Hugues Garnon's Massal Selection of Côt

Hugues Garnon pruning his Gamay Chateauvieux, Touraine (Loire)
Hugues Garnon who is now 85 and lives in the quiet village of Chateauvieux in Touraine south of the Cher river, is the man who long time ago made one of the most qualitative massal selections of Côt, at a time when the French viticulture was still fine-tuning its replantings following the phylloxera disaster that spread havoc a few decades before. I discovered this little-known aspect of the post-phylloxera era while visiting a winery near there, La Chapinière, where they have a very beautiful Côt cuvée named Côt Garnon. This story is a tribute to his contribution for wine and viticulture advancement.
Hugues Garnon comes from a lineage of vignerons, some being also coopers (his grandfather) or nurserymen (his father). Hugues Garnon was himself a grower, winemaker and he also managed a nursery. From the dining room of his house with view on the Chateau up there on the hill overlooking the village, he told me of these old times when there was some 75 vignerons in Chateauvieux, a long way from today's 6 wineries. He says that at that time (before WW2 and shorthy after) farmers were growing grapes along other crops and kept farm animals too.

The Chateau overlooking the village Let's rewind to the phylloxera times : the destruction occured during the last 20 years of the 19th century. The Chateau of Chateauvieux owners, who had a large planted surface of vineyards, replanted some of their vineyards toward that time, and for the Côt, they had purchased the baby vines from the Cahors region, the French home region of Côt and Malbec (two names for a single variety). Massive replanting was an expensive move, and many small farmers didn't replant, or replanted smaller surfaces because of the costs, and that's why many regions saw their planted surface disminish drastically in those times. Whatever, Hugues Garnon purchased one of the Côt vineyards of the Chateau after WW2, they were some 80 years old then, and very irregular in their yields and quality, which led him to make a lengthy massal selection from these diverse vines. Hugues Garnon in one of his disused cellars The purchase of these Côt vineyards took place in the early 1950s', and Hugues Garnon took some time along the 1960s'to repeatedly make a massal selection during 5 years across this 80-year old vineyard, then finetuning his selection during 10 more years, before uprooting these old Côt vines at last. This was made under the supervision of the Chambre d'Agriculture, the state body which overlooked the crops then. They had technicians who could double check Hugues Garnon's own skilled selections. He would graft the selected wood on SO4 rootstocks and see the result, making further selections then. Asked if massal selections were common then, he says yes, but people were often looking for high yields first, which gave poor results in the wine. What he looked for in his own Côt selection, was having big grapes in aerated clusters for the quality, and this, with a regular production every year (many of these Côt vines were very irregular in their yields). His wife Thérèse says that the grapes were so good that they could eat them as table grapes. He remembers that these old vines owned by the Chateau had been planted on Rupestris du Lot, a very prolific rootstock variety which wasn't really suited here, yielding small grapes. Hugues Garnon says that he chose the type of rootstock depending of the soil nature where the plantation was to take place. If the future vineyard was to be planted in a dry soil with stones, Rupestris could be an option, but on rich-earth soils, it was better to choose the Riparia Gloire de Montpellier rootstock.
In these years, Hugues Garnon was managing his own winery along the nursery business, and his replanted Côt earned him medals and recognition in the 1970s', through Côt wines that were particularly qualitative. And his Côt selections were used by the Chambre d'Agriculture to provide the French growers with top-quality grafts. Ancient winery tools on a scale : wooden jug and wooden bucket What needs to be said here is that Hugues Garnon was, like his father, both a vigneron and a nursery man, so he knew both ends of the wine trade, and he had learnt which type of rootstock was best suited for each type of soil, and which type of vine profile would yield the best wine. As he recounted me his own winery activity, I asked about his cellars and he said that they were still there, although in derelict state. As I was very interested into visiting them in whatever condition they were, he accepted to show me around. I wrote on this site a few months ago that the Loire (and France at large) is full of disused cellars/wineries from another era, just waiting for a resurrection and the breath of life, and here is one extrordinary example : Hugues Garnon toured me around several of his winery rooms/cellars dug in the cliff right in view of the Chateau. Right now in 2011, it's like if you travelled back in a long bygone era where the 18th and the 19th century mix with the 1960s'...
He stopped the nursery business somewhere in the 1970s' (even though he kept doing it at an artisanal scale for himself or friends) to make wine only on his 9 hectare estate, then he regrouped with three other growers of the village to make wine under the ombrella of a GFA (an agriculture entity). The name of the regrouped winery was Domaine de Péguignon, the concept was close to the one of a négoce : the mother winery which was managed by a 5th person had the money to invest for additional plantings and the 4 growers would deliver their respective wines in bulk. A 2-liter tonnelet (cask)... These cellars were full of strange things, many of them I never saw before, like this (about) 2-liter miniature cask, called tonnelet in French, and which used to be kept hanging under the horse-drawn carriage (so as to stay in the shadow) for a workday in the vineyards. This was the common wine container for a worker, at a time when bottles were rare and a luxury. If you look well, you can see one of the two holes through which the vigneron could sip his refreshing (and well-earned) booze. Pineau d'Aunis bottles in a corner If Hugues Garnon sold all sort of varieties in his nursery, he only made massal selections with Côt. But in his winery, like most growers in his time, he would make many other varieties and colors, including Pineau d'Aunis rosé wine, and by chance I spotted a couple of old bottles on the label of which you could guess Cépage [variety] Pineau dAunis Vin Rosé 12°... I don't know the vintage, there may have been none on the label in those years (the 70s' I guess) for a rosé. A forgotten weapon against phylloxera... This is about a forgotten episode in the phylloxera debacle : in the face of this catastrophe with no cure, some people came with miracle cures or tricks that were supposed to counter the scourge and avoid or at least postpone the uprooting. This Croix de Saint André is one of them : this cross-shaped stone which was sculpted by the thousands was supposed to prevent the disease thanks to its camphor-saturated inside. As you may see, the four half-circles have purposedly different diameters so that they can fit with different size of vines. The growers who could afford this (alas in vain) investment would put such a sculpted cross horizontally at the bottom of each vine so that the radiating camphor could heal the plant from the disease. Hugues Garnon says that even today, in regular fields that were planted with vineyards in the past, deep-plowing tractors bring these sort of stones back to the surface... A cement vat stuck between two tuff walls I visited with Hugues Garnon a few of his cellar rooms, these cellars being initially quarries used to build the houses and the Chateau, there are as many rooms as the workers could manage to exploit the stone riches (the region is thus very rich in caves and galleries, they are everywhere). In one such small cellar room on the side, there was this cement vat built between tuff walls, and it had a funny painting on it that Hugues Garnon wanted me to see. Wine, or the sense of life This rock-painting-like art shows a healthy-looking man (with red cheeks) sitting atop a cask and drinking wine without restraint while on the right a dismal skeleton holds a jug of water. Hugues couldn't tell me exactly when it was painted but I would think it was in the late 1970s'. I think it could have featured our host in those years... I don't need to translate the spirit of this mural, just drink the wine you love and don't listen to hygienist... Surface cask cellar We went to several cellars, including a surface cask cellar near the chai. Mr Garnon's children went to work in other careers than winemaking, and when Hugues retired, he first kept making a bit of wine for the family but lately has almost stopped. Now, they only vinify a row to make bernache, this sweet drink where the grape juice turns lightly alcoholic and is such a pleasure to drink right after the harvest. The tractor and the press We reached a larger room on the surface, I'd call this the chai, there was some vats there, pumps, a press and this nice tractor. Hugues's son uses it from time to time, he says, and I understand it, these tractors from the 1960s' are a real pleasure to ride, I heard, they're light, easy to fix, there's no computer or sophisticated electronics, and they're now becoming quite sought after in the countryside, some newcomers from town are also trying to put their hands on one of them for the heavyduty tasks on their property or for collecting heating wood. But if you check this page, they're still affordable, I spotted a few tractors from the 60s' on this site at about 3000 €, some time much less if there's some work to do.
We also passed a vintage filtering machine working with clay (the red thing on the side). Hugues Garnon also found several of the tools used at the time when the vineyard was tilled manually, long before the tractors appeared. Horses were used also but many vignerons still used hand tilling to work the ground, and this fork-type spade was a very common tool between the rows. Being quite heavy for a tool, the worker nedded to be strong and resilient.
The natural, strata-like accumulation of winery tools from times so far away from each other made this impromptu visit passionating. It helped also Hugues realize that he had real treasures in there, like the wooden jar and miniature cask and he told me that his daughter was interesting in preserving lots of this stuff. Cupboard space in the rock... As we were leaving the chai, I spotted this cute space dug into the tuff wall : just enough space for a few tasting glasses, which were still there as if the last tasting was yesterday. No INAO tasting glasses here, just simple, no fuss glasses, actually Duralex glasses, canteen tumblers from the 1960s' series Gigogne and Picardie. They're still made to this day by Duralex and they reached a near-cult status, you can even find them now in very hip places in town. We're not seeing them in wine bars yet (they're far from ideal for maximizing the aromas) but let's remind that they were very common on working-class tables, including for the daily wine.

