From Brooklyn to the Loire

Laurent Saillard, pruning the vines in Mareuil (Loire) From Brooklyn (NY) to the Loire Valley.
Mareuil-sur-Cher, Touraine (Loire)
This is a long way from New York, and this is in many regards a completely different world over here but somehow this new life that Laurent Saillard has been experimenting along the Cher river complements his New York achievements. Laurent was the man who opened with his wife Catherine Ici, a Brooklyn restaurant that soon thrived and played its part to popularize natural wines in the big city. He had discovered natural wines while in New York through the importer (now closed down) who imported Claude Courtois' wines, then through Jenny Lefcourt & François Ecot, then with Joe Dressner. To make it simple, the first venue to give natural wines a central place in New York was 360 (now closed) which was opened in february 2003 by Arnaud Ehrart, and this was also in Brooklyn. The second was Ici, opened by Laurent and Catherine Saillard in february 2004. For the information, the third place where natural wines were a centerpiece of the menu was Ten Bells which was opened in 2008 by Fifi (whom I met recently) in the Lower East Side. Natural wines, these wines made without the many additives used in commercial wines, have since rapidly expanded in New York, thanks to distributors like Chambers Street Wines, Astor Wines and people like Joe Dressner and Jenny Lefcourt.
For years, Laurent who had previously worked at Bouley and Balthazar after first arriving in New York in 1995, delished at preparing his cuisine at Ici from local fresh products bought at a farmers market. For the wine, his wine list consisted grossly of 30 whites and 30 reds, mostly from French natural-wine producers plus a few from Spain and Italy. These wines were still little known on the restaurant scene in New York but they were bringing a new life on the table. He used to enjoy the company of the vignerons who were behind these marvelous wines that he served and drank, as they were coming regularly to New York for tastings and he also visited some of them when in France for a visit. The human-size estates and the organic/biodynamic farming fared well with the philosophy he tried to convey through his cuisine. At one point, personal problems and the desire to try something else made him want to get on the other side of the wine trade. This all landed him in the Loire last year for a long visit to his friends/vignerons, and ultimately in this old house surrounded by woods and vineyards on the slopes going down to the Cher river.

