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Madiran and Jurançon, France: Pas de Deux

For anyone wanting to experience the wilder side of French wine, the country’s south-west is an embarrassment of riches. Heading south, with the flatlands of Bordeaux behind you, there’s a kitchen’s worth of great forks in the road. Hard left to the fabled “black wines” of Cahors, lunch in Monbazillac with a glass of the local sticky, then onwards to Toulouse and dinner with a Côtes du Frontonnais under the arcades of Place du Capitole, La Ville Rose’s elegant central square.

The first turn-off to Pau comes an hour along the autoroute from Bordeaux. It’s a fork worth taking. Pau lies at the heart of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and faces the mountains that give the département its name. In cultural and winemaking terms, this is France’s final fling. The Pays Basque, the pilgrim’s road to Compostela, and the tapas bars that dot Pau’s backstreets all point to Spain. You’re still in France, but only just.

For those raised on World War II stories of steely femmes fatales spiriting Allied airmen across the Spanish frontier under the cloak of darkness, you’d expect to find life straight from central casting in the shadow of the mountains: the black-clad widow eyeing passers-by with a slow sweep of her broom; local men returning to their Armagnac or eau de vie; a request for a bed or meal dismissed with a shrug.

But this is a part of France where wine and cultural assumptions unravel by the glass and with each conversation. The winemaking community is close, not closed, gently parochial and generous to a fault. The climate is benign, with warm summers, cool to mild winters and rain aplenty. Far from eking out a living on frozen mountain slopes, winemakers enjoy some of the best growing conditions and harvesting windows in France. This is especially true in Madiran and Jurançon, the area’s premier red and white appellations, respectively.

Madiran has a fearsome reputation. The wines are made from tannat, a red grape that’s indigenous to Gascony and the foothills of the Pyrenees.

Historically, Madiran was cruelly tannic (hence the name tannat). Novice drinkers were told to leave it for 20 years in the cellar lest they swallow a glass of iron filings.

Until recently, most producers were content to continue in this fashion. But Alain Brumont of Château Montus and Château Bouscassé and a trio of brothers, les frères Laplace of Château d’Aydie, made it their business to tame tannat. Each was looking for greater fruit expression and softer tannins, albeit in fiercely different ways. Brumont did it with new oak, tannat being one of the few grapes that he believes can withstand 40 months in barrel and come out intact – as was the case with his early efforts.

Meanwhile, the Laplace brothers, together with cousin Patrick Ducournau, invented micro-oxygenation, an innovation that writer and critic Andrew Jefford has called “probably the most significant French development in vinification techniques of the 1990s”. Micro-oxygenation involves the dribbling of small amounts of oxygen into fermenting wine, rounding out the tannins and promoting fruit flavours – in short, making Madiran softer and more approachable at an earlier age. The technique is now a mainstay of French winemaking, most notably in Bordeaux.

The results of both experiments did for Madiran what the 1976 Judgment of Paris did for New World reds: it put modern Madiran on the map with a major splash. In 1990, France’s influential Gault Millau declared Château Montus Wine of the Decade. Today, nocompendium of France’s greatest wines is complete without a Madiran, typically from Brumont or d’Aydie.

Advancing Madiran on the map, however, is no small undertaking, even if you are swayed by tannat’s newly publicised healing powers (see page 95). Larger estates, such as d’Aydie, are constantly looking to broaden the appeal of tannat-based wines without sacrificing the grape’s darker qualities. “We need to dispel the myth that tannat is only a serious grape,” says winemaker Damien Sartori. “You can drink tannat at one year, it’s a very sensible grape. It’s only when you put it in lots of oak that you get problems. Oak just eats the fruit.”

A slow walk along Pau’s palm-fringed Boulevard des Pyrénées is the perfect way to take in the geography that has fostered wine and life in this outpost. If the time is right (early morning or late afternoon) and the mists are gone, the mountains tower above. Directly below are the foothills which closet the sunny enclaves of the Jurançon appellation.

White Jurançon is the natural foil for red Madiran. The indigenous grapes used to make Jurançon – gros and petit manseng – are thick-skinned, tannic and late to ripen, just like tannat. As with Madiran, Jurançon belongs at the table alongside local favourites such as foie gras, confit de cochon and mouton de Barèges-Gavarnie, the local mountain sheep (the south-west offers slim pickings for vegetarians). And as with Madiran, Jurançon is responsible for some of France’s most distinctive regionally accented wines.

Charles Hours makes two of these wines. His Clos Uroulat property lies on a high ridge above the town of Monein, where a lifetime of mountain deposits nourish his 15 hectares. Hours’ dry Cuvée Marie (90 per cent gros manseng, 10 per cent courbu) brings together qualities that make dry Jurançon such a delicious wine: exotic apricot and pear fruit flavours, a full body, good acidity and a creamy, yeasty finish (both Hours’ wines spend 11 months in barriques on lees). To these distinctive qualities, his much acclaimed Uroulat (100 per cent petit manseng) adds late-harvest honey, floral notes, roundness and greater finesse.

It’s a flavour profile that has some calling Jurançon “the viognier of the south-west”. But although viognier provides a reference point – as does the peaches-and-cream character of richer chardonnay or the waxy notes of aged semillon – Jurançon has without doubt earned the right to stand on its own merits. This was reinforced recently when a 2003 cooperative-produced Jurançon was awarded a major international trophy for best white blend.

