Jean-Claude Lapalu (Beaujolais)

Jean-Claude Lapalu tasting the press juice Saint-Étienne-la-Varenne (Beaujolais)
Jean-Claude Lapalu is a Beaujolais vigneron whose parents and grandparents were growers selling their grapes to the local coopérative; he too became a grower in 1982, selling his grapes to the coop to make a living, but in 1995 he also took over a domaine (a rental) and this was his start as a winemaker although for sometime he kept selling grapes to the coop. He found his path gradually along the years, step by step through questioning, from a conventional type of farming to one that eschews chemicals and same for the winemaking, toward a vinification reduced to the simple and natural process, with indigenous yeast and low intervention.

In the end of the 1990s' Jean-Claude Lapalu had two sharecropping contracts (vineyard rentals) plus a bit of land of his own and this gave him freedom to make wine if he wanted, all the while still selling grapes to the coop. In 1995/1996 he rented another domaine in addition to the sharecropping he already had and this led him to begin make wine (until then he had only be a grower). He says he hadn't a precise idea of the wine he'd make, he just had had some training at the viticulture school but that was not much. There was no one around him to guide him but he soon met a couple of people who would open a window on what wine could be, telling him things about wine like he had never heard before. These were not winemakers or vignerons. One of them was caviste in Grenoble (near the French Alps), François Blanc-Gonnet (pic on top of linked article) who was the owner of the wine shop Laiterie Bayard. He opened to him a whole universe where wine was very different from anything he had heard before. Meanwhile he began to make his own wine and it took him 5 or 6 years to get rid of all the additives he'd learnt to use at the wine school [this school was in the nearby village of Charentay, I think it closed since], he did that bit by bit, dropping the products one by one as he progressed. These additives were the lab yeast, SO2, sugar, plus enzymes, lactic bacteria (even if even at the beginning he actually never used these two). For the SO2 the removal was gradual as in a conventional winery it is added in several stages during the wine process (on the incoming grapes, during the vinification, at racking and at bottling typically), he progressed step by step, eschewing SO2 here, then in another vintage also here and so on until he made whole vinifications without any SO2 from A to Z.
When I arrived at the winery on my motorbike Jean-Claude Lapalu was moving an horizontal fermenter with a forklift (picture on right), his staff being busy taking care of various tasks in the vatroom.

In the chai Jean-Claude Lapalu says that he is not against adding SO2 when it is well mastered, considering it's made when necessary, in small doses and basically only before bottling. When he began making wine he wouldn't have thought it would be ever possible to make routinely wines without any added sO2 and that these wines would nonetheless be upright (droits) and fine. He learnt to handle this thing step by step and now it works for many of his wines, they get no SO2.

What is interesting is that Jean-Claude Lapalu made much of this conversion mostly isolated from the vibrant group of winemakers who were already on this path not far from here (Lapierre, Foillard and a few others), He began to meet them in the mid 2000s', the first one of the group being Thevenet in 2003. They became aware of his wines because his wines began to appear in wine venues where their own wines were also poured, so they tasted them a few times and saw that there was something interesting here and several of them visited him and they became friends.
Jean-Claude Lapalu says that actually his referents were oddly based in southern France when he began his winemaking itinerary : there was this caviste of Grenoble first, and later a wine agent who was beginning his career near Vaison la Romaine and who visited him one day, this guy was already initiated in natural wine and he came regularly visit him in the Beaujolais, bringing in his car samples from Marcel Richaud, Gramenon, Milan and they drank the wine together. Jean-Claude thinks that he was happy to distribute this sort of wines and thus he somehow pushed Jean-Claude through this tasting of samples to try make wines of that style. And in some way, he says, that may be why he began to make wines with richness and substance, because there was this influence he got through these nice bottles he discovered. Then experience came, with a better knowledge of the terroirs as well as curiosity when he tried new things, like for his cuvée "Le Rang du Merle" (the row of the blackbird) which a late picking cuvée, he added this way several cuvées, with trials and new experiments. Speaking of Lapierre, Foillard and others, he had also tasted their wines while delivering his own wines in Paris as cavistes or restaurants would have him try this or that but for a while he didn't feel confident enough to go see them, so it took its time.

