No need to fear competition by Chinese reds

FOLLOWING the surprise victory of Chinese red wines over French ones at a blind taste-off in Beijing in which the top four of the top five wines chosen by five French and five Chinese judges were “Made in China”, The Connexion asked readers: “Should French wine growers be nervous?”

My answer is "no, they should not".

Even the event’s organisers acknowledged this was not China’s “1976 moment”, referring to a legendary blind taste-off in Paris at which Californian wines were ranked higher than competing Bordeaux wines.

The Beijing competition pitted China’s best estates’ best wines against a ragbag of run-of-the-mill Bordeaux wines. Since the wines had to cost between 200 and 350 Yuan (€25 to €40) and French wines are subject to heavy import duties in China, the Bordeaux wines selected for the competition would have cost half that in France, so they were not exceptional.

To overcome the price disadvantage inflicted by duties, a few big European names have been tempted to make their own wine in China. Moët & Chandon is, with local state-owned agriculture company Ningxia Nongken, making “Champagne” along the Yellow River flood plains in Ningxia, China’s third-poorest province where farmers earn less than €2,300 per year.

This watermelon-producing region is not steeped in wine culture, but Moët’s experts say Ningxia’s soil and climate closely match the terroir of Rheims. Really? Ningxia is 800 km west of Beijing, just south of the Gobi Desert and Mongolian steppes. The climate is semi-arid with hot, torrentially wet summers and winter temperatures as low as minus 25°C, when winemakers protect vines by burying them.

Curiously, Ningxia’s vaunted terroir, ideal (Moët’s experts say) for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, is also where the top four Chinese Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot-based wines at the Beijing taste-off originated. With its capacity to produce Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux imitations, tiny Ningxia province is an obliging hussy of a terroir. Luckily it is not also subject to typhoons, like Shandong province – another of China’s up-and-coming wine regions – where legendary French wine producer Château Lafite recently opened up a vineyard.

However, the Torres Spanish winemaking dynasty invested millions of euros in winemaking projects in China but subsequently pulled out. Family patriarch Miguel Torres told me: “China doesn’t have any good terroir.” Where the land is suitable, the weather isn’t right; where the weather is right, the land isn’t suitable.

The other problem for foreign companies wanting to make wine in China is that their new (and unwanted) business partner is likely to be the local communist party honcho.

Nothing can be done to avoid the second problem, but companies with millions to invest can always transform their terroirs, for example by importing pudding stones or adding minerals to the soil, even by changing weather patterns to make them more vine-friendly. California winemaker Michael Mondavi mused about the possibilities of terraforming in the wine film Mondovino: “Wouldn’t it be cool one day to make wine on the moon?” No, it wouldn’t, Mr Spock. It would be illogical. Who would buy it?

Foreign wine manufacturers setting up in China are hoping to capture local market share; they’re not yet talking about widely exporting. However, given the Chinese middle class’s extreme brand-consciousness – for whom Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne are key names – even this is a questionable business plan. Face would be lost if you entertained your Chinese business colleagues with anything but the real stuff.

Marketers selling “Made in China” wines are betting consumers’ perceptions can be changed. So we have the spectacle of Chinese wine industry officials trying to establish their country’s wine culture credentials, like an American presidential candidate trying to establish his Irish roots. But do seven 4,600-year-old ceramic pots from Shandong province containing fragments of grape seeds constitute a wine culture? Does the birth register really say O’Bama?

First published in The Connexion (February, 2012)

Bomb victim’s daughter presses for Sarkozy corruption inquiry

President Sarkozy’s 2012 re-election bid could be hit by allegations of illegal kick-backs and irregular arms dealing – which campaigners believe led to the deaths of 11 French workers in a 2002 bomb attack.

JONATHAN HEALEY spoke exclusively to Sandrine Leclerc, daughter of one of the victims.

Nicolas Sarkozy is being urged to explain his involvement in a potentially highly damaging 17-year-old corruption scandal involving suspected kickbacks from arms sales to Pakistan.

Investigators suspect the alleged kickbacks were used to fund a failed presidential campaign Mr Sarkozy ran for his mentor and ally, former Prime Minister Eduoard Balladur.

The case – known as L’Affaire Karachi – centres on a bomb attack in the Pakistani city which killed 11 French naval workers in 2002.

Investigators are looking at claims the bombing was motivated by anger at then president Jacques Chirac’s decision to stop huge commissions on the €800m arms deal being paid to Pakistani officials and middlemen.

Chirac suspected kickbacks from the deal supplying Pakistan with three Agosta submarines were used to finance Balladur’s political activities. Chirac had beaten Balladur, his bitter political rival, in the 1995 presidential election.

