Greniers-Saint-Jean wine tasting (Angers, Loire)

Another great tasting experience Greniers Saint Jean, Angers (Loire)
The Salon des Vins de Loire in the outskirts of Angers is a very large event centered around the many wines produced in the Loire region, but this yearly event is also the occasion for smaller simultaneous tasting events scheduled in roughly the same time frame, and where the focus is more on organic/biodynamic, natural wines from domaines of all the wine regions and even from abroad. This particular wine fair took place downtown Angers in what is called the Greniers Saint Jean, a historic building built circa 1188 that looks much like a church but was actually originally a food-storage building for the hospital of Angers. It was home that day for another healthy food that heals many ailments : real wine. There was another resourceful tasting event that weekend, Les Vins Anonymes, which I attended last year and it takes place in a real church (actually decommissioned).

This tasting was organized by Nicolas Joly's Winegrowers group Renaissance des Appellations and many of the participâting domaines are biodynamic. The biodynamic farming rules have beyond the farming side very strict rules in terms of additives use and other winemaking tricks, and you can be reasonably pretty sure that these wineries don't fool you about the way they make their wines That could be a simple and common-sense reason to be comfortable with biodynamic wines in the first place. Looking at the rules for winemaking on this Demeter-USA document (page 38 to 42) makes you understand why I'm myself more comfortable when I deal with biodynamic-certified wines. Among many other requirements : handpicking preferred, limitations to SO2 use, no pasteurization, no concentration of must, yeast nutrients approved in case-per-case, acid and sugar ajustment not permitted, All other processing additives are not permitted : enzymes, tannin, casein, silica dioxide, isinglass, blood, gelatin, gum arabic, carbon, copper sulfate, etc.. This by the way sheds light indirectly on what you get behind the curtains in the mainstream wineries.

Look at the list of 155 domaines who take part to this Grenier-Saint-Jean tasting, domaines from all over France plus a few from Spain, Italy and Austria. It may be a side tasting event compared to the Salon des Vins de Loire but this place was thick with talent and hard-working growers. You can't in my view taste them all in a single day, and even in two days. In addition to gathering so many top winemakers, this tasting event was very affordable : 5 € for professionals with an invitation and 20 € for the others, and the pours were generally very generous.

Sébastien David As soon as I walked inside the building after paying my 5 € entrey fee and grabbing my glass, I was impressed by the crowd, the tasting had started at 10 pm, it was 11 pm and already quite full. I managed to find a slot here and there while wandering along the tasting tables.

__ L'Huluberlu 2013, a cab franc with a live color and candy-style aromas.
__ Ever 2013, cabernet franc (same vineyard as the one used for L'Huluberlu) vinified in amphorae with a 16-day maceration, after which the grapes were pressed and the resulting juice reunified with the free-run juice in an amphorae again. Sample bottle, the wine is still in the amphorae until june. Sébastien David says that the end of the élevage will depend of the tannins, how they taste.
The nose is deeper here, almost hinting at something velvety and vivid at the same time. Tannins are already well tamed, even if with time it will get even better.
__ Kezako 2012. Cabernet Franc. Bottled since november. Vinified with the grapes poured into the casks which are regurlarly rolled so that the free-run juice gets all ober the grapes, it's like a pumping-over inside the cask and without pump. And afterthen the juice is vinified in Nomblot egg-shaped cement vats. The eeg-shaped vats have the advantage of having the wine work by itself, no need to stirr the lees here.
__ Vin D'Une Oreille 2011. Old vines of cabernet franc (100 years). Short carbonic maceration,6 days with whole-clustered grapes, with in the evening a foot stomping for half an hour and the next day they take the juice of it like for a clairet or a rosé and it gets in casks. It's still in casks right now and it hasn't been racked yet, it goes through an élevage of 3 years.
Superb nose, nice structure, you feel a serious wine in its infancy here.
__ Vin D'Une Oreille 2008. Same long élevage (3 years), but with an additional 3 years élevage in bottles in the cellar. The wine here has a more meaty side, with at the same time a strong fruit side. Nice length, refined tannins. Chewy feel, nice wine indeed.

Paul & Corinne Gillet, Béatrice Augé (Maisons Brulées) The iconic domaine Les Maisons Brulées in Pouillé in the Loir et Cher is going through changes as Michel and Beatrice Augé are retiring. They're passing the baton to Paul & Corinne Gillet who are ready to meet the challenge of the transition. Béatrice (pictured at their right) was at the stand with Paul and Corinne that day. Before landing here they trained for 3 years including in Alsace where Paul worked with Bruno Schueller. To rewind more in the past, they were cavistes and also restaurant managers before.

