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Tuesday 9 October 2012

A Cinderella in St Emilion




An invitation to one of the wine producing areas of France is always guaranteed to test my willpower. No matter how much work I should be doing, the temptation proves too great and I am forced off my backside and onto the A62 as quickly as you can say cabernet franc. I am certainly no wine snob but supermarket plonk, no matter how passable, is no substitute for the real merlot. With the prospect of a Michelin deux etoiles dinner and a night of unadulterated luxury beckoning, so it was that I set off on a trip on a sunny Friday morning to one of the best hostelleries in Bordeaux region. A former monastery, the Hostellerie de Plaissance is set high above the medieval promontory which is the ochre town of St Emilion.




This beautiful medieval town is a UNESCO world heritage site that has been a centre for wine growing for two thousand years. The town is built of limestone which gives it its warm and welcoming glow. Here we were in the first week of October, parched and sleeveless, with no hint of autumn in the air. Daytime temperatures remained  in the high twenties and the purple grapes were still firmly attached to their vines. Most of the tourists had gone home and the narrow streets were pleasantly empty, so it felt strange to know that the busiest time in the winemaker's year was still ahead. It almost seemed as if the population of the town had evaporated, leaving a mass of empty wine shops, boutiques and bars, like a film set after the crew has left. Of the few inhabitants remaining, no one seemed to know exactly when it would be all systems go for the vendage. Some said this week, others next, a few simply shrugged their shoulders and looked up at the sky.


St Emilion has a Jurade, founded in 1199 by the same King John who signed the Magna Carta, whose members control the quality of the wine and classify it. This 'privilege' meant that English wine merchants had priority over everyone else when buying the wines of St Emilion. The French Revolution soon put a stop to that! In 1948, several of the town's winemakers resuscitated the Jurade in order to promote their wines and guarantee their authenticity and quality. Until 1985, those not in the know still remained somewhat mystified about the relative quality of different wines within their control. Now, much to many people's fury, there is a more stratified and transparent system.

The very best wines are classified premier grand cru classe A [the stellar wines of Chateau Aussone and Chateau Cheval Blanc] and premier cru classe B [Chateau Angelus, Chateau Beau-Sejour-Becot, Chateau Beausejour-Duffau- Lagarosse, Chateau Belair, Chateau Canon, Clos Fourtet, Chateau Figeac, Chateau La Gaffeliere, Chateau Magdelaine, Chateau Pavie, Chateau Pavie-Macquin and Chateau Trottevielle]. The rest are designated grand cru classe [around sixty chateaux], grand cru and AOC St Emilion. Furthermore, every ten years the list is now revised, with every classified property required to submit a new dossier to be re-included.



There are about a thousand producers in total, most of which are small, with between them about 5,400 hectaires under vine, constituting about 6% of the Bordeaux region's total. The key to St Emilion's wines is the merlot grape, which accounts for some seventy per cent of plantings and can constitute anything from eighty to fifty per cent of the juice. The remainder is made up of Cabernet Franc [called Bouchet here] and occasionally, a small percentage of cabernet sauvignon. Because of the merlot grape's capacity to rot, plantings of cabernet sauvignon were encouraged during the 1970's. It has since been discovered that they do not usually do well on the predominantly clay soils of St Emilion, preferring gravelly soils. Chateau Pavie, for instance, uses 60% merlot, 30% cabernet franc and 10% cabernet sauvignon. Unusually Cheval Blanc, because of its atypical terroir, uses an exceptionally high cabernet franc content [58% / 42% merlot] ] which is what makes it so distinctive.

The wines of St Emilion should be rich, deep coloured, with concentrated fruit and so little tannin that even non red wine drinkers are instantly captivated. In outlying villages, similar wines are produced and these are allowed to add St Emilion to the village name [St Georges, Puisseguin, Lussac and Montagne]. Many of these village wines are of excellent quality and value. The wine maker of Chateau Petrus, in nearby Pomerol, Jean-Claude Berrouet, is now the proprietaire of Vieux Chateau Saint Andre in Montagne St Emilion, where he makes his wines in exactly the same way as at Petrus, with marvellous results. We were given a bottle of his 2009 for Sunday lunch by a friend who knows him, which was drinking well now but could certainly be kept for another six to ten years.


