Ternay, Coteaux du Vendômois (Loire)
Philippe Chidaine [no family relation with François] has been making wine from his family property overlooking the Loir valley [the Loir is a secondary river flowing into the Loire] since the 1990s, we're here in the middle of Pineau d'Aunis country, the northernmost vineyard region
in France. Working for his day job
in Paris as business consultant, he commutes regularly to the family property with his wife and children, following the steps of his father and grandfather who had kept tending the small surface of vineyard when the neighbors were gradually pulling theirs out. I visited him with Aaron and Jade, Aaron having discovered his wine some time ago, thank you Aaron !
The Chateau de Bois Frelon [the lieu-dit name means literally "woods hornet" in French] is a beautiful piece of architecture, it dates from the 15th century for the oldest part and stands atop the slopes overlooking the Loir valley surrounded by woods (satellite view). The area in the past had a much larger vineyard surface than today, they have old family documents and archives related to the property listing a vineyard here back in the 16th century. At the time any chateau or sizeable community would need wine and thus vineyards, as wine transportation was a problem, and on the property you had a lot of people to provide wine to, not only the owners but also the petty personnel and farm workers. The property sits 2 kilometers from the nearest village Ternay, and a chapel was built on the grounds near the chateau at one point because the grandmother a couple centuries ago couldn't walk anymore to the village for mass. And of course wine was important for mass too then.
We walked to the vineyard on the other side of the woods on the back of the chateau, the dirt road through the woods was littered with small branch and leaves that had been torn off by the fierce winds of the past few hours. All these woods provide Philippe with heating wood for the chateau. The plateau here is facing north, down the slope from the chateau there's the Loir
river in the far, flowing from east to south-west
toward Anger where it'll flow into the Loire (find the river path on this map), and on the other side of the Loir you have the Coteaux du Loir and Jasnières while here it's the Coteaux du Vendômois (see on the top of this map the respective position of these three tiny wine regions home to Pineau d'Aunis and Chenin).
As we were leaving the chateau and heading to the woods and the vineyard, Philippe pointed to the buildings around the chateau, saying that the earliest part is from the 15th century, there's even a meurtrière (also known as bouche à feu - pictured on right, the net is intended to prevent the birds from getting through it) in the defense wall, these meurtrières (loopholes or arrow slits in English) are special openings in the walls designed in the Middle Ages to shoot arrows or fire upon attackers. this one is round, it was obviously designed for fire arms, which arrived here in France in the late 15th century (the vertical ones were designed for crossbows). The historic pigeon loft of the chateau was destroyed during the Frencg Revolution at the end of the 18th century.
Philippe took care of the family vineyard when his father was tired of it. His granfather used to make a vin gris [the old word for rosé in French] from the Pineau d'Aunis, making 3 barrels of it every year for the family needs as well as the ones of the property's caretaker and his own family. Philippe's father in his time had also made also a sparkling (Champagne style) from Gamay which was quite good. When Philippe took care of things on the property in the 1990s he decided to make a red Pineau d'Aunis because he had tasted interesting things in the region, not in the Vendômois but rather in the Sarthe département on the other side of the Loir, in the Coteaux du Loir.
Philippe remembers that in the 1980s here there were other parcels along the woods apart from the family one, in total he says there were some 10 families with vineyards of various size, usually for their own consumption. One of the other growers was a farmer doing polyculture, among which 2 hectares of vineyard (this one would sell in degrés/hectos, this is the French expression when you sell in bulk to the lower-quality négoce. Philippe's grandfather who in his time farmed 0,5 hectare of vines, had planted a row of Chenin because in his mind this was the noble variety, but it way too north here and it never riped properly. He had also a few American hybrids which they pulled out progressively.
