Winestate Tour of France 2015 Booklet

Join Peter Simic, Editor/Publisher of Winestate Magazine Join Peter Simic, Editor/Publisher of Winestate Magazine Join Peter Simic, Editor/Publisher of Winestate Magazine Join Peter Simic, Editor/Publisher of Winestat and Travelrite International for thee Magazine and Travelrite International for the and Travelrite International for the and Travelrite International for the 2015 WINE TOUR TO 2015 WINE TOUR TO 2015 WINE TOUR TO 2015 WINE TOUR TO FRANCE FRANCE FRANCE FRANCE September 12 to September 29, 2015 September 12 to September 29, 2015 September 12 to September 29, 2015 September 12 to September 29, 2015 Two and a half wonderful weeks with Peter Simic, exploring Two and a half wonderful weeks with Peter Simic, exploring Two and a half wonderful weeks with Peter Simic, exploring the best of French wine regions including visits to Champagne, Burgundy, the best of French wine regions including visits to Champagne, Burgundy, the best of French wine regions including visits to Champagne, Burgundy, Two and a half wonderful weeks with Peter Simic, exploring Dijon, Lyon, the Rhone Valley, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. Dijon, Lyon, the Rhone Valley, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. Dijon, Lyon, the Rhone Valley, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. the best of French wine regions including visits to Champagne, Burgundy, Dijon, Lyon, the Rhone Valley, Marseille, Toulouse and Bordeaux. M A G A Z I N E M M A A G G A A Z Z I I N N E E M A G A Z I N E M A G A Z I N E M I glg0124_PS_winestate_france_tour.indd 2 N E M A G A Z I N glg0124_PS_winestate_france_tour.indd 2 E 12/01/15 4:55 PM G Z A A glg0124_PS_winestate_france_tour.indd 2 12/01/15 4:55 PM 12/01/15 4:55 PM G A A M Z I glg0124_PS_winestate_france_tour.indd 2 N E 12/01/15 4:55 PM



C ONTENTS 5 EDITOR’S WELCOME 63 MARSEILLE: GRAND HOTEL BEAUVAU 6 MAP OF FRANCE 65 WINESTATE MICHELIN CELEBRATION DINNER - LE POULPE 7 PARIS – OPTIONAL CITY TOUR 68 CHATEAU LES CARRASSES. 9 PARIS BARS 72 TOULOUSE: GRAND HOTEL DE L’OPERA 10 PARIS: MILLENNIUM HOTEL PARIS OPERA 74 CHATEAU CLIMENS. 12 CHAMPAGNE CHARPENTIER 77 BORDEAUX: GRAND HOTEL DE BORDEAUX & SPA 16 CHAMPAGNE DEUTZ 79 WINESTATE MICHELIN CELEBRATION DINNER 20 REIMS: HOLIDAY INN REIMS CENTRE - LE ST JAMES BOULIAC 22 DOMAINE CANARD DUCHENE 82 DUCRU BEAUCAILLOU 26 CHAMPAGNE THIENOT 85 CHATEAU DU TERTRE 29 CHAMPAGNE DRAPPIER 88 BRANE CANTENAC 33 DIJON: MERCURE DIJON CENTRE CLEMENCEAU 91 CHATEAU MOUTON ROTHSCHILD 35 DOMAINE FAIVELEY 93 CHATEAU LYNCH BAGES 38 MAISON LOUIS LATOUR (ALOXE CORTON). 97 VIEUX CERTAN 43 WINESTATE MICHELIN CELEBRATION DINNER 100 CHATEAU LE PIN - LE PRE AUX CLERCS 103 CHATEAU SMITH HAUTE LAFITTE 46 DOMAINE ROUGEOT 106 WINESTATE MICHELIN CELEBRATION DINNER 50 LYON: MECURE HOTEL CARLTON - LA GRAND‘VIGNE 52 DELAS FRERE 55 CHAPOUTIER 58 DOMAINE FONT DE MICHELLE. 3 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

