The old adage about necessity being the mother of invention springs readily to mind when you hear the story of Jean-Luc Pasquet. In 1970, he took over a Cognac vineyard at Chez Ferchaud, a few kilometres southwest of Châteauneuf-sur-Charente, from his uncle Albert Brisson. Things got off to an excellent start. The weather was glorious and the 1970 harvest was abundant – ideal when your business model is predicated on selling to the big Cognac houses that dominate the industry. Life, in other words, was good. But then came the oil crisis and a downturn that badly affected trade in Cognac, prompting Jean-Luc to think again. Amy Pasquet, his daughter-in-law, takes up the story. ‘He said, “I have some really unique terroir; I’m going to make my own label,”’ she explains. And so, in 1977, Cognac Jean-Luc Pasquet was born. Soon, Jean-Luc’s Cognacs were picked out and praised by a German journalist, prompting interest from Germany, Sweden and the UK – and the company, today run by Amy and her husband, Jean-Luc’s son Jean, hasn’t looked back since. Cognac is replete with individuals like Jean-Luc Pasquet. Often they are the unseen drones of a multibillion-euro industry, toiling in vineyard, winery, distillery and cellar to fuel the engines of the quartet of titans that dominate global trade: Hennessy, Martell, Rémy Martin and Courvoisier. But to those in the know, they shine a new and very different light on a corner of rural France that continues to produce the finest brandy in the world. ‘Cognac is so artisanal when you go outside of [the big four houses],’ says Amy. ‘I think a lot of people coming from the world of Scotch and other spirits think it’s kind of boring. But you have 250 artisanal brands with their own vines – it’s a joy to explore.’ Cognac is so artisanal when you go outside of the big four houses – it’s a joy to explore – Amy Pasquet As well as being the source of high-quality, excellent-value and sometimes downright quirky Cognacs, these small producers provide enthusiasts with no shortage of fascinating rabbit holes of flavour and provenance down which they can happily vanish. They are the antithesis of the blended VS, VSOP and XO bottlings that dominate shelves and back bars from Shanghai to San Francisco. Jean-Luc Pasquet’s vineyards – 15ha (37 acres) now, spanning the Grande and Petite Champagne crus – are all farmed organically, which is no small feat in this Atlantic-influenced, notoriously humid part of western France. The Pasquets rely heavily on weather stations and apps to ensure the vines get the right treatment at the right time. ‘Our two vineyards are only 5km [3 miles] apart but they have very different microclimates,’ says Amy. As if organics didn’t make life difficult enough, the Pasquets are also huge fans of Folle Blanche, the grape variety that dominated the pre-phylloxera Cognac vineyards but has fallen heavily out of favour since, on account of being fiendishly difficult to farm. (About 98% of Cognac plantings are now Ugni Blanc.) An annual JL Pasquet bottling of a 10-year-old cask of Folle Blanche is a perennial highlight. Jean-Luc Pasquet set up his business as a négociant; this meant he could bottle other people’s Cognacs, as well as his own, though he had no need to do so in the early years. In 2018, however, demand was such that the company ran out of its own aged stock. What resulted was L’Esprit de Famille, later renamed Trésors de Famille single-cask bottlings of Cognacs produced by small grower-distillers – known as bouilleurs de cru. It began with Le Cognac de Bernadette, a 1974 Cognac from Bouteville in Grande Champagne, and it has continued with bottlings of Le Cognac de Paul, Claude and André-all namechecking the producers in question. ‘For me, all of these vintners are the unsung heroes of Cognac’, says Amy Pasquet. ‘They’re selling to big houses, making really fine products and never getting any credit.’ It’s one thing to know that there are many dozens of small producers out there, but quite another to be able to track down their Cognacs, short of conducting your own painstaking tour, cellar door by cellar door, of the Charente region. Here specialist retailers such as The Whisky Exchange are a great place to start, unlike the multiples, they take the trouble and have the space to stock a much broader range of smaller producers and interesting bottles. If this were Scotch whisky, of course, enthusiasts on a quest for obscure single malts would turn to independent bottlers but that concept is far less common in Cognac. The superb selection offered by David Baker’s Hermitage Cognacs has long been an exception to this rule, as are the releases of Cognac Sponge from bottler Decadent Drinks, then there’s Through The Grapevine (TTG), an independent bottling offshoot of French retailer La Maison du Whisky in association with Italian importer Velier. Now managed by Antoine Bouchard, TTG was revamped two years ago, with Bouchard setting out to create a rolling annual release programme of single-cask Cognacs spanning from the 1930s to the 1990s in colour-coded bottles designating the region’s different crus. Unlike most Cognac operators, TTG encourages its partners to minimise any reduction in alcohol, everything is geared to reject homogeneity. ‘The idea of TTG is to unearth the “hidden gems” of the region, not to go towards the big four like Hennessy – although they’re doing a great job, don’t get me wrong’, says Bouchard. ‘We want to emphasise that the big brands are blending subregions, thus erasing, in a way, the identity of the grape and the distillate. Instead, we want to focus on how the soil influences the final product.’ The result, in the most recent round of TTG releases, is an eclectic selection of idiosyncratic Cognacs. There’s everything from a benchmark Grande Champagne from Jean Fillioux (Lot 63, signifying a blend of mainly 1963 eaux de vie with a little 1965) to a totally out-of-the-box Château de Beaulon 1988 Fins Bois. Created by the remarkable Christian Thomas in the far south of the region, close to the Gironde Estuary, it’s bottled at a muscular 55.2% ABV and eschews the ubiquitous Ugni Blanc for a unique blend of obscure grape varieties: Colombard, Montils, Folle Blanche and Folignan. If Beaulon waves the flag for Fins Bois, TTG’s remarkable Mauxion 45 (yes, 45 as in 1945) does the same for the often overlooked Bons Bois cru – although it’s sadly out of stock now. ‘It’s really about showing that there is no subregion inherently better than another’, says Bouchard. ‘To me, Bons Bois Cognacs are amazing and it’s such a shame that Grande Champagne is seen as the greatest cru.’ While a terroir-focused, provenance-rich approach to Cognac remains predominantly the preserve of smaller operators, others are taking note. Delamain – a specialist in long-aged Cognacs of XO grade and above – is now managing its own Grande Champagne vineyard, as is Hine. And Frapin, with its 240ha (600-acre) estate at Château de Fontpinot, has always been rooted in the soil surrounding its vines. Drinkers around the globe are changing and Cognac – ever so slowly – is changing with them The largest operators remain predominantly focused on their core VS, VSOP and XO blends, but the philosophy is shifting here, too. ‘For me, the approach for Cognac has to be much more precise, like the grands crus we have for our wine regions in France,’ says Baptiste Loiseau, cellar master at Rémy Martin. ‘We see more and more small producers going with much more information on the label.’ In 2022, Loiseau released Rémy Martin L’Étape in France, a 7,000-bottle release that blended 14 eaux de vie sourced from growers across Grande and Petite Champagne who have achieved HVE (High Environmental Value) certification – complete with a paper wrapper featuring grower testimonials, a map and a QR code for more information. Rémy Martin Tercet, meanwhile, highlights the respective roles of wine grower, distiller and blender. At Martell, cellar master Christophe Valtaud has created the Martell Single Cru Collection – a six-strong range of Cognacs including three Discovery Edition products (Petite Champagne, Borderies, Fins Bois), two Aged Editions (Grande Champagne XO, Borderies XXO) and one Vintage Edition (Borderies 1999). As well as showcasing Martell’s signature Borderies origin, these Cognacs challenge preconceptions, particularly the younger Discovery Edition trio. ‘Before tasting, people think that the Petite Champagne will be the best, but the best Cognac at this stage and the biggest pleasure to drink is the Fins Bois,’ explains Valtaud. ‘Fins Bois eaux de vie find balance more quickly than Petite Champagne, which is more spicy and a little bit less easy to drink. People think that Fins Bois and Bons Bois are not the best, but it’s not always the case.’ Drinkers around the globe are changing and Cognac – ever so slowly – is changing with them. ‘In England, America and China, I see the new generation wanting to know what the size of the cask is, or how many bottles we produced in this special vintage,’ says Delamain cellar master Charles Braastad. ‘I think that this is our time; the world has become more informed and more interested. People just want to know what it is that they are drinking.’

