Damien Laureau (Savennières, Loire)

Damien Laureau in his cask roomEpiré, (Savennières, Loire)
The weather was bright and sunny in the Loire, and being set to stay that way for a week, I arranged an appointment with Damien Laureau of Savennières whom I was supposed to visit since I met him along with his American importer Jon David Headrick. A recent post with detailed tasting notes by fellow blogger Brooklynguy reminded me these particularly beautiful Savennières wines. Here is a small Appellation area with a high ratio of beautiful wines and Damien Laureau made his own place there.
As you know, the Savennières Appellation is located in the center-left of the long-stretched Loire wine-region. This is Chenin Blanc country, and its dry wines can be characterized by an austere elegance in their youth and a strong minerality originating in the (mostly) schistic nature of the soil. Because of the size of the Appellation and the refineness of its wines maybe, there is an aristocratic feel here, you just don't decide to come make wine here, set up shop, and get approval of your peers overnight. Damien Laureau has been considered as an outsider when he came here and began to make Savennières wine out of rented vineyards in 1999. But he is now considered as one of the best vintner of the area and his wines are listed on the wine list of many good restaurants.

Damien Laureau with a limestone blockSince we last met in november 2005 (is that blog so old ?!?), Damien Laureau has moved further : first, he has not 5 kids now, but 6 kids...Aged between 4 months and 13 years, three boys, three girls, some alrerady giving a hand in the vineyard. We have a future dynasty here (my comment)... And Damien Laureau added two rented vineyards, a Roche-aux-Moines and a Savennières, and moved his winery from Frémur to Epiré, with the opportunity of a modern facility (built in 1994) sold by Domaine Emile Benon.
When I parked the motorcycle there, Damien Laureau was coming back from checks in the vineyard where there's a pressure with Cicadellidae (Scaphoideus titanus). They count their numbers to see if a spraying is necessary. they use thin-clay sprayings to combat these Cicadellidae, and also an organic pesticide. I remember that in 2005 he was testing such organic sprayings already. Technically, he is in organic-farming conversion and will ask for the label soon, but he already farms organic for a long time and the lablel is actually asked by some of his customers. His vineyards make up now a total surface of 6,7 hectares, all rented (he adds with a smile that he just owns his debts...).Schist stone with iron coatingWe drive a short distance to see the vineyards, which are split into 4 locations near Epiré. We drive along a fallow field that he was preparing for planting, but he says that he changed his mind because he found in between a better terroir to rent and plant. This particular plot is exposed on the north but the soil is quite good. the other one that he found recently is on very thick schists (that he needs to break a bit) with only 20 centimeters of earth, a very promising soil he thinks. Right now there's no culture, it's a grazing field. It was a vineyard in the past but it has been uprooted in a past crisis.
We stop at Les Genets, the 80-meter deep vineyard lies along a small road and from this vineyard he makes both "les Genets" and "le Bel Ouvrage" because there are very different types of soils in this block, which yields very different wines, albeit all being Chenin Blanc. he knew for long that there were different soil compositions here but he ordered recently a soil study, with samples made in several parts of this vineyard to make a geological map. It confirmed the understanding of the soil compositions but he has a better picture of the underground nature of this vineyard now. the 40 meters on the front are more sandy, with schists of course too, and the clusters are bigger. Further, it's less sandy and more clayish, lots of stones too and the vineyard is less green, it suffers with these conditions and the clusters are smaller for example. This latter part of the vineyard makes le Bel Ouvrage. In 2005 for example on my first visit, he was already making the two cuvées from this vineyard but with a better understanding of the undersoil and the geological mapping that he ordered since, he makes a better selection for his cuvées. Looking at the stones and rock debris on the surface, he says that not all are schists [see the picture on the left for schists]. there are also many phtanite stones which are blue/grey stones and also brings minerality in the wine, with a harder side maybe. Les Genets, because of the different soil, is an easier wine to drink, with lots of pleasure very early. Le Bel Ouvrage will be different and will offer its best after a few years.
100 meters down from this first block, there's another block of 50 ares (0,5 hectare) which will go into the Les Genêts cuvée (also a sandy soil there).Damien Laureau's La Roche-aux-MoinesThey have cut some leaves manually so that the grapes are well aerated but still protected from the sun rays when they hit the hardest. They also cut down some clusters, for example on the Genêts/Bel Ouvrage so that each vine has 10 clusters no more. Another thing that they do is that they sow oat and leguminous plants between the rows around august 20 so as to give to the earth its own humus for the following year. The leguminous plant may be a clover, he has several options in mind depending of the vineyard's needs. Last year there was lots of frost damage, so they harvested barely more than 25% of a normal harvest. They pick normally 200 hectoliters in the less-then-7-hectares surface and in 2007 they picked 60 hectoliters altogether. Because he has a two-year elevage policy for his wines, he can absorb the financial shock of such a small harvest, but it's still difficult. As for 2009, in Savennières, they had only 2,5mm of rain since june 10, so it is quite dry. He compensates by plowing the ground and the vineyards can stand this relatively mild drought. With a blossoming around june 20 this year, the harvest should be around early october.
