atelier du vin, a passion for wine accessories

 

i love to meet passionate people.  especially those who are in love with what they do for a living and are able to transcend this love, this passion and make something concrete out of it.

monday, joan and i met with wonderful pierre richard from l'atelier du vin, a french company which design and commercialize absolutely beautiful wine accessories.

ever since my trip to paris in 2004, i have been absolutely in love with their products.  ok, ok... you may think i am strange to love corkscrews and the like.  but they are not just corkscrews, decanters, glasses, and others.  no. they are work of art, products of love, and more importantly, they are designed to increase the enjoyment of wine.

look at their glass l'explorer 5 for example, it has a specially conceived nerve in it to release the aromas of the wine.  look at their chic lady corkscrew, beautifully designed in a classic shape and also versatile and easy to use.

atelier du vin is a family company and each of it member is formally trained and/or involved in some way with design, architecture, art and high fashion.  they are passionate about design, about beauty, and about wine.  in fact their passion for wine goes beyond drinking it, they are also grape growers in the champagne region.

their products are divided in 2 broad categories, "les outils", the tools to increase the enjoyment of wine: corkscrews and the like and "l'édition", the publications to help wine lovers learn and deepen their knowledge of wine. 

the 1st item i bought was their aroma kit the wine discovery which consists of 40 small boxes with aroma crystals in them.  with those i am able to practice my tasting skills and it includes a well designed and simple little book to guide me throught it.

check them out at www.atelierduvin.com to see where those lovely items are available close to you.

Published by jc on May 2, 2008

école du vin de bordeaux

back from bordeaux where i just completed an intensive week of courses to be an "accredited tutor", i return totally impressed by the quality, structure, and ambition of l'ecole du vin de bordeaux.

organised by the civb (conseil interprofessionel du vin de bordeaux), it's aim is to educate and dessiminate information about bordeaux wines. it offers several classes at their centre in bordeaux but, for me the interesting part is that the courses i attended will enable me to teach about bordeaux wines in asia using their curriculum, documents, and support.

i find this interesting not only because the courses are very well made and cover all aspects related to the wines of bordeaux but mainly because i find this to be a very clever way for bordeaux to propagate information about its wines around the world and, ultimately, influence consumers buying decisions.

how clever. researches have shown time and again that mainstream consumers today want ready to drink wines that are easy to understand and associate with. most prefer to select wines based on varietals and find bordeaux (and france in general) complicated with its thousands of chateaux, hundreds of appellations, and, god forbid, labels not showing "what's inside the bottle".

the courses this week were very well structured to give us a wide overview of bordeaux and break some preconceptions and attract our attention to little known appellations and styles of wines from bordeaux.

in fact, we spent a disporportionate amount of time on those little known wines and learned indeed that they present the most potential for the regions and are in fact among the most accessible to mainstream wine drinkers.

the area has 57 appellations and all kinds of classifications. and so to make it simple, they have grouped those in 6 families of wines according to styles:

1) bordeaux & bordeaux superieur red wines: the simplest and basic quality, from anywhere in bordeaux;

2) medoc & graves: dominated by cabernet sauvignon, from the "right bank" of the river garonne and the estuary gironde;

3) st-emilion/fronsac/pomerol: dominated by merlot, from the left bank of the river dordogne;

4) cotes: a group of 7 regions making similar styles of wines, also on the left bank of the dordogne and to the left of the estuary gironde;

5) dry whites: dominated by sauvignon and semillon, mainly from from graves & "entre deux mers", a region between the 2 rivers garonne & dordogne;

6) sweet whites: semillon dominated, mainly from sauterne & barsac and other small regions in the banks of the drodogne river.

after our first day reviewing appellations and other particularities of the bordeaux "terroir" (climate + geographie + man actions in vineyard & cellars), we spent the whole 2nd day visiting makers of cotes wines where we had interesting tastings of superb, value for money wines. on the 3rd day, we focused a whole morning on sauvignon grapes and tasted fantastic wines made with the grape. on the after-noon of that same day, we learned about and tasted sweet wines (which are divided in 2 groups: "moelleux", lightly sweet and perfect as apperitif and "liquoreux", much sweeter and complex, perect with fois gras and cheezes). on the 4th day, we visited 2 st-emilion makers and on the 5th, we had presentations in 3 medoc makers of which the largest proportion of our time was spent with a "crus bourgeois" maker where we also tasted 10 or so wines made from other "crus bourgeois" (a regroupment of makers who pull together to make wines of higher quality).

all in all, we clearly saw that the bordeaux region is pulling together to focus on quality and make sure the wolrd knows about its diversity, paricularity, and passion.

you can see my photo collection about this course on flickr by clicking on the photo below:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i will teach bordeaux school of wine courses in hong kong and china.

Published by jc on January 20, 2008

wine blogger

here is an excellent source of wine blogs on the internet published by ryan opaz of catavino:

Wine Blog · ger [wahyn blog-er]: noun – a person who regularly publishes online content about the subject of wine, in any language. Displayed chronologically, content is published using a variety of interactive blogging platforms. While traditionally published in written format, wine bloggers now utilize: IPTV (live interactive video streaming), vlog (video) and podcasts (audio). Located anywhere in the world the Internet reaches, they are prone to be rather fond of drinking fermented grape juice. http://wineblogger.info/

Published by jc on September 18, 2007

www.nataliemaclean.com

natalie maclean is a down to earth no-nonsense wine writer who not only love the wine but is truly passionate about everything related to it.

our kind of guru who inspires us to love the wine and transmit this love in a simple and passionate way.

with our blog, we want to take inspiration from natalie maclean and keep the topic factual and easy to relate to.

her book ''red, white & drunk all over'' is a treat and so are are her regular newsletter.

 

 

 Nat Decants FREE Wine E-Newsletter Wine picks, articles and humor from Natalie MacLean, named the World's Best Drink Writer at the World Food Media Awards in Australia. Natalie is also the author of Red, White and Drunk All Over: A Wine Soaked Journey from Grape to Glass. For more details on this book and to sign up for the newsletter, visit www.nataliemaclean.com

 

 

 

Published by jc on August 20, 2007

www.wines-france.com

a great website which brings you right in the earth of the matter: www.wines-france.com

this is a clever little website that cuts through to the most essential information about french wine.  it breaks it down in the following groups:

''quick what should i drink'': with few click you can find the wine you need

''from soil to grapes''': to quickly explore the different regions, seasons, and grapes of france

''from grapes to wines'': to learn about the wines, how they are made and how to take care of them

''from bottle to palate": to quickly understand appelations and get advices from the expert.

all this in a semi-interactive fashion with nice little animation and engaging, short, and factual information and packed with recommendations. 

great for anyone who is tired of drinking the same old wine!

Published by jc on August 20, 2007