While organising my trip to Belgium, as it was definite that I would be invited to be on the jury at Concours Mondial de Bruxelles again, at first, I could find hardly any information about local wineries. Finally, after choosing four places which seemed interesting, I began to email them. The majority answered positively, with the exception of Peter Colemont. I didn’t get a single answer to any of my emails; I even phoned him from Brussels, but in vain, as nobody answered. I had already booked somewhere to stay in the village of Gors-Opleeuw, where the winery is to be found, according to its homepage, so after the end of the wine contest, I got in my rental car, turned on the GPS and set off. (The accommodation, B&B Pastorie, was superb, I would recommend it to everyone). So I arrived, cruised around the village, and finally, using satellite images (thanks Google Earth), I found the legendary brick-wall-enclosed one hectare. But there was no winery next to it. After telephoning from here in vain too, I realised sadly that I would be able to visit just three of the four wineries I had planned. The next day I went to Wijnkasteel (you can read more about that here), where we talked about Clos d’Opleeuw while tasting the wines, so Stefan Kekkő (my eternal thanks to him) immediately rang Peter Colemont. I had just an hour to reach the winery, where he would be waiting for me. To be honest, I was worried about whether the winemaker just doesn’t have any time for journalists (as it turned out, that was true), whether he was an anti-social person (not really), whether maybe he ate people (fortunately he doesn’t), or, thinking the worst, whether he definitely ate journalists (although I don’t know so many people like that). Finally, I got into the winery, which seemed to be Peter’s family house (Is that really the case? – I forgot to ask about that.), where I could see the few barrels hiding the harvest of the one acre. We talked about the different Chardonnay clones and Burgundy where Peter had been working a lot as he does nowadays too. I was also able to taste some barrel samples and a bottled wine, too. By the way, the wine! There is just one, to be more precise, only the vintage changes, but there is little chance of more than one of them being on sale at the same time, as the quantity is limited and there is extremely high interest in Clos d’Opleeuw wines. Of course, it is not the entire truth, perhaps I was the first person in the world to taste Peter’s second wine, a reserve wine, which he was just about to launch. I was here for a mere 40 minutes, but I enjoyed every minute of it. Peter Colemont is a fount of knowledge about viticulture, oenology and wine-tasting (which is not by chance, as he teaches viticulture and wine-tasting), and talking of his wines, I tasted the best Chardonnay in my life with him, and again in Budapest, after opening the bottle I bought from him. It’s no coincidence, according to Master of Wine Jancis Robinson, that they can easily be confused with the best white Burgundies. It may make many people smile, but from now on, I am going to compare Burgundies with Clos d'Opleeuw and not vice versa.
Clos d’Opleeuw
It may make many people smile, but from now on, I am going to compare Burgundies with Clos d'Opleeuw and not vice versa.
Clos d'Opleeuw
Address: Martinusstraat 20
3840 Gors-Opleeuw, Belgium
Phone: +32 12 74 66 22
Email: info@clos-d-opleeuw.be
Web: www.clos-d-opleeuw.be