Alain Castex & Isabelle Frère
The drive from Paris was smooth, we used mostly regular highways, not the toll one, and it was nice to talk to Franck from the
Caves des Papilles who was at the wheel and who was attending the wine fair for the first time himself. He happened to have worked long time ago for Pierre Terrasson, a portraitist photographer in the rock-music scene and other popular singers, someone who was working with the professional photo lab where I was myself employed then. Franck switched carrers to wine in circumstances I'll recount in another story.
So, we arrived on friday evening before the wine fair and we joined the vignerons' dinner just in time. The
salle des fêtes (the community building of te village) was well-heated and looked almost cozy with this setting, the outside temperature being far colder than the western Loire or Paris, this was indeed the Auvergne mountains in winter even though were were still in autumn. We were going to live a rehearsal of the dinner following the event and this was a marvelous introduction to this whole event and its underlying spirit.
Babass speaking with Franck
This is a dinner is where you can learn lots of things, including about winemaking or vintages, but not only (let's not speak about work, sort of), people speak also about real-life things that played a role in what we can call the recent wine-culture history. That's how I incidently learned more about the chronology of events and key individuals behind the natural-wine awakening in Paris, particularly in the still-little-known role of people like François Morel, Bernard Pontonnier (more info on
this page), Jean-Pierre Robinot, Olivier Camus, Raquel Carena and Philippe Pinoteau, the three latter individuals being the early players at Le Baratin which is now the oldest natural-wine venue in Paris (and still an excellent deal in terms of food, especially for lunch). Bernard Pontonnier had already his wine bar running on the top of the Belleville slope in Paris when Olivier Camus and Raquel knocked at his door one day and asked him if he didn't mind if they opened a place further down the hill catering the same type of wines, a place that would be named
Le Baratin. He didn't mind and this was the start of a long story. On the kitchen side in the early years Raquel shared shifts with Mercedes, a Spanish woman from Galicia who worked on wednesdays and fridays while Raquel did the saturdays, tuesdays and thursdays. Mercedes happened to have brought back from her home region a keen knowledge for cooking the different fish, and she taught her skills to Raquel. Raquel was also very open and she met different chefs in Paris, turning quickly Le Baratin into a famous venue in spite of its atypical location. Olivier Camus since then went his way and opened a separate venue very close from the Baratin (second picture on
this page).
Raymond Lecoq (pictured during the wine fair)
I met also to Raymond Lecoq at the dinner, Raymond is an easy-going Dutch guy, pictured above at his charcuterie stand during the wine fair (I didn't take his pic at the dinner except the cropped one the side). He is a sourcer and dealer in artisan food and charcuterie and his path crossed the road of natural wine very early indeed : While pouring and sipping