In this 2024 article for Club Oenologique, Richard Woodard speaks to Cognac’s foremost innovators to find out how times are changing for the spirit – propelled by a particular focus on provenance.

In this 2024 article for Club Oenologique, Richard Woodard speaks to Cognac’s foremost innovators to find out how times are changing for the spirit.

Reimagining Cognac from the ground up

If you ever catch the train into Saint-Emilion, you’ll notice that it runs through the heart of the region’s vines. Just behind the station, on the outskirts of the village, lies Ch. Haut-Simard – an unassuming property that just happens to be owned by the Vauthiers – the same family that is behind Ch. Ausone, one of the region’s most famous estates. Over 15 years after the Vauthier family took over the estate, it’s emerging from the shadows – proving just how good a site it is.  Ch. Simard and Haut-Simard – both owned by the Vauthier family today – were once part of the same property, which dates back to the 16th century, named by the Simard family in 1865. When the railway line between Libourne and Bergerac was built in 1870, it ran straight through the vineyards and divided the estate in two. The railway slices across the foot of the slopes of Saint-Emilion, neatly dividing two different terroirs. North of the railway line lies Haut-Simard with more clay and limestone, while the larger Simard lies to the south on sandier soils.   In 1917, the four hectares of the original Haut-Simard were purchased by Leonard and Charlotte Gratadoux. They built a new house and cellar in 1929 – which is still in use today. Claude “Coco” Mazière – Edouard Vauthier’s great-uncle – bought the winery and 10 hectares of vineyard in 1954, the original Haut-Simard and a slice of Simard. Gradually he acquired the rest of the Simard estate and expanded Haut-Simard, with the two estates growing to 50 hectares in total – and, although the two wines were long made separately, from the 1990s Mazière put all the fruit into Ch. Simard.  Great-uncle Coco managed the estates through to his death in 2008. “He passed away almost in his office,” Edouard tells me – emphasising how Mazière worked almost obsessively to the end of his days. When he died, Alain Vauthier – Edouard’s father, who was already responsible for Ch. Ausone, Ch. Moulin Saint-Georges and Ch. de Fonbel – inherited the Simard estate.  “Look at the maps of the soil and look at where Ch. Haut-Simard is, it’s sand, a little bit of clay and a little bit of limestone – it’s a terroir totally suitable for Cabernet Franc,” Edouard explains. “When you dig a little bit, you realise the water table is 10-15 metres below. It’s very deep and very good soil that can produce a great wine.” Indeed, look at the property’s neighbours and you’ll find some illustrious names: Canon-la-Gaffelière, La Gaffelière, Pavie and Larcis-Ducasse are all a stone’s throw away. Haut-Simard may be a mere seven or eight metres above sea-level, but it’s enough to separate it from the flood plain where much of Simard sits.  Realising the potential, Alain decided to separate Simard and Haut-Simard once more (re-introduced from the 2008 vintage) and set about an extensive replanting program for the 10 hectares of Haut-Simard, putting in swathes of high-density (12,600 vines per hectare) Cabernet Franc in 2008, 2009 and 2010. Where the Haut-Simard vines once had around 80-85% Merlot, now 70% of the vineyard is dedicated to Cabernet Franc – focusing on quality rather than quantity.  Little has changed in the winery since it was built in 1929, and the team still uses the original concrete tanks. The fruit is all picked by hand, with density sorting now routinely used, spending around 20 days on skins, with délestage (rack and return) favoured over punch-downs/pump-overs to allow for gentle extraction. Once pressed off, the wine spends around 14 months maturing in around 20-30% one-year-old barrels and the rest in concrete.  As so much of the vineyard was ripped out, volumes were tiny in the Vauthiers’ first few vintages. Fruit from the young vines started being introduced from 2014 and the blend has continued to shift, with the 2022 the first to contain 70% Cabernet Franc. “It changed totally the game,” Edouard says – explaining how they’re finally seeing the fruits of their labours. Even now, only 2,500 cases are produced each year.  For Edouard, the Merlot on sandier parcels brings notes of strawberry, while on limestone it adds liquorice, complementing the Cabernet Franc’s dark fruit and green bell pepper. That dark fruit has built with each vintage as the new plantings come into the blend and vines mature, lending additional texture and structure. The average age in the vineyard is just 15-16 years now, only set to offer more as it matures. This might be a modest wine, but it’s one that has more than enough capacity to age. “I’m sure it will last 15 years with no problem,” says Edouard.   Tasting through a handful of vintages, it’s amazing to see the evolution of the Haut-Simard style -from the more solid 2016 through to the linear, bright, elegant 2022. It’s a wine that has impressed us en primeur for the last couple of years too – punching far above its weight.   Tasting Ch. Haut-Simard  2016 Ch. Haut-Simard: Plummy, sweet and round, this is full-bodied and concentrated, with real density to the fruit on the palate. It’s fresh, with a saline finish, yet there’s a solidity to this, not having the precision, brightness and aromatics of more recent vintages. Blend: 65% Merlot, 35% Cabernet Franc  2018 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose of the 2018 Haut-Simard is instantly more expressive than the 2016 – combining red fruit and an herbaceous note with a toasty sweetness. It’s more linear on the palate. The intense core of fruit is rich and tightly packed, framed by grainy tannins at this relatively youthful stage. The finish is long and savoury, with a hint of blackcurrant leaf. Blend: 70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Franc  2019 Ch. Haut-Simard: Floral, lifted and aromatic – the 2019 Haut-Simard is a world away from the previous vintage. Dainty berry fruit – blackcurrants and redcurrants – lead to an elegant, fine-boned palate. It’s precise and juicy, lithe and balanced with fine, chalky tannins. Blend: 60% Cabernet Franc, 40% Merlot  2022 Ch. Haut-Simard: The 2022 is the unashamed star of our mini-vertical of Haut-Simard, and the vintage Edouard Vauthier points to as a fulcrum point for the estate. The nose is sweet and bright, packed with seamless red berry fruit, along with hints of florals and pencil shavings. It is the palate that is so striking, however, driven and long, linear with graphite-etched tannins and mouthwatering acidity. Vibrant, pinpoint and very, very good – especially for the price. Blend: 70% Cabernet Franc, 30% Merlot  2024 Ch. Haut-Simard: The nose is perfumed, with intense cherries and lifted florals. There’s a lush intensity to the palate, with a mineral line that sup ports the fruit and complements the bright acidity. There’s lovely concentration here with fine tannins that provide a fine-boned framework. 12.7% and 3.74pH. Blend: 80% Cabernet Franc, 20% Merlot [tasted en primeur, May 2025]   Explore all current listings of Ch. Haut-Simard or read more about Bordeaux   

The Vauthier family may be most famous for Ch. Ausone, but they own several estates on the Right Bank. Over the last 15 years, Ch. Haut-Simard has seen particular investment. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the property’s transformation – one that you can now taste in the glass 

Over the last 15 years, the Vauthier family has invested significantly in Haut-Simard. We sat down with Edouard Vauthier to talk about the evolution underway 

