Off a winding, narrow road that passes through the indistinct, small hamlet of Saint-Georges in the vicinity of Saint Emilion, there is a gate. Were it not for spotting a young man with the exact same face as I had seen earlier that day during my visit to Petrus, I would have thought that I was entirely lost.
Vieux Château Saint Andre is the property owned by the Berrouet family. Jean-Claude Berrouet was the producer of Petrus for 45 vintages, starting at the young age of 22 when Jean-Pierre Moueix (owner of Petrus) appointed the young winemaker. Their combination has made Petrus into the wine it is today. I wanted to meet the man whose hands are responsible for producing several of the best wines in the Bordeaux region (Petrus, the Moueix owned vineyards, Dominus in California and even his own small wine in the Pyrenees mountains in the Basque country, his home region). His oldest son, Olivier, has now filled his father's shoes as the director of Petrus, while his younger son, Jeff, manages Vieux Château Saint Andre.
Jean-Claude Berrouet is humble, kind, interested, generous, and extremely knowledgeable. I came away from the visit with the strong feeling that I had met a truly great man. He is easy to talk to, and with him I had the most fruitful and natural conversation about wine. Not seeking to judge and with no need to impress, a conversation with Berrouet is honest.
Berrouet asked us, "do you you like to drink wine?". I quickly responded, "of course". But only after, I realized the importance of this question. Wine for many is status, wealth, a touristic visit in France, an emblem of cultural capital. It is a very good question: do you like wine. Berrouet spoke for himself, with no value judgements. I understood that wine for him is a matter of the pleasure of drinking it.
Jeff, who manages the property, led our tour, occasionally looking to his father to field a question. His father graciously encouraged him: it was a bit like I was watching the torch being passed on.
Not unsurprisingly, the Berrouets are using the same techniques to produce this Merlot wine as he is using at Petrus (see my article on Petrus for the technicals). He explained the philosophy that Elisabeth at Petrus repeatedly emphasized: Merlot must be handled delicately. Concrete tanks are used for the fermentation. Slowly and carefully, the wine in the tanks is poured off at the bottom to be re-added at the top, so that the wine will have contact with the skin and pulp layer that naturally rises to the top of the tanks. There is no mushing or stirring. Everything is done gently.
Like at Petrus, the wines are aged in typically about 50% new oak, thus creating a wine where the grapes and not the wood take the forefront in taste.
Jean-Claude explained that everyday (my visit was on September 10th, 2012) they are tasting the wines for the maturity of the grapes. He explained that there is a peak of maturity: if picked to early you end up with a "green" taste. If the grapes are picked too late you have, and he struggled for the word, snapping his fingers and looking at me for help, "what's that the americans say… 'ammy?' 'gamy'"? He asked. Wincing with the failure of not understanding, I nearly gave up, before I recalled… "jammy!". "Yes," he carried on "if picked too late the wines have a jammy taste. It's important that they are picked at the right moment. This you can tell by tasting the berries."
I found it interesting that he used this word 'jammy', as it is so trendy now to have 'jammy' wines. I also found it interesting that this new word for him was on the tip of his tongue after returning from California that very morning. American restaurant servers love this word and use it frequently, and they are right to do so, as so many wine-lists are stocking these 'jammy wines'.
Stepping out on a limb I said, "It's funny you should use the word jammy. Perhaps it's just me, but I find that now, especially with Californian wines, there are so many jammy wines. It's quite in fashion in the states, at least." As a side note I added, "To me this is terrible."
Jeff his son laughed and nodded in agreement. And his father stepped forward with his pointer-finger raised. "It's interesting you should say that," he said beaming. "There are two reasons for this. Firstly the sweet taste is the first we like. Think of children: when we are children, we all like sweet things. Then, for some people, as we get older we start to like some of the other flavors. Secondly, the mouth. The sweet taste is on the tip of the tongue," he said motioning to his mouth. "The acid on the sides, the bitter in the back. When journalists go to taste wines they are tasting hundreds in a sitting. You cannot distinguish a wine after taste number twenty-one. So what are they tasting? The wines that are standing out are ones with a lot of sweetness which is noticed first in the mouth. The pleasure of the bitterness of wine comes on the finish. If you are tasting so many wines, you do not have time for the finish. And so, these sweet wines get high scores, and have become popular to people who value such scoring."
This explains a lot.
In the barrel room, Jean-Claude described that they source from 6 different coopers, handpicking the right barrels. After years of wine making Jean-Claude says that all barrels are slightly different. Like the grapes themselves, some years the trees are better than others.
Jeff opened his bottle on a table beside an old-fashioned sink, which Jean-Claude proudly pointed out, with a youthful fascination with this time-honored action of washing the hands. Jeff meticulously smelled the wine, swirled it in the glass, and then poured the wine into all three glasses before throwing it down the drain. He then poured three nice glasses. We saluted.
The style is very elegant. Nothing jumps out at you. It is not overly fruity, nor dry, nor tannic, nor woody. It's balanced. It's all of these things. The tannins are long and dry. The mouth is full and soft, with some taste of dark berries, chalk, stone. And the finish is pleasurable. Overall, it is an extremely elegant, supple, silky wine with exceptionally balanced fruit and structure. In its qualities and style, I could taste that it was made similarly to Petrus (yes, it lacks the nuance flavors, that incomparable velvety texture, and the rockstar finish, but this is nonetheless a quality wine). It too has a beautiful potential to age. This is a bottle to have on the table, with good food, and to drink with friends.
At 11Euro a bottle, I took home a case of 2009/2010 wines. Generously, he also gifted me a bottle of his Herri Mina, which he explained means "homesick". It was chosen in reference to the Homer's Odyssey and because it is made in Berrouet's home region in the Pays Basque Country, for which he feels nostalgia.
I asked Jean-Claude how long the Chateaux Saint Andre should age for. He laughed. "I laugh now when people ask me this," he said. "Perhaps I asked it too once. You want to know how long it can age? Perhaps 30 years. Perhaps more. But I know this wine-style, and it's definitely capable of 30. But me, I am not. And so I don't care anymore. The more important question is when should I drink it, and the answer is in 10 years."
The frown I made when he said this was sincere. After a short visit, his kindness and greatness was astounding. I cared for him. Perhaps it's just my sentimentality, but in the wine I tasted on his property, his own gentleness, conviviality and elegance comes through. And each bottle I open in ten years I will toast to him.
Thank you, Jean-Claude, Olivier and Jeff Berrouet!
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| Me (center), beside Jean Claude Berrouet (left) and his son Jeff (right) |
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| Vieux Chateau Saint Andre's view of the vineyards and town church |
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