__ Maisons Bullées 2013 Blanc 2013, a natural sparkling. 100 % Sauvignon. Michel Augé used to make this cuvée in rosé and he Paul decided to make it in white too. Not yet on the market (it'll be in April), 2000 bottles for this cuvée. 11 € tax included. Nice aroma. Looks like there's still some sugar but Paul says that there should be very little, like 2 grams. This should be disgorged soon.
__ Maisons Bullées rosé 2013, the pink pet'nat. Gamay. Still fermenting with some residual sugar, not ready yet, few bubbles at this stage, turbid. Enjoyable candy drink, easy one. But Paul says that behind the sugar there's a strong acidity which will stand out when the sugar will be eaten. 11 € tax included too, also a batch of 2000 bottles.

__ Dernier Né, red Vin de France (table wine), a blend of 90 % Gamay and 40 % Pineau d'Aunis (élevage in casks). Also a cuvée that Michel Augé didn't have in his portfolio. This bottle is a sample blend as the wine still in barrels, he'll make the blend in spring. Relatively clear color, nice mouth feel, an easy wine where the Pineau d'Aunis shows its character. Costs 9 € at the domaine. 1500 bottles in total. the vinification was separate for the gamay & aunis on a semi-carbonique mode, the blend taking place at the end of the short élevage. The wine is thought as a spring wine.

Otherwise they make the well-known cuvées of the Maisons Brulées, Poussière de Lune (Sauvignon), Silène (Sauvignon), Erèbe, Herdeleau, Altérité (natural sparkling from cabernet sauvignon), Uccello (a natural sparkling of Chardonnay). He also took some of the Herdeleau to make a 100 % pinot noir from the old vines, he thinks it will yield an interesting wine in a demi-muids.

Michel Autran and Tania Carême Domaine Vincent Carême :
__ Domaine Vincent Carême, Vouvray le Peu Mourier 2012, old chenin vines on clayish flintstones, a dry wine in 2012. Vivid nose, minerality, sharpness in the mouth. Costs 17,2 €. The sugar feel varies from year to year on this cuvée, and the back label has a scale to tell where it stays on the dry/sweet feel. 2,5-hectare vineyard for this cuvée. Bottled may 2013.
__ Domaine Vincent Carême, Vouvray Le Clos 2010. Elevage in casks, from new to 12 years old, like for the 1st cuvée above. Nice vibration on the palate. Costs 20 €. Speaking of SO2 they add 1,5 to 2 grams at the press stage, then nothing during the vinification and élevage, there's only a readjustment at bottling. They usually end up to 10 ot 15 gr free SO2 after bottling (or 50 to 60 gr total).
__ L'Ancestrale, sparkling Vouvray 2011 (natural sparkling style). 20 months sur lattes (lying in bottles in the cellar) Nice type of bubbles and wheat aromas. No yeast added and no dosage. There's some residual sugar left. Maybe 12,7 % alcohol.

Michel Autran is the guy on the left who was pouring the wines of Vincent and Tania Carême, and he had also some of his own wine to pour, as he his himself a winegrower, he began to make wine in 2011. He works now on 3,5 hectares, so here we go :
__ Michel Autran Vouvray, les Enfers Tranquilles 2012, a dry and still chenin. Soil : clay/flintstone (silex). Raisin aroma. Vinified in barrels. He used 12-year old casks which belonged to Stéphane Cossais, a young winemaker who passed away unexpectedly a couple years ago.
He has two other cuvées in 2013 but they're still fermenting and are not "finished" yet.