Gathering the canes - the house in the backgroundIn New York, Laurent was among the happy few who could get to work after a short walk, his home and Ici being very close. Here in the Loire, he managed to keep this priviledge and you can see on the other side of the woods the old farm where he rents his living quarters. Back to the beginning : last summer, his plans to change the course of life led him to come a few weeks in the Loire with his friends/vignerons, the Puzelats, Hervé Villemade and others. Here he was, in the Loire, visiting these people who were behind the wines that he loved and who were the best counsels he could dream of now. There, he realized that maybe, jumping on the other side of the fence and become a vigneron was feasible and anyway a highly desirable, and heart-racing adventure. Here were people that could offer all the help and advice to learn and progress. The vineyard and the real health (not chemically controlled) of the vines and grapes being particularly central for these vignerons who applied an organic/biodynamic farming management, he understood that he had to begin with the basics, the vineyard tasks. Didier Barouillet and Catherine Roussel (Clos Roche Blanche) happened to need someone in the vineyard, and Noëlla Morantin, who was setting up her winery on vineyards rented from Clos Roche Blanche needed also someone for her 8-hectare surface. This was it, Laurent had the job even if split on two employers, and he jumped at the opportunity.Pruning a 5-year SauvignonWhen I arrived at the house in my old Citroën, Laurent had already left to work in the vineyard. There's a message on my phone for directions on how to reach the vineyard from there by foot (the other option being driving the car down the slope toward the Cher and up again to Clos Roche Blanche). It is simple as real things can be : take the vineyard at the end of the courtyard, go straight between two rows and follow the woods at the end to the left. At one point you'll see a narrow path going down the slope under the trees on your right, follow it, careful on the sliperry stretches and on a couple of old disrepaired wooden bridges on the now-empty streams and when you reach an open prairie on the other side of the coulée, take it and you'll reach the vineyards with the antifreeze tower in the middle. A coulée (literally flow because that's where the rain streams flow) is a small valley, often covered with woods because it is too steep to be plowed, which is going down from a plateau to the river further down, in that case the Cher river. This small walk took me maybe 10 minutes and it was a poem, a travel in time. It looked like what I imagine paths looked like in the Middle Ages, humbly finding its way through the mighty nature. The oblique morning light through the bare trees on the green mosses and fallen trunks would have made my day by itself and I think that this walk deserved a couple of pictures, here on the left for the path through the woody coulée (click to enlarge), and on the right when the view on Clos-Roche-Blanche vineyards breaks through the woods. Laurent Saillard says that he used to run around Prospect park with his dog Panache in Brooklyn, but I'm sure that this daily walk through the coulée to go to work compensates. Walking a few minutes from home to the workplace is a rare luxury, here like in New York.Checking Noëlla Morantin's 70-year-old CotWhen I reach Laurent Saillard after the short walk from the old farm, I find him busy working on Noëlla Morantin's vineyard, or to be precise, on one of the vineyard that she rents to Clos Roche Blanche. He has only a couple of weeks to complete the pruning for his two employers, Noëlla Morantin and Didier Barouillet. The vineyard plot that he is pruning is a 5-year-old Sauvignon plot (see the three first pictures above). For that task he is using a battery-powered pruner, an electrocoup which is dubbed the Rolls Royce of pruners for its quality and price (1500 Euro). He began with ordinary, manual pruners but with the surface of vineyard that he has to work on, this was a necessary investment. Working in the vineyard was a first-time event when he began this new life last november. Some people warned him that it could be physically challenging but until now it went smoothly, no back pain or other side effect yet.
The first vineyard plots he worked on last year were CRB's, which by the way are intertwinned with the ones that Noëlla rents : he replanted (repiquage) baby vines to replace dead vines or vines that were accidently uprooted by the plowing. He also learned with Didier how to plant vine poles, and then put the wires back in place, and Didier Barouillet was the best teacher he could dream of for these vineyard-management tips.The fireplace for the view, the stove for the heat...Then he learnt with Didier the different types of pruning, the taille à poussier (on Gamay), or the taille à baguette also called Guyot simple, like the one on the 5-year-old Sauvignon : you just leave one cane (baguette) with 7 or 8 eyes from which the shoots will grow. Asked again about the remaining surface to prune this season, he says that he has 1,5 hectare to do for Noëlla and a bit less than one hectare for Didier, the whole thing having to be completed in about two weeks. When it rains, he doesn't prune because the water can prevent the vine from healing from the pruning wounds and it could expose the vines to the Esca disease, so he spends the rainy days tying the remaining canes to the wires on the already-pruned plots, which is easier when it rains because the wood is easier to bend.
About the pruned canes, they either burn them or grind them, let the thing decompose somewhere before using it as compost for the vines. He says that the vine is a creeper type of a plant and thus, pruning is very important. An interesting thing with the vine and the canes, he says, is that paradoxally the furthest the buds are from their nurturing vine, the more juice they get, because the "creeper" vine wants to grow and extend as much as possible and favours its daring extremities. So, Laurent says that it is important to limit the growth of the vine itself, as it will also help it age well. It is also important to have the optimal grape weight, possibly well spread over the foliage surface.
