Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Grafting fruit trees

An apple tree is born

Here is a grafting story, not about vines for a change, but trees : It's been years I needed to find someone who could help me graft some fruit trees in the Loire. I had for example a relatively-young apple tree that almost died for some reason a few years ago and grew back from the rootstock (pictured on right), thus not growing fruits anymore. Or also greengage trees growing from a kernel fallen on the ground (fruitless as well even years later because ungrafted). This grafting was the result of a decision on a whim with a very narrow time window, you sometimes make great things this way, think for example of the composer Jerry Goldsmith who fathered the Love Theme for Roman Polanski's Chinatown, he had 10 days to compose it after initial composer Phillip Lambro was dismissed, and what a gem of a piece ! So whatever, I decided enough is enough, I needed to take things in my own hands, quickly browsing on the Internet for clues and tutorials and I found this very informative page with pictures about grafting olive trees in Israel by a young lady who grew up in a Kibbutz. The whole thing was simple enough for me, no wax or sophisticated technique, I felt I could do it and here is what I did this early 2020.

I began in january with a try, grafting two wood sticks I cut from an unattended apple tree along a side road (pictured on left). I occasionally picked these nice apples in autumn as the owners don't seem to care (some people in the countryside have gems and don't realize it, but at least they didn't cut the trees). Here is this first try made in late january (pictures below) with two wood cuts only, but Valérie, a young Belgian who lives nearby and is a passionate about nature and gardening told me that it was necessary to cut the wood one or two months before the grafting (like in january), keeping the wood in a humid place until the grafting day (like in march). The other thing she told me when she saw my pictures was that I took wood cuts that were too old : you need to cut the extremity of the wood that grew last year (like the 10 or 15 last centimeters). Anyway, we'll see, this first grafting try will maybe bear fruits as well.

Les Anonymes 2020

The upper room

This tasting fair of Les Vins Anonymes (or Les Anonymes) in downtown Angers earlier that month was also very exciting, it lasts only one day (this year sunday 2 february) and given the long list of participating vignerons you'd need at least two days (I'd need a week...). Imagine that the first year there was a salon in Angers was 1987 when the Salon des Vins de Loire opened, this was then the first regional wine fair. Then, after what seems to be ages later in 1999, La Dive Bouteille was launched (in Bourgueil then, by Catherine Breton) with barely more than 10 vignerons. La Dive was thought as a competing wine fair centered on real wines, then, as opposed to the Salon d'Angers where mainstream wineries were the large majority.

Then soon all hell broke loose and this was the (welcome) avalanche of alternative tastings in and around Angers and visitors were flocking from all over the world. And in the early 2010s came Les Vins Anonymes. The last time I attended it, it was taking place in a church, that was eerie and exciting, only natural wine could honor a temple...
The fee for the tasting was very affordable : 5 € with glass included.

Tasting chez Babass

Buzzing crowd

This small tasting event with outstanding winemakers took place in Babass' vat room. There are quite a few of these smaller tastings around Angers at this time of the year and this is a very good idea as it allows the winemakers to set up a more intimate event without the administrative hurdle of the more established tastings (even if these were originally also established as a cooler alternative to the Salon des vins d'Angers). The bright side of these small events is also that there are fewer people [well, it does looked crowded, i know...] because you'll need a car to go in these far flung villages, the event usually taking place in the vatroom or cellar of a vigneron which implies no cost for the winemakers.

We can dream of such micro tastings multiplicating ad infinitum in the shadow of the major Salon d'Angers with every year another unexplored wonder somewhere in a village where people in the know will be invited to. I missed already such a tasting late january (i was tipped about it by Absentee's Avi) because I wasn't in Angers then and wouldn't probably have found a driver to go anyway, it was organized by Baptiste Cousin and the other participants were Jean Marie Brousset (Anjou), Hervé Bossé (Anjou), Hervé Cormier (Anjou), Titou Picard (Corbières), Ai Deixtler (Californie), Morgane, Arnaud & Etienne Thiebaud (Jura), must have been an exciting thing with these vignerons. The problem with these tasting events that pop up in the region is the distance from downtown Angers where most visitors arrived by train and that's when you feel lucky when you find someone who has room in his car to drive you there : Aaron found us a good angel in the person of Michaël Lemasle, no less than the caviste at Crus et Découvertes.

