Rigny-Ussé, Loire
Adrien Baloche, Anne and their two daughters live in a bucolic corner of the Loire with no conventional agriculture in sight, just nature, woods and goats outside their two large yurts at a small distance
from the village of Rigny-Ussé (between Saumur ans Azay-le-Rideau). Adrien Baloche
took over a vineyard block in 2014, but what brought him here was the project of his wife Anne, who had been looking for setting up a goat-cheese farm : they were looking for land for this project and at one point they found this large expanse and block of prairies, woods and fruit trees (40 hectares altogether) among which there were seven hectares of vineyards. So at first, while they were focusing on starting the goat cheese farm (there was no building at all, they had to start from scratch), Adrien worked for the grower, an employment that helped him familiarize with the job and the parcels. But soon after, the former grower left (he took a salary job in Amboise), leaving Adrien by himself to deal with the vineyards, and it was tricky because he didn't come from a winegrower background and hadn't had a formal training in viticulture except for these few months here, before that he just had a basic agriculture training.
They settled here in 2015 with these yurts as this large surface of woods, prairies and vineyards had no house or building on it. The first harvest was in 2014 and, with the time needed to prepare the cheese facility, Anne made her first cheeses in 2016. Anne had bought her first goats in 2013 before the settled here, then in 2014 when the project was getting nearer she bought 15 more, starting the farm with 25 goats. They now have 50 goats, Anne says it's the maximum she can handle by herself. She employs someone to help but it's still a lot of work to manage the goats, the cheesemaking and the sales, and Adrien is very busy himself with the winery side even if wine has more latitude to wait for the sales.
Anne is the one who initiated this whole thing in her pursuit of setting up a goat cheese farm, there was all the land they needed for that here to feed the goats but no cheese facility, so they had to build one shortly after putting up the yurts nearby. Anne had already some experience with goats, she had a training for goat keeping and cheese making, after which she worked more with sheep actually, working as shepherdess along 4 consecutive summers, then replacing workers here and there. The initial plan was that they would set up this goat farm (pictured on left), after which Adrien would find a job nearby in agriculture but there was this opportunity with these few hectares of vineyards included in the deal, so he decided to take it.
Here in the cleared land pictured above there were not long ago around 200 pear trees but most of them were cut by the former owner, it's a pity because the area (a village nearby named Rivarennes) was the home country of the Poires Tapées (dried pears), an age-old delicacy that allowed people for centuries to transport & eat pears year around. That was before refrigerated trucks and long before fruits being picked unripe...
We reach the herd that enjoys the shade from the sun under the trees around a small pond that happened to be almost dry these days. Goats are a pleasure to meet, they're cute and curious for new faces.
I guess many goats from other
goat-cheese farms would envy their life, almost free in the high grass in the middle of this peaceful natural oasis.
What is interesting to note is that both Anne and Adrien make pure, natural products along the most respectful ways but don't have them labelled under any appellation : He makes "vin de France" and she makes generic "Fromage de Chêvre au Lait Cru"... Anne says that she could pretend to an AOP (cheese appellation) as she has some goat breeds that are very ancient and local, the Poitevine and the Cou Clair du Berry unlike the Alpine and Saanen which you see everywhere. Makes me think to the Loire wine bureaucracy that forbids or downplays Pineau d'Aunis, Menu Pineau or Grolleau and promotes Sauvignon, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay...
From the original surface of 7 hectares (ideally situated in the middle of woods and prairies) Adrien kept only 5 hectares, in order to be able to work them properly by himself. The vines are relatively young, they were planted around 2000. In the area there are a few helpful vignerons making natural wine, like Frantz Saumon and also Marie Thibault (Frantz' wife) as well as a couple of other people, and although everyone is busy with his own business they help each other, lending a tool, a plow or something if needed, and alkso in the cellar when a decision has to be taken and you are in doubt about the right move.
This year there was no frost and april was quite mild, so the vineyard grew well, which means that just after pruning ended you have plenty of work to do. Last year they had frost around 5 may, which calmed down the growth thereafter, allowing them to pause and take their time, unlike this year. For example he debudded, but it kept pushing and he has to debud again in some places.
What is time consuming also is his work to renew the vineyard : Adrien does coppicing (recépage in Frenck), meaning he cuts the vine very low to have it retart from fresh, clean wood, the upper or mid-height wood being in pretty bad shape inside after a few years, which translates in lower yields and lower strength. Usually he does as follow : when he sees something growing from the base of the vine, he keeps it carefully, later cutting (little by little) the original vine when this cane gets strong and productive enough. It saves time compared to a replanting or even a marcottage. He checked how efficient it is whjen dealing with 20-year-old vines that already tire, just in the second year he ends up with a fruit load at least identical with the previous o,e, and growing from year to year with this time a healthy and vibrant vine. the "new" vine gets this way a vibrant sap flow without the fungi and other issues that hampered the old wood.
