BY ALEX MARSHALL
WINE COLUMN FOR PORT FOLIO MAGAZINE
JAN. 11, 2001
The fluid in the glass was black and dark, as if someone had emptied out his fountain pen into a glass of water. I eyed it suspiciously, then swirled, sniffed and tasted.
It was wonderful. A rich assortment of tastes cascaded over my tongue, backed up by a healthy dose of tannins. It was like a variation of a good Bordeaux.
I smiled appreciatively at the waitress. I had never heard of the wine she steered me toward: Madiran. I was in a small, French restaurant in Manhattan, Chez Bernard on West Broadway. It had classic French food at reasonable prices — and a wine list worthy of a three-star restaurant in Paris. The waitress had steered me away from the $2,000 bottles of old Bordeauxs, and to this wine I had never heard of, Madiran, for $30.
Madiran, I would learn from her and others, was a small region near the French-Spanish border. The makers used the local “Tannat” grape mixed with more familiar grapes like Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon. The Tannat grape, whose name derives from “tannins,” gave the wine its dark, inky blackness. The one I had enjoyed, a 1996 Chateau Bouscasse by Alan Brumont, was one of the best rated, it turned out.
Impressed with this wine from an unfamiliar region with an unfamiliar grape, I called up some of my wine buddies to get their thoughts.
Phil, who imports wine for a living out in Portland, Oregon, was impressed. “You’ll see a Madiran on the lists of most restaurants in France,” he said. “But it’s not very common in the United States.”
Phil had two on his wholesale list, both made by Domaine Berthoumieu.
After Phil, I called up Jim Raper, my former boss at The Virginian-Pilot and a wine enthusiast par excellence. Raper, who is now in Lexington, Va., had lived near the Madiran region in France for a while. He noted that the Madiran is close to where Armagnac is produced, the competitor to Cognac. He remembered enjoying a bottle one afternoon.
“I was up in there, on the way to Biarritz, and stopped and bought a bottle in a grocery store,” Raper recalled. “It was a 1989. It was fantastic.”
Although still not well known, Madiran is slowly being discovered. Bonny Doon, the iconoclastic California wine company, has begun importing a Madiran. Owner Randal Grahm has called it “Heart of Darkness”, in honor of its color, and slapped on a wild smear of a label designed by Ralph Steadman.
Country Vintner of Richmond is distributing it in Hampton Roads.
“They are big, inky, very different wines, made from old vines,” said Pat Dudding of Country Vintner. “They are awesome, because they have such intensity.”
So I had fun both drinking and investigating the origins of my “Madiran.” But speaking more generally, Madiran is an example of the type of lesser-known but excellent wines you should keep an eye out for. Once found, you get the benefit of a good wine at reasonable prices — and the pleasure of telling your friends about it.
What other nice wines are out there?
David Hollander, with National Distributing Company in Norfolk, said he likes the California wines from the Monterey and Lake County districts, which he said produce great wines but are less famous than nearby Napa or Sonoma.
“You aren’t paying for the expensive land,” Hollander said.
Peter Coe of Taste Unlimited said bottles of Rhone wine from the Costieres de Nimes appellation are flying off the shelves. They retail for $9.95 a bottle.
The trick is to trust your taste buds. Many now expensive wines were not so a decade or two ago. I know people who used to buy Ribero del Dueros, the well-known Spanish wine that ranges from $20 to $50 a bottle, when the were $6 a bottle.
They are kicking themselves now for not buying several cases.