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EDITOR’S WELCOME WELCOME to Winestate magazine’s fifth wine tour to France and hopefully our best. We have put out all stops to create an enjoyable tour for you. It is a tremendous help to have the power of the magazine to obtain some visits that normally would be difficult to achieve. And of course some very nice special lunches have also been organised courtesy of the magazine. We greatly appreciate the generosity that the wineries have shown us and look forward to sharing this hospitality with you. As you no doubt know France is the epicentre of wine and whilst many other countries compete in terms of production and quality, the French seem to be able to confer an allure that they put across with wine, in the same way that they have with perfume and fashion. And let’s not mention Champagne. We begin this tour in Paris, the romantic capital of the world, and straight off the plane we have an optional tour of the city with an experienced local guide. For others there is the opportunity to sleep in. During the day I will be scrolling through our hotel’s wine list for a nice selection of wines for an evening welcoming drinks session. The next day we are off and running to Champagne where an early visit to Charpentier winery is followed by a tour and lunch at Deutz. On a previous visit to this winery we had amazing food, so I hope that the same chef is there. If so you will be in for a treat. The next two days we are still in Champagne, with amazingly a couple more hosted lunches, before we travel to Dijon, the famous food capital of France and our first Winestate Celebration dinner. Can’t wait for that one. Then Burgundy has some treats for us with some nice winery visits, including a hosted lunch. Travelling south to Lyon we visit two more wineries including a hosted lunch at the famous Chapoutier winery. Who said this was just a wine tour? Next we make the long trip down to Marseille with a side visit to Chateau Neuf du Pape winery Domaine Font de Michelle. Marseille is the iconic port town where we will have our next Winestate Celebration dinner. It is a great town for seafood and has a great Moroccan influenced old town. Following this we travel west across the vast Languedoc region for a winery visit and free time lunch in Carcassonne, the French Disneyland of wine, albeit historic. Toulouse comes next for an overnight stay before heading off to Bordeaux. With Bordeaux we have ramped up the visits with a four day adventure so that we can include a day in each of the famous regions of Sauternes/Barsac, Pauilliac/St Estephe, Margaux/St Julien and St Emilion. We begin this leg of the journey with a Winestate Celebration dinner and finish with another one at La Grand Vigne restaurant, associated with the Smith Haut-Lafitte winery. Winemaker, Jacques Lurton, part of the legendary Lurton family, who seem to own half the wineries in Bordeaux, has helped us with some amazing visits, including one to Le Pin or its sister winery Vieux Certan, along with other highly rated Bordeaux wineries not least of which is Chateau Mouton Rothschild. Very special indeed. In this booklet you will find website details of the wineries we will be visiting along with hotels we are staying at. There are some marvellous Michelin starred restaurants organised for our Winestate Celebration dinners and I will be hunting down some excellent wines for you to try. I greatly look forward to hosting you for the next fifteen days for a wonderful French wine & food experience. Cheers! Peter Simic Editor/Publisher 5 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

START PARIS CHAMPAGNE ARDENNE DIJON LYON FINISH BORDEAUX LANGUEDOC TOULOUSE MARSEILLE A very special group of Winestate readers had the pleasure of coming together for a once in a life-time Winestate wine tour of the major wine regions of France. Mostly from Australia, the group also contained “repeat offenders” Robyn Judd and Gerrard Friedlander from Auckland. In this post tour roundup Gerrard joins with Peter Simic in an overview of the tour. 6 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

cellar tours PARIS @cellartours PARIS www.cellartours.com/france/french-cities/paris.html 7 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

PARIS 8 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

PARIS - Wine Bars PARIS Old-School Wine Bars Pioneering Wine Bars AU SAUVIGNON LE GARDE ROBE This tiny, glass-enclosed wine bar offers Domaine Mardon The wine picks at this scruffy little shop near the Louvre Quincy—a little-known Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire include bottles from Languedoc’s superb Domaine de la Valley—and deliciously fatty pork-rillettes tartines (open-faced Grange des Pères winery to go with sardines, andouille sandwiches). sausage and rustic pork terrine. AU VIN DES RUES LE VERRE VOLÉ This bastion of Lyonnais wines is a great place to start a At this minuscule shop, Cyril Bordarier stocks biodynamic Beaujolais Nouveau crawl on the third Thursday in November selections from vignerons like Marcel Deiss. Charcuterie from with a glass of the grapey new wine and ham-and-cornichon Paris’s famed Joël Meurdesoif and other simple dishes pair sandwiches. beautifully with the wines. LA CLOCHE DES HALLES LES PAPILLES As his father did, Franck Lesage slices his jambon à l’os (“ham Veteran Taillevent pastry chef Bertrand Bluy oversees the on the bone”) and bottles his own Chiroubles, Mâcon and creative ingredient-driven cooking and also sells natural Chinon at this oasis of authenticity in the touristy Les Halles wines at this market-restaurant located near the Luxembourg neighborhood. Gardens. LE RUBIS L’ESTAMINET D’ARÔMES & CÉPAGES Steps from the fashion boutiques John Galliano and Colette in Sunday lunch is the best time for the stewed lamb, a glass of the first arrondissement, owner Albert Prat serves Beaujolais, natural wine and a seat at the communal table at this spot in Loire Valley and Côtes-du-Rhône wines along with a hot daily Paris’s oldest covered market. special, like petit salé aux lentilles (cured pork braised with green lentils). A “Caviste”. A Caviste is a wine merchant, with a wealth of wine information, a specialist who usually has a wine cellar shop where you may sample wine at a stand up bar and drink up his knowledge while you savour the wines and ultimately take a couple of bottles home! 9 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

