What gives wine its unique characteristics is the iconic terrains and the individual vineyards from where it comes. On June 3rd, we shared a few hours with the masters of geosensorial tasting in order to further our organoleptic analysis of these wines. This practice highlights the tactile sensations that great wines offer. It was a few years ago that Jaume Gramona brought us into contact with the masters of this discipline at Les Rencontres Vignerons, gourmets et terroirs du monde. This was founded in 1995 by Jacky Rigaux, Robert Lautely Henri Jayer and is today known as Les Rencontres Henri Jayer. They are held every year in Burgundy and host great names in the world of terroir viticulture.
As a guest winery at these Rencontres over the last few years, we have held conferences with leading professionals and pioneers of geosensorial tasting and the neuroscience linked to wine. This methodology is based on perceiving the characteristics of the composition and texture of the soil, as well as the humidity and the sunshine specific to each vineyard plot. These determine the organoleptic sensations of wines of a singular origin.
‘With our friend Jaume Gramona, we share the conviction that behind a great wine there is always a terroir that conveys a unique message,’ said Jacky Rigaux, ‘Here, in the heart of the Gramona family estate, you can immediately sense that we are in a haut-lieuviticole, where great wines are made,’ he added. Rigaux and Gramona met at Les Rencontres Henri Jayer, thanks to Lydia and Claude Bourguignon, specialists in soil microbiology and friends and teachers of Jaume Gramona.
We were able to listen to presentations by Jacky Rigaux and Georges Truc, living legends of geosensorial tasting, accompanied by texture expert Cyrille Totta and neurobiologist Gabriel Lepousez. Soil specialist Joaquin Cámara, with Roc Gramona, spoke about the studies carried out on our estate. After this the Masters of Wine Fernando Mora, Álvaro Ribalta and Pedro Ballesteros, together with vigneron Pascal Agrapart, exchanged impressions at a round table moderated by journalist Amaya Cervera.
We believed that the message given directly by its key players would have a formative and emotional impact and was imperative to share. We like to think that seeds were planted at this event. We hope that all those who love wine as much as we do will show the world that the phrase ‘wine is born in the vineyard’ is probably the greatest truth that governs our great little world of wine.
Geosensorial tasting specialists
Jacky Rigaux is the one who developed the pedagogy of geosensorial tasting over a decade ago. He is the creator of the meetings that bear the name of the historic vignerone along with Henri Jayer, and has worked for decades on the analysis of wine with reference to its place of origin. For him, this discipline is a revival of the old trade of taste testers of high quality wines sold in barrels. This analysis is based on the textures that we can perceive in the mouth and that direct us to the particularities of each region and each individual vineyard.
Georges Truc is an oenologist from the Rhône Valley. He is a recognised expert on the composition and texture of soils and, above all, on the life that develops beneath the surface and nourishes the roots of the vine. He is a person of endless culture, a true sage, who is moved and, in turn, moves us when he talks about the origins of the soils and how they are conveyed in the wine.
Cyrille Totta has spent years developing a system for learning the various textures that different wine-growing areas bring to us through wine. He teaches us to differentiate and name the sensations that velvety, silky or satiny wines provoke in us, and, at the same time, to build up a personal library of tactile sensations.
Gabriel Lepousez is a neurobiologist specialising in perception. His scientific point of view and his skills as a communicator make us aware of our mouths’ great power as a receptor of sensations. He also shows us how the different perceptions combine with each other in the brain to provoke emotions. Like this we are provided with a chemical and biological picture of the pleasure of drinking good wine.
The interventions of these experts open doors to new worlds, which lead us to examine the transcendental influence of the landscape on each wine. They also invite us to explore how we receive and interpret the message it transmits.
The value of meeting spaces
The presentations of the specialists found a lot of common ground with the participants. Among them, Roc Gramona and Joaquín Cámara shared the methodology used in the soil analysis of the Gramona estate. The information on the soils of each particular plot is a very profound starting point from which to later develop the geosensorial tasting of the wines we make.
The Champagne vigneron Pascal Agrapart, a renowned producer from this mythical area, shared some of his sparkling wines with all the attendees at the same round table attended by three Masters or Wine of our country. These were Fernando Mora, who also presented some bottles of his Bodega Frontonio, Álvaro Ribalta, founder of the distributor Massal Selection, and Pedro Ballesteros, one of the great legends of wine communication. The round table was moderated by journalist Amaya Cervera, founder of the website Spanish Wine Lover.
Jaume Gramona, for his part, closed this iconic day with thanks ‘to all of you who have allowed yourselves to be brought to the heart of sparkling wine. Because we believe that to share is to grow.’
