Domaine Saurigny (Anjou, Loire)

Jérôme Saurigny (left) with Sébastien of Les Griottes Saint-Aubin-de-Luigné, Anjou (Loire)
This story takes place in the Coteaux du Layon area, where Jerôme Saurigny started his winery a few years ago. This is a moderately hilly region south-west of Angers through which runs a small river named Layon. Incidently, this river will flow into the mighty Loire some 10 kilometers away.
One of the nice things with the natural-wine movement is that there is a high sense of friendship and solidarity among the vignerons who followed this path. They gather regularly, exchange tips and share what they learned both in the arduous organic vineyard management and in the winemaking, which even if non-interventionist, asks for a careful ovelooking of the wine and helping it go in the right direction. Jerome Saurigny, who set up his winery in 2007 and followed a traditional, non-addittives winemaking philosophy, has himself close ties with his neighbors at Les Griottes, and also with another vigneron following the same ethic, Jean-Christophe Garnier. They all can count on the help of the others when there's a need for it in the vineyard or in the cellar tasks and choices. There is a healthy emulation with such neighbors, they can confront their observations and ideas and progress. Still, there is no unified vinification method and each vigneron manages his wines differently, adapting the work to what he want to make with his grapes, the terroir and the vintage.

Press, casks and underground vat Jérôme leaned the winemaking art in Bordeaux in an enology school and he says that there was absolutely no teaching there about the possibility to vinify without additives and particularly without lab yeasts. All through his learning at the school, he felt uneasy about all this biotech products that he was supposed to use from the beginning to the end of the process. At the end of his training in 2000, he found a job as maitre de chai in the Pomerol/Saint-Emilion/Puisseguin region, working regularly with Cheval Blanc's chai master, which was interesting and enriching. His initial plan was to find a small estate in the Dordogne to take over and keep his job in the Bordeaux region in parallel, but through his brother who lives not far from here in the Loire, he discovered Les Griottes. Listening to Pat and Sébastien and tasting their wines, he discovered that it was indeed possible to work without addings and he liked that. Then he had this opportunity here in the Loire to take an estate whose owner retired, this was very close to Les Griottes and with their help he started from the first vintage to vinify naturally, with indigenous yeasts and without sulfur during the vinification (at the beginning, they still added some SO2 at bottling).From 2007, he didn't use any SO2 at all. He adds that he has less problems actually than when he put a gram of sulphur, paradoxally. And he doesn't even have wines turning perly when the temperatures rise in summer : the wines are finished and can't really ferment more.The resin vats and the (disused) cement vatsHis wife Sophie helps also for the accounting, the labelling and other tasks. Jérôme and Sophie have three children and that takes also much of her time.
Outside the facility, the vineyard tools belong in part to Pat and Sébastien; see the two pictures further down, including a wooden gondola (with Sébastien tilting it for me) which was initially designed to be pulled by horses and has been transformed so as to be tied behind a tractor. Jerome learned through them tips about the plows, the de-weeding claws and also the décavaillonneuse, and this was crucial because when you're starting and have modest means, you can't go to the repair shop each time you get a problem with a tool. This makes me think to my visit to the Domaine Mosse nearby in Saint Lambert du Lattay, I had just arrived that René Mosse had to go to the workshop to have a crucial part of the décavaillonneuse welded back in place.
The facility is large enough and he got all the tools with it, including the cement vats that he doesn't use by the way. He uses mostly the resin vats and some casks. More and more, he likes to work with these resin/fiber vats because it preserves what the grapes and the terroir brings. Three Chenin sweet-wines casksWe walk to the back of the facility where after passing along the cement vats (second pic above) we reach a room with a few casks, the press and an underground vat with a round opening on the floor. There's a direct access on this side too, that's where the harvest comes in for the whites, I understand. The underground is a resin vat which is used to decant the thick lees after pressing, it's a 2500-liter fiber va like the others and it was there when he purchased the facility. He uses the press and the decanting underground vat for the reds too after the long maceration/fermentation stage. This year he made three casks of dry Chenin and three casks of sweet (Coteaux du Layon style). The three casks of sweet Chenin are the ones near the door (picture above), the wines are still fermenting in there as of now. Jérôme says that it didn't even really stop during the winter as strange as it seems. Jerome Saurigny pruning his Grolleau We drive the short distance to his one-hectare vineyard of Grolleau. It's a 50-year vineyard which was farmed conventionally by the former owner but was not excessively damped with chemicals, there was some grass left between the rows. He prunes the vines relatively short because that's a very productive variety. Benoit and Laurent who work for Jerome (and for Les Griottes) also prune further up in the vineyard. Spooky, Benoit's dog comes and go and brings me a dead vine so that I throw it away and play fetch. He'll succeed to distract me from my interview for a while... Pruning the Grolleau asks for experience because one has to anticipate how the vines will yield, there's a balance in the volume to reach and that's the trick. Jerôme makes either red or sparling rosé with it. The variety is relatively darker than Pineau d'Aunis, another minority variety that makes a come back in the Loire. There's some esca incidence among the vines and they have to uproot the ones that dried up. He uses another smaller plot (30 ares) to make his méthode-ancestrale sparkling. Here, the soil is thick with schist stones and it gives a mineral edge on the wines. The cut canes aren't burned, they will grind them later and use them for compost.The lab/sink corner in the chaiWhen they took over this estate, there was a vineyard surface of 12 hectares but they scaled it down to 6,5 hectares, keeping the best vineyards only. The first year, as there was no commercial tasks yet, they kept the whole surface but later concentrated on the most suited blocks. The vineyards are split between Grolleau, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Gamay, Chenin and Sauvignon. The largest vineyard is a two hectare block of complanted Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. The smallest makes 30 ares, it's a Gamay. He doesn't have any Pineau d'Aunis, it's hard to find these days. or you can replant, but you have to find the nursery and the elements. He may do that in the future.
An interesting detail about their early financing when Jerome and his wife started the winery is that they found 250 people who each bought wine in advance on the three following vintages : It allowed them not to go to the bank to ask for a 35 000 € loan. Each of the 250 subscriptors got each year (for three years) 18 bottles of wine, and they organized each year a gathering at the winery with something to eat and of course to drink to celebrate [I used my calculator and saw that this was a very good deal for the subscriptors : about 3 € a bottle - I'm a taker for natural wine at this price...]. Part of these people were friends or acquaintances (say, a third) and the rest were found by the first group. As Jerome says, his banker could have lend him these 35 000 €, but without these 250 potential future clients... Expert Grolleau-vinestock fetcher....Spooky, Benoit's dog (Benoit is one of the workers who helped in the vineyard that day) is an expert vinestock-fetcher and he got me hooked to the play too. This dog can locate the dead vinestock at whatever distance you throw it (and I'm pretty good at throwing far) and he will bring it back swiftly and ask for more...