MILLENIUM HOTEL PARIS OPERA 10 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Millennium & Copthorne Hotels Europe @MillenniumEU PARIS millenniumeu http://www.millenniumhotels.com/ millenniumparis/about-hotel.html The adventure began when the group met at the starting point in Paris, The Millennium Hotel Paris Opera. For those who had not been to the city before a hosted tour was provided, exploring the surroundings, and some of the major tourist sites. In the evening our drinks party introduced us to everyone, sampling French wines chosen by Peter Simic. 11 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015 TOUR OF FRANCE 2015 WINES TATE

CHAMPAGNE CHARPENTIER 12 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

http://www.champagne-charpentier.com/en/ champagnes/traditionnal CHAMPAGNE 13 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY 14 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

On Monday morning the 14th September we were ushered out of our rooms for the bus, en-route to Reims, the centre of the Champagne appellation. Our first visit was to Champagne Charpentier a small family producer for over 175 years, immaculate in its production of wines, which were still being picked on a partially wet autumnal day. We found the establishment after a ‘scenic detour’ in the village of Charly-sur-Marne, (a great region of small Champagne Houses) among gently sloping hills full of WW1 history. The Champagne provided was most generous and refreshing and kicked off the tour with a bang. It was early morning drinking at its finest with our wonderful hosts Johnny and Gilles. 15 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

CHAMPAGNE DEUTZ 16 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

champagne DEUTZ www.champagne-deutz.com/en CHAMPAGNE 17 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY 18 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Our next stop was near Ay at the house of Deutz, where we were invited to a sumptuous hosted lunch by the man himself, Jean-Marc Lallier-Deutz, after a full tour of the tunnels, associated with the storage of their wines. We sat down to this meal, in this absolutely luxurious surrounding, which was in fact the original family residence. It was all a memorable experience heightened by the gift of a special champagne bottle of Deutz. 19 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

HOLIDAY INN REIMS CENTRE 20 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

www.holidayinn-reims.com/en/ CHAMPAGNE 21 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

DOMAINE CANARD DUCHENE 22 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Canard Duchne @CanardDuchne canardduchene www.canard-duchene.fr/ CHAMPAGNE 23 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY 24 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

On Tuesday 15th September we set off on our next series of visits, this time along the D26 road near Ludes, to Domaine Canard Duchene with tastings and a hosted “workers” lunch at their premises (if only all workers could be so lucky) by the lovely Aurelie and Karine. It is also a long established family enterprise, formed by the marriage of two members of two dissimilar families, with their success linked to Russian royalty. The wines were lovely, as was the meal, which included pigeon, in a luxurious setting where the sparkling wines were matched to the meal. 25 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

CHAMPAGNE THIENOT 26 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Champagne Thiénot @Thienot_ champagnethienot www.thienot.com/en/ CHAMPAGNE 27 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY The meal was followed on by a visit to Champagne Thienot near Taissey, a more commercially orientated enterprise with an eye on marketing, but also some fabulous aged vintage Champagnes that they specialize in, which were greatly enjoyed by the group. We were treated to a masterclass hosted by Stanislas, son of Alain Thienot, the Founder of the company. The Champagne experience is one of selling a dream. The most successful Houses sell this dream to float the feeling of well-being as part of sophistication, and nothing but Champagne will suffice. Hence it must come from Champagne, and of course, be French. The Houses are sited in sandy chalk soil, where huge areas under the ground have been hollowed out, to make storage areas, and where incidentally they were able to hide their wines from the occupying Germans in WW2. 28 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

CHAMPAGNE DRAPPIER 29 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

www.champagne-drappier.com CHAMPAGNE 30 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY 31 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