Change at Ch. Haut-Simard – the Vauthier family estate 

Shifting gears at Ch. Haut-Simard   

Rome’s Baths of Caracalla fell into ruin in the 6th century. This illustrated reconstruction appeared in Hutchinson’s History of the Nations, published in 1915. Credit: Classic Images (Alamy Stock Photo). It took a shock to the system on the scale of the Covid-19 pandemic to demonstrate how much our lives can be reshaped by the humblest of objects. When restaurants, hotels, cafés and night clubs have all been closed for months on end – and when we are excluded even from each other’s homes – then park benches and patio heaters become stand-ins for the more elaborate architecture of everyday life that usually enable the interactions we depend on to function as social beings. For much of 2020, only the most rudimentary tools for conviviality were left to us. This works better at some times, than others. On a warm sunny day, all it takes to create an instant convivial space is a bench. This simple structure is the means for people to meet, share a view, a conversation, and perhaps a picnic. Add a back, arms, and a USB charger plus a Wi-Fi connection to the bench, and the proposition grows layers of complexity. It has become a people-attractor and a conversation starter too. This last year has helped us to understand better how to appreciate, through their absence, the things that make us the most human: being together, sharing food, drink and conversation, and marking the key moments in life. While we were forced into isolation, our attempts to replicate some of these experiences, with the use of a screen and a fitful broadband connection, showed us how inadequate they inevitably are. The experience suggests that social change, when it comes, is about an acceleration of what already exists – more than it is about a complete reinvention. Buying more online than we ever did in department stores is going to be a permanent shift. Some of us are less likely to fly to Australia for 24 hours for a business meeting than we were in 2019. But there are other things that will not change. We will still want to celebrate birthdays and weddings in the company of others. We will always want to meet our friends and look for chances to make new ones. And we enjoy doing all those things in the kind of spaces and places that make the most of the moment, which can make the seemingly routine into an occasion. Even at the basic level of the park bench, there are nuances to deal with. Chatting side by side is not the same experience as a face-to-face conversation. However, for some people, direct eye contact is as aggressive as an all-caps text message. It is why a walk in the park can be the best way to share a secret, and why Sigmund Freud conducted his consultations from behind the back of his couch. What we sit on is as significant as how we sit. In the average western living room in the 1960s, the armchair was the seat of power, occupied by family patriarchs. The matriarch, if she was lucky, got a slightly smaller version to herself. The sofa was designed in the same style, just large enough for two, and was for the use of supplicant sons-in-law. As the domestic world has expanded, so the sofa has taken on the dominant role over every other piece of domestic furniture. Sofas have been getting bigger for some time and are now reaching the size of lifeboats. They’re expected to cope with everything from conversation to work, assuming multiple roles as stand-in dining table, desk and bed. Social spaces, from the most intimate scale to the grandest, form an essential part of both our personal domestic worlds – in which we share our privacy with a selected group of friends and family – and the public one that we all share. It is a scaled sequence that runs all the way from a candlelit interior with a couple of chairs, a plain wooden table with two wine glasses, to the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II in Milan, which, with its heroic iron-roofed arcade, has a strong claim to be regarded as the mother of all shopping malls. When it opened in 1877, the newly empowered bourgeoisie (in their straw boaters and stiff detachable collars) took to it as the setting for their daily promenades on the way to and from the Duomo, Milan’s cathedral, where they celebrated Mass, or en route to a performance of a Verdi opera at La Scala. Stopping to take coffee and pastries, they would meet each other for an aperitif at Biffi or dinner at Savini, and explore the exotic wares that the shops in the Galleria had to offer. As futurist artist Umberto Boccioni demonstrated in his painting from 1910, Riot in the Galleria, there was a darker side to such spaces. He portrayed the agitated response of a turbulent crowd of well-dressed spectators to the sudden violence of a fight between two women – sex workers perhaps. The disturbing scene, depicted in pointilliste style (and based on an incident that actually took place), is bathed in lurid electric light, evoking the frenzied atmosphere of this giant outdoor room and its extraordinary impact on the behaviour of a mass society. An unintended consequence of the lockdown has been the enforcement of the monogamy-based model of the nuclear family. It made the year particularly difficult for all those who don’t subscribe to it. We will need places we can dress up for again, places we can show off in, even places in which we can behave badly. The painting is, in some senses, a reminder that urban life is essentially about tolerance. Complex spaces have always been a vital part of urban life. Almost 2,000 years ago, the Romans built the Baths of Caracalla on a lavish scale, with three separate pools, libraries and gymnasia – and gardens large enough to accommodate 1,600 people at a time in comfort. Its mosaic and marble floors, its frescoes and sculptures made it one of Rome’s essential landmarks, not only as a monument to the glory of the emperor who built it – though it certainly was that – but also as a place to be used by people, day and night. Its magnificence, and the sense of the joy of a great shared civic space, inspired the American architect Charles McKim when he designed New York’s Pennsylvania Station, one the most sublime railway stations ever built. The central waiting room, barbarously destroyed 50 years after it opened, was a convincing recreation of the baths of Caracalla that lifted the spirits of anyone who passed through it. The months of isolation have taught us how important shared spaces of all kinds are to the way that we live. They are the places in which we meet each other to celebrate the important rituals of life, as well as to pursue the seemingly trivial (actually essential) compulsion to gossip about one another. As an essentially self-conscious species, we need alibis to give ourselves permission to be convivial. We construct reasons to meet each other, like the 19th century clubs of Pall Mall, or their democratic paraphrase – with its provision of gender segregation, and games room, and its mix of intimacy and ceremony – the Victorian pub full of mirrors and cut glass. Or in today’s context, a bowling alley configured to allow players and their friends to sit at a table, order food and drinks, and watch each other play, and to hear each other converse. Some public spaces do better at conviviality than others. The Las Vegas casino, for example, is designed to be the opposite of convivial. Slot machines on an industrial scale obviate the need for any form of human interaction. With its glass dome, and 25 miles of bookshelves, the old round reading room at the British Museum is certainly a very special space, although it has now lost its intellectual raison d’être and has become a dead monument. In its day, a reader’s ticket conferred membership of an exclusive club that included Oscar Wilde, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, and George Orwell. But as the museum’s insistence on silence suggests – beyond unspoken flirtation over the book stacks – it was not a place that was fundamentally about conviviality. The Berghain Club, the raw, concrete world capital of techno music based in a redundant power station in Friedrichshain, in what was once East Berlin, is another very different kind of public space, and – in its own way – an equally spectacular social space. It has a pickier door policy than the British Museum but a similarly committed membership. In this case, the limit on conviviality is not silence, but the sheer volume of sound that makes the 18-metre-high main spaces vibrate, and which makes conversation inconceivable. A truly convivial space needs to work on multiple levels, to offer a variety of zones, some of which can encourage concentration, and others that can be distracting. Some may be more intimate than others. It’s a drive that is leading to an interesting range of cross-fertilisation. Cinemas that serve food more ambitious than popcorn and hot dogs are being equipped with sofas instead of tip-up seats. Health spas come with restaurants. However, not all convivial spaces encourage multiple uses. Orchestration and control are part of the experience at those English clubs that frown on members showing any signs of working, to the extent of asking them to put away notebook and pencil – never mind laptops – over lunch. Some aspects of what we have learned from the last year will colour life well into the future. The private dining room is a long-standing restaurant tradition, which has been given a new lease of life. We can also expect to see signs of change in the workplace. The Silicon Valley model has aspired to look as domestic as possible, furnished with sofas and kitchen tables, surrounded by vintage and deliberately non-matching chairs. A year of working at home is likely to encourage a more formal environment. But while we continually try to find new tools to make conviviality possible, the objectives remain the same. In a year in which all our assumptions about how we live together have been turned upside down, the world’s designers and architects have had to face the challenge of how to deal with the impact of the pandemic on our homes and our cities. As city centres empty out, and people avoid crowds, how can we find ways to socialise? 
Deyan Sudjic asked four leading designers and architects to explore the future directions that conviviality can take for FONDATA. John Pawson Architect John Pawson has always focused on the idea of designing the architecture of conviviality. In his recently released Home Farm Cooking book, produced with his wife Catherine and published by Phaidon, we see what matters most. Every Pawson interior is designed with how it will feel to use it in mind – is it to be enjoyed by somebody on their own, or with others? He takes away the distractions and lets us focus on how we use and feel in a room. He makes some spaces in which to read and to concentrate, others in which to share the preparation of a meal, and yet another to enjoy the result in company. Intrinsic in his philosophy is the importance of creating a setting where one can appreciate light at different times of the day – whether it is the shades of white as revealed by degrees of sunlight or the warming effect of firelight by night. johnpawson.com AB Rogers Ab Rogers was inspired by the spontaneous street life of the neighbourhood in 
East London in which he lives and works to come up with a range of furniturelike structures to give social spontaneity a helping hand. “Whether it’s planned 
or serendipitous, we wanted to design a set of colourful pieces that could help 
to turn a momentary catch-up on the street into an impromptu drinks party, 
anchored by a tuned-up bollard. Or make a surprise anniversary dinner possible 
under a street lamp … or make a breath of fresh air turn into a long lunch with 
new friends at a long table under the trees.”  abrogers.com Paloma Strelitz Paloma Strelitz, an architect, and co-founder of the Turner Prize winning 
collective Assemble, took an overview of how shopping streets might recover 
from lockdown, to generate new life: “convivial, accessible, sustainable and 
enjoyable for all”. The experience of negotiating streets in which precautions 
against the pandemic had caused restaurants and food shops to migrate to 
the pavement, made her think about ways to make this a permanent quality.
“It’s an opportunity to empower local business. Shops could open their 
facades to the street, creating an expanded space of public interaction, and 
daily theatre.” She would keep the car in its place, with priority for pedestrians and bikes, 
and banned altogether at weekends. What were once parking places would 
become green borders, combining play space, raised planters, flower beds 
and trees, allowing the street to become a promenade. Meanwhile the street 
would be animated not just by cafés, but studios and workshops putting the 
making process on show. Oh, and a mobile bar too.  assemblestudio.co.uk Jon Marshall  Jon Marshall, an industrial design partner at Pentagram in London, found himself 
thinking about ways to bring together two very different kinds of object: a hamper, 
designed to carry utensils food and drink securely, and a shooting stick. “They 
aren’t really about shooting,” he explains. “The shooting stick is actually a very 
convenient way of carrying the means to sit anywhere with you.”  The hamper allows for the sense of anticipation that comes from preparing for 
a pleasurable occasion. The two objects have very different aesthetics – one is 
vaguely mechanical, the other has a kind and rustic quality. For Marshall, the idea 
of the shared walk – with the chance of stopping for a picnic – is the very essence 
of conviviality. pentagram.com/about/jon-marshall This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue One

