Toulon : our first encounter with Reire winesNow, how weird as it may sound, that was my
first visual encounter
with Reire wines : We were both strolling in the evening in Toulon (a major town on the Mediterranean), along this promenade on the port where all these restaurants with terrace face the boats, and I had been shooting a few pictures in the dim light like the ones on the right and left. As I was shooting a small fishing boat anchored near the quay, I saw this carafe of wine jumping in front of my lens. This guy who was beginning his dinner with his wife on a terrace a couple of meters behind me wanted to celebrate the good wines of Provence and when he saw this tourist-looking guy taking pictures, he handed the carafe to sort of show me what was really worth of a picture here. We chatted a minute (no, I was neither Dutch or German) and he (his first name is Jean-Claude) happened to be working for a winery (you should come over there, he kept saying) named Domaine Reire, near La Roquebrussanne, he added, it's organic and the wines are beautiful... What he didn't know is that how remote this village could seem viewed from Toulon, it was already familiar to us, and we had heard here and there positive comments about this new winery; so we considered the omen couldn't be better, we had to visit the Domaine le Reire. That's what we did a few days later.
Domaine le ReireGerard Dauvergne founded the Domaine le Reire 3 years ago, and he works on about 13 hectares of vineyards. Before that, he had worked 10 years as a grower, selling his grapes to the Coop like many other vignerons do. Our conversation turns rapidly toward the organic farming and the vinification rules which are less overseen, and he aknowledges that some things are done in the region to correct the wines with additives, the consumer ignoring completely the existence of these manipulations. For example, to get a rosé with a clear, pale color [pale rosés are increasingly popular and sell better], he says that there are two ways : harvesting in the middle of the night when the temperature is colder, or add certain chemical products which correct the color. I ask him which products do this job, suggesting the SO2 maybe ? He nods that the SO2 has an influence on the color, but a very small one. He adds that the products he alluded to are much more violent, like the
PVPP, which he says is forbidden for the organic certification. I regret not having asked more about these color manipulations on rosés, but I was already pleased to have had this precious insight about something nobody speaks about, so I didn't insist. It is very interesting to learn about this question because the color of rosés wines is maybe so decisive for many consumers, and to an extent unseen I think in the white and red wines. And again (my comments), if this additive use is widespread, there's a gap between the wine that the consumers think they buy, and the doctored beverage that clever marketers/chemists present as wine. When they will know, customers will feel cheated and in front of a beautiful pale rosé, they will imagine the mysterious PVPP powder being dumped into the vats when nobody (at least no outsider) looks... It will not be anymore "Oh, what a nice pale color !", but "Oh, what a nicely-PVPP-corrected rosé !"
Domaine le Reire - the vatroomWe review the other additives, there is sulphut, that he uses, tartaric acid, that he doesn't. Arabic gum, he uses, he says that it is a product which is the object of discussions in the organic sphere, people debating the possibility to authorize it. He uses external yeasts, he says that they are living organisms and can't really be considered as artificial. He tried to work with wild yeasts at the beginning and he lost the content of a vat.
The vigneron has also another front to face : the administration. He says that 17 different administrative entities control the vigneron, sending him 27 different administrative documents per year to fill and send back to the French
administrations. But when he says 27 different documents, don't think that it means there will be only 27 documents to fill in a year, as some of these 27 have to be filled every month, some 3-4 times a year, some more... Altogether, that makes a bit less than 100 documents a year to handle. Filling the data and sending back the
imprimés (administrative documents) to the control body takes a lot of time, and the maze of administrations who send this Kafkaian paperload have no idea what it means on the vigneron's side. It is the same amount of time-consuming job for a big winery or for a very small one, but the big wineries have accountants to do that when the very small wineries don't (Philippe Pacalet told me about the same thing several years ago). The irony for example is that he could have hired a part time worker in the vineyard this year but had to spend this money to pay a part time secretary just to do this administrative work... He adds that the documents sent by two different administrations (for example the
DGCCRF and the
Douanes) are sometimes contradictory to each other, so the vigneron has to fill them without making this contradiction too obvious. Fingerpointing this contradiction problem to the respective administrations would lead nowhere and bring even more trouble. And the rules keep changing, the administration asking for example informations that the vigneron doesn't necessarily knows when he has to fill the document : for instance, he has to list with precision the cuvées that he will make the following year (august 1st to july 31st of the following year). If a given cuvée hasn't been beforehand registered at this administration, he can't add it in the middle of the year. How do you want to work like that ??? A cuvée is sometimes created during the elevage of the wines, for example when after tasting repeatedly a certain vat, you decide that it will make a better wine in a separate cuvée than blended with the rest. But the French administration hasn't of course a clue how wine is made...
