Word: eggs
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...appears to be your quintessential Provençal vineyard - until you step into a peculiar cellar. There are no barrels to be seen, nor any of the stainless-steel tanks favored by some modern vintners. Instead, winemaker Jean-Daniel Schlaepfer ferments his high-end wines there in egg-shaped vessels based on amphorae - the clay jars used by the Romans centuries ago. Schlaepfer is part of a growing group of producers around France and beyond returning to the wisdom of the ancients in order to achieve the truest expression of a given harvest...
...modern version of the amphora, a tank known colloquially as the Nomblot Egg, was created in 2001 by French vatmaker Marc Nomblot. He was following a whimsical request by Rhône winemaking powerhouse Michel Chapoutier, whose appreciation for harmonious, natural shapes complemented his holistic and organic methods of viticulture. The Egg might have remained a conversation piece in Chapoutier's cellar if word hadn't reached Baux-de-Provence, a progressive appellation where nearly all vines are farmed organically. There, Schlaepfer and partner François Pillon saw a resemblance between the Egg and the dolia, or the large...
Vinifying in oak can produce woody, toasty or vanillin aromas that are not desirable in every case. Making wine in stainless steel, meanwhile, can deprive it of the bouquet and tannin-ameliorating effects of a measured oxygen exposure, sometimes obliging winemakers to use artificial micro-oxygenation. The Nomblot Egg's porous clay-cement walls offer a third way, allowing for natural oxygenation without oakiness. But the tank's most surprising benefit may well lie in its shape. Creator Nomblot explains: "All fluids rise when temperature increases, and do so in a vortex, but in a barrel or other container...
...Nomblot Egg has since been hatching in wineries all over the world, from Domaine Combier of Crozes Hermitage and Château de Fieuzal of Pessac Léognan to California and Australia. "It's a snowball effect," says Nomblot, who now sells 250 tanks a year. "My challenge is to convince the best winemakers in every country to use them." He speaks by phone from Chile, where his Eggs will soon be bubbling with Carménère at Alvaro Espinoza's celebrated Antiyal winery...
...expected from a French-trained chef, working in a European restaurant influenced by the cuisine of the Indian subcontinent. Think lashings of ghee, and opulent, rib-sticking dishes like duck confit murtabak served with honey-thyme aioli (murtabak is Indian fried bread traditionally filled with minced meat, egg and onion), pork-belly tikka and spice-rubbed tenderloin finished in the tandoor. (See TIME's Global Adviser for exotic, beautiful and interesting getaways...