The Original Malbec

France’s Cahors region stages a comeback with some help from the New World.

By Elin McCoy Bloomberg Markets, August 2009

Thanks to the worldwide popularity of Argentine wines made from malbec, the sleepy, picturesque French wine region of Cahors is on its way back from a century of obscurity. Producers in Cahors are reaching out to their New World counterparts in the hope of fast-tracking global recognition for their very different take on the red grape that originated here.

As everyone I met on my four-day visit this past spring kept reminding me, malbec has been grown in Cahors (pronounced cah- OR) for 2,000 years. The region -- which is dotted with castles, truffles and stony vineyards -- was known in the Middle Ages for its dark, dense “black wine” that was more famous than Bordeaux and prized by czars, popes and bankers. By the 1970s, though, Cahors’s 58,000 hectares (143,300 acres) of vineyards as of 1866 had shrunk to 440 hectares, and most of the wines had become rough and rustic.

Today, Argentina has a little more than 70 percent of the world’s plantings of malbec -- and the established reputation. French winemakers rarely acknowledge their New World rivals, but producers in Cahors, which is located in southwestern France east of Bordeaux, are actively seeking to align themselves with Argentina. For one thing, they’ve dropped local grape name auxerrois in favor of internationally recognized malbec, and some are putting it on their labels. French scientists are joining with Argentines to study the malbec clones grown in both countries. And vintners are embracing joint promotions. For example, Cahors’s display was right next to Argentina’s, not with those of other French regions, at huge wine trade fair Vinexpo in June. And in May 2010, wineries from both countries (and a few others) will pour their malbecs for wine lovers on the 14th-century Valentre Bridge in Cahors at the third International Malbec Days.

As I crisscrossed hillsides and followed the twisting Lot River in this 40-kilometer-long (25-mile-long) valley, I found ambitious vignerons investing in their vineyards and modernizing their production methods. They’re making rich, savory malbecs that happen to be perfect with juicy steaks seared on a smoky summer grill.

Leading winemaker Pascal Verhaeghe’s deep, brooding Chateau du Cedre wines were a surprise at my first stop. With aromas of violets and licorice and flavors of cherry, plum and minerals, these stunning wines had nothing in common with the tough, tannic Cahors wines I’d tasted in the past except an inky, glass-staining color.

Verhaeghe, who was on his way to South America to explore joint Argentina-Cahors malbec projects, had dropped off his wines for me to taste at up-and-coming Chateau Haut-Monplaisir. He helps owners Cathy and Daniel Fournie make their own wines from grapes that used to be sold to negociants.

Dressed in black jeans and a sweater, Daniel Fournie sets up the bottles on a narrow table in his small tasting room off a cobblestone courtyard. Haut-Monplaisir’s three deep-flavored malbecs, each at a different price level, all shared a distinctive mineral tang. As we strolled the vineyard, Fournie scooped up a handful of the iron-rich red dirt to show me where the taste came from.

Vintage counts more here than in Argentina, where, year after year, dry, sun-drenched vineyards produce ripe, very fruity malbecs with higher alcohol. In Cahors’s cooler, wetter climate, wines are savory and plummy, with more acidity and tannin. When the sun shines, as it did in 2005 and 2007, they’re wonderfully plush, but when it doesn’t, as in 2006, they can be lean and green.

Malbec is said to reflect like a mirror where it’s grown, so the next day, I stopped by Domaine Cosse Maisonneuve’s modest, warehouse-style winery for a local-geology lesson. Top winemaker Matthieu Cosse, who looks like the rugby player he once was, has three vineyards in the best zones in Cahors and makes a wine from each. “The richest and most-complex wines come from this third -- the highest -- gravel terrace above the Lot River and the higher limestone plateau,” he said.

We were standing in his gravelly La Fage vineyard, on the third terrace. The higher the elevation of the terrace, the better the drainage and less fertile the soil, which translates into wines with more structure and ageability. On the plateau, which is even higher, grapes ripen more slowly because the nights are cooler, Cosse said. That’s why wines from his Les Laquets vineyard up there have less roundness but greater elegance. In fact, in the late 1990s, a massive geological study identified the zones in Cahors that would produce the greatest wines.

The push to quality and international recognition was jump- started by Cahors’s big-name tycoon, luxury goods magnate Alain Dominique Perrin. The former head of jeweler Cartier and now executive director of Cie. Financiere Richemont SA, its parent company, bought run-down Chateau Lagrezette almost 30 years ago. Perrin invested millions and used his connections and marketing savvy to gain attention for his wines and the region. His art- studded restored castle has hosted celebrities such as former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair and movie star Richard Gere. It’s Cahors’s grand showplace and a must-visit stop for wine tourists.

Hard-charging Perrin stirred up controversy in 2002 with his proposal for an official ranking of the region’s vineyards that would include only the best areas. Most winemakers voted against it.

As I tasted wine under a chestnut tree at Chateau Les Croisille on day three, Bernard Croisille defended Perrin’s idea. “Without a quality ranking, you don’t know why a higher-priced wine is worth more than one that costs 3 euros,” he said. Croisille is one of about 60 top producers who have signed a voluntary charter of quality that identifies the best wines each year.

In the past two years, wine excitement in the region has drawn more outside investors, including Paris-based software mogul Philippe LeJeune, chief executive officer and founder of Galaxy Semiconductor Solutions. Over lunch one day, the sandy-haired and bearded computer engineer told me he’d picked up turreted Chateau de Chambert for 4 million euros ($5.7 million) in 2007, hired famous Bordeaux consultant Stephane Derenoncourt to retool the wines and launched his first vintage at the London International Wine Fair in May. “I decided malbec had good potential and checked out Argentina,” he said. ”But Cahors is the underdog, and I wanted a castle,” he added, laughing.

Columnist Elin McCoy is based in New York. elinmccoy@gmail.com

#<535521.2245115.1.1.35.19341.811># -0- Jul/13/2009 12:44 GMT