Andrew Jefford / 12 February 2020
The View From Here: Into the Woods
I’ve always wondered what happens, at
the onset of winter, to the profusion of
window-box geraniums which brighten
Alsace villages. An October visit to
Trimbach gave me my answer. The tractor
driver carefully positioned his trailer
beneath the balconies; a sturdy vineyard
worker made his way up the back stairs.
He emerged. One by one, box by box,
he upended the lot. They crashed down into the trailer in a splatter of leaf, petal,
potting soil and broken root. As we
nosed the bright apple and orange on
Trimbach’s Riesling Reserve 2017 and
sipped its pungent, crunchy, sappy-stony
refreshment, we could see (through the
tasting-room windows) the murdered
geraniums being driven away for disposal.
That’s what a cellar filled with 2.7 million
bottles of delicious white wine makes
possible. The geranium liberation front
has been informed.
‘we nosed the bright apple
and orange on Trimbach’s
Riesling Reserve 2017 and
sipped its pungent, crunchy,
sappy-stony refreshment...’
I stayed on an extra day this time, to go to
see Julien Camus, founder of the specialist regional wine-education provider The
Wine Scholar Guild. He and his wife
Céline and their daughter Zoe live in a
gingerbread-like house up in the forested
Vosges hills. After heading to Colmar
market to purchase scallops, oysters
and cheese, we adjourned to the forest.
October: of course. The mushrooms
beckoned.
Julien Camus, finder of sizeable ceps!
Julien Camus, founder of The Wine Scholar Guild
The precious cargo ready to take home
I was a keen mushroom hunter in the
woods of Kent and Sussex prior to leaving
the UK at the beginning of 2009, and used
to fancy that British mycophiles were
well placed (since mushroom-hunting
wasn’t a national obsession). I now know
differently. My day in the Vosges with
Julien and Céline was, as the French say,
hallucinant; I’ve never known anything
like it (and this had nothing to do with
the Psilocybe family). In the UK, you’re
very lucky if more than one in fifty or a
hundred mushrooms is a genuine cep,
Boletus edulis; you won’t see a single
specimen on many days in the woods.
Mostly, UK baskets come back full of
bay boletes (Imleria badia) or slippery
jacks (Suillus luteus), plus a handful of
chanterelles (Cantharellus cibarius); nice
enough in their own way, but less good
eating and less good for drying. British
maggots, too, are quicker off the mark
than greyhounds, and Falstaffian in their
greed.
Out in the Vosges, we didn’t bother
picking anything except ceps, and in
two sorties came back with a kilo or
so; we weren’t the only hunters, either.
The quality was superb; size handsome;
maggot count modest. Very kindly (he
had spotted most of them; they tend
to be cunningly concealed and solitary)
Julien divvied up the haul, prepared
and cut my share, and cooked it briefly
in olive oil before vacuum-packing it.
The precious cargo came back south
on the train with me the following day;
risotto, pork loin and a pasta dish have
been beatified with them since. Rich
Alsace whites truly are a good partner,
pinot gris and gewurztraminer included;
but the mushrooms furnished the best
combination yet for a bottle from my
case of 2013 Barbaresco from the
trusty Produttori. And now... they’re
gone; moreover the garrigue around my
southern French home is entirely cepfree. (Replete sigh.)
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