We spent last weekend at Château de la Bonnelière in Chinon.  Surrounded by the beautiful Loire Valley countryside and under a blue sky, we met up with some of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience clients for the first Harvest Experience Day at the winery.

The aim of this wine course is to discover what it's like to be a winemaker in a very practical and fun way. It's a sharing of knowledge between the winemaker and the clients, who learn in-situ the different facets of the profession by rolling up their sleeves and actively participating in the work themselves!

Following the introduction from Marc Plouzeau, the owner and winemaker at Château de la Bonnelière, we started the day with another introduction, that of the adopted vines!  Included in each client's Wine Experience are a number of adopt-a-vines.  At the beginning of each row of vines, a small personalised sign indicates the owner of the adopted vines, providing a photo opportunity to immortalise the moment in front of the vines, laden with ripe grapes!

But we weren't there just to take photos!  Marc had brought us a van full of crates, which we then distributed among the rows.

Marc showed us how to harvest; which grapes to cut and which to leave behind. At Château de la Bonnelière, the sorting of the grapes is done in the vineyard at the time of harvesting, and not on the sorting table, as is the custom in some wineries. It's therefore very important to only harvest the ripe grapes to ensure the quality of the wine to follow!

Secateurs and baskets in hand, we spread out among the vines in teams of two to start the harvest!

The vines at Château de la Bonnelière are bursting with grapes this year and the fruit is looking very healthy despite the wet end to the summer that the region suffered. The smile on Marc's face showed that he was happy with the condition of the grapes. It's the end of another cycle in the vineyard, but many hours, much energy and devotion have been spent in the vineyard since the last harvest to get to this point. The vine is a creeper plant, and so can grow all by itself, but to ensure that the grapes contain enough sugar to make a quality wine, it demands lots of work, especially when they are cultivated organically.

The baskets filled up quickly! Once full, we transferred the grapes into the crates before moving onto the next vines in the row.

At the end of the morning, all of the crates had been filled! A tractor was waiting for us at the edge of the vineyard, and we loaded our precious harvest onto the trailer. We were surprised to learn from Marc that we our efforts represented roughly 1000 bottles! Not bad at all, especially as it was the first harvest for each of the clients!

Following our grapes, we arrived at the chai to put our harvest into the fermentation tanks ourselves!

Again in teams of two we emptied the crates into the de-stemming machine, which separates the grapes from the stalks. 

The grapes fall into a trolley underneath the machine and the stems fall the other side into a large bucket. The stems will be used as compost and spread among the vines to return some of the nutrients to the soil.

With the help of a forklift truck, the whole grape berries are then put into the top of the vats, where the fermentation will start to turn the sugar into alcohol.

All of this work had made us thirsty, so back to the winery to taste some of the estate's wines around a few old wooden wine barrels.  Accompanied by some locally-made rillettes, we tasted the Touraine Sauvignon 2010 white wine, followed by a Chinon rosé 2010.

We then sat down in the shade to savour the delicious meal, prepared by Madame Plouzeau, Marc's mother. The tomato salad will be remembered for a very long time to come ! The tomatoes were picked just a few hundred metres away, and were truly bursting with flavor!  She had also prepared a Blanquette de Veau, a selection of local Loire cheeses and an apple and rhubarb crumble. And of course we had some wine to accompany these delicacies; a Chinon "Rive Gauche" 2009, a Chinon "Château de la Bonnelière" 2009, and the 2009 and 2008 vintages of the Chinon "Chapelle".

After the meal, there was still some work to be done, so we headed back to the chai.  In the fermentation tanks, the grape skins rise to the top to form a cap above the liquid. It's the skin however that gives the colour and much of the wine's structure through the tanins that it contains. It's therefore vital to mix the liquid and the skins. There are various ways to do this. You can push the skin down into the liquid using the "pigeage" technique, or you can do the opposite by taking the liquid from the bottom of the vat and putting it back in the top so that the juice extracts the colour and tannins from the skin as it passes through the cap. This is method is called "remontage".

