Soings-en-Sologne, Loire
I had the opportunity to visit Claude Courtois again recently after Aaron who was planning to come in the area floated the idea to contact him for a visit, and this was a great idea. I am always a bit afraid to annoy the vignerons especially when they've reached an almost cult status like the Courtois, I
somehow imagine they're
constantly under siege by sommeliers, wine buyers and fans alike and have certainly tons of work in the vineyard, but the Courtois were all so happy to have us and their welcome was so genuine that I realize my shyness was unfounded.
The weather that day was really very windy, with the French weather service airing an Alerte Orange in much of the country, meaning we all should have stayed indoors hiding under the table (Mayor Hidalgo in Paris had certainly closed all the city parks by precaution). I took the road fropm Paris on my motorbike, ready for the potential rains that didn't come until I reached the Sologne, and man, the light was so beautiful with all this wind, it was irreal, it would have been a pity to stay indoors.... Aaron on his side took a train for Blois where he rented a car and we arrived at the domaine almost at the same time. My first visit at Claude Courtois was in 2005 (man, i've been doing this for quite a long time...) but the wine farm has the same feel of simplicity and modesty, still this real place in the middle of the woods of Sologne. And Claudine made this visit so gentle and welcoming with this nice lunch for us all....
Claude Courtois was a bit upset because in the days before he had the visit of two inspectors from the Douanes [the wine administration] and he said he had to push them out. These wine inspectors harass regularly the vignerons for futile
reasons like employees list and so on, bringing stress and worries with them. That's
why Claude wants to put everything in the name of his wife and children, so that he hasn't to deal with these people, because he lost his patience with them. He says they keep coming at small wineries but don't bother the big, industrial farms. He told these young inspectors, "why don't you find a real job, come here to work in the vineyard, we're looking for workers". He says other small farmers are too shy to resist this bureaucratic harassment, they should unite when one of them is subject to such inspections and make some noise about it using tractors to repel them.
I can't agree with him more, much of the administration is useless for the people with a real work, these job-for-lifers more than often hamper their work, they are a nuisance to farmers and many other businesses. By the way, foreign experiments with a shutdown prove that our countries could live just the same (even better) without them "working" (but they're in the delusion that they're the ones thanks to which the economy can develop). I'd say the additional problem is also that the parliament, government and administrative state (all also being people having never held a real job but living off the taxpayer) keep creating every year new regulations that spread havoc in the small farms and businesses.
Claude showed us the barrel cellar (pictured on right) where he keeps the wine made from his remaining one-hectare surface, but it'll soon be over, he says, he's transfering all this under the name of his wife Claudine and his sons in order not to have to deal with the annoyances and harassing inquiries from the wine administration inspectors.
We had a brief look at the facility with its simple fermentation tanks and its basket presses, the Courtois are known for having been salvaging abandonned and disused vertical presses sitting idly in vignerons' backyard and put them back to work condition, usually by just changing a few wood parts, getting rid of the rust and
paiting them anew. In the chai
we donned rubber boots and headed for the parcels just outside the farm.
Let's remind that Claude Courtois is a true rebel who was the target of the wine establishment from day one, famously here in the middle of Sologne when he planted "forbidden" varieties like syrah, but even well before that, at the time he was managing his wine farm in Provence, when he was sued for letting grass grow on his vineyard, the bank wanted to cancel the loan because his "vineyards weren't kept clean" (vignes pas propres in French) as there were vague words in the loan contract according to which the vigneron had to keep his vineyards "clean".... Now years later everyone has discovered the virtue of keeping grass between the rows but back then he was sued for that, certainly with the help of narrow-minded peers, that's important to think about it now that all the mainstream guys are becoming grass lovers. Speaking of Syrah, Claude says that the famous Count of Odart (Comte Odart de Rilly) who became a skilled ampelographer in the 19th century, collecting dozens of varieties in his domaine of Rilly near Amboise, had found out that Syrah could well be planted in the region, even if it'd not make the same wines as in the south. But in the 1990s' planting Syrah here in Sologne was considered a crime by the wine bureaucracy who went after him.
Claude Courtois was a pioneer and he paid a price through these costly suits years ago, but today his mark helped the landscape change with the wine administration being more open to the planting of certain varieties. Today Claude has
21 declared varieties on his property, and his complex blends are what the knowlegeable wine public looks here, wines that truly in line with the ancient way to trust the diversity of varieties in a single wine, each bringing something building the harmony.
