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Château Figeac: Hooray for Terroir!
Posted by Wine Reviews | Posted on 02-15-2012
| Posted inLast month, I attended an 11-vintage vertical dinner of Château Figeac at Ruth’s Chris Steak House in Washington DC. The dinner was hosted and organized by Panos Kakaviatos, and Figeac owner and winemaker Eric d’Aramon flew in for the event. The wines were donated by the Château.
There were about 25 attendees, including Terroirist Rebecca Canan, John Gilman of View from the Cellar, Washington Post wine columnist Dave McIntyre, master sommelier Kathy Morgan, and merchants from Schneider’s and MacArthur Beverages.
Overall, the wines were beautiful. Most were fresh and balanced, and all were marked by a distinctive note of gray minerality — sometimes coming across as slate, other times as pencil lead or riverbed. I can’t think of any other vertical tasting where the same characteristic was so obvious in each and every wine. Hooray for terroir!
Unlike most Right Bank Bordeaux, the wines of Figeac aren’t dominated by Merlot. The vineyard — characterized by extremely gravelly soil — is planted equally with Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot, and the wines generally mirror the vineyard.
And unlike many of the wines coming out of Bordeaux today, the wines of Figeac are restrained. Eric d’Aramon proudly noted that he never goes beyond 13.5% alcohol.
His rationale? “We want to preserve the freshness,” he explained. “Wine is made for drinking, and a wine that does not make me want to drink another has missed its point.” He went on to criticize today’s “boring” wines for resembling “massive blocks.” (Thanks to Dave McIntyre for capturing the quote.)
I agree with d’Aramon’s sentiment. But sadly, that sentiment catalyzed a 20+ minute conversation among attendees about a certain critic from Monkton, Maryland, who has never praised Figeac’s wines. Since 1966, Robert Parker has awarded scores of over 90 points to just two vintages of Figeac — the 1982 (94 points) and the 1990 (91 points).
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I’m bored by this conversation. Yes, Parker’s online personality is bombastic, and most everyone agrees that his palate is monochromatically attracted to “powerfully concentrated fruity wines.”
But we shouldn’t blame Parker for the shift towards riper wines. After all, if consumers didn’t agree with Parker, he would be irrelevant. Nor should we pretend, as so many attendees did, that old-school producers like Figeac are the only ones in the world that continue to produce elegant Bordeaux blends. I firmly believe that even America is capable of producing elegant wine!
Wine geeks are eager to criticize unsophisticated drinkers for falling prey to wine stereotypes (“Rosé is only for summertime drinking?!?! Pshaw!”). Yet we’re just as guilty of falling prey to a different kind of silliness. That’s unfortunate, as such conversations detract from talking about the important stuff.
It is, indeed, possible to talk about the charm (and deliciousness!) of Château Figeac’s wines without discussing Robert Parker.
And it would have been wonderful to spend more time talking about Panos’s recent adventures in Europe or hearing John Gilman’s take on the value of En Primeur. Plus, I’m sure many attendees would have liked to tell Dave McIntyre that drinking Château Figeac doesn’t count as “drinking local.” (Thanks to Terroirist reader Scott Claffee for that joke!) Alas, the 20 minutes we spent discussing the critic from Monkton prevented us from broaching such subjects.
Fortunately, most of dinner was spent hearing about Château Figeac and discussing the wines. And I left as a huge fan of the Château, grateful for the invitation to such an extravagant evening. Enormous thanks to Panos Kakaviatos for organizing such a spectacular event!
My full notes are pasted below. In case you’re you’re interested, well-known taster Kevin Shin has put up his notes on CellarTracker, Dave McIntyre has blogged about the event, and Panos has written about it. Read the rest of this entry »