Alice & Olivier De Moor (Chablis, Burgundy)

Olivier De Moor along the Chablis Rosette parcel Courgis (Chablis, Burgundy)
It's been 18 years that Alice and Olivier De Moor have begun making wine from vines that they patiently planted, all the while in the beginning, working in the vineyards of other established growers. Chablis, like Champagne and Sancerre, wasn't touched by the crisis that marred other wine regions, the downside being that you virtually can't set a foot in the region or find vineyards for sale. Basically, Chablis is out of reach if you're someone without financial backings, but with a few well-oriented bare slopes owned by Olivier's family and the plantation rights that came with them, there was way to maneuver with some hard work and the desire to make wines that stand out. Since after WW2, Chablis has become a sought-after brand with high export figures which means sales are almost guaranteed whatever the quality of the winemaking. The downside is that there are no available vineyard for sale, or if there were some, it would be at sky-high prices. Although Chablis has an exceptional terroir underneath, we can say that the annuity-revenues culture of this wealthy region, with the high demand for Chablis all over the world, has not encouraged artisan-minded initiatives. Paradoxally, beginning with a small surface and having to plant their own vineyards helped Olivier and Alice look for different wines. Both Alice and Olivier are trained enologists, but what they learnt in the wine school was not always a help for the little-intervention wines they tried to make, so in their first years on the job (the first bottling was in 1994) they tried different things on their own.
Like you can see on this Chablis Appellation map, Courgis is almost at the south-western edge of the area, the good thing being that it's not fully monoculture-looking over there, you also have woods and hedges. The village itself is a very quiet, non-touristic spot located high on the slope with good views over the vineyards. Courgis is where Olivier's family had its roots, and Alice and Olivier's cask cellar is located right underneath his grand-parents village house.

The road between Chitry and Courgis This landscape along the winding road between Chitry (in the far) and Courgis epitomizes the agricultural destiny of this region. You can see on the left some of the remaining cherry trees that were a staple of the agriculture in the area until well into the mid-20th century. Before the transportation revolution, when fruits were grown locally and harvested on time, the cherries of the region were appreciated and well-oriented slopes were planted with lines of cherry trees. There are quite a few wine regions in France and elsewhere which had a former life in fruit growing. Kudos by the way to these owners who succeeded to keep their cherry orchard in production in spite of the competition and hand-picking costs. Olivier and Alice have a few cherry trees themselves along the Rosette vineyard, and they replanted a few more recently, choosing the local varieties that were found around here.
Alice and Olivier De Moor still work today on about 7 hectares of vineyards (the vineyard on the picture is not one of theirs), they replanted a small parcel in Chitry recently but otherwise they've kept the same surface. To remind how it all began, Olivier began to plant vines on family land with plantation rights in 1989, starting the winery for good in 1995. Unless they had these unplanted family-owned slopes, it would have been hard to begin something in the area, because unlike in Anjou or in the eastern Pyrenean, vineyards are out of reach for young, debuting vignerons. To make ends meet, Olivier and Alice worked part-time for other growers while they were setting up their winery, they kept doing the pruning and other à la tâche vineyard-management service for others until 1998. When their own vineyards were old enough, they centered on their own surface. The slope at Rosette Asked how he began to make the non-interventionist wines he's making today, Olivier says that it started by itself, without pre-conceived ideas : he hadn't an aesthetic concept on wine, he says, he just wanted to make wine on a very simple modus operandi, without correcting it too much, that's all. He adds that the first wines that really awoke him were two wines that he tasted in a wine shop (Aux Crieurs de Vin in Troyes) the same evening in 2000, wines made respectively by Gramenon and by Yvon Metras. What stroke him was the feel of cleanliness of these wines, it was outstanding, with a quality of fruit and floral aromas that nothing disturbed. This was the first time he went through wines of this nature. Back home he realized that he had to go further in his winemaking and explore.
The Rosette vineyard is very sloppy, and Olivier works on it with a small, low caterpillar which weighs only 800 kilograms. The orientation is south/south-east. Because of the slope on the left towards the woods, they have shadow one hour earlier, something he was worried about at the beginning, but he thinks now that it's not really a problem : They're taught in the wine school that the more light, the best it is, but he thinks that what is really important is to have temperature amplitude, for example between night and day or between morning and evening. The amplitude is very good for aromatic synthesis
The inter-row width is 1,2 meter here, in Chablis it's usually 1 meter. He planted these vines himself in 1990, choosing the 1,2-meter width because he used to borrow the tools of his former grower-emploer who was himself planted with this width. The Chardonnay vines are very low here, to look for the heat reverberating from the ground, it's traditional in Chablis. The low vines also allow a good margin to let the foliage grow high. They try to let the vine grow without excessively trimming it : when the shoots are overtly extended, he now makes a gentle knot between several leafy shoots without breaking them so that they stand together. The goal is to keep this thin, high foliage so that there is a good ventilation underneath for the grapes, a good photosynthesis and also some well-managed shadow, because even in Chablis, the grapes can grill under the sun. also, avoiding to cut the apex is better for the balance of the plant, the challenge being not to encourage the apex to grow excessively and not hurting it.
