Cher valley, Touraine (Loire)
I also went three times at Les Maisons Brûlées where Paul Gillet and wife Corinne were in the middle of their harvest season, or rather toward the end actually as much of it was already behind us. I love riding to their wine farm, it's a dead-end road in the hills above Pouillé, and the Gillet family must be so quiet there around the year. I shot this short video the 2nd time I went there, They were picking the parcel below the farm, surrounded by woods on this gentle slope.
Paul Gillet told me they began to pick august 22, and ending was around 14 or 15 september. They got some grillure on the grapes, especially on the Gamay (because this variety grows less foliage).
Some of the pickers have taken their quarters in their tents just outside the farm. This summer was so nice that their stay must have been very enjoyable. It looked so dry indeed as you can see, better than rainy harvests.
That was I think the 1st time i stumbled upon Paul and his pickers, it was on the plateau above Pouillé-sur-Cher. Just the time to park the bike and Paul was turning around his tractor Renault 461 with its full trailer to go unload the grapes at the wine farm.
Then in the wine farm I arrived just in time for the generous pause, when the pickers rest while drinking, eating a bit and smoking. The pause is I'm sure one of the things that make thesde artisanal domaines stand out...
I visited André Fouassier as well whose wine farm is located outside Lye, I had brought an empty bottle for a fill of Bernache, a red bernache for a change. Asked about this vintage 2020, he says this is in line with the 3 last years, where you had very dry summer, with sometimes depleted water reserves in the soil. He says he's been letting grass grow in the vineyard for the last 25 years (since 1992) because the issue was an excess of water, but with this new trend he'll have next year to scratch the soil because the competition is too painful for the vines.
He'll use what is called in French an emotteur to get rid of the grass because his volumes went down and he won't sell his wine at a higher price. André Fouassier began to pick september 3 or 4 and was to finish september 12 or 13. He farms a large surface and uses a harvesting machine. Speaking of the sales this year he says his sales in Paris are zero since february, because the large brasseries and the trendy restaurants took a hit. Here locally it was better, and what saved him is that he sells through supermarkets, but he still had to distill some wine to compensate partially the losses.
André Fouassier says that this year he'll set apart the free-run juice and make a glou-glou cuvée, an easy-drinking wine with less extraction.
I spotted these two Vaslin presses in the farm's courtyard and André told me he doesn't uses these anymore, he didn't seem to be looking to sell them but I told him I could tell about them in my story and he said why not. So in case a new vigneron(ne) reads this story and is interested to buy one, you can contact him. They're usually pretty cheap as you can see on this classifieds site because there are so many of them in France, but they're very reliable and many artisan vignerons start with these 1980s' Vaslins. I'm not into pay-for-play with wineterroirs but if this purchase goes through I'll not refuse a case of wine....:-) Incidently, while looking for the words pay-for-play I was surprised to see the difference between the search results of Duckduckgo and Google when you type pay-for-play 2020, it's pretty incriminating for Google actually.
I went to the wine farm of Jean-Guillaume Caplain on the plateau above Monthou-sur-Cher, this is a very nice isolated farm at the edge of woods, very peaceful. Jean-Guillaume was busy in the cellar with Sassy, who is from Mexico and was giving a hand. There's always some nice music in the background at Peaux Rouges, which adds to the beautiful atmosphere.
This year Jean-Guillaume says they'll make more volume than last year. For example they'll make 25 hectoliters just for the Sauvignon. He also got more parcels, he got a new Gamay and buys grapes here and there (including in Ardèche at Les Deux Terres) to complement his farm's surface which he doesn't want to be more than 2,5 hectares. 2017 was Jean-Guillaume's 1st vintage but his own parcels froze 100 % so the only wines he made that year was from grapes sourced in Ardèche. 2018 was a nice vintage for him, in quality more than volume. 2019 was a really nice vintage, where you have to wait the wines because there's power in these wines. For 2020 it was early for him to tell when this visit took place, but it should be fine, with nice grapes although there's been oidium and grillure. He'll tell more later, he humbly says his experience is only a few years, and also every year is different.
Jean-Guillaume told me that he began to pick later than his peers, in part because his terroirs are different from those of Thésée in spite of the proximity. Hist first harvest day was september 5 and he planned to finish early october probably for his Cabernet Franc. He dis the same last year because he made the bet to wait for the rain and it worked.
It was very nice to speak with Tesy, she is from Mexico (from Michoacan if I remember) and I was happy to learn more about wine there with her, having stayed and travelled around a few months through the country years ago. It happens that not far from my beloved town of Guanajuato, GTO (where I'd have gotten a 2nd home if I were American or Canadian) there's Cava el Garambullo, a small wine farm managed by Branko Pjanic (originally from Montenegro) and his Mexican wife. Might make me want to go there again, in spite the country being considered pretty unsecure these days (just for the sake of listening to Ranchera Mexicana blaring from radios in the middle of nowhere I'd take the risk...).