Domaine le Reire's stony vineyardThe
Coteaux Varois Appellation is in place since 1992. The
Décret (law) about the culture rules has changed different things. Let's consider the clash between the rules of the State administrations and the real-life situations : when you uproot a vineyard to replant vines, he says, you have to let the field rest 8 years, then you have 3 years without production after planting, so it makes some 11-12 years, plus you can count another 5 years before the quality of the vineyard allows some interesting results in the wine, makes about 17 years. Now, he takes the example of a Cabernet that he planted in 1991-1992, now 17 years after his decision to increase his Cabernet share, when they begin to be useable, the new
Décret (see V-encépagement) changes again the rules, jeopardizing his investment and time. He feels lucky that Cabernet is allowed at all by the new law, the administration could have as easily decided that Cabernet had not its place in the Coteaux Varois... Now, take the Viognier that he would like to plant : he really doesn't know if the present allowance for Viognier in the Appellation will last. He could invest heavily in new Viognier plantings and some
fonctionnaires or
ministres in Paris could wipe off Viognier just like that.
Clusters at le Reire (see the hail-damaged grapes)Gerard Dauvergne says that at Domaine le Reire, the share of red wine is bigger than usual in the region : 25% for reds, 75% for rosés (white is due to arrive next year). The norm in the region is about 80% rosés, 17% reds and 3% whites. The varieties for his reds are Syrah and Canernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet suffered the most from the hail earlier this year but he hopes to compensate the loss. In the region, the whites are made with Rolle and Semillon, and the rosés with Grenache and Cinsault. For his reds, Cabernet has to be a minority variety in the blend, but the chance for him is that when until last year he could put only 20% of Cab, now the rule is to have at least 50% of a "cépage principal", say Syrah, so he'll put 51% of Syrah and the rest (49%) will be Cabernet Sauvignon. He likes Cabernet Sauvignon because it makes round and full-bodied wines. Before, having to use the 2 compulsory main varieties, he would put just 1% of Grenache.
Resin vatsWe have debates here and there about natural wine and what it means. That rosé color thing is a good example of what is at stake between a commercial wine and a natural wine : now you know, and don't ever say again in front of a wine made by industry-minded vintners "
Oh what a beautiful pale color !..." : There's a good chance that what you see in your glass is a cleverly color-adjusted wine. The fact that supposedly-well-informed wine amateurs still brush off this common manipulation is puzzling. The
Décret (the Appellation law) authorizes by the way clearly (at IX, chapter transformation, élaboration, élevage) the use of
charbon oenologique (enologic charcoal ?), a powedered additive used along PVPP to "adjust" the color of rosé. The linked Pdf document is in French but you must visualize the color changes of a rosé with different dosages of additives on page 2, it is strikinly efficient, I understand that with the commercial pressure it is tempting to use these magic powders. But if you read French, you will read further down that the taste is also affected (and not for the best). And for the exact words used by the
Décret authorizing these powders, here they are : "
Pour l'élaboration des vins rosés, l'utilisation des charbons œnologiques est autorisée chez le vinificateur, exclusivement sur les moûts issus de presse et dans une proportion qui ne peut être supérieure à 20 % du volume total vinifié chez l'opérateur concerné, pour la récolte considérée.
Back to the natural-versus-additives debate, in front of such awakening discovery, we must know more about the vintners' ethic, about how they work and how they feel, because if color may be adjusted, it usually doesn't stop there and it's the whole wine which is forcefully changed to fit a desired commercial format, its taste owing more to the labs than to the grapes. A natural wine may not have always the perfect color, it may have some reduction notes at the opening of the bottle but beyond all that it's alive and so beautiful, it conveys a magic that lacks utterly to the others.
The family horse in the back of the houseWe visit the vat room, there's a line of square metal vats and a couple of resin vats on the side. A pneumatic press too. The vats are temperature controlled. he says that the success of a great rosé lies in the temperature, he says jokingly that the choice is between chemical additives and well-managed temperature control. So of course with his organic management, he'll choose the temperature. And he uses a mechanical harvester, which allows him to bring the grapes at the winery under the cooler temperatures than hand picking (which needs to be done during the day). The machine can work in the late night/early morning, which is a decisive plus in this hot region.