Richard Leroy Richard Leroy is a winemaker of Anjou with some sort of cult following and whom I must confess I don't really know well, so I was happy to taste a couple of chenins at his table.
__ Richard Leroy Les Rouliers 2012, Vin de France (table wine); chenin blanc on schist. Very nice minerality, this wine is straight, sharp. Aged in casks of different ages. Costs 12 € without tax. Vat sample, not bottle yet. Costs 7 € without tax.
__ Richard Leroy Les Noëls de Montbenault 2012 (cadastral name), chenin, vin de France (table wine). Soil : volcanic. Otherwise the vinification/élevage is the same. Also vat sample, not bottled yet. Malolactic fermentation done. If not labelle as table wine, this wine could pretend to the AOC Anjou label. Asked about why he's in table wine label now, Richard Leroy says that he actually never had problems to get the AOC but for ethic reasons he preferred to leave the AOC and bottle in Vin de France (table wine). He says that today when the wines are in AOC you're almost sure that the wineries behind them do things beyond the limits, and he can't condone that.
A caviste stops at the stands and asks if he has a few bottles left for him, even a 12-bottle case, and Richard Leroy says that he's sold out, complaining that lately they had successive vintages with low volumes : in 2010 he says the vintage was average with 25 ho/ha, then in 2011 they went down to 20 ho/ha, and 2012 even worse at 17 ho/ha and in 2013 almost 13 ho/ha... He still hopes to rebound to 25 ho/ha in 2014, which is not a huge yield after all. Kenji Hodgson It was nice top see Kenji Hodgson's table alongside the one of Richard Leroy as I know that Kenji has lots of respect for Richard's work.
__ Kenji & Mae Hodjson, Faia 2012, dry chenin blanc. He says the trick here in this vintage was to pick up the grapes, which happened to have a good maturity, before the first rains of october. The volume was very small because of a difficult weather in the spring but the resulting wine was very good for the chenin.
The wine is nicely ample in the mouth and sends good vibes on the palate.
__ P'tit Luchini 2012, Vin de France, cabernet franc. Clay soil. The reds were picked later which proved more tricky because the weather wasn't good. grenadine type of aroma. The mouth follows on the same pattern, easy drink.
__ Ô Galarneau 2012, cabernet franc on a different type of soil : the schist/alluvial soil here allows the grapes to reach a higher maturity and it allows more extraction without the risk of vegetal notes. This poorer soil has this benefit on the wine. The mouth is more on meat juice with tight but thin tannins that coat gently the side of the mouth. 17 mg SO2 total.

I then tasted the wines of Mark Angeli (pictured on right), another cult winemaker whom I really discovered a couple years ago when I bought a few bottles of La Lune, a unique dry Chenin. Mark Angeli's son is explaing the wines and he seems to know them well.
__ Ferme de la Sansonnière, La Lune 2012, vin de France. Dry chenin. Here we go again. I recognize the unmistakable magic of this cuvée, it's vividness and generosity. 12 months in barrels. Soil : carboniferous, black soils, and also sand.
__ Ferme de la Sansonnière, Les vieilles vignes des blanderies, vin de France 2011, chenin. Very sweet side in the mouth. 20 grams residual sugar. 24 months in barrels. 40 mg SO2 total (SO2 doses are printed on the back labels, nice initiative).
__ Ferme de la Sansonnière, Rosé d'Un Jour 2011, majority cabernet sauvignon and 25 % grolleau gris. Residual sugar (80 gr), candy feel, but not my type.