We stop briefly at his La Roche aux Moines vineyard [picture above]. He will release a small volume of bottles from the 2007 vintage, the equivalent of two casks. The vineyard makes only 0,25 hectares or 25 ares and has a nice exposition (South-West) on a slope to the Loire river nearby. La Coulée de Serrant nearby is exposed on the South. The vines are relatively old, he thinks that they were planted in 1965 and he got it in 2007. There's a 35% missing-vine rate here so it'll be replanted accordingly next november too. He plans to change the wires and the posts here because the plants are too low and the foliage surface is also too small. The soil has lots of magmatic stones here (stones with lots of tiny holes). Yields here on a normal year is 50 hectoliters/hectare. Speaking of yields, in 2006 on the whole estate on average he had yields of 38ho/ha. In 2007 they made 17 ho/ha because of very bad weather conditions and in 2008 they made even worse : 8 ho/ha on average... 2009 should bounce back at normal levels.Remains of oats along the vinesWe stop at another vineyard which make also both le Bel Ouvrage and les Genêts depending of the soil veins underneath. It's a 3-hectare block planted in 1991. Lots of schists and phtanite stones here too, with some parts which are more sandy than others. He says that the ground was not properly prepared before planting (by the former grower) and he has lots of dying vines. He plans to replant massively next november to replace the dead roots. Asked about the exact cause of the vine deaths, he answers esca. He has a rate of nearly 25% for esca deaths in this plot and it has been alarmingly growing compared to the previous years. He hasn't heard about Didier Barrouillet's experiments with leeks in Touraine but says that he will look at it because a working remedy would be welcome at this stage. Just imagine, he says : in 2005 when we dropped there with Jon David Headrick, he had just replanted and replaced the dead vines on the then-5,5-hectare whole vineyard. There was a death rate of 9% then in 2005. Now, according to the recount that he did last autumn, they reached a rate of 22% on the whole surface, in spite of having replanted all the missing vines in 2005... For the next replantings, he ordered mycorized vineroots from the Mercier nursery, and he works with an agronomist named Jacques Moreau (who works in both Anjou and Burgundy). This guy prepares a culture of fungus and bacteria that he mixes in the earth on the spot where the new vines will be planted. It helps the plant resist to esca and be autonomous in its phosphor needs. When exogen phosphor is added to stimulate the plant, it impedes the development of mycorhizes, that's why it's important that the vine finds its own, natural phosphor. A machine will dig holes on the ground in the place of the dead vines to put the compost with the fungus/bacteria mixtures, before the actual plantings in november. For the information (Didier Barrouillet will see his opinion confirmed here), this plot was conventionally farmed before Damien Laureau rented it and turned it organic, and the former grower made a heavy use of weedkillers, he even found several empty containers of it in the ditches. Now, the vineyard came back to life but it takes time. He has now quite a diverse plant life between the rows, and many flowers, insects and butterflies.Another possible Savennières CuvéeWe stop at another vineyard named Chambourcier that he got in 2007. It's a 1,3-hectare vineyard and he still ponders if he'll make a separate Savennières cuvée of it or blend it with Le Bel Ouvrage. But anyway, he will vinify it separately because the terroir is very different. the soil here has a lot of compressed magmatic rock (schist is a compressed magmatic rock), a type of rock that they name ryolite [picture on left] or gness, a very hard, cement-like stone. The 2007 wine from this vineyard was blended with le Bel Ouvrage because the yields were terribly low that year, and 2008 too because of low harvest volumes, but 2009 should be a nice harvest and he'll see if he bottles it separately. The training here is Cordon-de-Royat, which makes lower yields. So the clusters are quite small and mostly gathered on a small height span, when on the other trainings the clusters can be found at low and high heights alike. This Cordon-de-Royat training simplifies the management and the picking. They leave 12 clusters per vine, but they are so small that the yields here should be around 20 hectoliters per hectare (without any frost or hailstorm loss in 2009).The harvest is done manually by a group of 10 pickers who are employed by himself and another small organic estate in the aforementionned hiring entity. The 3rd estate which own 16 hectares has its own team of pickers.A future Coulée-de-Serrant at