RUM TIME IN RUM TIMES: TA MARTINIQUE!

RHUM J.M DISTILLERY ON MARTINIQUE IN THE SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN

Certainly Not Bacardi Falling Grace Hits Casa Blanco Gill's Immaculate Rumbustulations

by PHILIP WHITE a version of this story appeared in The Independent Weekly

While any hard-core rum sot will tell you that the dark, wood-aged molasses-based rums are the only true sugarcane juice for the aficionado, the immaculate Gill Gordon Smith arrived at my door the other day with a bottle or two of paler beauties which instilled me with rumbustion.

Still being the operative word. Rum is made by brewing a rough wine from the sugar cane or its byproducts and then distilling this in traditional copper pots like those used in Cognac or Scotland, or in the more modern continuous stills that you see standing like great sentinels at any oil refinery. (As they refine oil to make your petrol, their byproducts in turn fuel the petrochem industry which makes the poisons and sprays and fertilizers which perpetuate modern cane farming and most other monocultures.)

Rum was the grease that oiled the slave trade. They called it the Golden Triangle, or the Eternal Triangle. Regardless of how briefly they survived, it must have felt like eternity for the poor bastards who were its prey. Swap rum for humans on the African coast, swap humans for molasses with the cane farmers of the Caribbean, swap molasses for rum up the east coast of the USA, where the biggest distillers were, then back to jolly old Africa. Yo ho ho.

Most rum was distilled molasses: a side product of the sugar business. As the traders worked their way north, the last unsold barrels full of the thickest, oldest molasses were dumped at bargain rates to the fishers of Newfoundland, Labrador and the Bay of Fundy. The tough locals there still drink a fearsome rum made from this sludge. They wisely call it screech.

The other end of the trade, quality-wise, was where the best, freshest slaves were swapped for the finest freshest molasses, in the southern Caribbean. The planters there were sufficiently well endowed to afford to make rum straight from a ferment of fresh sugar cane juice, which, to this day affords the superior appellation agricole.

Gill’s drinks were rums from the tiny French Caribbean island, Martinique. Two came from Rhum J.M, an ancient distillery about the size of Rockford wines. The Rhum J. M Agricola Blanc was a glorious blonde which steered my reflection to the days of the cold war, when Russian vodka was verboten. The unoaked white spirit market was full of rum, notably Bacardi, which fled Cuba when Castro nationalized the business.

I loved the exquisite Goddards Gold Braid rum in those days, a lightly-oaked pale gold British East Indies product imported and bottled by Clelands. Cuba still sells all its lovely rum under the Havana Club brand; only the advent of Gorbachev unleashed the vodka business, which rules to this day.

But these Martinique beauties are certainly not Barcardi, I assure you. The blanc (50% alcohol; $66.50; 94 points) is a delicious, swervy dance of a drink. The distiller’s entrapped a range of aromatic esters reminiscent of butter, banana and rose petal at the fatty end of the spectrum, through to coconut husk and fresh sugarcane leaf at the greener extreme. Add a drop of water, and it becomes Turkish delight. I could sup on it all day, neat, with maybe one small block of ice, but it would also perfectly mix with any tropical fruit juice.

More brooding, but still not dark, was the Rhum J. M. V. O. Reserve Speciale Agricole (47% alcohol; $120; 95 points), which had spent four or five years in old American whiskey barrels. Strong spirit tenaciously tears flavours from even old oak. Occasionally the best cellars learn to entrap a delightful citrus twist, which I have also seen in infant Scots single malts from new American oak. So this wicked tincture, which is about the colour of Curacao, has wound that citrus round its buttery esters to make a bouquet like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange. The oak has also left whiffs of nutmeg, clove and coconut. It’s exquisite. You need no water.

The St. James distillery is more along the size of Penfolds. Its Rhum Agricole Royal Ambre (45% alcohol; $60; 91 points) has the dustier end of the oak spectrum prominent, with old spice box, nutmeg and gingerbread. There’s still some citrus, but even that’s more like dried peel. Let it air, and it starts to smell like a burnt orange crême caramel. It’s a neat sipper for the malt whisky nut.

But if you really wanta rock with the style pirates, it’s the St. James 12 ans Agricole (43% alcohol; $120; 95 points). A dozen years of oak has raised a salacious doll of a drink with hair the colour of rusty roses and the aroma of a freshly-polished brass giardinere perched in a woody gentleman’s club, stacked with a trifle made from honeycomb toffee, fudge, orange marmalade, fruit mince, and butterscotch sauce. The lads are pouring in through the windows; Drambuie and Benedictine are voluntarily walking the plank.

GILL GORDON SMITH AT HER BUSTLING FALL FROM GRACE WINE BAR, BESIDE BLESSED CHEESE IN THE MAIN STREET OF McLAREN VALE, SOUTH AUSTRALIA; LICENSED TO HOLD FOURTEEN SOULS

Le Père Jules Poiré
$22; 2.8% alcohol; cork; 92 points
This stunning mouthful of pears seemed to be the hit drink which lubricated the McLaren Vale vintage: it was the preferred drink of many exhausted hose-draggers and winemakers. A classic pear cider from Normandy, it’s only 2.8% alcohol: hardly a heady threat in the strength department. Instead, its strength is in its honest entrapment of the essence of pear juice in its most invigorating, lively form. Just lightly petillant from bottle fermentation, it’s a healthy, zippy, delicious refreshment which comes under a champagne-style wired cork. It works perfectly with or without ice. For outlets call Gill Gordon Smith at Fall From Grace.