Adrien thinks a lot about the causes behind the fact that vines often get short lives, one of the reasons is clearly the grafting technique. Also on certain parcels which have rows far from each other he'd like to let the vines grow much higher than the norm, like one meter for the head of the vine and the shoots and canes going much higher above that, in order to do the pruning standing, not kneeling, with the grapes and foliage far from the ground level this would be good against frost and would also allow for sheep grazing, something he'd like to do here. They have sheep also (20 lambs and 20 sheep), for about 3 years, they took them precisely to keep the grass down in the parcels in winter. Goats are off limits in the parcels because as you may know they can climb and will eat everything at every season....
Here you can see Anne walking through a hay field with their two daughters
From the 5 hectares of vineyards to which he reduced his surface (from the original 7 hectares), Adrien grows Grolleau, Gamay (the two make about 80 % of the whole) plus 60 ares of Chenin and 15 ares of Cabernet Sauvignon. The Cabernet Sauvignon is interesting he says, he hasn'l many vines but the variety is pretty robust, no disease, no rot, with clusters that are loose, not tight, unlike the Grolleau. At the end of some rows Adrien planted willows, which growers used in the past to tie the shoots, he loves doing that, these are small details that makes life worth.
Adrien has also a few hybrids (Seibel, 5455) and he finds them interesting, they're never in trouble with disease, you don't need any spraying for the vines and he wonders if the prejudice against them by the trade isn't rooted in the fact that you don't have to buy products to keep them alive. He understands the issues of having no vintage rendering on the wines made with hybrids because they're so stable, but still they are interesting to work with. Until now Adrien makes grape juice with it but he may try to use them in a cuvée. Some of these vines carry and nurture 20 bunches and they do it easily, it is impressing.
His iconic cuvée is Fouzytout (Fous-y tout means "put it all" in French slang), a cuvée made with all his varieties together, white and red, and this cuvée on the first year he made it (it was 2017) he had 11,5 % alcohol, he checked the yields of a particular row which seemed particularly loaded, it made 100 hectoliters/hectare... This cuvée is mostly Grolleau (the rest being a bit of Chenin & Cab Sauvignon), and the wine "still" managed to make 11,5 % in spite of some high-yield rows like the one he checked, with this easygoing feel and digestibility people and himself love so much. This is yet another reason why it's better to stay free from the appellation requirements, as yields are capped and occasionally high yields aren't necessarily opposite to enjoyable wines. Initially he had vinified the varieties separate and Eric Dubois when he visited suggested he made a single cuvée from the three. Now he vinifies them together, detsemming the Chenin in the bottom of the fermenter, then the whole-clustered Grolleau and with the whole-clustered Cabernet on top (so that its stems don't immerge). The whole thing stays that way one week and then he presses.
Speaking of these beautiful draft horses, I learn incidently from Adrien that in 2009 he and Anne travelled from Normandy where they initially lived with these horses pulling a trailer (a covered wagon, 19th-century American style) in order to reach the Lot in south-western France where they settled, it was a long, beautiful voyage, they used small roads all along and met many nice people. The horses were 2 or 3 years old at that time. They didn't plow with the horses here yet but Adrien says he may use them in the future for narrow rows.
At one point in the middle of the 40-hectare property we cross a very narrow paved road (almost nobody drives through it) and we reah other parcels that are older, there's Gamay over there too. This year in spring Adrien lost a big share of the future fruit here because of the roe deers who have it easy with the woods so close, they come and go for lunch and aren't disturbed. He may have to do something because you see clearly that the foliage has been crunched and thinned.
As we walk on the narrow paved road along the woods to go see another parcel, Adrien points up the trees above, there were certainly vines that were abandoned and a forest grew over it, but the vines are still there and grow up the trees like in the origin of time, he says it's Grolleau, he recognizes the leaf shape, he could almost go pick the grapes and see what it gives, at least that I suggested.