Gamay being pressed This pressing began early this morning at 8:30 after their maceration time, and it will take many more hours before it is completed. From time to time, he goes to the wall to push a button after checking the pressure and the press screws tighter the mass of grapes, you can hear seconds after that the flows thicker. In the middle of the afternoon, he and his staff will do the rebêche, which is opening the press and decompacting the pomace all around the cage before resuming the pressing. He'll then put the press on cruise control for the night and the following morning they'll stop it, take the pomace out and wash all the parts, this is indeed a 24-hour pressing. This is a typical pressing time for his wines.

You can notice the massive and heavy stone base of this traditional vertical press, this is not made of cement, although some of these cement bases I saw elsewhere look sometimes really like plain stone, Jean-Claude Lapalu found this press complete with its stone base in the next village (Odenas), it had arrived there probably at the end of the 19th century. When he spotted it for the first time it was standing idle next to a house and he feared that it would end up as a giant flower pot like it happens alas in many places in the wine regions. He dared to ask the people who owned it if they'd consider selling it, and the man told him he had all the wooden parts, the cage and everything, safe in his attic, and they made a deal. The owner told him that originally the press part above the stone base was what we call in French a pressoir écureuil with an horizontal wheel and a vertical wheel along the wall. an écureuil is squirrel and the press bears this name because you could set the press in motion by climbing on the vertical wheel like a squirrel would do in its cage. These presses were still very common at the time in France (early 20th century), see this page showing pictures of a pressoir écureuil. The press was later reconditioned with what was a more modern and simple system, powered with an hydraulic mechanism or electricity. The stone base comes from the Macon region, the pierre maconnaise being a recognized stone quality. Its weight was estimated by the guy who transported it here at around 6,5 metric tons, its transportation from the quarry near Macon to the village of Odenas must have been an expedition, back in the late 19th century.

Tasting the press juice While we were chatting there was this gentle noise of the juice falling into the large wooden bucket under the press, this is really a beautiful ageless scene of winemaking, and we paused at one point to taste the juice, a pure delicacy as you can guess, and for me something mysterious to decipher, i know vintners can already feel things and characters of their future wines through this sugary press juice and this seems so alien to me as I just feel a lovely velvety grape juice. This future wine will be a cuvée of Beaujolais Villages that will be bottled next spring (2015), this is a spring wine.

Jean-Claude says that the grapes were whole and intact when he and his staff put them into the press after 10 days of carbonic maceration, and even if the fermentation stared inside the grape, there is lots of sugar release when you press these grapes. Asked if he can foresee the vintage here, he says that after much worry along the year he sort of relaxes along the successive carbonic macerations that have been made these last days and the presses begin. The juices are upright, there's still room for doubt and caution but this start seems on the right track. They'll see later how the end of the fermentations unfold but this early stage is already quite good.

I point to the juice (I mistakenly said wine) falling noisingly into the bucket, something that has the potential to frighten many conventional winemakers and enologists because it raises the specter of oxydation, I wanted to know if it's important that the wine be exposed (and accustomed) to oxygen from the start. Jean-Claude Lapalu says that he doesn't know if it's important, he learned this while doing it, and that's when he brings the subject and amphorae which he has been using for certain cuvées for a few years now : he learnt a lot on this issue through the vinification in amphorae. He says that we're taught that oxygen is the enemy of wine and with the amphorae you have an enormous amount of oxygen that comes into contact with the wine, and in spite of that along the 6 years he used this type of vessels he never added SO2 on these cuvées and these wines never suffered from oxidation...

