Displaying items by tag: Arnaud Valour

Summary:

Without a doubt the most famous and celebrated "adult" beverage around the world, Champagne isn't just a wine, it embodies French luxury, those occasions you will want to remember and a certain approach to life.

Of course, there isn't just one Champagne so after taking you on a short trip thru the vineyards we will try to have you experience the difference between Champagne types and draw an aromatic map of the expressions of Champagne wines.

Some might say that Champagne is fit for a whole dinner and any dish, well, you will find out thru the pairing ideas that will be unveiled.  Will it be about Foie Gras, Fugu and Caviar or about chicken nuggets, burgers and fish sticks? Join us to find out during this one-hour lunchtime mouth-watering webinar.

As usual as part of the session, you will also experience a "virtual hands-on" cooking lesson with a Christmas Special twist.

Presenter: Arnaud Valour, Gourmet Gourmand or Gourmand Gourmet

Summary: 

Do you feel you are rather French or German?

Here's the question you should never ask when going there. Alsace is Alsace and has a personality of its own so do its wines and food.

Close to neighboring Germany, Alsace is a melting pot of influences. For the wines it is where geology, climatology, grape varieties and savoir-faire blend to offer a full array of scents and tastes from Edelzwicker to Grands Crus and of course the deep rich flavoured Grains Nobles.

For the food forget about "Cuisine Nouvelle", here it really is a question of local specialties you can taste at a Winstub, literally meaning Wine Room, you can't go wrong with that, can you?

First discovering the atmosphere of Alsace, we'll then lead you thru different wines' profiles and draw an aromatic map of the expressions of Alsace wines. From then on it will all be about local Charcuterie, Flammekueche,  Baeckeoffe, Fleischschnackas and of course Sürkrüt, to smelly and delicious Munster and finishing with a Kaeskueche or Kugelhopf.

Not sure what all that is? Join us, all will be revealed to make your mouth water before lunchtime.

Study Alsace wines in-depth with our Alsace Study Trips. Learn more about French wines with the French Wine Scholar study & certification program.

Presenter: Arnaud Valour, Gourmet Gourmand or Gourmand Gourmet

Arnaud Valour describes himself as a gourmet gourmand or a gourmand gourmet. He is a lover of food, wine and travel.

He has studied marketing and communications in both France and the U.K. and  worked for several years promoting small and medium sized enterprises in the Rhone-Alps region. Most recently, Arnaud was in charge of the Chablis and Grand Auxerrois Bureau of the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB) managing the Maison des Vins de Chablis et du Grand Auxerrois.

A Burgundian resident, he is currently a consultant in the fields of food, wine, and Burgundy wine travel.

Summary: 

Once thriving and celebrated around the world the Beaujolais wines are sometimes today looked down upon. Laying in between Burgundy and Côtes du Rhone this region still produces some amazing white, rosé and red wines and benefits from the culinary influences of the French Capital of Gastronomy: Lyon.

Starting with Beaujolais Nouveau and travelling thru the different crus you will take a tasty trip in the vineyards of France's most renowned producer of Gamay.

First discovering the ambience, we'll then lead you thru the different wines' profiles and draw an aromatic map of the expressions of Beaujolais wines. From then on it will all be about food as we'll share pairings from around the world just to make your mouth water before lunchtime.

Presenter: Arnaud Valour, Gourmet Gourmand or Gourmand Gourmet

Arnaud Valour describes himself as a gourmet gourmand or a gourmand gourmet. He is a lover of food, wine and travel.

He has studied marketing and communications in both France and the U.K. and worked for several years promoting small and medium-sized enterprises in the Rhone-Alps region. Most recently, Arnaud was in charge of the Chablis and Grand Auxerrois Bureau of the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB) managing the Maison des Vins de Chablis et du Grand Auxerrois.

A Burgundian resident, he is currently a consultant in the fields of food, wine, and Burgundy wine travel.

