A wave of discussion about British Columbia’s liquor laws has recently swamped both social media and the traditional media. Much of this discussion has been prompted by a number of high profile issues surrounding the Liquor Control and Licensing Branch’s (the “LCLB”) refusal to grant a special occasion license to a Whistler pride event and a condition the LCLB placed on the Rio Theatre’s license that it cannot show movies at any time while holding the liquor license. Vancouver’s Mayor, Gregor Robertson, has picked up this issue and has signalled that the city supports the Rio and would like the LCLB to reform the rules. Additional pieces by reform stalwarts Mark Hicken (a lawyer in Vancouver) and Kurtis Kolt (a highly respected independent wine consultant) have further catalyzed the debate.

Amongst all the chatter I have noted a continued misstatement or misapprehension of the legal structures that create and give jurisdiction to both the B.C. Liquor Distribution Branch (the “LDB”) and the LCLB. Calls to reform “liquor laws” are imprecise and regularly inaccurate, which is a problem when asking for change to big powerful bureaucracies. As a lawyer I feel that it is my duty to clarify how the system works so that proponents of change can understand what it is exactly they are asking to be changed. This article is thus meant as a primer for those who are interested in the legal structure of these issues and I hope it will contribute to the dialogue by making discussion more accurate and more precise.

The Legal Structure of the Liquor Bureaucracy in British Columbia

Liquor in British Columbia is governed by two entities, the LDB and the LCLB. Each of these entities was created by an act of the legislature of British Columbia. The LDB was created by the Liquor Distribution Act (the “LDA”) and the LCLB was created by the Liquor Control and Licensing Act (the “LCA”). Both the LDB and LCLB operate under the auspices of the Ministry of Public Safety and Solicitor General.

The LDB is responsible for the sale and distribution of alcohol in the Province and the LCLB is responsible for alcohol licensing and enforcement of offences under the LCA along with license conditions.

These acts give the Lieutenant Governor in Council (i.e. the executive branch of government) the authority to pass regulations. The most important regulation is passed pursuant to the LCA and is called the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation.

And even further down the chain, the LDB and the LCLB have the legal authority to create certain “policies”. Most policies are not publically published, though they must be made publically available on request. However, this is the meat of where most decisions that impact the industry are made.

Policies are subordinate to the regulations and the legislation. This means that LDB and LCLB policies must be consistent with the acts that grant these entities the authority to create such policies. Additionally, there are a number of legal principles that restrict the creation of policies and the manner in which policies are implemented by the LDB and LCLB. This area of law, known as administrative law, is extremely complex but also fundamentally important to understanding what the LDB and LCLB can and cannot do.

The Acts

The Acts are the source of authority for the LDB and the LCLB. These establish the structure of the organizations and grant them the discretion to make decisions with respect to a very wide array of matters pertaining to liquor.

For example, the LCA prohibits any person from selling liquor without a license and requires licensees to purchase all liquor from the Liquor Distribution Branch.

As a further example, the LDA grants government control of all liquor distribution and retailing in the Province. In particular, it requires all liquor sold in the province to go through the LDB, it requires that title to all liquor be surrendered to the government upon entering the Province, and it places all liability for losses, damages or costs upon importers, retailers and other private entities.

The LDA also grants the general manager of the LDB the authority to create specific restrictions on the storage and movement of liquor, including the physical structure, operations and security measures of all facilities storing liquor prior to retailing (i.e. the ability to govern warehousing in the Province).

The Regulations

The most important regulation is the Liquor Control and Licensing Regulation, which was promulgated pursuant to the LCA. It sets out the various restrictions on license types such as liquor primaries, food primaries, agents, retailers and wineries (both commercial and land based).

For example, these restrictions include (at s. 8(2)) barring granting or transfer of a Liquor Primary License to entities that are predominantly by or directed to minors, motion picture theatres, restaurants and video arcades.

The regulations (s. 14(1)) also grant the LCLB the authority to control the sale of food and the consumption of liquor on premises licensed as Liquor Retail Stores.

The Policies

As I mentioned earlier, the policies are the real meat for the majority of issues in the industry. Examples of policies include the restriction on LRS’s not to sell food or coffee, the LDB “mark up” of 123% for wine, use of inefficient forms and methods to sell and order wine, and the ban on corkage.

Policies must be consistent with the legislation that governs the given agency. In other words, there must both be legislative authority to implement a policy and that policy cannot conflict with other parts of the relevant statutes and regulations.

The Legal Basis for Challenge

The various legal bases for challenging decisions of the LDB and LCLB, including challenging policies, are quite vast. I will only outline the basic parameters of the most important administrative law principles and remedies.

The most important concept to understand in the liquor context is “discretion”. The LDA and the LCA grant the LDB and LCLB quite a broad discretion to make decisions. This includes, for example, the LCLB’s discretion to grant licenses and the LDB’s discretion to set prices, grant a direct shipping exemption to B.C. wineries, or appoint agency stores.

However, there are rules that restrict the exercise of this discretion. It is an abuse of discretion, for example, if the LCLB takes into account irrelevant considerations or fails to take into account relevant considerations, if it makes a decision for an ulterior purpose or in bad faith, or if it fetters its discretion.

This idea of “fettering” discretion is especially important with respect to the LDB and LCLB because most of the issues arise from policies that they create. It is a fettering of discretion to rely on an inflexible policy without considering the individual merits of a particular matter. Many of the complaints I have been reading about in the media arise out of these sorts of inflexible policies. If such policies are too inflexible, and decisions are made in reliance on these inflexible policies, then such decisions are susceptible to a “judicial review”, which is a petition to the court to review the decision made by an agency (in this case the LDB and LCLB).

If this petition is successful the court can “quash” the LDB or LCLB decision and return it to the relevant board for reconsideration. Reconsideration must be made in accordance with the reasons provided by the judge. As such, judges can create parameters that restrict the LDB and LCLB decisions in the future. However, judges cannot, in most cases, tell the LDB and LCLB what to decide. Rather, they can only restrict the manner in which the decision must be made. Courts will also sometimes provide comment on what they view to be reasonable. All of this can lead to the LDB or LCLB reversing its decision.

There are other principles such as bias and procedural fairness that restrict the manner in which the LDB and LCLB can make decisions.

The second fundamental way in which to legally challenge an LDB or LCLB decision is by way of a jurisdictional argument. The LDB and LCLB can only make decisions if they are made in accordance with the authority granted to them under the LDA and LCA, respectively.

In the case of the LDB, there is little, if any, direct legislative authority for most of their policies. Rather, the LDB is operating mostly on a discretionary basis. Since policies are essentially the nuts and bolts of how the LDB is run, these nuts and bolts are subject to the general principles discussed above. That is, the discretion to implement these policies must be exercised reasonably. It is unreasonable, for example, to consider something that is entirely irrelevant to the decision being made. Determining whether or not something is relevant can be complex and requires analysis of the wording and the purpose of the legislation, regulations, and policies at issue.

In conclusion, there are quite a few legal avenues by which the actions and decisions of the LDB and LCLB can be challenged. The arguments can be complex and require lawyers, but this is a proven and effective method to challenge certain decisions. However, one cannot change the acts (the LDA or LCA) or the regulations by legal challenge unless they violate the constitution. That said, courts will provide interpretation of statutory provisions that can be beneficial to those who wish to challenge LDB and LCLB decisions.

The Political Basis for Challenge

While all policies must be reasonable and within jurisdiction, any policy that meets the administrative law requirements will be upheld by the court. The only way to challenge these policies is for the LDB or LCLB to change them internally.

Additionally, if change is to be made to the act then these changes must be made by the provincial legislature. Any change to regulations must be made by the executive (i.e. the Ministry).

The incongruity I have been seeing is that many call for the “law” to be reformed without considering whether they are asking the government to change the act, the regulations or LDB and LCLB policies. Each of these requires a completely different mechanism and involves very different stakeholders. It is also important to consider that any changes to the act are likely to still grant the LDB and LCLB considerable discretion. Thus, the question becomes: what changes are most likely to ensure the consistent results I want in the future?

The LDB and LCLB have always slightly modified their policies over time to ensure that no major challenge is made to their overall structure. Those interested in reform must therefore question whether all they want is a change in a policy or whether they want a change to the structure of the organizations. If structural change is desired, then reformers must ask what is the effective mechanism to both achieve this change and to ensure that changes to the governing act and regulations translate into policies that ‘reformers’ want to see and prevent policies that ‘reformers’ want to avoid.

I would also note that most of the complaints about the LCLB pertain to the regulation and policies, while most of the complaints about the LDB pertain both to policies and to the fundamental restrictions on the industry created by the LDA.