Amphora filled with grapes On the other hand, continuing on this breathing /contact-with-oxygen issue he says that it is very difficult to make a sulfur-free wine that is sound when it has been made in a container that doesn't breath, that has no porosity, a stainless-steel vat for example. He says he speaks by experience because he tried to do it and the results are not satisfying : after bottling these wines seems fine, full of freshness and fruit, but later the wines have lots of reduction, and he thinks that this comes from the lack of contact with oxygen. This said, although his wines are now being accustomed to oxygen, he may add SO2 on certain of them, but it's at a dosage of 10 or 15 mg.
Jean-Claude Lapalu says that while he was alone for years in this corner of Beaujolais exploring this uncorrective winemaking, there are now a few young vintners who follow this path, 4 maybe, like Remi Dufaitre, or France Gonzalvez who made her first cuvées here at his facility.
Asked where he sold his wines when he was still vinifying conventionally, he says that he didn't sell much wine at that time (in 1996-1997), his volume of wine was modest (he still sold grapes) and part of the wine was ssold in bulk to the négoce. Later when he changed his winemaking practices for the better, he sold wine to the caviste in Grenoble which was his first big buyer, then his agent in Vaison began to sell his wines up north in Paris in good venues, which made him better known by the consumers there. The main room of the facility This chai and facility looks brand new but it's now 8 years that it has been built, before he used the sharecropping farm behind this building (this was the 2nd rented farm that he took over around 1995) where he made wine for 10 years. When this farm was put up for sale he couldn't afford to buy it even though he liked the buildings, so he just bought several parcels and had his facility built nearby.
Asked if the fermentations went sluggish at the beginning inthis new building as it was devoid of the yeast ambiance of an old chai, he says no, the fermentations started well in thefirst year, but he add that with hindsight 2007 isdn't the vintage he prefers in his own wines, but his fellow vignerons feel the same for their own wines regarding the vintage 2007. Actually the first fermenter he filled was indeed sluggish in 2007, but that's probably because a severe storm before the picking of this parcel had washed all the natural yeast from the grapes'skin, and he used the juice from the 2nd fermenter (which started well) to seed it.

Speaking of the vineyard surface from his start in 1996 and now, he says that it has been up and down, with a maximum reached at the end of the 1990s'when he had his rented vineyards (sharecropping or métayage in French) contracted to the coopérative, plus this another rental surface with a facility that he had just taken over, plus some family vineyards on the side. This was a lot of surface to work on and in the mid 2000s' he let down the coop surface and 2 years ago he let down other parcels because this was still too much to manage. Over these years he not only abandoned the conventional winemaking and farming but he also adapted his working surface to a suitable size for this type of artisan work. He joined a certification for his organic farming after having got rid of the contracted vineyards tied to the coop, as these parcels were still sprayed conventionally (the coop didn't make any difference if it had been organic for its purchase price for the grapes).

The amphorae Jean-Claude Lapalu began to work with amphorae in 2009 after a friend of his at the Domaine Viret called him one day in summer to tell him they were going to vinify wine in an amphora. His first reaction was to brush off this idea, saying he wouldn't follow on that path. Jean-claude befriended the people at domaine Viret since he met them through his first agent (from Vaison), and he has a small circle of friends since that time, people like Belluart in the Savoie, Canarelli in Corsica, Stan Wallut in Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Mathieu Barret in Cornas and they exchanged a lot about their experiences. He doesn't remember how exactly Domaine Viret decided to explore the amphora thing, it may be when he went to Sicilia and other places, but it started when the father drew a plan for an amphora, he says that in this family everything is done according to the golden rule, a design process where you respect certain proportions and which they apply in the architecture of the facilit for a firsty, the vats and so on. They made a deal with a potter near their place (in Seguret) for a first amphora and Jean-Claude (reluctantly at first from what I understand) decided to also order an amphora and try the vinification. If he had only contemplated the resulting wine 3 months later he would have certainly given up this experience but he discovered that even though these wines are atypical on a classical tasting analysis, these wines happen to refine a lot through time, plus he learnt a lot about the role of oxygen through this vinification. In the end, he was happy to create other wines in his domaines, wines that were different from his other cuvées. These amphora wines are very straight, austere at the beginning but with time they get more refined and at the same time escape from the typical Beaujolais expression.