During the first stages of fermentation, Marc prefers remontage. To do so, we put a big bucket in front of the vat, and opened a tap to let the juice flow into it. We then put in place the tubes and pump to carry the liquid into the top of the vat.

We couldn't leave without tasting the fruit of our labour, so we ended the day by tasting a cabernet franc that had been harvested a few days before and so the fermentation had already started. This lightly fermented grape juice is called "Bernache" in the region. We then compared it to a cabernet franc rosé where the fermentation was already more advanced.

Sincere thanks to all those who came and particularly to Marc for having showed us behind the scenes during the busy harvest period.  We can't wait until the next Wine Experience Day!

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We had to be flexible last Saturday with the Wine Discovery Experience Day at Domaine Chapelle to avoid a few showers, but that didn't stop us having a good time all the same!

We started off with a little stroll through the vines.  Jean-François Chapelle explained what makes the Burgundy terroir so special, and showed us the geological differences between the vineyards that make up Santenay village, Santenay Premier Cru and the plots used for the Burgundy Pinot Noir.

We climbed up to one of Domaine Chapelle's Premier Cru vineyards, Beaurepaire.  Some of the old vines in this vineyard have recently been dug up, so Jean-François explained how his team removed the vines and roots, and how the plot will be sowed with mustard to regenerate the soil before the new vines are planted.

The first rain shower arrived a little earlier than expected, so we scurried back to the shelter of the winery to continue our discussions on the work carried out in the vineyard, and we also visited the fermentation hall where the grapes are received at harvest time and put into the fermentation tanks.

Next up was a wine tasting of some of the white Burgundy wines from Domaine Chapelle, a Santenay "Saint Jean" 2009 and a Chassgane Montrachet Premier Cru "Les Morgeots" 2009.  The wine tasting continued over our lunch of Burgundy specialties.  First, a Santenay "Clos des Cornières" 2006, the wine chosen for the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience, then an Aloxe Corton 2007, with a Santenay Premier Cru "Beaurepaire" 2002 to finish.

After the meal, we had a new bright patch, so we headed back amongst the vines, this time to the Clos des Cornières vineyard so that everyone could get acquainted with their adopted vines!

Back at the winery, we descended through the low door to the vaulted cellar which is a real labyrinth.  Here we saw where the ageing takes place in the oak barrels, and where hundreds of thousands of bottles of wine are stored!

The Wine Experience Day finished with a visit to the labeling room, where one day next year the bottles of the 2011 vintage will be dressed with the personalised wine labels of the clients of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  But there's still lots of work to be done before then - you have to be patient in the world of wine!

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We've just spent two glorious sunny days among the Chablis vines with some of the clients of the Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience.  With Céline, Pierre and Yvonnick from Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard at our sides, we spent the day behind the scenes to get an insight into what it's like to be a winemaker!

Link to the video 

To get a better understanding of the terroir around us, we stepped out onto the terrace which overlooks the vines which encircle the winery.  It's an impressive view and the perfect spot to appreciate the difference in vineyard plots that make Petit Chablis, Chablis, Chablis Premier Cru and Chablis Grand Cru wines.

In the vineyard, Yvonnick explained to us all of the key stages in cultivating the vines, from pruning right up until the harvest.  As is the custom with our Gourmet Odyssey Wine Experience Days, the winemakers had left us some work to do!  To concentrate the energy of the vines in the fruit bearing branches and the grapes, we needed to do some "épamprage", which involves removing unwanted shoots from the vines.  These are the shoots that won't bear any fruit this year, and won't be needed when it comes to pruning to generate next year's harvest.  The other advantage of épamprage is to improve the flow of air around the grapes to help defend the vines from mildew.

After receiving our instructions from Yvonnick, we spread out among the rows of vines to get stuck in.  But we soon found out that épamprage is not quite as easy as it seems!

Each Wine Experience client is the adopted owner of some vines in the vineyard.  Their vines are identifiable by a name board placed in front of them.  Once the hunt for the vines was declared open, we set off to find them and to check that everything was in order!

