Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Le Temps des Rêveurs (Provence)

Jérôme Maillot outside his house

Pourrières, Var (Provence)
This is maybe in winter that you understand best why painters like Cézanne and Van Gogh flocked to the Sainte Victoire ridge at the edge of the Var and the Bouches-du-Rhône départements in Provence : like much of Provence there's a unique magic in the light, due probably by the strong winds that keep humidity & clouds at bay. Jérôme who is a native from the region lives in this house in the middle of his parcels with his wife and daughters, and the appeasing view of the Sainte Victoire in the far. The region is also very favorable for viticulture. If you're into AOCs, the village of Pourrières (pictured on right) belongs to the AOC Côtes de Provence Sainte Victoire, but you'll not find any mention of this domaine on the Pourrières-AOC page because Jérôme's wine farm (Le Temps des Rêveurs) only makes table wine, and that's OK for us because we care for what's in the bottle, not on the label....

Although the region has all these conditions for making uncorrected wine (and excellent reds) from heathy vines, beginning with this dry weather in summer and autumn allowing to eschew chemicals, it is pretty hard to find artisanal wine farms like we do in many other French regions, the main reason being that conventionally-made rosé keeps selling like crazy here and abroad, and there's little incentive to replace this easy cash cow with the more demanding natural winemaking with which you'll need more work (at least in the vineyard) and attention. In this sense, Provence is close to Champagne : when there's no end to the demand for the high-yields conventional stuff, why bother and look for risks ? It was rewarding to find that Provence also has its awakening to artisan winemaking, thanks to people like Jérôme Maillot for whom the bottom line doesn't come first.

Pruning Aunis, and a few new cuvées

Laurent at work

Pouillé, Touraine (Loire)
I also visited Laurent Saillard who was like Anouk & Paul in the vineyard pruning with a small team. The temperature was a bit less cold than a few days before (Thésée is just facing Pouillé on the other side of the Cher river) I found them in the parcel of Pineau d'Aunis (the one for the cuvée Scarlette) not very far from Laurent's chai on the plateau. The vines on this 50-are parcel are something like 50 years old. They began to prune in the very last days of november, worked an additional 2 weeks in december and now they had been kicking back to work for a few days when I stopped there (they started working at 8:30 am that day but i showed up wisely at 11). Normally they should be pruning at this quiet pace until mid march.

Laurent hasn't been to the U.S. for a while, the borders are closed, and the situation is pretty messy there. Asked if he has other Aunis elsewhere apart from this parcel, he reminds me that he planted some 2 years ago but they're not yet in production, should be next year hopefully. Until now they pruned some sauvignon, the day before they went in a parcel of gamay to see how it was faring.

Poiré at les Capriades

Moses at the cellar door

Faverolles-sur-Cher, Touraine (Loire)
I visited recently Pascal Potaire and Moses Gadouche at their cellar at Les Capriades, everything was quiet in the facility, this is winter, a season where you just let the wines quietly make their way through the following spring. Pascal told me that the sparkling wines had a swift fermentation last autumn, this was all very smooth and easy this year. There was nothing to see for these wines, they were all bottled and lying sur lattes or on a few riddling tables or also on riddling pallets/cages (see pic above, don't disturb them !). But the interesting thing was to talk with Pascal about their new thing (for the past 3 years), the poiré, a petnat they make from old varieties of pears. Poiré, which I think is not even well known in France is sometimes dubbed the Normandy alternative for Champagne, it is registered in an Appellation and has both mainstream producers and artisan ones. But poiré has been made for ages in other regions as well, not just Normandy.

The process of making poiré takes place at about the same time than the winemaking, just a bit after it from what I understand, because these pears are of the late ripening type. Pascal told me that this poiré production was sparked by a few encounters and their love to make local products, as they source the fruits from the same département, the Loir-et-Cher.

Pruning time for Anouk & Paul

The team at work

Thésée, Touraine (Loire)
The temperature was pretty low when I came to see Anouk and Paul in their vineyard, with early mornings at minus 3 C (26,6 F) and highs at around + 3 C (37,4 F). Yes, pruning time is back and Touraine is known to be rather cold at this season, the humidity making it feel worse. Pruning is so important for the future fruit bearing but that's where you realize that if a vine has to suffer to make good wine (Jean-Michel Deiss explains it so well), the growers themselves have to go through tough trials before they get to see their fruit. Everybody had underpants (including me) to keep warm, and gloves (except Johan pictured below). We're here on the plateau above Thésée, reaching these parcels is easy : you drive up the small road on the left of the church, take the first left, then as soon as you see vines you take the 1st dirt/mud road on the left... I stopped my venerable Ami 8 (which behaves like a fear-nothing all-terrain vehicule) near this bicycle and car, it happened to belong to the small team, I could guess them in the far. Good thing I brought boots, it was very muddy.

Wine News (78)

Philippe Pacalet with Monica

7th arrondissement, Paris
This year is like no other also for wine events, tastings and other professional gatherings : be it in the spring or at autumn (the most intense seasons for these wine events) I had like usual received tons on invitations for wine-centered activities and every each of them (or almost) were backtracked, sometimes postponed at a later date and at the end, plain cancelled. I usually go only to a few of these events depending of my mood but this year even on my own standards I could have used more, this has been really a blank year. When I had the invite from Philippe Pacalet to taste a few of his wines in the fall I answered yes and when I saw that even with the imminent approach of a ban on gatherings the event was not cancelled (we were just days away from another lockdown) I was relieved, thinking, not everybody caves in fear.

