This is not a wine for the holidays, but a wine from the holidays. Moreover, I already wrote a "Drunk" about it two years ago. Twice the same wine (same vintage) in this column? Surely a great exception. But the question occupies me: What is a wine like that was once bought on holiday - at the winery - in holiday mood - in the middle of the landscape where the grapes grow - influenced by the encounter with the winemaker - impressed in a spontaneous tasting - , when the memory has faded and the experience with the wine lies far, far, far back?
In fact, two years ago - during one week - we travelled through the Périgord, " where the landscape, the wine and the cuisine, enjoy an excellent reputation even among France's gourmets". Périgord is the historical name for what is now the Dordogne department, home to the sensual (fictional) police chief Bruno Courrèges - the main character in crime novels by author Martin Walker. Martin Walker, a Scottish historian and political journalist, has found his adopted home in this region and describes it so charmingly and enthusiastically in five crime cases so far ("Bruno, Chef de Police", "Grand Cru", "Black Diamonds", "Delicacies" and "Femme fatale") that you simply have to go there. That's why we went. Bruno's sixth case, "Reiner Wein" has also just been published in German (Diogenes Verlag). The title even points out that wine is made in the Dordogne, and not only down in the Bordelais, where the Dordogne flows into the Garonne (Haut-Médoc), but also "further up", for example in the Dordogne department, in the Péricord.
The wines are not as glorified as those of Bordeaux, and thus, far less known. But there are more than 12,000 hectares of vines and 13 AOC appellations guarantee the regional origin and quality of the region. Among the wines of the region, the sweet Monbazillac is certainly the best known, but hardly anyone talks about the Pécharmant, with probably the best and most typical character of a beautiful region. The soil here is strongly ferruginous, stony and loamy at the same time. This is the basis for a wine that is usually powerful, juicy and of a very special aroma: spicy-mineral, round and strong, carried by ripe black fruits.
All this has faded in memory, leaving a holiday experience that may be flushed up again in me with the new "Bruno case". Just as with many wines I have encountered at some point, somewhere. That's why I opened and drank this "X-vin" - a bottle I brought with me from back then - with great curiosity. It is indeed the case that, in the midst of a very different everyday life, something "rose up" in me, a feeling of being down to earth, an image of the landscape, a few facts I had forgotten. Two years ago, I wrote in "Getrunken" (http://www.sammlerfreak.ch/wein/archiv/archiv-2012-2/): "While the wines from nearby Bordeaux are becoming ever more opulent, ever heavier, ever more powerfully refined (and the other wines in Bergerac are taking their cue from them), here an apparent lightweight is prancing along. But it is a wine with many nuances, many fine, differentiated tones, both on the nose and on the palate."
Indeed, it is: it is a dance of wine, not only when drinking, but also in the perception of all that a region, a culture, a history has to offer. Wrapped up in a wine that - at least that's how I feel about it - has clearly grown, stands out from much of the wine I consume. It has gained contours that I find increasingly rare amidst the "internationality" of the wine business. Not only Bruno, the local hero of Martin Walker (if you want to learn something about the Périgord, here is a video of Swiss television, broadcast in 2013 in the Kulturplatz : http://www.srf.ch/player/tv/kulturplatz/video/martin-walkers-paradiesische-heimat-p%C3%A9rigord?id=6526ab20-c8e1-4883-9f6d-0317dc62f722), is an exciting "guide" through the Périgord, this wine is also, and both are incredibly fun and at the same time marked by a great sensuality.