Rachel Fellows writes this entry to our 2024 wine writing competition about tasting an unforgettable Pouilly-Fumé. See the guide to our competition for more.
Rachel Fellows writes I am a former drinks editor of Esquire magazine, nominated as Louis Roederer Consumer Wine Writer of the Year in 2019. I began taking my WSET exams in 2020 and moved into restaurants shortly after, to further my vinous education. I currently work as a freelance writer and marketing manager for an English sparkling wine producer.
Dabbling with Dagueneau
“So, what kind of thing are you into?”
Nervous look.
“What are you about?”
That’s a heady question for a philosophy graduate. And an utterly terrifying one to be asked during a trial shift at the UK’s coolest wine bar. Slicker people would jump at questions like that. Perhaps the types who enjoy ‘elevator pitch’ challenges or audition for The Apprentice. Not neurotic writers trying to break into the wine industry by earning their stripes and morphing into that most enigmatic, exalted of species: the sommelier.
Surely this is a trick. Nobody tells Noble Rot what’s hot, so what could I possibly add to this conversation?
Yes, I know how self-pitying that sounds. I should just be more confident, right?
Right.
But wine is a place with a lot of already-very-confident people in it – people who seem to have come out of the womb reciting Bordeaux’s First Growths and legendary vintages; people whose opinions are so firmly established that they express them louder than anyone else’s; people who have the cash to flash when something takes their fancy.
I am not one of those people. I’ve always liked wine and have always drunk wine. My grandpa ordered regularly from The Wine Society, which was dependable, respectable and enabled him to serve eminently passable wine at the dinner table on his doctor’s budget. This seemed the height of sophistication when I was growing up. Thanks to a career in magazines, I’ve been taken on mesmerizing press trips, tasted money-can’t-buy wines (like the time I was given a private Cristal vertical by Louis Roederer’s Chef de Cave, in said cave), and invited to countless dinners by the other large Champagne houses. I’ve dined in some of the best restaurants in the world and been handed eye-wateringly expensive glasses ‘on the house.’ I’ve also braved the indie outfits trying to convince you to give their hazy natural wines a go because, even if they taste like a barnyard, they apparently don’t leave you with a hangover (the next big thing, must be written about post haste, etc.). Despite this, my journalist’s wage meant that, when buying wine for myself, breaking the £10 barrier in the supermarket wine aisle has always felt somewhat nerve-wracking.
Being asked ‘what I’m into’ is therefore rather complicated.
I could tell you some of the nuttier, caramelised old Champagnes I’ve marvelled at, that I’m partial to a South African Cinsault, that I think Beaujolais gets an unfairly bad rap but I’m not sure why and that, despite Chablis seeming to be the default white Burgundy to order from a wine list, I’d sooner go for a Macon (less austere, tantalisingly tropical, still displaying that typically Burgundian restraint). But I’ve never been in the same room as a bottle of DRC and am aware that my knowledge of the ‘great’ producers has embarrassing gaps in it. The most interesting and funky new producers I’ve come across have tended to be at the recommendation of equally interesting sommeliers and so the precise reason that I’m here, gunning to join the sommelier tribe, is because I am looking for the pulse of cool, perhaps revolutionary winemaking so that I can jostle with all the other promising winos to put my finger on it.
In other words, I need you to tell me what I’m into and I’m scared that whatever I say will convince you that I don’t belong here. Wine is, unfortunately, petrifying as an industry, despite being so tantalising as a product.
And then the most brilliant thing happened: after I’d spluttered something about South Africa and the Macon, and received a laudably polite response, my mentor for the evening (a fabulous woman, depressingly, a good 10 years younger than me but infinitely savvier and more knowledgeable) said, “What about Dagueneau? Tried the Silex?”
The answer, funnily enough, was no.
Without lifting an eyebrow (at least visibly), she reached straight for the Coravin and plunged its needle through the cork of a slinky looking bottle with a gnarly gold diamond etched in place of a label, from 2007.
Didier Dagueneau. Visionary. Rebel. A Loire Valley producer who changed the face of Sauvignon Blanc. Died in a plane crash in 2008, only adding to his mythical status. This wasn’t Sauvignon Blanc as I’d ever encountered it. As my taster was poured into a Zalto glass, the glistening crystalline ochre promised depth and intrigue. Standing behind an ice trough of ridiculously exciting wines that I was yet to discover, the bar’s buzz and clatter quietened into the background as I tasted this pure yet rich liquid. Zesty citrus notes, both pithy and oily – lime and bitter orange – gave way to rounded stone fruits punctured by tropical highlights, with floral overtones and a hard, definite, mineral core; mineral in a way that made other mentions of minerality sound silly – rigid, uncompromising, dark, menacing. Hints of warm spice, like nutmeg, tantalised the taste buds every now and again. This was a fresh, magnificent, confusing and long-lasting wine that made a weightier impression than anything I’d ever tried, via a confounding lightness of touch.
This wine defined the artistry that makes winemaking itself so captivating. It surprised me in a way that I wanted to be surprised over and over, and over again. I learnt a story of a renegade winemaker unafraid to write his own rules, who made a lasting impression on the oenological development of his own region and beyond. I had every memory of ‘ok’ Sancerres or my mother’s beloved New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs – in all their grassy glory – blown out of the water. And it happened in a mere moment. Very shortly after, the sounds and smells of the restaurant smashed back to the fore, reminding us of the work to be done and thirsty customers awaiting counsel.
That’s the fun of wine. That’s why I wanted to be a part of it. That’s why the kind, interested professionals of this world do such a service to the rest of us rookies – they don’t judge you on what you don’t know but relish opening you up a whole, brilliant new world because sharing is more fun: sharing stories, sharing experiences, sharing wine.
And in case you were wondering, I got the job and had a wonderful time as a sommelier: guests respond to honesty and passion over mere bravado so, if someone will give you a shot, it’s the world’s biggest confidence booster. Rather fun, too.
Image by Constantine Johnny via Getty Images.