Domaine Les Roches (Chinon)

Alain & Jérome Lenoir in the CellarBeaumont en Véron (Chinon, Loire)
Domaine Les Roches is a small family estate near Chinon where father and son Alain and Jérome Lenoir make long-elevage wines from Cabernet Franc. Working from a very small vineyard surface (3 hectares), they have mostly a single wine every year, but this wine leaves their cellar only after an enormous amount of time. By long elevage, I meant it : 3 years at least in old casks and big-capacity foudres in this deep cellar which hasn't changed (except for the now-old electricity wiring) since it was dug into the "tuffeau" limestone rock between 1400 and 1500 A.D. I tasted their wines for the first time at a Caves Augé Loire tasting and was struck by their substance and character. These earthy, unfiltered wines show themselves without subterfuges, as if this long cellar life had imprinted the simple beauty of the place.
Beaumont en Véron is a small village 7km East of Chinon, on the way to Bourgueil, whis is a mere 10km further. It sits in Touraine, which is roughly in the central part of the Loire Appellation region. This is very close to where the Vienne river joins the mighty Loire. When you look at the Bourgeuil-Chinon map, Beaumont-en-Véron is right in the middle or the area. The Domaine Les Roches lies outside of the village, on a hill not far from the next village, Avoine.

The Carved-into-the-Rock CellarJerome opens the door to the cellar. First striking view on these Middle-Age vaulted stairways going down to the cask room. Absolutely beautiful. This cellar is right under the family house [pic above left] which was a few centuries ago some sort of convent. The building on left, which is now the chai, was at the time a "Grange à Dime", the equivalent of our modern "Trésor Public", which is the French tax administration. The farmers had probably to pay every now and then with wheat or other essentials. These taxes (Dîme or Gabelle) caused some revolutions in the past even though they were then far below the 54% of wealth that the state and various public administrations siphons from the French tax-payer and economy. The property was bought by Jerome's grand-grandfather in 1900. As a farmer he was doing polyculture and had only a few ares (1 are = 0,1 hectare) of vineyards, mostly for home consumption. The family lived off the crops and the few animals of the farm, a cow, pigs, sheep, goats and chickens. That's the way most farmers lived in France at the time and most of the wine in France came from such small multi-crop farms. Small production and very local market.
This family farm or winery (today wine is its sole production) has actually never changed its ways, they still take the time for a long elevage in the cellar. A few years ago they used to keep their wines two years in casks, now it is something like 3 years. Usually when a vigneron wants to sell his wine after a few years of elevage, this is a heavy investment for him because he will not get revenues from this wine until the end of the time. Well, some wineries sell futures to ease the financial pinch but only prestigious Bordeaux or Burgundy wineries can do that. Other wineries usualy can do it for their high-end wines only, the rest of the production pays for the bills until the long-elevage wine is ready.Casks and Oval FoudresThe 4/5-meter-high cellar has a high humidity. The rain water permeates the soft limestone on its way to the water beds, and there is the condensation from the warmer, humid air on the cold rock wall of the caves. All this aqueous atmosphere creates particularly beautiful side effects : when I saw all these bottles covered with this thick grey mold, I thought they were really very old bottles. They had actually been there only a handful of years and the mold had rapidly settled on the whole stash of bottles. Deeper in the cellar there was several dozens more such bottles. Jerome says that contrary to what we could be inclined to think, this fuzzy, cotton-like mold preserves the cork. Anyway this is a beautiful scene and the idea that this mold somehow brings its own cultural imprint to the wine pleases me. That's how I like to see wine : wild yeasts and wild mold building an alchemy...
As you understand it, the wine here goes through a long cask elevage PLUS more time in the bottles before going out and sold. Jérome Lenoir in the VatroomThe grapes are destemmed right after having been picked, near the vineyard, which is only a hundred yards away. Then the grapes ferment in these open wooden vats for 2 or three weeks without any external (industrial) yeasts. The grapes are healthy and carry all the necessary indigenous yeasts on their skin. The grapes start to ferment with their own indigenous yeasts, so sometimes it starts immediately, sometimes it needs a few days to begin to ferment. After a small SO2 addition at the end of the fermentation (3-4 grams/hectoliter) the juice goes does to the cellar by gravity for a very long elevage in the casks. No So2 of any sort is added during the fermentation stage. There is some cap-punching and pumping-over during the fermentation in the open-top wooden vats.
