There is always debris involved in the act of creation, and wine-making is no exception. White wine grapes are generally crushed and pressed to extract the liquid, leaving behind a greenish-brownish mass of skin, seeds and pulp. Red wine grapes are usually crushed and the liquid allowed to drain freely, leaving behind a blackish mess of solids, which also include traces of yeast cells and alcohol.
Wine-makers are thus left with substantive solids, which English cider makers long ago dubbed pomace. With this, they make pomace brandy, or what the Italians call
grappa and the French call
Marc. (In the photo, the three bottles on the left contain
grappa, including the more well-known Alexander at the very end.) Parenthetically, if you want to say the 'm' word out loud and impress others by sounding French-ish, drop that 'c' at the end.
Wine-makers engage in their own sort of recycling in a number of ways. They use the leftovers--including the dregs, or sediment found in the bottom of the fermentation vessel. From this, they extract what is sold in powder form as cream of tartar (used to stabilize and add volume to beaten egg whites, to improve the texture of baked goods, for polishing brass and copper, and removing tough stains from your clothes and bathtub...). They also spread the dregs in the vineyard, returning nitrogen and other organic nutrients to the soil. But most notably--at least in my mind--they make that clear, robust brandy. Because what a pity to see any bit of what has so carefully been grown go to waste, right?
So the
Marc is simply a very earthy response to the challenge of making something out of that "nothing", and what resulted was a kind of moonshine that served as a fairly spine-straightening kick in the pants, a buffer against harsh winters and intensive labor.
The
Marc has acquired some finesse and distanced itself to a degree from its fiery, peasant origins. Most
Marc in France comes from either the region of Champagne (much of which is distilled in steam heated vats at
Jean Goyard, after which the highly aromatic
Marc is aged by individual champagne houses) or Burgundy. There are a variety of different stills and distillation processes found across the country, but Burgundian
Marcs are oak-aged, and tend to be quite rich--or
ample. Alsace is, to a smaller degree, also known for its
Marcs (far right in the photo), as is the Jura (just left of the center bottle). There is no real difference between
Marc and
grappa, other than country of origin. Since
Nonino's hugely marketed, transformative shift toward single varietal
grappas in the early 70s, however,
grappa has gone very high end, with gorgeous packaging that often costs more than the beverage within.
Grappa has gained a certain cachet, especially in the US, its biggest export market, a chicness that
Marc still lacks.
Marc is drunk as a
digestif, taken after dinner to ease digestion, perhaps with an espresso or a good cigar for the aficionados. It is not, however, for the faint of heart. With an alcohol content ranging from 40% to 45%, conservative sipping, with extended pauses for conversation, is key to remaining upright. My favorite (so far) is the beautiful, supple vanilla and spice-scented Marc de Banyuls that I brought back from the marvelously rough-hewn (French Catalan)
Cote Vermeille. This one is made from Grenache noir, gris and Carignan grape pomace.
Wind up your courage, give this brandy a try. As for me, my companionable little glass is now empty, which brings this entry to a close.
(With thanks to Charlene, for asking about it.)
There's nothing finer than a little rest and relaxation with some good friends. Top down, radio tuned to something Cuban-ish, I've just breezed in from a long weekend due north of Beaune, the endlessly charming little capital of Burgundy wine, smack dab in the pastoral Côte d’Or. 
In the time we had together, there was a lot of talking going on. Some low-speed swaying in a hammock. Even a moment of badminton, in the thinnest summer blouse hauled out of the back of the closet. But mostly, I was eating (with lunch winding down at 4.30 pm et cetera). There may have been some drinking of wine going on. In my own garden I always putter. Nod if you know what I mean. I can't help myself; there's always something. But in someone else's finely-manicured, sun-soaked garden, well, strain was not the order of the day.
We didn't solve all the world's problems, but we did catch up on all the news closer to home. We swapped recipes. And visiting them reminded me of how much there is to do in Burgundy. Yes, there is wine. If you go, definitely treat yourself to the 60 kilometer long Route des Grands Crus, which wanders in and out of about forty of the most renowned wine villages of the fabled region--Puligny-Montrachet, Pommard, Volnay, Meursault, Nuits-Saint-Georges, and so on, from Dijon to Santenay. 
Beyond the tipple, Dijon and Beaune themselves are well worth visiting (outside of the high season!) And there is the twelfth century Cistercian Abbey de Fontenay, which I still haven't managed to visit though I really do want to see it, and its gardens. There are also heaps of gorgeous chateaux well worth a wander. 
I didn't do any of that, didn't actually do anything really touristic, although I did manage a visit to the rather sedate city of Gray (pictures to be posted next time, I think). 
I did have time to think about Burgundy and its exquisite pleasures--both the ephemeral and the ageless ones--as the weather kindly allowed for extensive lingering over glasses. One late night, after cheeses and Burgundy reds, I tried eau-de-vie de gentiane. This? Not for the faint-hearted. 
The roots of the flowering yellow gentian are laboriously ripped from the earth, cleaned and finely sliced; it takes 16 kilos of roots and rhizomes to make a single liter of eau-de-vie. These plant bits are fermented in oak barrels, and the resulting clear, powerfully scented liquid weighs in at about 55% alcohol, and can easily run to 75 euros per 3/4 liter bottle. Your head spins once you get a decent whiff of the radically earthy, pungent drink, considered a healthful after-dinner digestif. Take the smallest of sips the very first time. Give your head and senses time to adjust. You'll either be wildly for it or against it. No fence-sitting here. 
I've no photo, because I forgot to take one, but even if I had you'd be no more the wiser, as I drank an artisanal (read: illegally home-distilled) one--high-quality, with no added sugar--but no label either. If only blogs had a scratch and sniff application, then perhaps you'd have an idea. But yellow gentian is also in the French apéritif Suze, so if you've ever tasted that, you've a notion of what I was imbibing. 
(Yellow gentian's also one of the 56 herbs found in Jägermeister, but comparisons to that 70 proof, heavy metal hangover-in-a-bottle are probably neither alluring nor accurate...I mean, yikes.)