The Boissonneuse vineyard, where the adopted vines are located, was the first plot to be converted to organic and biodynamic cultivation.  Yvonnick explained the difference between these two approaches, and showed us some of the plants, found at the end of the vine rows, that are used in making the biodynamic infusions and concoctions that attract unwanted insects away from the vines, or are used to strengthen the vines.

After all our efforts and all the talk about wine, the time finally came to taste some of the wines from Domaine Jean-Marc Brocard.  To get a good appreciation of the range of wines, we started the wine tasting with a Petit Chablis Sainte Claire 2010, followed by a Chablis Sainte Claire 2010, before tasting the Boissonneuse 2009, the wine chosen by Gourmet Odyssey.  We then moved on to several Chablis Premier Crus and finished with a Chablis Grand Cru Les Preuses 2009.

Once we had enjoyed a lunch from the highly acclaimed Chablis charcutier, Marc Colin, we headed down into the cool or the cellar.  Here, the Brocard family has left one of the walls exposed so that we can see the layers of limestone and marl which are the source of the distinctive aromas and taste of Chablis wines.

The day finished with a visit to the fermentation hall to see the tanks and oak vats that are used to ferment and age the wines.  After a final tasting, straight from the vats, we said our goodbyes, everyone hopefully leaving with a better understanding of the fascinating profession of a winemaker!

Link to the video 

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Last weekend saw us travel to Santenay in Burgundy for the Vinification Experience Days at Domaine Chapelle.  During each day, we participated in an in-depth wine tasting course, alongside the winemakers, to discover the key stages of fermentation and ageing of the wine, and to better understand the notion of terroir.

The Vinification Experience Day is the most technical oenology course of the wine experience days offered by Gourmet Odyssey, and most of the time is dedicated to wine tasting.  We therefore headed straight to the cuverie (fermentation hall), and after a brief explanation of how the grapes are received and put into the tanks at harvest time, we learnt more about the fermentation process.

To prepare us for the wine tasting to follow, Yannick, the Technical Director at the wine estate, had prepared a little test: four numbered cups, each containing a sugary, acidic, salty or bitter solution.  The game was to guess which was which.  Not the most appetising drinks, but as Jean-François Chapelle, the owner of the winery, told us, wine tasting is a work tool!  He also explained the importance of the five senses when tasting wines; smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing.

In the cellar, we began the tasting of the 2010 vintages, using a pipette to draw the wine directly from the barrels.  The côte de Beaune region of Burgundy uses just one grape varietal in the makeup of its wines, pinot noir for the reds and chardonnay for the whites.  The wines we tasted were chosen to highlight the difference in terroirs and the impact that the choice of oak used in the barrels has on the wines.   The first comparison was between wine from the same vines, from the same vineyard plot, and of the same age, but aged in different barrels.  The second comparison showed us the difference in terroir, comparing two Premier Crus, Santenay "La Comme" and Santenay "Beaurepaire", which hail from two different vineyards with differing geology and relief.

Climbing back up from the cellar, we stopped at the bottling machine before arriving at the final test.  This time we were presented with three wines, each coming from different plots in the same vineyard, the Clos des Cornières, where the adopted vines of the Gourmet Odyssey clients are located.  As well as their situation, the vines also varied in age, so we could also compare the impact on the wine.  One of the wines was more advanced in the ageing process than the others, one more fruity, and the last had a longer finish.  Using measuring cylinders, we played with different proportions of these three wines to make our own blends.  We tasted some great blends, but unfortunately the doses were not always remembered!

We passed the labeling machine as we headed back to the reception hall for the aperitif of Santenay white wine and gougères, a local specialty.  During the meal we tasted other regional fare such as beouf boruguignonne, and Epoisses cheese, and continued the comparisons of the estate?s wines with a Clos de Cornières 2009 and 2006, an Aloxe Corton 2007, and a Chassgane Montrachet Premier Cru 2007, before ending with an old marc de Bourgogne with the coffee.

After all that, we needed to take in some fresh air! Off we headed into the vineyard to inspect the work, and to give each person the chance to (re)introduce themselves to their adopted vines!

Thank you to all for two enriching and enlightening Vinification Experience Days.

Link to video (video available in french language only) 

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