Veni, vidi, gustavi: Thoughts and impressions
about Southern France’s largest wine exhibition

I’m just back from the February 22-24 Vinisud, the ninth edition of this massive, international exhibition of Mediterranean wines and spirits. It was exhausting trying to see even a portion of the 1,600 exhibitors from (primarily) the Languedoc-Roussillon region, but present, as well, were many winemakers from the Rhône Valley, Provence, Corsica, Southwest France, Italy, Spain, Tunisia, Lebanon, Portugal, Malta, Morocco and Algeria.

More than 33,000 buyers, negociants, journalists and other wine professionals were also there. It’s fairly easy to recognize who is who at these types of events. The winemakers are the guys (yes, there are a certain number of female winemakers–more about those “Vinifilles” below, but it’s mostly men) with shoes that appear to be pinching their feet, and who look as if they’d rather be on their tractors than standing at a booth for three days talking to buyers and journalists about their wines.

The second sort of wine conference attendee is the buyer. These are the guys driving either a huge Mercedes or BMW. Their expensive suits, Italian shoes and manicured hands distinguish them from those at the other end of the wine trade chain–the winemakers.

Although there are also, in addition to the winemakers, a lot of masculine faces to be found at each exhibit space, there are also a good number of “booth babes,” those attractive women who are primarily present to attract men into their exhibit booths. Standing in a noisy convention center for ten hours or so, dressed in something revealing, and trying to get the attention of thousands of men can’t be an easy way to make a living.

The final character in the wine conference cast is the journalist. These men and women (and it’s pretty evenly split between the two sexes) are easily identified by their rumpled attire (personal hygiene doesn’t appear to be a high priority, especially around day two or three of an exhibition, for the press). Their regular forays (and here I speak from experience) involve speaking with winemakers, tasting wine, and devouring whatever free treats have been put out at the Press Center for them.

Wisteria Lane Domaine
A pre-exhibition, rocking-and-a-rolling party hosted by the Vinifilles, 18 attractive Languedoc-Roussillon ladies who really know how to have a good time, kicked off things. “Jam,” Montpellier’s best-known jazz club, provided an intimate setting for listening to a live band and sampling wine made at Vinifilles vineyards. The wine I tasted was quite good. Maybe it’s a preconceived stereotype, but most of it had a decidingly feminine character. Which brings to mind the question of the Vinifilles’s target audience. Might it be male wine drinkers? If so, maybe we can anticipate a Vinifille Calendar in the future. If it’s women, then a Vinifille Desperate Housewives-style marketing campaign would seem to be in order. These take-charge, smart, sassy ladies would be right at home on Wisteria Lane.

Tasting 400 wines

Around a quarter of the first part of Vinisud’s Hall 1 was filled with a 370-square-meter booth sponsored by Sud de France, the Languedoc-Roussillon region brand that was launched in 2006 to help promote the wines and foods of the region. The booth featured 400 white, red, rosé, sparkling, and naturally sweet wines. Best Sommelier of France (2004) Dominique Laporte, who is from nearby Béziers, headed a jury to select the wines. Among them were the 72 wines, selected by Laporte and his committee in a blind tasting of 500 wines, that were sent to the November 2009 WineFuture Rioja conference in Spain. I only made it through a dozen or so of the wines, selecting those whose names I knew, but had never had the opportunity to taste. It would have been interesting to have spent more time here, tasting this unique selection of Languedoc-Roussillon wines, some of which are made in quantities as small as one to two thousand bottles.

The irrepressible George Frêche
While I was tasting these wines, Languedoc-Roussillon Region President Georges Frêche, who in the waning years of his political career has decided to accelerate his take-no-prisoners, scorched-earth attitude, was using his Vinisud inaugural speech to inform the region’s wine cooperatives that their days were numbered. Frêche said that the 300 existing cooperatives should become 30 in the near future.

This announcement may diminish Frêche’s star somewhat in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, where he has remained popular despite repeated political gaffes, including his recent insult of former French Prime Minister Laurent Fabius. Fabius, who comes from a Jewish family but who was raised Catholic, earned Frêche’s ire by saying that, if he was a voter in the Languedoc-Region where Frêche is up for re-election, he probably wouldn’t vote for him—even though they’re both Socialist Party members. He also compared Frêche to the bête noire politician of France, Jean-Marie Le Pen of the extreme right. Fabius, said Frêche, suddenly didn’t look very Catholic (his exact words were that Fabius had “une tronche (not-so-polite French slang for “face”) pas Catholique.” This is not the first ethnic or racist slur hurled by Frêche, and the Socialist Party is now running another candidate, in place of him, on the March ballot.

It’s all rather sad, as Frêche has done a great deal to promote the region’s wine, including opening Maison de Languedoc-Roussillon offices in London, New York City, Milan and Tokyo, and helping to build the Sud de France brand. And, in the face of continued declining consumption of low-quality wine, his pronouncement about the need to reduce the number of cooperatives in the region is not surprising.

Familiar faces
On a brighter note, I was pleased to see many winemakers who I’ve written about in The Vine Route, including Martine and Jean Luc Quinquarlet of Domaine de Familongue, John and Nicole Bojanowski of Clos du Gravillas, and Amy Lillard and Matt Kling of La Gramière.

A definite Vinisud highlight for me was visiting the large pavilion where 26 Corsican winemakers were serving their wine. I’ve written previously about several of them, including Yves Canarelli of Clos Canarelli and Christian and Marc Imbert of Domaine de Torraccia. I’ll be visiting the northern part of the island this spring to continue my exploration of one of France’s most dynamic and most rapidly improving wine regions, and I had the opportunity to taste the wine and to meet some of the winemakers who I hope to visit at that time.

There’s no room to discuss here other Vinisud memories of mine, but I’ll be covering them in several future articles. The vertical tasting of ten l’Ecriture vintages from Le Mas de l’Ecriture, marking the domain’s first decade, will definitely be one of those. I first wrote about Pascal Fullá’s meticulously made wines last October. It was really a unique opportunity to speak again with him about his wines and to taste how they’ve evolved over the past decade. I was also pleasantly surprised, at that tasting, to finally meet Robert Camuto of Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country fame. I’ve wanted to meet Camuto since I read his book, which remains one of my favorite accounts about French winemakers. He’s as charming as his writing is entertaining, and I look forward to his next book—due out this fall, about iconoclastic winemakers from Sicily.

I also had the opportunity to interview Julien Seydoux, the new owner of Château des Estanilles, one of my favorite Faugères wine estates. I’ll have an account of Seydoux’s experiences, four months into his life as a vigneron, as well as his vision for the future development of Estanilles wine, in a future article.

Vinisud, to me, was much more accessible and manageable than the much larger Vinexpo conference that is held in Bordeaux on alternate years. I look forward to being back at the next Vinisud in 2012 to see further developments in what I believe is the world’s most exciting winemaking region.

Tagged as: Wine