together with Franck some wine from Alain Castex, I learnt from Raymond that he met Gramenon and Lapierre in the early years of their new winemaking practices. To be precise, he met Marcel Lapierre in 1974 by accident as he was hitchhiking across the region, Marcel Lapierre gave him a ride and offered him to work for the harvest if he needed to (I think he said he lost his shoes and he needed to earn money to buy new ones...). He befriended Marcel and worked regularly there for the harvests when he needed money, it was a time of freedom, he would hitchike accross France and discover the world. He is by the way the godfather of Marcel's son Mathieu. Furthermore, Raymond's sister married Philippe Pacalet (who is the nephew of Marcel Lapierre) and they had several children together. Back then, Lapierre was still working conventionally. Franck says that the first natural wine by Lapierre was in 1978, and Raymond says that even earlier than that, he was beginning to make tries on a cask or two, that's what he witnessed. After Working at Lapierre, he worked at Overnoy, then Gramenon; he knew the Paris bistrot La Régalade of Yves Camdeborde in its early years, before Camdeborde left his job at Le Crillon with Christian Constant, a place where at the time (around 1990/1991) you could find also Michel Moulherat (commis sommelier), Thierry Faucher (chef du garde-manger), Thierry Breton (chef des poissons), Eric Fréchon (3ème cuisinier), Yves Camdeborde being the 2ème cuisinier. Gilles Marchal was also working there, this was a concentration of talents indeed. Raymond then flew to the Dutch Caribbean (St Martin) where he set up an import venture dealing with natural wine from 1986 to 2000. After coming back he worked with his smoked-fish family business in Holland, doubling it with an artisanal charcuterie dealership in France. He works with Jérôme Majeune for the distribution of his products in Paris.
Vincent Wallard & Jean-François Chéné
Such dinners are a wonderful moment where you enjoy the company, the food and the wines, and at the same time you learn more about the wine issues, be they day-to-day trivial tasks or distribution, export problems. Like for example I learnt there were tensions on the Denmark front with one of the importers there, a newcomer from what I undertood, being seen as undermining the other ones by importing natural wines undirectly and out of the knowledge of the wineries. No big deal I guess, just a sign that there's lots of demand there and some are tempted to circumvent the shortage by sourcing elsewhere than the wine farm. I spotted a few foreigners at this wine fair by the way, possibly Dutch, Belgian and Swiss. I even chatted with a German woman named Surk-ki Schrade who is managing a natural-wine shop in Köln ! Germany is slow in regard to the distribution of wines made without additives ans sulfites, which is strange considering their record of purity and ethics in their beermaking. Now, if you're in the vicinity of Köln (Cologne), rush to
La Vincaillerie ! I love ther head sentence on
her Linkedin page : immer reinen Wein einschenken ! I feel my German is coming back already... She like me spent time in the Strasbourg University, and she later worked in the
film industry in Germany.
She is sitting at side of Raymond on the picture above right.
Olivier pouring a mystery bottle
A young guy walked around our table to pour a magnum from what he said was for now a mystery wine. Olivier Cohen had been working for a while at
La Part des Anges in Nice on the French Riviera, in one of the top places to find a good wine there. He decided at some point to follow a training, learn more about the wine trade, and he has been working with
Thierry Allemand for 8 or 9 months, not bad for a first training. No need to say, this mystery wine comes from Thierry Allemand, it's his Cornas Chaillot 2010, bottled the day before. Olivier picked the grapes from this very parcel, but the ones from 2012, not the ones from 2010. I witness a passinating debate between Olivier and Isabelle (Frère), Franck taking positions between the two. We're speaking about the élevage because it's known that people drink the wines much too early. This Cornas is still a baby wine asking for a few years in a cellar sleeping in its bottle before begining to offer what it has in store. I'm almost ashamed of drinking it at this stage but I'm confident the expert tasters around me already feel the potential of this wine.
Olivier will soon follow a
draft-horse training course in Roanne. I learnt on the web that the training lasts a week and takes place in the
Chervé School of Agriculture & Forestry. The use of
draft horses is going up in the vineyards, particularly for parcels on steep slopes.
Roanne is a medium-size city located east of Chateldon and West of Macon.
Harry Lester at work
A few words about the chef at Les Dix Vins Cochons, because this was a great side of the evening : the food ! It was prepared by someone named Harry Lester, a Brit who runs the
Auberge de Chassignoles in Auvergne, where he cooks using organic products and artisan meat. Several people told me to make the detour one day and visit the place, albeit on the right time because it's open only a few months a year, but reading the short text about the food there will compel you to drive the side roads to
Chassignoles
especially that to top it all, the wines are of the type you probably love if you see what I mean.
How Harry lester landed here is worth a story : he was in London and he and his wife were eager to try something else at that time, they had a two month son already and it could be the right time to move on. He happened to chat with a woman one day in a bar who told him about ,