I think it is fundamentally important for those discussing reform to aim their hammers at the correct nail and make sure their efforts land squarely on the appropriate entities. Otherwise, such discussions risk diffusion and present opportunities for political misdirection.

*The author practices law in Vancouver. His profile and contact information can be found by clicking here

An (Ir)relevant Digression

A recent piece in the New York Times by writer Pico Iyer eloquently defended the virtue of quiet. Stillness is a font for focus, understanding and creativity. In a world filled with technologically facilitated distractions, it is increasingly common to operate in a state of numb overload – unable to process the volume and speed of information thrust before us. In this environment, the quantity of our contributions and communications may be increasing, but their quality is decreasing. We are losing the ability to determine what matters.

I also recently learned of Erez Lieberman Aiden, a “scientist” who defies the dominant forms of thinking that the modern world has imputed on thinkers and professionals. Specialization, the narrow concentration on a small, particular area of thought, predominates in the modern world. In my profession, law, the trend has been toward lawyers who work only in limited areas like bankruptcy, insurance, or family law. In medicine the trend is the same: the greatest rewards go to those who become experts in very small regions of health and anatomy. This approach can make sense. We might never reach the same depth of understanding if we had to understand everything rather than one really small thing. On the other hand, specialists lose the ability to see problems from an outside perspective.

Erez’s work, which has focused on using pan-disciplinary approaches to solving difficult problems in science and the humanities has produced some stunning results. With no prior expertise in the field Erez solved the problem of creating a 3D model of the human genome. In the humanities, Erez has started providing some unique insights in English grammar and usage (that verbs regularize in inverse proportion to the frequency of their use).

While the grammatical discovery may not seem overly important to most, Erez is trying to show that the traditional mode of approaching problems by specializing in a very small area (e.g. reading a small number of books very carefully) limits what we can learn. By using mathematical models and Google books, Erez was able to take a broad but less in depth view of the English language by looking at 4% of all books written from the Middle English period to today and then extracting grammatical use patterns from that information. This approach has never been tried in the humanities before, but it produced a fascinating and important insight into English grammar usage.

These two seemingly unrelated stories share in common the tendency of modern thought and communication towards contradictory extremes. While we have less and less time to concentrate, the ways in which we think are becoming increasingly compartmentalized. Even as we spend more and more time looking in depth at discrete ideas, our knowledge is becoming less important, less insightful, less reflective.

Without both time to be quiet and the openness to see from multiple perspectives, we become less effective problem solvers.

And Into Wine

So what of wine? The privilege of drinking ‘great’ bottles becomes increasingly meaningless in its privileged aceticism. Every day drinking wines are often discussed in the North American press as some sort of profound basis of community that the Europeans have long understood but that we are only beginning to appreciate. Of course, this refrain ignores the basic reality that wine in Europe is largely inflected by culture and nationalism and is not just an innocent marker of friendly community. Even in Europe, for most people wine is just something to drink with food, and much of the everyday stuff that most consume is pretty poor quality.

So, once again, good wine? It’s about privilege. It is lifestyle, hedonism, romanticism. But occasionally it can teach us more than just about the good life.

The Story of Clape

Across a mundane, concrete-grey road – a doorbell. Adjacent to the ringer, on plain white paper, the word “Clape”. A calm older man opens the door. “Bonjour. Nous avon un rendez-vous”.

During harvest, the Rhone Valley is as quiet and desolate as it is, cliche-like, “humming with activity”. Ringing the bell at Clape prompted a few rare human moments as the old man (whom I later deduced was Auguste), unceremoniously escorted me across the street from the nondescript warehouse front to a small structure erected across the street to meet with his grandson Olivier, who was busy pumping over.

Nothing at Clape is glamorous. Olivier looked stressed. Harvest is a time of endless deadlines and overwhelming long hours. Only 3 people work full time in the cellar at Clape – Olivier, his father Pierre-Marie, and a cellar hand – with the semi-retired Auguste lending his forceful opinion to the final blend (all three Clapes must agree before the Cornas is bottled).

But Clape is much more than a “family” winery. It is an expression of generational differences not in conflict but rather as working to produce something greater than any of them individually.

Clape is one of the very few wineries left in Cornas that makes only one Cornas wine, choosing not to bottle single vineyards like their neighbours Domaine Courbis or Thierry Allemande. This allows them to whittle down the messages to one meangingful expression.

The Clapes’ lack of pretension and their focus on the single question “What is Cornas?” has given them a sense of wine as more than privilege. Wine is the interweaving of the various generations of their family and of Cornas itself. Theirs is a question of expression rather than pleasure. They are thus careful that this focus on expression avoids the risk of dilution. With 5.5 hectares of vineyards in Cornas, they have no plans to expand in size. They have also not increased their prices to obscene levels despite being one of the most important and respected wineries in France.

The Interdisciplinarity of Generations

I rode down the Domaine’s rickety industrial elevator with Olivier into the dank mold infested cellar that is not much bigger than a walk-in closet. This dark cellar houses all the barrels of each of Clape’s vineyards. Each vineyard is aged separately and then blended into the final wine according to the dictates of the tri-generational counsel of Clapes. Clape belies such details as their holdings of perhaps the greatest Cornas vineyard “Sarbrotte” (purchased from a retired Noel Verset) and other of the best sites in the region by announcing none of these details on the bottle.

The Clape Cornas is made without destemming and, as such, the grapes are hand sorted in the vineyard. The granite soils and warmth of Cornas make the wines denser and richer than many in the Northern Rhone. However, uniquely, Clape uses 40-60 year old Foudres from Alsace to age the wine, which allows the fruit and soils to push out without much of any influence from the oak.

Domaine Clape has no website and so seems to live in an informational vacuum. But this choice, and it is a choice, is not about remaining obscure. Rather, it is about quiet. About focus. The Clapes’ communication has been refined into a series of decisions that once a year becomes “Domaine A. Clape Cornas”. The rest of the time they listen, reflect and remain in quiet.

Yet, both Pierre-Marie and Olivier have international experience. Olivier has worked in both Australia and California and he told me it was challenging coming home not because of all the new ideas he wanted to bring into the mix, but rather because of the pressure on him to have the same skill at listening and understanding Cornas and keeping the Clape bottling one of the most distinctive and true in France. Because of this, the Clapes are interdisciplinary wine makers, even though they make only one “Cornas” (the second Renaissance bottling is of younger vines).

It takes guts to jump into wine making techniques all over the world and to come home still humbled by what already was. By way of example, Olivier slyly commented to me that his compatriot Maxime Graillot, by distinction, is trying to do too much, making too many styles and wines with too much land. He was, in other words, overloading on communication rather than pulling back and making more precise decisions about what matters.

On Stripping Away

That same dark cellar in Cornas also houses the entire stock of Clape’s old wines, going back to Auguste’s first bottlings in the early 20th century. The mould-infested creatures sat as comfortably as rock in that cellar. They were as poems housed silently in an old, nearly forgotten library.

My visit to Clape was, like a great poem, a stripping away. The privilege of wine there was not lifestyle – it was voice. Not many people find voice, whether their own or others. A wine like Clape’s Cornas is an embodiment of voice that only a very few will ever have the chance to experience. And it speaks with a clarity nearly impossible to find in the world of wine.

Clape is also a reminder of the importance of voice and of how to find it. Sometimes we must keep ourselves clear of the many interferences around us to come close to what is essential in our lives and to understand how we can add meaning through our choices. Everything else is the white noise in which we inevitably must make decisions. But, without time for reflection how can we know what choices to make and which are better than others?

The privilege I now feel when drinking a bottle of Clape’s singular Cornas is that this wine has become a rare reminder that, in order to stay in touch with one’s voice, one must take a moment of quiet to reflect, reformulate, and reinvigorate – to figure out how to make one’s contribution matter. This particular privilege thus reminds me that such moments carry with them a concordant responsibility. Deciding how to act on that responsibility is one of the great questions of life.

The Voice of Cornas

2009 Renaissance Cornas: Big and fruity nose right now with a jammy fruit palate. The acid is fresh and the wine has amazing balance. Huge, fresh and delicious. Excellent.

2009 Cornas: Very very young, but utterly complex. Dark flowers, cherries, plums, meat and minerals. Structured for millenial aging. Extremely serious wine compacted to the point of near incomprehensibility. Once this gradually releases from its primordial density, it will be epic. Excellent+.

1996 Cornas: A ‘lesser’ vintage. Storied wine. Each sip requires contemplation. A fully open and resolved wine. Tremendous florals and perhaps the most intricately delicate Syrah I’ve ever smelled and with Grand Cru Burgundy-like elegance. Excellent+.