Sandrine Leclerc, daughter of one of the attack victims and co-author of On Nous Appelle Les Karachi (They Call Us the Karachis), spoke to The Connexion about the expanding investigation into the affair that saw two of Sarkozy’s close allies arrested in September.

Mrs Leclerc said: “We are encouraged by recent developments which support our conviction that political corruption and the stopping of commission payments linked to the Agosta contracts were excellent motives for the deaths of our loved ones.”

In September, police arrested Thierry Gaubert, a financial advisor to Sarkozy in 1994-1995 when he was Balladur’s budget minister and campaign treasurer. Mr Gaubert is being investigated over links to a Franco-Lebanese businessman, Ziad Takieddine, who is charged with fraud over the submarine sales to Pakistan.

Sarkozy’s special advisor and former Interior Minister, Brice Hortefeux, is the subject of another investigation into whether he unlawfully obtained information from an investigation into the affair and then contacted Mr Gaubert before his arrest.

Transcripts of telephone conversations published in French newspapers are said to indicate Mr Hortefeux warned Mr Gaubert that his wife had “given up a lot” when questioned by investigators.

Police also arrested Sarkozy’s close friend Nicolas Bazire, who was in charge of Balladur’s private office and presidential campaign director.

A witness at Mr Sarkozy’s 2008 wedding to Carla Bruni, he is accused of complicity in the misuse of public money.

The lawyer for the victims’ families, Olivier Morice, said these developments had created “panic at the highest levels of the state.”

Mrs Leclerc also wants Sarkozy to clarify his role in the setting up of Luxembourg company Heine, which victims’ families and investigating judges suspect was used to channel tens of millions of francs in kickbacks into Balladur’s campaign coffers.

“We want to know why Mr Sarkozy would set up a shadow company in a tax haven to channel commissions if they were legal. We believe complex and inventive financial schemes were devised to manage kickbacks.”

The investigative website Mediapart has quoted a Luxembourg police report linking Sarkozy to the setting up of two Luxembourg companies at the time, including Heine.

Mrs Leclerc also wants the Conseil Constitutionnel France’s highest constitutional authority, to make public its deliberations concerning Balladur’s presidential campaign finances.

His accounts were rejected by the body because of the movement of suspect quantities of cash, but they were later validated by then committee president, Roland Dumas.

Sarkozy has angrily denied allegations of kickbacks and irregularities in Balladur’s campaign financing and has repeatedly promised to hand over all relevant documents.

“He hasn’t kept any of his promises: to hand over documents; to keep victims’ families informed; to meet with us – we’ve had everything but his support,” Mrs Leclerc said, referring to undertakings Mr Sarkozy made to families during their only meeting with him in 2008.

The families achieved “an important step forward” last month, when the Conseil Constitutionnel ruled documents relating to the Karachi attack, which the government had withheld due to military confidentiality, should be handed over.

The committee said the rules surrounding state defence secrets were too restrictive and that this was preventing judges from carrying out their investigation.

Mrs Leclerc said the victims’ families had been hampered in their search for the truth from the beginning, at every turn and from the highest levels.

“After the bombing, we were encircled by government officials. It was bizarre. We were told what to do and think. We were told Al-Qaeda was responsible. A lawyer was imposed on families.

“I never saw the lawyer. It turned out he was the lawyer for the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy. He bluntly told my co-author, Magali Drouet, to ‘get over it’.”

The families hired lawyer Olivier Morice in 2008 when Mediapart and Le Point published details of a 2002 government report which concluded that the bombing was probably linked to the ending of commission payments on the Agosta contracts – an opinion shared by the current judge investigating the attack, Marc Trévidic.

The judge initially appointed to investigate the bombing, Jean-Louis Brugière, maintained for six years that the attack was the work of Al-Qaeda.

“Bruguière told families that the attack was certainly the work of Al-Qaeda, though he had evidence to the contrary.

“We would have been happier if the bombing had been the work of Al-Qaeda. The idea that our loved ones died because of a political financing scandal is grotesque,” Mrs Leclerc said.

Victims’ families want Mr Bruguière, who retired in 2008, to answer accusations that he obstructed the course of justice by failing to reveal to families the doubts of French pathologists who conducted an autopsy on the presumed bomber.

Mrs Leclerc said the families are also considering laying a complaint of manslaughter against Chirac and former prime minister Dominique de Villepin if they suspected retribution would follow the decision to stop Agosta commission payments.

