The Ecluse winebars are worth a visit in Paris. They like their Bordeaux, and tell us a little more… in their inimitable style…

L’Ecluse wine bar in Paris

A Bordeaux and a painting

To be honest, we cannot take credit for the originality and the truth in this comparison.

Last summer, I had the pleasure of visiting both the prestigious Montrose Chateau and an exhibition entitled “Dali intime” (Intimate Dali), which was being held in a room not far from the courtyard. The exhibition showed not only a little-know side of Dali, far from the public perception of him, but also the artistic talent of Robert Descharnes, a gifted, prolific photographer and close friend of the painter, extremely knowledgeable about Dali’s works.

I immediately felt that that was something magic about the atmosphere: the black and white photos of reverberations of light from cracks in windows, becoming the azure blue of a sunny morning, a swathe of pinkish reds and, further away, the luxuriant green of vines, the promise of what I have in my glass.

Being a lover of wine and paintings, I had no choice but to try and risk a most singular tasting session; my Château Montrose with the paintings of a virtual exhibition, tasted in the sense of finding the common characteristics in order to amplify them.

I look at the intense red, warm and deep, just as I would look at the fond bleu* of Miro’s paintings, trying to make out the details and movement; the time going by is a deep red reflection in the wine, a touch of white on a blue background**, the moving sea… and as I sample these paintings, I let the colours evoke the feeling that they represent, the only difference being that soon, by continuing the tasting sessions, I will find their very essence.

I smell the aroma, knowing its elements before analysing it; a perfect fusion of precise characteristics that I will soon be noting as morello cherries, balm, spices, softwood, leather, all of which, melting into each other, give me the incomparable full smell sensation of a Grand Bordeaux.

I think back to my painting, with its successive little touches of colour, quick and sharp, yet slow in the microcosm of detail that binds them, giving the immediate impression of a distinctly-drawn regular form in the open air: a bridge surround by water lilies***, or two figures plunged deep into the flowers they are picking****, or perhaps a white horse*****!

If Eugène Chevreul’s empirical theory of the mélange optique, the basis of the use of colour in impressionism, is true – that colours looked at from a distance melt into each other and the eye only sees this result – then the physiological transmission of the nerve impulses means that the sense of smell is also based on the sum of the given elements, carefully measured by nature and man in the case of a Grand Bordeaux.

So now the question is “how will this wine taste, with its surrealist appearance impressionist odour?” Then comes the surprise of its body, far removed from the austere, classic conception of a Bordeaux, as it develops the structure of Michelangelo’s Adam****** in my glass, a Renaissance style, relaxed posture, harmony et equilibrium in the proportions of the strong muscles, defined and refined to withstand human life and living…

All things considered, the comparison works, and in order to explain why whilst giving him full credit, I want to quote Jean-Louis Charmoulüe, the exhibition sponsor but more importantly, the man in charge since 1960 of the level of excellence of the Château Montrose, a Grand Cru Classé, Saint-Estèphe.

“There is a strong link between winemaking and art: the essential part of the ancestral tradition remains strong, but also learns from the experience and discoveries of winemakers, just as artists are influenced by their environment. They never believe that they have reached the summit of their art, but each of them, by staying true to their feelings, mark their era with their special flair”.

At L’Ecluse, we who know these wines have to agree.

Silvia Faedda

* Fond Bleu, Miro 1927, oil on canvas, New York, Revlon collection

**Baigneuse, Miro 1925, oil on canvas, Paris, Michel Leiris Collection

***Nymphéas, harmonie verte, Monet 1899, oil on canvas, The National Gallery, Londres

****La cueillette des fleurs, Renoir 1875, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington

*****Le cheval blanc, Gauguin 1898, oil on canvas, Musée d’Orsay, Paris

******The Creation of Adam, Michelangelo, detail of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel 1508-1512, fresco, Vatican Museum, Rome