Cahors vs Bordeaux
In France, it is called the black wine, in England the Black Wine. It became the nectar of kings and queens, and even of popes from the Cadurcian John XXII. The poet Marot describes it as "fire liquor". At the time, it was even ranked above Bordeaux. François I entrusted the development of the royal vineyards to the Quercy growers. Wine of the elite, it was imported by Peter the Great in Russia who made it a court and mass wine for the Orthodox Church. Exported everywhere, it competed with its great rivals from Bordeaux. The ports of Aquitaine were obliged to transport it and a struggle began between the two regions. Some wine barges were even sunk by the Bordelais. Louis XVI temporarily put an end to the crisis by sharing the market between the two regions.
The XXth century crowned it with a label and an acronym, which gave the winegrowers a set of specifications and major lines of development. By working for a certain coherence, the professionals of the viticulture were visionary and the workers of a great viticultural history. On April 5, 1951, the gradually revived vineyard obtained a classification in VDQS "Vin Délimité de Qualité Supérieure". This was the first step.
In 1964, the Cahors Wine Brotherhood was born. As a sign of privilege of this brotherhood, Her Majesty the Queen of Denmark agreed to be its patron. The renovation of the vineyard bore fruit: on April 15, 1971, the wine of Cahors obtained the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée (AOC), thanks in particular to President Georges Pompidou, a Lotois by adoption since he had acquired a residence in Cajarc.
Since its classification in AOC, the vineyard finds its letters of nobility and starts a spectacular progression. In the seventies, there was a significant development of the vineyard with the creation of numerous estates. The union then advocated the generalization of bottling at the property.
In 1977, the Union Interprofessionnelle du Vin de Cahors was created. It gathers the representatives of the wine merchants' unions and of the Cahors appellation's defense union.
In 1982, creation of the Cahors Wine House, which includes a tasting room and an oenological laboratory. Today it is a particularly important showcase for Cahors wine. The house has been renamed Cahors Malbec Lounge, and is located next door to the Cahors Vallée du Lot Tourist Office in Place François Mitterrand in Cahors.
In 2007-2008, the Cahors vineyard implemented a positioning strategy called Cahors Malbec to communicate on both the appellation and its historical grape variety. The choice of highlighting the grape variety under a single name prohibits the use of its other names: Côt and Auxerrois. It is also important to know that two other complementary grape varieties are used in an extremely controlled way by the specifications of the appellation: Merlot and Tannat.
The typicity of a beautiful appellation
The terroir of Cahors is typical and distant from its closest neighbors by about 100 km. Located in the southwestern part of the department, the appellation area runs on both sides of the Lot river and includes some 45 communes spread over six cantons: Cahors, Luzech, Puy-l'Evêque, in the valley, on the plateau and Lalbenque and Montcuq on the southern plateau and Catus in the north. The terraces and hillsides of the valley are located between 100 and 150 meters in altitude. Cahors benefits from a favorable microclimate, from a specific grape variety, the côt, and also has undeniable human assets in the agronomic, oenological and commercial fields. The geology of the Cahors vineyard is the result of the marriage between a limestone base and alluvial masses, most often very old.
To summarize, we can say that the first clay-silt terraces, sandy-silt and gravelly, are suitable for producing light and tasty wines, to be drunk rather young. The second terraces and the slopes of the piedmont, clayey-siliceous, clayey-limestone, mixed with the scree of the causse, give full-bodied, stout wines that can be kept for a long time. Finally, the slopes of the edge of the causse and the plateau itself, limestone and clay-limestone, are likely to produce wines that are less fat but more structured, a little hard in their youth but with good ageing potential.
