Mareuil-sur-Cher, Cher valley (Loire)
Here are a few images and videos shot during the harvest and first vinification work while visiting a few vignerons in the Loire, more precisely in the Cher valley. I'd not bother to call as I knew everyone was busy, I'd just drop by on my motorbike and see what was happening (the weather was so nice, it helped a lot). I took a few minutes to ask the winemakers how this vintage had been showing until then, and you'll see that on the whole 2020 seems to be a pretty good year. The harvest could unfold along several weeks and there were discrepancies between the beginning of the picking, some had finished, some had a couple of parcels to pick while some were in the middle of the thing...
Here this is at Julien Pineau, the maceration tank with Aunis and Gamay is going to be devatted and the free-run juice first flows out. What a beautiful view....
Julien Pineau is vinifying his wines in the buildings/cellar of former Clos Roche Blanche for the last time as he and Juliette are in the process of having their own facility soon. We're here on the edge of the plateau and the vineyards (Julien Pineau and Laurent Saillard bought the whole block from CRB years ago) with the simple chai where Didier Barrouillet has received the picked grapes for many years; Julien is preparing to devat a blend of Gamay & Pineau D'Aunis. On this picture Julien listens to his aides down in the cellar who are readying the connection with the vessel down there. the juice will soon flow by gravity straight through the depth of the hill to the cellar.
Here if I remember this is the free-run juice transiting through the tank under the press before flowing down through the hill to the cellar.
I asked Julien his take about the conditions of the grapes in 2020, he says this was an early vintage as they began to pick august 24, which was unusual because they weren't used in the last few years to pick that early and with this maturity and balance, with not much alcohol, at last getting again wines at around 11,5 % / 12 % for the reds and 12 % / 12,5 % for the whites, he's happy to get a wine profile that will be closer to a traditional Loire typicity, versus the 13 %, 14 % or 15 % that were becoming routine in the last few vintages. He says that since 2015 when he started his winery with Juliette, he had never (until 2020) picked under 13,5 %, so it's nice to find again this balance with acidity levels that are correct, plus the volumes are fine. He adds that 2018 and 2019 were also good years in terms of volumes here.
Here to devat this maceration tank Julien is helped by his full-time employee and a trainee who was to start soon to attend the wine school of Amboise. You can see here that many bunches are still whole and intact.
At the time of this visit in september Julien had mostly finished the harvest, he only had yet a parcel of Cabernet to pick, in a parcel he shares with Laurent at La Tesnière (a rental if I remember). Adding a few words on the grapes he says there were only to deplore that a few grapes were grilled (grillure) by the sun at some point in the hot weather arounf august 10. This led to smaller volume but happily later there was some rain that counterbalanced this.
The cuvée behind this devatting is Les Sucette à l'Aunis, a blend of Aunis & Gamay (70 % Aunis, 30 % Gamay), with a 10-day maceration for the Gamay. The Aunis comes from a 40-year-old parcel and another whis is 90. Julien says that every day, even twice a day along the 10-day maceration time he took out the free-run juice in order to keep the whole-clustered grapes dry, storing the free-run juice in the red tank with a floating lid (2nd picture above), this stored free-run juice now being flowed down to the cellar by gravity. He'd not make any pumping over (remontage) during these 10 days. That's something he initiated last year with nice results, and especially with a fresh vintage like 2020 he thinks it's not interesting to look for tannin or long-keep wines, he'll zoom on fruity, easy-drinking wines. This day as he was to devat he didn't take out the free-run juice, that's why there's some flowing as he opens the tap. The projected alcohol for this wine is 12 %.
On the whole a very nice vintage easy to manage in the vineyard starting with a super nice spring [during the lockdown that was such a compensation to get this beautiful weather day after day], a very nice blossoming, not too much problems with mildew, just a bit of oidium that appeared in july (they had to do some sorting on the Gamay because of that). Spêaking of the' sales during this Coronavirus thing he says he didn't come across any change in the orders, except maybe for Japan from which he got smaller orders than planned. For the United States he says the US administration's 25 % tax caused more damage than the Coronavirus.
Don't confuse this redish liquid with free-run juice, these are the fine lees at the bottom of the tank where free-run juice was stored day after day along the maceration, and Julien puts this heavy juice apart. You'll notice that the color here is a bit chalky, fine lees are used sometimes if needed to help retart a sluggish fermentation. Julien experimented these fine lees in the kitchen to cook octopus and it was just delicious, that's the priviledge of a winemaker to have something that even chefs in good restaurants can't afford : having this priceless (if seasonal) ingredient full of nutrients, taste and energy at hand for designing new recipes and dishes. And actually I guess you could freeze it for later use, this could be a very profitable byproduct especially for vintners farming organic if they could ship this to the best restaurants. I already envision the competition with menu bylines reading "cooked with the fine lees from La Romanée Conti"....