Summary: 

Delicious, elegant, subtle and tasty ... here are a few adjectives you'll remember after this session because our objective is to make all your senses virtually experience the amazing Burgundian lifestyle for a short but appetizing 60 minutes.

How could we introduce Red Bourgogne food pairings without talking about the 100 wine appellations in Burgundy? Well, it's not easy so we'll start by selecting 13 wines from Northern Irancy to Southern Macon.

We'll draw an aromatic map of the expressions of pinot noir in Burgundy and from then on start building easy and more complex pairings around the world just to make your mouth water before lunchtime.

Presenter: Arnaud Valour, Gourmet Gourmand or Gourmand Gourmet

Arnaud Valour describes himself as a gourmet gourmand or a gourmand gourmet. He is a lover of food, wine and travel.

He has studied marketing and communications in both France and the U.K. and worked for several years promoting small and medium-sized enterprises in the Rhone-Alps region. Most recently, Arnaud was in charge of the Chablis and Grand Auxerrois Bureau of the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB) managing the Maison des Vins de Chablis et du Grand Auxerrois.

A Burgundian resident, he is currently a consultant in the fields of food, wine, and Burgundy wine travel.

Presenter: Arnaud Valour, Gourmet Gourmand or Gourmand Gourmet

Arnaud Valour describes himself as a gourmet gourmand or a gourmand gourmet. He is a lover of food, wine and travel.

He has studied marketing and communications in both France and the U.K. and  worked for several years promoting small and medium sized enterprises in the Rhone-Alps region. Most recently, Arnaud was in charge of the Chablis and Grand Auxerrois Bureau of the Burgundy Wine Board (BIVB) managing the Maison des Vins de Chablis et du Grand Auxerrois.

A Burgundian resident, he is currently a consultant in the fields of food, wine, and Burgundy wine travel.

Back to French Vintage Chart

The vintage chart and harvest reports provided by the Wine Scholar Guild gives you the ranking for every French wine region and vintage from 2000 to today.

Andrew Jefford, award-winning wine journalist for Decanter Magazine and author of twelve books on wine including The New France, has compiled information and written the vintage charts starting with the 2013 vintage. He is also updating information for the vintages prior to 2013.