The process is utterly simple : the grapes in the amphorae are destemmed and they are left by themselves without any action. The Gamay grapes shown here in the video were put in there 4 days before without of course any SO2 or any lab yeast, and from his experience there are never any fermenting problems, it unfolds to the end without stalling. Part of the grapes here will go through two months of maceration, they'll press the grapes and put the juice into vats, and for another part they'll wait spring to do the pressing, the two part being blended later. He decides the timing for the pressing with his smelling the mass of grapes and his instinct. you don't taste here, he says, you smell, he thinks that the nose is more useful than the mouth to make wine, and when a problem occurs in a vat you feel it earlier with the smell than with the taste. Of course he checks the tasting too but the smell comes first. Speaking of the cap, he says that it falls a bit in the amphora after some time but it depends of the year, in some vintages it stays put without going down and in the amphorae see the same phenomenon together, be it ther going down or the status quo of the cap, it's very mysterious, he thinks it has to do with the vintage and grape quality.
The video on the left is not perfect but I still publish it as is (the memory card was full at one point and some of Jean-Claude's commentary misses, but I translated the whole of the conversation).

Vat side room Anyway after some time the grapes at the top lay exposed to the air without the protection of CO2 as the fermentation gets completed and he still never experienced any oxidation in these amphorae, and that's a mystery. When for example they opened the amphorae of the 2nd part last june to do the pressing, he used a small pipe to fill a carafe of the upper layer of the amphorae and it tasted like pure grape juice, and they drank it with a sandwich as they were processing to the pressing, it was delicious and unharmed in terms of oxidation. You couldn't do that with a stainless-steel vat, he says, only amphorae can yield this. Since he began to make these wines with amphorae he never added SO2 and never even felt the need to add any, the wines in there are naturally sound in spite of all the oxygen they've been exposed to (no ther wine gets as much oxygen, he adds).

Asked about the difference it makes that the amphorae are not interred like they would be in Georgia (you have more temperature inertian under the ground), he says that temperature swings are not a problem, and in summer there is air conditioning in the facility to prevent the spikes of temperature. Historically, he says, the vessels were interred because around the Mediterranean for example the weather was quite hot and it was a way to regulate the temperature but nowadays and under our latitudes the issue is less a problem.

To empty these amphorae, they use buckets and do it by hand, they can almost reach the bottom with the buckets and at the end they use the forklift and tilt the amphora to bring the last grapes/wine out. He uses a small vertical press for these grapes, it makes conveniently exactly the volume of an amphora. Watch this video (better than mine), you can see (starting at min 1:20) the emptying of an amphora and the pressing in the small vertical press. THe juice is recovered in buckets, gorgeous milky color...

A long work day over Their day had certainly be long, on harvest days you don't count your hours (they maybe awake at night to do things or check things), and they all sat around a table in the chai, the staff, Jean-Claude Lapalu, Remi Dufaitre who dropped there and the staff, plus me, and Jean-Claude opened a bottle for all us wine amateurs to taste and enjoy.

The first bottle was acuvée named Marguerite, cuvée MMXIII, from a domaine de l'Ecu formerly known as Guy Bossard's (I understand he sold it), a biodynamic table wine (Ecocert). This is a vivid wine making only 11 % in alcohol with aromas of white flowers and honey, I would say. The label tells that the 22 hectares of the domaine are certified organic, that this natural wine is unfined, unfiltered and without added sulfites, total 1600 bottles for this cuvée. Here is a better picture of the label, the back label and the wine appearance through the bottle glass. Nice refreshing wine with arichness that fills the mouth, also an energy which I credit to the biodynamic farming, I often felt more energy in wines farmed this way, it's mysterious. I understand that this wine is made with Gros PLant, a varietal considered as minor and that you find in the Nantes region (in France it's usually a very acidic wine that often finds its redemption with being drunk as a kir, with blackcurrant liqueur. Jean-Claude says that according to Frédéric Niger Van Herck who runs the domaine along with Guy Bossard, GRos PLant is a very difficult varietal, either it's not ripe or it's rotten. Jean-Claude Lapalu says that one of the wines that impressed him the most lately came from the Domaine de L'Ecu, this was Orthogneiss 2012 (a white), with an exceptional minerality, power and fluidity at the same time, and he adds that it's rare that white wines make him rock, he is more oriented on reds usually.