Thésée, Cher valley
I went the on the other side of the Cher river in Thésée and showed up unannounced at the former cellar/chai of Bruno Allion, the vineyard and cellars have now been split in two between two buyers, one of them being Bertjan Mol, a natural-wine importer (to Holland) turned vigneron, who set up his Domaine de la Taupe with his wife Nicole. He wasn't there the first time (he was in the vineyard for a picking) but a few young people were there, apparently from Germany and Holland, and they were busy cleaning a few barrels for a soon-to-come entonnage (filling the tonneaux, the barrels with the fermenting juice).
The second time I showed up on my motorbike Bertjan was there at the far end of his long cellar, busy precisely with this entonnage, with two aides helping him, one to switch the pump on or off and the other to transmit the orders through the long tunnel cellar. You need to hear the orders in Dutch, that's not very common in the region and Dutch is a beautiful language between English and German...
The juice here is Sauvignon, it's been through a maceration
Bertjan began to pick august 21rd (for a sparkling from Sauvignon) and he had at the time of this visit just the Côt and the Cabernet Franc to pick. Everything is very fresh this year, he's very happy, everything with low potential alcohol, between 11,5 % and 12,5 %. There's only a parcel where the wine will reach a bit less than 13 %, but i's a generous terroir with always more power and richness.
Here in this video you can see how a Dutch-German team work can fit perfectly in the setting of an old Loire cellar...
Speaking of the other grapes he picked, the Gamay for a still wine was at 12,5 % while the Gamay intended for a Pet-nat was at 11,5 %. Overall that's a very nice year, maybe less rich than 2019. It's been several years that the vintages were pretty nice in the area, Bertjan says. This year they'll have higher yields with 31 hectoliters/hectare for the Sauvignon for example, which is a nice volume for them. On the Gamay they got even more.
This is the time of the year to go ask for a bernache fill in a winery. Bernache is the delicioulsly intoxicatinf beverage that stands between grape juice and wine, it's more on the juice side for sure but it has already begun to ferment to an extent that there's a bit of alcohol in there already while still holding the sweet juice feel down the throat. I didn't ask for a bottle of bernache in a natural wine domaine because their volumes are tight but I went in a "regular" family winery and paid here 1,3 € for mr 1,5-liter bottle. Be sure to keep the cap unscrewed, or better, with a hole in it, because your plastic bottle might explode in just a few minutes, this juice is in full-blown fermentation !
Bernache is sweet and pleasant but you need fuel for your meals, and I went to André Fouassier to buy wine directly from the tank. André Fouassier wasn't there at the time but his employee poured me 5 liters of Côt from 2018. Good deal at 10 € the whole container.
I visited also Jacky Preys in Meusnes and tasted his bernache made from his iconic Fié Gris grapes. Jacky Preys can be credited for having (decades ago) put forward a forgotten sub variety of Sauvignon, a Sauvignon Gris known in the past as Fié Gris. And believe it or not, he was barred a couple years ago from getting the Touraine AOC because he printed the name of the variety (Fié Gris) on the label. For the wine bureaucracy (manned by local mainstream producers) this variety isn't listed in the official list. Read : this must be Sauvignon or nothing. So Jacky chose to label as Vin de France (Cuvée "L'Interdit"), the only status where you're free to do the wine you want.
I visited Noëlla Morantin also in her chai/cellar in Thésée and learned there that she would be picking her parcel Chez Charles soon. The parcel behind the namesake cuvée of Sauvignon is located just above the village of Pouillé-sur-Cher on the other side of the river from Thésée. This was yet another wonderful late-summer day, pleasantly sunny and dry and not too hot.
I asked Noëlla how things were going so far for this vintage 2020, she says it's fine, the vendanges are terrific, healthy, beautiful grapes with nice yields, the only thing is there was some grillure (grilled grapes) but otherwise this is so good. She says the last 2 or 3 years have been pretty good by the way if different.
The long waited hour, 10am, this is la pause with drinks and snacks, Noëlla brought good stuff and prepares the thing and slices the bread herself. You may recognize Maylis on the right (with a straw hat), she works usually in Montrichard from what I remember but she had a day off and came here to work.
Here, this was a few days before in her chai in Thésée, Noëlla checks the density of the press juice from the young Sauvignon vines planted in 2003 (not Chez Charles). Color very dark with the lees, tastes very sweet, very nice. Potential here is 12,5 %.
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