Montlouis-sur-Loire, Loire
You may remember my story/profile on Frantz Saumon, the Montlouis producer, this was here a few months ago in this very house and as planned, Frantz moved since most of his winery elsewhere near his wife's own and Vincent Bergeron moved in. This was a beautiful ride from the Cher valley to Montlouis on another sunny day, this time I didn't come across the wild goat that wanders around wherever it wants in and out of the property, but before I left I could spot it briefly in the distance, a goat with a character of its own, indeed...
You already know the place (hasn't changed since Frantz Saumon left), it's so quiet at the end of this dirt road in Husseau, the lower part of Montlouis close to the mighty Loire, and the cellar/chai sits conveniently on the back of the house under the hill. Living right next the workplace has certainly its drawbacks like when you tend to be there even in the middle of private time but with this environment the advantages stand out, especially when you raise kids.
Vincent started his wine life almost by accident, he was a university student in Tours then and he was offered by friends to take part with them to the vendanges for the harvest 2010 in the Quincy-Reuilly wine region (further east in the Loire region), this was with the Berrycuriens, a non-profit group of 40 wine lovers that manages some vineyards and make some wine from them. This was in september, he had time and said yes; he used to drink wine at the time but wasn't very educated in the taste of wine although his great grandfather was a vigneron. So his first picking was his first real experience on a winery, this was in Quincy where tyhe Berricuriens tend their 2 or 3 hectares and have them picked every year in a festive ambiance. This was a relatively early harvest on Pinot Noir and when it was over they looked around for another picking opportunity instead of returning right away in town and they found a place in Vouvray where pickers were wanted, this was a conventional domaine where they had to take down by hand the rotten grapes so that the combine could harvest properly thereafter; this was less festive but they kept doing what they did at the Berrycuriens, doing a pause at 10 am with a glass of wine with a bottle they brought along. At the end of the 2 weeks the owners told them they liked their passionate approach with both their aptitude to enjoy a few glasses in the middle of the workday and their seriousness in the picking, adding that nowadays they either rely on locals who are'nt always reliable and quit halfway, or on groups of foreigners with whom the exchanges are limited. These experienced made their way into him in the following months and as his studies didn't motivate him particularly he decided to try this wine job as the first contact had been very aspiring.
So he decided to go work in the vineyard somewhere to see if he felt capable of doing the job and he got hired in 2012 for 6 months by Alain Barras of Domaine de la Doltière near Saint-Aignan-sur-Cher who trusted him in spite of the fact he had everything to learn. He worked from the end of the pruning to the tying and foliage/budding management, it was tough for him, he lived in a small house during the time of this job and it was physically difficult, which made him wonder if he was really able to start a new life in this field. So he went back to the city and the university and soon after he received a mail from the unemployment bureau informing him that Un Saumon dans la Loire cherce des vendangeurs, he didn't know Frantz Saumon's domaine then and wondered what was this "Salmon in the Loire looking for pickers", thinking it was a joke. He called the phone number on the email, got Frantz on the other side who said yes, he was looking for vendangeurs, and here we go, he made the harvest with Frantz in 2012. this wasn't easy, the weather wasn't always good but he was imptressed by Frantz performance who handled the whole thing with its challenges without being tough on the pickers, and all the while sharing the lunch and the Berlot at the end of the harvest. This made him appreciate again how this job could be special and heartening, gaving him confidence again on the possibility to work in winemaking.
Speaking of the tractor above it's collectively owned by Julien Prevel, Ludovic Chanson, Frantz Saumon and Hervé Grenier, this type of narrow tractor is useful, it complements the straddle tractor, it's here because he'll mow the grass between the rows the following day. Given their respective small surfaces it's convenient to share such tools. For the tractor they just adapted a custom-made exhaust pipe because you got the fumes in your face.
