Thouars, southern Loire
This story takes place just outside of Thouars, a small town located some 35 kilometers south of Saumur, and I visited Carole early november after having heard about her through family of mine who live 20 km from there. Carole and her husband are reviving the wine culture of their home town of Thouars. Like for many such towns across France, vineyards in the past were planted all around the city for centuries because basically each place in the country would produce its own wine. These vineyards had all but vanished especially around the
turn from the 19th to the 20th century with the phylloxera and the easier transportation of southern wines. The wine made near Thouars was actually until then quite reknowned among the nobility of the region, and this is a city where the noble family Maison de la Tremoille reigned during 11 centuries on an area covering much of Anjou.
Carole Kohler and her husband Brice live in the hamlet of Fleury on the hill overlooking Thouars, that's precisely where the best terroirs of Thouars were located, and she decided very recently to replant vineyards and revive the wine culture of the small city which hadn't had a winery or a domaine for ages. The work wasn't smooth and easy, as she says in this interview in the regional newspaper, she lost 5 % of the young plantings in 2016 because of the drought and in 2017 70 % of the buds were burnt by the black frost that afflicted many of the wine regions. To this day she has replanted 1,2 hectare and targets in the future 3 to 3,5 hectares.
Brice is an architect and his family has been living in this mansion for generations; like it often happens you can spot the distinctive mark of different centuries on the mansion, the front is obviously mid-19th century, it was an addition to the rest of the building
which dates from the 16th century.
The house inside retains a homey feel, no over remodelling here (they live there with their teenage children), and some of the outbuildings are still mostly untouched, like the horse stable. There's a spring right near the mansion and it never gets dry, in the past the family kept a fish pond with this spring. I love the greenhouse (pic on right), it dates from 1880.
Carole was an engineer in the food industry, working in this field for 15 years before changing path and following a training at the wine school. They were living in Niort when it happened, she had young children to take care of, her job was to oversee the compliance of agri-food products for the big company she was employed in, and she got tired in 2014 of all this computer tasks and pointless paperwork for Brussels (the EU), she saw it as just communication and lobbying under cover of health and ecologal motives (she was dealing with new food products). She had also the desire to produce real things and live with the seasons, in the nature, making things that could be shared and she thought about wine. So she went to Bordeaux for a university degree in oenology, just to see, and she discovered another world and loved it, making training time afterwards in viticulture and distillation.
Then at that time they had the opportunity to settle in this beautiful mansion belonging to Brice's family, the land of which had been planted with vineyards in the past, the last parcel having been uprooted in 1954. Brice's grandparents had pulled up the
vines because they weren't vignerons, even at that time there were state subsidies to pull up the parcels. However the last wines that was made from these vines [through a fermage, I guess] was widely appreciated in the area, it was mostly purchased by the local bars and restaurants, and also used as barter against other goods.
Brice looked into the communal registers for informations related to the location of the terroirs, what varieties were planted and they found both the locations and the type of grapes, these were Breton (Cabernet Franc), Seibel (a hybryd planted after phylloxera) and Chenin. During this research through old papers they found all the déclarations de vendange (an administrative requirement for tax purpose)complete with the surface of the parcels, the yields (surprisingly very low, maybe they'd hide part of the volume to the authorities, she adds with a laugh). Brice also found a Napoleonian maps from around 1820-1830 with all the vineyards of the region, and the slope along the property happened to be the most densily-planted in the Thouars area. This really encouraged them to replant vineyards on the property land.
Then Carole enlisted at the Montreuil-Bellay wine school 18 km from here for a degree named BPREA. She also did training time with Aymeric Hillaire at Domaine Melaric. In the area of Puy-Notre-Dame there
is a vibrant group of vignerons, she says, Aymeric being one of them, and the cellars are beautiful, hinting at a deep-rooted wine culture. Philippe Gourdon of La Tour Grise who was a pioneer in the area for artisan organic viticulture sold his vineyard which helped several young growers follow his path. With Aymeric Hillaire she discovered another tasting culture, she adds that in Bordeaux you learn a very different way to taste wines. Aymeric who is an oenologist is passionate about it.She learnt also a lot in the vineyard there, this was her primary motive because she understood that for making good wine you needed to have good grapes in the first place.
