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The Pour
What Becomes of the Lost Estates?
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
Drinking the precise, focused red Burgundies of René Engel can be a bittersweet proposition as the estate no longer exists.
By ERIC ASIMOV
Published: September 12, 2013 Comment
Recently I attended two extraordinary dinners in New York, one featuring
the precise, focused red Burgundies of René Engel and the other the
exquisite Côte-Rôties of Marius Gentaz.
Michelle V. Agins/The New York Times
To drink any one of these bottles could have been the zenith of a wonderful meal.
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At their best, these are the sorts of wines that amplify the sense of
wonder at the heart of greatness. They are reminders that no matter how
rationally we try to analyze wines, they show their true measure in the
emotions they evoke.
Engel and Gentaz are great examples of wines that express all the
distinctive beauty of their terroirs, enhanced by the personal touch of
the winemaker. These two small family estates share another important
characteristic: they no longer exist.
Few passages in family businesses are more difficult to negotiate than
the leadership transition from one generation to the next. At best, it
occurs seamlessly, the parent ceding control to the child while
remaining available to offer occasional advice and encouragement. But it
may happen abruptly, after sudden illness or death. It may be fierce,
as when Oedipal drama interferes with judgment.
Or, as in the case of Engel and Gentaz, an estate hits a dead end, with no heirs to carry on.
It’s in the nature of things that estates come and go. Most die off
unmourned. Their wines were not distinctive enough, perhaps, to be
irreplaceable. Yet for every great estate like Jean-Louis Chave of the
northern Rhône, said to have made wine continuously since 1481, the
annals are replete with names now consigned to history, their wines to
be savored wistfully or sold at auction for outlandish prices born of
increasing scarcity.
Henri Jayer,
the legendary Burgundian vigneron, died in 2006 after retiring some
years before. His vineyards are now farmed by his nephew by marriage,
Emmanuel Rouget, whose wines are well respected but not revered.
Raymond Trollat was for years the conscience of St.-Joseph, having
adhered to traditional, backbreaking agricultural methods as others were
taking easier paths. He retired in 2005 with no heirs. I read recently
that a bottle of his St.-Joseph had sold at auction for $600, a
ridiculous price for what is essentially a rustic but soulful village
wine, though perhaps not so ridiculous for the spirit of Raymond
Trollat, which is irreplaceable.
Noël Verset played a similar role in Cornas, maintaining the ancient
traditions of this northern Rhône village through many lean years until
the rest of the world learned to appreciate the wines. Mr. Verset
retired and sold off his vines, his wines surfacing occasionally like eloquent voices from the past.
Once, a friend opened a bottle of 1979 Barbaresco from Giovannini
Moresco, a long-gone producer. What a beautiful legacy, pure, pale and
elemental. It came and went so fast, and, sadly, I’ve never seen another
bottle.
Alberico Boncompagni Ludovisi, the prince of Venosa, produced his last
wonderful bottles of Fiorano, his estate within the city limits of Rome,
in 1995. That year, for reasons he did not explain, he tore out his
vineyard. The prince died in 2005, and after years of legal wrangling,
the estate was divided among his heirs, who replanted the vineyard. One day we’ll see whether the new wines bear any relation to the old.
Continuity is easier in some regions. In Bordeaux, for example, where so
many chateaus are in the hands of corporations, it’s more a matter of
replacing employees and carrying on. But Bordeaux is not always so
corporate. Jean-François Fillastre,
the proprietor of Domaine du Jaugaret, one of my favorite small
Bordeaux estates, is 70 and has no heirs. I wonder what will happen to
it.
If life were fair, René Engel would still be in the hands of the Engel
family. Philippe Engel took over the estate in 1981 from his father,
Pierre, who died young, and by all accounts Philippe transformed a good
producer into a terrific one. But he, too, died young, of a heart attack
at 49 in 2005. With no heirs, it was sold to François Pinault, the
billionaire who also owns Château Latour, and is now called Domaine
d’Eugénie and is still discovering its personality.
At the small Engel dinner at DBGB on the Bowery, we drank six bottles of
grand cru Burgundy: Clos Vougeots from 1999, ’96, ’91 and ’90, and
Grands Échézeauxs from ’99 and ’98. As a group, the wines were elegant,
subtle and complex, yet with a touch of rusticity that seemed to give
them individuality. The ’98 Grand Échézeaux especially stood out. It was
beautifully calibrated and clear, spicy, floral and bursting with
energy. The ‘99 Grand Échézeaux likewise showed great finesse, while the
Clos Vougeots were richer and plumper, lovely but maybe not with the
same sense of intricate detail.
We toasted the memory of Philippe Engel, and those who had known him
told stories of this adventurous man who enjoyed boating, parties and
traveling the world.
By contrast, Marius Gentaz never went far from his home in Ampuis. In
many ways, his life had more in common with the 19th century than the
21st.
He farmed less than three acres on the dizzyingly steep slopes of
Côte-Rôtie, and essentially made his wines, labeled Gentaz-Dervieux, by
hand. He began in wine in 1947 with his father-in-law, then worked on
his own from 1952 until 1993. When he retired, his vines went to his
nephew, René Rostaing, who blends them into his excellent Côte-Rôties.
But they are not Gentaz-Dervieux.
At the dinner, put on at Bar Boulud by the Rare Wine Company, an
importer, several dozen of us drank 14 vintages from 1993 back to 1978.
To drink any one of these bottles could have been the zenith of a
wonderful meal; to have 14 was overwhelming. And each seemed to have a
story to tell, about a place and a man and a time when life was lived
locally.
Collectively, these were gentle wines, yet with a tensile strength that
belied their graceful structure. They were savory and meaty, typical of
syrahs from the northern Rhône, yet complex, gorgeously fragrant, mellow
yet insistent.
If I were pressed to reveal my favorites, I would say that I loved the
soft ’93, the ripe ’90 and the ethereal ’83. But the ’88 was almost
otherworldly in its beauty, while the ’87 was surprisingly open, full
and harmonious, and the ’85 still deep and dense with a mosaic of aromas
and flavors that have many years to go to express themselves fully.
It’s bittersweet to drink wines like these, knowing that each opened
bottle is one less to go around. Yet it’s also a time to celebrate that
part of the human spirit that allows us to see beyond ourselves, knowing
that memories travel further than flesh.
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