Winey oddities

[SaligoBay]

Well, I've been on the Grauniad again, it's such nice big print and easy to read, it slips down a treat.   A couple of winey oddities:

First, a quote from a wine-maker........ "Didier Daguenau, who produces outstanding Pouilly-Fumé wines, obtained an AOC label for his worst production, made with bad quality grapes, and which he calls "quintessence of my balls".' "      

Then, from an article about unpleasantness between 2 posh people in Bordeaux........ "She is one of France's richest women, the former owner of a clutch of celebrated Bordeaux chateaux including the legendary Petrus, which will set you back well over £1,400 a bottle."

Tell me, is ANY wine worth 1400+ squideroonies?   I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between that and the quintessence! 

Here are the articles if anyone's interested:

Quintessence:  http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1441921,00.html

Petrus:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/france/story/0,11882,1441357,00.html

[Janey]

SB, I don,t know about Didier Daguenau, but you know the bottle of ...Vin d,orange.. you gave me on Thursday..well it,s all gone, not me I might protest. my friend Laurenska came to visit me today, she,d had enough of working in the vineyards with hubby so I said..have you ever tasted vin d,orange..no was the reply.. well there,s none left!!

Was it worth 1000 squideroonies.......ermmmmmmm...dunno...it was really good though...really good!!!

Recipe please SB ???!!!!!!!

Happy tiddled Janey

[letrangere]

I've got a feeling that the value applied to some wines may be based not only on the quality but also rarity.  Many of the Medoc chateaux produce very small quantities.  M

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi,

Just a word about the Wine articles.

While Ch Pétrus does fetch a bundle, don't believe the £1400 price tag. That's for wine sold a long time after it was released (at a few hundred admittedly) at auction. You can't REALLY hold Pétrus responsible for the auction price of one of its top vintages. It has the reputation in the States, where there are more millionaires than the annual production in bottles (yes MJW, as the article says, production is tiny), of being the best red wine in the world, and its bottles get squabbled over as only millionaires can!

As for the Observer article. It's pretty misleading. The headline implies the French ARE in a snit. And then you read that this is a paper that WILL shortly be released and that as so often happens, a journalist (who's speciality is social affairs) is presenting speculation about a future event as fact, in a subject about which he is clearly profoundly ignorant.

Dagenau's Pouilly Fumé called Quintessence of his balls. There is NO reference to this throughout French Google. I do seem to remember something about this, however. Several Loire wine makers are in disagreement with the great mass of the majority, who in effect decide what AOC ought to mean, and make wine that is way outside the norm. That doesn't bother me, but if you remember that AOC is not designed to say anything about quality, but everything about authenticity, you can see how the battle lines will be drawn.

It is Daguenau himself who described the grapes as being the worst he had ever produced or some such, but his criteria are not necessarily those of the AOC committee. Since his wine conformed to the rules - Grown within the geographical boundary of Sauvignon Blanc grapes at the right levels of production, they certified it as being what it is. Appellation d'Origine Controlé.

A similar sort of story happened a couple of years ago with a Pomerol garage winery whose owner decided to break the rules and spread black plastic between his vines to eliminate excess water and help ripen the grapes. He failed to get his AOC despite the excellence of his wine.