Didier Chaffardon Didier Chaffardon is another winemaker/grower I've met shortly here and there (like on the solidarity harvest at Le Briseau a couple years ago when Christian Chaussard passed away) but don't know the wines of, and this tasting event was a good opportunity to connect. I happened to taste his wine at the same time than Christophe, who is an associate at La Contre-Etiquette, a serious place to find fine artisan wine in Paris.
__ Didier Chaffardon, la Mentule Matagrobolisée, vin de France 2011. 100 % chenin. There's a striking resemblance in the gustative qualities of this wine with La Line of Mark Angeli and I tell it to Diddier Chaffardon, it's meant as a compliment but while I'l uttering it I'm having second thoughts wondering if it's very wise to tell a winemaker that his wine makes you think to another wine... It's a 2000/2500-bottle cuvée, made half in resin vats (he hates stainless-steel), half in barrels, bottled june 2013 (usually he likes longer élevages, like 2 years, he says). Nice intensity. Costs 8 € without tax. Very nice wine in my opinion. This is a new cuvée, Didier Chaffardon says that he walked out of the AOC Anjou in 2008 for the whites, and he had no cuvée name on his Anjou whites, so he takes a new name every year for his now-table-wine chenin. 2011 was a tough year but he learned much because of that.
__ Didier Chaffardon, L'Indolent vin de France 2010. Solar type of wine. Some sort of oxidative style. Nice ampleness in the mouth. Aromas of dry raisin. He has 3 parcels of chenin and he blends usually, he looks more for harmony, he wants a wine to drink with friends, rather than trying to make a super wine from a particular parcel, and a blend is the best way to bring harmony.
__ Didier Chaffardon, Le Rouzé, rosé vin de France 2012. 80 % Cabernet Franc and 20 % Cabernet Sauvignon. There's a mouth close to the one of a red, refined tannic feel and a nice fruit. The color is something between red and rosé, and by the way the name (Rouzé) hints at its middle way between rouge and rosé.... 10 € tax included, good deal. The cab franc was vinified like a red while the cabernet sauvignon, which was picked 10 days later, was handled like a rosé, this rosé being added over the vat with the cabernet franc, the whole staying another 10 days in the vat before pressing.
__ Didier Chaffardon, L'Incrédule 2012, Vin de France a can franc that went through a long resin-vat time with whole clusters : 7 months. 12,5 % alcohol. Will be bottled soon. Exciting nose Very nice wine indeed. Classy wine.
__ Didier Chaffardon, Arcanette 2011, rosé vin de France. Oddly, this is chenin, I couldn't learn where this lightly pink color, onion-peel shades came from. The grapes had a potential of 21 °, and this wine has 170 grams of residual sugar. In the mouth : just exquisite, superb. The wine radiates in the mouth, all this sugar being blasted by the vividness of the chenin. Makes you have second thoughts and drop the stereotypes on the sweet wines. Costs 26 € tax included (I always mean retail at the winery by tax included). Emmanuel Giboulot __ Emmanuel Giboulot, La Grande Chatelaine, Côte de Beaune 2011. Bottled after a year of élevage in september 2012. A pinot noir with nice vibes. 12 % in alcohol. Costs 20,7 €. Vinified in barrels, no new casks, the newest being 4 or 5 years old and the oldest around 20 years. This cuvée makes 9000/10 000 bottles on a "normal" vintage.
__ Emmanuel Giboulot, Pierres Blanches, Côte de Beaune 2011. Bottled in december 2012 just before Christmas. More mineral, more complexity. This cuvée makes on a verage 7000 to 8000 bottles. He still has 2000 bottles of this cuvée to sell right now (Same for the other cuvées tasted that day). Costs 25,3 € tax included.
__ Emmanuel Giboulot, La Combe D'Eve, Côte de Beaune 2011.Soil : more clayish. 29,8 € tax included. Feel more powerful, Emmanuel says that it is more complex, with an end of the mouth that is cleaner, more vertical and more tonic. 12,5% alcohol.
__ Emmanuel Giboulot, Sous Le Mont, Bourgogne Hautes Côtes de Nuits 2012. Light-red color, and still, in the mouth, it has a nice vibration. Emmanuel says that he doesn't work with color in mind, it's a secondary parameter. He says that sometimes in his region people could make much darker wines using cold temperatures, putting the grapes at 6 ° C or 7 ° C during 4 or 5 days and letting the temperature go up afterthen and so on, with the goal to get wines with more substance but that actually will lack vividness. His pinot noir here wasn't temperature controlled, the temperature went up unhindered to about 30 ° C or 33 ° C. Emmanuel says that he is looking more for wines that are bare than for wines with substance.
__ Emmanuel Giboulot, En Grégoire, Hautes Côtes de Nuits 2011. Vineyard a bit in altitude, a bit older too. Similar vinification length, using destemmed grapes with a bit of whole-clustered grapes, and the élevage lasted more or less 18 months. The color is a bit evolved here. In the mouth, that's something ! and it lasts !! Maxime and Geneviève of Barmès-buecher I was happy to see Geneviève Buecher whom I hadn't seen since the accident that took the life of her husband François Barmés, who was the inspired soul behind the biodynamicly-farmed domaine Barmès-Buecher. I met Maxime Barmès who joined the domaine late 2011 after having worked in several other wineries, like at Les Promesse de la Terre, a winery converting to biodynamie in the Languedoc. Geneviève says that he and his father had lots of common experiences and so he feels at ease in his new position in the family winery.

__ Barmès-Buecher Rosenberg Pinot Blanc 2011. Maxime explains that the vineyard is a mid slope on clay/limestone/marl soils, the élevage lasted 16 months in demi-muids. He says this is a tannic type of wine with power and a good aromatic edge. It feels like a bit of residual sugar here but he says there's only 2 grams.
__ Barmès-Buecher Riesling Clos Sand 2011. Granit-type of sand, Maxime says that this terroir always give neat wines. Aromatic nose
__ Barmès-Buecher Riesling Alsace Grand Cru Hengst 2011. Very classy wine, quite concentrated and powerful. 16 % alcohol but the mouth doesn't really tell it.
__ Barmès-Buecher Pinot Gris Rosenberg 2011. Quite powerful wine.
__ Barmès-Buecher Alsace Pinot Noir Reserve 2011. 13,5 Alc. Color : beautiful red with bright reflections. I never miss an opportunity to taste the pinot of Barmès Buecher, and I enjoyed one more time the treat. Costs 15 € tax included.
__ Barmès-Buecher Alsace Pinot Noir Vieilles Vignes (old vines) 2011. 13,5 % alc. The nose offers scents of generous, late-summer flowers, spices, with an exciting and vivid edge. In the mouth, a majestic freshness, superb pinot noir. Costs 27 € tax included.