The wine will then go through 3 years in this cellar, sometimes more, depends of the millesime. There is only one cuvée, like it used to be in the past, and anyway they have only 3 hectares. Asked about the importance of the elevage and about this mold on the rock and everywhere, Jerome Lenoir says that he and his father think that their wine wouldn't be what they are if the elevage had taken place in a "clean" temperature-regulated surface warehouse. He says that all this humidity and these mold cultures have made of this cellar a perfect home for the wine. Btw, he says that the wine feels so good that after 3 years or more in there, it needs more time to recover than usual. A natural wine is said to need 90 days to recover from bottling (a commercial wine doesn't need such a long delay, maybe because it has lost its life). Here 6 months is the minimum. Seems that this wine has learnt to be patient...This Chinon 2000 never saw the DaylightAll the casks and foudres are full around us in the cellar, there are several millesimes in there. the 2007 for example will see the daylight only somewhere between 2010 and 2012. For example this year they are bottling the 2003, makes more 4 years and a half than 3 years. The casks are often 40 or 50 years old and they don't bring a woody taste any more. The elevage will bring maturity and natural micro-oxygenation to the wine, and it will filter them naturally too. The cold temperature of this cellar plays a role too : it precipitates the lees to the bottom of the cask. They even occasionally open the doors of the cellar in winter to bring colder air in.
__Chinon Les Roches 2001. This is it. Authenticity and just enough rusticity to go with the fruit. The prices for these wines is something like 6,5 or 7 Euro. Really good value for this quality of wine.
__Chinon Les Roches 2000. Some leather. Fruits. Elegance. I spoke later with sommelier Alain Segelle about this millesime of Les roches, this is one of his favorites. He said that it is sold out at Lavinia (the Paris Wine shop) and that he really enjoyed it. He said the only thing is that as it is sulphur-free the bottles have to be stored carefully. Back to the cellar. Alain or Jerome Lenoir speaks about the 2003 and says that it was the first year they made lab analysis for the wine (it was the heat-wave year). People around were so anxious, especially those who had sandy soils : the leaves were falling in the middle of summer. But at Les Roches it was OK, the roots had probably dug deep enough into the tuff stone. The way the vine and canes are pruned year after year is also very important. If you do it the wrong way, the clusters will be massed together with no air to aerate them properly. If you leave a branch out, it makes room for the air.
__Chinon Les Roches 2002. Bottled in october 2006. Leather, underwoods. Nice, immediate pleasure. The color is not very intense. He says that with the years the color looses some intensity but that the tannins are there and do their job. Alain Lenoir (Jerome's father) says that more and more laws threaten the good products in France and in Europe, like these norms that say that cheese must be transported in thrucks at a maximum temperature of 3°C. He says that such a cold temperature kills everything in a real cheese. He wonders if someday the regulators might forbid to the artisanal vignerons to bottle their wines themselves for sanitary reasons.
__Chinon Les Roches 1990. 6 years in casks...Ample, round mouth. Nice color. Bottled in 1997. They kept tasting it, checking the wine and one day they decided that it was time to release it. When they had it bottled, the wine was in shock for a longer period of time : They had to wait another year before selling the bottles. They tasted it every 2/3 months and it was still in a bad mood, as if it was angry to have been forcefully moved into the bottles. Then it eased up and began to breath again.
For those who have the chance to come at the winery, note that Jerome and Alain Lenoir also sell their wine in bulk. The bulk wine will be a Chinon (Cabernet Franc) with a 2-year elevage in cask, and the price is really a bargain : 2,8 Euro a liter. Jerome Lenoir in the VineyardTo reach the vineyards, you just have tp open the gate in the back of the garden. They are stretched on a few hundreds meters on a light slope huphill, at an altitude of 60 meters. When they harvest, the grapes don't even transit on a paved road. They have about 4 hectares of vineyards, most of it in Cabernet Franc, plus a small plot of Chenin (23 ares). As we walk with Jerome to the vineyards, we pass an old Citroën from the early 80s', an Acadiane [pic on left], a variant of the legendary 2CV. He uses it only on the property, it is very convenient on the dirt roads and very light too.
Their older vines are about a hundred years old, the others were planted some fifty years ago. He shows me how they do when a vines is dead, they look at the next vine in the row and if it is healthy, they let a branch grow and put the end of the branch in the ground when it is long enough to reach the bottom of the dead vine. This is called marcotage and this way they can grow another vine with the same qualities. This vineyard has very little ground, maybe only 20cm, then you reach the tuff rock in which the cellar was dug. The soil is clayish/siliceous. We look at these 100-year-old vines, they are amazingly small for their age. He says that the reason is not only that they never used any fertilizers but that the growth of the vines depends also from the way you prune and cut them. Jerome says that on the top of the hill the soil is even thinner, something like 10cm, but the roots find cracks in the rock and feed from there. In 2003 (heat-wave year) they apparently could find some freshness to compensate from the above hellish heat.
Domaine Les Roches' wines are exported in Switzerland, Germany and Holland.
Jerome Lenoir and his wife have two boys, aged 3 and 5.Domaine Les RochesAlain & Jerome Lenoir19 rue d'Isodoré37420 Beaumont-en-VéronPhone : +332 47 58 93 97Seen in the Vicinity : I'll take the Vineyards AND the Chateau...