On Wednesday 16th September we were bussed on to Dijon, following a very nice visit to Champagne Drappier, hosted by the greatly entertaining Philippe Verrier, who took us on a tour of part of the ancient Abbey cellars going back to 1152 where we sampled their products, noting that they use less sulphur compounds for fining their wines, which are fuller bodied than wines from further north, but go well with food. We know that because we enjoyed another spectacular “workers” lunch in their cellars and were fortunate to be hosted by the owner, the lovely Michel Drappier. The House specializes in over-size Champagne bottles, up to the astonishing 30 Litre Melchizedek, which are famously shipped around the world. 32 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

MERCURE DIJON CENTRE CLEMENCEAU 33 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

www.mercure.com/gb/hotel- 1227-mercure-dijon-centre- clemenceau-hotel/ BURGUNDY - DIJON 34 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

DOMAINE FAIVELEY 35 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Domain Faiveley www.bourgognes-faiveley.com BURGUNDY 36 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY On Thursday 17th September we assembled after breakfast to be driven to our first appointment at Domaine Faiveley, near Nuits Saint George. This is a large family enterprise almost two centuries old with small holdings in all the best ar- eas of Cote de Nuits, Beaune and Cote Chalonnaise. It produces high quality grand and premier cru wines in all these areas, and we had a pleasant time sampling some great examples at the winery with the company executives. It really is amazing how a small area, close to another, produces wines that are so different. Cultivation and production methods relate to that area, and are at least partly responsible for these changes and differences. It was noticeable how the vines are generally smaller and closer together than in Australia or NZ, and are not irrigated. As part of the appellation regulation growers are not permitted to irrigate vines at all. 37 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

LOUIS LATOUR 38 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Louis Latour 1797 @LouisLatour1797 http://www.louislatour.com/en BURGUNDY 39 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

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OUR IMAGE GALLERY After the stop-over at Faiveley, we had a “look and see” of the picture-perfect town of Beaune with lunch, and an optional tour of the Hospices de Beaune. In the afternoon we stopped at Maison Louis Latour (no connection to the Bordeaux Latour). It is still a family company established over 200 years ago and has retained its artisanal character in making wines of very high quality, and has vineyards from all the renowned regions around Beaune. The Chateaux/ vineyard is in a beautiful rural surrounding and in a very substantial building. The slopes surrounding the vineyard are gentle, and the drainage from natural rainfall is partly responsible for the water intake, as the vines endeavor to find it, burying deeper. The Corton Grancey winery is not signposted or open to the public so we felt very special for this visit and tasting of fine Burgundies. 42 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

MICHELIN CELEBRATION DINNER LE PRE AUX CLERCS 43 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Restaurant-et-Résidence-Le-Pré-aux-Clercs www.jeanpierrebilloux.com BURGUNDY 44 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY It was then back to Dijon and in the evening , we were off to the Winestate Celebration dinner at Le Pré aux Clercs, a one star Michelin restaurant. “The food was excellent and the service more-so. Outstanding Burgundy wines were chosen for us by Peter and we spent a great night out, (except that the area was in a pedestrian zone and taxis were scarce – a good excuse to have another glass!),” commented tour member Gerrard Friedlander. The wines served included a superb line- up of Chablis, Burgundies & sauternes. DRC plus other Grand Crus. 45 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

DOMAINE ROUGEOT 46 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

Clos Cachet @ClosCachet closcachet www.closcachet.com.au/producer/domaine-rougeot/ BURGUNDY 47 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

OUR IMAGE GALLERY 48 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

The next day, Friday 18th September, we were ushered on to the bus for the long travel to Lyon in the south. After visiting so many prominent wine houses, making top wines in special appellations, it was a wonderful contrast to visit the small family home of Domaine Rougeot within the village of Meursault, on the Cote de Beaune. Our hosted farm-style lunch by Marc Rougeot-Dupin and his lovely wife, Anne and son Pierre-Henri, was really a highlight of our personal culinary experiences and we were highly impressed with the farmhouse-style delights we were tempted with. Their fully-flavoured rustic wine complemented this wonderfully. As we left Meursault we were invited (by a relative of the family) to the Maille mustard factory in Dijon, one of two remaining there, leaving with some nice gifted samples. 49 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015

MERCURE HOTEL CARLTON LYON 50 WINES TATE TOUR OF FRANCE 2015