Roger Groult Calvados Pays d’Auge Vénérable
$300; 41% alcohol; cork; 96 points
Another triffic product from Gill Gordon Smith’s formidable arsenal, this ancient Norman spirit is made from a blend of around twenty varieties of cider apples which are fermented, distilled, and barrel-aged for many decades, then “freshened” with apple eaux-de-vie of about twenty years of age. It smells like the perfect apple tart, complete with nutmeg and cloves, soused in some magical liqueur and a dollop of fresh cream. It’s a transporting, ethereal, totally seductive and disarming drink at a great price. If anything this old and characterful ever escapes from Cognac it’ll cost you an extra thousand. The perfect birthday present!

FALL FROM GRACE WITH AN AIRLINE GIRL

GILL GORDON-SMITH AT FALL FROM GRACE: BUZZY LITTLE WINE CENTRE IN THE MAIN STREET OF MCLAREN VALE ... photograph by KATE ELMES/INDEPENDENT WEEKLY

Are You Rhonesome Tonight?
Mediterranean Hits McLaren Vale

by PHILIP WHITE - a version of this first appeared in THE INDEPENDENT WEEKLY

Those prone to guzzling pink, yellow or blue electrolytic health drinks to cure the effect of too many other drinks may have recently noticed their back label texts: the whole sweetwater industry seems suddenly to be marketing itself like wine.

Not a lot of difference in most cases, other than the electrolytes will do much less damage.

But while these products are all drinks, I bought a mop the other day, from the hardware store in McLaren Vale, branded “Oates Premium Mop Refill” on the front, and “Premium quality blend mop yarn” on the back. Premium blend, see? It included instructions of storage and application, like “to be used in conjunction with good hygiene practices”, and, just in case you felt a perverse urge, “do not use to clean aquariums”. Nothing about using whilst pregnant, mind you, and no photographs of open-heart surgery.

Which leads me to the disgusting rash of signage that has turned the main street of McLaren Vale into Parramatta Road. I’d love to get to it with a chainsaw and an angle grinder. It’s vile. There’s no porn emporia, yet, but the window of what was the lovely little fishmonger bears a note explaining that it’s about to become a tattoo parlour.

There’s a rare streak of humour at the hardware joint. “Wine barrels”, it says, “full - $49.95 - half $34.95”. Turns out a barrel not yet sawn in half to make flowerpots costs less than twice as much as half a barrel. Both lots are empty.

Which is not what you could say about the cute and comely promise behind a tiny sign beside Blessed Cheese. “Fall From Grace”, it says. “Lifting the Vale”. This promotes the most exciting new thing to hit the south since Chester Osborne went into the fashion business. Unlike Chester, who presumes we’re all ready to spend $500 on a pair of pre-stressed d’Arenberg jeans in order to look just like him, this tiny shop is there to teach people about wine.

Of course Chester does that, too, but, you know. Fall From Grace is the inspired, crazy work of an ebullient and comforting lass called Gill Gordon-Smith, a McLaren Flatster who escaped into the blue Qantas skies many vintages ago, to become what we affectionately used to call “a hostie”.

“I basically used Qantas as a tasting tour of the world’s best cellars”, she says, explaining that she generally ensured her days off were mainly in France. She was soon adding training to her cabin attendant duties, and gradually built up a formidable list of wine education qualifications, amongst other sage wisdoms. Like the warm speechette she recently delivered about how the seasoned traveller, especially when in Russia, soon learns to carry plenty of high quality toilet paper. “Quilted”, she said, without even hinting that she may have suspected I was a Delsey man. In her role as a sort of den mother for junior hosties, it seems that she spent a lot of time supplying the poor little blossoms with toilet paper behind the Iron Curtain.

Or something to that effect. Her honeyed contralto oozes straight through my filters.

Fall from Grace specialises in beautiful honest biodynamic and organic wines from the south of France. And some champagnes which my mate Roberto would call, with nothing less than admiration and amazement, Farmer's Fizz. Little guys.

The south of France bit makes perfect sense, given McLaren Vale's propensity to make wines after the Mediterranean style. It has, after all, what one spark called "the best Mediterranean climate on Earth". (I think that was the terroir master, Brian Croser.)

You ring up to arrange a berth on, say, a Friday night flight, make it to the Fall on time to pay your $20 or $30, and cruise through a tutorial on three or four delicious wines you’ve never ever heard of before, and suddenly want to drink a lot more of.

Fall From Grace is licensed to serve fourteen tasters at a time – this is intimate – and you’ll need to make your travel arrangements succinctly, or you won’t be able to squeeze in on account of the joint being full of dumbstruck winemakers oohing and aahing and searching stupidly for faults like brett, which your hydrangeas will be more likely to get if you buy their second hand barrels from the hardware store.

The cheese is always good.

Sundays Gill does a seriously giggly but educational suds day, serving champagne made by like-minded otherwise unheard-of souls. Book for that, too. Or just go and buy books: she stocks the best little selection of educational wine books, along with luxury Spiegelau wine glassware - made by Riedel but a helluva lot cheaper – of which she is the SA wholesaler. She also sells Leguiole corkscrews, which are deadly efficient works of great beauty that never wear out, and Opinel picnic and field knives from Savoie, which are compulsory kit for all Francophile wine sluts.

Gill also does brill tours of Vales wineries, or visits you for custom tastings, and, well, generally settles you down with a nice drink and a big grin, just like air hostesses used to do. And I almost forgot. Her sign sports the well-formed calves of winemaker Justin McNamee, balanced precariously on the edge of a tank full of fermenting red. Poised to fall. Which is a back label, really.

Fall From Grace is my kind of school. You’ll graduate bubbling with love and knowledge; you won’t need a blue drink or a premium blend mop to sort out any mess, and just between you and me, the lovely hostie gave me her phone number. It’s 08 8323 8089.