For the tools and tanks they looked around for used ones, which is pretty easy in France, Carole says she likes Agri-Affaires, the website of choice for classified ads of used agricultural equipment, you just type "pressoir" (press) for example and get the ads of dozens of machines, from the old cheap stuff to the almost new. But they found these tanks on the classifieds of Le Vigneron du Val de Loire, a print magazine, they were at a bargain price in Aubigné-sur-Layon, they're 10 years old and were made in the region by Anjou-Inox. They didn't need that many for now (the total volume of these vats is 140 hectoliters) but still took the batch because it was like new and very cheap. Now she looks for a sprayer and a press.
Carole and Brice show me the room (pic on right) next to the vat room, that's how it looked before they made it a vat room, beautiful place indeed, with dirt floor like it used to be.
Carole also knew she have to take care and invest in the vineyard part years before making any wine, and this made the vineyard part of her training very important so as not to make any early mistake. This is indeed a long-term investment because they plant a litle bit more surface every year, then you have to manage the trellising and pruning, she jokes that her children will be the ones
who will reap the profits...
They began to plant in 2016 while she was studying at Montreuil-Bellay, starting the paperwork work in 2015 to get the administrative green light. At the time she bought planting rights for her first parcel (costs a few hundreds euros, now the law has changed, you can plant without having to buy rights).
Here they had to put a road work tape along the vineyard on the river side because roe deers would come and eat some of the young vines, damaging them severely, they were also apparently very keen of the organic compost they'd put at the foot of each vine... The tape fencing isn't enought though, Carole saw 6 or 7 deers inside again and they'll have to put electric fencing.
For the following planting a year later she just had to get a planting authorization, which they give along a complicated quota ratio per region. We have here another bureaucratic nonsense here in France, you have people ready to invest and plant vineyards to make wine and revive a region and guess what the administration does ? Restrain the daring vigneron and give sparingly his planting rights, and this, at their discretion and good will : The first year she got only 50 % of what she asked for in terms of planting surface. The 2nd year, expecting again to get only a small share from the administration, se asked for the maximum surface deemed for replanting on the property, and this time they gave her all, and the problem is she didn't expect to get that much surface to replant so quickly, and the down thing with the French administration is, if you delay the part of replantings beyond 3 years after getting the authorization, you get fined [guess why people revolt in this country...].
Sometimes your project evolves and you'd like to adpat the replantings accordingly, like now she'd like to spread the replanting a bit beyond the 3-year cap in order to do all this smoothly (trellising and the rest) but there's this punishing fine pending if she doesn't comply... So now they've 1,2 hectare planted and next year (2019) they'll replant another hectare, bringing the total surface to 2,2 hectares.
She does much of the work herself, like the pruning and the debudding, and for the plantings this is the nursery people who do the job, even if she's there to help too. She also hired people last year to till by hand around the young vines. Brice says they got an Actisol (some plowing tool) for the soil and weeds management. For the organic spraying they have the job done by someone else and they re part of a CUMA (a system of shared ownership for agricultural tools & machinery) for certain tools. Carole is more comfortable having someone else doing the tractor work for such a small surface.
Carole still sprays herself the biodynamic preps with a back sprayer, she usually does a compost first, followed by a 501. She is part of a biodynamic group based in Somloire 30 km west of here in the direction of Angers, the meet there twice a year, half of them being farmers and the rest vignerons, there are also a few vegetable growers and young people looking to start some farm (here is a leaflet for their activities). This takes place at a farm where they have cows and horns, they do all the preparations including with dry herbs (which everyone picks where he/she can find them) and they use also animals' bladders and intestines like required by the biodynamic method.
They have two horses on the property but it's for ride use (their daughters love them), Carole says that the parcels would fit a draft horse, they've no immediate plans to have one themselves but as a first move they could ask sopme one in the area to make a try for them (Brice says he'l more likely have to wait retirement to get into draft-horse work).
