parts gritty and gorgeous. I absolutely love the place now for its energy and its diversity. In many ways, it’s Houston with an Occitane accent — but a bit more history. The Phoenicians first put down roots on that sunny, rocky Mediterranean shore some 2,600 years ago.

And, to be sure, a visit to Italy’s Piemonte — Barolo country! — looms at some point. It was a stopover Alba that led us serendipitously to the Ubaye for the first time in June of 1993. Needing to get to Nice to catch a flight the next morning to London — heading to Wimbledon — we took the long way through the southern Alps, arguably the best detour we could have possibly imagined.

Although spring is springing across the valley floor, the high road down to Nice over the Col de Restefond has only recently been cleared of snow and it’s still a winter wonderland up there in the thin air, as the photo above proves. I screwed up the courage to drive it for the first time yesterday. But it might be a few more weeks — and at least a 20-degree temperature rise — before I tackle those 4,500 feet of vertical climbing on the bike. (A recent attempt on my eBike fell a mile short when my battery ran out of juice, dammit!)

Regarding my wine consumption . . . Well, yes, there has been some. Both of our chain grocery stores have extensive options to choose from at, by Texas standards, absurdly low prices. Five euros (less than $6) will buy any one of a half-dozen delicious Provencal roses and a quaffable Gigondas goes for $17. A perfectly baked baguette to accompany same? Under $2.

But, OK, filling up my Peugeot hybrid SUV can cost $80-plus.

Anyway, going forward I hope to resume posting blogs with reasonably substantive content every two to three weeks and thesportywineguy.com podcast will continue remotely thanks to the technical wizardry of my buddy Jeremy Parzen (dobianchi.com). Parzen is currently curtailing his globetrotting a bit, in part because the Trump tariff debacle has badly disrupted his Italian wine marketing/consulting business and also because he’s busy helping transform Emmit’s Place in his Westbury neighborhood into, seriously, a wine-drinker’s destination, as I noted in the blog that dropped yesterday.

Late June will find us in Vichy, Debbie for a total immersion French class and me for lots of biking and wine-bar time. It’s one of France’s best-known and most beautiful spa towns, although it’s hard to erase from memory those dreadful years Vichy spent as the capital-in-exile of “free” France while the Nazis had Paris under their despicable boot heels. Truth to tell, we shouldn’t forget. As the philosopher Santayana famously warned, “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”

Pay attention, people.

A little of this and a little of that . . .

Posted on by
Reply

Travels with Matthew . . . mais pas moi

After two years and two delightful trips to the South of France and northwest Italy respectively, I’m out of the wine-travel business — long story and not one to share now — but my H-town bubbles buddy Matthew Massey has picked up the baton, offering a luxury tour of his own to Champagne this fall. Massey is eminently qualified because, although he’s a Galveston native, he has become the ultimate Champagne insider. You’ve surely heard of and hopefully tasted his Madame Zéro.

I can both vouch for Madame Zéro and for Massey himself. His wines are excellent — all super-low dosage, hence the Zéro branding — and he’s a great guy to hang out with. The tour details can be found in detail at selectivity@madamezero.com, so there’s no need for me to go deep into the nuts and bolts here. Don’t tarry, though. He’s limiting his tour, set for Oct. 5-9 this fall, to eight clients. Based on my experience, that’s the perfect number. And, while eight-plus grand per person may sound like a lot of scratch, that’s imminently reasonable for what Massey’s got on tap with his clients.

Given our awful political climate, by October you’ll really want/need to get out of Texas and I must say the French, based on my experiences over the past seven weeks, will be delighted to welcome you. They really do feel our pain.

Emmit’s the Place to be Sunday

My podcast partner in crime, Jeremy Parzen, loves music at least as much as he loves wine and that led him to forge a seemingly unlikely but fortuitous partnership with the famously friendly throw-back Westbury-area dive bar Emmit’s (emmitsplace.com). After playing a gig there with his Bio Dynamic Band — do love that name! — he pitched the owner on the idea of hosting family-friendly open-mike events on Sunday afternoons. She embraced the idea, so there will be another jam happening this Sunday starting at 2 p.m. The address is 4852 Benning Dr., just off South Post Oak.

The Bio gang, featuring crooneur Katie White with Jeremy strumming a mean guitar, covers favorites from the ’70s and the ’80s. Tickets are five bucks to access the grounds, but the sound system is free to all. Still, please call ahead (713 728-0012) or contact Parzen directly (dobianchi.com) to let them know you want to play/sing. There could be a waiting list, based on early returns. Further, Parzen has created a small but thoughtfully curated wine list — new to Emmit’s if you haven’t been there in awhile — and mocktails are available for the kids.

And, speaking of podcasts, check out our latest one wherever you get your podcasts. Through the wonders of technology, it will sound just like we’re hanging out at the” Parzen-age” in Westbury, never mind that I’m 5,350 miles away in the South of France.

