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JL Baldes Wines |
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Generally, when an American writer approaches a French winemaker and says, "I'd like to write about your winery in my book," the winemaker is very happy indeed, envisioning the publicity, the sales he imagines such a project will bring him. When I proposed that Jean-Luc figure as one of only three winemakers in my book about Cahors wine, he just looked at me and asked "Why?"
It was a test, and one I had prepared for by tasting as many of his wines as I could and talking with local chefs and others who knew him before our meeting. Jean-Luc, unlike most of the region's winemakers, makes a LOT of different kinds of wine, sometimes as many as ten according to the year.
His bottles figure on the wine card at every top restaurant regionally, have won many awards for their excellence, and present a slap in the face to anyone who claims that the terroir of Cahors is only good for red wines, and only from the malbec grape at that. |
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(Although his nec plus ultra Prince Probus, which figures on every good sommelier's list of the top ten southwestern French wines, shows us the stunning heights to which a superior winemaker can take this unsung grape!)
When people described Jean-Luc, the image that emerged was not of a hail-fellow well-met kind of guy, but of an iconoclast, an independent thinker very serious about his métier, a person who didn't hesitate to speak his mind, and who almost never chose the easy path. Someone, in short, not afraid to experiment, to depart from the expected, to push himself and those he works with to constantly seek perfection in what they do.
Just as one finds the nutmeat sweeter when the shell is hard to crack, I found in Jean-Luc, as I got to know him, a rewarding teacher as well as a very curious, very likeable soul who taught me as much about the spiritual and intellectual aspects of winemaking as about the day-to-day operation of a vineyard. I remember being at Jean-Luc's side one day just after harvest, a time when the winemaker ministers to his tanks full of fermenting must all the while hoping like a midwife that the baby emerges not just healthy but beautiful. In a far corner we came across a dozen open-topped barrels reeking of new oak and the powerful fumes of the wine working away within them. I gave Jean-Luc a questioning look. Was he fermenting in new oak as well as aging his wine in it, too? He gave me a shy smile in return. No, he wasn't making some mini-super-extra cuvée like some Bordeaux garagiste. He was experimenting, even if, at $600 a barrel and with some of his very precious and best grapes, it was an expensive experiment. Why? Because he is curious, always willing to put in the extra effort if there is a chance that it will improve his wine, lead to something new, different, better.
That is why, when you buy a bottle of wine that says "Baldès" on the label, you know it will be good. Every time.
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| Michael Sanders Brunswick, Maine, USA October, 2006 |
Micahael Sanders is the author of two books on this region of France
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Families of the Vine
Seasons Among the Winemakers of Southwest France |
From Here You Can't See Paris
Seasons of a French Village and Its Restaurant |
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