Lush life

I couldn’t help thinking of the Weinstein Brothers when I met brothers Alex and Clifford Lichaytoo of Bacchus and Bacchus Epicerie at a luncheon held in Old Manila at the Peninsula. Or maybe I should say “The Wine-stein Brothers.”

Alex and Cliff are a lot nicer, by far, than the fabled movie producers Harvey and Bob; but they possess the same instincts for discovering great treasures, nurturing them, and bringing them to a wider audience. The Weinsteins, of course, made their reputation with Miramax, snapping up festival films that proved to be box-office gold. Alex and Cliff have been snapping up the best imported wines to sell at their wine shop Bacchus since 1996, as well as their restaurant Bacchus Epicerie. Their latest gift to Manila wine lovers is Jean Michel Cazes, whose family-owned vineyards produce the signature premium Lynch-Bages wines among other beauties from the Bordeaux region.

Monsieur Cazes, now in his 70s and semi-retired, came to Manila as an ambassador of wines, but he is keen on Asia in general. Coming from a family of bakers who took over running the famous Michel Lynch vineyards from a French general back in the 1930s (the general didn’t charge them rent; the Cazes family worked and kept the production, and were eventually able to purchase the once-grand estate and restore some of its magic), M. Cazes actually trained as an electronics engineer in Texas, working at IBM for a few decades before feeling the lure of Pauillac, the appellation region where his family kept the vineyards and which is also home to Chateau Lafite, Château Latour and Château Mouton Rothschild. “I was in computers at the time. My father asked me to come back; I said, ‘Are you crazy?’ He said, ‘Let’s talk about it.’ It was a good choice,” he says now with a laugh.

A luncheon with media guests featured three wines from the Cazes production. There is the Michel Lynch, what the Brits call a “luncheon wine” that is the most reasonably priced. “We wanted to produce a good, everyday Bordeaux,” says M. Cazes. “Something that goes well with any food. It’s the only commercial brand we produce.” With its blend of Bordeaux, Merlot and Cabernet grapes, there’s a softness and a mellowness which Cazes attributes to the Cabernet.

We followed that with a 2006 Sénéchaux from the family’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape vineyards, recently acquired. “I was fortunate because I was patient, a friend told us about this property for sale” five years ago, notes Cazes. “It’s very difficult to get property there, so I was very lucky. The vineyards had a good reputation 25 years ago, but the Frenchman who owned it was running it from Switzerland for the last 10 years. He restored the vineyard nicely, but he didn’t care much for wine, he was in the pharmacy business.” As with most Bordeaux wine families and vineyards, there are stories, and stories behind the stories. More than just terroir, there is history in the making and breaking of every bottle. Financial upheavals in the 1930s, ’70s, ‘80s and ‘00s have turned French family fortunes upside down; but the vines and the earth are still there, waiting to be cultivated again, brought back to glory.

The Sénéchaux was the real thing, with a spiciness very typical of the Grenache grape, and a smooth, velvety texture. Drinking it brought me back to my visit to Chateauneuf-du-Pape last April: the mistral winds, the carefully pruned grapevines. “We see great potential for this Sénéchaux,” adds Cazes. “The first vintage was ’06. The vines are getting better year after year, with very good reports on the ‘07.”

The best was yet to come, though, as we finished our pan-seared scallop starter and moved on to pepper-roasted rack of lamb, paired with the signature Lynch-Bages Grand Cru. Produced on the 100-hectare estate within the village of Bages, only 10,000 bottles are produced yearly. A delicious wine; simply delicious. Cazes acquired the estate from another owner who wanted to retire to Africa due to ill health. “We decided to make it into a chateau, we have a restaurant there that’s a two-star,” notes Cazes. “The chef is very good, he comes around to Asia on occasion.” This led Alex Lichaytoo to propose that the chef come to Manila — sort of a two-star food demo paired with Lynch-Bages wines. I could see my media colleagues nod in enthusiasm and waggle their eyebrows in agreement.

The Lynch-Bages winery is a real success story in the Pauillac region. “From the hotel, eventually we decided to renovate the village around it to turn it into a destination,” recounts M. Cazes. “We now have a café, a brasserie in the village, and a boucherie opened there a few weeks ago. When I bought it I thought it would be a good point to explore Bordeaux, but people come here mainly for the wine.” Quite understandably.

M. Cazes spoke about the education of the Asian market, particularly China, which has gone from simple “toasting wines” to premium wine consumption in the space of a decade. “We first tried to sell red wine in China back then. They hated it! Or so I thought. But what I didn’t factor in is that red is a very important color in China. They actually sell wine as medicine there. We eventually sold 80,000 bottles to a pharmacy.” Lynch-Bages was also the first to be served on Cathay Pacific flights (business and first class, of course).

There’s a trend now to think of wines as an investment item — something to be stored or sold, rather than savored — and this M. Cazes can’t condone. “There’s a tendency to push prices up, like designer bags.” Estates may limit their production to create a hot demand, but not Lynch-Bages. “The problem is, you appeal to only the collectors or financiers, so your customer base changes. It’s a little dangerous.” It’s obvious that Cazes will always regard wines as they were intended: to be enjoyed and enhanced by the inestimable alchemy of meals and friends.

I ask the Lichaytoos how they first discovered Lynch Bages and Alex points out “back in ’95, you couldn’t find a single Grand Cru in Manila.” There was an awareness of Spanish wines, but no premium wines until Bacchus began selectively importing, doing the Weinstein thing for oenologists.

The bar has been raised considerably since then. But Alex and Cliff like nothing better than touring Bordeaux and discovering new wine experiences. Their trip to the region in ’96 opened their eyes. “We said, ‘This is it! This is the holy land!’” Alex waxed even more enthusiastic about a media trip to Bordeaux he’s been dreaming about, though “we’ll need a travel sponsor,” he quickly points out. “We can go during harvest time, which is the best time. We’ll go from chateau to chateau, sample foods, harvest grapes, drink out of glass jars with the gypsies!”

It may be a pipe dream. But I could see half a dozen media guests at the table simultaneously clear their calendars for 2010 to make space for an invite.