an
auberge (an old-style hotel) which was for sale in the middle of nowhere in the Massif-Central mountains in France, and he looked on the Internet, found the place interesting and they ended up moving there. He opens the place a few months a year, say from june 21 to early september and the rest of the time he enjoys his family (he has two children now) allthewhile ovelooking his wine import company
Gergovie Wines in London. He does the cooking in the
auberge of course, sourcing the local products, meat, vegetables and wines. For the wines at the beginning he had trouble finding good wine, he was not really familiar with natural wine and one day he met Fred Gounan of the
Vignoble de L'Arbre Blanc, and the guy was very friendly and casual, he spent hours there, and the wines were likewise enjoyable. This was an important moment and from then on he met by word of mouth many other people working on the same philosophy. These people were making more than wine, they shared this friendly spirit and he really apreciate to work with them.
If in the first half of the century the auberge and its peaceful setting attracted people from Paris and Marseilles, now people come
from even farther and I hope to add my (and B.'s) name on the long list of people who discovered this part of Auvergne through the urge of visiting Harry's Auberge in Chassignoles.
The village is located in the same wooded area east of Clermont-Ferrand, just a bit more to the south, in the Haute Loire département (# 43 on license plates). The
satellite view points to a bucolic place far from highways and surrounded by forests.
Note that Harry is organizing a small wine fair of his own, named
La Fête du Vin, and in 2013 it will be on saturday 20th, and there are about 20 vignerons taking part, many from Auvergne and also a few from Italy and Spain. People come for the weekend and it's a lot of fun, good food and good wine. Check at
the auberge.
Harry is also quietly looking for a restaurant in Clermont-Ferrand, so you may have more ease to experience his cuisine in the future.
Harry and Vincent preparing the lamb
The
salle des fêtes had everything you needed for this unpretentious feast : the meat was grilled outside in the courtyard and the gently-outdated community kitchen was large enough for Harry and his aides to finetune the dishes. The hearty food prepared by Harry didn't need technological prowess anyway, just maybe the color of the walls could be rethought ? I'm looking for things to change but after all keep it this way, we're tired of constant renovations, obsolete places have this irreplaceable charm and we're tired of these glitzy surgery-room-like kitchen labs.
Here Harry (right) and Vincent are busy slicing the lamb which was grilled on the open barbecue just outside the
cuisine in the courtyard.
Asked where he found his meat, Harry says that the animals come from his own garden ! they are from the
Bizet breed, a local breed originating from the Massif-Central mountains which is quite hard to find today. He had 4 of them in his garden and two were killed for this dinner. I asked if his children weren't too sad but he says that they're used to this routine now, to the fact that they rotate from time to time. The lamb meat was marinated with mint, lemon juice and garlic. On the other side he prepared a
sofrito with cooked onions along with tomato, plus some
Ras el hanout or moroccan spices, to which he added the chickpeas, turnips, rutabagas and carrots. At the last minute he added some picarda, a mix of parsley, hazelnuts, saffron, garlic and olive oil, the whole adding some freshness to the dish. I think that's what Harry is pouring into the iron-cast pot on the 2nd pic above. This huge iron-cast pot is a dream tool to prepare food for a large family, you can do lots of things in there from mere potatoes to blood sausage, and farmers used to have it in their fireplace, cooking for hours different things together.
Tony Bernard (the mayor) & Axel Prüfer
The mayor Tony Bernard was there at the dinner too, and it was very nice to see an elected official being supportive of this wine fair without second thoughts on being spotted in a an event centered on wine. It sounds innocent but in the country France has become along the last years, politicians tend to distance themselves from wine-related events by fear of being framed by some obscure anti-alcohol group working in tandem with complacent judges. Recently by the way, Michel Bettane said at the Grand Tasting in Paris [he is the influential wine critic behind this event], that the politicians in this country didn't dare to come at wine-tasting fairs, adding that they "have no courage and no vision" and they prefer to cave in to "political correctness, demagogy and repression" (listen to the
short video interview

