La Fiole du Pape Affair

Dear Carole Bourget :  we are all looking forward to visiting Maison BROTTE next weekend. Personally I’d like 10 minutes to discuss this situation which originally brought me to contact Maison Brotte and the Federation in 2014.

Perhaps this old email best summarizes it :

And so it was 2 years ago I wrote to federation@chateauneuf.com to discuss a unfortunate experience I had had with a Chateauneuf at the Oak Bay Marina Restaurant. 

From: Bill Smith [mailto:wesmith@outlook.com]
Sent: 19 October 2014 22:03
To: federation@chateauneuf.com

Subject: Chateauneuf Issue in Oak Bay, British Columbia

I wish to draw your attention to a diasappointing experience I had this evening.

On my 68^th birthday I dined at the Oak Bay Marina Restaurant in Victoria British Columbia Canada

The food was wonderful – BC Oysters and Lamb Shank cooked to perfection. But the wine – the Chateauneuf du Pape – was a huge disappointment.

I have been a passionate lover of the Grenache grape and Chateauneuf du Pape.

When I looked at the wine list I was reasonably happy that there was at least one Chateauneuf on the wine list. But at $100 per bottle I thought it a little “rich”. BUT - it was a “2009” – A  very good year I recalled (confirmed by my little book from daughter Caitlin). Perhaps worth the 2x upgrade on the local liquor store price.

But when it arrived with the maitre d’, I sensed we had an issue. He was apologising and arguing that the replacement – a fiole du pape - was even better than what was on the menu.  I looked at the “olde” bottle, bent by the “heat” and aged by some synthetic process (see attached images) and immediately knew “we had a problem”.

Then when I noticed it was not a vintage, all alarms went off.

The maitre d’ was a well meaning young Canadian. I struggled to listen to his sales “pitch” that the “melange” of vintages was a better/reasonable replacement and it is a well balanced wine.

Fortunately I got him to agree that should I later find this was “an issue” he would repay my $100 (which I later requested and which he did not honour).

So I tasted the wine. The maitre d’ told me that my second taste would be important. I thanked him for his advice! But what he failed to realize was that the aroma not even first taste, that told me everything. 

A vintage Chateauneuf no matter the year, is a spectacular experience. This was nothing close to that experience.

Somehow this young Canadian sommelier believes this “combo” wine is a replacement for what should be a selection of Chateauneufs on the Oak Bay Marina wine list. For me this experience has done a disservice to your brand.

I hope we can improve the knowledge of our young Canadian sommeliers and trust you are not indirectly using this “fiole du pape” product as a way to profit from selling low quality Chateauneuf wine on Western Canada. Or even worse, selling a blend which includes a portion of lower quality wine not even from Chateauneuf. 

A month later your Canadian representative (I believe it was Jeremy Fouquet | Export Manager America) was kind enough to come to my home in Oak Bay and spend time explaining the history of La Fiole du Pape. His gift was much appreciated and went a long way in repairing the Oak Bay Marina restaurant experience. 

It is hard for me to continue to offer constructive suggestions as I do realize this “brand” is your best seller in western canada.

But I do feel that there might be a solution which involves educating your clients and not leaving them feeling foolish or disappointed, as I was. Your website explains the philosophy well.

"Just like in Champagne, he aimed then for this special cuvée,  baptised "La Fiole du Pape", to have the same taste year in year out. Impossible task with only one vintage inside the bottle, as conditions change over the years, but completely achievable when blending young wines and older reserve cuvées. Kept preciously in our cellar, these reserve back vintages will have the task to correct the typicity of the blend in order to ensure consistancy of taste and style".

So the solution is simply for the restaurants to know this is not a normal vintage Chateauneuf, nor a normal vintage blend, but designed to fulfill the above philosophy. 

So it would be listed on their wine menu separately from the vintage Chateauneuf and perhaps priced appropriately. It would never be offered as a replacement for a vintage wine, without the customer knowing the difference, and perhaps at a lower price. It seems this is now a way for the restaurant to increase its profit substantially by offering this as a replacement for their listed vintage Chateauneuf at the same price.

I look forward to talking to you about this issue with you and better understanding this product. Although I must say sampling your vintage wines is much more the reason why I am visiting you next weekend. 

Best wishes

William E. Smith