Claude says that when he and his wife arrived here in the 1990s there were 26 déclarations de vendanges in the village and now only 4 families keep making wine. One of the remaining players is Marionnet, who wasn't helpful to say the least and who rather sided with the mob when Claude Courtois was sued and ostracized with his unauthorized varieties. - This reminds me of Joe Dressner who regularly taunted Marionnet with a great humour like usual, like for example on this post (see screenshot on right, by the way Joe used one of my pics) on his blog in 2007 titled "I had a nightmare about Henri Marionnet". Marionnet manages a large family domaine with a surface of 60 hectares in the area and while he promotes his terroir and an old franc-de-pied (ungrafted) parcel as well as a cuvée vinified without sulfites, when you wander among his vineyard you get another story, most of his parcels look desolate with herbicide use.-
The sun had come out while we were touring the vineyard near the farm, and I gave my cap to Claude who had forgotten his own in the house. He has Irish roots and can't stand long exposure to the sun, he says that his ancestors came to Burgundy around the 13th-14th century, along with 125 Irish gardeners who built the biggest nursery of all time in the Abbaye de Reigny (near Vermenton).
Claude says that growers and vignerons alas don't know the history and roots of the varieties they work with. For example we chat about the César, a forgotten variety found in Burgundy, he says it's originally Barbera that was brought by the Roman armies at the time of the Gauls. He learnt that while in Italy some 10 years ago as he was looking for varieties there.
Claude says it's hard to find workers for the vineyard and he keeps doing things himself to help his son Etienne. There are here and there fallow fields between the parcels with high grass which they could replant but the manpower shortage makes it difficult for the subsequent vineyard management. He also says that when he bought the property and the farm in the 1990s the cultivated fields were stone dead with fertilizers and he only planted on land that had never been cultivated, leaving the fields with weeds for years to purify and restore the soil. Only after years of such conduct could the soil regain life and substance, and now he could replant it. For now the high grass is used by a neighbour for his horses.
Here we pas a few rows of very young vines, including two rows of Genouillet (on the right), a local variety that comes from the Indre département. I wonder if there's a relation with Genillé, a village in the vicinity of Loches, that could be... He says the roe deers take a toll on these young vines, eating the shoots (the parcels are not fenced and there are woods all around).
Here are the vines that brough Claude all this trouble and suits : these are the Syrah vines he planted in the 1990s and which he lated overgrafted with Gascon, putting an end to the judicial proceeding. The Syrah was itself grafted (on American rootstock) and Claude overgrafted the Syrah with Gascon. Gascon is an old variety originally found in the Yonne département, in Burgundy, it was very common there before the Phylloxera, but it was traced back to this part of the Loire near Orléans. It is also named Gamay d'Orléans.
Then we all went to the small outbuilding near the farm where the Courtois receive their visitors, I think it hasn't changed along the years, it's basically a lunch room with a kitchen side, and I guess the pickers eat there too during the harvest
season. Claude had looked around for a few special bottles, same with his son Julien Courtois who has his separate domaine a kilometer away, this was a treat as you can imagine, with the delicious wild boar dish.
__ Quartz 2017, a white Vin de France. Super nice, beginning with the color and its lightly turbid reflections. Harmonious wine in the mouth and swallowed, Umami feel. Claude was certainly the one who initiated this table wine labelling (now Vin de France) for top-notch cuvées. Bruno Quenioux who was the wine buyer at Lafayette Gourmet starting in 1990 made Courtois' wines known as the most expensive table wine of France (it was a cuvée 1995), a legend was born. Quenioux since then opened his own wine shop in Paris, Philo Vino where he sells artisan and natural wines.
__ Originel 2018, Romorantin (white); Julien's wine. The wine is still in its élevage stage, the bottle is a barrel sample. Lightly perly, fresh, with expressive energy on the tongue.
__ Romorantin, Vin de France 2015, Etienne Courtois, super neat, droit, pure, sharp and kind of crystalline.
__ L'Icaunas, Vin de France 2016, Etienne Courtois. A red cuvée made with the iconic Gascon grape variety. Nice aromas of, hard to say, coffee, chocolate, tobacco maybe.
__ Ancestral 2017, a red Vin de France from Julien Courtois. Nice smoky notes on the palate. Zero SO2. Otherwise when he adds some it's on the range of 1/4 or 1/2 gram per hectoliter.