For Hours, who has lived his entire life in these hills, Jurançon is just that: wine born of this place and only this place. “This is where I was born; my mother still lives here,” he says. “We must respect the terroir, the variety and the year.”

Hours and his daughter Marie are relaxed but exacting winemakers, mindful not only of their reputation but that of Jurançon as a whole. “In the ’80s and ’90s, we liked very rich, alcoholic wines,” Hours says. “Today, we want better balanced wines – fruity, with good acidity, minerality, freshness and less alcohol.”

The search for balance is a guiding principle for Hours, as it is for many making their lives here. Together with wine, the area is a bastion of slow food, rugby and good – as opposed to fine – living. Watching the nightly parade of the sun dipping below the mountain ridges, it is easy to see how such a relaxed and generous way of life manages to sustain itself.

As Hours explains, “Life is a question of balance. I don’t want to produce just to produce. I want to be able to live on the land. Fifteen to 20 hectares – that is enough. I want to meet my customers, the people who buy my wines. They tell me their stories and that is an exchange. Wine is made for sharing, just like bread or a fire. You sit around a fire talking and sharing. This is what life is for.”

TOP PRODUCERS
Chateau Montus and Chateau Bouscasse
Speak to any member of Madiran’s close-knit wine community and they’ll have an adjective or two to describe Alain Brumont: single-minded, uncompromising, charming but impossible are just a few. All, however, pay credit to Brumont for helping drag Madiran wine out of the Middle Ages.
Today, Brumont continues to produce two of Madiran’s finest wines – Château Montus and Château Bouscassé. Montus is possibly the darkest and most challenging of all Madirans: 100 per cent tannat, it is full of dark fruit, smoke, spice and thick tannins. Bouscassé, which includes 25 per cent cabernet sauvignon and 10 per cent cabernet franc, comes from clay and limestone soils and is somewhat rounder in its make-up. Even so, Bouscassé, like Montus, remains one of France’s most confronting and, with time, rewarding red wines.
32400 Maumusson-Languian, (05) 62 69 74 67.

Chateau D’Aydie
The Laplace brothers and co-winemaker Damien Sartori continue to extract tannat’s unique fruit qualities without disowning its tannic roots. In this, Château d’Aydie – the grand vin – is their greatest success. The 2004 vintage is a complex mix of black and red berries, cinnamon and pepper. It is dense but elegant on the palate, and finishes long with supple tannins.
Like most Madiran estates, d’Aydie also produces white wines from the tongue-twisting Pacherenc du Vic-Bilh appellation (Vic-Bilh means “old country” in the local Gascon dialect). What these whites lack in elegance when compared with the best Jurançons they certainly make up for in sheer fruit power. The 2006 Laplace Pacherenc Sec is all citrus, peach and fennel on the nose, with a rich, creamy body. Curiously enough, the wine is part aged in acacia barrels which, according to Sartori, provides “fat and sweetness without the smell of toasting oak”.
64330 Aydie, (05) 59 04 08 00.

Chateau Laffitte-Teston
Jean-Marc Laffitte is rare among Madiran producers in giving equal billing to his white Pacherencs together with his red Madirans. His superb dry white 2005 Cuvée Erica is an aromatic mix of pineapple and white flowers, with bready notes, a full body and good oak handling. Of the reds, Laffitte’s Madiran Vieilles Vignes is the standout wine. The 2004 is drinking well now and is full of dark berries, pepper and spice, and supple tannins. 
32400 Maumusson, (05) 62 69 74 58, www.chateau-laffitte-teston.com.

Chateau Jolys
Pierre-Yves and daughter Marion Latrille have one of Jurançon’s finest sites. Jolys’ best wines are its three sweet Jurançons, for which winemaker Marion clearly has an instinctive feel. The three are harvested a month apart, beginning with the final warmth of November (Cuvée Jean), continuing into December (Vendanges Tardive) and finishing in the relative chill of January (Epiphanie).
Latrille happily breaks the rules of varietal correctness for her December and January wines. The Tardive stays with the Jurançon formula of petit manseng for sweet whites, and Epiphanie turns instead to gros manseng, taking the grape out of its viticulturalcomfort zone.  The result is a stunning contrast in sweet wine styles: Vendanges Tardive is all elegance, with sweet quince flavours balanced by fine acidity, while Epiphanie is wilder, with a nose of pear, apricot and herbs, a dense, sweet body and a long finish. It’s a truly mysterious wine that keeps you guessing.
64290 Gan (05) 59 21 72 79, chateau.jolys@wanadoo.fr.

Clos Uroulat
Everyone in Jurançon knows Charles Hours. The bear-like winemaker is hard to miss, be it for his broad smile, former rugby player body or willing generosity. Hours’ two wines – the dry Cuvée Marie and sweet Uroulat (described earlier) – are reference points for Jurançon winemakers. Equally hard to miss is winemaker daughter Marie (of Cuvée Marie fame), who has inherited her father’s passion for wine, food and rugby. Like Hours senior, she makes two wines from the estate’s grapes: Happy Hours Cool and Happy Hours Fruity. They’re both easygoing summer wines but are part of a bigger plan. With an eye to the future, Charles recently planted on adjacent land which he calls Marie’s Slope. He’s unabashed in the hope that she will one day carry the keys to the estate and make the wine that bears her name.
64360 Monein, (05) 59 21 46 19, www.uroulat.com.

TEXT PAUL HUGGETT PHOTOGRAPHY CHATEAU D'AYDIE

This article appeared in the August/September 2008 issue of Gourmet Traveller WINE.