24 Dordogne

If you’ve ever considered being part of the French wine harvest then have a look at RTE’s video on Chateau Haut Garrigue in Saussignac west of  Bergerac – see www.rte.ie
Caroline & Sean Feely purchased the vineyard 4 years ago, and have developed a biodynamic, organic vineyard which is winning great acclaim from winelovers and professionals. Certainly we have enjoyed their wine (red, rosé and white Bergerac AC) and a visit to the Chateau last year.

They are huge enthusiasts and have developed the domain, opened a self-catering gite and enjoy sharing their passion for wine with visitors – including nature vineyard walks in and around the vineyard, wine tours to St Emilion and Medoc and classes including

a hands-on ‘Wine Workshop’ to learn about French wines and understand the complicated appellation system or a ‘Day Tour to St Emilion, Medoc or Bergerac’, a luxury 3-day ‘Vineyard Walking Tour’ or an ‘Exclusive Experience’ at our working organic vineyard and wine estate. Our goal is to exceed your expectations and give you relaxation, new knowledge and wonderful memories to take home. If you have more than a day why not create your own unique multi-day French wine tour using our suggested day tour options.

And it does not stop there – you can rent a row of vines and benefit from the fruits of the vintage; an online shop for buying their wines from UK, Ireland or France. It is well worth a visit!  If you are quick you can still order your wine for Christmas for UK delivery  (deadlne 16 November 2009) – see www.hautgarrigue.com/ukwine.html

Chateau Haut Garriguee24240 Saussignac France.

It was in the hot days of late June that we had the chance to call in on Caroline and Sean Feely at Chateau Haut Garrigue in Bergerac (24, Dordogne, Aquitaine), a warm and welcome memory on cold miserable winter days. An unlikely combination of Ireland, South Africa and rural France has created an organic vineyard which is rapidly gaining a reputation for the quality of its wines – and an innovative approach to promoting both the appellation and the organic ethos.

Also running under the banner of Wild Earth Vineyards, Caroline is passionate about encouraging people to appreciate and understand her organic wines. With a delightful gite (holiday rental accommodation) enjoying stunning views over the Dordogne valley and the vineyards, regular vineyard walks (which include other local organic vineyards), tutored wine classes (in Bergerac and Ireland!), longer vineyard walking holidays in Bordeaux, St Emilion & Bergerac – and other wine experiences which include trying your hand at being a winemaker for a day! – they offer plenty of ways of getting to know the wines and vineyard well.

Happily, all this “tourism” is secondary to the main focus, which is to produce great wines – and they do. We were hugely impressed by their clean, bright aromatic dry Sauvignon Blanc, but their other whites, rosé and seriously good red wines are also excellent and rated highly in the press and elsewhere:

‘Its gorgeous’ is what the Irish Times says of our La Source red wine. We also have our methode traditionnelle sparkling (the real thing) and 2006 saussignac available to you.It’s not just the taste that is superb. When you buy from us you are supporting:
- organic farming giving you a healthy product that does not have herbicide/ pesticide residues
- a very low carbon footprint (we do much of our vineyard work by hand, we favour natural processes rather than intervention and we have an oak forest to offset our CO2 emissions) giving us all a better future.

Well worth a visit if you are in the region, you can also order online for delivery to your door in the UK and Ireland. If you order by 8th December 2008 you can get UK delivery in time for Christmas and indulge with good wine direct from the winemaker!

Interestingly many of the small independent vineyards in the Bergerac appellation are going organic – and not just for the “feel good” factor or as a marketing ploy – sustainable vineyards and a healthy environment are needed to support the complex combination of factors (e.g. soil, climate, rootstock and people) which have to come together to produce consistently good wines.

For more info:-
Caroline & Sean Feely  E: caroline@wildearthvineyards.com
Chateau Haut Garrigue
24240 Saussignac
France
Tel: +33(0)553227271

Now, I thought I knew Bergerac and its wines pretty well, having imported their wines from the earliest days of Allez Vins!, and numerous visits over the last 20 years or so. But truth be told, I probably know about a dozen vineyards in any detail, and I am a fan of the wines of the region which tend to be consistently good (with the exception of some cheap supermarket versions) and usually great value.

However, my knowledge and passion for the region is completely overshadowed by Phil Hargreaves and his new book The Wines of Bergerac. This is a comprehensive and authorative guide to the 13 appellations (including Montravel, Pecharmant, Rosette, Monbazillac and Saussignac)and to ove 90 producers, each of which has a full page full of details of location, opening times, the nature of the “terroir”, how the grapes are grown and how the wine is made – plus details of UK stockists, contact details and tasting notes!

This has clearly been a labour of love, as I cannot imagine that anyone could do justice to more than a couple of vineyards a day to produce this amount of reliable detail -as always I checked out his entries on domaines which I know well such as Chateau Grinou, Chateau Haut Garrigue and Chateau Beauportail, and the entries are spot on! I share his affection for the Merlot and Cabernet reds, Sauvignon and Semillon dry and sweeter whites. His secret has been his career as a linguist and wine merchant – but also his sheer enthusiasm for the wines of Bergerac.