Oops, bad geography!

Actually, as I’m typing this, I’m squarely in the heart of France, in Vichy to be precise. Students of 20th-century history might cringe at the thought, but in the year 2025 this is a beautiful bicycling-friendly town featuring myriad fine restaurants, a wide range of cultural activities, beautiful churches (my favorite is shown above) and a gorgeous park on the banks of the Allier River. Further, I sense a cool hipster vibe, although, approaching my 73rd birthday, I’m not sure I’m fully capable of recognizing same.

My wife Debbie is here for two weeks of total-immersion French language classes at the Alliance Française’s celebrated Cavilam complex, and I tagged along to do a lot of biking and a little day-drinking (or vice versa). Although a couple of Tour de France stages that I covered back in the day finished here, I was in and out both times without spending a night, so this is new turf for me.

Thus far, we’ve thoroughly enjoyed a splendid Michelin-recognized resto, L’Écrin de Màrlene (my veal dish and dessert pictured above), and a crazy-good wood-fired pizza place, San Remo. (My ethereal pizza pictured below). The latter was so delicious and so cheap that we returned on back-to-back nights and are tempted to dine there tonight as well. Right, if it ain’t broke . . .

The coolest thing in town, however, is the free access to for-real Vichy mineral water at Les Celestines (pictured below). You simply arrive with a jug or five and start pumping. C’est merveilleux!

Vichy, of course, remains of Europe’s most celebrated spa towns and, in fact, has been since Roman times. The French aristocracy of the late 18th century swarmed the place before the Revolution and it fully recovered under the generous patronage of Napoleon III in the 1860s — that’s me in front of the casino constructed on his watch in the photo below — then flourished again during the Belle Époque.

But unfortunately the name Vichy will always be associated with Marshal Pétain’s collaborationist government, which setup shop here after Hitler’s Nazis took control of Paris in 1940. At the time, because of its mineral baths, Vichy had the country’s second largest hotel capacity and there weren’t many tourists to be had during those grim days. Less than 30 miles from the Demarcation Line, it was also well known to the Fascist prime minister, Pierre Laval, who was from a nearby town.

When the Allies liberated France, Laval was summarily sentenced to death and executed. Pétain, who had been France’s greatest hero of World War I, also received a death sentence for treason, but his would soon be commuted to life in prison. Already 89, he died six years later.

But none of that is of any import today. I, for one, am enthralled by 21st-century Vichy (and will certainly return. I suppose Debbie will as well, especially if she fails her French class. Just kidding!

The Sports Page

Wait, the Rockets got Kevin Durant? Da hell? Look, lest we forget, the last time they traded for a player of Durant’s Hall-of-Fame stature, they won an NBA championship! Of course, that title in 1995, with returning homeboy Clyde Drexler joining the team — fittingly — on Valentine’s Day, was a repeat of the the won they had claimed in 1994, pre Clyde. But, lest we also forget, there’s no Hakeem Olajuwon on the Rockers’ current roster.

No matter. Let’s raise a thanks-for-rolling-the-dice-and-going-all-in glass of Madame Zero to GM Rafael Stone and his coach, Ime Udoka, whom, significantly, Durant speaks highly of. Udoka’s last season as an assistant coach was with Brooklyn in 2021, also Durant’s final season with the Nets. They bonded, it appears. This should be fun.

And, as long as we’re toasting, kudos to ex-Astro Justin Verlander and Kate Upton and to ex-Texan J. J. Watt and his wife Kielia. Both couples have newborns!

2024: A Mixed-Bag Vintage

Posted on by
Reply

Updated October 17

Whenever I visit a winemaker — particularly in the fall — my first question is the obvious one: How did the most recent harvest go? They almost always try to paint a happy, the-glass-is-half-full face on even the worst of years, insisting that, although yields may have been low, the quality of the grapes they were able to bring in was high. And that indeed has been the case over the last several weeks as I made my way around France’s Provence and Italy’s Piemonte.b

Ultimately, of course, the proof will be in the bottles.

Frost, hailstorms and excessive rain at the wrong times have particularly affected French vignerons, resulting in one of the seven smallest vintages of the past century. Production is estimated to be about 39 million hectolitres, a drop of 18 percent from 2023 that may cost France its longstanding title as the world’s largest wine producer. Spain, it seems, has enjoyed a strong resurgence following a miserable year previously and could approach 40 million hectolitres. This despite the fact that Rioja got clobbered by isolated spring hailstorms.

Many vineyards across France were affected by dropping of flowers and young berries as well as a variation in grape size as a result of unusually humid, cool weather during flowering. Downy mildew affected most wine-growing areas, sometimes causing significant losses, while frost and hail also reduced volumes — particularly in the Burgundy-Beaujolais region, which experienced 50 percent more rainfall throughout the growing season than normal.