Last updated: Jan. 16, 2023

Alsace

Vintage	Quality	Drink	Comments
2021		Drink/Cellar	After a cold and unusually snowy winter, March was mild, initiating budburst.  Alsace wasn’t spared the frosts of early April, though the cold winter meant that the losses here were less dramatic than elsewhere (10% in general compared to 50% or more in Burgundy).  The rest of the growing season remained a battle against the elements, with a lack of sunshine and repeated episodes of heavy rain dominating May, June and July; losses from mildew damage outweighed those from frost in Alsace.  August, finally, saw a welcome return of warmth and sunshine.  After more difficult weather at the beginning of September, beautiful early autumn weather in late September and into October paved the way for a late harvest which was much better in quality than growers had dared hope earlier in the season.  The Alsace crop overall was 20% below normal – but some domains suffered more.  “A loss of 50% might be regarded as catastrophic in a normal year,” reported Olivier Humbrecht MW, “but in 2021, it represented a victory over the elements.”  2021 is a fine year for dry Alsace wines in general: tense, textured and with outstanding fruit qualities, and especially so for Riesling.  By contrast, few sweet wines were made in 2021.
2020		Drink/Cellar	As elsewhere in France, winter in Alsace was mild and wet, and the vines got off to an early start; despite this, there were no frost losses and flowering was successful.  Ironically, this was cause for anxiety in Alsace, since 2020 was the first year of a new regional agreement to limit yields for still wines to 65 hl/ha and for Crémant to 70 hl/ha (both from 80 hl/ha formerly): an attempt to limit the region’s perennial problems of over-production.  Growers needn’t have worried: summer was hot and dry and yields fell naturally because of this.  The harvest began very early in this region which has traditionally resorted to late harvesting, with the Crémant harvest beginning in August and still wines in early September.  Growers were particularly happy with the Pinot Noir crop this year, considered by some to be the best ever (and with Pinot Noir often the first of the still-wine varieties to be picked), but every variety gave good results.  Production of sweet wines (after a fine late season) returned to normal after 2019’s very short crop.
2019		Drink/Cellar	A mild winter meant an early start for the vines, though a cool April and May checked the advance somewhat.  There were even frosts in May, though fortunately these didn’t greatly affect the best vineyards; a long and irregular flowering followed in mid-June, after which the vines were three weeks behind the 2018 seasonal pattern.  All change in mid-June and July, as the weather became very hot and dry, and by the end of July drought was beginning to affect the warmest, stoniest sites.  August rains saved the day; by véraison in mid-August the season was back on chronological track.  Magnificent harvesting weather throughout September and on into October contributed further to ripeness, and growers were hugely enthusiastic about the quality of what they harvested, with the wines showing freshness, structure and richness alike.  Both dry and sweet wines will age well.
2018		Drink/Cellar	After a mild, wet January, February was cold and snowy, with temperatures of -13°C by the end of the month. March and April turned wet and mild again and flowering came in early June, up to two weeks early, as the rains continued: Alsace received a year’s rainfall in the first seven months of the year. Temperatures soared and the humidity dropped away from the end of July, with a 40°C heat spike at the end of August. The warm weather continued throughout September and into October, as the nights increasingly grew cooler, enabling a leisurely harvest to unfold over two months or more. The Crémants were picked from August 22nd, with picking for all varieties underway by the second week in September, depending on site. 2018 is a generous vintage in both quantity and style, with Pinot Gris and Pinot Noir being particularly successful, and with substantial production of both Vendange Tardive wines and Séléction de Grains Nobles. The wines will age well in both dry and sweet style.
2017		Drink	After a very cold winter period (with 56 sub-zero days in December 2016 and January 2017), the early spring weather turned warm, with early budburst. As in so many other French regions, frosts struck in late April (20th and 21st in Alsace), affecting 4,500 ha, with 1,500 ha of vineyards losing 80% or more of their crop. The overall harvest (907,000 hl) was 20 per cent down on 2016. The frosts struck flatland or bottom-slope vineyards particularly hard: above all Auxerrois and Pinot Blanc destined for Crémant. After that, conditions were almost perfect for the rest of the season, with a sunny summer interspersed with rain showers, cool nights, and perfect botrytis-forming conditions towards the end of the season.  Summer was also relatively hot here (the fifth hottest in the last 40 years).  It was one of the earliest harvests ever, beginning on August 21st, and although quantity is down, quality is high for all varieties, as well as for red wines and late-harvest wines. The wines are perfumed, complex and concentrated.
