I note that turin, author of the legendary perfume guide, perfume critic par excellence, never once critiques these wines as he does perfumes (“Like an infant’s breath mixed with his mother’s hair spray”). “Never thought about it,” he says. He mulls it over for a moment. “I couldn’t. Perfumes are made by humans. They are works of art, and art is communication between humans. These wines are made, ultimately, by nature, and you can’t critique nature.”
He sips from his glass, a local moelleux we’ve ordered, and has another thought. “But,” he says, “it is becoming quite clear to me that there is a cognate in perfumery for the Jurançons. It comes from their unusual crème de marron note, a signature they all share. What makes the great Caron perfumes—I’m thinking of the old ones, Nuit de Noël and En Avion—quintessentially Caron is an interesting creamy marron glacé fragrance that the perfumer Daltroff invented in the 1930s and used in every Caron fragrance. It’s the equivalent of Guerlain’s house recipe, a vanillic, powdery scent that Jacques Guerlain created in the same era and carefully kept secret.
“In a way, Sauternes is Guerlain and Jurançon is Caron. The great Sauternes do this delicious, fruity, big bouquet de fleurs thing, the style of Guerlain. These Jurançons, on the other hand, really do belong to a different school of perfumery. Caron’s signature was a chypre base with a soft, creamy sandalwood that gave you marron glacé, a smell lying between the slightly sour note of fresh cream and the warm note of burnt dark sugar. Rum and cream together. That is the note I find in these Jurançons. I absolutely smell that.”
That night, we dine happily under the grapevines in the Fer à Cheval’s exquisite garden restaurant. I’m having perfectly prepared lamb chops and local vegetables.
As we taste the wine (a Jurançon dry), Turin surprises me by saying, “The best place in the world to buy wine for sheer range and value is America. The choice is incredible and the quality is fantastic. The only thing I’d complain about concerning the United States is flavored coffee. May they rot in hell. This ‘hazelnut’—just a bunch of thiazines and pyrazines.” He rolls his eyes.
The next morning we’re off again. All at once Turin exclaims, “Clos Thou!” The wine by which he discovered Jurançon. He’s excited. Everything we’ve had thus far is quite good, but will this kick it up a level?
The inevitable dog barks up to the car in the dusty drive. The owner’s father, an elderly, delightful Frenchman named Raoul, leads us into a stone building to taste. He and the son tell us about the fabled year of 1995, when the weather was heavenly and the grapes were Bacchus’s morsels, and they made a moelleux that was suddenly as good as anything the $200-a-bottle guys were putting out. “Un accident de nature,” says Raoul.
Turin sips. Whoa. Yep, we’ve risen to another floor. They’re just getting better. He buys a case. You breathe stale cigarette smell every time one of the cheerful Frenchmen walks by. The dogs bark in the hot yellow sun under the azure sky.
Next stop is Clos Lapeyre, and the barking dog leads to a flower-filled garden. Jean-Bernard Larrieu, a third-generation winemaker, looks like a Berkeley dude in his baggy T-shirt and shorts, and talks an astonishing southern French: “Les ans” is “lez ankhs” and “la main” is “la maéin.” He opens his most expensive moelleux for us, the very smoky Vent Balaguèr. We’re now at six times the prices we started with. Turin sips. “Crème brûlée plus woody,” says Turin. (“Worth the price?” I murmur at him. “Oh, yeah!” says Turin. “Damn!”)
Pinterest
