Deep Ellum's Calais Winery names its wines for nearby streets

Benjamin Calais didn't follow a traditional route to winemaking. He's never worked in a winery. He's never gone to the University of California at Davis, first stop for many U.S. winemakers, and he's never taken so much as a winemaking class in his native France.

"All my summers I spent in Bordeaux, in particular in Saint Émilion," he says in softly accented English. "Barrel tasting – that's where you learn." One of his friend-mentors was Château Les Gravières estate-owner Denis Barraud, whose wines are highly prized.

After graduating, Mr. Calais went to work for an information technology startup in Paris and eventually was transferred to its Plano office. When the time came for him to return to France late last year, he decided to stay to pursue his dream of opening a winery.

Nine months later, after getting his legal status squared away, he bottled his inaugural wine: La Cuvee d'Elme 2007, a Bordeaux-style claret that is 52 percent cabernet sauvignon, 47 percent merlot and 1 percent cabernet franc.

"It's kind of ripe," Mr. Calais says, as if to apologize for its California origins. The sunny state produces riper grapes than the ones he worked with in Bordeaux. "I'm trying to focus on a European-style blend," he says, wines that improve with age yet still taste fruity enough to drink right away.

He was pleasantly surprised by some Texas-grown cabernet franc, though most of his grapes come from California.

When deciding how to make the claret – how much of each grape to produce the best blend – he and some friends taste-tested two combinations side by side, one made with California cab franc and the other with Texas cab franc. The latter clearly produced the better wine, he says, so that's what's in the final product. He made 1,500 bottles.

La Cuvee d'Elme is the first of three wines he'll sell in his retail space at the winery, which is beginning to shape up, just around the corner from the Mozzarella Co. The wines are displayed in riddling racks.

He's also working on a cabernet sauvignon-syrah blend and a chardonnay. Like La Cuvee d'Elme, they will be named for neighboring streets.

He just finished bottling the chardonnay, La Principale. If Principale doesn't sound like any street you've heard of in Deep Ellum, that's because it's French for Main.

"The acid's fresh," he says of the wine, "not oaked at all." So it doesn't have the buttery, toasty character typical of many California chardonnays. He hopes to have La Cuvee du Commerce, the cab-syrah, bottled soon. The cabernet sauvignon is ready, he says, but "the syrah is finishing in barrels. I'd like it to settle down a little more."

Growing up in Calais, France, Mr. Calais came by his love of wine through his grandfather. The surname derives from the city near Belgium and just across the Strait of Dover from Dover, England, where Mr. Calais' family has lived for generations.

The older man would allow his grandson to taste wine on special occasions. "They were all great bottles," Mr. Calais says. "I discovered early on that I really loved wine."

After moving to Paris for his studies, he still found ways to drink exceptional wines on a budget.

One way was to buy bottles with his friends at out-of-the-way auctions. He remembers the time in 2003 when they scored a 1961 Pomerol for 35 euros (about $46). Pomerol is the smallest of Bordeaux's wine-producing regions, and 1961 was a great vintage.

"It had no label and no cap," Mr. Calais says of the long-cellared bottle. The cap is the foil cover over the top of the neck. When he pulled the cork, "I could tell it was the real cork from the castle that year."

The wine turned out to be from Chateau Nenin, one of Pomerol's top estates. "It was somewhere near perfect," he says of the wine 21 years older than he was. "It's something different to taste old wines. ... A bottle like this was absolutely incredible."

His own wine may not be quite ready for such accolades, but it will be interesting to see where Mr. Calais' well-honed French sensibilities take him in Texas winemaking.

Kim Pierce is a Dallas freelance writer.

Calais Winery

First release: 2007 La Cuvee d'Elme. A little bit Old World, a little bit New World. Cherries, berries and vanilla on the nose give way to a rush of fresh fruit in the mouth, yet the wine is nicely balanced with crisp acid and lightly grippy tannins. An excellent first effort. $17.55.

Second release: 2007 La Cuvee Principale. This has the deliciously lean profile of an unoaked, Old World chardonnay, with lively pineapple-green, apple-wet stone aromas that translate to a crisp, bracing mouthful. Makes your mouth water for food. $16.63.

Where: Both are available at the winery, 3000 Commerce (at Walton)

Phone: 469-463-0866