Monthou-sur-Bièvre, Touraine (Loire)
We're here just a short distance south of Les Montils, where the Puzelats brothers have their facility, a part of Touraine close to the thickly-forested Sologne with few vineyards compared to the past (like 70 years ago), but where talented winemakers are reviving them
for the delight of real-wine lovers. Cédric who has been working for 10 or 12 years for growers, particularly for Christian Venier nearby, has been quietly beginning to tend his 1,5-hectare surface and making wine himself, all the while continuing his day job for this talented grower/winemaker.
I heard about him last year while visiting Jeremy Quastana (by the way another young winemaker/grower with a very small surface) at Les 400 Coups, the natural-wine bar Jeremy also manages in Blois. Starting one's own micro-domaine all the while working for an established domaine is often the option chosen by the young artisan-wine producers, following the path of people like Thierry Allemand who years ago succeeded this way to remain free of mortgages and other productivity requirements by the banks; Thierry Allemand could this way build his domaine step by step while working his way and doing the élevage time he wanted.
I could make this interview with Cédric while he was bringing his draft horse back to work after the winer months of inactivity. A horse is like a man, his muscles and will can get a bit rusty without exercise and the first job on a parcel is always a bit tricky, that's why using a plow horse is so different from a tractor, but also so rewarding, you're dealing with a living being with a mood and physical condition. This takes time, but like Olivier Cousin would say, it's part of the harmonious relation you're having with the vineyard and the farm, and somewhere you find the result in the wine.
Monty is a 9-year-old Percheron, an old breed that originated from the Perche region in western France. Monty was a little bit distracted or interested, I don't know, by this new visitor holding a camera, and it would often stop a while and turn the head toward me, lovely animal.
The parcel Cédric was about to work on this day is located near Monthou-sur-Bièvre, right near the tall water tower, it's a terroir called Brin de Chèvre (means "piece of goat" in French), and you certainly know that terroir because that's the name of a current cuvée of the Puzelats, an Arbois. The parcels of the Puzelats is right next to his, with both old Arbois and newly replanted Arbois. Cédric got his own part of Brin de Chèvre from Christian Venier who let him have it so he could concentrate on the rest of his surface closer to his chai, plus this parcel had lots of missing vines (Cédric with replant in time). The variety on his part is Chenin, he says it has probably been planted in 1983 or 1984 (35 years).
It's pretty impressive how a single horse can slice the earth open and take out these grassy clods like we'd slice salo fat on a cutting board.
Cédric lives in Tour-en-Sologne , a village located near Chambord and the horse belongs to Cyrille Sevin who lives in Mont-près-Chambord, another village. I met & pictured Cyrille during the natural-sparkling fair of Montrichard (scroll down one third, he's the guy with the orange shirt). Cyrille works on 10 or 12 hectares and uses his draft horse for a few parcels. Here as said above Cédric says that the trick is to put the horse back to work, he's to be accustomed again to the speed of the pull, not to fast. A slower pull makes a better job but on this kind of terrain it's more difficult because it has to deliver more power than when he goes faster, and the soil has begun to dry a bit, making a slower pull challenging.
Cédric says that with only 1,5 hectare (1,7 hectare exactly) he should be able to do it all with the horse, considering he'll have to do some finishing by hand. It's the 3rd year he working on this parcel, and with two harvests he's been quietly producing his own wine year after year. His first experience in a domaine was 2003 when he did the harvest at Christian Venier, then he learnt pruning, working here and there for growers, then in 2008 he went to the wine school of Amboise along the Loire river for a 7-month BPA, a degree that gives a good generalist base to start a domaine. He worked then 1,5 year on the Montlouis area for growers and since 2010 he mostly works as seasonal worker at Christian Venier and Cyrille Sevin, with Christian he does both the vineyard and the cellar work.
Cédric is bottling the wine he make from this parcel as Vin de France (table wine) although he could technically bottle it as Touraine but this appellation is too generic, it goes from Tours to Chinon all the way to Valençay and Selles-sur-Cher, he'd like to make some Cheverny and for that he'd have to plant vines anew, because this small AOC is thriving commercially and if a vigneron retires his vineyards don't go for cheap. Now with the new authorizations regarding plantation there's an opportunity to make a demand to the wine authorities and there's a chance he gets the green light.
At one point it was time foe everybody to make a pause and have something to eat, beginning with the horse for which this first day of work at the end of winter is challenging, so Cédric set it free from the leather straps.
Regarding the cellar part and chai, Cédric relies on a friend who lets him work in an outbuilding. Christian Venier gave him an old yellow Vaslin press he didn't use, the friend gave him a few vats and he also bought a couple of others and that's it. Finding second-hand winery tools isn't an issue anyway, you even can have lots of them for free or almost free if you look around. The 1st year he quite a good volume of wine but last year with the frost he only made 5 hectoliters so he didn't need much vatting room.
