Drilling Into Something Delicious
TASTING NOTES:
Round and creamy, with fresh berry flavors and well-balanced crispness
VARIETALS: 80% Pinot Noir, 20% Chardonnay
BARRELS: Stainless steel tanks
PAIRS WITH: N/A
THAT REMINDS ME OF: The Schlumberger name.
There is a company called Schlumberger — now rebranded as SLB, which somehow sounds even more like a villain’s lair — that is one of the largest oilfield services companies on earth. They do seismic surveys, drilling, well completion, all the unglamorous infrastructure of getting petroleum out of the ground and into your car. Founded in 1926 by two French brothers, Conrad and Marcel Schlumberger, who invented a method of measuring electrical resistance in rock formations to locate oil deposits. Extraordinarily clever stuff, and extraordinarily lucrative stuff, and if you’ve ever taken an introductory geology or petroleum engineering course you will have encountered the word “Schlumberger” roughly four hundred times.
The reason this is worth mentioning is that the Schlumberger family — this Schlumberger family, the wine one from Alsace — has been making wine for over 400 years, which means they were already well into their sixth or seventh generation of viticulture before the oil Schlumbergers came along and accidentally made the name synonymous with drill bits. Domaines Schlumberger in Alsace is, in fact, one of the largest private landowners of Grand Cru vineyard in the whole region. Two branches of the same family tree: one reading the earth for grapes, one reading it for crude. Both, in their own way, very serious about what’s underground.