2016		Drink	After an alarmingly warm January, spring was cool and fretful, and budburst came normally in April.  June was intensely wet, but the weather improved for flowering at the end of the month, and summer was thereafter warm and dry, with no more rain until September 18th.  Harvest began at the end of September and continued through a generally fine October with good ripening conditions, but little or no botrytis (so there will be few Vendange Tardive and SGN wines this year).  The overall harvest size is normal, and 2016 has produced classically poised, fresh Riesling, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer wines.
2015		Drink	A perfect weather script for Alsace: a warm, dry spring and early summer was followed by a July heatwave, to the extent that the vines were suffering by early August.  Rain storms on August 9th and 10th were hugely helpful, and after that, the vines ripened perfectly for a leisurely harvest throughout September, VT and SGN included.  All varieties excelled, including Pinot Noir.  2015 is considered the greatest Alsace vintage since 1990 and 1971, though quantities were not large.
2014		Drink/Past peak	A warm spring and early summer led to an exceptionally successful flowering and fruit set.  July, though, had double its average rainfall, creating disease pressures. August was cooler than usual, leading to Drosophila suzukii attacks on Alsace’s dark-skinned grapes (Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer).  Picking in mid- to late-September produced a smaller-than-hoped-for harvest of beautifully balanced wines which, like 2013, favoured dry styles over sweet.  Riesling and Pinot Gris were particularly successful.
2013		Drink/Past peak	A cool, slow spring meant that flowering was delayed until the second half of June.  Mid-July to mid-August was warm and dry (though with hail in some sectors), meaning that early September rain was welcome.  The rest of September was dry and sunny prior to an early October harvest.  2013 is a fine, low-yielding year for dry wines, especially Riesling but also Pinot Gris and Gewurztraminer: fresh, elegant and vital.  There are few VT and SGN wines.
2012		Drink	Spring frosts , extended flowering with isolated hail followed by very dry summer & water stress. Beneficial rains in September. Reduced harvest of mature grapes leading to structured wines with potentially long life. Some compare to 2010 or 2002.
2011		Drink/Past peak	Early start. Cool, wet summer marked by frequent storms. Very sunny end of August. Normal volume after short 2010. Sorting key to quality. Lighter, often delicate wines of lower alcohol & moderate acidity, many with early appeal. Considerable variability.
2010		Drink	Mixed spring weather, prolonged flowering, coulure & millerandage. Irregular ripening by variety & parcel. Low yields of concentrated, expressive wines with elevated acidity. Small quantities of very fine VT/SGN across varieties with marked botrytis. Best dry & late-harvest wines will benefit from long cellaring.
2009		Drink/Past peak	Early flowering, hot & dry August. Dry September with cool nights. Healthy, mature wines with higher alcohol, ripe acidity. Grands crus highly successful. Fine October weather, VT/SGN resulting from desiccation of berries (passerillage) rather than botrytis. Exceptional late-harvest Riesling.
2008		Drink/Past peak	Marked variation between early-, late-ripening locales. Damp, cool June extends flowering. Warm but not hot, stormy summer & wet early September. Slow maturation. Structured Riesling, Gewurztraminer from best sites will keep well. Successful VT/SGN wines.
2007		Drink/Past peak	Uneven, long season. Warm spring, wet & cold periods in summer. Notably slow ripening. Dry wines are elegant, tend to be totally dry in ’07 (no residual sugar). Gewurztraminer excelled: rich, highly aromatic. Large number of exceptional VT/SGN.
2006		Past peak	Benign season ends with rain, 24 September into early October. Careful sorting required, some unevenness. Very few VT/SGN except Gewurztraminer, picked after rains.
2005		Drink/Past peak	Heat at flowering, many green harvest to limit yields. Best wines are ripe, balanced. Favorable conditions in October for noble rot, exceptional Gewurztraminer.
2004		Past peak	Riesling in dry style performed best. High yields resulted in many weaker wines. Hardly any VT production.
2003		Past peak	Earliest season since 1893. Record summer temperatures, water stress, hailstorms. Low yields averaged 67 hl/ha. Negligible noble rot, low output of VT, no SGN. Very ripe Pinots, Gewurztraminer. High alcohol & low acidity are common.
2002		Past peak	Varying heat & humidity in summer. Uniform flowering, crop thinning controlled potential volume. Riesling stands out. Favorable end of October for VT/SGN Gewurztraminer.
2001		Past peak	Indian summer completes ripening. Riesling particularly successful. Very fine year for late-harvest wines across varieties. Rules for ripeness of VT/SGN revised as of 2001 vintage, increasing minimum sugar levels.
2000		Past peak	Precocious season, ideal spring, hot & dry summer. Ripe, substantial wines with sound acidities. Widespread noble rot, memorable SGN in relatively large quantity (more than 1997, a voluminous year for late-harvest wines).

Quality	Chart Legend
Poor
Poor to Fair
Fair
Fair to Good
Good
Good to Excellent
Excellent
Excellent to Exceptional
Exceptional

These vintage notes have been prepared by Andrew Jefford, Academic Advisor to the Wine Scholar Guild. New vintage information, and any revisions of previous vintage drinking suggestions, are made each autumn.  Use the chart as a guide only; in every vintage there will be outperforming and underperforming wines.

Back to French Vintage Chart