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In the Shadow of the Giant
Villes-sur-Auzon, France --- If you must have a garage
to be categorized as a Garage Wine, then Domaine de
Cascavel Cotes-du-Ventoux doesn’t make the cut.
But if you look twice, this new, engaging wine produced
in one of France’s wine boom regions is an ideal
example of what a garage wine can be: small production,
small yields, with wines made by intensely passionate
winemakers not afraid to break the mold.
The only piece of property owned by the Domaine de
Cascavel is a tiny store front space in this active
little town in the shadow of the south central side
of le Géant de Provence – the 1912 meter-high
Mont Ventoux. The little showroom serves as an office
as well as tasting room for winemaker partners Olivier
Baguet and Raphael Trouiller, who produced their first
vintage in 2000. Their handcrafted wine is actually
made in a colleague’s cellar a few kilometers away,
thanks to the friendship and kindness of Jean Marot,
winemaker of the equally appealing Domaine Le Murmurium.
The Cascavel story is not typically French. Baguet
grew up in the Champagne area the son of a dairy farmer.
He studied to be an engineer but found that weekends
spent working on his uncle’s vineyard in Burgundy
were more appealing. One thing led to another, and soon
Baguet was teaching winemaking at various agriculture
schools in southern France. Finally, the bug hit, and
rather than talk about wine, his dream was to make wine
and see his name on a wine label. But there was a catch:
Not a centime to his name. His equally poor current
partner, marketing specialist Trouiller was looking
for a project and after some quick calculating, they
put together a marketing plan, invited some 100 individuals
to buy stock in their idea, and with the blessing of
the bank, were off. Now both 35 years old, they invite
their various investors to work and play weekends several
times a year, as the group trims vines, cleans cellars
and of course take time to sample the fruits of their
labors.
Baguet was determined to make his first vintage in
the year 2000, and by December of 1999 he finally got
his hands in the vines. Impressed by the wines made
in the Cotes du Ventoux --- especially Château
Valcombe, Château Pesquié, Domaine de Fondreche,
and Murmurium – he began searching for land. What
he found was 9.5 hectares of land divided into some
14 tiny parcels of land spread over three villages –
all with vines of varying ages and varieties, all with
very different soils. No one wanted to bother with so
many little parcels, but that’s just what the Cascavel
winemakers were looking for .
Compared to its better known brother – Cotes du
Rhone --- Cotes du Ventoux suffers from a reputation
as a rather dull cooperative wine without much character.
But vineyards such as Cascavel and Murmurium are changing
that, handcrafting wines with care and attention. Many
winemakers here believe that because of the variety
of soils, the wines produced here have the chance of
greater sophistication, more complexity, more notes
if you will. Because the vines stretch across the southern
and western flanks of the mountain, they are protected
from the strong Mistral wind, thus creating a biosphere
that is lists as a UNESCO conservation area. Winemaker
Marot also believes that the vast difference in temperatures
between morning and night as well as the cool night
breezes refresh the vines as well as the soil, also
fixing the color of the grapes, thus making a wine with
greater color, finer tannins, and better equilibrium
between alcohol and acidity.
“I don’t have the impression that I am working,”
says Marot, who left a career as a pharmacist to pursue
a dream of life as a winemaker. For a long time, he
firmly believed that in order to be a winemaker your
father had to have been a winemaker, preferably fourth
or fifth generation. Then one day he met a winemaker
in Beaumes de Venise that convinced him he didn’t
have to live out his days as a pharmacist. So he took
in a partner at the pharmacy and began spending every
free moment working in vineyards, attending wine school,
and working to achieve his dream.
Now 49 years old, Marot made his first wine in 1995,
beginning with 8 hectares of mostly Syrah, Grenache,
Clairette and Bourboulenc vines. Like the Cascavel winemakers,
he got friends and family to invest in the business.
Tastings of both wines reveal young, sturdy wines that
have no sharp edges, no false notes. Your first impression
of Cascavel’s Les Amidyves 2000 (60% Grenache and
40% Syrah and priced at 26 € the magnum) is of
a wine that is in perfect equilibrium, with fine notes
of spice and prunes, with a truly long finish. Because
many of the Ventoux vines grow at rather high altitude
(some as high as 400 to 500 meters) the grapes mature
later in the season and can be harvested as late as
November (most Rhone wines are harvested in September)
Cascavel’s white wine – cuvee Jade –
profits from this phenomenon, and the Clairette and
Ugni Blanc grapes are harvested from October to the
end of November, making for a late-harvest white that
is rich, intense, and beautifully balanced.
Murmurium makes seven different cuvees, my favorite
being his red Cuvée Opera (2001 at 16 €)
a beautiful blend of 90% Grenache and 10% Syrah, a powerful,
elegant wine that in our blind tastings was mistaken
for a Chateauneuf du Pape.
Domaine de Cascavel
Olivier Baguet
Raphael Trouiller
SCEA Baguet Trouiller
Quartier Bel Air
84570 Methamis
Tel : 04 90 61 72 18
Fax : 04 90 61 94 09
Internet: http://site.voila.fr/cascavel
Tastings at cave in center of Villes-sur-Auzon:
mid-April to mid-October, 10:30 am to 12:30 pm and 3
pm to 8 pm. Mid-October to mid-April, Monday to Saturday
10:30 am to 12:30 pm and 3 pm to 6:30 pm.
Domaine le Murmurium
Jean Marot
Route de Flassan
84570 Mormorion
Tel : 04 90 61 73 74
Fax : 04 90 61 74 51
Email: scea.marot-metzler@terre-net.fr
Tastings by appointment only.
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