This by-invitation-only tasting took place at the Galerie Mayaro in a quiet street of the 7th arrondissement. Philippe Pacalet had a few other (but private) tastings in Paris during the same week. It was a pleasure to see them all again, Monica, Philippe as well as his son who was behind one of the serving tables.

Chateau Gasqui (Provence)

François Miglio in the vineyard

Gonfaron, Var (Provence)
October-early november is certainly a very nice month to be in Provence, there are fewer tourists there at this time although the side roads are still busy with locals who often live in a village and commute to work in developped areas. We were in the middle of our couple of weeks there when the 2nd lockdown order was announced. I had two other visits planned in the area and could barely make this one by advancing the date at the last minute (the other ones will be for next time). In summer you can barely ride a motorbike in the day time because it's so hot, in october-november (and certainly september) it's much better especially inland where it's less populated and the light is so beautiful most of the time. The domaine is located between Gonfaron and Flassans-sur-Issole in the Var département, a region with valleys and rolling wilderness prone to forest fires every summer, although there hasn't been any big one these last few years, possibly thanks to preventive forest and undergrowth management.

Chateau Gasqui is interesting in many ways, first, the domaine is farmed on biodynamics, second it has quite a large surface with 32 hectares in production (it's always worth to keep in mind that this type of respectful and holistic farming is not reserved for tiny surfaces), and third (and this is not the least important reason), the domaine isn't a rosé-centered one like alas many wineries of the region, it is working hard to make beautiful, long-élevage reds, something most commercial wineries in the region have renounced because rosé is so easy and profitable. As a side note : in spite of favorable climate conditions, there are only 3 Demeter-certified biodynamic wineries on Côtes de Provence, Chateau Gasqui, Clos Réal and Domaine des Fouques, which make less than 80 hectares altogether compared to the 20 000 hectares of the appellation...

Vendanges 2020 (part 3)

Soft power

Cher valley, Touraine (Loire)
I also went three times at Les Maisons Brûlées where Paul Gillet and wife Corinne were in the middle of their harvest season, or rather toward the end actually as much of it was already behind us. I love riding to their wine farm, it's a dead-end road in the hills above Pouillé, and the Gillet family must be so quiet there around the year. I shot this short video the 2nd time I went there, They were picking the parcel below the farm, surrounded by woods on this gentle slope. Paul Gillet told me they began to pick august 22, and ending was around 14 or 15 september. They got some grillure on the grapes, especially on the Gamay (because this variety grows less foliage).

Vendanges 2020 (part 2)

Estelle and François Saint-Leger

Monthou-sur-Cher, Touraine (Loire)
I had dropped unannounced a couple of times at the cellar of Estelle and François Saint-Leger along the road between Thésée and Monthou-sur-Cher but no one was there, they were either busy picking or it was a day with no picking planned, so I texted them and could come when they'd were there. I had barely parked the motorbike that they were arriving with Estelle's father and a trailer pulled by his car, full of red grapes, namely Cabernet Franc. I was to witness a foot stomping by Estelle near the door of the cool cellar in the bottom of a tank, with the aim to make a vibrant pied de cuve with indigenous yeast. This was yet a very nice, pretty warm september day.

Both Estelle and François have trained in the wine school of Amboise and their first vintage was 2014, they grow quietly their bottling share along the years, selling the grapes they don't vinify to same-minded vintners like Les Capriades or Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme. They have a young baby and Estelle had to be in time at home that day to pick up her child from the nanny.

Vendanges 2020 (part 1)

Aunis & Gamay flowing

Mareuil-sur-Cher, Cher valley (Loire)
Here are a few images and videos shot during the harvest and first vinification work while visiting a few vignerons in the Loire, more precisely in the Cher valley. I'd not bother to call as I knew everyone was busy, I'd just drop by on my motorbike and see what was happening (the weather was so nice, it helped a lot). I took a few minutes to ask the winemakers how this vintage had been showing until then, and you'll see that on the whole 2020 seems to be a pretty good year. The harvest could unfold along several weeks and there were discrepancies between the beginning of the picking, some had finished, some had a couple of parcels to pick while some were in the middle of the thing...
Here this is at Julien Pineau, the maceration tank with Aunis and Gamay is going to be devatted and the free-run juice first flows out. What a beautiful view....

Le Champ du Possible (French Alps)

Jacques Pierre in front of his wine farm

Laragne-Montéglin, Haute Provence
This story is taking place in Jean Giono country at the border of Haute Provence and Hautes Alpes in a region south of Grenoble at mid altitude, with warm summers but cool nights, this is not the Provence you might think about, these are remore lands with scarce population and harsh climatic conditions that have shaped along the centuries a hard working local with an enduring and austere character. The region is not known for its wines but there's a small production with a few vignerons, some of them making natural wine like Jacques Pierre. Jacques came to the region because he is a hang-gliding pilot and instructor (Haute provence, Alps and Savoie are sought-after regions for outdoor fanatics in France). For a living he wanted initially to open a multiservice business for the quiet months (he masters carpentry, plumbing and other trades) but the French administration doesn't help aspiring artisans by asking many certificates and diplomas, so he decided to make wine instead.

Jacques settled in this bastide or farm a year ago (early september 2019), just in time for the harvest that took place september 19 in his Rhône parcel in Violes. The farm sits isolated in a valley (look at that scenery on the right, indeed a perfect setting for a Giono novel), it had all the features of an old farm with a large cellar where wine was made and stored, he's renovating it little by little but has already begun to make wine, both from local parcels and from the ones from the Rhône. See how small the windows are on this bastide, this is the typical architectural feature in harsh temperature conditions.
Pic on left : courtesy of Jacques Pierre