Rue Daguerre, Paris
I was stuck in Paris that weekend although i had other plans and I had the chance to make the best of a bad situation by jumping on the opportunity to go taste the wines of Pierre Fenals at the Cave des Papilles and meet him again after so many years. I had met him while visiting Emmanuel Giboulot in 2006 as he was working there at the time, and B. and I were impressed at his command of the vineyard
management side. He was already on the living-vineyard & soils philosophy and thus when I heard
a few years ago that he had his own domaine I was eager to visit him, which didn't happen yet but here he commes to Paris....
I interviewed him shortly before the tasting which was scheduled to start at 4 pm that saturday, he remembered me, he was régisseur at the time at Emmannuel Giboulot, he didn't have "private" parcels of his own then, he was already quite busy with his job with Giboulot's 11 hectares, he had started working with him in 2004, doing both vineyard management and cellar management in 2005 because Giboulot was having missions abroad and when he returned, he left in 2008, went to work with a very big négoce house for 6 months, he can't tell which but says it was very interesting because he had never vinified so much wine, premiers crus, grands crus, and he had free rein to work his way; he'd start in august, direct the harvest teams, rent a warehouse in Nuits-Saint-Georges for the vinification as well as all the tools, he'd overlook the vinification, put the wine in barrels and the wines in the barrels (both 400 and 228 liters) would be shipped to the négoce cellars in the following march, the warehouse being given back to its owner right away. In 2009 he was offered a job by two associates in their 40s' to manage their newly-started domaine (Maison en Belles Lies) working with purchased grapes, some time later they had financial difficulties and Pierre bought the domaine from them. He says with a grin that he was a bit obliged to follow suit because he was the one who had signed the contracts with the growers and in Burgundy if you don't honor your signature you're finished, so although it was not his initial plan he invested himself in this new venture especially that he knew the domaine already, being already inside.
Pierre Fenals kept the original name of this domaine (Maison En Belles Lies) which he now owns with his wife since 2011. He farms with biodynamie and vinifies completely narually, only indigenous yeast, no sulfites no filtration. Of course he had to work a lot on the sales side and found export markets quite easily (today he exports 90% of his wine) due to his references as he had worked for Domaine Trapet, Emmanuel Giboulot, Anne Claude Leflaive as well as with Marcel Lapierre & Foillard in Beaujolais, plus his wines were also signed on the labels when he was still only an employee at the domaine. And he says he was lucky, he had people come early taste his wines, he didn't have time to travel around to market his wines (he had a lot of work in the vineyards__and still has) and it started swiftly. Now they have around 3 hectares in ownership and buy grapes from an additional 3,5 hectares. For the contracted grapes he does the plowing, the organic/biodynamic sprayings and the picking (not the pruning and other manual work). This still makes a lot of with with a total of 6,95 hectares (almost 7). He has a yearly production of 40 000 bottles from 12 appellations, small parcels with 35 kilometers for the farthest.
Speaking of the export markets the biggest buyers are the United States (Zev Rovine), Japan (Vintners Inc., subsidiary of Kamei Group), then Asia and lots of other European countries. The Japanse visit every year and this year thz CEO of the Kamei Group came for a visit, they spent the morning together and he tasted everything.
The free tasting at the wineshop is always popular especially given the quality of the guest, and you had to find your way to the central counter for a fill but the efficient stakk makes sure that clean glasses are ready for all the visitors.
Pierre Fenals poured several of his cuvées for the event, but overall he's making 12 every year, from a very small cuvée like his Corton Charlemagne (which he makes since 2011) 2,5 pièces (barrels), Corton Perrières 2,5 pièces, then for the other cuvées between 8 & 10 pièces each. The whites are vinified in 400-liter barrels, the reds in open-top fermenters and regular-size barrels. Pierre Fenals says that he has no order for the tasting and leaves you choose the order yourself which is confusing. I chose the younger white first.
__ Bourgogne Blanc 2016 (Chard), bottled december 2017, no SO2 added anytime (like all of his wines). Malolactic completed, he doesn't do intervention to prevent it. Nice gliding feel alonf the palate, creamy, buttery side but very enjoyable. Was racked very clear he says. He racks the whites during the harvest to make room for the barrels (choosing the appropriate lunar cyclen), the bottling taking place usually in november or december so that the wine settles its lees naturally through the colder temperature.
Pierre Fenals says at one point that he left Paris at the age of 51 abnd started hs own domaine at 61, learning the trade in 10 years by beginning to work as employee and viticulture worker here and there. He was a chemist in his former like which is a good starting point to handle the complex vinification issues but
the experience on the ground mattered most (he still studied oenology afterthen).
Pierre Fenals says also (we'd have guessed it) that he doesn't chaptalize, something which is allowed every year in the limit of the equivalent of 2 % alcohol, and he says 95 % of the domaines chaptalize. He says the organic domaines have been asking for years that this chaptalization be authorized only on exceptionnal circumstances but the authorities didn't answer positively to their demand. Because of his non-chaptalization vinifications, some of his cuvées make only 11,5 % in alcohol. Asked about the thermo-vinification he says it's not used anymore but many vignerons in Burgundy heat the juice at the end of the vinification to get extraction and color, they do that when the wine reaches a density of 995-1000, they heat tp 36-38 C (96,8-100,4 F) and leave it cool down by itself.
__ Bourgogne Aligoté 2016, vines are 50 years old, élevage in barrels, bottled december 2017. The vines are located in Saint Aubin, near the winery. Quite demonstrative wine in the mouth, and with something I'd call a vibrant energy that resonates in the palate.