The past year has seen a huge change in our ability to interact, and opportunities to be social. Deyan Sudjic considers the importance of conviviality for human beings – and the public spaces we design.

Deyan Sudjic considers the importance of conviviality for human beings – and the public spaces we design.

FONDATA: The Importance of Being Convivial

The Importance of Being Convivial  

“We take risks every day,” Vanessa Martin says to me. If you didn’t know we were standing in a winery, you might think Martin was a fighter pilot, a firewoman or perhaps a double agent. The two women standing in front of me, Martin and her colleague Chantal Uldry, aren’t necessarily the image of risk-takers – but through their hands have passed thousands of bottles of one of the world’s most precious wines: Ch. d’Yquem. It might not be life or death, but this liquid is so prized that it can seem it.  The lone Sauternes or Barsac estate to be declared a Premier Cru Supérieur in 1855, Ch. d’Yquem has a long history stretching back to the Middle Ages. The wine crafted from this property, at the highest point in Sauternes, has been lauded for centuries. It was savoured by the likes of Thomas Jefferson in the 1800s, while Jay-Z and Beyoncé visited late last year. The property and its wines are the stuff of legend, sought out by wine lovers and collectors around the world.  Production of this sweet nectar is painstaking – the vines cared for meticulously through the year, and the fruit only harvested if Mother Nature provides the right conditions for botrytis cinerea, aka “noble rot” to develop. If everything is in their favour, with just the right amount of moisture and heat at the right time, this fungus will work its way into the bunches of grapes, piercing the skin, concentrating the acid and sugar in the grapes, as well as lending its own distinctive spicy, marmalade aromas. Yquem’s team will pass through the vines up to six times, picking individual bunches and berries that are ready. Yields are miniscule, with approximately just one glass of wine made by each vine.  Once the fruit has made its way into the winery, been pressed, fermented and aged in barrel, with only the best selected for the final blend, the wine must be bottled and labelled – prepared for its début in the world. And this is where Martin and Uldry come in, part of the team who ensures that every bottle that leaves the premises is worthy of the Ch. d’Yquem name.   “We seek perfection,” Martin tells me. She has been working at the estate for two decades, having started out in the vineyards before moving into the winery, having worked with the property’s longtime winemaker Sandrine Garbay on the vinification as well as bottling and labelling, and now under the current Maître de Chai Toni El Khawand. Martin, like Uldry, is local – and wine is the region’s trade. Her parents worked amongst the vines, so she followed in their footsteps. But she didn’t love it, she found the yearly cycle repetitive – doing the same thing year in, year out – and asked to move. “This job, it changes every day,” she tells me, of her role in the winery. “I see different people every day; my work changes every day.” Watching the team work is remarkable. While much is mechanised today, everything is checked by a human member of the team. Martin takes a bottle off the line to check a label, whips out a tape measure and tuts before carefully peeling the back label off and reapplying it one millimetre further up the bottle. I watch one of their colleagues lining up a ruler against a double-magnum (all the large formats are still labelled by hand), re-applying a label five times to ensure it is just right. At another station, a woman delicately rolls each bottle in translucent tissue paper, wrapping each one with the same soft touch, before gently laying each one in a case.  Uldry was set to retire at the end of last year, after 23 years at Ch. d’Yquem. Like Martin, she’s seen much change at the estate, with its evolution under LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy), who have invested greatly since they purchased the property in 1999. She recalls how they used to wash the bottles by hand, and the machinery was much clunkier – whereas now it is a very slick operation, with standards higher than ever before.  There was a period when the château did a lot of reconditioning – old vintages would be sent back to them to be checked, authenticated, topped up and re-corked, as well as possibly re-labelled, before being sent back to a merchant or collector. As such, both Martin and Uldry have seen some extraordinarily old bottles, and – luckily for them – had the chance to taste some of them. Martin tasted 1921, while Uldry’s experience stretches back to the 1904 vintage – wines that they struggle to find words to describe. I recall Sandrine Garbay telling me about a bottle from the 19th century that was in a cellar in Spain, but was accidentally broken, and the sommelier team urgently called the château, cradling the bottle as they drove up to Bordeaux, desperate to save the precious wine.  “It's a source of pride that these bottles go all over the world,” Uldry says, when I ask about the ultimate destination of the wine that passes through their hands. They’re well aware of the value of the wine they’re handling, the impact of any breakage, and how crucial their role is. It is, after all, the final step for these bottles before they leave the estate, heading out into the world as ambassadors for the Yquem legacy. And many of the bottles, if not most, of the 2021 vintage (which has just been released) will outlive those that made it. As Martin says, their work isn’t about today – but tomorrow: “We’re leaving it for the generations that follow.” Explore all current listings of Ch. d’Yquem or read more about Bordeaux  

To craft world-class wine, every stage of production demands an obsessive attention to detail – and it’s just so at Ch. d’Yquem. In the latest instalment of our series taking you behind the scenes in Bordeaux, we talk to those who ensure every bottle of liquid gold is nothing less than perfect 

Exploring the art and craft of labelling each and every bottle of liquid gold from top Sauternes estate, Ch. d’Yquem – the world’s best sweet wine 