Jerome says that when he and his wife started in 2007, Pat & Sébastien of Les Griottes had already 5 years of experience behind them and could already share their experience both for the vineyard management and the vinification. What he learned in the enology school was not enough because nothing was taught there about the non-addidives winemaking.
His philosophy is to respect the different varieties and the terroir where they grow, the side effect being that they have quite a big number of cuvées, which is not always easy to handle commercially.
He takes a lot of attention and care on the grapes before and at harvest. They don't use machines, they pick manually and also to avoid damaging the grapes they don't destem the reds. He says that destemming or harvesting with machines damages the skin and accelerates the oxydation, encouraging a more violent exchange between the skins, which is something not positive for the wine. So he favors a 100% wholecluster vinification. He puts the wholecluster grapes in the fiber vats and leaves them there for maceration with a floating, air-tight lid, without even adding carbon ice. He just puts 50 liters of fermenting juice (only wild yeast used) in the bottom of the vat and it helps generate CO2 which will impregnate the whole vat the following day. Speaking of the maceration time, it depends, but they're rather on long macerations these years : in 2008 for example the macerations lasted between three weeks to 4 months depending of the cuvée. As for 2009, they're still on macerations, the 4 or 5 resin vats in the background on the picture on top are full with whole clusters, so it'll be about a 6-month maceration. There's no temperature control in the vats. He'll wait a bit, thay that the temperature inside rises naturally to 12° before pressing these grapes. As there's going to be a small amount of residual sugar, if they wait that's it's a bit warmer to press, the fermentationwill start again and allow the sugar to be finished. Then, everything will be blended in a resin/fiber vat. Time to drink, Jerome pouringWe tasted Jerome's wines with Sébastien, at Les Griottes' cellar, and Benoit and Laurent later joined the fray...
__ Domaine Saurigny Sau 8. Sauvignon of course. In 2007, this cuvée was named Sau 6 and in 2007 Sau 7 which in French sounds respectively a little like saucisse and chaussette. Sau 8 doesn't have a decisive sound-alike but they still kept the concept, adding on the fine print "ça a eu marché". This is a white, unfiltered wine with some turbidity as we moved the bottle. Fermentation and élevage in resin vats. Bottled since september 2009. Zero SO2 here al through the vinification and for bottling too. All of Jérôme's wines are made without SO2 or any other additive. Aromas of exotic fruits, lychees, this sort of white fruits. Jerome says that there are floral notes too. 80 ares of vines planted in the 1980s'. They had yields at about 20 hectoliters/hectare in 2008. In 2009 they made 40 ho/ha. The previous vigneron who had these vineyard had probably yields of 100 ho/ha. They worked much to bring down the yields and accompany the vines through these changes. A few minutes later I feel quince. I feel a certain richness but there is no residual sugar here. Jerome says that the vines are on schists and there is not much earth, so there's a mineral side, that may be what I felt as quince aromas actually. He says that the grapes have rapidly a high alcohol potential on these vineyards even if they harvest early. 13 ° for this wine but not felt in the mouth. 2000 bottles of this wine. Mostly sold to cavistes. Public price for this wine : 10/11 €
__ Domaine Saurigny, Chenapan (2008) Vin de Table. a golden-color white wine (Chenin Blanc), not turbid in spite of being unfiltered too. Elevage in 400-liter casks dating from 1999. He didn't try to pass the agreement for the Appellation. He had refusals at the beginning so now he labels the wines as table wine. The agreement commissions always found something about the wines because they're not mainstream and they would bar them. Nice lightly oxydative nose.Richness, citrus, orange peel, the typical bitterness of the Chenin here. Comes from a vineyard from which they used to make sweet wines. Bottled end november 2009.In the Griottes cellar__ Domaine Saurigny Pactole, table wine (2008). 100% Grolleau, bottled since november 2009. Concentrated color. Jérome says that actually Grolleau makes often relatively light-color wines. Made from the one-hectare plot where Jerome and Sébastien made some pruning work. Totally SO2 free like the other wines since 2007. The Grolleau grapes are often big, with thin skins and small seeds and Jérome says that it usually doesn't yield much color. The mouth is spicy and tannic at the same time. Jerome's wife says that the tannins have already smoothened and the wine tastes well now. You don't find easily 100% Grolleau out there. Olivier Cousin makes some too. Costs 10 € a bottle at the estate. They used not to be allowed to tell the variety on the labels of these vins de table. Now, with the changes in the Appellation and labels rules, they could be allowed but to get the allowance they have to go through another line of administrative checks including lab analysis where they measure the sugar, volatile, alcohol level (which has to reach a minimum), so they might also face hurdles here as these natural wines are not formatted, and they prefer not to apply. I am stunned again by this compulsive administrative need to check and put wines into tiny boxes and frames. Don't they realize the real winners of this labelling policing are the mediocre industrial wines found everywhere in the supermarket shelves ? Another hassle from this administration that I learn here is that they don't want these table wines to have the full address printed on the label if the word Layon is part of the address : Les Griottes's street address included for example a hamlet place naled "Le Layon" and the labelling administration told them that they couldn't put this address on the label, even in the usual fine print size. They even said that printing the name iof the village, Saint Lambert du Lattay, was nixed because they considered that it could fool the buyers of these simple table wines into thiking (OMG !) that these wines were maybe of a higher Appellation quality. So they must print a simple and obscure Zip code instead...We'll try to stay positive and just have a good laugh.
__ Domaine Saurigny, Ange ou Démon, a blend of Cabernet Franc (about 75%) and Cabernet Sauvignon (2007), labelled as vin de table. A bit of reduction on the nose, an evolved color in the glass, not very dark. In fact the hint of reduction passes away very fast. Lovely mouth, round. Arial and refined, nice wine. He makes such a wine every year. Costs 12 € public price. He made some 6000 bottles of it.
__ Domaine Saurigny, Chenin Liquoreux (sweet) 2007. Thin 50cl bottle. Bottled in november 2009. Gorgeous amber color. Turbid. Aromas of orange jam, orange peel. A complex wine. Very fresh in the mouth. Jérome says that this wine needs one year in bottle to show its best. There will be then even more harmony in its mouthfeel. This wine is _again_ totally SO2 free. Very beautiful. How come I don't drink more sweet wines ? Costs between 25 € and 30 €. And I must say that I omitted in my previous story to include Jerome Saurigny in the short list of winemakers able to make SO2-free sweet whites.