Pierre brought some Maranges, an appellation from the south of Beaune, he has two versions of this terroir,two vinifications/élevages, one that never sees oak but amphora while the other coming from the same parcel goes through the classical Burgundy vinification. But here I'll taste another white first, the Santenay, which he had aerated beforehand in a carafe.
__ Santenay 2009, spent 7 years sur lies in barrel, racked in november 2016 and bottled in march 2017. 2009 was a hot year and the wine lacked
acidity, length and freshness, so he sold part of the batch and kept the rest for a longer élevage to see if with its power (14 %) it could refine in time, it's the
only wine he worked this way. The nose has notes of elderflowers with softened edges, the mouth feels a bit short at first sip, longer in the 2nd. Subtle.
__ Maranges (vinified in amphora) 2016. The color looks evolved and mature, nice legs on the inside of the glass. Delicate mouth with a sweetness side, that's the fruit. He put the whole-clustered grapes in the amphoras, the, they're sealed tight with the air exchange system at the top that prevents the oxidation and they just forget about the thing until the right moon of january, it just ferments by itself without other intervention for several months (3 to 4). It's basically a carbonic maceration, a very long one and in january they take all the grapes out and press with a small basket press, after which they put the juice back in the amphorae where it'll continue its fermentation. Bottled in march 2018. He says that he's new to amphora vinification and he went to see how it worked, travelling to Georgia, Italy, Spain, although tyhe varieties are different and the sun conditions are different too. He says Maranges makes structured wines, the soils is deep marls and this yields bitterness and tannins, which made him thing it would be interesting to eschew the additionnal tannin input of the barrel. I think he was right. It's been 4 years they use amphora for whites and 2 years for a red.
__ Maranges 2016, the other half, vinifies in barrels, the Burgundy way, bottled december 2017. Nose with pepper notes, eucalyptus. A bit young for me, with a more serious structure but not as easy to drink. 2nd mouth gets somehow softer. I still have a real preference for the amphora version of this Maranges.
__ Beaujolais Villages 2016, this is made from a parcel in Quincié (Côte de Brouilly) planted in 1876 with a few replantings of course to replace the dead vines but much of the parcel is more than 100 years old. Plus the parcel is not trellised it's planted en foule, not aligned like it used to be at the time, you can walk
around each vine and to work on the soil you have to till by hand or use a Walk-Behind Roto-Tiller. It's all gamay and massal selection only, he got the parcels for 3 years and replanted the missing spots with massal selections from the same parcels. He bought these two parcels which are 90 kilomùeters from his base in Burgundy. He drives there on weekends to do some work when needed. He recounted how he found these two parcels, this was by pure chance : he was in the Beaujolais with friends on their way to dine somewhere and they stopped in a bar he knew, and at the counter tere was a guy, obviously an old vignerons who was chatting with the bar owner, lamenting he didn't know what to do with these parcels of old vines especially that the pruning season was nearing. That's when the bar owner told Pierre Fenals who could hear the conversation, "why don't you buy Gilles' parcels, Pierre ? and he decided to go see it with Gilles right away, they drank a couple of bottles over there and he got interested by what he saw, in the beginning he just hired the owner to do the work on the parcel (it's all by hand or walk tools) and then later bought the surface. This former owner used a bit of chemicals but not much and he plowed the soil, so these vines were in pretty good condition, it was a good luck to have found them....
The wine (poured from a magnum) : nose is very meaty, exciting. Super nice tension in the mouth with also a sweet side. It was vinified on the Burgundy style, not along a Beaujolais carbo.
__ L'Etrange, Vin de France 2016, a red made from a parcel he bought in 2009 when he started, the parcel was pretty messy, he didn't know exactly what were or was the variety(ies) in there and when the grapes went out they
realized there was all together Gamay, Pinot Noir & big grapes of Chardonnay Muscaté (a few vines here and there). He decided to vinify the whole thing together (too tricky to explain to the pickers to differentiate between the Gamay and the Pinot Noir) in a classical maceration. The parcel that makes 50 ares is located in Meursault and the vines which are 60 + are plowed and farmed on biodynamy. That's because of the unconventional blend that it's labelled as Vin de France (table wine).
Majority of Gamay (he thinks 60 to 65 %), it's a peculiar type of Gamay with tiny berries, the Pinot also has small berries alyjough a bit bigger. They keep vinifying this parcel in one batch as a blend, first because the result is fine and also because that makes conveniently the volume of a fermenter. 30-day carbonic maceration. Although the blend may seem odd this cuvée may well reflect the wines of Burgundy back in the time varieties were complated en foule in the parcels. Of course like the rest, wild yeast, no filmtration and no added SO2 any time. Dust notes on the nose with hints of a beautiful energy like you have in whites, that may be the homeopathic signal of the Chard. Very acidic behind the chalky tannins.
__ Maranges 1er Cru Les Clos Roussots 2016, comme from the same village as the other Maranges, same owner but located on the cadastral Premier Cru on a higher slope. 65 year old vines, all massal selections. Very, very classy mouth, well structured, juicy, feels like liquid food, and to make things even better, easy drinking. I see that he's pouring a few magnum and I ask how many he makes (by the way the Cave des Papilles has an impressive range of natural wines in magnums year around), he says he makes 1000 of them altogether spread of the different cuvées.At one point because he was asked about his farming management, Pierre said he was using 4 types of tools, a draft horse, a straddle tractor, a crawler tractor and even a winch machine to pull a walk plow.
I was probably in the mood for whites that days and I asked for a refill at the end for the Aligoté, a great deal at 19,7 €, this wines feels free and vibrant. The other one I asked again also was the Maranges in Amphora, very lovely, and the empty glass smells so good, that's the ultimate test when your wine is gone, here I delighted in meat juice, prune & blackberries...
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