“..my love affair with the Dordogne started some 40 years ago when I was a student in Perigueux in 1968 . A few years later, my late father-in-law introduced me to the wines of Cahors and Bergerac and the seed was sown for an interest in wines that would lead to twenty years in the wine trade and ultimately, this little book.
1 have personally visited the vast majority of the producers in this guide and wines from every
winernaker included have been tasted by myself and my tasting team, drawn from friends and
colleagues at the Hengate Wine School and the Premier Cru Wine Club, based in Beverley,
East Yorkshire. I have resisted the temptation to give wines a star rating as I recognise that
taste in wine is a very personal thing and it does not pay to be too dogmatic. However, I hope
the tasting comments will help you establish which wines will most appeal to you.

There’s plenty of background to the region and its wines in addition to the individual producers’ pages, which makes the book both readable and an indispensible guide to visiting the region and its vineyards – I will certainly be taking a copy with me on my next trip to the Dordogne!

For more info on Phil Hargreaves, Hengate Wine School and the book “The Wines of Bergerac” see www.hengatewineschool.co.uk

The official launch of new guide “The Wines of Bergerac” will take place on Friday 26 September at 6 p.m. at Beverley Arms Hotel, Beverley, East Yorkshire. Book signing and free Bergerac tasting – see www.hengatewineschool.co.uk

The Lascaux Cave at Montignac (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) is rightly considered the most spectacular example of pre-historic cave painting in the World. Its fame and popularity led to the creation of a facsimile cave (Lascaux II opened in 1983) nearby to avoid further damage to the fragile environment of the original cave and paintings which had remained undisturbed for centuries until discovered in 1940. Two areas have been painstakingly and faithfully reproduced – the Great Hall of the Bulls and the Painted Gallery.
However, even the facsimile Lascaux II is now facing the need to close for 2-3 months each winter for the next few years for essential maintenance – perhaps it was too good a copy!
The key thing to remember is that you do really need to book in advance if you want to visit – numbers are limited and it is probably one of the most popular tourist sights in France.
For more info see www.culture.gouv.fr

Guy Cuisset at Chateau Grinou in Bergerac is an extraordinary winemaker – for years his wines took pride of place on the Allez Vins! wine list both with his “Tradition” wines for superb everyday drinking and his “Reserve” wines, oaked red and white wines of a premium quality but keenly priced (not to mention his oaked dessert Saussignac which is stunning) So I was keen to taste the latest addition to the range – a pure, unoaked Sauvignon Blanc, which has all the hallmarks of a Grinou wine – intense fruit character, crisp and clean but with surprising depth of flavour.

A visit to Chateau Grinou (Monestier, 24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) south west of Bergerac, always takes longer than planned, and I always learn more than I expect.

On this ocassion it was to discover that Chateau Grinou is going organic! Now, whilst Guy Cuisset has a genuine concern for the well-being of the local environment and takes seriously his responsibilities as the current steward of the land and the flora and fauna of the domaine, he is no “tree-hugger”. His primary passion is to produce excellent wines. He does not compromise that objective, especially as there are so many other obstacles (weather, pest, disease) and constraints (bureaucratic, legal, financial) in the way. He is convinced that this approach, whilst being a good investment in the future health and viability of the vineyard, will produce better wines – wines which are more intense and show more of the real fruit character of the grape. The wines will evolve over the next few years as new techniques and fewer artificial interventions make subtle changes to the resulting wines.

The latest visit also included a walk through the vines, which demonstrate the complexity of the challenge. Every year is different, and every one of the 365 days of the year will be distinctively different from this year to last or next. This Spring was seriously wet with heavy downpours and sodden soil. This was followed by some very hot dry weather which dried the topsoil to an almost impenetrable concrete layer – making life very difficult when trying to get rid of the weeds between the vines – esepcially now that he can no longer apply selective weedkillers to deal with the problem.

Further on, he shows me his latest innovation – an organic water treatment plant – which collects all the waste water from the winery and treats it organically and aerobically before letting it flow into the local water course. It’s impressive with its bubbling air pumping through the water and the reed bed to filter the run-off. It may be a requirement of the EU, but few other vineyards are following his example.

It is easy to forget amongst all the hype, marketing and packaging that wine is an agricultural product, and that the winemaker is a farmer with his roots in the soil and environment of his domaine – he can see the benefits to local wildlife (some welcome, others not so), and recognises that his future and that of future generations is intimately invested in the “terroir” which makes his wines what they are.

Unfortunately the new Sauvingon Blanc (Bergerac Sec AC) is not yet available in the UK, so all the more reason to pay a visit to the domaine. English is spoken, but do not expect a fancy tasting room with award certificates, old barrels or ancient vineyard equipment – a plastic table in the middle of the stainless steel cuves is all you’ll get – plus a chance to taste some excellent wines and a small slice of Guy’s enthusiasm to take away!

For more info on Chateau Grinou and UK stockists – see www.frenchduck.co.uk/grinou.html

Sigoules (24 Dordogne, Aquitaine) (see map) south of Bergerac celebrates local wine production on the weekend of 19/20 July 2008 with its Foire aux Vins with all the usual activities including ceremonies, a church mass, banquets, folk music and dancing, concerts – and opportunities to taste the wine and food of the local area which includes the wines of Bergerac AC and the Cotes de Duras AC.

It promises to be fun – plus there are plenty of good winemakers in the area.

For more info see www.pays-de-bergerac.com