Greniers Saint Jean (Angers)

Renaissance tasting

Angers, 1 february 2020
The Greniers Saint Jean tasting is gathering every year more than 200 domaines working organic, biodynamic and vinifying naturally. It among the first to have popped up alongside the more mainstream Salon des Vins de Loire. This wine event is named from the church-like Greniers Saint Jean building where it takes place downtown Angers, a building that was founded in 1188 at about the same time than Notre Dame de Paris (1163). This tasting event known also under the name Renaissance [des Appellations] was started by two men, Nicolas Joly and Mark Angeli in this medieval hospital later turned into a granary. Professional wine people come from all over the world at the turn of januarry and february to attend this tasting and a few others of the same philosophy.

I initially thought I'd probably not come to Angers in spite of the magnet such events have on me : the town is crowded, accommodations are full and expensive and I actually dragged my feet until Aaron (Not Drinking Poison) kindly texted me about his having an extyra bed in the Airbnb he had rented. When i received the text on friday I was just back from a couple of hours ride on my motorbike after a few days in the Loire and I checked the carsharing Blablacar offers for the next morning and here I was heading for an exciting ride...
I arrived there around 1pm, walked along the gate behind which I think I briefly saw Pascaline Lepeltier having a break (should have asked her but I thought I'd see here later inside) and bought a ticket (20 € for general visitors and 10 € for professionnals & media).

Wine news (76)

Paris wine

(Angers coming soon after this)
Here is a very unusual bottle that I found on a flemarket in Paris very recently : This Vin des Grottes 2005 is made from a small 20-are vineyard of Pinot Noir planted near the chateau of Saint-Germain-en-Laye west of Paris. The region is a bit too north for pinot noir but you can see with the picture on top of this article from Le Parisien how the walls below the Chateau help reverberate the sun and ripen the grapes. The parcel was planted in 2000 with 1900 vines (at thus a density of 10 000 per hectare) and 2005 is considered one of the best vintage of this wine. The parcel stands on the same slope where the monks of the Saint Wandrille abbey (Normandy) farmed their own parcel in the 15th century from which they made a reknown wine.

Very pleasant wine to drink with a savory substance, a sweet edge (but it's obviously dry, it's just the glycerin) and earthy, underwoods aromas. I can't believe I paid only 3 € for this bottle. This wine is not on the market, it is probably distributed to sponsors (the towns of Saint-Germain-en-Laye and Le Pecq) and volunteers who help this not-for-profit venture. If not for the absurd EU laws and regulations it would be possible to replant vines all over the paris region, which until the late 18th century was the largest wine-producing region in France with 42 000 hectares. This Pdf document on the EU procedure for obtaining planting rights is eye opening, I understand why most people even courageous will give up. Correction : I initially blamed the EU bureaucracy for limiting the replantings to no more than the equivalent of 1 % of the total surface but a reader (thank you Roelof !) just told me this is actually the French administration that lobbied to have these stringent limits....

Wine news (75)

La Ferme du Cade

Here are a few photographic notes of wines that stood out and events where wine flows, we'll look back a couple months for these things. Some of these pictures are very long and narrow, I shot them with my phone.
these first few pictures were shot at Paris by Wine, a tasting event for professionnals that took place at the Musée de la Chasse [Hunting Museum] in Paris (directions). The domaines that took part were mostly from Burgundy but there were a few other domaines which shared the artisan/uninterventionist philosophy, this other group having been selected by Gilles Manzoni. The setting of this tasting in the middle of the Marais was particularly in line with the idea of tradition, with these vaulted rooms, thick stone walls and game trophies hanging.