The lower part of the parcel is trained on Cordon de Royat, because on the upper half it's only marl/clay with tiny oysters shells, the rich earth having flowed down the slope. The upper slope is trained on Guyot Double Asymétrique, the usual Chablis training mode. He actually vinifies the upper slope and the lower slope separately but he blends the two at the end because oddly the resulting blend tastes better than the separate cuvées. Still, there's such a difference between the maturity of the two that they make two pickings, with 10 days between them. The picking is hand made, by 15 people including the box carriers. Last year the harvest started september 7 and ended october 15, but that was because of the unusual conditions of 2011, usulally it's less overstretched.
On the pictue on left, you can visualize the striking difference between an organic vineyard and a non-organic one (in the far). The Bel-Air vineyard They have about 10 vineyard plots stretched over 10 kilometers, grouped in 5 areas roughly. This other Chablis vineyard is Bel Air, from which part of Bel Air et Clardy is grown, on this one they work with an over-the-row tractor, a 40-yeat-old machine which is very convenient. The soil here is more stony, the vineyard here is 20 year old, the ripeness comes faster on this terroir, there's always some wind here, it's located atop a plateau. Here it's more a typical Chablis landscape, there are no wooded plots on the side, there's more a single-crop feel. He plowed the plot last week, it was the second plow to bring back the earth moved during the winter on the usual cavaillonage/décavaillonage mode. The rocks seem big but he says that he doesn't break his blades, as the area has been plowed for long.
To allow a higher foliage, Olivier planted these adjustable metal poles (picture on left) thanks to which he can change the wire height. As we left, olivier told me that the lichen that you can see on the vines (pic on right) is very sensitive to the type of treatments, and the conventional vineyards nearby have none of it. By the way, conventional vineyard farming has evolved these last years and you can see vineyards that looked plowed, but when you look closer you see that the ground has also been treated with weedkillers, it's as if the growers looked for the attractive look of a plowed vineyard all the while keeping sprayning weedkillers. We call this type of gimmick tromper l'ennemi in French (fool the enemy) but a closer look doesn't lie, and you can see the typical mosses of weedkiller-saturated soils among the plowing debris. This way, I guess, they can bring their customers for a visit and give the false impression of living soils...Also, the recent trend is to use milder weedkillers but sprazy 3 or 4 times a year instead of one, so that you can see grass here and there year around, but on a soil still deeply damaged by chemicals.
About the weather conditions so far in 2011, while until march it was very dry with a shortage in winter rainfall, it started to rain heavily in april and well into may, 150 mm of rain (plus 50 mm since last friday), 200 mm in all which is a lot. They've been through the frost without damages, same for the hailstorm, the 10-km stretched vineyards allows to split the risks anyway. The technicos as the viticulture technicians/consultants are called in France, advise to treat in prevention of oïdium and mildew, not only because of the rains but as soon as the vine gets 7 to 8 leaves, as a prevention against future occurences of oïdium, a disease which is less well-known than mildew. Oïdium likes the temperature amplitudes as well as cool temperatures and as it has a long incubation delay, it is often treated too late. The only possible treatment on an organic vineyards regarding oïdium is sulfur. Otherwise earlier in the season he sprayed plant decoctions, actually essential oils with plant extracts, but the next sprayings will be copper and sulfur. Horse-plowed vineyard This 70-ares plot named Côte de L'Etang is now plowed by a horse, at the beginning because of the slope and because the soil tended to run down too much with other plowing devices and machines, so when the horse owner offered to do the job for Olivier and Alice, they made a deal. The goal was also to check the feasability of the thing, especially for last year when spring was so dry and the ground so hard, it was not sure that the draft horse could succeed in the task. At one point he actually couldn't get the blades move, but on the whole Olivier is optimistic. This spring (march 2011) the ground was almost as dry as last year, so the horse began with a surface plowing, waiting for a later deep plowing, when the ground would be softer. The horse has since made its 3rd plow, which was very well done with the blade cutting the earth right along the vines.