Gilding the future at Ch. d’Yquem

 Gilding the future: Ch. d’Yquem    

The most famous vineyard in Argentina is named after Dr Adrianna Catena, who is the youngest daughter of pioneering vigneron Nicolás Catena Zapata. As well as her viticultural endeavours at Catena Zapata and her partnership with Alejandro Vigil as co-founder of the cult Argentine winery El Enemigo, she is a practicing historian.  Her area of interest is the 15th and 16th century Americas – a time when wine (and the vine) were first introduced to the continent following the Spanish conquest. The pivotal role of wine in Catholic ritual, and the dangers associated with drinking fresh water, she believes, would shape the development of wine production in the Americas. For Catena, the intimate relationship between wine and water continues to play a central role in shaping Mendoza’s social landscape.  The history of water and wine in South America is a fascinating topic for Catena. Although her PhD thesis focused on the trade in indigo dye from the Americas to Europe, her attachment to wine – as well as the very real concerns of water scarcity in Mendoza – are subjects important to her as a historian and as a vigneron. Through the Catena Institute of Wine (CIW), the Catena Zapata winery has pioneered research in viticulture across a broad rand of topics. It includes ground-breaking work on terroir, ageability, and soil biodiversity, as well as in depth studies on extreme elevation vine growing in a context of changing climatic conditions – but some of their most pressing work centres around water preservation.  “Water preservation is one of our most important areas of research today,” says Catena. “Organic farming is easier in the very dry climate of Mendoza, than in Bordeaux, where higher rainfall and relative humidity mean vineyards will be more susceptible to fungal diseases – for us, when it comes to a sustainable future and regenerative farming, water preservation is key.” Catena Zapata’s head viticulturalist Luis Reginato is nicknamed “the water guy” at Catena – such is his obsession.  “He’s always trialing new, experimental ways to save water.” But she notes, the region has a long successful history of water management for Reginato to tap into. “The irrigation systems developed by the native Huarpe people before the arrival of Europeans were key to successful agriculture in the region, and these systems are still in use today,” says Catena.  For centuries, irrigation channels and aqueducts have diverted water from the Andes mountains to terrace lower Andes farmlands, bringing fresh drinking water to the cities. The Incas, Catena says, whose power extended briefly to this region, were quite unique among early modern empires in the quality of their nutrition and a notable absence of famine – made possible by terraced agriculture on the Andean slopes and complex irrigation systems.  While advanced water networks had been essential to pre-Hispanic and later colonial agriculture, Europeans treated drinking water with caution. “Up until the last century, it was a common belief that water, especially in exotic or tropical regions, could be bad for your health,” says Catena. “Contaminated water could (and can still) kill you and was considered extremely dangerous.” Wine in many parts of Europe (and the Americas, following the Spanish conquest) along with ales and beer, was often considered a safer option. Where they felt there was no access to clean water, wine became an essential part of the diet.  Wine was a key European import in the early days of the Spanish conquest, notes Catena. And for the Spaniards, it was not without its health benefits. “During this period, medicine was humoral, people believed everything you ingested would affect your mood, health, and disposition,” she explains. “In one claim from the time, ‘vino‘ (wine) came from the word ’vena‘ (vein) – it was considered nourishing, and closely resembles blood and was associated with this. Some believed it fortified the veins.”  But, as Catena explains, wine was more than a health benefit for the conquistador. “Wine was also an essential symbol of Christianity and Christianity was a moving force in the Spanish conquest.” The conquest of Mexico would roughly coincide with the start of Luther’s Reformation.  The Spanish, for their part, wanted to secure a triumph for Catholicism, and in the inhabitants of the new world, saw millions of souls to fill their ranks against the Protestants. “It was the conquistador’s mission,” she says. “Behind the conquest was a big effort to convert the native population.” Catena explains how wine – as with wheat – was a highly symbolic food for Christianity, representing the blood of Christ.  “If you are trying to convert an entire native population to Catholicism, rituals will be fundamental,” she says. Wine had always held a central role in religious ritual and was key to the religious side of the Conquest. Conquistadors, she explains, had to build a church on their land after being awarded territory by the Crown for their service – and they were also made responsible for converting the indigenous population. “In this quest, as one historian put it, to advance the religious and territorial conquest – the two basic foods the Spanish needed were wheat and wine.” Initially, all wine was imported from Europe, but vines were swiftly introduced and acclimated. By the 1570s vineyards had been planted all over South America, albeit under strict regulations. Priests, for example, were allowed to plant vineyards – but there was a lot of legislation over who could and couldn’t grow grapes. By the 1570s vineyards had been planted all over the Americas.  For health, religious and cultural reasons, everyone drank wine in 16th and 17th century South America – it was part of the diet, explains Catena. But as the influence of humoral medicine waned following the Enlightenment – and better sanitation practices were discovered – the perceived symbolic benefits of wine declined. As the population grew exponentially in the 19th century, so did wine production in Argentina. Italian and Spanish immigrants arrived on the continent, leaving behind their famine-stricken homelands. “Wine consumption reached extraordinary levels,” says Catena, “particularly with the development of the railways.” This new technology enabled the speedy, efficient transportation of wine from producing regions to the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. Nicola Catena was one such immigrant, who arrived in Mendoza in 1898 at the age of 17, planting his first vineyard in 1902. A native of Le Marche, from a family of vinegrowers, it was not so surprising that Catena went into wine production.  While Mendoza is much like a desert with very little rainfall (between 200 and 400 mm per year), the irrigation channels developed by the indigenous Huarpe people (a nation periodically under Inca rule), were used to divert snow melt from the Andes, enabling farmers to flood farmland when required, making viticulture possible. By the time Nicola’s son Domingo Catena took over, the family had become renowned winemakers in Mendoza. In more modern times, wine and water’s relationship has changed considerably. Wine in many instances has become a luxury and no longer an essential part of the diet – although Catena says that culturally wine remains a common sight at every meal in Argentina.  Under the guardianship of Nicolás Catena and now his daughter Laura, Catena Zapata has become among a growing number of quality-led producers in Mendoza whose wines compete with the finest in the world. Their top wines – Mundus Bacillus Terrae and Nicolás Catena – led the charge in putting Mendoza on the fine wine map. Water too is no longer viewed with as much caution, but nor is it taken for granted. It barely rains at all in Mendoza – with the region effectively a high-altitude desert. Without snowmelt from the mountains, agriculture here would be impossible, but glacial reserves in Argentina are decreasing. With climate change, water in these parts will no longer be simply available at the turn of a tap. “The preservation of water has become an important concern of winemaking in Mendoza. This is one of the most urgent questions for our region today,” says Catena. Ongoing research at Catena includes many water-saving experiments. “More than a decade ago we transitioned all our vineyards from the traditional, but wasteful system of flood irrigation, to drip irrigation. Since then, we’ve created reservoirs to capture rainwater, and set up water stations to measure and restrict irrigation to the bare minimum in our family vineyards.” For Catena, “these small changes can have a large and lasting impact.” The goal at Catena is to manage a regenerative and sustainable agricultural cycle. Catena notes how the Incas were able to transform their environment without causing irreparable damage to it. “We can inhabit this earth without being parasitical,” she says. As members of a larger viticultural community, Catena hopes to share the lessons it has learned from its research, to enable this region that has been shaped by water and wine to continue making high-quality wine centuries from now. Optimistically she says, “We believe we are at a tipping point, and the mindset is gathering momentum here more than ever before.” Since wine was introduced to the continent in the 16th century, there have been huge cultural changes. But the irrigation systems that allowed those first vines to grow remain in use, feeding the countless vineyards, often centuries old. Without water, there will be no wine. With Argentinian wine so popular around the world today, a lot rides on Catena Zapata’s research. The hope is that they can lead the charge, shaping a bright future for this region. Browse all listings from Catena Zapata and El Enemigo or read more Editorial 

Dr Adrianna Catena – of Catena Zapata and El Enemigo – is not just a winemaker, but a practicing historian. We sat down with her to talk about how wine shaped South America’s social landscape and how water conservation and sustainable irrigation practices will secure its future.

Dr Adrianna Catena from Catena Zapata and El Enemigo on the historical importance of water and wine in the Americas.