Mr de Villepin has asked to be heard by the judge investigating the Agosta deal, Renaud Van Ruymbeke, reputed to be one of France’s most ruthless independent investigative judges.

Mrs Leclerc said the Legion of Honour medal posthumously awarded to her father had been buried in anger “somewhere in the garden” by her mother. “My father didn’t die for France. He probably died because politicians put their own financial and career interests before the safety of French defence workers,” she said.

First published in The Connexion (December, 2011)

My ultimate New Year's resolution for wine Tour de France

IF YOU USE the Mayan calendar, you will know that it’s coming to the end of its 5,125-year cycle this year. If you’re also inclined to apocalyptic thinking, you might assume that the Mayan calendar’s expiration heralds the actual end of days, too.

While no dark horsemen are stalking my 2012 calendar, why risk assuming the end isn’t nigh when now is the time to make what might be your last New Year’s resolution? So, I resolve this year to try the best wines from France’s 12 wine-growing regions and treat myself to bottles from each region’s legendary producers. Call it a “wine bucket list”.

Here’s my year ahead, travelling anti-clockwise around the Hexagon:

January - The Loire’s bone-dry Muscadets and smoky Sauvignons are refreshing after Yuletide’s excesses, and Anjou rosés appeal, but a still Vouvray from legendary Domaine Huet and a Cabernet Franc Chinon from Domaine Joguet will add bouquet to the bucket.

February - Bordeaux lets you indulge your most aristocratic red and sumptuous sweet white wine urges. A Pomerol from Château Petrus will satisfy the former while a Sauternes from Château d’Yquem will do the rest.

March - The South-West caters for all, it’s Bordeaux on a budget. Bergerac and Buzet suggest lightweight Clarets, while Monbazillac is the sweet white wine. Cahors and Fronton do darker reds. But bucket space is reserved for a burly Tannat from Madiran’s Château Montus.

April - The Roussillon is an accumulation of contrasts – hot and cool, windy and calm, mountain and sea – producing correspondingly diverse wine styles, notably the complex Banyuls and Maury sweet wines. But into the bucket goes a dry white from Domaine Gauby.

May - The Languedoc does soft and fruity, rich and aromatic. A tangy Picpoul with lunchtime oysters precedes a spicy Pic Saint-Loup with the evening’s roast beast. But I’m adding the atypical Mas de Daumas Gassac to the list – because being a maverick is a Languedoc trait, too.

June - The Rhône Valley divides easily into two: while Syrah dominates the north, I’m instead bucketing a Viognier from Condrieu-based Domaine André Perret; Châteauneuf-du-Pape is the south’s epicentre, from where I’ll add a Grenache classic from Château Rayas.

July - Provence is delicious, almost creamy rosés by day; sunny, herbal and rich reds by night. Cézanne and Van Gogh’s pine tree-topped hillsides are also the source of the seriously sturdy, appellation-defying, must-bucket Cabernet-Syrah blends from Domaine de Trévallon.

August - No farewell would be complete without recognition of the generous, velvety charms of Gamay from one of Beaujolais’ ten cru villages. The pourrie (disintegrated) schist terroir gives Domaine Marcel Lapierre’s Morgon wine its structure and room in the bucket.

September - Burgundy’s prized Chardonnays and plush Pinot Noirs are unlike anything from neighbouring Beaujolais. Reason enough to bucket a bottle of Chablis from Domaine Raveneau and reds from the Rousseau, Leroy and La Romanée-Conti vineyards.

October - The Jura makes great wines from Burgundy grapes, but it’s a vin de paille from grapes dried and concentrated on straw mats from Château d’Arlay that I’m bucketing – and from the Savoie, a light, floral, evanescent Roussette-based white from Domaine André & Michel Quénard.

November - Pretty Alsace is the home of France’s spiciest white, the full-bodied Gewurztraminer, and Riesling, a lively balance of fruitiness and acidity – a bottle from Domaine Zind Humbrecht will satisfy a thirst for the former, and a world-beating Riesling from Maison Trimbach’s tiny Clos Sainte-Hune nearly fills the bucket.

December - The finest vintage Champagne imposes for an end of the world celebration, so top up the bucket with ice and add a Blanc de Blancs from Krug’s Clos de Mesnil, a bottle of Pol Roger’s Cuvée Sir Winston Churchill and a Cristal de luxe from Louis Roederer.

The end of the world predicted by sages and seers has never happened, of course, and those who anticipate it typically refer to the period afterwards as “the Great Disappointment”. But if you follow my advice, you won’t be disappointed. You will, however, be penniless. Happy New Year!

First published in The Connexion (January, 2012)