From this 2nd experience he decided to invest himself more in this field, he enrolled at the wine school in Amboise, went to learn the pruning during the winter 2012-13 at Bernard Fouquet in Vouvray, then at Jacky Blot's Domaine de la Taille aux Loups, also with Jean-Daniel Kloecklé (les Loges de la Folie). after the pruning season he did some debudding with Frantz Saumon, with Ludovic Chanson and a couple of other places and he began to feel he wanted to live this life, not necessarily own vineyards and become a vigneron but at least do the job. He graduated from the wine school in 2013-2014 all the while being a trainee at Frantz Saumon. Soon after this training time, as the nearby artisan domaine Les Loges de la Folie changed hands he got to work there with Hervé Grenier during 2 or 3 vintages where he kept learning the trade. Lastly in 2016 in the summer Frantz offered to help him start his own domaine, he hired him part time as a worker and on the side he began to find parcels of his own to vinify, beginning with a small parcel of Pinot Noir (26 ares) given to him by Frantz which allowed him to try his hand in 2017, also a small parcel of Chenin (35 ares) from Damien Moyer which he vinified with Julien Prevel. Of course Frantz lets him use the cellar here (he kept part of it for his estate wines, the négoce will be near his wine's place) and he could move in here with his family (they had a son when he finished the wine school). Of course 2017 was tough because of the frost but he hadn't bank mortgages happily. And he is also already working on a 60-are parcel of Chenin (50-year-old vines) which he'll formally buy from Bertrand Jousset, plus another 60-year-old 40 ares elsewhere, planted on a different terroir which is great. In addition Frantz sells him a bare plot where he'll replant vines in 2019, it's a 2,5-hectare surface and with all of this combined he'll have a comfortable surface to work on.
The Chenin he was to vinify with Julien was 100 % frozen, it partly grew new buds they barely could make a barrel worth of wine, just enough to drink with friends, more a vin de copains than a vin de vigneron like he says... This year should be better, and as an experiment he made wine in 2013, 2014 and 2014 on very small volumes. So for 2017 he made 3,5 hectoliters of natural sparkling rosé with his Pinot Noir, this is his first official cuvée with 450 bottles and everything is shipped to Japan (Diony), he just keeps a few bottles so that both his pickers can enjoy it and for the professionnals who might like to taste it.
Speaking of the tools he'll buy vats and barrels depending of his needs, he'll wait to see the volume of grapes.
Vincent disgorged this Chenin natural sparkling outside the cellar, it's a try they made with Julien and Ismael, it's not a commercial cuvée, they have 40 bottles each left. He says people think a pet'nat is easy to make but that's so easy actually, in particular get the right type of pressure in the bottle, have a certain tartaric stability. This wine has a nice lemon color, in the mouth the bubble feel is present, we agree the bubbles could be thinner. Good mouth in the mouth with an enjoyable richness (fruit or light sweetness). Of course it's totally without SO2. Wghat is weird is that the grapes here come from a parcel that had frozen 100 %, the vines later grew second-generation buds and grapes which ended riping thanks to a nice summer.
Asked about his learning of the vinification with the challenging part of vinifying natural, Vincent says that depending with who you train you get easily anxious or keep relaxed, like Hervé Grenier was more of the anxious type and Frantz Saumon more relaxed. He says he understood that anxiousness may push you to do things on your wine that turn to be worse than leaving the wine on its own. On the other side with Frantz Saumon, he remembers being with him in 2013 dealing with a vat that tasted very bad, the wine almost being considered lost (that was what Vincent thought), but Frantz told him not to worry, it would recover, and 6 months later against all odds it was back on its feet. He says it's certainly the experience, Frantz was probably worried also for some of his first cuvée but he became more confident in the wine's capacity to handle different issues. That's why it's important to be supported by experienced fellow natural-winemaker when you start because they help you not make wrong decisions by fear. Frantz Saumon himself was helped by people like Alex Mathur and Stéphane Cossais (one of the pioneers in the area, who died unexpectedy in 2009).