Talking to historian and vigneron Adrianna Catena

How water and wine shaped a civilisation: Adrianna Catena

For good or for bad, the 2021 was a vigneron’s vintage, a year that required every bit of nous to circumnavigate the many issues that plagued the growing season. With an early budbreak and one of the latest harvests on record, it was a long and exhausting vintage for everyone involved. This was by no means a vintage that made itself – and its success was determined by the actions of man not nature. Whereas normally there tends to be quite a bit of variation between the sub-regions of Bordeaux throughout the growing season, in 2021 things were decisively challenging everywhere. All were initially threatened by frost, followed by mildew pressure, excessive rainfall in June, cool summer temperatures and a general lack of sunshine throughout the spring and summer months – only to be rescued in the final sunny weeks leading up to harvest. Some unlucky enough (mainly around Sauternes) also suffered hail damage prior to harvest. Despite the homogenously bad weather, the varying soils and varieties throughout the region all reacted quite heterogeneously, meaning some suffered more than others. Such were the manhours required in the vineyard in 2021, production and quality were going to be badly affected. Bear in mind this was all still at a time when Covid-19 was still a pressure point for employment, as noted by a number of wineries we visited. The mild and very wet winter brought an early and uneven budbreak, as early as 10th March in Pessac-Léognan and 15th March in Saint-Emilion – which was a full two weeks ahead of normal. This was followed by unseasonably warm weather, Ch. Figeac in Saint Emilion registered 25˚C, resulting in the vines’ quick acceleration of growth. With the vines already so advanced, the threat of spring frosts was all too apparent. Right on cue, temperatures plunged at night.  The 6th, 7th and 8th April saw black frosts cause significant damage across the region. Those worst affected in the classified sites were in Sauternes and Pessac-Léognan – with some châteaux in Sauternes witnessing their entire crop wiped out. The threat of frost was a prolonged agony for many, lasting right up until the 5th May, with temperatures recorded as low as -5˚C. For the Moueix estates in Pomerol, the combination of wind turbines and smudge candles could raise the temperature in the vineyard up by 2˚C – enough to protect the grapes. Other properties without such resources weren’t so lucky. Ch. Margaux's white wine vineyard is famously susceptible to frost. After installing a sprinkler system throughout the whole 8.5 hectares, the system malfunctioned, not working on 1.5 hectares where they lost everything (fortunately the remaining seven escaped harm). The frost damage was far from democratic, with estates within the same appellation seeing widely different levels of damage. As always, the châteaux on the Left Bank closest to the Gironde such as Ch. Léoville Las Cases and Latour came away largely untouched by the frost. Further north in Saint-Éstephe, châteaux such as Calon-Ségur and Montrose were also unaffected – not just due to their close proximity to the river. The cooler clay-rich soils of the appellation mean budburst is always delayed, and with the vines not as advanced, damage was limited. The risk of frost threatened Saint-Emilion for 10 days straight and led to a huge amount of work in the vineyards protecting the vines. The vineyards on the lower plains were worst affected, Croix Canon for instance, while Ch. Canon and neighbouring Ch. Berliquet up on the limestone plateau were spared, due to the vineyards’ fortunate south/south-west exposition – the brow of the hill protecting the vines from the freezing northeasterly winds. Vines basking in the sun at Ch. Latour If there was one moment of calm throughout the 2021 growing season, it came at flowering. Clement, dry weather engendered successful flowering, though rains arrived at fruit-set, leading to coulure for the Merlot. A huge deluge fell in June – as much as three times the month’s average rainfall. The damp, cloudy conditions saw the widespread outbreak of mildew that remained throughout June, July and into August. Bordeaux’s proximity to the Atlantic and the naturally high levels of humidity this brings have always made it susceptible to mildew, but for many vignerons we spoke to, this was the worst outbreak they had ever seen. The poor climatic conditions saw coulure and millerandage (the development of fewer and differently sized berries) badly affecting the Merlot on the Left Bank. This is why you’ll see such high proportions of Cabernet Sauvignon in the blends this year – with Cabernet being much less susceptible to both conditions. Despite the blanket attack of mildew, its effects varied from property to property. Ch. Margaux believed the mildew outbreak was the worst they had ever seen, yet for them, it never reached the grapes, only the canopy – allowing them to protect the fruit from damage. Perhaps their largely Cabernet Sauvignon plots made it easier to protect; Merlot certainly wasn’t so lucky. Further north in Saint-Julien, Ch. Ducru-Beaucaillou chose to leave the grass cover throughout the growing season to soak up the humidity and reduce the rain splash which spreads the mildew to the vines. Many sprays later and the yields were still significantly impacted; their Grand Vin is 98% Cabernet Sauvignon (the highest proportion ever) and production is the lowest on record, cropping at 20hl/ha. Ch. Pontet-Canet in Pauillac was devastated by mildew in 2018, losing two thirds of their crop. Despite the bigger outbreak in 2021, production was down only 15% – clearly having learnt how to better cope with the issue. The estate’s Justine Tesseron emphasised that you had to react fast to protect the grapes – you had to get out into the vineyards immediately after each rain episode to stop the spread. It was the year their newly built “tisanerie” came to the rescue, making them much more efficient in preparing their biodynamic sprays and reducing the overall impact. Many estates including Ch. Cos d’Estournel and Calon-Ségur carried out early de-leafing to reduce the impact of the disease. It was a huge risk. If the climate switched to more intense sunshine, the crop would have suffered significant sunburn. But the intensity of the sun, fortunately for them, was never that strong. With such high levels of rainfall in the summer months, the vignerons faced their next issue – a slow and uneven véraison. That moment where the energy of the vine switches from producing its canopy to ripening the grape is set off by a period of hydric stress – something which was not forthcoming in 2021. An event that typically takes place over two weeks was spread over four. The high rainfall also meant bigger berries and dilution was a concern, particularly as they edged towards harvest, worried the skins could burst and rot would set in. Fortunately, things finally started to dry up in August and, while temperatures remained mild, the grapes pushed through véraison. The September weather finally brought some hope for the vintage and, according to many vignerons, was their saviour. Sunny days and cool nights were ideal for grapes to concentrate, retaining freshness, while producing the beguiling aromatics that are so distinct in the 2021 wines. There was a little more rain in mid-September, most notably in the Médoc, which brought concern over rot, but any significant damage was held off by a dry and sunny October. Smudge pots or "bougies" between the vines, on hand to offer protection against frost The northern appellation of Saint-Estèphe was noticeably drier than appellations to its south, with hydric stress starting in July and “perfect weather” followed in August according to Ch. Montrose’s Lorraine Watrin. She compared the growing season to 2014, which was particularly successful in the appellation. By the end of September, throughout the regions, most of the Merlot was picked. Of course, the Sauvignon Blanc and Sémillon grapes, capable of growing in much cooler, wetter conditions, were much less affected by all of Mother Nature’s shenanigans. For the estates that avoided the frost, the whites reached good volumes and the fresh temperatures of the growing season proved ideal for the varieties. The whites were largely picked in the first two weeks of September and the top examples proved exceptional. For the reds, Mother Nature had one more card to play. Weather forecasts for the first weekend in October predicted heavy storms and more rainfall. With the large berries close to ripeness, a heavy storm could decimate the later-ripening Cabernets and would prove catastrophic for many on both the Left and Right Bank who rely on large proportions of Cabernet in their wines. With little choice, most ran the risk, and held out picking until the storms passed. Thankfully Mother Nature’s trump card was never played. Amazingly, the forecasters got it wrong, and the storms never came. Finally, the Cabernet was picked under sunny skies. Many châteaux such as Calon-Ségur held out as long as possible and were harvesting right up until 13th October – their latest harvest since 2012. What is extraordinary about the 2021 vintage is the complete inverse effects of the previous three years. Three vintages of relative drought, plagued with concerns over rising sugar/ alcohol levels, vines blocked from maturation due to hydric stress, and a genuine concern that the wines would lack full phenolic maturity, due to the compacted ripening season. Every one of these concerns was turned on its head in 2021, producing wines that are the opposite of the 2018, 2019 and 2020s. This unique season has put technology advances in Bordeaux to the test – from weather stations, UV boosting to state-of-the-art machinery – and at its best, they’ve defied the odds. A couple of decades ago, a growing season like 2021 would have produced very little wine at all, but today the Bordelais have proven that man can – at least for now – manage almost everything Mother Nature throws at them. And, most importantly, still produce wines of striking finesse and aromatic charm. Read more Editorial 

Man versus Mother Nature: The 2021 growing season in Bordeaux was in complete contrast to the previous three vintages. Gavin Smith runs through the key moments that shaped this unique year

Everything you need to know about the 2021 growing season in Bordeaux, how the best chateaux managed it – and how it impacted the style of the wines produced