Philippe made his first try for a red Pineau d'Aunis in 1995, he says in a self-deprecating way that it was paltry for a first try, it didn't work and the wine which was for his personnal consumption was very pale, he had to blend it with Gamay bought to a friend to get it darker. When Philippe took the matters into his own hands the vineyard which had a total surface of half an hectare had been farmed chemically for about 10 years with herbicide and pesticides, and after 2 years doing the same he decided to farm organic instead. The vineyard was desolate visually with all these herbicide. His father had replanted part of the surface which turned into larger volumes of wine, all vinified as gris (rosé), which he had trouble to find buyers for, and he had to sell in bulk for very little to négociants. At the time Philippe decided to farm organic he used to read a chronicle in Santé Magazine by journalist Julien Fouin [who since then opened a string of restaurants in Paris] and in one of them Fouin wrote about organic vignerons (something not very mainstream back then in 1995-1997), and the article listed a few of these vignerons/winemakers among them Nicolas Joly. At the time his father was skeptical and didn't believe in such organic farming, saying you had to be modern and use these products. Philippe began to farm organic, then, still in this magazine, read about biodynamie, the article even included phone numbers and he called Nicolas Joly who answered in person. As Joly was organizing training sessions back then for biodynamic procedures he came to attend and got his initiation there with biodynamics, and among the other people following Nicolas Joly's training sessions in these late 1990s were all the people that became later biodynamic pioneers in their respective regions. He remembers what was for him a turning point, a conference by guest speaker Alex Podolinsky who had come from Australia where he helped convert huge surfaces to biodynamics. This was a revelation for him and he kept digging in this direction, adding experience in the practice.
He took part regularly to gatherings with Nicolas Joly and involving other prominent winemakers like Anne-Claude Leflaive and also Mark Angeli, and some oth the attendees who only become famous years later, like David Léclapart whose Champagne cost very little back then. He remembers that at the time Léclapart was barked at by his conventional neighbors because his 2- hectare organic parcel was viewed as a threat for their own vineyard...
Philippe grabs some earth to show how it crumbles gently in the hand, it's very soft, aerated and alive. He said we should compare to the one of the conventional fields not far from here which is hard like concrete. The soil here is otherwise full of flintstone (silex) of various size, really a soil for viticulture.
Two years ago in 2017 and also in 2018 Philippe Chidaine extended the vineyard surface with new plantings of Pineau d'Aunis, reaching a total surface of 2,5 hectares today.
Aunis is in high demand and he never gets enough and with the enlarged surface he hired a trained vigneron for the farming, he works 2 days a week for the
vineyard management and another day for the rest of the property (woods, hedges...), philippe spending most of his time in Paris.
It's been 2 years that he lost half of his fruit to the roe deers, so this year he installed an electric fencing working with batteries to keep them away. I asked if the hunting societies would pay for the system but he says people use to say that but they don't, he has to support the expense by himself. Actually he could have submitted a demand for the financing of this fence but the conditions are so tricky and mean going through so much red tape that he gave up. He turned it off so that we could climb over it without risk.
Looking at a young Aunis planted in 2017 (picture on right) he says he's pretty happy with the vigor of these vines, they're already having fruit this year, this is a good omen for the future. On the other hand they suffered from frost and all looked black and dead, but happily other buds came out after that. Retrospectively he knows why certain rows suffered a lot, they were the ones with high grass, the other ones faired well.
With this larger surface he also renewd the tolls, adding this new tractor, a small, narrow (1,05 meter) Ferrari with central articulation for easier turns. Before that he had so-so tools, tinkering with old machines,
but he felt he had to act
more professionally. For the weed control they cut it with a cover-crop (pictured on left) but this year they've been overtaken by the sudden growth of the grass with the alternate temperature bursts and the rain. The mounted sprayer on the picture is for the Bordeaux mix, and for the biodynamic preps he uses a simple backpack sprayer.
The Boissellet intercep near which Philippe stands on the picture is the most expensive of his tools, apart from the tractor of course, it is the one used to cut the weeds under the row (the next task these days). Of course he could have found one on the second-hand market but he preferred to get tools that were operational without needing fixing, and also he says with a grin, he intends to, God willing, make a good use of them for the next twenty years... Otherwise near what was probably his former tractor, a narrow (90 centimeter) Staub GM 428 (dating from around 1976 i guess and which I prefer to the shiny new one, if I can dare a personnal remark), there's the plow named Canadien in France.
He has different parcels of Aunis in this block, some vines are 100 years old but this one here is 25 to 30. He replanted a few pear trees, his grandfather used to make spirit from his own peach trees. He planted the trees in the row but it's a bit tricky with the tractor, he has to cut the lower branches especially those that are not in line, so that it can pass. The older rows are planted 1,30 meter apart (it was thought for the plow horse) and for the new plantings he left 1,60 between the rows to make it more comfortable.