In a year filled with travel to France, off the cuff trips to Portland and San Francisco , the first Natural Wine tasting in British Columbia and more than a few nice dinners with friends, the past 12 months may be the toughest yet to measure up my greatest wine experiences of the year. Thus, I’ve decided to mix in both experiences and wines and try to come up with something that includes both those amazing trips and some of my best domestic experiences.

I always look forward to writing this list each year because it reminds me of how spoiled and lucky I am, what a great group of friends I have and of the many wonderful people trying to make the wine industry in British Columbia work like a regularly functioning business sector. Kudos to all of them.

10. The “Home Vineyard” series of wines from Pyramid Valley Winery in New Zealand. Mike Weersing, the mind behind Pyramind Valley, may be insane. The vines may still be young. But this is probably some of the most exciting wine coming out of any New World wine region right now. For best new world wines, I had to decide between these wines or the Wind Gap Syrahs from Pax Mahl in California. The Pyramid Valley edged out Wind Gap simply because they seemed just that much more radical and were a total shock to me when I first drank them. For the record, I had the Earth Smoke Pinot Noir and the Lion’s Tooth Chardonnay. If any are left in the province, you can find them at Marquis Wine Cellars.

9. San Francisco Beer Week 2011. My infatuation with beer began around the same time as my love for wine. However, my budget as a student meant that I used to drink a lot more beer than wine. This trend has tipped back towards wine these days, but in the past 5 years I have witnessed Vancouver go from a beer backwater to an up and coming Portland. We still have a long way to go, though, as evidenced by my second time attending the San Francisco Beer Week, which is probably the best series of beer events in the world. While living in Berkeley I had a chance to try many of the USA’s top beers. This year’s trip down to SF in February saw me complete my quest to try all of the greatest beers in the world with a healthy dose of Russian River’s Pliny the Younger and Lost Abbey’s legendary Cable Car (a sour beer). The latter beer is only available at Toronado’s in SF and only during beer week. The former is largely considered to be the best IPA in the world and is released only on tap and only once a year. It was an epic end to a long journey.

8. The Wines of Etna, Sicily. This year I discovered that the grape Nerello Mascalese makes sophisticated, elegant and yet frutily delicious wines in the tiny Etna DOC in Sicily. Etna is a still active volcano and the vines are all grown in various volcanic soils. Many of the top producers (such as Passopisciaro) bottle individual crus and the differences are striking. In my opinion Etna is one of the most exciting regions in the world right now. Producers to try: Tenuta delle Terre Nere, Passopisciaro, Benanti, Cornelissen.

7. Emmanual Brochet Champagne “Le Mont Benoit” 1er Cru Brut: Discovered at a wonderful bottle shop in Lyon France and described to me as “Selosse but more consistent”, this stunning Champagne cost a mere 30 euros. No sulphur, grower champagne at a miniscule production level. A perfect example of what we’re missing over here in B.C. – a wide range of properly stored and reasonably priced grower Champagnes. Marquis is now one of the only places in town with a worthy selection. You won’t find this there, though. I’d say look for it the next time you’re in France, but that would make me sound like a douche.

6. Cune Vina Real Cosecha 1976: I was lucky enough to attend a few dinners at Rasoul’s (fanatical wine collector) place this year, and this wine was the pick of all those I tasted. It is amazing how well Rioja can age and how elegant, lithe and alive it can be after 34 years. A real treat and one of the oldest wines I’ve had.

5. Drinking wine poured by Jake at L’Abattoir. L’Abattoir has become my go to spot for wine in this city. Given our ridiculous licensing laws there are pretty much 0 wine bars. L’Abattoir (a restaurant) is my wine bar. With a wine program developed and championed by the ever-innovative Jake Skakun, you won’t find the likes of chilean merlot or argentinian malbec on this list. And, unlike most restaurants in B.C., B.C. wines are placed in reasonable numbers beside their international brethren rather than dominating the list. L’Abattoir is where you go to taste naturalist wine from top Beaujolais Cru producer Jean Foillard, a geeky little white from some small producer in the Languedoc, or if you feel like ponying up the cash, 10+ year old Barbarescos and other wine geek love. The wines also generally pair excellently with the food. Oh, and if you can get him talking, Jake exudes his enthusiasm for his wines and the discovery of ethically produced, innovative, challenging and ultimately delicious wines from around the world.

4. Tasting the Nichol Vineyard 2010 wines at the winery. I’ve long desired to get into B.C. wines, but have always found it a challenge when I can choose to drink some of the world’s most delicious wines for the same price. This summer, however, I enjoyed a fantastic tasting at Nichol Vineyard where I tasted their 2010 Gewurztraminer, Pinot Gris and Syrah and found each to be excellently balanced, clean and refreshing and also very reasonably priced. These are really some of the best wines being made in Canada right now. Their new kegging program is killing it (yep, wine on tap) – try it out on tap at the Edible BC restaurant on Granville Island or grab a bottle at Kits Wine or Marquis Wine Cellars.

3. Mattieu Barret Billes Noirs Cornas 2004. Another wine I had in France. Sorry! But Barret’s Cornas was a revelation. Not only because it was the purest Syrah I’ve ever tasted, but also because Barret is a naturalist whose wines transcend the immediate pleasure of those wines’ texture and aroma to be a truly great wine, worthy of sitting in the Pantheon of the Northern Rhone’s best. Purchased in that same Lyon bottle shop.

2. Visiting Domaine Marcel Deiss. The highlight of my time in Alsace was spending 2 hours tasting and learning at Domaine Marcel Deiss. This was a complete experience from which I walked away with a completely different appreciation and comprehension of Alsatian wines. Deiss also happens to make some of the most stunning whites in all of France, and his Grand Cru wines are not only of the very best in Alsace, but can go toe to toe with many a great Burgundy for complexity. Deiss is a pioneer, championing a radical break from tradition in Alsace by, of all things, reengaging in the most traditional of French practices: labelling by vineyard site rather than variety. Deiss believes in coplantation and blends. He may be controversial, but one taste of his wines proves he is on to something. You can occassionally find some of his wines in Vancouver at Everything Wine and Kits Wine Cellar.

1. 3 Days in the Northern Rhone. If I split each of my experiences in the Northern Rhone apart, they would have dominated this list. As such, I will simply include them all in this omnibus item. It was an easy choice to put these three days at the top of my list. Walking the hills of Hermitage, tasting wine with and meeting all three generations of the Clape family in Cornas (post still to come), watching father and son at harvest side by side at Domaine Graillot, tasting Condrieu at the iconic Domaine Georges Vernay and eating dinner (with some fabulous wines) at the quirky wine-geek paradise Le Mangevins in Tain L’Hermitage were only the highlights. It helped that my hotel room overlooked the Rhone River and the vineyards of St. Joseph. The Northern Rhone has always held a special place in my heart, being the region that first got me seriously into wine. Perhaps it is for this reason that these are amongst my favourite wines of all. To be able not only to walk the vineyards and taste the wines in situ, but also to talk to and share a glass with the growers themselves, was without a doubt the best wine experience I’ve had to date.

Happy Holidays!

Champagne is the most branded wine in the world. Perhaps it is apt to compare it to theatre, for it is certainly the most theatrical of wines. But, it is also a wine that is robed and masked and one that can be as opulent as the rococo or as bare and stripped down as Beckett. Maquillage. It is, in many ways, the only way in which most of the world has experienced Champagne.

Makeup is easily criticized as a flaw in wine, a distortion of the land and an attempt to please many by taking the safe, middle path. With Champagne, though, there are two sides to Maquillage.

The Spectacle and The Exposed

There is, first, Maquillage as spectacle. In Champagne, brand sells. The association with high living, from the world of the super rich business moguls to the hip hop star, drives most Champagne sales. Under the hood, you have dosage (the addition of sugar), which masks the acid of a wine, oak (which adds richness and volume), and extended lees aging. You also have the assemblage – the combining of fruit from all over Champagne and from several vintages in order to maintain a consistent style from year to year. And of course, you can’t forget sabering. This is the dominant model of Champagne and the one which most people know and understand.

Second, there is Maquillage as exposure. The greatest theatre presents its actors not as distractions or as illusions, but as reflections. The best way to the heart of a thing is round about. Exaggerate the unnoticed. Throw away the obvious. Invert.

There is this strange movement in wine education that focuses on “objective” analysis of wine. The greatest problem with this approach is that such an analysis is entirely possible. The notion that wine is purely subjective is but a product of politically correct relativism. Wine does have objective elements that we can detect and understand with our senses and intellect.

