Le Cigare Volant 2003, Bonny Doon
8th February 2008
People need something to fret about. Today they have climate change; in the 1950s they had UFOs. All over the US people claimed to have seen flying saucers flashing through the sky. There were similar sightings in Britain, prompting the government to appoint an official Flying Saucer Working Party. And in France, the Rhône town of Châteauneuf-du-Pape pondered its own response.
Little was known about the “flying cigars”, as the French called these objects. It was not clear where they were from or who was piloting them. But such details did not matter. All that concerned the people of Châteauneuf-du-Pape was their wine. What if the flying cigars had designs on their famous vineyards? The commune had better be ready. On October 28 1954 Châteauneuf-du-Pape armed itself, not with death rays or nuclear missiles, but with an even more fearsome weapon: French municipal law.
The Mayor of Châteauneuf-du-Pape decrees:
Article 1. The take-off, landing and overhead flight of the aircraft known as flying saucers or flying cigars, whatever their nationality, are prohibited in the territory of the commune.
Article 2. Any such flying saucer or flying cigar landing on the territory of the commune will immediately be impounded.
Article 3. The village police officer and urban police officer, in their respective jurisdictions, are responsible for enforcing this decree.
It worked. In the last fifty-four years not one flying saucer has dared enter Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s airspace. No little green men have been sighted in any vineyard. Not a single vigneron has been beamed up to a spaceship and subjected to horrifying experiments.
In tribute to the success of the Mayor’s decree (which remains fully in force) the Californian winemaker Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon Vineyards named one of his first wines “Le Cigare Volant”, the Flying Cigar.
Mr Grahm is a former student of philosophy (he named another of his wines Le Sophiste - Cuvée Philosophique) and the first of the so-called “Rhône Rangers”. Back in the early 1980s he observed that California’s climate was more like that of the southern Rhône than that of Bordeaux. Accordingly he made Le Cigare Volant using the Châteauneuf-du-Pape combination of Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Cinsault grapes. (He also hurled his own logic out of the window and made wines from cool climate grapes such as Pinot Noir and Melon. But those are philosophers for you. A friend of mine who took a good degree in moral philosophy is currently on trial for embezzlement.)
Whatever Mr Grahm’s ambitions, Le Cigare Volant seems more like a fat, swarthy cousin of Châteauneuf-du-Pape rather than the real thing. I am no great fan of the real thing, so this was not a problem for me. I liked Le Cigare Volant’s peppery nose and earthy taste, its flavours of dates and cloves. Above all I liked its exuberance, something too often missing from the French classics.
All I didn’t like was the cost: $29 in the US, £20 in the UK. As with other Californian wines in this price range (see my item on Hess) I am not convinced that we should pay quite so much for it. Mr Grahm claims that Le Cigare Volant will continue to develop for another 15 years. If he is right, and you are buying this wine with a view to keeping it, then it may be worth the money. But if you are buying it for immediate drinking, then I should say that Le Cigare Volant offers no more complexity or finesse than other wines costing a third less. Of course you and any visiting Martians may take a different view.