The official reports predict the loss there could be up to 25 percent more, and a few producers will be suffer greater losses. Gregoire Pissot, technical director at Prosper Maufoux in Saint Aubin, told the Robb Report that harvest could be “30 percent to 50 percent smaller, or even more in some specific appellations.” In Charentes, whose wine is distilled into Cognac, a 35 percent plunge is being predicted.

In Bordeaux, where 8,000 hectares of vines are being uprooted this year as part of a government subsidized program intended to cut over-production. Volumes are expected to drop 10 percent, to levels not seen since 2017. A 19-percent drop in AOP wine made in Champagne is being forecast. For Provence, the estimated reduction is 12 percent. for Alsace, it’s 13 percent.

The Jura wines, impacted by the double whammy of severe frost and mildew, will suffer the most, plunging 71 percent.

Italy’s Piemonte, pictured above in September, battled frost and capricious spring storms and suffered accordingly, but Tuscany and Veneto are reporting strong harvests overall. However, sub-normal rainfall means those regions’ reds will have more pronounced tannins and intensity. A series of late-summer heat spikes in France will also produce more concentrated flavors. But, hey, that’s good news, right?

The bad news? I give the floor to Gaya Ducceschi, the head of Wine & Society and Communication of the Comité Européen des Entreprises Vins (CEEV), the association that represents European wine companies in the wine industry and trade, who explains that “the long-term structural decline in consumption, especially on traditional markets, is at the heart of the current crisis in the sector. The global market for spirits and low- or zero-alcohol products is growing, while instead wine consumption continues to decline. European Union support should focus on improving competitiveness, reducing costs and facilitating access to new consumers.”

Hence, the CEEV together with the European wine sector is launching Vitaevino, a campaign across Europe that will promote wine consumption as being, Ducceschi says, “part of a healthy and balanced lifestyle, emphasizing its cultural and socio-economic role. The campaign will focus on generating broad public support through collective commitment, and encourage citizens, consumers and the global wine community to sign a Declaration supporting the role of wine in society and defending its cultural heritage”.

The rest of the world is a mixed bag. California has now had outstanding back-to-back harvests after years fraught with wild-fire peril. Argentina’s 2024 production figures to be up a whopping 27 percent and Australia 21 percent. But their respective regional neighbors, Chile and New Zealand, are expected to be 10 and 21 percent in the red, respectively. For the Kiwis, that represents a loss of one-fifth of their entire production compared to 2023.

At the super high end, nonetheless, the rich are getting richer. The 10 most expensive wines in the market today according to http://winesearcher.com all sell for more than $13,500 per bottle, topped by the Leroy Musigny Grand Cru at $37,719. Note that all of them are from Burgundy save for the Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Riesling Trockenbeerenauslese ($16,809) from Germany’s Mosel Valley.

H-Town Happenings

The Prisoner wine dinner — 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at Grotto Downtown. $125. http://eventbrite.com

Duckhorn Vineyards wine dinner — 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at McCormick & Schmick’s seafood & Steaks Uptown Park. $150. http://eventbrite.com

Baron Philippe de Rothschild wine dinner — 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at Potente. $506. http://eventbrite.com

Value-priced Bordeaux wines dinner — 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at the Nice Winery. $175. 713 744-7444 or https://www.exploretock.com/nicewines/event/506785/french-wine-dinner

UnWine yourself, the ultimate wine and chocolate tasting experience — 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at UnWine. $125. http://eventbrite.com

Rodney Strong wine dinner — 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at The Laura Hotel. $75. http://eventbrite.com

Davanti Wine Dinner with Jeremy Parzen — 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28. $120. Jparzen@gmail.com

Holiday wines and cocktails — 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, at the Atkins House. $65. http://eventbrite.com

Follow me

Instagram: http://@sportywineguy

X: @sportywineguy

Facebook: Dale Robertson

Podcast: Sporty Wine Guy, wherever you get your podcasts. That’s me with my partner in crime and occasionally rhyme, Jeremy Parzen, above.

Friends of mine to follow:

Russ Kane (http://vintagetexas.com)

Sandra Crittenden: http://winelifehousthon.com 

Jeffrey Kralik: http://drunkencyclist.com

Katrina Rene: http://thecorkscrewconcie

Duckhorn Vineyards wine dinner — 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 17, at McCormick & Schmick’s seafood & Steaks Uptown Park. $150. http://eventbrite.com

Baron Philippe de Rothschild wine dinner — 6:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at Potente. $506. http://eventbrite.com

Value-priced Bordeaux wines dinner — 6 p.m. Friday, Oct. 18, at the Nice Winery. $175. 713 744-7444 or https://www.exploretock.com/nicewines/event/506785/french-wine-dinner

UnWine yourself, the ultimate wine and chocolate tasting experience — 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 20, at UnWine. $125. http://eventbrite.com

Rodney Strong wine dinner — 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 23, at The Laura Hotel. $xxx. http://eventbrite.com

Holiday wines and cocktails — 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 14, at the Atkins House. $65. http://eventbrite.com