there's another parcel which is plowed by horse, it's on Chitry and the name of the plot is Chatillon, planted partly in 2000 and partly in 2009. Bourgogne Chitry This is a 2,5-hectare vineyard of Bourgogne Chitry, planted with Chardonnay also. Olivier planted it in 1995. Chitry, which is only maybe 5 kilometers from Courgis, used to be long time ago the administrative limit between Champagne and Burgundy, and the line passed through the middle of the village of Chitry. Olivier says that people used to have a cellar on both sides of the main street, because the tax rules would change regularly, making more profitable to work from one side of the street or from the other. It seems that the tax-hungry central state and the resisting tax evasion have always been part of the landscape in France... The village is another charmingly-quiet place with an old fortified farm in the middle, as you can see with the pictures shot from inside Olivier's car
Working with the over-the-row machine is not very easy when the grass is high. Fromthis vineyard, you can see both Chitry ans Saint-Bris-le-Vineux in the far. They also have vineyards in Saint Bris: 40 ares of Sauvignon (making a Sauvignon de Saint Bris) and a very old vineyard of Aligoté (60 ares) from which they make a cuvée named Plantation 1902 because the documents say this Aligoté was planted in 1902. Aligoté was pretty common in the region, it can yield nice wines but it was alas left on the side by growers and vignerons in Burgundy. Read Alice Feiring nice piece about Aligoté. What is sure, it's that like for these neglected varieties making their comeback in the Loire, when you've had such an Aligoté made by conscientous winemakers, you remain forever under the charm of this variety. Alice and Olivier De Moor in the new cellar Back at the facility in the middle of Courgis, I visit with Olivier and Alice the new cellar that they built right next the original old cellar belonging to Olivier grandparents. On our first visit six years ago with B. they had only the cramped vaulted cellar and they lacked storage space for vats and bottles, which they were obliged to stock in a side barn at their home near there. They used a contiguous available garden which they had digged so that the new vatroom is almost underground and stays fresh all year. They still have the possibility to switch on aircon if they need to. I think that it's a blessing to be able to keep make wine in the historic heart of the village, so many wineries elsewhere have left their original location for efficient-but-soulless facilities built near the vineyards. The new cellar looks even deeper than the age-old family cellar because the village sits on a slope, and you reach it from the old cellar through a spiral staircase (pic on right). In addition to stainless-steel vats, they also raise wine in barrels in there. The cellar addition allows them a comfortable work and they even could make wine from additional surface I think, but it's not in their plans. Speaking of the size of the estate, now they have an employee for some vineyard work, whom if I remember they didn't have when we visited the first time. Alice and Olivier also have two children, now reaching their mid-teensb but they're not involved in the vineyard tasks yet. In the cellar Before going to the cask cellar tasting a few 2011 wines from the barrel, we sat in a guest room to taste two versions of their Chitry Aligoté, from bottles.
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 2011 (from vineyards in Chitry). Unfiltered bottling, around may 3rd. Very nice substance with fruit. A naturally-made wine that goes down so easily, I'm not sure unaware tasters would think this is Aligoté. And the yields on this vineyard were higher than usual : 60 hectoliters/hectare, proof that you can make a nice wine with good yields. The vineyards here are young : 15 years old. the bottle is closed with a crown cap, because it could get perly, plus it's supposed to be opened young. They added 2 grams of SO2. They made 800 bottles of this unfiltered version only. Costs 8 € tax included. Bottled in heavier bottles because of the unfiltered, turbid wine. You can find this unfiltered Aligoté (if not sold out) at Le Verre Volé in Paris. Nice easy-drinking thirst wine.
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 2011, filtered version. 8000 bottles, bottled a week before, andclosed with screw cap, for the first time. I'm prejudiced against filtered wines and expected a severe drop in gustatory qualities but I'm positively surprised, there's a nice, full mouth. Costs 8 € also. 2 grams of SO2 also. Like the unfiltered version, there is maybe 4 grams of residual sugar, but with the filtration it shouldn't referment, and they used normal bottles. Unfiltered wines are the norm at Alice & Olivier De Moor, but usually the wines are dry when released, and they are clear, everything having had time to sediment in the bottom of the casks. The screw cap was a first try for them.