This Domaine de la Ferme du Cade is located in the Gard département (Southern Rhone) 50 km north of Nîmes, David Teyssier is doing a very good job here on his 7 hectares (plus as much hay fields), he is growing grapes since 2006, it was his first vintage in 2019 with 10 000 bottles because prior to that he was selling grapes to the local coopérative, stopping in 2018 when he made his first trials with 3000 bottles vinified naturally. He keeps hens and chicken in his farm, moving them with a chicken coop on wheels in order to bring them to different parcels.
__ Prime, Rosé 2019, made in collaboration with the Soulier brothers. 80 % Clairette (direct press) blended with Cinsault. Super nice color. Unfiltered, a bit SO2 (1gr/hectoliter) because malolactic started too early. 30 hectoliters of this. Priced around 15 € in cavistes (6,5 € pro price).
__ Les Garbettes 2018, a red barely darker than the rosé, 80 % Grenache 20 % Cinsault, on slopes. 7-day maceration, he tries to make easy-drinking wines. Superb nose, smoky notes. 15 € retail (7 € pro) lovely wine.

German & Austrian natural wines in Paris

The crowd for the tasting at Septime

Septime, Paris
Alexander Zülch of Vins Vivants has been dealing with natural wines for quite a few years now (nearly ten), he began to import wines from Germany and Austria to France 6 years ago, importing 15 domaines over

here, and he also imports the other way around. Alex organized a tasting of these Austrian/German wines a few weeks ago at Septime, this tasting event which was named Muskatnuss ! in reference to a 1970s' movie scene [video on the right lasting 1:30 min] with actor Louis de Funès who was well known in Germany as well, the name of the movie in France being le Grand Restaurant [full movie in French through this link], quite funny a movie as it shows the hidden side of managing a high-end restaurant (named Septime but located at Ledoyen), and this, in the 1960s....
This winetasting event was a good opportunity to feel the beat of the wine scene in these countries (so close to France and we know so little).

Alex says there's a general openness here in France among the gastronomy, restaurant people concerning wines from outside France with wines from Italy, Greece, Georgia, and now Austrian and also German wines are joining the list of foreign wines found in good restaurants. I asked Alex how these winemakers and Winzer are faring in their respective markets, he says that it's obviously the future, every interesting restaurant that is opening these days chooses this type of wines, and people ask for that, the Berlin restaurant scene saw many demanding restaurants focused on the ingredients and food like we have in Paris and they know about these natural wines found in similar venues in Paris, New York or Copenhagen. Alex says that this came suddenly and recently, like for example 3 or 4 years ago there wasn't such a demand from the public, you can feel it in cities like Berlin, Vienna, Hamburg, even if it has not yet reached the climax of Paris or New York in that regard ...

I asked Alex if there was someone he discovered recently, he talked about Weingut Seckinger in Pfalz (Palatinat), Germany; this is a young domaine managed by 3 brothers who took over the family winery and converting to natural wine in a quite successful way with very interesting rieslings going through 2-year élevages. He also discovered a very nice producer in Italy, actually it's in the North in a German-speaking area near the Austrian border, this is Weingut Pranzegg, a small domaine managed by Martin Gojer, he will add it like an "intruder" in his portfolio of imports at his Vins Etrangers structure which is based in Alsace, France. At Pranzegg they have 3 alpine terroirs in high altitude.

Standing bars (tachinomiya) in Kansai

Pouring sake in a tachinomiya

Kansai, Japan
Here we go again, and if there's something I'd never miss in Japan, it is having a good time in a standing bar (called tachinomiya here) in the evening, when the crowd of white-collar salarymen flood them after work on their way to the train station where they'll later catch the train home... I'll try not to repeat myself but Japan is a highly pragmatic country, where modernism hasn't excluded tradition and fun. Political correctness never really took hold here and coercitive regulations may exist on the paper but in the real world there's a pragmatic laissez faire : people smoke in bars, some tiny venues are engulfed in barbecue fumes with no civilian zealot to harass the "perpetrators" or report these things to the administration, and when you're aware of the gap with the situation of our own countries it's a breath of fresh air to spend time in these working-class bars. To top it all, you're not looked upon on a negative way when you happen to have had more booze than you could handle after your hard day's work. Japan is a pretty cool country in many ways even if I know it has also strict codes and there's pressure from the group and the society we may not be aware of when we're not living here and speak the language...
Here are a few standing bars I went to in Osaka & Kyoto, some I went alone (it is definetely possible for a gaijin, you'll not be thrown out), some with Keizou & Matt.

