Maury

We left for Maury on Thursday evening right after a photo session in Bordeaux (in Astoria studio).

The trip was very important: in fact, David Schildknecht from Wine Advocate came to taste our 2005/2006/2007 vintages in our new cellar in Maury. I believe he was travelling throughout the Languedoc and Roussillon for 2 weeks, and this counts when you think about the importance around the world of the notes in Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate.
We had already received good ratings for the past vintages and could expect better ones, especially considering the known quality of 2005 and especially 2007 – 2006 is still a bit “tight”.
It gave Murielle, Marie and Jean-Roger and I the opportunity to properly taste 3 of our vintages with David in 3 categories, Dentelles, Hugo, 3 Marie and even Constance 2007. I am proud of the progress we’ve done since 2001. The purchase of vineyards in the town of Lesquerde provide us, in 2007, some high quality Syrah, thanks to granitic soil and elevation, higher than the ones in the Maury Valley.

Quick lunch in the in the 1 star Michelin restaurant Maison des Terroirs with its great entry menu for 28 Euros. It helped Marie and Jean-Roger distress (and who has no more nails to bite) !
The cellar is almost finished and provides a place to receive and sell directly to clients and tourists visiting the area, with very attractive prices for people who make the effort to come and visit or call (+33 4 68 51 05 57) to receive offers “directly from the property”. We are just missing plants to color the gardens around the cellar and a few billboards indicating that it is in fact a cellar and not a local government office or even crazier ideas, as it doesn’t look like any buildings currently built in this area.
We had the opportunity to taste plenty of wines : for instance a disappointing series of Côte Rotie 2005 which I won’t name to be kind: corked wines – it happens, but it also had certain vegetal flavors, thin, with bretts smelling like stables. My good they were bad!
Fortunately, we had a Porte du Ciel 2004 – Coteaux du Languedoc was delicious and helped us forget the previous wines. We also drank a Saint Emilion 2005 1st Grand Cru Classé B which was also defective (despite the good comments from Jean Marx Quarin). I will taste it again rapidly to see if it was a defective bottles of actually the batch?
Every time we are in this region, we shop in Saint Paul de Fenouillèdes in Brosseau’s cookie shop where the owner is still working despite being 79 years old and always greets us with kindness.

While I think about it, it would be sensible for the press to cover the village of Maury which have attracted new winemakers from around the world, despite the crisis, in a few years and thanks to a dynamic mayor who has guided this village for its esthetical choices or Maison du Terroir which attracts more and more customers. The millions of Euros which have been invested in the past few years privately or by local governments are now visible when one takes the time to amble down the streets with trompe-l’œil paintings, its colorful facades and the nice vineyards surrounding it.