__ Racines 2016, a red Vin de France they begin to sell now only. When Quenioux visited him back then in the 1990s (Quenioux's brother and father were vignerons in this part of the Loire), he spotted his red which was so surprisingly good for the region and sold it there in Paris in the shop alonside Côte Rotie and other top wines although it was a vulgar table wine. Claude says this terroir here is really fit for whites, but making this red saved him at a time he was under attack with suits and administrative harassment. The wine has a nice complexity, it is neat and vibrant. Made with quite a few varieties that are vinified together by groups depending of the maturity/picking date, several groups of 6 varieties each, the batches being blended when the sugar is finished. He made this large blend because in his youth he was impressed by the Chateauneuf du Pape which was originally made with 13 varieties including 5 or 6 whites. Claude says such a blend was certainly made for empirical reasons because with so many of them there's a balance including for the acidity. He thinks the Romans are the ones who had the idea to make these extensive blends.
Claude at one point speaks about the Gouget Noir which has recently been banned by the wine bureaucracy on the pretext that it gets virosis, which he says is the result of having used clones instead of massal selections.
__ Or' Norm 2016, a white Vin de France, they made 480 bottles of this. On plentyful years they make 600. Sorry, no notes.
__ Eividence 2008, white Vin de France, golden color, grapes picked around november 5 to 10. Botrytis. Made for Etienne's 20th birthday. Waouh, nice bitterness, concentration, dust feel, oxidative notes, this wine shines in the throat, feels indestructible. Classy wine with nice white tannins. Bottled in 50 cl, Menu Pineau. And this bottle was opened maybe 2 weeks ago !
__ Or' Norm 2011. Also bottled opened some 15 days ago for Japanese visitors.
__ Evidence 2009. Lovely mouth.
__Autochtone 2017, white Vin de France, Romorantin. Julien begins to sell this cuvée now. No batonnage. Nose : not very expressive. Sharp, incisive mouth feel. Very mineral, like a piece of rock.
We then went with Etienne in the barrel cellar to taste a few wines. The barrel rooms are not underground, they're all surface, in a building built by Claude and his 3 sons on weekends, little by little. Etienne is the one who basically is in
charge now of the family domaine, he's been doing the farming
and the cellar work for 10 years or more.
__ Romorantin 2017, 3 barrels making their 40 months of élevage. Tastes so good, impressive.
__ Romorantin 2015 from a barrel in the corner after the sink, short maceration vinification, a single barrel, orange wine. Etienne says that 30 months is a short élevage for him, he's rather into élevages in the range of 50 months. The wine is in a protective stage, with the stormy weather outside, not the best time to taste he says. Etienne says it's an experiment, that's a wine to drink in 10 years. He doesn't follow his father's steps and tries new things like for example this wine. Making such experiments is an investment and a challenge, especially that these recent years they had smaller volumes of grapes. He shows us by knocking them how many of these barrels are empty, it's also a challenge to keep them fit even after months without holding wine, he tries several thinks, among which water with a little bit of SO2 may be the best as it stays humid and the low so2 is easy to get rid off when they clean the barrel.
We leave this large barrel room and enter a narrower one to taste more wine, reds apparently. Here again, Etienne points to many of these barrels which hold no wine because of smaller volumes in the past years. He says if there's a 3rd such catastrophic vintage they could have trouble staying afloat.
__ Gamay 2016, here he scaled down the élevage, putting it at 30 months in barrel (instead of 40) and 12 months in bottle. The fermentation took place in simple, neutral fiber vats, of the kind you can find second-hand on Le Bon Coin. he never keeps the stems, he macerates the berries only.
We walk yet to another barrel room with a bland unfinished brick and mortar wall, the room is even narrower than the former, and we'll taste a white there :
__ Racines white
2017, from a barrel. Like its red brother, many varieties in here (list is classified info), a very complex blend. Etienne says that tasting the wine at flowering and at harvest is very different, you don't recognize the wines, somehow they know their connectioj to the vineyard and thus taste wild at this time. He says when you taste the wines in the barrels before the harvest, the wines obviously know that grapes are going to come in soon, you smell the cellar and even before any box of grapes came in, there's a smell of yeast, leaven and likes...