Actually there are two terroirs on the property, one is limestone and the other schist, and these wall tell it all by themselves : The one on the left around the property and gardens is made of limestone while the one on the right bordering the vineyards (including the ones to be replanted) is made of schist, and the builders certainly took the stones from their side of the narrow road. Brice dug along each wall and he confirms that it's limestone soil on one side and schist on the other, the road seems to have been placed at the limit by purpose centuries ago, possibly delimiting different types of crops. It's kind of where the Paris Basin and the Armorican Massif meet, very odd and on this picture you see indeed that the divide line goes roughly in this area. Carole loves schists and she'll replant Chenin there, plus the slope goes down to the Thouet, the river going through the area, and there may be the needed mist and humidity in the late season to make a sweet wine, who knows ?
When they decided to replant they had to deal with the fact that the land around the property was leased long-term, this was a fermage and in France it is very difficult for an owner of agricultural land to take
back control over such fields, because the law protects the renter who basically can keep it for life (he can even transmit the contract to his children). When Carole and Brice decided to start this domaine and recover part of the fermage surface, they went to the farmer with whom they had good relations and explained their project, to which he was sympathetic nut nonetheless refused to givem back the few fields they needed. Then just a few months later he retired and luckily his son who took over the farm was very open on letting them the surface they needed, because these parcels weren't fit for wheat and weren't easily accessible for his tractors. Carole and Brice's project was back on track...
This year they made their first harvest in the parcel of Cabernet Franc that was beginning to get fruit, they picked small volumes, 9 hectoliters which is about half a normal volume for this surface, and this is what you're supposed to do the first vintage to preserve the vines which are still rooting and growing. For that purpose they pruned short and debudded accordingly, especially that in 2018 all the vines tended to produce more fruit after the frost in 2017, she saw three shoots going out every bud as opposed to the usual two.
We walk along the rows on the Cabernet Franc, there are grapillons (miniature bunches) leftovers still hanging, they weren't ripe at picking time but now after several weeks and a fairly sunny late season they're ripe, you could almost do a micro batch of wine from them if you were patient enough to pick them all. This year the mildew pressure was important, the other growers of the region said they had never had such an attack. For mildew they spray sulfur and copper plus herb tea (horsetail, mixed with the Bordeaux mix), here they sprayed 10 times in 2018. The leaves don't look that bad actually for a strong mildew year. The field here before they planted this Cabernet was a prairie for the horses, so the soil is pretty clean and healthy. The soil here has silex, limestone and a pink stone too.
For their Cabernet Franc they'll try two modes of élevage, the wine is presently in this tank but they bought a Nomblot egg-shaped cement tank as well (not delivered yet) because they don't want oak in their wine. Carole says that temperature inertia is very good also in these cement tanks,
and some say there's a natural stirring going on in these tanks because of the shape, the lees brushing up and down along the fabric of the cement. They made 9 hectoliters of Cabernet and 7 hectoliters will have an élevage in the Nomblot, and they'll put the rest in stoneware jars which they found in an outbuilding, it will be a try, they're not sure what was their use in the past, possibly wine. They already filled one of these jars with free run juice, 30 liters pictured here at the botton of the tank). I suggest them to bottle it separately if it tastes terrific (their initial intent is blend all of them at the end).
For the vinification she hasn't used any SO2 but admits she used lab yeast for the first vintage, she felt more secure this way, the chai being new (no yeast ambiance yet), she says al the fellow organic/natural vignerons she knows don't agree, but she feels better not to have used any SO2 and used a bit of yeast than the other way around, she feels SO2 is more harmful for the wine. She will move to indigenous yeast in the future but for the 1st vintage she opted to be secure, especially that around because of the weather the potential alcohol is often 15 or 16 and it's very difficult for the yeast to convert all the sugar.