Damien Laureau ?That's when Damien Laureau shows me a 0,25 hectare piece of fallow land on a slope on the edge of this Chambourcier plot. He didn't clear it yet but as in the past it was cultivated in terrace, he thinks about planting vines there maybe in the future. He has put a goat on it to begin eat and clear the grass and bushes, we can see it under the trees on the right. It is actually the continuation of the Coulée de Serrant, just a bit further up from the Loire (which is further down on the left), and the other side is Nicolas Joly's land and vineyards (you can actually see some vineyards on the picture). I ask about "a Coulée de Serrant at Damien Laureau", that would be news... He says that he would label it as Savennières (he doesn't want to have trouble with the estate on the other side...), but thanks to Wineterroirs, you'll know where it comes from actually... this plot is fully exposed on the south, it should yield nice wines if he plants it. He has to find the financing first, he says. As we walk back to the van, he says that this Ryolite-thick Chambourcier vineyard with its small Coulée side-slope is among the best terroirs of the region.Damien Laureau in the surface cask roomThe wines go through two years of elevage. One year in cask followed by one year in a resin vat for Le Bel Ouvrage, and mostly a resin-vat elevage for les Genêts (90% vat-10% cask). The wine begins its fermentation on wild yeasts after the press, in the vats, then it goes through an aeration while it's going into the casks (for Le Bel Ouvrage) to continue its fermentation. Then it will stay on its lees undisturbed for a year, some casks needing also more time to finish the fermentation stage. He doesn't stir the wine, he just tops up from time to time. He considers that stirring encourages the hydrolysis of the yeasts in the wine and makes the wine rich artificially, something he doesn't look for. It makes wines more seductive in the beginning but the effect comes down later and is not durable. He thinks that the concentration and powerful side must be obtained in the vineyard first with the right yields. After a year, the wine is racked into the vats and although they leave the thick lees behind, some lees come along and the wine will continue to mature on its fine lees in the resin vats.Tasting Le Bel Ouvrage 2006The wines : Damien Laureau had put several bottles in the fridge before the visit and he now proceds to open them.
__Damien Laureau Savennières les Genêts 2007. Bottled these days. very aromatic nose. He says that in 2007 they picked some grapes with Botrytis, which translated in the aromas. It was not a volontary move, the vintage was difficult and humid and they rushed to harvest before too much botrytis developped but some sneaked in. Concentrated, freshness too. He is happy to have this freshness in this wine because the malolactic fermentation was total with sugars entirely gone and a dry wine. They almost didn't filter this wine, they did a very basic and gross filtering here. When the malolactic fermentation is not complete, they make a filtration pauvre en germe, using a physical filter with 1,45-micron holes to retain the particules that could make the wine continue to ferment later in the bottle. This wine will cost about 14,5 Euro when it reaches the market later this year.
__Damien Laureau Savennières le Bel Ouvrage 2007. Botthed these days too, on the market around Christmas. The nose is less expressive, more nuanced. Minerality and dryness in the mouth. This wine is a baby which will already show more in about 4 months, after it recovers from the filtering and bottling. Now, it's still brut de cuve and austere. Price is 21,5 Euro.
__Damien Laureau Savennières Roche-aux-Moines 2007. The first cuvée of this vineyard. Aromas of very ripe grapes too, dry raisins notes. They made 450 liters (two casks) of 25 ares, so it makes yields of about 16ho/ha. Very nice mouth, very silky. He says that this wine finds its place more rapidly than the previous ones. Will be at 29 Euro
__Damien Laureau Savennières les Genêts 2006. Sample bottle. Bottled in semptember 2008. It had its 2-year elevage in vats plus one year in bottles. Lots of freshness on the nose. The fruit side has taken the back seat and the mineralty comes forward.
__Damien Laureau Savennières le Bel Ouvrage 2006. The mouth has this high-structure feel with a strong minerality, but well-handled by the elevage in casks.
__Damien Laureau Savennières les Genêts 2005. Very precise nose with spicy notes. Very seductive wine, with a pleasant minerality in the mouth too. The Genêts 2005 is much richer than the 2006 he says, because of the very nice weather conditions in 2005. He still feels a coherence in the respective minerality natures of the 2006 and the 2005, in spite of the vintage differences.
