Jérôme Roger
Jérôme Roger’s two vineyards in the Languedoc-Roussillon—the Château du Prieuré des Mourgues and the Domaine des Aspes, are in the Saint Chinian appellation northwest of Béziers. His calm manner, slightly ruddy complexion and wire-rimmed glasses may bring back memories of a studious priest who you might have had back in Sunday school. That impression is only heightened when you start to explore the Prieuré des Mourgues property. Religious statues and crosses are sprinkled throughout the grape vines. These are left over from when the land was part of the holdings of a local bishop in the1700s.
Don’t be fooled by his disarmingly gentle character, however. Roger may be a genial host, but the only overt religious fervor here nowadays is his passion for making exceptional wines. The Château du Prieuré des Mourgues has schist soil like the nearby Faugères appellation. In fact Roger would today be making Faugères wine if his grandfather hadn’t moved from Caussiniojouls, in the heart of what is now the Faugères appellation, to settle in Saint Chinian. Roger is a third-generation winemaker; he took over from his father, Marcel, in 1998. The 20-hectare estate is planted with Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre, grape varieties that thrive here. The nearby, 15-hectare Domaine des Aspes, which has clay and limestone soil, is planted with Chardonnay, Viognier and Merlot.
At a dinner organized by Les Terroiristes du Midi group, which is made up of several dozen winemakers spread across southern France, I had the opportunity to taste some of Roger’s wines. Also present at the dinner, which was held at a restaurant named Le Faitout in Berlou, a small village in the same Hérault department that also contains the Saint Chinian appellation, was Pierre-André Ournac of Château Cesseras. Both Roger and Ournac are in one of the cluster groups that belong to the main Terroiristes group.
Although its name might sound scary, Les Terroiristes (which is a play on words that combines the concept of place—terroir, and a reference to some overzealous winemakers from southern France who sometimes resort to violent action to express their displeasure) have taken an interesting, coordinated approach to raising their international profile and to increase export sales. It’s good to see people doing something positive (and with a sense of humor), so I’ll be writing more about this concept, which was developed by the international business incubator at Montpellier’s Chamber of Commerce, in a future blog article.
Le Faitout is one of those amazing restaurants that you sometimes discover in a tiny French village. There’s no way that the village population could keep such a restaurant in business, so its clientele are undoubtedly mostly summer visitors to the region or people visiting the local vineyards. The cuisine is an authentic rendition of traditional recipes from the region, presented with style (sauces artfully dripped in lines across the plates), and made from the freshest ingredients. The meal was excellent, but some of the dishes were extremely spicy, which made the tasting of the dozen or so bottles of wines on offer (from three different vineyards) sometimes difficult.
The first course was a green crab soup, followed by a plate of Coquille St. Jacques and fresh asparagus. The wine that went best with these two dishes was a 2007 Domaine des Aspes Chardonnay-Viognier Vin de Pays d’Oc. Made in stainless steel vats and then aged for five months in oak barrels, this wine combines the creamy weight and aromatic freshness of Viognier with the crisp roundness and complexity of a full-tasting Chardonnay. The wine managed to cut through the spicy soup, and it nicely accented the delicate taste of the Coquille St. Jacques. As for the asparagus—well, it’s common knowledge that it’s notoriously difficult to match a wine with asparagus.
Filet de boeuf, purée de pomme de terre with olive oil, and a purée de légumes were next. Two reds–a remarkable 2006 Château Cesseras AOC Minervois La Livinière, with red fruit, black pepper and chocolate flavors—all held together with a remarkable density, and a 2005 Grande Réserve AOC Saint Chinian from the Château du Prieuré des Mourgues, a blend of Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre with rich, spicy notes and a long finish–were perfect with the beef and accompanying vegetables.
Jérôme Roger from the Château du Prieuré des Mourgues demonstrates to Sarah Jane Evans, MW how he determines the ripeness of his grapes by examining their pips (seeds). When the pips are brown and hard, it's time to harvest.
In speaking with Roger at dinner, I discovered that a rebel resides beneath his calm exterior. Instead of going to one of the five French universities that offer an advanced diploma in Oenology, he decided to go to the University of Tarragona in Spain, even though he didn’t speak Spanish that well. His Spanish improved, and he’s used his different perspective to viticulture and winemaking to make his wines distinctive from others in the Saint Chinian appellation.
His curiosity has also taken him, during the months of February and March when his vineyard and winemaking demands are less demanding, to South Africa to participate in four different harvests. Roger says that it was particularly interesting making wine from the South African native grape Pinotage. Few New World wine regions have such an intimate relationship with one grape as South Africa and Pinotage—it’s either loved or detested, and Roger appears to fall into the “for” camp.