Terroirs of sake

Chief brewer Keizou Ishida with farmers

Ryūō (Shiga prefecture)
Sake is made with rice and water, and while the quality and purity of the water part is easily measured, this is more difficult for rice because its culture nationwide usually implies chemicals, fertilizers and herbicide. To get a supply of clean rice, Matsuse shuzo has put in place partnerships with several farmers so they won't use fertilizers, chemicals or herbicide along the growing season. What helped also are the incentives by the Shiga authorities toward a cleaner agriculture using much less chemicals, as nearby Lake Biwa is the largest freshwater lake in Japan into which 400 rivers & streams flow, providing drinking water for about 15 million people in the Kansai region, including Kyoto, Osaka & Kobe. Working without chemicals or with much less chemicals takes more manpower (like for taking out weeds by hand) which is why some growers are reluctant, but thanks to the few contracted farmers they work with, Matsuse got the "Certification for environmentally friendly agricultural products" [環境こだわり農産物認証].

The farmers are also encouraged to put in place new farming methods allowing to handle this organic culture, like leaving the rice paddies under water in winter and avoiding to touch the soil, both things being known for enhancing naturally the growth of microorganisms and reinstating the natural exchange ecosystem. But given the interconnection of rice paddies belonging to different farmers it is sometimes difficult to leave a rice field under water when its neighbors don't do it, there must be arrangements on a case-by-case basis concerning the watertightness of the dikes and the access to the drains.

These changes mean a lot because they allow to have the local terroir to be an important part in the end sake, instead of only buying rice from faraway regions (like the Hyogo prefecture famed for its Yamada Nishiki rice). For that purpose the brewery contracts with local farmers with rice paddies sitting on different types of soils which will translate into really different sake, reinstating a notion of terroir/localness that was certainly the norm centuries ago when breweries would use locally-grown rice.
Illustration pictures on the sides : farmers spotted at work in the valley that day (not the ones who work for Matsuse shuzo).

Matsuse sake brewery (Shiga, Japan)

Main room at the Matsuse sake brewery

Yuge, Ryūō (Shiga prefecture)
The Matsuse sake brewery is a small family brewery that is in the sake business since 1860. It is located north of Kyoto in the Shiga prefecture, in a rice-growing valley between two mountain ranges. The facility centered around the brewery room that was built in the early years of the Shōwa era (1930s') is located in the middle of rice paddies along with a cluster of houses typical of the modern Japanese rural habitat. Matsuse is among the few sake breweries that work with farmers who eschew chemicals and herbicide for their rice supply, and also develop the production of terroir sake, therefore it is no surprise that cult winemakers like Pierre Overnoy, Emmanuel Houillon and Hirotake Ooka (pictured on right) visited the brewery a year ago. The heart of the brewery has the vibes of a real place and apart from a few machines it is very traditional and relies on the expert work of diligent kurabitos (sake brewery workers). on the picture above you can see the vatroom on the street level (it holds 18 marge fermenters lined along the walls) as well as the stairs leading to the upper sory where there's a shrine on the left and the small room where the rice is cooled down and dried. To access each area you change shoes, here for example leaving the ones for the vatroom on the ground and putting one the ones waiting on the stairs.

The brewery which employs a dozen workers in the producing season moved along the years focusing on the sourcing of its rice and water, working with local farmers it convinced to farm organic (something more difficult to do with rice growing than vine growing) and digging wells deep enough to find pure water tables. Brewmaster Keizou Ishida (pictured on left) who began to work here 17 years ago as a simple kurabito has implemented extensive changes in the brewing and rice_handling processes along the years for an even better quality, reinstating age-old methods.