feature | the frey way A catch in Corton: Chateau Corton in Burgundy is the latest Frey family acquisition <strong>18</strong> <strong>WineNZ</strong> Magazine | <strong>Summer</strong> 20<strong>18</strong>-<strong>19</strong>
forth many times every year, always by car. Within an hour or two of landing in Lyon, I was among vines, first in Côte Rotie, then Condrieu. Crazily terraced, hazardously steep, hard-won from the hillside with picks, shovels and strong backs, these northern Rhône vineyards provoke disbelief (and very sore muscles). Late that afternoon, I was back on the valley floor at Tain-Hermitage, the town at the heart of the northern Rhône. From the front door of Le Vineum, Jaboulet’s cellar door and restaurant in the Place du Taurobole, you are overlooked by the imposing Hermitage hillside, crowned with its legendary chapel. Inside Le Vineum, I at last met Caroline Frey. She has the presence of a horsewoman, I thought immediately. It’s a look I know, having grown up with horsey siblings and attending (reluctantly) more A&P shows than I care to remember. It’s not just her clothes (unflashy, dark tones, a jacket that could have been worn at a three day event). There is also a controlled calm, along with an alertness, that perhaps owe something to having learned how to communicate with an intelligence other than human. Frey no longer rides, she tells me. Her life is now given over to twin loves – a seven year old daughter and wine. The more she talks about the latter, the more you get a sense of how genuine her conscience is in regard to the business of making wine. I put it to her that overseeing three fine estates in three great regions is not your everyday gig. She is privileged. Does all that come with a degree of pressure? “The only pressure I feel is in my relationship with these places. We have a passion for ‘grand terroirs’ and with that there is heritage – the heritage of the earth and the stones beneath. These places are unique in the world, not just for their soils but also their energy. In our La Chapelle vineyards you sense a special energy. For me it is important that these places be preserved and worked ‘correctly’. That is a duty.” The next day I am taken to the top of the Hermitage hill. It is a beautiful, peaceful place. It has been doing what it does for over 2000 years and everything about it seems old and wise and sane. The small 12th century chapel itself is owned by the Jaboulet estate and was recently restored by the Frey family – another dutiful act. We tasted through a Jaboulet selection, mostly 2016s. I fell in love with several wines well before I arrived at La Chapelle. The Domaine de Saint-Pierre Cornas 2016, for example – an essay in structural elegance. And La Maison Bleue Hermitage 2015: dense, generous and remarkably lengthy. Everything about the Jaboulet La Chapelle 2016 is precise and contained. Young and tight, its pure dark fruit has a steely edge and the tannins are ample yet finely woven. It is all about beauty, not the beast. When the Frey family acquired an estate in Burgundy in 2014, another grande maison became theirs. Hard to miss, this stately chateau rises above the small town of Corton and dazzles with its richly tiled roof, the frey way | feature similar to that of the Hospices de Beaune. It’s early days for what has been rechristened Chateau Corton C. The estate’s conversion to organics has begun and a new winery was recently built. Production is currently small (30,000 bottles per vintage) but ambition is not in short supply… the Freys are on the lookout for more vineyards in Burgundy. Caroline Frey admitted to me her marriage to pinot noir has not yet been consummated, although “it will come”. However, some delightful wines are already being made. My five-day, three region swing ended with a tasting of the Chateau Corton C. range. Two pinots stood out – Aloxe Corton 1er Cru Les Paulands 2015 and Auxey-Duresses 1er Cru Le Val 2015. The day before, Frey had said the empire could well keep expanding. Alsace. I enquired? She smiled and nodded, but intimated her next region of preference was Piedmont in Italy. What holds no interest is the New World. (“Too far. I would be a consultant, which is not what I want”.) She confessed to having tasted only a small number of New Zealand wines, all of them white, and was embarrassed at not being able to recall their names. Then I told her that the name of one of New Zealand’s finest syrahs, Trinity Hill Homage, was a salute to the late Gérard Jaboulet. Now that did interest her. Memo to Trinity Hill: you might want to send Caroline Frey a bottle. <strong>18</strong> th century elegance: Chateau La Lagune The barrel hall at Chateau La Lagune www.winenzmagazine.co.nz <strong>19</strong>
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