You’re surely accustomed to the concept of ‘train wine’. Well, what I’m partaking in is a level above Diane Abbott MP’s evening commute. I’ve barrelled under the English Channel on the Eurostar, scrambled across Paris, and now I’m on a regional bump-and-grind headed for Chablis, the chardonnay mecca. My host has uncorked the umpteenth bottle of premier cru and decanted a generous pour into my paper cup.
The annual Fêtes des Vins Chablis is a day away, and already we’re celebrating. And quite drunk.
As is the way with French wine festivals, there will be flowing robes, brass brands, oysters and merguez chien-chaud, local beauty queens, a rousing speech from a tricolour-sashed mayor, and a lot of very excellent plonk. But there will also be servings of a rather unique gin; one with an unusually authentic and discrete celebrity connection.
I’m here at the invitation of the Watson family, from Oxfordshire, who’ve had links here since the early 1990s. Patriarch Chris Watson is a greatly admired technology and communications lawyer (he mentions, in passing, that he’s currently advising the Silicon Valley venture capitalist Peter Thiel). Thirty-five years ago, Chris, who is multilingual, was working in Paris and became close friends with a wine-making family in Chablis. One thing led to another, as things often do over glasses of good Burgundy, and pretty soon Chris had his own plot of vines. Domaine Watson has now grown to seven plots nestled closely together in the rolling Kimmeridgian limestone uplands of Chablis and nearby Irancy (pinot noir).
When they were young, Chris’s children Emma (as in Hermione from the Harry Potter films) and Alex would spend every holiday here picking grapes and becoming ingrained in this small French community. Both were born in Paris and are fluent in the lingo. While Emma, 35, focused on acting, academia, and activism, Alex, 33, was drawn to hospitality and the drinks trade. After studying philosophy at Bristol, and then a spell living and working at Chablis’ Domaine des Malandes and “staying out of trouble”, he landed his dream job at Diageo. He worked with the brand teams of Guinness, Tanqueray, and a variety premium spirits.
Alex “was drawn to brands with a strong sense of place.” One of his takeaways: “There’s still some headway in gin. I don’t think gin has had its moment in luxury the way that most other spirits have had.”
Alex left Diageo after nearly ten years and went independent. Three years ago, he launched Renais with his elder sibling, their very own small-batch gin brand. Priced at £45 a bottle, it’s intimately connected to the Chablis terroir. ‘Renais’ is the French term for ‘rebirth’, and this gin gives Domaine Watson’s chardonnay grapes a second life. Grape skins are salvaged after pressing and upcycled to give the amber-hued Renais its sweetness and minerality; Chablis is embedded in the taste, and like a fine wine, it keeps developing as you drink it. You can even enjoy drinking it neat. It’s infused with all-natural, rare botanicals including cubeb berries, acacia honey, linden flower, and rock salt.
Alex takes care of the operational and business side of things, while Emma is more involved in the creative; directing the marketing imagery and artwork, for example. The bottles are handsome art pieces, with rippled glass that emulate rows of yellowing vines. Sustainability is one of Alex and Emma’s passions.
“When I explained my idea,” says Alex, “and how it would help dad to reduce waste, she was like: ‘Yeah, absolutely, I’m in!’”
“This is a very forward-thinking, sustainable way of making spirits. And it’s cultivated in Chablis, it embraces winemaking techniques and philosophy, and it’s distilled in England. So it has a foot in France and the UK, just like us. Emma really leant her creativity to the project. There are a bunch of things that she’s good at that I’m not particularly good at. It’s very sweet that it’s a whole family project.”
Alas, the Watson’s don’t have their own chateau. I suspect it may be one of Chris’s remaining ambitions. Instead, the Watsons hit Airbnb when they’re in town. For the festival weekend, we’ve taken over a lovely manoir. Mike Goncalves, Renais’ UK account director, is, more informally, Alex’s beverage butler and hype-man. From train wine to mixology at the manor, Mike is our private barman and spirits connoisseur. I’d like to take him on all my travels.
In addition to delicious strawberry negronis that slip down awfully easily, he fixes us ‘terroir’ martinis: Renais stirred over ice with a soupçon of crisp white Domaine Watson (£29.50 a bottle) and two dashes of lemon bitters, then strained and garnished with lemon peel. Drier than a vermouth martini, it has a wonderfully vibrant, floral, and citrusy taste. This is further emboldened with Renais Grand Cru (£90), which has been cask-aged for over a year in a single Chablis wine barrel and uses grape spirit steeped in limestone taken from the soil. It adds complexity and even greater family resemblance.
The next morning, Alex and Emma’s stepmum Liz chauffeurs us into town for the wine festival, where Chris has already been pressing the flesh since the crack of dawn. He is a ‘Pilier’. Les Piliers Chablisiens are a Bacchic brotherhood which was created in 1953 in order to acknowledge those who uphold the quality of Chablis wines and protect the region for future generations. They are resplendent in their green robes and shiny yellow capes. Around their necks, they each wear a ‘tastevin’ – a shallow silver cup with which they judge the produce. There are around 17 Piliers, and Chris is the only foreigner to have been accepted into the gang; a tribute to his relationship-building and the respect the local honchos have for him as a vigneron.
The Piliers march through the town, past the tasting tents and artisanal food stalls, followed behind by beret-wearing horn-parping musicians with twirly moustaches, and Mademoiselles Chablis and Bourgogne, wearing their tiaras. We’re given a glass each and left to run amok, a vertical tasting invitation at every turn. The winemakers are all in attendance, exhibiting their wares. There are spittoons, largely ignored. There’s even a mini motor show, where one can kick the tyres on some brand-new tractors and harvesters.
“We’ve been coming to this festival every year since we were tiny kids,” says Alex, who also wears a silver tastevin.
“Emma’s been coming here since she was five, so everyone knows her. Here, people are more likely to stop and ask for a photo with my dad!” I imagine it must have been an invaluable sanctuary when Harry Potter fandom was at its height.
Lots of celebrities have invested in booze brands and front campaigns (the gin market alone includes Margot Robbie’s Papa Salt, Ryan Reynolds’ Aviation American Gin, and James May’s James Gin), but Renais is the antithesis of that. Emma Watson is not the figurehead, this is a far more authentic enterprise; a family-run start-up that has the love and support of a close-knit rural community behind it. And that’s not an easy nut to crack in a traditional and tightly controlled appellation like Chablis.
It’s down to the Watson family’s considerable charm, savvy, sensitivity, and reverence for Burgundy and its vignerons that has led to them being embraced by the establishment. Yet with Renais, Alex is doing something really forward-looking, modern, and innovative. He is inspiring the younger Burgundian vignerons who are taking over their family vineyards, all of whom he has grown up with.
“The passion behind the produce, the effort that goes into producing the wine, the idea of terroir and a sense of place – all of those are fundamental to what I wanted to do with Renais,” says Alex, as we drive back to the station the following morning.
“It’s the essence of the place, and the festival, and the people, with some of the same values, the same ingredients – I wanted to carry that forward in the product. This,” he says, gesturing to the autumnal vines whizzing past the car’s windows, “is like taking people to the source.”
Merci beaucoup to Chablis and the Watsons. Time for some more train wine!