Bordeaux 2021 en primeur - the growing season

 Bordeaux 2021: the growing season

It all started, as the best things in life often do, with a glass of wine and something of an epiphany. Budding Shanghai-based chef, Alex Xu, was holidaying with his then-girlfriend (now his wife) in New Zealand in 2012. It was their first trip together, and the pair had decided to do some tastings at wineries in Central Otago and Marlborough. One particular Pinot Noir they encountered awoke something in Xu. He didn’t know it at the time, but this was the first in a series of wine-tasting experiences that would change the course of his life. “We were on a tastings tour,” recalls Xu of the seminal moment. “There was a group of us travelling from winery to winery on a bus, but when we got to Aurum in Cromwell, our last stop of the day, the owner, Brook Lawrence, came and really spent some time with us. He walked and talked us through the vineyards, we tasted out of a barrel, and he opened a few bottles to taste. He talked about – in a very straightforward way – why each wine tasted a bit different even though they were all from the same parcel, essentially. He spoke to us about how there were different approaches to making wine from using whole-cluster or de-stemmed grapes, to oak, to length in barrel.” Sipping the wine as Lawrence spoke about the various methodologies and decisions that contribute to its flavour, made Xu realise in that moment, that the way wine is made – grown, picked and then prepared and vinified – is similar to the way a chef works. “I remember thinking, ‘Oh, making wine is like farming and cooking, but maybe the cycle is a bit longer.’” How flavours and textures work to deliver deliciousness in food is something that Xu was increasingly fascinated by, but his experience at Aurum that afternoon in 2012, opened his mind to the complexity of winemaking and the different elements at play in the glass and on his palate. “It was so fascinating to me to taste a wine made using 100% whole cluster and then compare it to essentially the same wine made using de-stemmed grapes. It was probably the first time I tasted wine and was simultaneously aware of how it was made. We’d visited maybe three wineries before Aurum, and I really remember how the tannins were entirely different, texturally, from anything else we had tasted. Those whole-cluster wines were much more expressive and seductive to me – specifically Aurum’s Madeleine Pinot Noir. It was spiced, really floral, lifted and bright. I already knew that I loved Pinot Noir, but that was a real ‘wow’ moment.” Shortly afterwards, Xu signed up to WSET, not because he knew he wanted to be a wine professional, “but simply to understand better what I was tasting and why I was enjoying those things,” he explains. The principles and tasting techniques he started to adopt soon began to feed into his approach to cooking.  “It gave me a kind of mental grid to help evaluate wines – colour, aroma, flavours, acidity, alcohol, tannin, body, intensity, complexity, length,” he explains. “On one super fun R&D trip to Tokyo to learn as much as I could about ramen, I applied that kind of thinking and rigour to how I evaluated a whole bunch of different varieties.” His interest in wine, it would seem, was sharpening Xu’s critical faculties and improving his ability to identify and appraise different elements of flavour. In 2015, just as he was making the final preparations to open his restaurant, Baoism, in Shanghai, Xu became ill with mononucleosis (glandular fever). Locked in a fever for days, he decided to head to the countryside to recuperate. More specifically, to his family’s country retreat in Yuhu Village in the foothills of the Jade Dragon Snow Mountain in rural Yunnan. Yunnan is one of China’s most southwestern provinces, lying south of Sichuan and bordering Tibet to the northwest, Myanmar to the west, and Laos and Vietnam to the south. There’s no heavy industry, making Yunnan one of the least polluted corners of China. Instead, its 394,000 square kilometres encompass snow-capped mountains, rice terraces, lakes, forests and agricultural land.  Xu describes Yunnan as ‘China’s breadbasket’, explaining that the variation across the province in elevation and climate means that the region enjoys a long growing season, yielding all kinds of gastronomic wonders that are prized throughout the country and beyond. As well as the tea, coffee and tobacco of central Yunnan, the province is probably best known for the wide variety of mushrooms it produces. Wild morels, porcini, truffles and a mushroom called matsutake or ‘pine mushroom’ in Japanese. Yunnan still exports tonnes upon tonnes of them to Japan each year, although they’re also enjoyed locally, sliced very thin and dipped in soy sauce and wasabi. The food of Yunnan reflects many influences. “I’m Han Chinese and that’s the majority ethnic group,” explains Xu, “but we have, I think, 25 different ethnic minorities in Yunnan. There are Tibetans, Laotians, ethnic Thai, ethnic Leong – and that’s just the tip of the cultural diversity iceberg. And even though we’re pretty far from Vietnam and Laos here in the Northwest, we still have a lot of lime and mint here. In the summer, the sun is really intense because of the high UV radiation at the altitude, so we eat a lot of foods that are very fresh. Our cuisine puts a lot of value on nuance and delicate complexity, rather than power and spice.” Xu’s Shanghai-resident parents holidayed in Yunnan in the early 2000s and fell in love with Yuhu Village. On discovering there was no running water, they helped the villagers build a pipeline from a glacier atop the mountain, and as a show of thanks, the villagers gave them some land on which they built a house.  Despite the abundance of beautiful fresh produce grown elsewhere in the province, the landscape around Yuhu Village is almost completely devoid of agriculture due to the barrenness of the soil. But its wide-open spaces and fresh mountain air (at an elevation of 2,800 metres) were the perfect tonic for Xu’s mononucleosis recovery. Within two days, he shook off the blanket under which he had been shivering for weeks and, almost suddenly, was back to rude health and able to enjoy being out in the sunshine and open countryside. And that’s when he saw something he’d never seen before: a group of villagers digging melon-sized rocks out of the ground. “I asked my friend what was going on,” says Xu, “and he explained that the rocky soil is so poor and so bad at retaining water that nothing really grows. So instead of harvesting crops, the locals dig up rocks that can be used for building projects.” Sloping landscape, poor and rocky soil, cool climate – something clicked in the back of Xu’s mind. “I remember thinking ‘Maybe we could plant vineyards here.’ It’s weird because there are no vineyards in that part of Yunnan, and I had never considered planting vines or making wine until that very moment.” Two weeks later, Xu was back in Shanghai, busier than ever as the head chef and proprietor of his just-opened restaurant. But he had made some calls, reaching out to friends about his ‘crazy idea’. He was introduced to David Tyney, an Australian viticultural consultant who had been working in New Zealand for around 15 years. Over the next 12 months, also working with Simon Clark and Feng Liu, they collaborated to establish whether or not growing vines would be feasible – installing a weather station, analysing soil samples and, ultimately, identifying a small parcel of land outside Xu’s village that had potential. Xu planted vines in May 2017 knowing that, at some point, he’d have to choose between the restaurant and the vineyard project. When his landlord got in touch later in the year to say that he was upping the rent at Baoism, it made the decision easier than anticipated. Now able to focus solely on the vineyard, Xu asked his viticultural consultant the best and fastest way to learn about making wine. The answer came: “Work vintages”. The memory of the Pinot Noirs he had tasted at Aurum called him back to New Zealand, where husband and wife team Brook and Lucie Lawrence welcomed Xu’s request to come and work the 2017 harvest with them as their only additional help managing their four-hectare site. “I’d heard from my consultants that making wine is very much like working in a kitchen,” says Xu. “It’s mostly cleaning but I would be there to work hard, observe and absorb. I was already used to a world where cleaning and physical labour were very much part of the job, but what I found on my first vintage, working with Lucie and Brook, was that winemaking has this incredible combination of intellectual curiosity and satisfaction.  You’re constantly thinking about how and why, trialling different things here and there, understanding how different viticultural or vinification decisions affect what ends up in the glass. Plus, you have this real satisfaction from doing physical labour that you don’t get in a lot of work. It had a pace that was a little bit slower than restaurants – still very intense – but it felt more sustainable. And at Aurum I saw that when people are really good at what they do, they kind of glide around the winery, the way great chefs glide around their kitchens. It made me want to become better. I understood that that’s what I want to be like, and I understood how the work would appeal to me. I also learned that this was a real business – that I couldn’t just throw myself into it without giving it proper respect.” One of Xu’s big learnings at Aurum was about quality over quantity. “They’d been hit hard in the economic crisis of 2008 and had to shed 10 hectares of their site, leaving them with just four. So they were down to bare bones. What they were doing, if they got it right, would just about support them.” A sobering thought, but Xu was inspired.  