Pouillé sur Cher, Touraine (Loire)
It'd been quite a while I hadn't visited Noëlla Morantin and I called her to see what she was doing these days, the area, like much of France that weekend was basking in the sun, nature was bursting with energy and fruit trees were blossoming. She had finished pruning and was tying the canes, and easier but also essential part of the vineyard work, so I decided to drop there and pay a visit.
Noëlla has somehow restructured her domaine since Clos Roche Blanche stopped its activity and sold the rest of its vineyard surface to Laurent Saillard & Julien Pineau. She downsized from 11,5 hectares (in 2015, half of it being fermage or rented land) to 6 hectares, reaching a surface that is more manageable, considering the manpower needed for an artisan organic farming. Still, this makes a good surface and she has a full-time worker to help her.
Here we're on the parcel named "Chez Charles", just above the village of Pouillé on the plateau overlooking the Cher river. Chez Charles is usually the last terroir they prune because it's a location prone to frost, so they tend prune it late, like beginning april in order to have the buds go out as late as possible and thus escape the frost damage. This year was tricky because warm weather came early and they're a bit late here, they've yet a few rows to prune, it'll be done in a matter of days.
At the end of a row there's a wheeled burner they use to burn the canes when they prune, it gives also a welcome heat to the vineyard worker, as pruning time is either winter or the coolest part of spring. It's usually custom-made, using a metal tank.
Here they just passed with a tractor pulling blades so as to slice the middle of the row and cut the weeds roots; later they should do a décavaillonnage as well in order to clear the grass from under the rows.
Here on the parcel "Les Bois Lucas" (formerly owned by Junko Arai of Les Bois Lucas) you can see how a cane is properly tied to the wire, ready to grow further with buds, leaves and fruit. When you do that you have to be careful not to break the cane as it
can become stiff at this season. It may break superficially on the surface of the wood but it will recover fine. Notice the buds and leaves that are here already well underway with the warm days we've been through.
Here you can see what a décavaillonnage looks like, with a narrow plow that goes under the wires to take the grass away under the vines. In a second step the middle of the row is plowed also with the moved earth put back evenly, durably (hopefully) keeping the weeds under control for the rest of the season. When Noella got this parcel a few years ago (see story here) there were high trees along one side that were pumping too much water and soil nutrients from the border rows that were thus suffering, but the owner of this wood took down the trees on the strip along the parcel, bringing relief and light to the embattled rows.
Noella also planted fruit trees at the end, ideally for resting under the shadow and occasionally eating cherries when the season comes (but with the road nearby they're often picked by outsiders...).
Lastly we drove to Les Pichiaux, the parcel of Sauvignon also pictured on top, where Noëlla and her friend Philippe were to do some cane tying. They're aldo doing some plowing work these days in order to keep the grass in check and will come back to finish it soon. The parcel which is 13 years old was planted (in 2003) by Clos Roche Blanche, it is wonderfully located,
it's completely surrounded by woods with on the side what looks like a miniature valley covered by trees, a combe going down from the plateau to the Cher valley, like a natural open-air duct for rain water. The first houses of the village of Pouillé are very close on the low end of the slope.
This parcel is of course even more exposed to wild animals with all these woods around and before picking they're doing indeed a lot of damage, the parcel having no electrical fence. There are ways to get a compensation from the local hunting groups but it's a lot of paperwork.
Asked how many eyes or buds she leaves on a cane when she prunes, Noëlla says that she targets 8 to 10, leaving some more than what she needs because some may fall down after being brushed accidentally and the frost risk hasn't passed. It's easier to wind down the number of buds afterwards than the other way around.
Noëlla had to top up her barrels and in the way we also tasted a few of the barrels of Sauvignon in the half-interred cellar she rents in the village of Pouillé. Since a few years she's been looking for a facility,
complete with chai and cellar and it's now on its way, should be done in a few months she's having some construction work on her future facility, but she'll certainly keep renting this cellar nonetheless. She now lives in downtown Saint-Aignan, a lovely small town 10 kilometers east of Pouillé on the same bank of the Cher river.
This long cellar tunnel is indeed well suited for the élevage, it's in the basement of a large village house where an elderly lady lives, and it was certainly in the past the cellar of the farmers/owners when everyone made wine on the side, for family consuption as well as for local sale, there's even on the front just after going through the door what we could call a small chai where the basket press would stand. Very often a century ago, the farmers didn't own their own press, it was a tool rented on demand (which makes sense, they'd need it only a few days par year), moved on wheels from chai to chai along the village's main street.
Using this tank to take wine from, Noëlla complements the barrels with sauvignon when needed. This cellar is not particularly dry but you still have some evaporation of the wine through the barrels and now and then you have to top them up. Here
Noëlla pumps the floating lid tight with the air pump so that no oxygen comes in contact with the surface of the reserve wine. You can see the inner tube inside the tank, just above the wine.
