Tuesday 28 February 2017

News From Chateau Gaudrelle


Cyril, the cellar master, presents their natural sparkling Vouvray, made with just the natural sugars in the grapes. It is unlabelled and sealed with a crown cap because it's only been bottled and undergoing its secondary fermentation for a few weeks. It is too young to sell, but it was already very drinkable.

As anyone who reads the blog will know, Chateau Gaudrelle is our favourite winery. We take clients there a lot, and last week they held a networking event to which hotels and tour operators who work with them were invited.

Marie opens up the amuses bouches, which were both beautiful and delicious, from an outside caterer. The foie gras at the front left was particularly popular, and earned the approval of someone who had grown up in the south-west, where most foie gras is produced.

They presented the latest wines and their new labels. The old labels were classic, but confusing for the customers because although the corporate imagery was strong it was difficult to distinguish between the different wines in their range just by looking at the bottle. With the old labels the one on the front was identical, and it was only when you turned the bottle around and read the back label that you could tell what it was. So now each of the wines has its own colour for the label and they are named after the parcels the grapes come from, instead of for the style of wine.

The medaille Saint Martin is a limited edition pin in silver or gold produced by a local jeweller. Proceeds from the sale of the brooch go to various heritage projects (at the moment the restoration of the Basilica Saint Martin in Tours).

The other news they had to impart is that they have decided to apply for organic certification. They've effectively been in conversion for the past eight years, and everyone is committed to a sustainable way of farming the estate. The decision to actually get the certification has come about because they are finding that the first question customers ask these days is 'are the wines organic?'

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French Presidential Campaign: I posted my assessment of the campaign and candidates so far on Facebook. You can read it here if you are interested (you will need to log in to FB).

5 comments:

chm said...

What is not clear is what Médaille de saint Martin has to do with wine, except to sell the jewellery, and it is not the name of a parcel named after the popular saint? (Note — In French when you're talking about a real person the first letter of saint is not capitalized, e.g. saint Aignan n'a jamais habité Saint-Aignan. If a town is named after a saint, the trait d'union is de rigueur!) This significant detail seems to escape most French people! In American English, there are capital letters all over the place!

chm said...

I wanted to read again your thoughts about la campagne présidentielle française and here is what I got when I clicked on the link:

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Susan said...

Alexandre produced a special limited edition wine which was called Medaille Saint-Martin in conjuction with the jeweller and the fundraising programme. The wine was auctioned to raise funds for the restoration of the church at Saint-Martin-le-beau, which suffered an arson attack. I believe some rich American bought the lot, for a very generous amount of money. Here's a newspaper article which may enlighten a bit. http://www.lanouvellerepublique.fr/Indre-et-Loire/Actualite/Economie-social/n/Contenus/Articles/2016/11/08/Du-vin-medaille-Saint-Martin-2895228.

Susan said...

Sorry but apparently you need to be logged in to FB to see my musings on the presidential campaign. If you don't do FB let me know and I'll email it to you.

chm said...

Thank you for the information about the Médaille Saint-Martin. Now, that makes sense. Glad it worked well.

Could you kindly email me your thoughts, please?

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