The wine, from the depth of its barrel stays connected to the vineyard and its cycles, and is thrilled at this pivotal time of the year. And here this wine we're tasting right now which hasn't seen the light for 4 years somehow knows the vineyard is through its flowering stage and reacts to it. The wine has this indefinite color, lightly golden, which seduces you at first glance. All his qualities are in suspension, filtering it would be a crime. Very pure mouth, a pleasure.
Etienne then leads us back to the 1st cellar for another barrel tasting :
__ Evidence 2011, which will be bottled next year in 2020 and will be on the market in 2021. This wine is very special he says, not everybody will understand it, but it pairing very well on scallops (Roellinger style) or white meat.
__ Evidence 2018 : lastly, that's another experiment of Etienne, he never did that before, here the juice/wine has been sitting in an open tank for 6 months, no protection if only with a net to prevent flies to reach the juice. The mere view of this
tank with no floating lid whatsoever who make faint any conventional winemaker or the teachers in the wine schools. The wine is so turbid, and it tastes like it's still bernache a fermenting juicve at an early stage, amazing.
The tank is not in a barrel room but sits right under the under the corrugated roofing on one side of the building, meaning it became very cold in winter and the fermentation stalled, and with the recent couple of hot days it started to ferment again. But you taste that and it's not spoiled at all, amazing, the wine got used to oxygen and stands firm on its feet, no oxidation or vinegar like the teachers in the schools and other respectable enologists swear it would inevitably turn into .... Etienne says that 15 days before it was an ananas-like juice with fermentary notes. Here in this tank Etienne has the production of one hectare of Menu Pineau, picked around november 7. Since that date this wine only saw oxygen, basically if you trust the books it shouldn't exist !
We then drove a kilometer away to Julien's own house and facility, I didn't ask but I think he farms something like 5 hectares, maybe slightly more. On the way we saw two roe deers,
each with short antlers, this is really hunting country here in Sologne, so many wild animals, you could keep your freezer full around the year. Julien says that some farmers shoot them from their tractors as these animals don't really pay attention to these slow, lumpish vehicules. It's of course not allowed but I can understand, first the meat is so good and they're way too many especially for the crops and vineyards, farmers should be able to keep their number in check in the vicinity of their fields...
Julien Courtois with his wife Heidi Kuka (who is from New Zealand) and their daughter live in a samely isolated house in the middle of a landscape made of woods, prairies and vineyards. When we arrived we saw two trees that had fallen because of the fierce winds. the rain had stopped and the light was beautiful and the air you breathed seemed full of energy and vivified, like in the high seas during a storm.
__ Romorantin 2018, from a barrel, will make the cuvée Autochtone, will stay 15 to 18 months in barrels. Nice sharp expression, definitely Romorantin. No mildew problem on this variety, and in 2018 he had the biggest volume ever for Romorantin, in spite of 5 % to 10 % frost damage.
__ Chenin 2018, barrel. Light tickling on the
tongue. Feel of intensity and excitement, like if with some inner energy in the wine.
__ Rosé,
Gamay à jus blanc 2018 from a barrel as well, a direct press, grapes picked end of september. Light skin contact in the basket press, that's why the color. Picture on left.
__ Red Gamay 2018, chalky color shades. Super fresh and enjoyable mouth touch, feels to me ready to drink. Hint of sweetness feel, delicious. Vines planted in 1968. Will be bottled in 2020.
__ Ancestral 2018 (red). Blend of Côt (planted in 2013) and ungrafted Gamay (1978), plus a bit of Gascon. Super nice chew, love it even though it's of course very early to taste it.
__ Gamay Chaudenay 2018, a teinturier type of Gamay which was used in the past to darken the otherwise pale reds. Viners planted in 1968. Also a bit perly on the tongue, still fermenting. Quite concentrated. Good yields on these vines in spite of their age.
__ Esquisse 2018, white made from Menu Pineau. Residual sugar. Tickling feel.
__ Esquisse 2016, Menu Pineau as well, dry wine (I think we had a bottle here). Golden color, turbidity. Sooo good, super mouth, and swallowed even better, what a wine ! Oxidative marvel, all sort of aromas, acidulous notes, dry herbs, eucalyptus. 400 bottles in 2016.
All the labels are designed by Julien's wife Heidi Kuka who apart from being a New-Zealand native has Maori ancestry, you might find that spirituality in her beautiful designs. The rest of the information for the wine is of course on the back labels.
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