The goal : grafting Gamay on the rootstock Hugues Garnon is incredible : he keeps being passionated by the nursery job and till this day, he keeps grafting vines now and then. He keeps an American rootstock here in the middle of his rows, it's cut bare to the ground but it is so energetic that it keeps growing back. For the winter he kept it protected under a layer of hay, and when he needs a piece of rootstock for a graft, he just picks it. He says that if it's not kept in check, this rootstock goes up 3 meters high or more. On the three pictures here, he shows me how to proceed to make a graft. He brought along some of the Gamay wood that he just pruned, and that he will use for this graft demo. Cutting both ends Connecting the wood Keeping in touch with the vineyard In this video, Hugues Garnon shows me the simple things that he learnt from his father and grandfather : how to tie a bunch of pruned stems with wicker and make bundles that are easier to carry or burn.
After that, he walks to a row of Gamay and prunes the vines. Lets remind that Mr Garnon is 85. Let's drink some Côt...

An History of the Chateau de Chateauvieux (in French).
An interesting document (printed in 1985 in French) about the history of Touraine wines.

Comments

[Josip]

Excellent,
little secrets, the great masters.

[Mark Thomasseau]

Great post - thank you!

[Thor Iverson]

Bertrand, this is a particularly beautiful contribution. Keep up the great work...you and M. Garnon.

[King Krak, Oenomancer]

Excellent post, my friend.

[GrapeplantingCassidy]

This is a great post. enjoyed the text, the video, and the picture! All in one!

Cheers!

[Oliv]

Aussi passionnant, instructif que splendide !
Bravo et merci !

Oliv