But the “objective” is not the answer. Formal methodologies fail to provide insight when adhered to too closely. At one level, everything can be objectively identical in “quality” – but that says nothing of the meaning of a wine. It fails to understand. Such methodology is akin to reading five poems side by side to determine which has the most superior use of language – an obviously ridiculous exercise.

Of course, the great advantage to an “objective” approach is that it provides an entry point. The “pleasures of comparison” Jancis Robinson calls it. And that, of course, must be true. We learn only from perspective, and as we learn, taste and compare, we build constellations of experience that allow us to, finally, sit back and appreciate.

It is only then that you can realize maquillage in its full dialectical form. It can provide pure sensual pleasure, as seems to be the focus in the majority of Champagne: dosage, oak, lees aging. The immediacy of spectacle. Represented in our tasting by Pol Roger, Billiot, Roederer and Villmart.

But maquillage can also expose the indigence of place in most Champagne. Thus comes a producer like Cedric Bouchard – a true rediscovery of how to paint the face of Champagne: zero dosage, no oak, biodynamic vineyards, always single vintage, grown in a disrespected region known as the Cote des Bar. This isn’t “purer” or “more real” Champagne. It is, rather, a use of maquillage as exposure, of challenging drinkers and pointing them towards something that almost no-one has experienced in Champagne – its terroir.

But you can’t pretend a producer like Bouchard isn’t using makeup. 0 dosage is a form of extremism – biodynamics an exaggeration. By minimizing what we have become so used to in Champagne, producers like Bouchard expose us to another side of the truth. This is why anyone truly into wine needs to find such producers.

House and Grower

Grower Champagne has only started to become relevant in the international market, which has until now always been entirely dominated by the big Champagne houses. The big mistake now being made is lumping all growers in the latter category of maquillage that I called exposure. It is simply not true that all growers have taken the risks necessary to ask different questions in Champagne. They may all profess to express place, but many, while making delicious good value wines, are only half taking up the challenge.

I think it is fairly clear that the majority of houses have completely ignored the other side of Champagne, but they are yet wines worthy of drink and spectacle, and some even come close to overcoming the spectacle by sheer magnitude: house style in a top cuvee can be exceeded by the sheer purity of raw material forming the base of the wine.

While the answers are not yet clear, to me it is the fact that more growers than houses are starting to take risks and expose one of the most complex geologies in all of France that makes grower Champagne the Champagne of the future. Does this mean they will dominate the market? No, not even close. What it does mean is that Champagne is on the threshold of something truly exciting, and we have only started gazing into the prism.

And Now to the Champagne

Last week I joined my regular tasting group and tasted through 11 champagnes in various themed flights, looking to detect that conflict between terroir and style; between grower and house; between oak, dosage and lees; between aged and not aged. It was an interesting tasting. All of the Champagnes were ‘good’, but I distance myself from most of the group’s willingness to drink any of these. For me, only a very few were wines worth seeking out. At the price of Champagne, if a wine isn’t worth seeking out, well, then why is it worth drinking? Everything was tasted blind in flights of three.

Louis Roederer Brut Premier (House): Apple and mineral. Higher dosage. Good length but seems sweetish to me. Richer, maybe malo but not overly leezy. 40% chard. Very Good. $68 at BCLDB.

Henriot Brut Souverain (House): medium sweet – rounder but shorter finish. Earthy. No oak. More post disgorgement aging. Seems a little awkward. 8g/l residual sugar. Very Good. $62 spec listed.

Vilmart & C Grand Cellier Brut Premier Cru (Grower): Green Apples. Seems sweet up front but finishes dry. Nice nose, but rich and tight on the palate. Long finish but acid relatively aggressive. More defined. 0 dosage. Some wood. Includes taille (second+ pressed juice) – 1er cru. North facing side of montagne de Reims. Chalk soil. 10 month foudres – 70 chard, 30 Pinot noir. Very Good. $70 at BCLDB.

Blanc de Blancs flight:

Perrot-Batteau & Filles Domaine de St. Leu Cuvee Helixe Blanc de Blancs (Grower): Chalky. Very good, but seems a little tight. Soft acid and excellent mouse and texture. Medium dosage. Some people found it thin but I thought it was delicious and perfect for food. 1er cru. Vertus. Very Good+. $50 USD from importer.

Jose Dhondt Grand Cru Blanc de Blancs 2006 (Grower): Mushrooms, red apple. Candied lemon. Fresh but soft – richness is balanced. Malo. Finish could use more complexity, but probably just needs time to unwind. Lees and age obvious given the richness of the palate. This was stellar wine. Very Good+. $74 at Marquis Wine Cellars.

Pol Roger Blanc de Blancs 1999 (House): Tons of toasty biscuit and candied apple. Some might confuse this with oak, but that bready, biscuity richness in this wine comes from lees and age. There is no oak on this wine. There is delicious richness and wonderful mousse. Blind I thought this was a high end house like Gosset. 10.5g/l residual sugar. Delicious but does not speak of place. I would buy it purely for the spectacle of flavour it delivers, though. Very Good+. $86 at BCLDB.

Pinot Noir Dominant Flight:

Cedric Bouchard Inflorescence Blanc de Noirs Brut 2008 (Grower): All of Bouchard’s wines are single vintage, single vineyard. Earthy, minerals. Funky secondary and not that fruity but long fascinating rooty finish. Tons of minerality. some leesy richness. Very Good+ to Excellent. $95 at Kits Wine.

de Venoge Brut Blanc de Noirs (House): More open fruit. Orchard fruit but excellent quality. Secondary development. Again earthier and darker than any wine in the first two flights. Thicker weight. Sweeter spice. Very Good to Very Good+. 80% Pinot Noir. 4 years on lees. $75 spec listed.

H. Billiot Fils Vintage 2004 (Grower): Funkytown nose: mushrooms, candy and oak. Weird funkiness like the cellar. Higher dosage. Matured in wood. 0 malo. 80% Pinot Noir and 20% chard. I didn’t love it – which I found shocking as I usually love this producer. The oak is extremely prominent right now. Very Good. $95 at Kits Wine.

Rose Flight:

Paul Bara Brut Grand Rose (Grower): Nice fruit, clean and expressive. Good but not overly exciting. Good acid. Still rich but greater in your face acid. Blending 12% red wine in for the colour (i.e. this is not a saignee rose). From Bouzy. Starting to speak of place. Very Good. $60 at Marquis Wine.

Laurent-Perrier Cuvee Rose (House): Richer. Kind of boring. Strawberry. Blended rose. 100% Pinot Noir. At the price, can find superior rose. Very Good. $99 at BCLDB.

In conclusion, the best grower wines in my order of preference were the Cedric Bouchard, the Jose Dhondt and the Paul Bara. For the houses, in order of preference I enjoyed the Pol Roger, the de Venoge and then the Vilmart. Comparatively, the best grower champagnes beat out the best houses, but the house champanges stood up and surpassed a few of the weaker growers in terms of overall quality. I still think that the grower champagnes provided overall greater interest, but they have not quite separated themselves so starkly from the houses that they are the next coming in Champagne. In time, though, I have no doubt that this will change.

Crozes-Hermitage is the great contrast to the famed regions of the Northern Rhone. Much of it lies on a plain with sandy clay soils, where many vines are machine harvested. There is variation in the northern villages, which have more granite soils and thus generally more serious wines. Nonetheless, the general image of Crozes-Hermitage is of quaffing wine of mediocre quality.

In the 1980’s Alain Graillot, previously a corporate suit working in agricultural exports, reformed the way in which wines on the southern plains of Crozes-Hermitage were made. He began whole cluster fermenting his wines, operating with minimal fertilizers and ultimately started to make wines with greater density, character and complexity than was the norm.

Alain’s son Maxime joined the team about a decade ago and is now making wine under his own label: Domaine de Lisses. Unlike his father, Maxime removes all stems before fermenting and aims for a simpler earlier drinking wine.

The contrast between the two styles of wine making is significant, but both provide quality at their price point. Both also provided considerable contrast to the other regions I visited in the Rhone and proved that a wine need not touch greatness in order to speak of place. The Graillots’ wines testify that the wines of Crozes-Hermitage are starting to come into their own.

Of Fathers, Sons and Contrasts in Crozes-Hermitage

Alain and Maxime Graillot are outgoing, engaging individuals who love to share their knowledge and passion. They kindly let me drop in during harvest and witness the chaos first hand.

The soils at the Domaine are clay and stone, with no sand, and the vineyards cover 22 hectares. Maxime’s project, on the other hand, works with purchased fruit as well as some land of his own, and much of the grapes used in his wines are grown in sand, making his wines far fruitier than his father’s, which retain more secondary, earthy and herbal characteristics.