For the rosé, the grapes go straight in the destemmer and then in the press and in a vat for the racking of the must. If the grapes stay some 6 hours macerating in the press, the actual press time lasts 2 hours and a half. He doesn't press the grapes to the maximum, a drawback of pressing to the max is that you get a darker color. Getting these 2%-3% volume of remaining juice isn't worth the consequences, especially that he doesn't doctor the color of his rosé. The vinification temerature is 17°C for the rosé (with a maximum of 20°C). That's why, he says, it's important to use external yeasts because at this temperature, not any yeast would be able to do the job. There isn't any malolactic fermentation done in the rosé. Speaking of SO2, he uses 98 mg/liter for the rosé while in the coops it's 200mg/liter, and the projected organic rules will be 120mg/liter.
He makes a cuvée of rosé with Grenache & Syrah and another with Grenache & Cinsault. The one made with syrah, he says, has a stronger body and is less supple, it doesn't taste like the typical rosés of Provence which are at the same time fresh and rich. Syrah will help make a rosé more
corsé, more robust. It will be the wine to eat with, it can easily replace a red on the table. Syrah is a fragile variety and the yields are low. The vines younger than 10 years don't have deep-enough roots and are withering in this climate. Asked about the rate of esca-stricken vines, he says that he hasn't much casualty. he adds that esca is partly caused by high yields.
We had later a le Reire's red with a tapenadeAbout the weather for the vintage 2009, he says that there has been lots of rain during the winter 2008-2009, which was a good thing for the water tables, but there has been also much rain in spring, which has translated in vine growth and weed growth. He can correct the weeds by plowing but the vines had the drought after these spring rains and they were tired by the contrast. Then , there has been these hailstorms which not only damaged the grapes but also the leaves, thus endangering the photosynthesis. In addition, he says that the wind has been very different this year from the usual Mistral which comes from the north and the Rhone valley, it was more a Sirocco coming from the Sahara.
For reds, he partly destems the grapes. Some years, he may destem more if there's a risk of herbaceous notes. The fermentation is done at temperatures between 22°C and 28°C. The malolactic fermentation comes later. The SO2 for reds : the rules (in discussion right now) for the organic wineries will probably set at 100mg/liter and his own dosage is 46mg/liter, so well below. What is still discussed for the organic wineries is the fact to allow or not the use of arabic gum. He says that arabic gum can help on certain vintages like 2009, where the Cabernet and the Syrah have been subjected to lots of stress which translates into hard wines. Arabic gum makes these wines rounder. He considers that unlike other additives, arabic gum is natural and has its place during the vinification, even if it's not systemically used.
__Domaine le Reire Rosé 2008, Cinsault-Grenache. Cuvée de la Manon. Nice pale rosé (it really desserves its color note here). Good balance. 6,5 euro. Very little SO2 he says, so no headache. Two years ago he pressed this rosé directly without maceration, the two variety being blended together, sort of, in the harvesting machine itself. There was actually some Syrah grapes too, so the rosé had enough color in spite of the short contact. His enologist was very worried, saying that it was not the right way to do. So in 2008 (that's the wine we're tasting now) he came back to the normal way, that is separate harvest, maceration and press, and he got a wine at the en that had a bit less aromas than the previous year. Next year, he'll not listen to the enologist and do a direct-press again with Grenache and Cinsault harvested together...
__Domaine le Reire Rosé 2008 Cuvée Domaine, Syrah-Grenache. The nose is more intense here. 5 Euro.
__Domaine le Reire Rouge (red) 2008. Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah. Dark red wine. Clove notes. Nice fruity wine. 5,5 Euro
.....5-liter bibs of AOC red or rosé cost 15 Euro (Reire bibs are sold out at this time of the year). Non-AOC bibs cost 12 Euro for 5 liters. He says that when you take out the VAT and the bag-in-box cost, he doesn't make much money with the bibs, it's more interesting to sell the wine to the Négoce, but he adds that he is a local guy and he also makes wine for the simple folks or retirees with low income and that's why he keeps selling bibs.
Domaine le ReireRoute des lacs83136 la Roquebrussannephone +33 6 82 03 39 69 fax +33 4 94 80 62 55mail : gerard [dot] dauvergne0264 (at] orange [dot] frwww.domainelereire.fr (click on Entrez)
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