Easter weekend

Thanks to Daniel Perez and his wife’s visit after 52 years of separation (we are from the same village in Algeria), we drank a wine offered by Bernard Magrez and made by him in Algeria for Gerard Depardieu. Mascara 2002, made with Southern varietals: Grenache and Carignan. It was good, similar to our wines from the Roussillon, but in addition quite rare.

I took time to read the book on Rolland, the wine guru, published by Glénat and written by Isabelle Bunisset. The book is too short, it made me hungry for more, it needs a bit of tweaking, but there must more to do. It was my weekend of books on enologists, I enjoyed reading the book written by Gilles Berdin on Denis Dubourdieu with plenty of nice quotes including this one: “great wine should be contemporary, and not imitate the past”, “many appellations, few wines different”. One can only agree considering the grouping of Cotes de Bordeaux, and possibly those of Saint Emilion, and even Fronsac!

I read on RVF’s site, Antoine Gerbelle’s comments on the 2011 vintage in Saint Emilion with specific comments on Ausone, Valandraud, Pavie and Trottevielle. I could have added, as one of his colleagues wrote, that late terroirs have fully benefited from the good weather in September 2011, which made it possible to have successful harvests on the clay and limestone soil and without hydric stress during the summer. The initial feedbacks and notes are in my opinion those of a good vintage, the problems remain prices and the economic and political environment.

We already bought our first 2011 future: Chateau Croix Cardinal, a new property from the Decoster family, also owners of Chateau Fleur Cardinale, which should be found at a consumer price between 20 and 25 euros and is one of those successful wines this years.