Riccardo Ferrante e Fabio Smargiassi... I had the opportunity to reconnect to my Italian roots (my family name had probably some northern-Italy roots at some point) as I was strolling, looking for a domaine to taste : two Italian visitors kind of recognized me although the picture on the website dates from 2006 and we chatted a few minutes. Riccardo Ferrante and Fabio Smargiassi who were very appreciative of my work (it's always a surprise and a pleasure to learn that from perfect strangers) are managing a wine shop/restaurant named Drogheria Buonconsiglio, located in Vasto (Abruzzi), a town with 40 000 residents. They're selling only natural wines therre, as you can check on their wine page. They're the first such venue in town, which makes me think to what we see in France where even relatively-small cities begin to have venues with only real artisan wines. These wine are available in Italy through Les Caves de Pyrène Italy which is the Italian branch of the UK retailer. The Caves' catalog offers a good selection of both French and Italian natural wines (plus some craft beers !). Among the listed Italian winemakers you'll find Anna Martens who is connected to Eric Narioo of the Caves de Pyrène/UK and who settled in Sicily to make wine there near the Etna.
I'll remember from this short chat with Riccardo and Fabio that I have to look in Paris for the wines of Emidio Pepe and Valentini. Thank you to you both and if wandering readers drive nearby the region of Vasto, go visit them at Drogheria Buonconsiglio ! Pascale de Bonnaventure (right) Next, I stopped at the tasting table of Chateau de Coulaine, a domaine in Chinon managed by Etienne and Pascale de Bonnaventure. This is a winery I'm looking closer since I stumbled on their cuvée, the Chinon La Diablesse. I bought a few bottles of Diablesse a couple years ago, this is a superb wine that tells you stories... The domaine has very deep roots as you see the name of this chateau (located near Chinon) in Rabelais' Pantagruel, quite a great vinous reference.
Pascale de Bonnaventure was staying right next to Helda Rabaut and Mathieu of domaine Bernard Baudry (both pictured left).
The Chateau de Coulaine also has a cab franc from non-grafted vines (franc de pied), a very small volume.

__ Chateau de Coulaine, Chinon cuvée domaine 2012. Cabernet Franc of course, we're near Chinon here. 15-year-old vines on different parcels (plateau and slopes), no wood, only cement vats for this cuvée. Short maceration to keep the fruit. Bottled in july 2013.
__ Chateau de Coulaine, Clos de Turpenay Chinon 2011, old vines. Nice wine, tannins still in the forefront but you feel a very nice wine in its infancy.
__ Chateau de Coulaine, Chinon Blanc (white), 100 % chenin. They have 0,5 hectare of chenin. The bottle costs from 10 € to 22 € (the latter being for La Diablesse).

Michèle Aubery (Domaine Gramenon) We were well into the middle of the day, even the early afternoon and I still managed to reach the tasting table of Gramenon, I think that actually there were so many wine stands that were potential targets for wine geeks that each of them was relatively approachable due to a large choice. Domaine Gramenon is kind of a cult winery because it is one of the very first to have chosen the tough uninterventionist winemaking path known today as natural winemaking (but there was no such label at that time in the early 1990s).

__ Domaine Gramenon, La Poignée de Raisins, Côtes du Rhône 2013. 100 % Grenache. Straught from the vat, not bottled yet, bottled next march (2014). Nice meaty aromas. Nice acidity bring an astringency feel on the side of the mouth.
__ Domaine Gramenon, Sierra du Sud 2013. 100 % Syrah. Vat sample too. 13,5 % alc. They lost lots of grapes in 2013, with hailstorms in particular, they took in only half a normal harvest. The nose is hyper exciting here. Striking intensity in the mouth, length, and with this acidity that takes away any heaviness. The aromas/substance in the mouth makes me think to dust, dry bushes (garrigue). Bottled next april (2014).
__ Domaine Gramenon, les Laurentides 2013. Another terroir, a warmer-type of terroir, more on the south, and where they suffered less losses in 2013. 100 % Grenache. Total volume, 40 hectoliters, bottled next november (2014). What intensity in the mouth ! Don't miss that one if you have the opportunity to grab a bottle. The way these tannins coat your mouth is so beautiful...
__ Domaine Gramenon, la Papesse, Vinsobres 2013. 100 % grenache. Same terroir as les Laurentides. Again, so beautiful, with even more freshness, the wine is aerial and so thin, with an almost saline side.
__ Domaine Gramenon, la Sagesse, Côtes du Rhône 2013. Vat sample again. The alcohol level is about 12,5 %, Michèle Aubery says. Vineyards from 50 to 70 years old, with a bit aged 100 years.Nice tannic chew.