The flurry of harvest was exciting to watch, especially comparing the approach of father to son. Maxime uses facilities built adjacent to the main Domaine and has increasingly expanded his production over the past 5 years, focusing mostly on the export market. Alain, on the other hand, is old school, having been one of the first (and still one of the only) to whole-cluster ferment his Syrah in Crozes. Both have an international mindset, but Alain’s approach is more inward looking and Maxime’s more outward.

Alain ferments his red wine whole cluster in concrete vats after a cool maceration, relying on natural yeasts and using no sulphur. Vinification generally takes 3 weeks. The red is then aged for a year in old oak casks. The main red is built for aging.

Maxime, in contrast, destems and pre-fermentation cools his grapes for 3-5 days. His vinification last 3 weeks and aging takes place in several year old old oak barrels purcahsed from DRC, Dujac and Arlot. The wines of Domaine de Lisses are more feminine than Alain’s and focus on being immediately accessible drinking wines.

The Wines

The 2009 Domaine Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage is made from old vines and tends towards a more vegetal, leafy mode of expression. It is a fairly muscular, structured wine for Crozes-Hermitage with considerable tannin and good length. Very Good+ to Excellent.

The 2009 Equinoxe Crozes-Hermitage made by Maxime is, on the other hand, a zippy fruit driven wine, with a game and mineral underbelly. It is quite delicious and easy drinking classic sandy-soil syrah and a steal at 6.5 euros. Short cuvaison and short aging in 6 year old barrels. Very Good.

The 2009 Domaine de Lisses also from Maxime is his slightly more serious offering. It is an elegant wine, leaning more towards pretty aromatics and silky, lithe texture compared to the Domaine Graillot’s toughness and density. There is less minerality than the Domaine Graillot due to the sand vs. rock soils. This wine is all about focusing on immediate deliciousness and I think it succeeds. Maxime reports that in some older vintages it is difficult to determine whether this wine is old Syrah or old Pinot. 80% destemmed, 10% new oak, the rest in 2+ year old oak. It sees 3 months in tank and undergoes malo in the barrel. Very Good+.

Conclusion

The Graillots are both making excellent good-value Northern Rhone Syrah in two completely different styles. If you are looking for old-world wines with character, approachability and affordability I highly recommend the Crozes-Hermitages of Alain and Maxime Graillot.

The Northern Rhone cannot be pinned in place. Its best wines are looms to a kindred thread, each weaving an ethereal and intellectual expression from the great common material of the north: Syrah. If there is a heart to the labyrinth of the Northern Rhone, then it is Hermitage. With a diminutive chapelle skulking nameless at the peak of Hermitage hill, it is the slopes and crevices of the land and the vines that struggle to exist on them that is the power and the glory of Northern Rhone Syrah. Or perhaps Hermitage is the minotaur, a mythical and muscular power that is hard to discover but unmistakably awe-striking when found.

Walking in the Veins of the North

We have lost touch with time. We focus always on the youthful, the exuberant, the immediate, the striking. Mountains more than molehills. We ship our old into homes to hide away, sequestered from society. We like easy answers, not enigmas. As much as we have lost touch with time, we fail to perceive the ancient.

Hermitage is an ancient hill. Many years ago, the Rhone river used to run past on the opposite side of the hill. As time past and geology shifted, the river changed course and carved out the western portion of the hill, which is technically a part of the Massif Central mountain range. The eastern half of the hill, on the other hand, holds ancient deposits from Alpine glacial movements.

Now a famous hill, it might seem unperceptive to call Hermitage ignored or unseen. But for all the attention given to this place, not enough has been focused on its mystery. The popular image of Hermitage as “masculine” syrah, full of power and force, is a simplification.

Hermitage is power, yes, but it is power shameless and threadbare. The rows of vines, like wisened veins, trudge over the ancient landscape transforming its latent energy into small grapes that produce flavours unlike anywhere else in the world. This wine is not masculine or feminine, it is ancient.

It is often explained that Hermitage refers to a place where the hermit St. Christopher lived after returning from the Crusades. An interesting fact, perhaps, but more an insight into what Hermitage can be. The mythology of hermits is strong in many cultures – they are prophets and pariahs, enigmatic but also often holding great power; sometimes living in humility and shame, but more often beings that have forsaken society rather than the opposite.

Hermitage is also a pariah. It is the most individualistic wine in the Northern Rhone and one of the most individualistic in the world. To call it masculine is like calling the Pyramids of Giza “grand”. The adjective withers in the face of the noun it purports to understand.

On Tour With Chapoutier

I walked through the Chapoutier vineyards admiring the granite alluvial soils and the complex undulation of aspects that makes wines from adjacent vineyards taste and feel like warring families rather than loving siblings. That is, until the juices are blended together to produce, through harmony, a deep complexity. Vineyards more beautiful and far more dramatic sit across the river in St. Joseph – but the soils under that striking image are far younger and the aspects and exposures less precise and nuanced. Granite soils are porous to water and less fertile than the clay soils more predominant in St. Joseph. The wines have to fight harder to survive, but also have to keep hold with shallower roots.

Planted land since Roman times, Tain itself was a wine town in the empire. This has led to much conjecture on the origin of Syrah, the great grape of the northern Rhone. However, relatively new evidence now suggests that the now iconic Syrah did not travel from distant lands such as Persia to reach the Rhone, but rather was a cultivar of an indigenous grape, discovered and tamed in the post-Roman period.

The western slopes of le Meal see far more sun and produce far louder wines than, for example, Les Greffieux. Further to the east, the vineyards turn from granite to limestone and iron and from Syrah to Marsanne and Roussane, the base of the much underappreciated Hermitage Blanc. The Mistral winds allow Chapoutier to practice biodynamics with less fear of rot, though rotting grapes were still quite noticeable in the vineyards of his neighbours.

Demand for Hermitage has a similar story to the rest of the Northern Rhone. No one purchased these wines in the 1950’s, even though they had a far greater reputation in the past when they were blended with Bordeaux to give those wines colour and fruit. Eventually, the reputation returned in the 1980’s and developed ever since. Chapoutier has been important in that realm, though I feel that his new wines have moved away from some of the most important nuances of the hill to deliver more vibrancy and fruit.

Wines of the Future Rather Than the Past

Why is Hermitage the heart of the Northern Rhone Labyrinth? Because it is the most ancient and the most enigmatic despite its great power. It is also at the crossroads of north and south, possessing the great qualities of both “warm” and “cool” climates in a near paradoxical amalgam. It is not unlike truly great Barolo, its great intellectual rival. Though where Barolo is hard and angular, Hermitage is fleshy muscle – both are prophetic and clearly of the ancient rather than modern world.

I tasted through Chapoutier’s entire range of Rhone wines, including two Hermitage rouge and one blanc. He makes far more Hermitage wines than this, with many highly priced single vineyard offerings. The quality was strong across the board, but, again, I found these wines too modern and too focused on the future rather than the past. Compared to the red Hermitages of Bernard Faurie and Marc Sorrel and the whites of producers like Colombier and Phillipe and Vincent Jaboulet, Chapoutier fails to deliver the sort of intrigue I expect from Hermitage. The wines are, of course, consistently delicious, but they fall short of profound.

St. Peray 2010 (blanc): Minerally orchard fruit with a solid level of expressivity. Sees malo in barrel. A good fresh easy drinking wine. 13% ABV. Very Good. €10.50

St. Joseph Deschants Blanc 2010: More body than the peray, and good for food. This is 100% Marsanne and a good though not exciting white. Very Good. 13.5% ABV.

Condrieu Invitare 2009: Typical rich orchard fruit driven Viognier made well, but again, not exciting. 30% new wood. Very Good+ to Excellent. €37.

Chante-Alouette Hermitage Blanc 2007: Honey and candied lemon on the nose. This sees 40% wood fermentation and is made with 100% Marsanne. The palate is quite viscous and holds low-ish acid. While not quite as bright and expressive as I’d like to see, it’s a solid wine. It is simply beat out by other producers, though. Very Good+. €39.

