Hear Palmer 2012, the vintage as a jazz tune.
Friday April 5, 2013, Lionel Belmondo Trio interprets the 2012 vintage at Château Palmer.
The concert will be streamed live on our website www.hear-palmer.com at 7pm (Paris, GMT+2).
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In March of 2010, Château Palmer invited the jazz pianist Jacky Terrasson to improvise, during a private concert, on the 2009 vintage.
In 2011, Château Palmer hosted the clarinetist Michel Portal and the pianist Yaron Herman. The first interpreted Château Palmer 2010, the second Alter Ego 2010.
In 2012, the AIR Trio, with Giovanni Mirabassi on piano, Glenn Ferris on trombone, and Flavio Boltro playing trumpet, the 2011 vintage filled the entire space, a musical metaphor.
Hear Palmer becomes, if not a tradition, an annual rendez-vous, a few hours before we begin tastings, reserved for professionals. In 2013, Thomas Duroux, CEO, winemaker and jazz fan, suggested the game « Interpret Palmer » to the Lionel Belmondo Trio. Saxophonist Lionel Belmondo, bassist Sylvain Romano and drummer Jean-Pierre Arnaud will be introduced to the universe of Château Palmer and taste, on the eve of the concert, the new vintage, Château Palmer 2012 and Alter Ego 2012.
The time to get in the mood for the three jazzmen, to decipher the wines, recompose them in music and, quickly, the following day, it’s the concert. Lionel Belmondo, talented arranger, will do wonders at this game. Answering, following or provoking him will be Jean-Pierre Arnaud and Sylvain Romano, tuned in to the two wines of Château Palmer. As a trio, they will deliver the substance of the 2012 vintage, its very nature transmuted into music for an evening, that of the concert. Some “tasting notes” by ear with a direct link to the other senses, a unique moment of interpretation, forever.
After the concert, one could say “I listened to Palmer 2012”, “I heard Alter Ego 2012”. That is the magic of Hear Palmer.
The concert returns to the barrel cellar
This year, 2013, as the renovations of the barrel cellar are now finished, the concert will once again take place in its natural space. The musicians will play in the renovated barrel cellar, vast, sharing this moment with about ninety guests. Hear Palmer for the beauty and the pleasure.
Hear Palmer? We no longer wonder why!
Like Château Palmer, jazz has deep roots, with a long history that has undergone many influences and inspirations and, while traditional, is always open to innovation. This respect for tradition is constantly enhanced by expanding its limits - while remaining faithful to its roots.
Jazz is a blend of tradition and innovation, memory and improvisation, listening and dialogue. Wine is the same, combining terroir, climate, grape varieties, science, and technology. However, creating fine wine also takes inspiration, good taste, expertise, and an excellent memory that ties everything together. That is how great wines are made.
From concert to concert: “big names” at the Château
A class-act trio for a unique concert; because it takes place once, because it is unique.
Lionel Belmondo
Prince of saxophone
A love of jazz has animated Lionel Belmondo since his childhood in Provence. Trained alongside his brother by their father, then director of the Souliès-Toucas music school, Lionel shows himself to have an aptitude for precision, passion and incessant creativity.
Adopting the soprano saxophone, Lionel forms the Quintet Belmondo with his brother and records their first album in 1993. From the Varois region at heart, Lionel settles in Paris, where he teaches and creates the group Sax Generations – twelve saxophones! At the same time, the fourth album of Quintet Belmondo appears in 2001, recorded live in Bordeaux.
Today his passion drives Lionel Belmondo to writing and arranging music, bringing together groups of jazzmen and classical instrumentalists.
Lionel Belmondo never stops. Will he set down his sax to taste Château Palmer?
Sylvain Romano
Bassist in good company
This bassist from Marseille has all the diplomas and medals needed, for both classical and jazz double bass, from the Marseille Conservatory to the Ateliers de jazz at the Cité de la Musique, which give him complete liberty to play the jazz that he loves, with great people. Consider this: as a young man in Marseille he is asked to play sideman to the likes of Siegfried Kessler or Jerry Bergonzy, for example. Yet the call of the deep doesn’t make him take to sea, but instead head to Paris. The Belmondo brothers include him in most of their numerous and various projects.
Jean-Pierre Arnaud
Powerful drummer
Jean-Pierre Arnaud studied classical percussion at the Marseille Conservatory between 1977 and 1980. His father's jazz club becomes his own personal classroom where he comes in contact with all the greats, Kenny Clarke, Max Roach, Art Blakey … A jazzman’s dream.
Considered as one of the drummers that count on the French scene, he is in the Johnny Griffin Quartet, the Michel Legrand Trio, the Dick De Graaf European Quartet, the Michèle Hendricks Quintet, the Emmanuel Bex Trio. With the Belmondo brothers, he records Belmondo Quintet and For all friends.
Two fine wines: Château Palmer and Alter Ego
Château Palmer is a classified Grand cru in the Margaux appellation, 55 hectares of gravely soil on the banks of the Gironde. Château Palmer was purchased in 1814 by an Englishman, General Palmer, then was the property of the Pereire brothers, who built the château and created the village, where the winery is today. Since 1938, it has been the property of wine merchant families of Dutch and English origin.
Thomas Duroux, winemaker and agronomist, has been directing the estate since 2004.
Château Palmer is an elegant wine, combining the immeasurably smooth texture of silk and the nobility of leather. Its bouquet is a rare complexity of fruit, flowers and spices, with a fleshy and generous structure.
Alter Ego is the other wine of Château Palmer. A more contemporary interpretation, from the same sheet of music, as in jazz, the same terroir and vines. A spontaneous wine, true to itself, full and elegant, superb.
2012, a score in three movements
A spring with a bluesy tune… facing abundant rainfall and persistent coolness, the vine takes its time to show its first buds – and we understand. All the better to avoid the threat of diseases favored by the ambient humidity.
Thankfully the tempo radically changes at the end of July; the summer is groovy! Sunshine, heat and even a little drought finally give the vintage its chance. Late it is, late it remains.
Veraison begins only at the end of July. In August the vine has resolutely set to work. All its energy is concentrated on one mission: developing berries with the most beautiful set of notes. The atmosphere relaxes in the Château: we breathe and play again with pleasure.
The rhythm changes again in autumn. The humidity has returned and harvest beats to the tune of a different drum. Thomas Duroux, our bandleader, sets the note and the group harmonizes: the entire harvest is picked in 15 consecutive days, unfortunately a low yield of only 28hl/ha, but thankfully sound.
The swing of the year is an unexpected balance, surprising. The range combines exuberant and rich Merlots with linear and precise Cabernet Sauvignons. This 2012 enters the Palmer playbook as a new interpretation of the smoothness and elegance of our wines.
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