At one point Philippe contacted Claude Bourguignon to have a soil analysis done because even though there has been vineyards here for ages he was not fully sure the terrain was fit for viticulture. Bourguignon's son came here and dug a pit to analyse soil samples at a certain depth and the results were very good. By the way this field lies just at the limit of the Coteaux du Vendômois AOC, and on the other side of the grass road is the beginning of the Vendômois. The soil is ideal for viticulture here too, even if it's just outside the AOC.
We then went to the beautiful room with a grand fireplace where Philippe have his visitors taste the wines, his son Baptiste was there, helping when he could. This nice room looks like a Salle des Gardes, especially given its strategic
position on the right of the chateau near the enclosure wall, but i'm not sure.
__ Bois frelon, Pétillant (sparkling) 2015 made from Pineau d'aunis. This is not fully a natural sparkling because a bit of sugar was needed, there's a light dosage too; he has someone do these sparklings for him. He says in 2015 the sparkling was more colored than usual, he doesn't know why (it's a rosé). this wine is also organic certified. Apart from the bottles they drink in the family, he sells this sparkling locally to friends or brings to to family weddings.
He sold a few bottles of this sparkling Aunis to a caviste in Paris, but actually he mostly makes this bubbly for family use. the sparkling is made from old vines also but mostly the ones that are 25, maybe in the future when his replantings will produce he'll use the younger vines for the sparkling. Here reserves the very old for the red.
__ Bois Frelon, Vin de France, Pineau d'Aunis 2015 (but the year is not printed on the label), same juice than the sparkling. Makes 13 % or 13,5 % alcohol. Philippe says that until more or less 2000 he would occasionally chaptalize to reach the right alcoho level, and from 2000, which was in fact the time when the organic farming was really fully in place and the vines had adapted to it, his wines never went under 11,5 % which shows a correlation between organic farming and alcohol level. Lightly perly in the mouth, very nice rosé indeed, love it ! He made 300 bottles of this. 9 € tax included here. I ask if he doesn't put any SO2 to have this light fizziness, he says he adds some, on harvest day to keep the aromas, but all this SO2 vanishes therafter, most falling with the gross lees. He'll also add a bit at bottling but with small doses. The grapes are all hand picked, and with the stomping and the press, the rebêche and so on, there's a 3 or 4 hours exposure to the air, that's why he prefers to add SO2 at the beginning.
__ Bois Frelon, Pineau d'Aunis red, Vin de France 2017, only 11,5 % alcohol, predominantly old vines. Bottled september-october 2018. He got a heavy rain just before the harvest and it pushed the potential alcohol by swelling the grapes. Vinified in fiber tanks and then stainless steel. No oak, he stopped using barrels because his production is too sketchy and managing empty barrels is a problem, they get easily spoiled. What a nose ! Already delicious, with such a color and a nose I expect the best of the sip. Beautiful mouth with this little bit of astringency, a pleasure sip after sip, no swallowing. By the way Philippe sold red Aunis 2015 to Bruno Quenioux, the caviste of Philovino.
__ Bois Frelon, Pineau d'Aunis red 2013, he has only 3 bottles left and was eager to taste one with us. Carbonic maceration with whole clusters. The tile color hints at its peaking or passed over. Yes, a bit beyond the right time to drink it, but beaux restes, very delicate in its faded glory. The wine has retreated since the last time he opened a bottle. The color is also lighter than the 2017. The 2nd pour is much better, like if the wine deeper in the bottle was less over its peak. Nice fade flower notes.
__ Bois Frelon, Pineau d'Aunis red 2015. Vinified like the others. Also sold out. Higher in alcohol but very balanced. Good length. Still a bit of astringency. 3 vintages, different wines with roughly the same vinification, just the carbonic maceration length varied, the 2013 was short, the 2015 was very long like 2-3 weeks and the last 4-5 weeks. he'd open the lid from time to time to look at the grapes, which aerates a bit the top of the fermenter.
Here is (Pdf document) a research paper with lots of documentation about the origin of Pineau d'Aunis also known as Chenin Noir.
You can find the red Aunis of Bois Frelon in Paris, at Sauvage, DiVino, sometimes at Philovino.
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great post--all of yours are!
but a question--you state that the loir vineyards are the nothernmost in france. certainly chablis and champagne are further north than here.
Posted by: robert ames | July 14, 2019 at 02:32 AM
Yes, indeed, you're right, they're rather the northernmost Loire vineyards....
Thank you Robert !
Posted by: Bertrand Celce | July 14, 2019 at 12:04 PM