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 2011, from a Cask, in the vaulted cellar. Another cuvée of Aligoté ! From the same 15-year-old vines. Picked 10 days after the other Aligoté, they made 3 pickings in this Aligoté vineyard. Will be bottled toward the end of september 2012. The cask is an old one dates from 1992 (20 years). This wine is more saline and mineral, with floral notes, very nice balance feel. Will make 7000 bottles in all. Will be bottled unfiltered, like 95 % of the wines here (the filtered Aligoté tasted before was an exception). Olivier says that it was complicated this year (2011) for the Aligoté : the vines were more generous in yields but there was a wider gap between the harvest time of Aligoté and Chardonnay.
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 1902 old vines. The 55-are (or 40/45 if you count the missing vines) vineyard was planted in 1902. From an old cask too. Very clear wine, has already sedimented. They never stir their wines. Nice presence in the mouth, with even more depth even if more austere and less outwardly expressive at this stage. The vineyards are located near Saint Bris le Vineux, but only the Sauvignon can get the village Appellation there. They should make 1800 bottles this year, usually it's more like 1500 bottles, but here also the yields were higher in 2011. Will cost 16 to 17 € in wine shops. Tasting in the cellar __ Bourgogne Aligoté, Reversibilité 2011. From a cask too. Their 4th cuvée of Aligoté ! This is a small cuvée that they make from time to time, last time was in 2009. Comes from a nice part of the young vines which they let ripe and mature later. 3 casks of it. Still fermenting at this stage, there is still residual sugar. Notes of edel-tree flowers. Very vivid wine on the nose, enjoyable life. May be not finished yet but seems to me well in its way. Olivier was not sure we would taste it because he knew it was still "working" in the barrel (its alcoholic fermentation, the malo being already completed). They'll wait whatever time it needs. Alice says that the mouth has positively changed since the last time they tasted it a month ago, it's getting more refined with a more structured mouth. They don't know how much sugar is left but it should be 8 to 10 grams. The fact that they picked these grapes with a higher maturity is behind the fact that the mounting alcohol slows the yeasts. Olivier and Alice don't add lab yeasts to fasten the process in this type of situation like it's often done elsewhere, they let the wine live its life patiently even if it means more cellar time. Olivier says that beyond the alcohol slowing factor for the yeast, there is the fact tha yeasts need nutrients to keep working, among which you have the ammonium salt which are the nitrogen source for the yeasts. And when you harvest later like in this case, the ripe juice tends always to have less proteins and less ammonium salt, which explains the slower fermentation end. Asked if they're not tempted to help the process with additives supplying the juice/wine with whatever it needs, he says no, because the wine has to find its balance by itself, that's when you get the best results. Olivier says that shorcuts with outside corrections are uncertain at best. As of today, they don't know when it will be ready, it could be bottled in 2013 if things go right.

Alice and Olivier didn't augment their vineyard surface but they began to make wine from purchased grapes, buying from neighbors who work organicly, people like Thomas Pico, also from Courgis, Vincent Thomas and Athénais de Béru. They're making their 2nd red vintage using these purchased grapes. Pinot Noir made by the De Moors, I'm getting excited... Tasting other whites
__ Bourgogne Chitry 2011. Chardonnay blend from two parcels, the one plowed with the horse and the flat one plowed with a tractor. Total surface : a bit more than 1 hectare. From a cask too. Still a bit turbid or oily. Vivid nose with white flower notes. Very mineral, to my feel. Elegant. The soil, composed of marls and hard limestone, the soil on these plots is very stony like on Chablis. Should be bottled at the end of 2011. No stirring of the barrels at all, this is the norm here. They tried stirring in 1996, at the start, but they didn't like the results on the aromatic side, like these brioche notes, and they stopped stirring right away. There's also citrus notes in there, Olivier says. Tastes well, he says, they're happy because this wine took time along the years to find its place and personality, and since 2009 it has found it's path, they can see that vintage after vintage. It has to do with the vineyards and their rooting balance. Alice taking wine from a barrel Asked about how they press, they say it's pretty simple : 120 14-kg-boxes fill the pneumatic press (a Willmes), which makes about 10 hectoliters of juice. They stopped the pressing as a result of different factors, the grape conditions and what they taste in the juice, it's very empirical. There's a factor with which they need to adapt the pressing, it's the vintage : in 2007 & 2008 for example the grape skin was very hard and thick and they made longer pressings to get around the probmem. At the opposite, in 2009, 2010 and 