__Damien Laureau Savennières le Bel Ouvrage 2005. Here too, he notices the lesser presence of the fruit compared to his previous tastings of this wine (last Christmas), and the higher presence of the minerality. Beautiful. The empty glass yields William pear aromas, that's striking. There's a woody feel in the mouth (not in the nose) that I didn't feel in the other wines. He says that this wine has now its own structure and being made without additives or doctoring it can keep evolving in the bottles. He says that when he settled in this Savennières region, there was no malolactic fermentation done elsewhere, the winemakers would block it. He says that the first to let the malo ferm happen in this Appellation was Eric Morgat, a young vigneron like himself who began a bit earlier, in 1995. I suggest Nicolas Joly who may also occasionally let the malo happen, he says yes, maybe. Revieving my visit at Nicolas Joly's Coulée de Serrant, I read that they actually prevent the malolactic fermentation to happen most of the time. Damien Laureau says that in 2007 the malo was total and natural on all the wines (he would have preferred not because of the few Botrytis that he picked). the 2007 wines still ended to be very fresh, and having eaten all the sugar, they had a minimal filtering which allowed them to retain more valuable things. As he puts less and less SO2 year after year, the malo is free to start whenever the wines feels it. In 2006, the ph were very low, the acidity was rather high, which translated into the fact that there was no malo ferm in le Bel Ouvrage. About the option of no filtering at all, he tought about it for 2007, he could almost have tried it then, but the consumers in the restaurants should be educated and be ready for that. He could also print a note about it on a back label.
__Damien Laureau, Les Genêts 2008 from the cask (we walked back to the cask room). From the sandy part of the plot that he names face à la Loire. Very aromatic wine, the sand soil is why too. The juice saw only 4 grams of SO2 at the press stage, nothing after. It will go into vats for another year of elevage there. He will rack it without using a pump, to avoid any shock on the wine. He puts a tube in the cask and by air pressure on the surface, he pushes the wine through the tube out of the cask in 10 minutes. This way, there is no dissolved oxygen in the wine and thus no need to add sulphur.
__Damien Laureau, Savennières 2008, from the Face à la Loire 3-hectare block, but the rocky part of the plot (will go into Bel Ouvrage). Another cask. The wine is in the midst of its malolactic fermentation, so it has lactic notes and is also a bit perly, but it's still nice.
__Damien Laureau Savennières, same rocky part of this same plot, but another cask. Very nice ripe fruit on the nose, with a spicy something. Very refined in the mouth. At 8 ho/ha, he says with a smile that it indeed can be nice...
__Damien Laureau Savennières Chambourcier 2008 (the gness and Ryolite plot) , another cask. A bit of gas on the nose. He says that it may have not finished its alcoholic fermentation. On the mouth side, a clear, vibrant minerality, impressive and beautiful. He ponders the option to leave it two years in casks because of this exceptionnal minerality.
__Damien Laureau, Savennières Chambourcier 2008 same block but vines grafted on a more fragile type of root (the previous wine came from vines grafted on a Paulsen root which is very drought resistant). Tastes like bernache, the newly-fermented wine. Very turbid. He says that there's a certain roundness in this wine already.
Speaking of the casks here, he has several Taransaud casks but has more and more Damy casks, he likes the respect of the fruit that these casks provide. He buys used casks from this Damy cooperage which is located in Meursault, Burgundy. He plans to try also François Frères to diversify the cask origin.
This composite cork is just for samplesFor the staff, Damien is helped by Benoit, who works part time here and studies the rest of his time. He also hired a permanent worker. Otherwise he regrouped with 2 other growers/vignerons to set up a common structure that employs vineyard workers so that the workers are paid full time but work in three small estates like his. It's interesting for the employees and for the wineries which are sure to get the work done in time and mutualize the work force. The whole combined surface is about 26 hectares. An organic farming on 30 hectares needs 4 workers full time, so the group employs these people.
About the sales and consequences of the economic crisis, he says that 2008 went fine actually, the orders having been planned before the full-blown financial crisis and Christmas having people drink good wine, but from january 1st 2009, export orders were down compared with a normal year (export at Damien Laureau is usually about 20% of the whole production). Happily, he has a large customer base in France in good restaurants, and he even joined recently another distribution structure, Bouquet de Loire, which was set up by Jacky Blot (I need to update and visit him again) and gathers about 30 Loire estates. This structure allows restaurants and buyers to make multi-wines orders, which facilitates both the purchases and the vigneron side. Damien LaureauChemin du Grand HaméEpiré 49170 Savennièresphone +33 964 370 257fax +33 2 41 72 87 39dalien [dot] laureau [at] orange [dot] frwww.damien-laureau.frLandscape in the Sarthe départementAfter this visit, I took a short stretch of the boring toll Autoroute and then left it for small roads across the Sarthe and the Beauce regions on my way to Paris. This ride through the Sarthe region was interesting, this is a moderately hilly region with farms, fields, woods and quiet villages (the Beauce is more predictable : no woods at all, just endless fields for industry-minded agriculture).