“A man should hear a little music, read a
little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that
worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful …..” Johann
Wolfgang von Goethe
Reading
Goethe as a high school student decades ago wasn’t exactly a beautiful
experience. But fast-forward to the 21st century and I think he was
on to something. This wine is a sense
of the beautiful. Just its color
shimmering through the glass on the store shelf was seductive. Rose water.
Petals with their essence extracted. Pure essence. If you cook Indian dishes
and use rose water, you have an understanding of this color. So I bought it, years ago, albeit reluctantly.
I don’t like “celebrity” wines. Wines
with photos of long dead movie stars on the label; stars that had never worked
a vineyard and whose only association with wine was that they could afford to drank
too much of it. There is a chasm between marketing and winemaking, though I
understand the need to bridge it if the business is to continue. But when a
company indifferently relies more upon the skill of its marketing than upon its
winemaking, they fail to attract me.
Labels with offensive double entendres,
labels with photos of sports stars whose light has long diminished and
never shined upon a vine anyway, singers…. oh, just spare me. Count me out.
But
I bought Miraval years ago and have been buying it every year since my first
taste. Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie
bought the estate in 2012 for an estimated cost of $60 million. Learning that actually
discouraged me from buying the wine. Would this become just another wine whose
appeal was its connection to movie stars?
I don’t follow their lives in fan magazines; don’t care about whom they
marry or what they do off-screen. And the
bottle is oddly shaped making storage difficult and the label contains no
information about the wine. Was this
another example of more attention being paid to marketing at the expense of
making a good wine? Miraval was launched on Valentine’s Day in 2013 and the
first 6000 bottles were sold out in five hours.
Oh, oh: the heard was being moved, it seemed, by stardom not quality.
Even worse: the wine had previously been released (pre Pitt-Jolie) under the
name “Pink Floyd” after the rock band that recorded “The Wall” in Miraval’s
recording studio. This had the markings
of stardom fancying itself for an encore.
But
then I learned that the Perrin family was involved. Perrin on wine is like the
words “Gold Note” on older paper currency.
It adds value. Wine Spectator
ranked the first vintage of Miraval at 84 out of the year’s Top 100 wines of
2013. It was the only rose wine
included. Decanter described its
elegance and its mouthwatering finish. Turns out grapes for Miraval are
selected from the best parcels: Muriers, Longue, Romarin and selected also from
the best terroirs of Provence with clay and limestone soil and from elevation
of about 1,247 feet: cool temperature vineyards with large diurnal swings.
Turns out too that grapes are harvested in the early morning to preserve the
fruit’s fresh character, and they’re sorted twice.
Grapes
used are Cinsault, Grenache, Rolle and Syrah, the
latter being partially
vinified using the “saignee” method. Similar to “drawing off,” “saignee”
involves removing only a portion of the juice from its skin contact, the
remainder being retained for use in red wine production. Rose made in this
method will have higher acid, though it’s important to remember that in
Miraval, only the Syrah is vinified this way and only a portion of it is so used. Rolle may be better known as
Vermentino, a light skinned wine grape made famous from Italy. As in so many things of beauty, the
composition is greater than its individual parts. Call it teamwork. In the case of Miraval,
call it experienced expert winemaking.
 |
| Took a while to get the color right taking the photo. It's all about the lighting. Note: this is not a 750ml bottle (also oddly shaped) but 1.5 liters. |
Only 5% of the juice sees wood (with
batonnage). The rest is vinified in temperature controlled stainless, or what I
personally think qualifies as the greatest advance in winemaking since yeast
was first discovered. The result is a wine that speaks freshness with delicate
aromas of white flowers. Mineral notes with a sense of salinity. Lovely balance
and seamless integration of raspberry, wild strawberry (I grew them, but then
were they no longer wild?), cherry, pear, white tea and rose water. As with all
wines of quality, for me, it’s not the individual taste notes (which can be
discerned), bit how those notes play together. In Miraval, it’s a symphony of
finesse.
Marc
Perrin has said that Angelina and Brad have been intimately involved in the
wine making process, attending “rose blending sessions” and helping to design a
new shape and label for the bottle (the latter being something obviously
successful but of which I’m not a fan). But as for the wine, I am a fan though
I must disclose that when it comes to Rose wine, I have a preference for those
of Provence.
Decanter reports that the winery is considering making a red Provence wine in the style of Italy’s
Super Tuscans (labeled as IGT because they don’t meet criteria of grapes or percentages
of them used in Italy’s DOC and DOGC classification. “We are planning to experiment with different
grape varieties, from Syrah and Mourvedre to Cabernet Franc and others,” said
March Perrin. “There are no conclusions
yet, but we will be happy to use the Vins de France label if need be.”
What
spring-boarded California to world attention resulted from its ability to
innovate and an appellation system not based on varietals but only zone. As a lover of “old world” wine I have an
appreciation of “old world” requirements: varietals must include certain
percentages of particular grapes to be labeled with the appellation. Yields must be restricted to meet established
standards and there are other requirements. So called IGT wines are not inferior to DOGC
labeled wines; they just don’t meet the standard for DOGC or DOC labeling. Wines labeled simply as “Vin de France” (that term replaces the older “Vin de Table)
allows for wines that are multi-regional and multi-varietal. Whether such a wine
from Miraval will be “good” will ultimately depend upon the site decisions, the
winemaker and consumers. Personally, I
look forward to Miraval’s introduction.
Sante!
……………..
Jim
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