feature / vin voyage / La Paulée de Mauritius
provided a good supporting act. The Blue Penny menu was the most conservative of the week but adeptly showcased the wine. Bernard showed magnums of his 2008 Gevrey-Chambertin
Racine du Temps at the paulée dinner. I felt it was a little lean, but it went down well at the event. I preferred his prancing Morey- St-Denis Rue de Vergy. From high on the slope, this is a favorite village climat of mine—tip-top in the excellent 2020 vintage. On the second day there was a catamaran trip, with music, dancing, and a quantity of wine, I gather. I missed this party boat as a puritan work ethic kept me in my room. But in the event, it felt an effort to open my laptop, and my mind remained firmly closed. Only with arctic air-con did I manage to stay on top of emails, and as the week progressed the gray cells deteriorated to a foggy mush, where not a whit of creative imagination could be found. Was it the heat and humidity or the sybaritic environment? Probably a combination of the two.
Jonathan Pabiot (Loire) The winemakers were accompanied by their families. From the Loire came the rather shy Jonathan Pabiot and his German wife, a tour de force in the marketing of this fourth-generation domaine in Pouilly-Fumé. It has been in the Pabiot family for four generations and now encompasses 21ha (52 acres) spread over five villages. Jonathan’s great-grandfather started with 2ha (5 acres) and one horse in 1973. The current stretch of 15km (10 miles) cannot be easy to work, but Jonathan has more than enough horsepower. We tried the Pabiot wines with an exciting seafood menu at Belle Mare Plage’s Lakaze Restaurant, which is breezily informal, with tables on the sand. The yellowfin tuna carpaccio with palm heart, shellfish dressing, and citrus zest was among the most delicious dishes of the week. The Carnaroli risotto with squid ink, lobster medallions, and green asparagus tips in a cooking juice emulsion was almost as good. If the two wines accompanying these dishes had been reversed, the pairing might have been even better.
The 2023 Pouilly-Fumé Léon comes from clay and sandstone parcels. This more fruit-driven style would take asparagus in its stride, while the 2022 Luminance, my favorite among the wines Pabiot presented, is delicate, pure, and well-defined. It has a shimmering thread on the finish and would be brilliant with the clean cut of tuna carpaccio and citrus. Luminance is from a 1.5ha (3.7-acre) vineyard planted by Jonathan’s father and grandfather, on southwest-facing terraces beside the river. It lies below the Chemin de la Marée—once upon a time, the only path to the church. “It’s a really mineral soil with lots of oyster shells,” explains Jonathan. The 2022 Eurythemie is a fuller, more firmly structured
Pouilly-Fumé with a flinty profile, from Kimmeridgian soil. It chimed with the “land and ocean” chicken, king prawn ravioli, and lemon-grass juice. Another strong dish. I don’t much like Sauvignon Blanc, but I do like Jonathan
Pabiot’s terroir-driven wines. The dessert was served with a Pouilly-Fumé made without sulfur called Utopia. This off-piste wine lacked terroir expression and tasted oxidized. Jonathan finds it easy to sell, but I’m not sure he believes in it. With so much time devoted to refined feasting (and recovery), I confess I saw little of the island, although an excursion to Port Louis for a street food tour was lightly informative about the history of the island, which has adopted the culinary traditions of various waves of migration from India and China, and incorporated them into their own creole cookery. The creole dishes are fragrant with spices and chili from Gujarat and, after partition, from Pakistan. My favorite was dholl puri, a yellow split-pea pancake with tomato, tamarind, and ginger filling, which looked unappealing, but was very tasty. We had a guide, but you really don’t need one. Just head for the market, where there are plenty of food stalls. I also got out for an introductory golf lesson. This was very thorough. I had no idea golf was so technical. Constance has two 18-hole golf courses just a few minutes’ drive from the hotels.
166 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025
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