Juraté & Sébastien Riffault Sèbastien Riffault was there too, the man behind very atypical Sancerres, and a man who walks his horse in the vineyard to plow and take the weeds off. His Lithuanian wife Juraté, who inspired the names of his cuvées, was there too.

__ Sebastien Riffault Sancerre les Quarterons 2011. Portlandian limestone (flat limestone rocks, called caillotes in the Sancerre region). Bottled september 2013. they're back on 2 years of élevage now, with bottlings around harvest time. After then he keeps the bottles laying for 6 months before selling them (he shows them today). This vintage is close from the 2010 with a nice maturity, he says, just with a bit more minerality. The season was tricky in 2013 with the weather, they took big risks in october by waiting more time (they picked the last week of october and the first of november) but things turned out to be fine with lots of noble rot and just a bit of grey rot which they sorted by hand.
__ Sebastien Riffault Sancerre Auksinis 2011. Portlandian limestone. Lightly turbid (unfiltered wines). Generous feel with oxidative notes, goes down pretty well. The darker, gold color of this sauvignon comes from the noble rot.
__ Sebastien Riffault Sancerre Sauletas 2011. Kimmeridgian limestone, with marl and limestone which yield wines that are more refined with also a spicy edge, compared with the Portlandian which yields more massive, powerful wines. Lighter color, still turbid. Mouth : sharper edge.
__ Sebastien Riffault Sancerre Skeveldra 2011. More on the solar side. Nice ampleness in the mouth, with length. Hard to spit, very nice wine, noticeable even after tasting many other good wines. Costs 25 € tax included.

Yannick Amirault Yannick Amirault is making wine in Bourgeuil and Saint Nicolas de Bourgeuil (with his father it seems) and I wanted to know his wines. This domaines produces 30 000 in total from a surface of 19,5 hectares. Yannick is the 4th generation in this family of winegrowers, he works in the family winery since 2003 and took shares with his parents in 2008.

__ Domaine Yannick Amirault, La Coudraie, Bourgeuil 2012. Elegant cabernet franc. Nice intensity. Blend from different parcels, bottled sept/nov 2012. 8 €
__ Domaine Yannick Amirault, la Mine, St Nicolas de Bourgeuil 2012. He says that this wine has often a graphite style, tastes like a mine de crayon, a pencil. This cab franc has a nice meat juice taste, and a good freshness. Elegant. Vinification : like always in the domaine, hand picking (3 successive pickings in the same vineyards in 2013) with sorting under the rows, on the trailer and in the winery, the grapes are then destemmed and vinified in tronconic wooden vats. Sometimes foot stomping (but almost none in 2013). He avoids having extraction or marked tannins, that's why he's careful with pigeage or foot stomping. Usually, long vatting time like 5 or 6 weeks.
__ Domaine Yannick Amirault, Le Grand Clos, Bourgeuil 2011. Generous nose with cooked fruit aromas. Again, this nice freshness, along with a tannic structure on its way to be civilized.
__ Domaine Yannick Amirault, les Malgagnes, Bourgeuil 2011. A bit of reduction. Saline side in the mouth, the tannins stand at the right place in the wine feel. Bottled june 2013 after 14 months of élevage. Costs 18 €.
__ Domaine Yannick Amirault, la Petite Cave, Bourgeuil 2011. Soil : sand and clay, then limestone underneath. very nice wine, tight tannins, balance, here is a still-very-young cab franc with lots of promises. Total volume for this cuvée : a bit more than 5000 bottles.

Joel Ménard (Domaine des Sablonettes) Joel Ménard is a winegrower from the Anjou (Loire) who bottles all his cuvées as table wine (vin de France). He says he's been pushed out of the AOC. His wines are a pretty good deal, at 4,5 € per bottle wholesale price. Wines made without added SO2 or with very little, like 1 gram. The domaine is farmed in biodynamie since 2001, and organic since 1996. Indigenous yeasts only of course, like everyone in this tasting event.