St. Joseph Deschants Rouge 2009: Classic. Pepper and game, but gobs of fruit over top. The minerality in the finish keeps this interesting, but it is basic St. Joseph done well. I’m not a St. Joseph Syrah lover myself, as I find the terroir just can’t match the best of the Rhone. Nonetheless there are a few producers doing great things, such as Villard. I do not feel Chapoutier is amongst that crowd, though I would not refuse a glass of this. Very Good+. €15.50

Cornas Les Arenes 2009: A big rich style, but keeping Syrah’s super aromatics. A bigger jammy style as you’d expect from Cornas. This is very tight right now and needs time. Very Good. €30

Cote-Rotie Les Becasses 2007: 100% Syrah. The aromatics are good but not great. I expect a lot of pretty flowers and light berries on the nose of a great Cote-Rotie, and this is offering nothing too much beyond the minimum. The mineral finish is nice, though. Not worth the money. Very Good to Very Good+. €42

Hermitage Sizeranne 2007: Deep brambly fruit, this is not what I expect for Hermitage. Yes, the price is low and reasonable, but there are better wines coming from producers that don’t keep their best fruit for stratospherically priced upper echelon wines. Very Good+ to Excellent. ~€50

Ermitage le Pavillon 2001: Here we go. This is what Chapoutier is all about. Explosively aromatic, expressive, powerful fruit and brightness on the palate. A profoundly mineral driven mid-palate means this wine is not all obvious power. It also has an ethereal quality, both ferral and old. Stone, Flesh and Hide. Modernist, but beautiful. 14%ABV Excellent+. €147.

The Open Barrel Manifesto

Open Barrel is a community of British Columbians who want to develop B.C. as North America’s premier cultural destination for enjoying, tasting, and buying wine.

We have tremendous pride in our local communities, artisanal producers, and local businesses, and we want to share that pride with visitors and locals alike. We also believe that fairness is a fundamental element of the “Canadian way”.

Unfortunately, the current regulatory environment governing wine and liquor sales and distribution in the province is extremely unfair, and favours large corporate interests over local businesses and wineries. We think that in order to make BC both a more sustainable province and a fairer province, the current inconsistencies and inefficiencies within our liquor laws need to be reformed. We propose these reforms because we love British Columbia and we want the true heart of our province – local farmers, winemakers, and businesses – to have the opportunity to succeed and grow our province into an internationally recognized cultural destination.

To achieve this goal we propose reform in five different areas: laws governing restaurants; laws governing private stores, festivals and small producers; the operations of the liquor bureaucracy; restrictions on importing and exporting; and, taxation. This white paper will explain why we think reform is necessary in each of these five categories.

Restaurants

We all love going out to eat. Vancouver is quickly becoming a premier destination in North America for dining out. However, current regulations make it extremely difficult for restaurants to offer high quality wine programs at reasonable prices. Here’s why.

First, restaurants like to differentiate themselves by offering unique wines you don’t normally see on government store shelves. However, regulations currently restrict restaurants from ordering these special wines in quantities of less than 12 bottles (1 case). Furthermore, two restaurants are not allowed to pool their resources to split a case of wine. Why is this important? Many small restaurants simply can’t afford to order entire cases of wine. What is the result? There is far less diversity in wine selection across the city because government regulation has made it too expensive for small restaurants that are passionate about wine to offer unique selections.

You might also wonder why wine prices are so high at restaurants. This is because the government liquor distribution branch does not offer restaurants much of a discount off of retail. So, in order to make money, restaurants have to charge extremely high prices for wine. In almost any other city in North America you can get glasses of wine for $6-$10. Here, you will regularly see the same quality glasses of wine priced at $12-$18. We are concerned that this makes Vancouver uncompetitive at attracting tourists.

Lastly, currently it is illegal to bring your own wine to a restaurant and pay a “corkage” fee. Most cities in North America allow this, especially cities that support a thriving local wine culture such as San Francisco and Seattle. Allowing consumers to bring their own wines fosters wine appreciation and wine culture, and helps develop a niche for restaurants that can’t afford to build large and expensive wine lists. There is currently no logical rationale that denies this practice. Consumers still pay the full retail price of the bottle at the store, so the government does not lose any revenue by allowing corkage. We simply cannot understand why this practice is illegal.

To keep growing Vancouver, and British Columbia, as a destination for food lovers across the globe, these sorts of archaic and illogical rules must be changed. Otherwise, we are simply giving a huge advantage to our competitors in California, Washington, New York, Toronto, and Montreal.

Private Stores, Festivals, and Small Producers

British Columbians love local wine producers. We also love to support smaller artisanal producers, whether these are farmers, sculptors, or wine makers. We are passionate about sustainability and the “small guy”. However, current regulations make it extremely difficult to promote the small guy with festivals, wine tastings, and other special events.

Right now, private liquor retailers are one of the only sources of small production artisanal wines. The BC government liquor stores have very few artisanal products made in small quantities and with organic or sustainable farming practices. Therefore, we rely on private retailers to support these sorts of efforts. However, it is currently illegal for private retailers to host off-site wine tastings where products are offered for sale. We are concerned that this hampers small businesses’ attempts to build their businesses effectively and market smaller production wines. This law applies whether international or local BC wines are being poured. We wonder why doesn’t the government want to support local producers and international producers with sustainable farming practices? These are the things that British Columbians care about.

As an example, during the Olympics – a supposed spotlight on everything British Columbia – all private wine tastings and special events were required to buy all their wines from the BC government liquor stores. This was a monopolistic practice that unfairly hurt local businesses who were not allowed to sell their products to private events. In this environment, dignitaries from France were forced to drink large production, corporate wines rather than smaller artisanal wines because the organizers of their event were not allowed to buy from private stores, even though they wanted to.

Simply put, if the BC Liquor Distribution Board were a private company, the Competition Board of Canada would have barred these practices as illegal use of monopoly power. How can small local businesses compete in this kind of environment?

Bureaucracy

Everyone knows that bureaucracies are inefficient. But, they shouldn’t be unfair. And, we would hope, they should try to consistently reform in order not to harm local businesses. Right now, the liquor bureaucracy has such a labyrinth of rules, regulations, and practices that it is extremely difficult for small businesses to run efficiently and within a fair environment.

Here are some examples. It is illegal both for “agents” (companies that represent wineries) and for non-BC wineries to sell products directly to consumers. If a consumer wants to buy a product that the liquor board does not officially “list”, they have to put in a special request to order the item, and they have to commit to ordering an entire case of wine. This effectively means that agents cannot sell a lot of their products unless the liquor board officially carries them or a private wine store decided to purchase the wines.

Some might believe that this is a fair playing field. However, there have been many instances where consumers have tried to order a case of special order wine and the government employees refuse to place the order. A customer ready and willing to pay money for a product is denied access to that product because the bureaucracy gives government employees the power to deny such requests. The agent who wanted to sell the wine was therefore denied the sale and lost money and the consumer wasn’t allowed to buy what he wanted.

This means that in order to sell wine effectively in the province the agents who represent wineries have to obtain a government liquor store “listing”. Getting listed by the government stores is an extremely difficult, bureaucratic process that can take months and, in the end, relies on the whim of a bureaucrat. Many small wineries simply cannot afford this process, and consumers are denied access to many great wines because of the overly labyrinthine process required to even get that product in a retail store. Only large corporate wineries can consistently afford the cost of obtaining regular listings with the BC government stores. We believe it should be far easier for agents to offer consumers their products. Shouldn’t we as consumers decide what we want to buy?

Many British Columbians also love locally brewed craft beers. Right now, BC government regulations forbid breweries that make under a certain quantity of beer from listing their products in government stores. What does this mean? The government stores prefer huge corporate breweries to our own local microbreweries. The fact that you can find any local beer in the government stores is astonishing. Right now, only the private stores are truly supporting local craft beers – a scene that is growing at an incredible rate. And, given the restrictions on private retailers discussed above, this creates a completely uneven and unfair playing field for our small local brewers to compete against the corporate behemoths.

Vancouver is also becoming a thriving locale for music and arts. However, opening a new arts venue in the city has become a project only for the mega-corporations. Currently, it is nearly impossible to get affordable liquor licenses for new arts venues. A recent entrepreneur’s attempt to do so was met with a $600 000 price tag. What small business has that kind of capital to open a new venue? And, often, it can take months to get license requests approved. Do we really want to see the proliferation of corporate venues? These kinds of prices make the city a completely unfair environment for passionate local entrepreneurs who care about what they are doing. Skipping across the country to Toronto and Montreal reveals the ease with which small businesses can obtain liquor licenses in those cities and contribute to their thriving arts scenes. Do we really want Vancouver to keep its reputation as the “no fun city”?