Vincent would have liked to make a still red with this Pinot Noir in 2017 but the fros and very small volumes made him opt for a pet'nat. He loves Pinot Noir wines, the ones of Alsace, of Cheverny and some of Burgundy, so he was impatient to make some here but it will be for later, certainly 2018. He says that in 2014/2015 they made terrific pinot noirs at Hervé grenier's Vallée Moray, like the cuvée Figurine, it's made with small yields and sells for about 15 €. Because of the small volumes of Pinot he got in 2017 he couldn't make a red, he says that when you vinify a red there's a stage where you are in both a liquid and solid phase and it's a very tricky stage for the wine, and the less volume you have, the smaller the inertia which jeopardizes the wine's capacity to handle whatever happens, acetic bite or oxidation push, you need a mass effect for that. In 2018 if the volume get back, he'll make a red. Until now he's been making wines (even if many were just trial cuvées) without adding SO2 but he leaves open the option to add some if he feels necessary, in case of trouble, but he trained with people who resist the temptation to use SO2 as a methodical security precaution.
Poured in our glasses (pic on left) : Redish color, onion peel, nose with peony, rose petals, and Vincent says they small these aromas also on the Vallée Moray pinot noirs, with this nice grandma rose essence. In the mouth it's very vinous, with bubbles that are more discreet and a lovely light sweetness. They'll love it in Japan, I'm sure, it's a terrific wine to drink in the shade. Ideally he'd have liked to make it dryer, he was supposed to make a 4-bar sparkling with 4 grams of residual sugar but it turned out to be more with 8 or 10 grams.
We drove to a parcel named Les Landes, a parcel he buys from Frantz Saumon along the fallow plot on the side which he'll replant later (2019) with Chenin, using wood he already selected from the old vines of Bertrand Jousset; the wood is being grafted at the Pépinières Mary in Thésée, a nursery that works with many artisan vignerons around. For this investment (nursery work, planting of 6000 vines), instead of asking the bank he'll use some sort of crowdfunding scheme, aking friends and family for a participation, and for each 15 € given he'll keep them a bottle of the future wine 3 years later, this is a way for the crowdfunfders to get a return and for him not to depend on the the banks. What he likes here around is that there's no polluting plot around (all organic) and the location is not prone to frost, it'll be like an insurance on cold-wave years. They'll have the grafts prepared by Bérillon, a good nursery in the south of France.
For this Pinot Noir replanting he used a tractor with Frantz Saumon last year, the machine (it's done by a service company trained for that) digs a hole, inserts the baby vine and flushes a liter of water. He chose massal-selection wood from Alsace (he loves Alsace Pinots), and it worked pretty well as on the 700 vines all survived the challenging 1st year, they were helped also by a good rainfall that came 3 days after the planting. These days he is planting the posts when he has time, usually on evenings. He got the vines at the Pépinières Hebinger, a nursery in Alsace, these are massal selections from Alsace with small berries and he used 3 different rootstocks that are adapted to the soil in Montlouis. He'll analyze how this works depending of the rootstock and he may use the results for his future plantings. Why he goes so far away for the nurseries, it's because he and fellow artisan growers look for nurseries that make a good work in particular with old sub-varieties and accept to handle private batches with wood provided by the customer (many nurseries don't like that and prefer sell their standard graftings).
On the picture above you can see on the adjacent parcel the one with older Pinot Noir (40 years), this is the one with which Frantz made his cuvée Moskova in 2014 & 2015. Vincent took it over as well and he did some complating here on the empty spots with the help of his father last year. This year the vines grew lots of bunches (pic on right) as a revenge after last year's meager volume and they have to rein in the volume especially that with the organic farming they have few tools to prevent the botrytis if humid weather comes around september, all they can do is take the foliage down and debud. Vincent says he hired Jean-François, a guy who works with his draft horse to do some plowing job here this winter.
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