Roisin Curley - Ballyhaunis Burgundy
The late, great Tomas Clancy, at a dinner featuring the Roisin Curley wines a couple of years ago turned around to Roisin after tasting them and said to her: you could charge double what you are charging for these, much to the chagrin of the sales rep for the distribution company, also sitting at the table.
It may seem slightly obscene to suggest that a range of wines priced between €50 and €70 could be described as stellar value, but Clancy was (of course) correct. Only in the wine world could this phenonomon exist and I would suggest more specifically; in Burgundy. There are plenty of regions and styles that offer hidden gems and pockets of value. Burgundy does not offer anything of the sort. You only get serious gear if you pay for it. Unfortunately paying for it is no garauntee of quality and Burgundy is frequently (rightly) cited as providing the wine worlds greatest lows as well as highs. Serious Burgundy has a certain feel to it. It exudes a feeling of quality. Luminous Pinot Noir fruit, ethereally perfumed, impossibly long with complex layers and layers of flavours. The Roisin Curley wines tick all of these boxes and punch way above their weight.
And that's before you get to the person. And the story...
YOU WERE ONLY SUPPOSED TO BLOW THE BLOODY DOORS OFF!...
When Roisin's mother suggested that she had really enjoyed the recent WSET course she had sat, and that Roisin should consider doing it herself, it is unlikely that either of them anticipated what it would lead to.
As if further proof were needed of Riesling's mystical qualities, Roisin credits her time in the Rheingau when she was younger with really opening her eyes to wine. A boyfriend at the time lived there and she was exposed to the magical, fine German Rieslings of the region. If you start there, there is little hope that you will turn into anything other than a wine geek. Certainly an appreciation and love of wine was established, but it lay somewhat dormant until the recommendation her mother made, a formalised study of wine through the WEST.
Roisin chewed up WSET through the levels and achieved a top of the class finish in the Diploma, winning a scholarship with wine Australia before studying a Master Viticulture & Enology in Montpellier and Geisenheim.
With a fascination and firm grasp of the science behind wine making, she quickly folded this into an appreciation of biodynamic and organic viticulture. Stints in none other than Chateau Latour, the iconic first growth estate in Bordeaux and the utterly unique Chateau Grillet in the Rhone followed. In typically understated fashion, Roisin describes 'the Irish thing' as being a key factor in these appointments. In reality her time in Geisenheim had established a reputation that would assist in the next step in this extraordinary journey: making a wine.
BALLYHAUNIS BURGUNDY...
had friends and contacts in Burgundy. She loved Burgundian wine and Pinot and Chardonnay were her favourite varieties, but she never thought making a wine from them was on the table. She was introduced to the owner of a winemaking facility who offered to rent her space and equipment. She met a grower with whom she hit it off and she entered a contract to buy fruit.
Suddenly it was all happening. She did what was required to become a negociant, a merchant who buys grapes and makes wine. She would be considered a micro-negotiant. (Production across the range was 6,900 bottles, Bouchard's production across the range is 750,000 bottles). Admin and regulation proved to be one of the toughest parts of the journey, as the Burgundian establishment is shall we say.......particular about things.
Was it difficult to get started? Roisin gets what I am asking immediately and assures me that the people are lovely, generous, helpful and supportive. She also admits that they were a little bemused at the start. Why wouldn't they be? This Ballyhaunis, County Mayo native, with a full time job flying back and forth to make fine Burgundy!
The first vintage was 2015. In reality, this was a hell of a vintage to start on. The reds from this vintage have been hailed as the best of the century. She made a Beaune red which was received magnificently well. 2014 was the vintage of the century for White Burg, but '15 wasn't half bad either and her Saint Romain was equally well receieved. So - this wine making game is pretty easy!
There is no better proof of climate change than when you look to Burgundy. In the 80's, growers used to regularly fail to achieve good ripeness in their fruit and wines from around this time can be very austere and by todays standards, washed out. (Sorry - CLASSIC, before the wine mafia get me). Hot vintages abound now, resulting in full, ripe wines. The problem is that hail and frost also abound. In 2016 Rosin lost ALL of her red wine. It was a complete disaster.
The St. Romain Blanc, her sole wine from 2016 was very well received and diligently hoovered up by the growing fan base. Many people at this point may have decided that they had been there and done that, and gotten back to a normal life and enjoyed boasting about the achievement (well, me at any rate). Not Roisin.
BEAUNE AND BEYOND...
2017 was a much less erratic vintage (though not without its problems) and along with her flagship wines, the Red Beaune and the White Saint Romain, she picked up parcels in the Northern half of The Cote, making 2 wines out of Nuits St. George, a Village and a Premier Cru called Les Vaucrains. She also made a Cahmbolle-Musigny, achieving a dream given it is her favourite Burgundy appellation. She described the experience as heartbreaking and exhilarting, considering all she got was a paltry 300 bottles.
Fanatical grape selection is an observable hallmark of all truly phenomenal wine makers. Alvaro Palacios in Spain is known for spending minutes examining a single berry. Roisin suggests that helping her make this wine would not have been fun given the time involved for the payoff. This anecdote demonstrates part of why the wines are so fantastic. Minimal intervention wine making is constantly being hijacked by lazy people to practice lazy wine making to make lazy wines. If you are going to make a wine with no chemicals, very little sulphur at bottling and extraction at fermentation, then it takes work to achieve the pristine fruit standards required. All of the tatoos and moutaches in the world will not help. It takes good, hard, work.
2017 as a growing season went very well and the wines were received with even higher praise. Roisin continued to work full time with her brother in the family business, a pharmacy. Splitting herself between a full time career at home and an ever expanding operation in Burgundy seemingly was not taut enough apparently, so Roisin decided to enlist in the Masters of Wine program, the pinnacle of wine study, an obscenely difficult and detailed qualification. (She would complete it in 2020.
2018 saw Roisin expand her very own facility in the Haut Cotes de Beaune, and take on some new terroirs, a premier cru called Les Blanches Fleurs and a small climat near the famous Clos de la Marechale monopole vineayrd in Nuits St. George. Then 2018's look tremendous, as does the '17 Nuits (released with the '18s. Sky's the limit.
2019 has been resting a long while as she had to pull out of the 2020 vintage, but there is a tremendous sense of energy and excitement. I ask her the wonderfully unadventurous question of what she'd love to make and while she says she'd love to make a Chablis she wants to develop her existing range and learn more about the terroirs.
I don't ask her whether she intends to ever give up her job in Mayo and start wine making full time.......it's more exciting not knowing.