Monty got a bucket of some of horse delicacy, oats or whatever, after which it had all this fresh grass along the truck. the rope was kind of loose and as we didn't pay attention the horse soon got freed from his ties and Cédric had to look after it, but it was just interested in a patch of fresh green grass at a distance, good boy wasn't really running away.
Speaking of the varieties on his small surface Cédric still has a good range of them : Chenin, a bit of Romorantin, Gamay, Gamay Teinturier, and Pinot Noir, and at the beginning he even had a few rows of Cabernet Sauvignon but he uprooted them because of too many vines missing (he'll replant something else soon).
Cédric had his training at the wine school of Amboise but otherwise he learnt the winemaking trade with all these years he helped Christian Venier in the cellar. I ask how typically he vinfies the reds for example, he says the grapes are picked by hand and vinified whole-clustered, he puts a bit of CO2 to prevent oxidation and then just monitors the vats to see if the fermentation on indigenous yeast unfolds well, waiting that sugar goes down. At one point they decide to devat and press, it's a day-per-day thing, checking and feeling. The Chenin is filtered because it often finds a way to further referment (he thinks that the wild yeast are particularly vibrant in this parcel), but he keeps the red mostly unfiltered. Christian Venier also had this issue of refermentation in the chenin here, so by experience Cédric understands the white has to be filtered.
When Roxane joined us she brought a basket of delicious food for a picnic on the grass (I love this job) and Cédric opened a couple bottles he had kept in the truck. We began appropriately with the cuvée of chenin from this terroir. I asked Cédric about the SO2 for his wines, he says he tries to add as little as possible; for example for his Cabernet La Saulas 2015 he had 3 grams, and that was because there had been a threat of volatile at the end of the fermentation in the vat, so he pressed and added 2 grams, plus later 1 gram at bottling. The Brin de Chèvre had 2 grams, in part because he moved the wine to another cellar and had to cover the transportation risk. The 2016 until now got no SO2 addition because it hasn't been bottled yet. From this surface he made 1,5 hectoliters of chenin only because of the frost, a small volume from the previous year's 11 hectoliters.
__ Brin de Chèvre, Vin de France 2015, a nice, easy and light (11 % alc.) chenin with a very neutral color, almost like water. The parcel has 3 different clones with some yielding acidic wine, but the blend of the 3 is fine but he never gets high alcohol. When I made this visit Cédric had only 10 cases of this wine available. Public price for this wine is 7 € tax included when bought directly to him, good value.
__ La Saulas, Vin de France, Cabernet 2015 (sold out now, you may find some in the cavistes). 13 % alc. Lovely cabernet with an enjoyable fruity chew, goes down easy. These particular haven't been filtered because he bottled them by gravity and by hand with a 6-spout filler. Cédric says that's the right time to drink it, after one year and a half. Was bottled a year ago in april. The parcel is right near this one, on the other side of the grass road, but he uprooted it, this Cabernet Franc didn't ripen every year. Public price is 8 €, good deal, too bad it's sold out.
Asked how he found his customers, Cédric says they are mostly the ones who already bought from Christian Venier; like elsewhere the professional buyers never have enough artisan wine and as soon as a new player joins the fray they buy it all. And here in the matter they kind of already knew the cuvées because the parcels were previously vinified by Christian Venier. Cédric made a couple of wine fairs with Christian as well as Christian's Open Doors weekend and that's where his buyers discovered his wines. His wines can be found at Le Verre Volé, also La Cave des Papilles and Café de la Nouvelle Mairie (quite good spots), in another place also but he didn't remember the name when we spoke about it. His wines are also at Le Tire Bouchon in Rennes, Le Café du Port also in Rennes, and at Aux Crieurs de Vin in Troyes.
Cédric also happens to make honey on the side, he had been working for a beekeper who gave him a beehive, then two and step by step he got others here and there from acquaintances and he now has some 10 of them. He moves the beehives depending of the blossoming, like in august he found someone who grows buckwheat (sarrasin in French) and this way he hasn't to feed the bees, they can go through the winter from what they collect in the buckwheat fields. His beehives are otherwise based in the Sologne, near Romorantin (the major town of this forested area known for its game lands and hunting culture). The only crop you find in the Sologne is the one grown for game and so you haven't sprayings on the rare fields, it's a pretty well-preserved area, good for bees and honey. He sells this honey by word of mouth, acacia, chestnut and forest honey. He says it's a time-consuming activity too, but he loves it.
Bonjour mr Bernard,
récemment j'ai acheté un La Roche 2016 de vous au cave des papilles. Le vin est superbe, la seule chose qui me gène c'est une dose minimale de sulfite. Je suis revendeur de vins nature depuis 10 ans en Belgique et uniquement des vins sans aucun intrant ni ajout de souffe. C'est fait de quel cépage ce vin? Sans souffre il doit etre superbe.
merci Jo
Posted by: Jo Demerie | February 20, 2018 at 01:42 PM