Importing and Exporting

Any thriving cultural destination has a global mentality. Such a destination is open to new ideas and tends to become a magnet for international passion. Currently, however, British Columbia has all but closed its borders to the international culture of wine. The federal Importation of Intoxicating Liquors Act makes it illegal for anyone except licensed agents to bring wine into the country or even across provincial borders. This law, enacted just after prohibition, is infused with an 80 year old mentality that no longer makes sense. The law prohibits British Columbia wineries from shipping their products directly to consumers in other provinces and it even prohibits local BC residents from bringing a bottle of their favourite BC wine to their relatives in Ontario for Christmas. Are we still really concerned with cartels monopolizing liquor distribution? It is impossible for BC to become a cultural destination when we aren’t even allowed to ship our wines to the tourists that come here to enjoy and discover them (note: a bill to change this law is, finally, before the federal Parliament).

A similar argument applies to international wines. Why can’t consumers in BC buy wine directly from artisanal producers outside of the country? We do not believe that British Columbians have a parochial mentality, so why does the government treat us like we do? Great cultural destinations are open to ideas and products from elsewhere because being open fosters both dialogue and commerce. Currently, almost no one in the United States has even heard of British Columbian wine, and almost no Canadian outside of BC has tasted it. Making BC a cultural destination will change that situation. However, doing so is only possible with reform of the restrictions on importing and exporting wine, which are grossly unfair to British Columbians who want their province to become a North American cultural Mecca.

Taxation

The last item on our list is also one of the most important. Right now, British Columbia has the highest liquor tax in North America at 123%. This means that bottles of wine that cost $20 in Washington regularly cost $40 in BC. Why would anyone in North America travel to British Columbia for wine when it is the most expensive place on the continent to purchase it?

The thriving wine cultures in California and Washington would not have developed if those states imposed a similar tax to British Columbia. In fact, Washington state reformed its liquor laws in the 1970’s (and just this year fully privatized liquor sales in a popular initiative), with such reform corresponding with the huge growth of the Washington wine industry, which is now the second largest in North America, after California.

The government consistently makes the argument that taxes are an important revenue stream. We do not disagree. However, we believe an attitude that does not want to make these taxes more fair and efficient is short sighted. Right now the BC wine industry is tiny. However, if you look at California’s wine industry, which also used to be tiny, it is now a multi-billion dollar enterprise, with a correspondingly massive tax contribution to state coffers. Doesn’t the BC government want to support growth of our local wine industry, from small retailers to local wine producers?

We believe that better prices, fairer taxes and better distribution will create a wine culture in the province that will increase the appetite for fine wine. This can only have a positive effect on the local wine industry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Open Barrel advocates for liquor law reform because we love our province and we want to see it grow into the premier cultural destination it surely can become. We believe that fair rules and an open minded approach to liquor regulation will create an environment where local businesses, artisanal producers, and British Columbians will thrive. Greater diversity and greater support for entrepreneurial spirit is the necessary catalyst for growing Vancouver into an international city. Doing so is essential for our economy, for our local industries, and for our passion and pride. We hope that you will join us in our endeavor to make British Columbia the cultural envy of North America.

Of Personality and The Grape

Visiting with Brigitte Roch, the reserved and somewhat stern matriach of the family, reinforced the metaphor that a wine reflects the personality of its maker. With so much focus on terroir as site, soil and aspect, writers often miss the important but uncanny truth that a great wine’s terroir is born also of the choices of the farmer and vinifier. These choices emerge from a personality and its encounter with the vines. This genesis of a wine cannot be decoupled.

The wines of Clusel-Roch are upon first taste austere and stern, reflecting the use of manual plowing, a complete lack of chemical spraying, and the unique schist soils that prompt significant tannin structure. Brigitte told me that the roots dug significantly deeper since the vineyards were converted to Organic beginning in 1993 (full certification was in 2002). Organic farming became necessary when the family noticed that the soils were growing less healthy and starting to erode. It turns out that chemical fertilizers were preventing the organic weed materials from dissolving into the mica-schist soils, which were already naturally extremely poor in nutrients. After the move to organics, both the soils and vines grew far healthier. The wines also gained considerable minerality after the conversion.

From Veggies to Wine

As was the trend in the northern Rhone, Cote-Rotie was a land of vegetables more than vines in the 1960’s. What wine did exist was mostly sold in bulk. It was not until the efforts of E. Guigal successfully launched the elegant, feminine Syrah of Cote-Rotie onto the international scene in the 1980’s did other farmers begin converting from vegetable cultivation to vine growing.

Clusel-Roch started making wine in the 1950’s, but it wasn’t until the 1990’s that wine-production took prime focus and that modern wine making methods became the norm along with the change to organic growing. Located in the northern part of Cote-Rotie and with a small holding in Condrieu, this family operation has long flown under the radar of the top critics and wine collectors. Perhaps it is the initial austerity of these wines that puts tasters off. They can appear angular and iron-wrought initially. Much like Brigitte, who began opening up over the course of my visit, it is only with patience that these wines begin to reveal themselves.

Traditional Cote-Rotie

All of the wines had a stern austerity to them that opened with air, though it was evident that all of the Cote-Roties required more bottle age to soften and release their delicate aromas. These are old-school Cote-Rotie wines and drinkers should not expect bombastic flavours, strong oak influence or any sort of opulence. These are, instead, quiet, balanced wines that take time to appreciate. They play more with minerality and cool subtle fruit characteristics than with explosive violets and heady big black fruit and mocha flavours.

Coteaux du Lyonnais Cuvee Traboules 2010: Made with 100% Gamay from 20 year old vines, this interesting wine spends 1 year in barrel. This is serious Gamay. Both juicy and with stem and leaf characteristics, this wine is vinified just like Cote-Rotie and has more heft and tannin than you might expect from Gamay. Very Good.

Cote-Rotie Cuvee Classique 2008: 2008 is not a great vintage for much Cote-Rotie, despite a superb example of Maison Rouge I tasted from Georges Vernay. The Cuvee Classique is made from 20 year old vines and is a feminine wine with pretty fruit and savory herbs. The tannins were a bit harsh on this wine right now and it likely needs some time. Clusel-Roch did 3 passes in the vineyard to get enough ripe grapes in this difficult vintage. Very Good+.

Cote-Rotie La Petite Feuille 2009: This wine is Clusel-Roch’s entry level cuvee and is made from the youngest fruit (mostly under 10 years old). Fermented and aged in 2-3 year old Burgundy barrels, this is all about lighter pretty red fruits and immediate drinkability. Very Good.

Cote-Rotie Les Grandes Places 2009: One of the two top wines from Clusel-Roch, made with 70+ year old vines and 100% Syrah from the 0.7 ha Grandes Places historic vineyard at the northern reaches of Cote-Rotie around Verenay. The vineyard is planted only with “Serine” clones, the oldest form of Syrah clone, which is extremely rare. The 2009 vintage was a much warmer, riper vintage compared to 2008 and that seems to work very well with Clusel-Roch’s vinification methods. The wine retains femininity and restraint despite the year (unlike others). This has blacker fruits, with plenty of fresh ripe blackberry but also plenty of long, complex minerality that needs time to resolve. The tannin and acid add considerable structure and while you can appreciate this now, many will likely enjoy this far better with several years in the bottle. Excellent.

Cote-Rotie Cuvee Vialliere 2009: The other top wine from Clusel-Roch, the Vialliere vineyard is in the north near Les Grandes Places and shares its schist soils and extremely steep slopes. It is actually an older vineyard, though the vines harvested by Clusel-Roch are a bit younger. It is an equally outstanding wine to the Grandes Places but it is more accessible, perfumed and open at this point. This is special wine and is immediately awe-inspiring – not because of bombast or intensity, but rather because of its amazing purity, complexity and length. The fruit and mineral are balanced perfectly in an elegant refinement of Syrah not unlike a great Burgundy wine. This is exactly the sort of wine that proves the immense complexity, versatility and profundity of Syrah. In my mind, it is also proof that Syrah competes with Pinot Noir for the world’s greatest red grape. Excellent+.

Condrieu Cuvee Verchery 2009: Clusel-Roch only owns 0.5 ha of vines in Condrieu, but they do a good job with what they have. While clearly the estate’s focus is Cote-Rotie, they make a classic minerally Viognier in the traditional rather than modern style with good acidity and balance. Perhaps because I had just come from tasting the Condrieus at Georges Vernay, this wine somewhat underwhelmed me, though it is clearly a great example of traditional Condrieu. Very Good to Very Good+

Conclusion

Clusel-Roch taught me that traditional Syrah from the Cote-Rotie is unlike any other Syrah in the world. They also proved that organic viticulture is essential in highly erodable low-nutrient vineyards like you find in the northern Rhone. I can understand why a winery like this would go unnoticed – its wines are not flashy, the family is reserved and their methods highly reflect vintage (for better or worse). On the other hand, clearly the Grandes Places and Vialliere vineyards are two of the most exciting and important in Cote-Rotie, making world-class feminine Syrah. For me this is just the sort of Domaine I would like to see more of in the northern Rhone where more and more vintners are moving towards modern methods. Luckily the disease of over-extraction that has infected the southern Rhone has not yet penetrated particularly well in the north. I hope it stays that way.