__ Domaine des Sablonettes, les Copines Aussi, vin de France 2012. Gamay, vines planted in the 1960s'. Yields 30 to 40 ho/ha on good years. Exceptional acidity. Asked about how he gets this acidity, Joel Ménard says that the work on the ground is very important, the plowing, the fact not to use herbicides. You get this way wines with a tension, an energy that you have a hard time to find in conventionally-farmed domaines. There's indeed energy and tension here. Go try this one !
__ Domaine des Sablonettes, les Copains D'Abord, vin de France. Grolleau, the local varietal in his region (Anjou). Vines from the 1960s' too. It's important to do the right pruning, the right leafing on the grolleau, also a green harvest if necessary. He has 1,5 hectare of grolleau, with yields at 40 ho/ha. The wine has this peppery style that would make you think it's a pineau d'aunis. Very fresh too, some people will find it too acidic but I like that. Vinification : Carbonic maceration. The color is very light, he says he doesn't care with the color, he wouldn't do like in Beaujolais where commercial wineries heat the juices for extraction and color. Light wine : 11,5 % in alcohol ! Got 1 gram of SO2 only when the grapes came in, because he felt it was needed for this particular batch.
__ Domaine des Sablonettes, Le Bon Petit Diable, vin de France. Cabernet Franc. Foot-stomped, destemmed, the grapes are cooled down to 15 ° C to delay the fermentation, and after 5 days as soon as he gets a bit of color he takes the grapes out of the fermenter. This way you don't get the tannins in the wine. Very neat, sharp feel in the mouth. Mineral with a saline edge to it. Noticeable acidity too.
__ Domaine des Sablonettes, le Quart d'Heure Angevin, vin de France, sweet (moelleux) red. Picked between 13 and 15 ° potential depending of the year, and the wine makes only 9 % or 10 % in alcohol, with 70 gr residual sugar. Costs 6 € without tax. Whole-clustered, carbonic maceration (10 days), then he checks the fermentation and when it reaches 9 % or 10 % he stops the fermentation through temperature (0°C) then he filters the wine (tangential filtering). This way he uses very little SO2, this wine got only 3 grams per hectoliter.
__ Domaine des Sablonettes, Fleurs d'Erable, vin de France 2013. Chenin. This cuvée was an AOC Coteaux du Layon in 2012, but the AOC people stripped it from the AOC because the wine was making only 10,5 % in alcohol instead of 11 %... So this year Joel Ménard decided to label it right away in Vin de France and not ask for the AOC Chenin. Exquisite mouth, not hinting at 70 grams of sugar. Asked if the loss of the AOC was an issue with the customers, he says that abroad where he sells lots of wine, this is a side issue. He remembers having called his importer in Switzerland who told him to keep the label design and just erase the AOC words, he didn't care. Same in Canada. Even in France, with the type of wine amateurs they sell too, it is a secondary thing.
__ Domaine des Sablonettes, les Erables, Coteaux du Layon 2010. Still in AOC at this time. 170 gr residual sugar. Picked at 20 ° potential. Stopped fermenting by itself. Then stabilized through a tight filtration. What a concentration ! Fresh, a sublime freshness. Costs 12 € without tax.

James Spreadbury, of Noma At this point as I was walking across the crowd looking for a tasting slot along a table, and I was approached by someone who had rightly guess that I was the man behind Wineterroirs, and the pleasure to discover again that my readers are real people, not just stats on my dashboard, was multiplied by the fact that this cool person with his glass who was telling me he appreciated what I was doing was no less than James Spreadbury, the manager of Noma, the famous restaurant in Copenhagen. We didn't speak long but I thank him warmly for his encouragement... Eduard Tscheppe & Nicolas Joly It is always interesting during those professional tasting to fall upon winemakers who go to other tables to probe by themselves what their colleagues have in store. Real winemakers are always curious for other wines and are eager to learn. This tasting chapter of mine came to light on a funny way : I came across Michel Bettane who was walking with friends along the tables and I dared a question about what he had tasted and that he considered was worth a detour (this was the end of the day and time was running short), and he pointed to a stand a couple of meters away, the one of Gut Oggau, an Austrian winery located near Wien. I took his word and walked there but there was no one around, the winemaker had himself gone to some other table to taste wines, so I tasted the bottles alone and in an order which I hope was good. It's only some time later after having tasted other wines elsewhere that I spotted the winemaker was back, so i came to him for more questions and a short interview. And Nicolas Joly himself was there which was indeed another good omen for the winery...

Eduard Tscheppe and his wife bought this domaine in 2007, it's a winery with deep roots which had been making high-end until the 1980s'and sold then the grapes to the négoce between the 80s' to the mid-2000s'. The domaine is certified biodynamic by Demeter since 2010. Total surface : 14 hectares. Total output : about 25 000 bottles. All the wines here, both whites and reds are unfiltred.
Eduard says that alas in Austria the work is being done in the cellar but not in the vineyard, things need time to change. Speaking of the containers he uses, it's often foudres or 500-liter barrels. There's a very good cooperage in Austria, Stockinger, and the wood they use there has very good-quality tannins, they keep it 4 years at least to dry before making their barrels and foudres..