Adrien gives food to the soil with natural fertlizers but he plows very little, this year for example he didn't plow anything, in part for lack of time but also because he wants to experiment with other ways, either mowing to return the crushed grass to the soil, or like laying down the weeds with a rouleau Faca, a tool that justs breaks the high grass flat (waiting for that thatturn intomake some kind of mulch that stops pumping water from the ground. He tried that with a small rouleau Faca lended by Frantz Saumon and he liked it. In one instance he had a few rows that seemed to suffer and struggle, and he spread between the rows old bales of alfalfa hay that were too old to be suitable for the animals and the result of this thick mulch was amazing the following year, the vines were terrific and rejuvanated. Now under the vine it is still important to keep the weeds in check and he may have to plow there regularly.
Here's the Cabernet Sauvignon, also surrounded by this peaceful eznvironment and the woods. Much older vines, with pretty impressive sizes. He says the size has to do certainly with the type of rootstock they grafted on, SO4. There are a few marcottages here, something he does also alongside coppincing.
What is more exciting than to discover this trove of tiny wild strawberries under a venerable vine of Cabernet Sauvignon ? When you've tasted these tiny things you can't ever get satisfied with these oversized fruits sold in the shops. Adrien says that plenty grow also around the yurts, and he has more and more between the rows.
We walk to the winery building which is new and unappealing (pictured on left), it was built by the former owner (who still lives in the house next to it) just outside the property along the narrow road. In the future he may add some staw insulation with dry earth on the outside. Asked about his winemaking experience Adrien says he began by doing the garvest several consecutive years at Marie Thibault from 2011 to 2013 and the last year he was also on the chai side checking the press. Plus Marie had let him make a couplke of micro cuvées using the bottoms of her vats, so he got his hand at vinifying. But in 2014 when he was alone to face his own incoming grapes in the chai it was a bit anguishing and stressful. Anne says that in Normandy he had made poiré and he also makes bread and this all is a patient work on fermentation and that helps. He followed a formal training but he found much of it very academic and he felt he knew more from his short experiences in the wineries.
The first vintage he made here was the 2014 and he began to sell wines in 2015, mostly at the beginning to friends and relations, plus through the AMAPs also (cooperative retail system for organic producers) and a few restaurants. Then quite quickly thereafter in 2015 Frantz Saumon introduced him to an importer in the United States (Selection Massale) with whom he began to work some time after. Adrien also met other buyers in wine fairs where he went to and now most of his sales are for export. Mostly to the U.S. then Japan (Kobayashi in Hokkaido), Australia (Liz Carey's Wine & Food Solutions, he met her through James Erskine). Adrien saw James in Bulles au Centre, an event where he appreciates to see people coming from al over, especially, like he says, that since they started the goat-cheese farm and the domaine it's like if they were in full lockdown since 2014, they rarely venture out of their bucolic place... He also likes to meet Eric Dubois (who since my story started another domaine), Eric helped him a lot for the beginning. With the harvest season getting earlier and earlier in the Loire valley he learns also from his peers.
Adrien bought this Vaslin Veritas 22 before starting the domaine.
__ We first tasted the Grolleau 2019 in the tank, which should be bottled if possible in august (the mobile bottler is very busy). This grolleau which is a blend of his grolleau is around 12 % is dry, is very light and aromatic, rich too. Good to drink as is, but if he had room and time latitude he could decide to have it age one year in a cement vat. He likes cement, he prefers to avoid vessels that could have an imprint on the aromatics of the wine, like oak. Plus unlike oak you don't need to water the cement (for checking water tightness) before filling, same for sulfur wick. When he destems he uses a wicker grid he had custom made by a basket maker he knows in Villaine-les-Rochers not that far from here. Since he got his destemming grid made there, the guy had plenty of orders from other vignerons.
__ Blend of Gamay-Grolleau (majority Gamay) 2019 in stainless-steel vat. Cuvée Ô Vin. Very fruity and generous, neat, no volatile but 14,7 % alcohol (you don't feel it) which doesn't make it less easy to drink. The grapes had gone up quicker than expected and one day as he sampled the grapes in the vineyard he saw he had to pick urgently. All destemmed here. 4000 bottles of this. It's been 3 vintagesthat he waited rain before the harvest and had none (except for the Cabernet Sauvignon which is picked later) which explains juices that are more concentrated and high in alcohol.
__ I opened later this bottle of Fouzytout 2018, as said, a blend of Grolleau, Gamay, Chenin and Cabernet Sauvignon, a delight of a wine with 11,5 % alcohol, really a pleasure, I could down the whole bottle by myself...
This growers young vineyards are in a bad shape because he simply has way too much grass in his vineyard. All this grass is competition for water and nutrients, leaving not enough for the vines to grow healthily. He needs to do some serious plowing, at least under the rows, to limit the growth of the grass and let the vines breathe a little.
Posted by: Roelof Ligtmans | July 16, 2020 at 07:51 AM