Comments

[Vinama]

Hi,

I just wanted to let you know that I am reading your blog since a couple of weeks and your pictures are really great ( your stories as well of course ).

regards,

Vinama
My wineblog: http://vinama.skynetblogs.be/

[Brooklynguy]

Hi Bert,

Great post. I wonder why no one has imported these wines to the US. Seems like a natural match for Dressner, for example. Did you happen to ask them why they don't have a US importer?

[Pat B]

Bert,
Those are really wonderful pictures inside the cave. The old casks, the moldy bottles, and the cave walls all give such a great atmosphere. Nice work. I wish I could taste the wine.

[Steve L.]

Great post--a top ten entry! (Now, about that tax rate--54%?!)

ONE OF THE MOST EXCITING WINE BLOGS I'VE SEEN IN THE PAST YEARS. GREAT STORIES AND GREAT PHOTOS. I DON'T KNOW ANY OTHER WINE RELATED WEB SITE WITH BETTER PHOTOGRAPHY, YOU WONDERFULLY SURPRISED THE TERROIRS OF THE WORLD. GREAT POSTS. ALL OF THEM.

CHIP

[Bertrand]

Thank you, Vinama, and to the other commenters for the comments!
Brooklynguy : if I remember, they told me that they had some contacts with some Americans but that it didn't materialize. Even though they have a small output, there should be room for some export there.
Steve : Yep ! the French state pumps out 54,5% of France's GDP, a record in Europe shared with Denmark and Sweden, compared with an average of 40% in developped countries, and 36% in the US... See on this page (in French) the compared-rates graphic (bottom) on "dépenses publiques rapportées au PIB" :
http://www.institut-entreprise.fr/fileadmin/Docs_PDF/travaux_reflexions/Fiscalit_/Art_Leherissel_0306.pdf

[MrTaz]

Bert,
I've been enjoying your blog for about a year now. Unfortunately I found it AFTER my last trip to France :(
I just want to tell you that the photos on this post are particularly beautiful. So evocative, with a clear sense of place (can photos express their terroir?). The first one here is especially beautiful. How did you light it and shoot it? It looks like natural lighting, but that would have required a long exposure.
Keep up the beautiful and informative work.

[Bertrand]

Thank you, Mr Taz! Natural lighting only (natural, vintage electric-lighting of course).
I don't remember the speed but it was something like 1/15 or 1/8. I like to shoot with slow speeds even if I get occasional blurred pictures. They didn't freeze for me anyway. They were concerned about the dog who was sick that day. Jerome had to drive it to the veterinary clinic that very day.

[Jayson Bryant]

What a beautiful story on how wine should be made with passion and patience rather than the industrial juice that we are being exposed to by new world producers.

[Felipe Mendez]

Just beautiful.
This post. The whole blog.
Thanks a lot