Laurent says that the 5-year-old Sauvignon plot now rented by Noëlla Morantin was previously planted with half Chenin and half Gamay. We walk to another plot dotted with blue patches where young vines have been replanted (second pic above) : this is another CRB vineyard rented by Noëlla, 70-year-old Cot. Then we walk on plots still managed by Didier Barouillet, with some biodiversity rows here and there where long time ago a regular row stood. It makes a wider space without poles or vines where Didier has planted different plants in addition to the weeds and wild flowers that can be seen all over the place here.
The vineyard is full of good, edible plants, like wild raspberry canes, and wild lambs' lettuce. Laurent kneels several times as we walk back to the farm to pick some [picture on left]. And the spring flower explosion is still ahead. Walking in the spring time in a vineyard which has'nt seen any fertilizer or weedkiller for years is a powerful experience. We pass here and there the first flowers that announce that spring is coming : a small blue flower named Véronique for example, and elesewhere a small yellow flower named Orpin de Nice. And that's just the beginning. Pouring a Les Capriades Pet'Nat' by Pascal PotaireThat's when Laurent Saillard pointed to several edible delicacies growing in the vineyard that it reminded me that he is indeed a retaurateur and a cook (he unearthed several wild garlic bulbs right after picking the wild lambs' lettuce). And what I ate that day made me think that in addition to learning the vineyard work and ultimately the cellar and vinification part of the job, he jumps at the opportunity to prepare dishes that he didn't have the opportunity to work on in New York. Laurent prepared a roe deer dish that I will remember for some time. This long cooking time meat dish (probably cooked on the stove) had a beautiful, intense reduced sauce with it and it went beautifully with the 2008 Cot that Noëlla Morantin made from purchased grapes. The region is covered with woods when not with vineyards, and there is an oversupply with all sort of gamey that make it one of the best hunting regions in France (he doesn't hunt, though).
About this French life which comes after so many years in New York, he says that some things here are disconcerting though, like the lack of service, the narrow opening hours of shops, and paradoxally, the relative disinterest of French people for good products, meaning organic and natural. Even in the countryside, people buy their food and vegetables in the supermarket where much of it is industrially made. He tips me about an excellent butcher in Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher where the meat is extra. OK, I'll try it after the saturday market. Of course, there are good products here, but the market stalls here have also lots of ordinary, high yield vegetables and he misses the product authenticity of the farmer's markets where he used to buy his products. Same for the restaurants : in Paris, many Brasseries including the famous ones like La Coupole or Bofinger don't have products as fresh as what you can eat at Balthazar in New York. Of course, this is New York, but still, it is unconceivable that you find more easily good products there, thanks to the farmer's markets than in many parts of France. Same for the eggs with real taste. Take the chicken for example, he has to go to Cour-Cheverny (some 30 kilometers away) at Cazin every three months where he is sure to find real, free run chicken; he'll buy 10 of them because they're really good and tasty, and not industrial, and will put them in the freezer back home. There are still many good, authentic products around here of course but many people still prefer to shop in the supermarkets. Speaking of Balthazar, where he worked several years, that's where he met Jonathan Nossiter. Nossiter was setting up wine lists for restaurants then, and he authored the one at Balthazar. They worked together several years. Actually, Balthazar's wine list was the first at the time to be 100% composed of French wines and it still is, an impressive wine list btw. Panache, an expat New YorkerPanache is a lovely dog who likes to run around but also to lie down in the sun or near the fireplace. This English Setter is really a quiet, good dog : when I arrived at the old farm and walked along the house looking for someone, it didn't even bark although I learned later that it was inside. Born in august 2007 in Connecticut, it used to run around Prospect Park with Laurent. It seems to fit in its new environment but probably miss the other part of the family, including Laurent's two young sons who stayed in New York.
Speaking of this new life that Laurent is starting here, he says that it has deep roots in the restaurateur job that he loved. In New York, he was an intermediary between the authentic, organic products that he found on the farmer's market and his customers. Now, he wants to live on the other side of the trade and make some of these exceptionnal products, in this matter, wine. The great wine people that he knew in the Loire, like the Puzelat brothers, Olivier Lemasson, Hervé Villemade, Agnès & René Mosse were decisive in his decision to make the jump. Careful with my old Citroën, Laurent....I usually don't let any one drive my old Citroën Ami8 (38 years old and counting...) but I made an exception here, cause I saw that Laurent really loved it (who doesn't love it at first glance anyway ?). He drove around with Panache on his laps and both came back safe and sound...

Comments

[isaac rivera]

Another important pusher of family-owned, estate-bottled, natural wines in New York City is Moore Brothers (www.wineaccess.com/store/moorebrothersny)

[James K. Dillon]

Wonderful to read of my friends successful transition to the world of the vineyards. The last year and half have not been an easy one, may your road continue to brighten with every day. Messieurs Panache has found his soulmate once again.

Jim Dillon
Huntly Setters

[daniel molano]

nice blog and great pictures! can I ask what camera you use? thanks

[Carol Conway Alain Saillard]

On aimerait bien venir gouter tes vins un de ces dimanches ! OK ?

Carol, Alain, Clément, Maud (pour Charlie ce sera Coca !)

[Bertrand]

Welcome in France, Vanessa,
Right now I'm thinking to a Domaine de chassorney (Fred Cossard) Bourgogne Grand Ordinaire (Gamay/Pinot Noir) that we had yesterday. Great wine made by a great vintner...

[Gregory BOURCIER]

Avec toutes mes félicitations !!! Et tous mes voeux de réussites. GB

[Kate Sanzin]

Nice!