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What’s The Best Wine on a Chain Gang Cycling Tour?
I will always have a soft spot for Chateau du Cedres, an AOC Cahors. We don’t visit the vineyard - or any where near it - but during the eastern parts of our Dordogne cycling tour, Cahors wines are widely available. They are made from the Malbec grape, and have a long and sometimes glittering history.
They aren’t a highly sought-after wine, but this was the first time when I found myself able to select a prestigious vineyard from a wide range of a single appellation, and able to choose older, matured vintages. So back in 1997, drinking Chateau du Cedres from 1989 and 1990 was a revelation - a 2** wine in the Guide Hachette.
But we also visit vineyards in Chateauneuf du Pape, in Pauillac, in Chianti, in Montalcino - all with a big name worldwide among wine fans. Of course it’s silly to compare a Brunello di Montalcino with a Rosé from Tavel, a simple white wine from Touraine or a rich Monbazillac dessert wine, but having agreed it’s a stupid idea, let’s do it anyway.
I have a real weakness for dessert wines. I’ll tell you more about them another time, but they rely on climatic conditions to encourage the growth of a fungus which dehydrates the grapes and increases their sugar content. There are variations - that’s why an explanation will have to wait - but most of the dessert wines we encounter are a result of this ‘noble rot’ the botrytis cinerea fungus.
The most famous examples come from Sauternes, including the spectacularly priced Chateau d’Yquem, but other areas specialising in these vins liqoreux include Monbazillac beside the Dordogne, and Coteaux de l’Aubance, Bonnezeaux, Coteaux de Layon, Quarts de Chaume, all in the Loire Valley.
Daniel Hecquet
But my favourite comes from none of these established and familiar names. No, my favourite is the dessert wine from Chateau Puy Servain in Haut Montravel, near Ste Foy la Grande in the Dordogne valley.
The owner, Daniel Hecquet, makes a special ‘Supreme’ vintage, deep yellow, almost brown in colour, and an eye-watering 70€ for a half-bottle. It is so, so sweet, but you can really get a sense of how special must be the terroir that produces these grapes, and how skilful the wine maker who can pull off such a stunt.
Any Puy Servain is worth trying, but the Supreme, for me, is a totally knock-out wine. Never mind how many stars it gets in the Hachette, it should be in the Michelin guide - 3*** ‘Worth a journey in itself’.
And here are a couple of photographs of the magician himself, checking out the grapes, and doling out his wonderful wine.
The Bloke at the Fortified Mill
On the road from Payrac to Rocamadour, on the 4th day of our Dordogne cycle tour, we usually visit a fascinating fortified flour mill called Cougnaguet.
It’s run by an elderly couple, and of course we’ve met them so many times now it’s always a great pleasure for both parties to see each other again. The main subject of this tale, though, is a sting in the tail, a shocking postscript to a very interesting visit.
The mill is 700 years old, and is France’s only remaining turbine-driven flour mill. The reason it’s so rare is that it just pre-dates the widespread use of the water wheel. The mechanism they used at Cougnaguet was to dam the river in order to divert it down a fast-flowing channel. They built a mill over this channel, and the river is used to turn 3 (I think it’s 3) turbines which turn the almighty mill stones that grind the flour.
Water of Life - Honest!
The problem with these turbines is that they shake buildings to bits, so the walls at Cougnaguet are 7 feet thick. The great advantage of the water wheel is that you don’t need a 7-foot thick wall to attach it to, so turbines were rapidly phased out. Which makes this one unique and fascinating – it operated as a working commercial mill until the 1950s.
The Bloke gives a very interesting demonstration of the turbines in action, and shows how the mill stones can be adjusted very simply to change the coarseness of the flour. You can actually mill the flour yourself – I’ve done it many times – and they sell bags of flour milled using these ancient methods.
One of the most interesting things about this mill is an ingenious method of protection from brigands. Flour was valuable stuff in times of hardship, but protected on both sides by tall cliffs, the monks who owned the mill paved the bottom of the river for a distance upstream – their dam creates a lake almost 1 mile long stretching up the river valley. In the event of an attack, all the turbine gates were thrown open, and the rapid emptying of the lake across the smooth, paved bottom would sweep would-be robbers away. You can still see the original paving.
All this for about 3 Euro, so where is the catch?
This couple always invite us upstairs to the room above the mill where they have some of their own walnuts and a room where we can sit and chat and relax. And then he invariably brings out a bottle of his very own eau de vie, or vieux prune (Americans would call it ‘moonshine’, I think). He is so proud of this home-made hooch, and it is truly awful. Nobody ever believes me though, everyone always thinks it’s a real treat that this lovely old French gentleman is offering his home-made eau-de-vie (literally ‘water of life’), a less appropriate name I couldn’t imagine.
Paint stripper doesn’t begin to cover it. But everyone always tries it and several times I’ve thought to myself ,‘it can’t be that bad’, or fellow Chain Gangers have persuaded me that it’s rude to turn it down, and I give in. From memory my brother Mike liked it enough to go back for more, but I might do him a disservice.
What a lovely bloke, but take a tip. His walnuts are better than his water of life.