Last time she topped up these casks was 2 weeks before, and from what she has to complement, not much wine is missing, she could have waited one more week, I think in the warmer season the shorter the better. We're certainly contributing more to this "angel-share" evaporation by tasting the wines from the barrels, especially when we swallow and don't pour back the glasses in the barrels (I usually try to give some back but I'm among the wine amateurs who consider you can't really gauge a wine if you don't swallow it...).
Here on the right you can see Noëlle pouring the sauvignon into a barrel from a jug, using a flashlight for better precision.
__ Chez Charles 2016, from a cask, a 400-liter demi-muid if I'm right. Most of these vessels are a few wines old. Sauvignon of course, from the parcel just above this cellar. Should be bottled at the end of the year, not decided yet. Tastes very well already, Noëlla agrees it could be bottled like that. Asked if
this wine got SO2 already, Noëlla says that she had to because she transported these casks from la
Tesnière to here, there must be something like 0,5 mg/liter. Philippes likes it too, says there's more tension in the wine compared to last year.
We tasted from another barrel, the wine having more energy.
__ LBL (Les Bois Lucas) 2016. Very nice wine, looks to me like being riper but Noëlla says no, it's the terroir difference, LBL being on strong clay while Chez Charles is more like silt (deposits from the river bed along the ages), and this all translate into different wines, otherwise this LBL was picked earlier than Chez Charles that particular year.
We taste another LBL cask, also different from the first one, more tension. Noëlla says that she just bottled the 2015 [from that terroir I presume].
Next, we drove to La Tesnière where Noella still has some wine, and we first tasted a pet'nat :
__ Marie Rode 2016, a rosé sparkling made from Cabernet Sauvignon which was to be disgorged in a few days. The vines are on the lower part of Les Pichiaux, the parcel where
Noëlla & Philippe did some
tying work on. Very enjoyable sparkling with thin bubbles, the texture of which is very discreet on the palate, lovely.
Cabernet Sauvignon doesn't ripe as well on these latitude as it would in a southern region, that's why it's fit for a rosé, or a sparkling rosé in the matter. Usually the cuvée Marie Rose is a still wine but this year she opted for a pet'nat. She doesn't participate to Bulles au Centre, the natural sparkling wine fair in Montrichard (which takes place a few kilometers west from here and is as far as I know the only natural-sparkling wine fair) because she has very few bottles to sell overall, only 1300 bottles this year, it's anecdotal and virtually already sold, from what I understand.
The last time she made a pet'nat was in 2011. I also remember making a story of her disgorgement session under the guidance of an indisputable expert in the field, Pascal Potaire, this was the year before, in 2010 and that was an experience, so many bottled efficiently disgorged, completed with the same wine, and corked, all of it by hand...
At this point visitors joined us during this cellar tasting, this was Nicolas Nezan and his family (wife & 4 children), Nicolas is opening very soon near Marne la Vallée (near Disneyland Paris) the only natural-wine shop and bistrot-food venue in the area. Nicolas was a taxi driver in his former life and already then he was in love with these wines, knowing all the right places in Paris, he even used to go to the Cave Augé tastings on saturday around 2pm when he had few clients...
That's an oddity that this département (the 77) east of Paris has no venue for natural wine in spite of a wealthy population (usually Parisians who moved out for a gentler way of life & better schools) and lots of national/foreign visitors commuting for several-day stays in or near Disneyland. Some of these visitors have very little time and the wine wise will be happy to know that there's a place near there will all the great natural wines also found in downtown Paris. Nicolas says that the closest natural-wine shop from his base in Marne la Vallée is L'Amitié Rit [or "Friendship smiles which sounds like "L'Ami__friend__ Thierry"] in Montreuil (a suburb bordering Paris). Nicolas' wine shop/bistrot name will be Raisins d'Être, it will open this year early june (2017) at 4 Boulevard des Sports in Bailly-Romainvilliers 6 kilometers from Disneyland Paris.
__ Terre Blanche 2015, which Noella bottled last november (2016). Chardonnay, élevage in neutral fiber-glass vats. No notes but from I remember very enjoyable wine.
__ Chez Charles 2015, Sauvignon.
__ Les Bois Lucas vieilles vignes 2015, a Sauvignon bottled 2 weeks before. This wine tastes so good in spite of such a recent bottling, I ask how she bottled it herself with her bottle filler and with a pump, amazing how it recovered.
__ Mon Cher 2015, a red. unfiltered gamay, bottled last year in spring. The 2016 is still in vats.
__ Côt à Côt 2015, made from Côt of course. Very nice, so soft on the tannins although it's vinified whole-clustered, a pleasure.
Comments