of Michel Bettane here). It's not clear if his

comments targetted the Paris mayor or the government ministers, but it could be both as
Le Grand Tasting has become a major tasting event taking place in Paris every year around early december.
Tony bernard, the mayor of Chateldon, told me that he had been visiting the Dix Vins Cochons when it was still in Thiers (which is 15 km from Chateldon) when he heard that the organizers weren't fully happy with the conditions in Thiers and were looking for another place, so it was natural for him to propose the village of Chateldon as an alternative. During a conversation I had with him, he reminded me that until the end of the 19th century, Chateldon was a village of vignerons and grape growing & winemaking were the main economic activity there. The Phylloxera disaster (all the vineyards died across France) put an end to all of this but they kept celebrating the
Fête des Vignerons every year in october and the village retains beautiful remains of this era through the many vignerons' houses which are an architectural gem. He is working by the way with the village administration to buy back some of these houses, renovate them and rent them as Gîte (recreational rental) for the weekend o for a week to visitors. He also has plans to bring back the wine culture in the village by encouraging a grower/winemaker to settle here and revive vineyards around the village. There are still actually a few parcels here, owned by individuals who make wine for themselves. This would be a great idea, and it reminds me what
Pierre Beauger did not far from here in Auvergne, his village having likewise encouraged him to revive and replant vineyards on abandoned terraces. If you're a motivated grower willing to revive this terroir, make sure to contact the mayor of Chateldon...
Tony Bernard told me that in the beginning, the inhabitants of the village had to become familiar with these wines bottled as
vin de table and they were puzzled to see so many visitors coming from faraway places (including foreign). But ultimately, many of them discovered the experience of wines that are alive and made without tricks and SO2, and they liked it. Tony Bernard loves the idea that Chateldon, which has been known for so long for its
lightly-sparkling mineral water (found in exclusive venues like Maxim's, Le Crillon, Le Fouquet's, Le Lutecia, Hédiard and Fauchon), finds step by step the way back to its vinous roots.
Article in Libération (in French) about the
water of Chateldon.
Data about the
mineral composition of the water of Chateldon
Pic on right : the Panier de Fruits of Jean-François Chéné, which Tony was drinking at this stage.
A tablée at mid course
Of course we had tons of nice wines during this dinner, as this picture lets you guess, and fortunately I could enjoy several wines which I was to miss the next day during the wine fair by lack of time. Sometimes the bottles would just be passed around, or they were already on the table, and sometimes the vintner would himself/herself pour around, from a 75-cl or a magnum.

I wouldn't always have time to write

down notes
__ Le Scarabée,Isabelle Frère, Nina. A red Primeur, vin de France, with one-year élevage. This is the wne through which I discovered Isabelle Frère (scroll down to the 8th picture in
this story). The baby has grown up, showing that these Primeurs mature well.
__
Samuel Boulay, La Berthe. Red vin de table, no added sulfites (
sans sulfites ajoutés) printed on the label. Tawny notes on the nose, exciting (I know people are not always excited by tawny notes). In the mouth, light perly feel because of gaz coming out. Nice drinkability and velvety feel, a "little Jesus in velvet breeches" like we say in French (
petit Jesus en culottes de velours). The guy is not far from Clos Roche Blanche and Noella Morantin, I should visit him one day.
__ Les Vignes de Babass, Le Groll'n Roll, red vin de France. Grolleau, as the name of the cuvée hints (these guys are looking for trouble with the appellation watchers...). Babass, alias Sébastien Dervieux, is onne of the two guys who were managing
Les Griottes, the other one being Pat Desplats. The two parted to downsize their surface, they're still in good terms with each other, it's just from what I remember Pat saying to me, that the tax pressure was so big in terms for example of compulsory health insurance costs (the MSA) that it was more interesting for them to manage separately a very small surface like 2 or 3 hectares each.
The wine is a bit cold but I feel already an intensely preasurable wine, with a light perly side on the tongue, which can go away I guess through a precautionary decanting. The wine makes only 11,5 ° in alcohol. I love the Loire !
Cheers
I had the chance to be sitting near Isabelle Frère and her sister Nina, and of course we had some of her wines again. At one point, Pat Desplats who is now managing the downsized Domaine des Griottes, came at our table. He was quite pessimistic for the economic prospects in France, saying that the administration was doing everything to deter economic development, adding that it was time to leave the country and set up a business elsewhere. A famous character with wine interests has by the way made the step recently, as
Gerard Depardieu voted with his feet by moving to Belgium. Depardieu is said to be the tip of the iceberg, with reports of a silent exodus of startups and talents, an exodus flatly denied by French officials in a way that reminds the golden days of the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

The next morning as we were having coffee at the village bar, Pat told me that for example recently he was contacted by a
MSA representative