Eau Forte (Lapalu) Asked about the pickers, Jean-Claude Lapalu says that they were 14 this year, some coming from abroad (Slovenia, Bulgaria, Spain, Italy...). He accommodates them in a farm where he lived when he was a kid, the farm where his own father settled (also as a sharecropper in 1940. This farm was one of his former rentals but he still uses the building for harvest, courtesy of the farmer who rents it today. During the harvest he stays in the vineyard with the pickers the first week usually and when he feels that the pickers handle well the tasks, he rotates to the chai.

THen Jean-Claude opened a bottle of Eau Forte 2013, a table wine (Vin de france). He says it is made from vines that have generous volumes of grapes (like 40-45 ho/ha), not low yields, in order to have very little extraction and keep the fluid side and the freshness. The color is relatively light, looks a bit turbid (it's unfiltered). These vines (which are 50) are grafted on a type of rootstock which has not the best reputation, SO4, but he says that when planted on sandy soils that are plowed and tended correctly it gives good results and well under the 120 ho/ha it was designed for.
Little extraction maybe, but nice full mouth, gets down easily, a very suave wine. No sulfites added at any time here too. He made 3500 bottles of this, and it was bottled early april after a short élevage in casks bought from Fred Cossard. He says he knows Cossard for a very long time actually, he also met him through his agent who helped make him discover other vintners. Sells for 17 € tax included (10 € wo tax). Asked where you can find this wine in Paris, he says Septime, and also La Buvette for example, also at the caviste Mi Figue Mi Raisin.

Holy Grail

Jean-Claude Lapalu exports 50 % of his wines in a string of countries, he likes to say with a grin that he had to sell wine in Paris first to then sell to New York and Tokyo, and he had to sell in New York and Tokyo to sell his wine in Lyon (which is 40 km from here...). His wines are sold in Japan (Enoconexion), in the United States (Vinergy, formerly it was Jeff Welburn), Australia (Tim Scott), the Philippines, Sweden , Norway, Holland, Belgium (Vinikus and Laurent Melotte), the United Kingdom (Caves de Pyrène).

Jean-Claude Lapalu Le Petit Vernay Saint-Etienne-la-Varenne 69460 phone + 33 4 74 03 50 57 fax + 33 4 74 03 49 53

Comments

[István]

Very exciting writing, thank you! In that part where you describe the process you mention that one part of the grape goes through two month maceration and the other part is at rest till the next June. Does he do the maceration in amphoras as well? Did he mention that why he makes theese two styles and makes blend? Thank you very much!

[Bert]

Yes, István, it's also in amphora but just for a longer time, I don't know exactly why but I guess he made trials the years before and saw that the two different styles of the respecting wines could be blended in certain proportions to obtain the expressions he thought best.

[Olcay]

Hi , very special wine, thank you for writing. ı ve a question. is there any protection glaze inside of the amphora for wine .

[Giorgi Tsakadze]

My greetings to you from Georgia!
I want to offer you
I am representative of “KVEVRI” LLC, it one of the producing LLC in Georgia, which makes the Kvevri (container clay for wine) of different sizes from clay: we make the pitchers -2000 Litresizes and 500 Litresizes, I direct your attention for such capacity (size) pitchers because why I can place -18 piece of 2000 Litresizes pitchers and 15 piece of 500 Litresizes pitchers at the one truck, Every year I send truck with pitchers in Europe.
I want inform you that in general the pitchers of all sizes are handmade and the best specialists of our LLC are working at them.
I always wanted make mutual relation to your country and I decided to make partnership helping you, if you are interested in myproduction I can take an order of the pitchers and other clay production from you, I think our production will be interesting especially for suchcountries where the grapes are growing and have good harvest of plural grapes and where are located wine companies
Maybe you want to know: I can made 2 or 3 truck of pitchers during the season, of course I can expansion the production and make more production, if you would be order more pitchers to our LLC
Also I want inform you, that working at the pitchers begins from the beginning of the year and it ends in month –July of the same year; we always make our production in time.
https://www.facebook.com/kvevri
(+995) 595 55 59 50
E-mail: [email protected]

[Vinous]

Hello - just to let you know the Australian distributor is Vinous Solutions: www.vinous.com.au
Great article!