Romance of the grape(1)
One can read the tasting annotations for a recent wine tasting and find that honey and toasted hazelnut are contained in the Fortant de France Chardonnay 2006; aromas of pear, peach and gingerbread found in the Robert Skalli Reserve Chardonnay 2006; while notes of blackcurrant, mocha and a hint of vanilla can be experienced with the F de Skalli Cabernet Sauvignon 2000. The very words coax the senses, and you can almost, almost feel that rich lushness of pear, that spiciness of gingerbread, that toasty flavor of mocha.
Almost.
Because only a small percentage of the patrons who actually taste the wine, and these would be the more experienced or those possessed of an exceptional palate, will be able to discern these subtleties.
For the rest of us, the limited experience of the wine is enough; that barely discernible interplay of flavor leading to an unparalleled enjoyment of food and a feeling of warm conviviality with the world in general.
The difference is made up by the romance of it all. Each bottle of wine is alive, not only aging as you would, but redolent of the land from whence it came. Close your eyes and you’ll find yourself transported to another time, another place, a chateau in the south of France. Perhaps early morning, the sun low and large. There is a slight breeze, a rustling as one walks from one tree and its patch of shade to another, until finally, there is no shade at all. Only row upon row of vines, low enough to easily spy the sun-kissed purple grapes and lightly, oh so gently, touch one orb with an index finger. The winegrower sings in the background, charming his plants to fruition.
More than anything, it’s the story, the romance that sells wine.
That and good marketing, of course.
The Skalli story
Les Vins Skalli and Fortant de France are brands owned by the Robert Skalli family, French vineyardists who came to Algeria following the devastation of French vineyards by the phylloxera virus in the 1870s. In the 1930s, patriarch Robert-Elie Skalli planted such South-of-France varietals as Carignane, Alicante, Grenache and Cinsault in the harsh Algerian soil. Eight years later, Algeria had close to a million acres of vineyard and by the 1950s was a major source of red wine for France.
After World War II, Robert-Elie’s son, Francis, took over operations, and made inroads in terms of blending varietals and founding partnerships with growers. He spied the potential of establishing a winery in the French Languedoc in southern France. But in 1964, two years after Algeria gained its independence from France, he died in a plane crash at the age of 39. The family relocated to France, and his son, also named Robert, inherited the business along with the family passion for wine and terroir.
By 1974, the third-generation Skalli wine maker had built on the vision of his father. At 24, he became the first wine maker to launch varietal wines in the South of France.
"He wanted to travel and see how people were making wine in foreign countries. He went to Napa, he met Robert Mondavi there... he discovered the brands and varietals, which you don’t print in AOC (Appellation d’Origine Controlee). Coming back to the South of France, where the winegrowers were suffering at the time — this was the early 1980s, with [a profusion of] not high-quality wine — he said okay, to get out of this crisis, we plant international varietals — cabernet sauvignon, merlot, chardonnay, sauvignon blanc — and build strong brands. That’s what he did in 1982, and in 1987, five years later, Fortant was the very first single varietal wine brand from the South of France," Les Vins Skalli International Sales Director Etienne Godard toldBusinessWorld.
"From the New World, we take the marketing, the strategy of making the wine easy for the people, the varietal and the brand. Because in France, it is different, AOCs. If you go in front of the shop, if you go to a wine district, you don’t know what to choose. But if you want a cabernet, a merlot, a chardonnay, a sauvignon blanc, you can taste each one easily and you can know which one you prefer. It’s more accessible. Most people don’t appreciate wine because it’s so complicated, and so we have to make it easy. First of all, it’s about pleasure... you can start with the varietals, and when later on when you become a connoisseur, then you can look for the AOCs... a blend of several varietals, it is more complex, more rich," he added.