What makes a wine typical? It is the reciprocal adaptation of the terroir to the grape variety and the grape variety to the terroir. Malbec has found in the terroir of Cahors the geological and climatic conditions that allow it to reach its optimal expression and thus to strongly mark the wine it generates with its personality. There is no Cahors wine with less than 70% Malbec. The leaf of the Malbec is round with blisters; its bunch is airy with well separated round grapes. The skin is very colored and rich in tannins. Its maturity generally arrives at the beginning of October. After fermentation, it gives a very dark juice, with abundant tannins and strong aromas of wild berries such as blackberry, sloe, aromatic herbs, spices and, after aging, truffle. In its youth, true Cahors can be austere, hence the addition of two complementary grape varieties: Merlot and Tannat. Merlot brings roundness, refines the bouquet and softens the wine in its youth. Tannat, from the Cots family, confirms the Cahors' aptitude for aging through its tannins and also provides a good level of alcohol. Merlot is present, generally in proportions of 10% to 15% and Tannat in 5% to 10%. The planting density must not be less than 4,000 vines per hectare.
The traditional vinification process creates wines that are robust, full-bodied, tannic and aromatic in the first year, because they are close to the fruit and the grape. As good wines for ageing, they remain robust and powerful. When aged, Cahors has aromas of undergrowth and spices. Its roundness and fullness in the mouth mingle with the aromas of truffles and game.
Spread over 4,500 hectares, the production of Cahors averages around 20 million bottles each year, 80% of which are produced by winegrowers in private cellars and 20% by a single cooperative cellar. While Cahors wines are still mainly marketed in France (70%), their sales abroad have increased significantly in recent years. In 2017, the top 3 export markets for the appellation were, in volume, Great Britain, Canada and the United States. Within the next 15 years, the vineyard is aiming for a minimum of 40% in exports.
There's more to wine than just cahors!
Cahors has made the Lot famous, but other vineyards also deserve pride of place on the Lot wine scene: Coteaux de Glanes in the north of the department, Coteaux du Quercy in the west and Côtes du Lot.
Côtes du Lot wines come from the best terroirs: terraces, hillsides and plateaus. Winegrowers make these wines from a variety of grape varieties: Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Segalin, Gamay and Merlot for reds and rosés, and Chardonnay, Sauvignon, Viognier, Semillon and Chenin for whites. Created in 1997, the Syndicat des Vins de Pays du Lot was awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) status in 2009, before the creation in 2013 of a new identification and logo, the Côtes du Lot PGI wines. Today, 150 producers are involved, with a total surface area of 1,000 ha. Production has risen from 3,000 hectolitres in 1997 to 65,500 in 2016, a third of Cahors appellation production.
In Glanes, the Vignerons du Haut-Quercy cooperative has earned a well-deserved PGI. The earliest written records of Glanes date back to the 9th century, but the origins of Glanes wine go back even further, to Gallo-Roman times. Threatened by the rural exodus, phylloxera and the diversification of production, Glanes wine was saved by a handful of winegrowers, aided by the Chamber of Agriculture. At the end of the 1960s, they replanted the vineyards with better-adapted Merlot, Gamay and Segalin grape varieties. Today, the Coteaux de Glanes vineyard covers 45 hectares spread over seven communes, in a homogeneous area with stony clay-limestone soils, on a watershed of the Dordogne valley. With good south-south-west exposure, the soil has always been recognized as favorable for vine-growing. The Coteaux de Glanes PGI is a multi-family affair. Each family cultivates its own vines, and harvesting and vinification are carried out collectively within the cooperative. It's easy to see why the motto of the Three Musketeers is so apt when the quality of your wine is everyone's responsibility.
The Coteaux du Quercy appellation covers almost 400 hectares in the Lot and Tarn-et-Garonne départements (average production: 8,000 hl/year). Benefiting from a dual climate, Atlantic and Mediterranean, the clay-limestone terroir of Quercy, also made up of warm boulbènes, is well exposed and warm. Two landscapes come together: the limestone-clay causses, with their terraces and white-stone plateaus, and the rolling green hillsides. Cabernet franc, the main grape variety of coteaux-du-quercy, accounts for 60% of the final blend, in association with complementary grape varieties: côt, merlot and gamay. A third of our producers age their wine in oak barrels, in order to broaden the range of their products and thus contribute to their qualitative image. These are structured wines, often with aromas of blackcurrant when young, cherry and raspberry for the rosé. Their good tannic structure and fatness make them more supple than other wines from the South-West. AOC Coteaux du Quercy winegrowers are mobilized to demonstrate the potential of their vineyards.