Despite the pressure they were under to make it work, he admired the decisions Brook and Lucie made in the field, in the winery and beyond. For example, as part of their uncompromising focus on quality, they held on to bottles for the amount of time they felt was necessary before releasing them. “While I was there, one of their 2014 Pinots (they make three) won Best Pinot Noir in New Zealand,” says Xu. “It was a testament to how good they are as winemakers.” Perhaps unsurprisingly, Xu trusted his tastebuds to lead him to his next vintage experience. In 2015, he had attended a blind tasting event in Hong Kong hosted by Jancis Robinson MW. One wine stood out. “The theme of the event was to blind taste Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines from across the world,” says Xu, “and I look up to Jancis immensely, so I felt I had to be there. As everyone does at some point or another, Jancis called one wine completely wrong. What she had called as ‘a great, great white Burgundy’, turned out to be a Quartz Chardonnay by Australian winery, Bindi. When it was revealed, Jancis wasn’t surprised: ‘It’s a Bindi? Of course, that makes sense,’ and she spoke about how serious the work is there and how great the winemakers are.” As Xu contemplated the delicious liquid in his glass, he found himself thinking what a triumph it was for New World wine; that it in the unprejudiced environment of a blind tasting event, the Jancis Robinson had put an Aussie Chardonnay in the same quality bracket as top white Burgundy.  Having sought out and enjoyed Bindi wines on several subsequent occasions, Xu applied to work the 2018 vintage with owner-winemaker Michael Dhillon. Though almost twice as big in size as Aurum’s, Bindi’s operation was still small enough for Xu to have a hand in everything during the vintage. And beyond the day-to-day harvest and winemaking work, Xu got to taste and discuss wines with Michael and his family in the evenings. “What was wonderful at Bindi was, because I was living with the family, I cooked a lot for them – almost every night – and they opened a lot of very special bottles. I found that so valuable; that they shared so many incredible wines with me, that we talked about them, and they were able to articulate why those wines appealed to them. And the wines weren’t all monolithic, there was quite a bit of variation in how the wines were built, structurally, even in the grape varieties, but you could see that Michael had a very clear idea of what he valued, of what mattered in wine to him. I realised that I needed to do that too, that my responsibility to my work, to my dream, wasn’t just about becoming a technician – simply knowing how to make wine – because that’s not enough. I needed to figure out what matters to me, to understand it and to be able to articulate it, and to evaluate wine from that vantage point.” Xu still speaks to Dhillon regularly, having gained a mentor as well as invaluable experience. He has also stayed in touch with Brook and Lucie at Aurum. In fact, when he mentioned to them that he was keen to do a vintage at Domaine Dujac in Burgundy, they told Xu that they knew the Seysses family personally, and would be happy to write a recommendation. They did, and Xu was offered a spot on Dujac’s 2018 harvest crew. “That was such a nice moment for me and a really great example of how people in the wine industry are much less directly competitive than people in restaurants,” says Xu. “There’s a much greater sense of sharing knowledge, and I love that. It’s still amazing to me, not just how much information the best winemakers in the world are willing to share about how they make their secret sauce, but also that they’re willing to go out of their way to help people like me find opportunities to learn and grow.” Xu’s winemaking learning curve and his palate education continued apace at Dujac under the tutelage of Jeremy Seysses and his wife Diana (who splits her time between Dujac and Napa where she is the winemaker at both her family vineyard, Snowden, and Ashes & Diamonds). Xu was one of just four stagiaires along with a sommelier from a 3-star Michelin restaurant in New York and a young but experienced Australian couple, who were all encouraged to take it in turns to choose four bottles from the cellars to open in the evenings after a hard day’s work.  “They would give us the inventory for the cellar and say ‘Ok, pick four wines and we’ll blind taste them.’ It was so much fun! We would taste and talk – and the really cool thing was that most of the wines we were trying were made by the family’s friends at neighbouring domaines. When you blind taste with people, you start to understand what they like, what they don’t like, and particularly how they think about wine. Because we were in the winery tasting the fermenting wines every day, and also out of barrels – when it came to tasting these amazing bottles every evening, we really got a sense of what Jeremy and his father Jacques valued in wine. It was such a privilege – so many wines I’ll never taste again but will remember forever.” Xu particularly remembers the wine he tasted on the evening of Jeremy’s birthday. Diana asked him to cook a special birthday meal (Chinese dumplings from scratch), while Jeremy brought up some very special bottles from the cellar. Two bottles of La Tâche – a 1966 and a ’72 – for starters, and Xu’s eyes glaze over at the memory of them. “Those wines were magical to me. First of all, the Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) bottles in the Dujac cellars are direct exchanges because the families are close. Aubert de Villaine is the godfather of Jeremy’s son – he came to lunch one day, and I think I was slack-jawed the entire time – but you know, those wines had entered the cellars in the 60s and not moved. Talk about pristine storage conditions – they’d travelled only a few kilometres to get there! The next thing to say is that these tasting experiences were my first with Pinot Noir that old – around 50 years.  Tasting them was mind-blowing as I had no concept of what it would look and taste like at that age, but simultaneously a validation of all the things that I love about Pinot Noir. 1966 was one of those years, a bit like 2017, where the vintage produced wines that people just drank straight out the gate as it was so delicious.  People didn’t really know if wine like that would fare well over time. But tasting it confirmed that the ’66 La Tâche had retained the balance it started with. Yes, it had gained all the savoury, leather and undergrowth characteristics, but all the purity of fruit and aromatic expressiveness and complexity still formed the core of the wine. But maybe the roses had gone from fresh to dried, and strawberries from fresh to gently baked – but the sweetness and succulence, the perfume and the spice, everything was still there. The ’72 was interesting too because, unlike the ’66, it was a really difficult vintage. And yet the wine had aged remarkably gracefully – all the elements were there, it was just a bit quieter perhaps, less intense than the ’66.” Xu also remembers Jeremy opening a magnum of 1964 Clos de la Pousse d’Or – the first vintage made by Gérard Potel whom Jeremy’s father, Jacques, had worked with and learned a lot from. “The magnum was pristine, and the wine exhibited all the things I love about Burgundy: perfume, texture, massive complexity and spice. You know that way that Pinot Noir can be weightless without being light or lacking intensity or energy? It had this weightless intensity and a savoury complexity that was just stunning. So beautiful.” Through the wines Xu was tasting, he wasn’t just building a vision for the kinds of wine he hopes to make in Yunnan, he was starting to understand something much more profound – the kind of life in wine he wants to make for himself. At the end of his season at Dujac, when Jeremy asked him if he wanted to visit some other Burgundy domaines to do some tasting and maybe think about where next to approach to do a vintage (as a result of the subsequent tastings – and Dujac’s influence – Xu worked the 2019 vintage with Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey), Xu had perhaps the biggest epiphany on his wine adventure to date. He knew that he didn’t just want to nurture fruit on the vine and turn it into wine, but also – like his own mentors – nurture and encourage like-minded people to follow their noses, awaken and educate their palates, and start their own wine adventures. With just under three hectares of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines planted on the south-facing slopes of his Miao Lu vineyard in Yunnan, Xu is fully committed to maintaining more than a flow of vinified grape juice in the coming years. The knowledge and passion that flows freely around the vigneron’s dinner table, and the convivial spirit of generosity Xu discovered at each world-class winery, are just as important to his vision for Miao Lu. Yes, making exquisite, thoughtful wine with love and care is vital – but so too is the culture of sharing, savouring and celebrating good wine in good company, and raising a well-nosed glass – as often as possible – to hard work, friendship, and the magic you simply can’t bottle. This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue One

FONDATA’s Gavin Lucas speaks to the restaurateur-turned-winegrower Alex Xu about the series of epiphanic moments in the company of great winemakers that completely reshaped his future

Restaurateur-turned-winegrower Alex Xu shares the series of epiphanic moments with great winemakers that completely reshaped his future

FONDATA: Epiphany Wines

Epiphany Wines 

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