(the MSA is the compulsory health insurance for farmers in France) and fined for __ take a seat __ having employed too much temporary workforce (saisonniers). In short, the health-insurance police of the MSA reproached him to have hired workers on a temporary base beyond a limit counted in days-per-year, a limit set of course by this bureaucratic body. These job-for-lifers probably think that Pat should hire permanent workers beyond a certain number of workdays used. Let's remind that Pat works on maybe 3 hectares [or they probably would prefer him to use weedkillers].... He was subsequently fined about 4500 Euros for this crime of employing
saisonniers beyond the authorized days/year limit, a huge fine for a business of his size. This is the sort of hassles that small-size wine farms and other businesses are confronted with on a regular basis in France, and the young woman who was managing the café recounted for example that she wanted to employ a youth at the bar, but just to pay that person 800 € a month (it was not full time), she would have had to pay an additional 800 € (100 % !) in compulsory health insurance and other taxes, making a blunt 1600 € for the whole. She renounced hiring in these conditions.
See
this forum (in French of course) where farmers complain about what they often see as the MSA's extortion practices.
__ Le Scarabée, Isabelle Frère, Murmûre MMXI. Red vin de table. Carignan with a bit of Grenache. Got SO2 adding, 2 grams/hectoliter at the pressing because the malolactic fermentation was starting and the previous year she had had a cuvée veering similarly with a volatile hike, so she decided to take this unusual preventive step. Right now any way considering the dose she used, there's no more free SO2 and lmost no total SO2, but she wanted to be honnest on her labelling, that's why she had contains-sulfites printed on this cuvée.
__ Peyra, Corent Continu, vin de table 2002. Sorry, I have no picture of this bottle that was passed around. This red was obviously a matured wine, but still very beautiful, with a light color and very alive.
__ Le
Casot des Mailloles, Soula 2011. A red poured from a magnum, a good point because we we happy to reach to the bottle now and again for another pour. The wine is
gouleyant with a good drinkability. Here is another of these wines from the south which go are swallowed very easily. Made from Grenache Noir. The price is in around 34 € according to
this page listing several other cuvées of this small wine farm. A side anecdote : here is
a business page about Casot des Mailloles where my pictures are used without my authorization. I please remind wine dealers that my pictures are not "feel free to serve yourself", my fees are very moderate and the least I ask to commercial sites is to pay a decent share especially when you defend wines with an ethic.
Johanne (left) and Jean-François Chéné (standing)
__ La Coulée d'Ambrosia, Panier de Fruits 2009. A white vin de France with an orange color (pictured above), made by Jean-François Chéné in Beaulieu-sur-Layon in Anjou, not far from Babass and Pat of Les Griottes. This is Chenin.

Jean-François and his wife Johanne were there at our table,

they're a young couple beaming energy. There is no SO2 in this Chenin, it was vinified in vats, Johanne says that the wine has CO2 gaz but it doesn't feel like (it's not perly).
Jean-François is from a family of vignerons in Anjou and he discovered through his neighbors at Les Griottes an until-then-unknown world of wines that are alive and real, and this was an awakening moment for him, after which he departed from the conventional management of winemaking in which he had been raised.
__ La Coulée d'Ambroisie "O 2 Vigne", white vin de France made from grapes harvested in 2008 (the label reads in French "harvested in 2008"). The cuvée name sounds in French like
eau de vigne, or "water from the vine". After smelling and tasting I ask if this is a veil wine. This is a surprising wine with a classy mouth typical of a veil wine. Turbid wine. As we chat at the table, Franck says that if we look closer, there's no Bordeaux, no Burgundy and no Champagne on any of the tables around us. We're indeed very odd wine lovers...
Les Vignes de Babass, La Navine II, white vin de France (table wine). 12,3 ° in alcohol. Turbid wine like the two previous wines. Perly in te mouth with a light and welcome bitterness.
__ Karim Vionnet, Moulin à Vent 2011. Made in Villié-Morgon in the Beaujolais. Appealing, exciting nose. The mouth is pleasantly chewy, silk-paper like, with very nice softened tannins. Another guy I'm sad to have missed during the wine fair because the wine was great.
Les Dix Vins Cochons 2012
[If you know which artist is behind these posters, please tell me, I'll share the info]
Les Dix Vins Cochons 2011
Les Dix Vins Cochons 2010
Les Dix Vins Cochons 2009
Les Dix Vins Cochons 2006
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