Here is the list of the different cuvées with public prices at the estate. Domaine SaurignyRigal, 49190 Saint Aubin de Luignéphone +33 2 41 66 53 29domainesaurigny [at] gmail [dot] comDomaineSaurigny Domaine Saurigny wines can be found in Paris at Crus et Découvertes (a caviste), and at L'Agapé, a high-flying restaurant with an extensive wine list which includes many natural wines.

Comments

[Morgan]

Sau 8 (sau-weet) does kind of sound like a certain colloquial (80s/surfer) pronunciation/meaning of the English word "Sweet" as used to indicate the awesomeness/power/coolness of something.

As in, "That Cabernet Franc is totally sweet".

Again, another really cool post. Do you have any details on how they're arresting fermentation while leaving the wine sur lie? Or are they filtering the yeast out when the wine reaches their desired balance. It sounds awesome, but I'm really curious as to how they do it technically.

[Bertrand]

Great, sau-weet, this is it, I'll tell Jérome because I'm not sure he saw this sounding....
I don't think they filter anything here, but I'll ask again for details over the phone and will post the answer here

[Herrenhof]

nice thoughts about whole cluster fermentation
another great article!

[Martesi]

Hi Bertrand,
Great post. The Grolleau is a favorite of mine, unfortunately never had the whites. I'm also interested in the stopping of the fermentation, any news on that? Have you encountered this fermentation method in other places? Very clever.

[Bertrand]

Coming back to you, Morgan (and Martesi), sorry for the delay...
I called Jérôme Saurigny and he confirmed what I remembered, that is, that they leave the indigenous yeasts weaken naturally in the wine and in the lees, so that even though there is still sugar, the wine doesn't ferment again. He says that to be secure, he has élevages of 2 to 3 years routinely on the sweet wines, to weaken the yeasts completely. He confirms that there is no filtration whatsoever on these wines and no SO2 added.