2011, the skins were thinner, more fragile. But a "long" press is only one-hour-more long : on the whole, a pressing lasts from 2 hours to 2,5 or 3 hours maximum, they're not making half-night presses like in Alsace. They make several pressings per day. For the débourbage (which is short because they're not looking for crystal-clear juices), when the juice is warm, there's a natural cooling because the cellar is cool itself (they don't have a cooling system for the vats). And because the fermentation takes place in small containers (casks) without added yeasts, they also don't have temperature problems when the juices begin their long fermentation in the cool cellar. In 2010 for example, the harvest which took place under a cold weather, lasted 15 days and none of the juices had begun ferment at the end of the harvest. Reaching out for Clardy (Chablis) __ Chablis Clardy 2011. This Chardonnay is part of the future blend Bel Air et Clardy. Aromaticly intense. Very clear wine already, well sedimented. Very long mouth, nice sapidity, fills well the mouth. This wine will be racked by gravity just before the harvest. The fact that this vaulted cellar lies at an upper level compared to the vatroom allows them not to use any pump (on the other hand, they had to pump the juice after the pressing, the débourbage vat being lower). Alice says that she prefers the 2011 compared to the 2010, Olivier agrees. The 2010 has a more austere side, he adds. He says that people around focus a lot on minerality and tension in the tasting properties of wine. In this regard, he says he and Alice are against the tide in this regard, they like when the wines have a richness, a balance that can be felt from the start. But what you feel during the élevage, he says, can be misleading, sometimes a wine which seems easy-ready-to-drink get more austere and refined after a few months, going in a direction you wouldn't have expected it to go to.
__ Bel Air, Chablis 2011. From a cask too. The other part of Bel Air et Clardy. 9 casks of Bel Air. Now they also have demi-muids (500-liter barrels) that they buy new twice a year from the Stockinger Fassbinderei (cooperage) in Austria. The wine is golden clear. Intensity on the aromatic side with grapefruit notes, good ripeness feel. Classy mouth with length. The wine will be racked by gravity at the end of the tear, then spend 3 months, blended in a vat below. When they rack cask after cask this way, they just have to check that the pipe doesn't drain when they finish a cask : they clog the tip with the finger and plunge it in the next barrel, that's the smoothest racking possible... For the bottling they use a service company which comes here with a bottling line, except for the small cuvée that thery do themselves by gravity.
In 2011 they harvested earlier than usual these Chardonnay Bel Air, because they had some grapes they had to get rid of, but still they had 13,8 ° natural sugar so it was fine. While summer was grey and not so nice, the late season was sometimes hot. From what he thinks, this vintage 2011 should yields nice things on ther Chardonnays in the Yonne. Alicve and Olivier feel that because people knew the yields were more comfortable than usual, they didn't rush to pick and took more risks than usual, that's why they'll get better results. Tasting the De Moor reds !!! We then walked down to the vatroom/new cask cellar to taste first the Chablis Rosettes, then some exciting reds they been making from purchased grapes.
__ Chablis Rosette 2011. From the lower-slope part, which has a different soil and of course more water. Taken from a 600-liter Seguin-Moreau demi-muid. The wine is already cleary and clean. This wine has a striking wet-stone smell. Balanced wine. Olivier says that the lower-slope Rosette is traditionally more flattering, here with citrus-jam aromas.
__ Chablis Rosette 2011, upper slope. 350-liter cask. More on the sugary side here. Rounder because of the sugar. 8 to 10 grams remaining, but the wine is still very clear, no turbidity. It should restart fermenting with spring temperatures (at least he hopes it will restart soon, he says with a laugh).
__ Chablis Rosette, upper slope too, another cask (228 liters, traditional pièce Bourguignone), this time it's dry, no residual sugar. The nose is refined and elegant. There's a stony feel, like wet stone, here. At this stage, all these wines have seen no SO2 at all, they'll just add a bit at racking, about 3grams per hectoliter. Speaking of cask volumes (they also have 135-liter ones), they're thinking to use bigger wooden foudres too, with volumes like 25 or 30 hectoliters. It wouldn't be a tronconic wooded vat but it would look more like a very big cask. François Frères make these, or Stockinger could also make one. the idea is pass the racking stage : the wine would be blended already in the foudre and would go directly from there, after the needed élevage, into the bottles. Olivier says that even using the gravity to do the racking from the different casks of a blend to the vat below, there's a tasting difference between the two stages. They noticed that in the way, things are missing in the final blend, things that they enjoyed wjhen they tasted the wine in the different casks.
