Screwcaps: Joseph Mellot and Domaine Robert Sérol
I was recently sent six samples from producer and négociant Joseph Mellot in Sancerre. Five of the six were closed with a screwcap, while the most expensive – the 2010 La Chatelaine, Sancerre – has a cork. This strikes me as the wrong way round. Why continue to use fallible cork on expensive bottles of wine where wine faults hit your pocket harder than they do with cheap wine?
Tasting the Joseph Mellot samples confirms that these wines have improved considerably of late. All have been well-made and good examples of their appellations. Leaving aside the older and wood fermented 2010 La Châtelaine, the most successful was the quite weighty 2013 Menetou-Salon Les Thureaux. – floral, ripe gooseberry, soft texture with nicely balanced acidity. The 2013 Sancerre La Chatellenie from vines on flinty soils was similar in style but with a little less weight, while the 2012 Coteaux du Giennois La Gaupière was vibrantly citric. In contrast the 2013 Pouilly-Fumé Domaine des Mariniers was correct without being exciting – perhaps with a little more time in bottle? Equally the Destinéa 2013 Sauvignon Blanc IGP was rather bland and two-dimensional but with marked acidity in the finish.
Finally the prestige cuvée 2010 La Grande Châtelaine from clay limestone soils and fermented in wood using locally sourced oak from Allogny, a commune just to the north of Bourges. This was certainly the most complex of the wines with attractive weight and texture and a nicely judged touch of oak.
Staying with screwcaps I had a very interesting and illuminating experience over a most enjoyable family lunch with Carine and Stéphane Serol and their children during my visit to the Côte Roannaise in mid-March. Stéphane produced a bottle of their 2007 Vieilles Vignes, which happened to use a screwcap. Although a difficult vintage, this 2007 was still drinking well with plenty of fresh, vivid fruit. Out of interest I asked Stephane whether he had any of the 2007 Vieilles Vignes, which had been closed with a cork, left. He did indeed and it was completely different with tired, faded fruit.
In this instance a clear demonstration that a red wine ages better under screwcap than it does under cork.
Wink Lorch’s Jura Wine book
There was a time when someone opting to self-publish a book was treated with pity and their book filed under vanity publishing. That attitude has completely changed as technology has changed and many publishers have become risk averse opting only to publish established authors or subjects that have already sold well.
Wink Lorch’s fine new book Jura Wine is a good example of how social media and the internet can make things work. Using Kickstarter (www.kickstarter.com) Wink raised from 376 backers just over £14,000 from 376 backers and so was able to finance a project, that almost certainly would not have found a publisher. As well as have a clear project brief and a high reputation for her knowledge of Jura producers and their wines, I have no doubt that having a substantial presence on social media sites like Twitter (over 12,000 followers) and Facebook (over 1100 friends) played a considerable role in raising the necessary finance.
I can thoroughly recommendation Wink Lorch’s fine and detailed Jura Wine – 352 pages for £25, €30, US$40 with photos by leading photographer Mick Rock.
Tougher rules for UK directors
I am pleased to see that Vince Cable, the UK Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, is proposing to tighten up the rules on rogue directors to make it easier to pursue them and also to make it harder for people with a conviction in another country to become a UK director.
Details of the proposals here: http://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/apr/19/vince-cable-tougher-penalties-dodgy-directors
Anything that puts the brakes on the UK’s current pandemic of scams based on ‘alternative investments’ will be very welcome. Although fine wine remains a popular option for fly-by-night companies and scams, it is now often linked to land banking scams, ‘investments’ in graphene, carbon credits, gold, diamonds, natural rubber as well as pearl encrusted, gold plated armadillos.
Having pushed fine wine as a brilliant investment a number of companies are now offering ways selling investors’ wine, which will still have value albeit diminished for the moment, for products that are almost certainly over-priced and of little if any investment potential.
Update on Haut-Poitou
Last October I wrote a piece about the local machinations over the fate of the Cave Coopérative du Haut Poitou. https://les5duvin.wordpress.com/2013/10/01/the-cave-du-haut-poitou-spike-a-brochet/
Now some six months later Frédéric Brochet’s Ampeliade has, after all, been allowed to take over the bankrupt Cave Coopérative:
Haut-Poitou La Coop reprise par Ampelidae
Story by Patrick Touchais 1.4.14:
‘Frédéric Brochet, vigneron et négociant dans la Vienne, a repris la cave du Haut-Poitou, criblée de dette. Il se dit prêt à travailler avec tous les anciens coopérateurs qui voudront lui livrer leur récolte.
Tout ça pour ça ! Le tribunal de grande instance de Poitiers (Vienne) vient de confier la cave du Haut-Poitou à Ampelidae. En septembre, Frédéric Brochet, le gérant de cette entreprise basée à Marigny-Brizay, avait fait une offre de reprise de la coopérative. Malgré un niveau d’endettement élevé, qui aurait été apuré par cette opération, les adhérents avaient repoussé son offre. Entre-temps, la coop a été placée en redressement judiciaire.
Les 5 du Vin 
Well, three good news in one article, that makes a very good, sharp and non boring piece ! Merci Jim !
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Merci Michel! Santé Jim
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Jim, quite agree with your remark about why take a more expensive risk with top end wines and cork. Michel Laroche was one of the first to take the opposite direction with his Chablis Grand Cru wines. The ageing issue, under screwcaps, merits more investigation and shared experience. I have certainly has similar experiences to the one you recount with Serol’s wines.
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