For the vinification of this Cabernet Franc, they destemmed the grapes, put them in a vat of a good week of maceration, the grape volume was 12 hectoliters and it filled only 1/4 of the tank. The primary fermentation took place swiftly with a few remontages (pumping over) for the 2/3 first days and after that they took out the free-run juice and pressed the grapes. They loved the free-run juice, the press juice was more tannic but after trying miniature blends they decided to blend both, except for one jar which they keep separate to see how it turns. As soon as they get the Nomblot (scheduled for end of november)
they'll put the wine in it, and the rest in the jars. They may end up making two cuvées for this first vintage, one from the cement egg (700 liters), the other from the jars (200 liters), the wine will be ready at the end of 2019, they'll bottle with Braud (the best bottlers in the area). The élevage in the future will take place in this room (pic on the right) which was a former horse stable, the place is incredible, you still can see and touch the cubic wood pavers, obviously designed to make the soil smoother for the horses' hooves.
Carole takes a sample from the jar with the free-run juice, the malolactic isn't completed yet, she says she'll wait it to happen by itself, hopefully by spring. The wine has a nice acidity and tension with supple tannins. Carole says they picked early (22 september) compared to others but with these young vines the maturity was well advanced, the Ebulliometer indicated they were at 13,9 or 14 potential. She says at time she feels more alcohol in the mouth, it depends of the day she tastes, that might be related to the moon cycle.
The wine is quite smooth in the throat for a wine that has yet to do its malolactic, just this acidulous feel. They're happy that the vessel doesn't impair the wine's taste, they wrren't sure because they don't know really what they were used for in the past. The inside is enameled so it was pretty safe.
We then tasted the wine from the big stainless-steel tank, the wine is perly, still in its primary fermentation stage, looks like a different wine. I warmed the glass in my hands, looked colder than the wine from the jar, Carole says that stainless steel has less inertia, but once at the right temperature I feel beautiful aromas here, maybe less fruity but still with supple tannins, very enjoyable and onctuous, i can imagine it'll be even better one the malolactic is over. No SO2 either and no particular plan to add any including at bottling, they'll maybe leave a bit of gas (CO2) in the wine to make it safe.
Everyone was making wine a century ago, even people living in such mansions, they had of course servants and workers to do the work but the wine they'd drink would be home made, garage wines were the norm for every family, most people in the countryside even working class had some kind of tiny parcel to work from. This press still stands in a corner of an outbuilding close to the mansion, it has not been used for decades, and to press the Cabernet Franc they had been lent a 8-hectoliter pneumatic Bücher press by the local dealership for a try (the dealer team was at the controls), Carole loved it, nice job.
Then Carole and Brice offered to open one of the old unmarked bottles that has been lying in the cellar under the mansion for decades, that's wine made probably from the last parcels around here in the 1960s' but without label or marked vintage or origin whatsoever, so we're in for a guess. I had a look at this wine cellar under the mansion,
very nice and also dans son jus loke we say in
French, totally unrenovated with still lots of bottles covered with dust and also a hanging
cheese pantry.
Carole says they don't even know what variety or hybrid or blend is in here, whether there is SO2 or not. The wine didn't turn vinegar, it still has a relatively good level of acidity compared with its supposed age (the 1960s) and the colr while toned down still bears hints of red. I suggest they have someone like Richard Leroy taste it, he is an expert taster with a long experience and knows about the past practices in the region.
We speak again about Carole's learning time at the wine school, she says that at that time she'd spend days with different vignerons, and this is how she met and trained with Mark Angeli and Richard Leroy (the teachers at the wine school knew them), they'd go prune with them with a group of students. Separately she also trained for one day with Mark Angeli as he also holds teaching sessions in his domaine, very interesting experience with his non-trellised vines on goblets and his overgrafting technique. And for Leroy she visited him when she was spending time at Aymeric Hillaire, Richard is passionate man, makes only whites and work a lot on his élevage vessels and on the vineyards. She also spent time at Olivier Cousin and his son Baptiste, saw him plow with his horse. She also went to Clau de Nell, a domaine purchased by biodynamie pioneer Anne-Claude Leflaive and Christian Jacques in 2008, she trained for bottling with Sylvain Potin there and got lots of inspiration from their chai.
Carole and her husband have a new project with the planting of an additionnal hectare of Chenin on a terroir that was reknowned in its time, through the crowdfunding (see link below) people will participate in the rebirth of a terroir and be rewarded with bottles when the first cuvée is made.
Wonderful post, beautiful pictures!
Posted by: Ashley Hoober | January 23, 2019 at 05:41 AM