__ Bourgogne red, from a vineyard in Tonnerre (belonging to Vincent THomas, I presume). As said above, Alice and Olivier purchase grapes from several vignerons, the two others being Thomas Pico and Athénais de Béru. This red Burgundy comes from a vineyard in Tonnerre, but it isn't a Bourgogne Tonnerre in terms of Appellation, because Bourgogne Tonnerre is white, it's made of Chardonnay. So, this red is just a generic Bourgogne (Burgundy). It's a small cuvée, they make 800 bottles a year from this vineyard. It all started as Alice met Vincent thomas regularly because on wednesdays they buy organic vegetable baskets (these paniers de légumes are a growing trend these days), and while they chatted, they learnt that Vincent could sell red juice. As the employee of Alice and Olivier, Etienne Robin, spent 10 years working at Yvon Métras [quite a good reference], they asked him if he was OK to make red wine again, and he sais yes. This way, Alice and Olivier get acquainted with the winemaking of reds. It was made through a small carbonic maceration followed by a Burgundy vinification, with 2 or 3 punchings, then put into casks at the end of alcoholic fermentation. The wine while relatively clear, has some tannins, there is indeed a tannic structure here (more than in 2010, Olivier says). THe nose is exciting also. Nice cew. That's the 2nd vintage they make reds.
You can find these reds in Paris at Kevin's Autour d'Un Verre (Kevin has many wine rarities) and at Le Dauphin.
Picture on left : the Niko chenillard (light caterpillar). Alice opening a Chablis L'Humeur du Temps Lastly, we tasted a few more bottles around the table in the guest room, first an Aligoté, then the 3 Chablis, all from 2010 :
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 2010, Plantation 1902, old vines (1902). There's really a rocky taste here, on the positive side of the term. A pleasure to drink, the rare expression of a down-looked variety.
__ Chablis L'Humeur du Temps 2010. They make this wine since 2004. For the anecdote Parker tasted and noted this wine from its 2nd vintage. Nice freshness, 2010 was a cold year and you found more freshness on the grapes compared with 2009 and 2011. Fresh but not green. This is a blend of several plots.
__ Chablis Bel Air et Clardy 2010. Green reflections in the glass. More richness and more powerful. Here like for the former wine, there has been some sorting to take the botrytis out, they kept the brownish grapes which brought a welcome overmaturation notes in the aroma range. There's a jammy side but also the fresh citrus side of Chablis. Bottled in december 2011. Balanced wine.
__ Chablis Rosette 2010. As opposed to the former wine, here the grapes were in perfect conditions, no botrytis to sort out. so here we're fully into the Chablis aromas with citrus and the likes. Some eucalyptus on the nose too, seems to me, or some empyreumatic notes. This wine, they say needs more time to find its place compared to Bel Air et Clardy. The mouth is more structured, this is because of the clayish type in the soil. This Rosette vineyard get better through the weather ordeal year after year : when it's hot for example, its foliage keeps standing healthily while on Bel Air the leaves tend to bend down. This is because the Rosette clays keeps evenly some moisture while the draining soil of Bel Air is quickly dry. Several of these bottles were opened 7 days before (and just closed back summarily with their own cork, and they're just fine...
The pictures on the sides show this incredible ground-press system that I pictured already 6 years ago : On the left you can see the street door at the far end, the first vaulted room cellar being in my back. You can see the intentionally-tilted floor in front of the door, that's where the grapes would be feet crushed, pressed in other words, the juice flowing through the wall along the gutter on the left and probably filling a cask afterthen, maybe after a short débourbage. You can see on the picture on right how the flowing juice would flow through the wall inside a specially-designed stone gutter. Amazing. Olivier told me that as you had to pay, 100 or 150 years ago, for the mobile-presses use (which were owned by wealthy vignerons), people had found this pressing mode that cost nothing, and it was used, he says, untill the full length of WW2...

As said above, Alice and Olivier have two children.
Alice & Olivier De Moor wines are exported to Japan (Racines), to the U.S. (Louis Dressner), to Canada (Quebec, Le Marchand de Vin), to the U.K. (Caves de Pyrène, Berry Bros & Rudd), to Italy (Velier), Denmark (Rosforth & Rosforth), Norway, Sweden, Australia (Tasmania, Living Wines), to Russia (Grandi Vini) Switzerland and Spain.
Read this interview of Alice and Olivier by Jules Dressner (click on "read more").

Alice & Olivier De Moor 17 rue Jacques Ferrand 89800 Courgis phone + 33 3 86 41 47 94 aodemoor [at] aliceadsl [dot] fr www.aet.demoor.fr

Comments

[Luca Pitino]

Great job.Great wines. Without doubt.

[Austin Ferrari]

Fantastic wines!