I enjoyed visiting the Prieuré des Mourgues vineyards, particularly a six-hectare parcel that he purchased recently (it was the missing piece needed to recreate exactly the ancient vineyard of the bishop of Saint Pons de Thomières). He planted two hectares of Grenache on this parcel three years ago. Last year, he planted Syrah on a slightly smaller sized part of the parcel, and this spring he planted more Syrah on an additional one-hectare plot.
Almost ready-to-harvest Mourvèdre grapes.
Like most winemakers, Roger has specific ideas about taking care of his vines or making his wine. The first thing that I found to be interesting is that he uses an incredible amount of organic fertilizer to prepare the soil for planting. Before planting the Syrah vines in June (in the accompanying video, he explains how he plants late in the spring because of the risk of spring rains; too much rain is even worse than too little, he says), 80 tons of “fumier,” or manure, was worked into the soil. Considering that there are 4,000 plants per hectare, each plant gets an incredible 40 kilos, or 88 pounds, of fertilizer. That’s a lot of sheep manure, but he has the greenest young grape vines that I have ever seen, so it must be good for them.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VmCueEhUiSQ[/youtube]He says that he severely prunes the young vines for the first several years to promote root growth. Since he began using organic fertilizer 10 years ago, he’s noticed that his vines resist drought better. Herbicide and pesticide use on his properties is kept to an absolute minimum, he says. In the case of one pest—a type of cicada that can transmit a serious vine disease—he says that he is obligated by a regional disease control program to treat his vines.
Roger has definite views on what is and what isn’t “organic.” “Once,” he told me, “I was eating at a restaurant in Brittany in the winter, and the owner was proudly telling me that the tomatoes in my salad were ‘organic’. He took me outside to see the greenhouse where they were being grown. I thought to myself–‘How can something being grown in a greenhouse in Brittany, which is being heated with electricity generated by a nuclear power plant, be considered ‘organic’?”
There are a large number of winemakers in France, as in other winemaking regions around the world, who use a device known as a “side hoe,” or intercep in French, to control weeds. Evidently, Roger hasn’t bought into this concept, as he asked out loud, to no one in particular and not in response to any question, if it was worse to use a little bit of herbicide to kill the weeds that spring up around young vines or to pass two or three times with a tractor, dragging an intercep. “Aren’t the tractor fumes just as bad for the vines as the herbicide?,” he asked rhetorically. It’s a valid question, and it makes you wonder if this and other “green agricultural practices” might bear further examination.
He regularly espoused similarly provocative thoughts about any number of subjects: “Is it more ecological to take the TGV high speed train or the airplane?”; “Is it better to use a horse to plow, or does the need to have five hectares planted in hay to feed it, which requires water and fertilizer, mean that a tractor might be more ecological?”; and so forth. I soon came to realize that behind the faded overalls and wine-stained hands there was a deep thinker, who was always questioning what others might accept at face value.
Just before leaving Prieuré des Mourgues, Roger gave me an enlightening demonstration about terroir. I often wonder if terroir is the place where the grapes are grown, or is it the grape variety, or is it in the alcoholic fermentation or in something else? If you ask ten different wine lovers, you are likely to get ten different explanations.
We went into his wine cellar, the stainless steel tanks lined up along one side, and he proceeded to draw off a glass of yellow, pina colada-like, fizzy liquid. This was Viognier juice from grapes that had been harvested just several weeks earlier. He told me that it was from a parcel of the Domaine des Aspes, called Les Aspes, with a lot of sand and gravel. What I tasted was very refreshing and sweet (this was still not yet wine; there was still residual sugar), with the usual Viognier peach and apricot flavors.
The second Viognier that I tasted was from La Mouline, a two-hectare parcel in Domaine des Aspes that is on clay-chalk soil. This Viognier was distinctly different, even if it was the same grape variety and had been harvested around the same time as the first. It was richer and more powerful, with the same fruity notes that were in the first sample. Viognier number three came from grapes harvested on a parcel called La Babeau. The soil there is schist, and the juice was rounder, with a better mouth feel than the two previous examples. It was also slightly less aromatic.
Roger will use these Viogniers, in varying amounts, in his Chardonnay-Viognier blend, as well as making a 100% Viognier varietal, Viognier La Mouline, from the grapes picked on the parcel of land with the same name.
These were three different wines (or juice, on it’s way to becoming wine), from the same grape variety, and made by the same winemaker. What was different was the soil, the soil drainage, the vines’ exposure to the sun, and the placement of the vines—the “place,” which is the essence of terroir.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCEBiL6eoOU[/youtube]Meeting passionate winemakers, like Roger, who are committed to making a terroir wine that reflects the place where the grapes are grown, is what makes the Vine Route so interesting. The accompanying video gives you a taste of the intelligence and passion behind his wines. Too bad there’s no way to convey or communicate the taste of, for lack of a better word, their terroir.
Osta III, Jérôme's Blue Gascon Hound. Is he part of the terroir, as well?
