Quentin Sadler's Wine Page Sharing Thoughts on Wine, Food and Travel

Quentin Sadler's Wine Page Sharing thoughts on wine, food and travel

Welcome to my wine Tag Archives: Chêne Bleue Astralabe page

I’m Quentin Sadler, a wine educator and consultant. I run wine classes and Wine of the Week 23 – an inspiring tale & a courses, I train people in the wine business, dabble in wine writing and 2 write technical and commercial articles, treat from the Rhône back-labels POSTED ON 24/10/2014 and wine lists for my wine trade My new Wine of the Week is something I have been meaning to write about for quite a while. It customers. I also travel widely, tasting wine and is made by the guys at Chêne Bleu who craft some superb wines at their Domaine de la experiencing wine regions and wineries. Verrière. This beautiful estate is in the rugged and isolated Mont Ventoux area just a few From time to time I have things that I kilometres north of Gigondas and east of Séguret on the borders between the Côtes du Rhône want to share with you. In these pages I and Ventoux. will mention wines, wine events, trips that I make as well as details of restaurants and meals that I have enjoyed or anything about wine, food and travel that strikes me as interesting. Please leave a comment and contact me.

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Search Domaine de la Verrière complete with the blue oak. Photo courtesy of the winery.

Index I have managed to taste most of the Chêne Bleu wines and they are hugely impressive and like Index all the best wineries it has a great story to tell. Once an early medieval priory that was known Alentejo for its wines, it also later became famous for making glass, hence the la Verrière name, but by the 1960s the place was rundown and derelict. It stayed that way too, until Nicole and Xavier Alsace Rolet bought the property in the mid 1990s. At first they brought the house up to standard, but soon turned their attention to the vineyards. As the estate is hardly in a famous location Argentina for great wine they assumed a modest future of growing grapes for the local cooperative was Australia all that was possible. However, as they were totally new to wine they called in soil experts who explained to them that this site actually had potential for great wine. Austria Fundamentally it was the altitude – between 550 and 630 metres above sea level – the complex Austria soils, the powerful sun and the strong winds that made the place so promising. The estate can ripen the fruit, the altitude ensures finesse and acidity, while the other factors force the Beaujolais vines to spend so much effort surviving that they produce tiny crops of concentrated grapes. Beer

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Canada Vineyards at Chêne Bleu. Photo courtesy of the winery. Carmenère

Castilla y León Apparently it took twelve years of back breaking effort to coax life back into the land. Right from the start they aimed high to produce wines that spoke of this place, which is why some of Catalunya their wines are blended across their land. Because the estate straddles 4 appellations – Côtes du Rhône, Gigondas, Séguret and Ventoux – some of their wines are made from grapes that Cava belong to more than one appellation and so are simply labelled as Vin de Pays / IGP rather than appellation contrôlée. To restore balance to the vineyard, everything is done manually Chablis and naturally with no fertilisers or pesticides. In fact they are on their way to biodynamic and

Champagne organic certification.

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Italy Wine map of the southern Rhône. Click for a larger view. High resolution non watermarked versions are available by agreement. Japan

Joünié It may seem a little shallow of me, but part of the pleasure that I take in their wines is looking at their beautiful labels which look like intricate medieval wood-cuts. I have always Jumilla loved David Gentleman‘s mural at Charring Cross tube station and I can take the same sort of delight in Chêne Bleu’s labels as I can in examining that. You can spend hours taking in all the Jura details and finding the animals hidden in the patterns – apparently people try to count the

Languedoc-Roussillon rabbits – and at the heart is a drawing of the Chêne Bleu itself. As you can see in the photographs, there really is a blue oak at the estate. It is so old that they have had to treat it in Lebanon order to preserve it and it was this that made it blue.

Liguria Chêne Bleu is an inspiring project and the positive way their wines have been received must give them immense gratification after so much hard work. The wines are very, very good Loire Valley though and they deserve their plaudits, but most of them are also far from cheap, although

Lorraine well worth trying if you want a treat.

Luxembourg However, luckily for us they have just launched a more affordable wine and that is my Wine of the Week: Madeira 2009 Chêne Bleu Astralabe Madrid A.C. Ventoux

Marche Rhône Valley, France This is a blend of 70% old vineG renache and Syrah, the vines are between 30 and 40 Médoc years old and are grown at around 540 metres above sea level on a mixture of north and south-west facing slopes. The wine spends 7-8 months in barrel. It is named Astralabe in Monstant honour of the little known son of Abélard and Héloïse, which are the names of Chêne Bleu’s two top wines. My thoughts The nose is lifted, attractive and smoky with mineral, earthy and herbal

My view notes. The fruit is dominated by plums, cooked strawberries and black cherry together with and a touch of prune in the background. Napa Valley The palate is quite full-bodied and delivers delicious bright red fruit, as wells some deeper notes. There is a delicately peppery spice, gently firm tannins and Natural wine some fresh acidity giving it a distinctive purity. This is an elegant, balanced and joyous wine with concentrated fruit and a lovely mineral Navarra quality too – 89/100 points.

New York State Available in the UK at £15.99 a bottle from Waitrose Cellar – £11.99 if you grab it before New Zealand 28/10/2014 Oak Ageing This is utterly perfect with a slow cooked shoulder of lamb cooked on a bed of garlic, thyme, rosemary and lemon peel. If you like Grenache and Syrah blends, wines from the Rhône, spicy Oregon or elegant wines, then you really should try this.

Penedès

Piemonte

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POSTED IN COMMENT, FOOD, FRANCE, GARNACHA / GRENACHE, MY THOUGHTS, MY VIEW, RED WINE, Priorat RHÔNE VALLEY, WINE, WINE OF THE WEEK, WINES BY STYLE TAGGED ABÉLARD AND HÉLOÏSE, CÔTES DU RHÔNE, CÔTES DU VENTOUX, CHÊNE BLEUE, CHÊNE BLEUE ASTRALABE, DAVID GENTLEMAN, Red wine GIGONDAS, NICOLE AND XAVIER ROLET , NICOLE ROLET, RHÔNE, RHÔNE MAP, RHÔNE VALLEY, RHÔNE WINE MAP, SÉGURET, SOUTHERN RHÔNE, VENTOUX, WAITROSE CELLAR, XAVIER ROLET Restaurants & eateries

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