__ Gut Oggau, Mechtild Weiss 2011. beautiful resonance in the mouth, with a toasted side.
__ Gut Oggau, Emmeram Weiss 2012. Gewürztraminer. Empyreumatic aromas on the nose. Very refined.
__ Gut Oggau, Thimoteus Weiss 2012, Grüner Vetliner Weissburgunder. Lightly turbid. A superbly powerful and elegant wine. Obviously the best white on the table, I hope my random order to taste these bottles is not too wrong...
Eduard says he makes 30 % of this cuvée with a 7-week skin-contact maceration on this wine, then he blends the two parts. The soil for this vineyard is limestone, brings the freshness.
__ Gut Oggau, Joshuari. A bit powerful for me but still a nice acidity. I've been tasting for hours (and drinking a portion each time) and I'm not sure to taste in the best conditions.
__ Gut Oggau, Berthold 2011. Blaufrankischer. Eduard Tscheppe says that he doesn't highlight the varieties and stopped putting the varietals. Unlike the norm in Austria, they don't make varietal wines at Oggau, but rather terroir wines, resulting in wines that are sometimes at odds with their varietal nature. This wine has a very nice presence in the mouth. These are old vines.
__ Gut Oggau, Josephine 2011, Rot (red wine). An acidity out of this world, maybe underlined by an exceptional minerality.
__ Gut Oggau, a natural sparkling, a try, says Eduard Tscheppe. Onctuous, velvety wine.

Michel Queniouw (right) with Bernard Baudry (left) As I was tasting the wines of Michel Quenioux (Domaine de Veilloux), Bernard Baudry stopped at the table too for a try and chat. The domaine de Veilloux is a 17-18-hectare estate located on the edge of the Sologne, nearby other prominent Loire wineries like the ones of Puzelat, Villemade, Lemasson and Clause Courtois, to name a few of the artisan wine farms around there.

__ Domaine de Veilloux, Cheverny Blanc (white) 2012. the cuvée domaine, the estate cuvée. 85 % Sauvignon, 15 % Menu Pineau. 13,5 % alc. At this stage the wine is a bit too powerful for me. Exceptionally, the cuvée domaine was vinified in barrels because the volume was very low in 2012.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Cheverny Blanc, les Veilleurs 2010. 60 % sauvignon, 40 % menu pîneau (also named Arbois or Orbois in the region, but no relation as far as I know with the Jura appellation). The soil of the sauvignon parcels here is more on clay and lmimestone while the one of the menu pineau is more on sand with clays. This wine feels more fresh, more aerial.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Argilo, Cheverny Blanc 2011. Sauvignon with 15 % menu pineau (arbois). He could have used chardonnay or chenin instead of the menu pineau but he uses the chard for the Crémant (the sparkling white). His total surface of menu pineau is 1,8 hectare.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Sauvignon 2009. Atypical sauvignon, very little SO2 in there, the wine has a savagnin style in the mouth. 2 casks only, bottled 16 to 17 months later. Very surprising indeed for a sauvignon, very concentrated. Year after year thet make only 1 or 2 barrels of wine from this 40-are parcel, and they'll uproot it in the near future.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Crémant de Loire. Chardonnay and Menu Pineau (Arbois). This is the bottom of the bottle, the wine is almost still. Very nice.
__ Domaine de Veilloux Rosé 2013. Not finished yet, vat sample. 60 % pinot noir and 40 % gamay. Nearly white actually, the pink is barely noticeable. Harvested very early in the morning to keep the grapes cool and keep also the color and the fruit. tHere's still some residual sugar in here.
__ Domaine de Veilloux Cheverny Rouge (red) 2011. Pinot Noir 60 %, Gamay 30 %, and the 10 % remaining with Cabernet Franc & Côt. Long maceration, this is a wine that needs to age more, he says. They're still selling the 2010 but still brought this 2011 for people to taste it. His reds are not filtered. In the mouth, nice fruit and meat juice. 12 % alcohol on the label.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Cheverny Rouge Les Veilleurs 2012. Bottled 2 months ago. 70 % pinot noir, 20 Gamay, the remaing 10 % also splir between cab franc and côt. Aromas flowers in the late-summer, meat juice too I feel. Older parcel. Vinified in barrels. The malolactic are made under cold temperatures, 14 ° C or 16 ° C, so that they unfold slowly well into spring, and then, they leave the wine on the malolactic lees(still in the barrels) until the following november when they rack them.
__ Domaine de Veilloux, Cheverny Rouge Argilo 2011. The oldest vines, 40 to 45 years old. This wine has an exceptional acidity, the freshness stands out. Costs 12,5 € tax included at the domaine. Very nice wine, delicious; if you don't like acidity in wine, pass your way.... In 2011 they made 5000 bottles of this. In 2013 they didn't make this cuvée.

I wished I had every single bottle related to these corks...

There is another table to be added in this story later...