The Hostellerie de Plaissance was once a monastery, which is not surprising as in the 8th Century a monk named Emilion, from Vannes in Brittany, chose to withdraw from the world here and devote his life to solitude and prayer. Obviously, he failed at his primary task, for word of his miracles was widely circulated and his reputation spread far beyond the Dordogne Valley. Many disciples flocked to Ascumbas [the original name of St Emilion] to be by his side. He must have had the 8th Century X Factor because his followers were so evangelised that they named what was to become a major monastic centre after him. He died in AD767 but the town of St Emilion thrived around his hermitage and became a place of pilgrimage thereafter. The Plaissance has had a much more secular history, having been an inn, then a restaurant with music and dancing and now a luxury hotel owned by the Perse family, the owners of Chateau Pavie.

  


Our bedroom required three lifts to descend, giving us a real sense of the architectural history of St Emilion. Between the first two, we walked through a gorgeous garden alongside the remains of a medieval cloister where the designer, Alberto Pinto, has carefully preserved the old catacomb behind a wall of glass. Over a wall was a tiny, ancient church tucked away from the outside world, worthy of the hermit himself. Another lift took us to our room where, in the peace and quiet, an early evening nap was to prove a fait accompli. Like Cinderella, refreshed and raring to go after a luxurious soak in assorted Clarins beauty products provided for our indulgence [no pumpkin oil!], we set off back upwards to go to the evening's gourmet dinnet.






Friday night's dinner was one of those rare occasions in life where the stars are in alignment and we give thanks for living in the best of all possible worlds. Fifteen of us had met up again after many intervening years, from San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, London and Brighton. Most of our rather raucous group, suitably tucked away in our own private dining room, were on a 'Backroads' cycling tour through the region. It would not be possible to indulge otherwise, for we had ten courses excluding the delicious amuses bouches of snails, foie-gras and other tasty morsels to accompany the excellent aperros. The restaurant has two Michelin stars courtesy of its star chef and manager, Philippe Etchebest, named Meilleur Ouvrier de France in 2000.


It would take too long to describe each course in the glowing detail that it deserves but I will try! Suffice it to say that we started with a creamy pumpkin soup with chestnuts and a hazelnut cream, then 'Sturia' Aquitaine caviar, a speciality of the chef, served with celery puree, green apple jelly, dill yoghurt, cucumber, caviar cream and tangerine oil. This was followed by the fluffiest egg dish I have ever tasted, flavoured with asparagus and tobiko wasabi, topped with a parmesan crumble, and served with a tiny tartine of bellota Guijuelo ham.






Then came a divine fillet of pan sauteed cod served with a crispy mushroom risotto, followed by oxtail in steamed spaghetti ribbons with lobster, aromatic herbs, button mushrooms and a creamy shellfish sauce.







A delicate cheese course led on to the most scrumptious chocolate dessert with a passion fruit sorbet.....and a raspberry dessert in a rose champagne jelly with a rose sorbet and a grapefruit mousse. I vowed that I wouldn't eat the petits fours, but I did, of course, and then finished the night off with cafe and fifteen year old armagnac on the terrace!

Philippe Etchebest popped in to say 'Bon soir' and very kindly let me be photographed alongside him. He is the epitome of the gentilhomme and rather like a French Heston Blumenthal.


The following morning, we managed a lie in, unlike everyone else who set off keenly en bicyclette at 9.00 am. They chalked up a good twenty- five kilometres before we met up with them at Chateau Beau-Sejour-Becot, one of the elite group of premier cru classe B estates. They produce 85,000 bottles and their wine is 70% merlot, 24% cabernet franc and 6% cabernet sauvignon. Surviving trenches carved into the limestone confirm that the Romans cultivated wines here. In medieval times the estate belonged to the monks of the nearby foundation of St-Martin-de-Mazerat, then to the lords of Camarsac. Due to its limestone caves, which provided the perfect hiding place, much wine was hidden from the Nazi occupiers during the second world war.








After a tour around the caves and a tasting, it was the perfect place for a picnic to finish off our part of the trip. Our friends were off cycling for four days, finishing up in Bergerac, but we had to head back home to our little doggie and a diet. It was a magical twenty- four hours in the most marvelous part of France. Adieu mes amis. Jusqu'a la prochaine fois. Thank you for letting us share a little part of your trip.



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