I seem to find myself in the great city of San Francisco at least a couple times a year. Every time I head down I am bombarded with possibility. In terms of wine, the progressive scene changes quickly here as new exciting wines constantly enter the market. I was lucky to discover a number of superb wines at great prices that do not find themselves on Canadian shelves.

The most exciting wine I discovered was the 2010 Domaine Frantz Saumon “Mineral” Montlouis-sur-Loire from Selection Massale, an importer started by one of the owners and an employee of Terroir wine bar in SOMA. It was superbly balanced and intensely expressive and is the best young Chenin Blanc I’ve ever tasted (I think it is more elegant, nuanced and complex than even Huet when young).

Speaking of Terroir, while there I got a taste of a fascinating wine from the small Provencal estate Clos Cibonne made from the obscure Tibouren grape. This was an interesting wine and surprisingly light, pretty and delicious for such a hot region and worth checking out. I also greatly enjoyed a fantastic white wine from the Canary Islands producer Bodegas Carballo that was honeyed, floral and very slightly oxidative but also balanced and inherently structured and delicious all in one.

An aggressive but flavourful orange wine from La Stoppa was delicious with a wicked cured meat sandwich from Boccalone in the Ferry Plaza. It is amazing how orange wine can seem so esoteric and weird and yet pair with the simplest and most delicious foods with which other wines have difficulty – try nuts, olives, cured meats, etc.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, after tasting the 2003 Faurie Hermitage and finding it overly pruney and under-developed (clearly both a product of vintage and a wine in need of a lot more time), I received a complimentary pour of the Pelerin Les Violettes Syrah from the Santa Lucia Highlands. This was a California Syrah that combined richness with excellent acidity and impressively complex aromatics. I am frequently surprised at how some wineries are making greatly expressive and nuanced Syrah from central California, even as the predominant score-whores go for the big and extracted.

When it comes to food, San Francisco is both creative and home to some of the freshest ingredients in the world. Almost all restaurants of any merit in the city have fantastic sourcing. I enjoyed both fantastic fresh and creative Peruvian food at great prices from Limon and some of the most intricately prepared and creative food I’ve ever had from the Asian-French Molecular Gastronomy maestro Corey Lee at Benu. Lee was formerly the chef-de-cuisine at the French Laundry for a number of years. Unlike most Molecural Gastronomy, all of the crazy techniques here were subtle and played a background role to the fusion concept and heavy reliance on hard-core asian ingredients like 1000 year old quail eggs, sea urchin, seaweed, roe, and abalone. In addition, about half of the menu foregrounded the asian elements of each dish over the French, which played a background role until the latter half of the menu, when the French style came out more overtly but never dominant. The menu was perfectly paced and each dish was astoundingly creative with beautiful presentation. I’ll let the pictures do the talking:

San Francisco continues to be a source of inspiration in wine and food culture and I hope more of its influences head up to Vancouver. We definitely need a Peruvian restaurant and a Natural Wine movement of our own!

In 1971 Viognier was on the verge of extinction. Only 30 acres were left planted in Condrieu, the Rhone Valley appellation that is the original home of the grape. It was not until the 1980’s and 1990’s when some new world pioneers started bringing cuttings back to California that Viognier began to regain popularity. For a long time in the 90’s Condrieu growers made very poor wine that didn’t express the excitement and quality of the Viognier grape well. The resurging popularity in the new world eventually found its way back to Condrieu, which has since seen vastly increased plantings and many new wineries, most of which are now making Viognier in the big opulent style that made it popular with Americans in the 90’s.

The biggest problem with Condrieu is its value proposition. Most of these wines start at around $60 and the best clock in easily at $100. At these prices, Condrieu has to compete with Cote d’Or white Burgundy. Many don’t as they give in far too much to opulence. While opulence is Viognier’s fundamental character, truly great Condrieu manages to bring opulence together with savory and even saline undertones that purify the finish.

Of Origins and Terroir

The Vernay family is one of the original founders of Condrieu as an appellation. Georges Vernay’s father Francis sat on Condrieu’s Growers Union council as Secretary and Treasurer in the 1940’s. In those days, Condrieu was mostly sweet, because most growers could not afford to wait for extended fermentations before bottling and selling the wine.

Vernay’s terroir is unique in Condrieu: a top soil of decomposed rock, mica and schist overtop of clay. This terroir creates some of the most mineral driven wines in the entire appellation. However, the precise levels of richness vs. minerality are also massively a product of vintage and Viognier’s notorious unpredictability. Even in what seem to be ideal growing conditions, grapes can shrivel and overdevelop in a matter of days.

Vernay’s top vineyard – Vernon – is likely the very best in all of Condrieu (with perhaps the exception of Chery) and wines made from grapes grown in these famous soils are some of the only age worthy Condrieus around. The best can age up to 20 years.

Why Vinification Matters

Condrieu vinification has changed drastically since the appellation was first created in the early 20th century. Condrieu used to be made in a huge range of styles, even including sparkling wine. Then came the move to producing ‘fresher’ Condrieus, picking the grapes too early and using inoculation or even salicylic acid to arrest fermentations early to prevent the natural malo-lactic.

These days, producers are finally paying hommage to the natural qualities of Viognier: rich, sensuous and heady. Extended fermentations are common as is extended lees contact. Later picking, including some botrytized grapes on occasion, is now the norm. Viognier, unlike Chardonnay, requires a deft hand at oaking. It cannot handle the same level of new oak as Chard as doing so covers over the grapes naturally intense qualities and profound aromatics. Some producers are now pushing the new oak barriers. Vernay (with winemaking now run by Georges’ daughter Christine), on the other hand, is adamant about a light touch when it comes to oak, and Christine instead trusts the quality of the fruit over that of a barrel.

On the Greatest Viogniers in the World

I spent my time at Georges Vernay with Christine Vernay’s husband Paul, who generously made time for my visit despite being in the middle of harvest. A man that combines business sense with a clear passion for the wines, he is a strong ambassador of Vernay’s style. These are wines that combine power and elegance and challenge the stereotype of Condrieu as an overly rich hedonistic wine. Vernay proves that Viognier grown in this tiny region of France can delve well into the realm of the ethereal.

Condrieu Le Pied de Samson 2010: bright acidity, clean and long. This is made from Viognier planted on the top of the Condrieu hill in the 1970’s. Very Good+ to Excellent.

Condrieu Les Terrasses de L’Empire 2010: A mineral, saline wine with floral richness and great power. The acidity keeps this fresh and balanced and this will likely age well for up to a decade. A great example of the potential of the 2010 vintage in Condrieu. Excellent.

Condrieu Les Chailleets de L’Enfer 2009: 2009 is a massive vintage in the Rhone. Most American critics have given the vintage a great review. As such, the palate has butterscotch and rich but not over the top pineapple and other tropical fruits. Aged in 25% new oak. Excellent.

Condrieu Coteau de Vernon 2009: This wine is insane. Everything about its aromatics is exquisite, though still tight and precise. Rich but bright, intensely mineral and unlike any other Condrieu I’ve ever tasted. This is amongst the best white wines made in France and can age up to 20 years. Excellent+.

Cote Rotie Blonde du Seigneur 2009: Vernay also makes some pretty fantastic Cote-Rotie. Christine’s thoughtful and intellectual approach suits Cote Rotie well. This wine is made with grapes grown in the Cote Blonde north of Ampuis, with schist soils. A floral, pretty expression of Syrah, with 8% Viognier to add lift and texture. This is elegant, meaty and pretty all at once. Excellent.

Cote Rotie Maison Rouge 2008: 2008 is generally considered a shit year for northern Rhone reds. But Vernay shows that mindless vintage obsequients don’t know what they’re missing when a great producer makes wine in a so-called bad vintage. Additionally, this wine proves why Maison Rouge is a highly sought after wine for French oenophiles, even while generally unknown in North America. This is 100% Syrah and shows a spicy deep character with great power and elegance, just like Vernay’s best Condrieus. This can age for quite a few years and is a brilliant wine. Excellent+.

Conclusion

Georges Vernay is one of the great wine estates in France and is a superb example of how tradition combined with suitable modernity makes the best modern French vineyards amongst the very best in the world. I envy those with such a profound tradition but also a potent vision for the future. These are wines that are both superb examples of where they are from and also uniquely impressive wines unlike any others. Pick them up when you see them.