Isn't that a dream place to live for the harvest time ? That's where Roxane lives during the harvest and cellar-work season, right in the middle of the woods near the wine farm. You may remember Roxane from this story, she has worked at Olivier Lemasson, one of the outstanding natural-wine producers in Sologne and she worked with Kevin Henry as well. Roxane is the cellar master for the season for Jean-Guillaume and she has also overseen the picking in the parcels. By the way, Ben Nerot, whom you may remember as well (with Emily), is working for Jean-Guillaume as well.
At one point Jean-Guillaume poured us a Sauvignon 2019 (Little Big Wine) from a small tank, a leftover he keeps aside for the pickers and friends who stop by, I had a couple of glasses, this is really the glou-glou white that goes down easy, very fruity. Sells well in Japan. For the sales after the pandemic, he says some small importers just vanished, like his buyer from Switzerland and a new natural-wine importer in Russia (Grape Wines).
Then these visitors showed up and Jean-Guillaume opened a couple of rosés made from Merlot 80 %, 10 % Gamay (from here), 5 % Grenache, 5 % Syrah, a refreshing blend of Ardèche and Loire, zero added sulfites like all his wines.... I love this job...
I also went a few times at La Lunotte near the village of Couffy along the Cher river, to see how Christophe Foucher was doing this year. Christophe's wine farm on the edge of plateau south of the Cher is a nice authentic place with a welcoming, laid-back atmosphere. On this picture, the pickers play Pétanque while the rest of us enjoy some wine. When you're a seasonal worker doing wineries that's where you want to be...
That day they had picked several varieties, sorting some Gamay for a later picking. He had started a few days before and still had some parcels to pick but there was no hurry, the weather being nice but moderate. He says what they're picking is between 12 % and 13,5 % potential. This is a super good year for the volume also, which is nice, it's even better than last year. Speaking of the little rain that was praised by many, he says he didn't need it as the vines were faring well without it, but it's OK.
Christophe pours here a blend of Gamay-Côt 2019 (macerated together), very nice wine with inky notes and soft spices. He likes to work these two varieties together, he'll do it again in 2020.
The berries were big and juicy throught the season even though the summer was very dry all along. Last year the berries had less juice and were smaller. It's really the 2nd year in a row that the harvest is rewarding. In 2018 there had been big problems and losses with mildew which was of a very agressive kind. In 2017 you may remember the issue was frost. In 2016 he had no frost issue when other parts in the Loire were ravaged. His harvest team in 2020 was 10 pickers (including an young American woman) plus himself, this is a small number but he likes it this way, it gives work to everyone, with longer time in a given parcel. It's particularly good when there's no rush with the weather, also it's easier to manage for the meals.
Christophe says he doesn't make an analysis when having to decide when to pick, he just tastes the grapes here and there in the parcel, it's subjective he admits but it's the way he works. He may occasionally ask for a lab analysis before a bottling if he isn't sure the malolactic is completed of if there's residual sugar. He wants the whole thing to remain artisanal and to rely on a sensitive and sensual approach, rather than coldly technical. Same for the vineyard management he says, he works as he feels appropriate, not in a purely scientific way either, he just tries to make sure the vineyard is accompanied in good conditions toward its goal.
Asked about how the sales went after the lockdown (march-april) in 2020, Christophe says there's been a rebound. He even had orders during the lockdown but he prefered to delay the shipments by fear the pallets might be stranded on a platform somewhere in bas temperature conditions (the shipping took place afterwards). From the U.S. he didn't have any orders after the lockdown, he thinks the pandemic has been a shock over there. He got an imortant shipping to Japan after the lockdown, some went to Japan and other countries in Europe as well. He's not worried, he got also buyers from the region (restaurants) who bought him some wine, which is good also he says. On the other hand it's not really possible to sell more locally because there isn't enough demand here around to replace the export market.
Christophe's last picking day was september 17 and he made le Berlot (the festive dinner for the end of the harvest) the following day here around this table with all the pickers, that was something epic, he says with a smirk...
To understand how the volumes this year were really much better than the previous years, Christophe had to urgently find new tanks, these are the two here, and it will be more comfortable even in the future. We're tasting here the juice blend of Côt-Gamay which has been recently devatted, so here we have the free run and part of the press juice.
__We first tasted the Côt-Gamay juice, I think that this will make the cuvée Tandem. Some of the juice is still to come as there's a full press in the process (total press time 4 or 5 hours if I'm right). This juice is on the lees and has yet to referment as there's a lot of sugar in there because it was released by the recently-pressed grapes. But in the mouth it's not really bernache, you feel the wine arousing behund the sweet front. Tannin is right here he says, you don't need more, that's what is important, feel when enough is enough for the tannin, it helps you decide of the maceration length.
__ Free-run juice of Côt (pictured above), very light color, candy feel, delicious. Vinified alone you'd have a terrific thirst wine I think. Christophe thinks he may indeed vinify it separately, but with the press juice which may change its feel.
__ Here we went to the cellar to taste fermenting Sauvignon [2020] from a barrel, this is already well advanced while still having way to go before it's really wine. Obviously the malolactic is not done yet, with this acidic feel. Christophe says he has also in this cellar some Sauvignon 2019 which has not yet fully completed its fermentation, but there's no faults, no volatile, so he's confident.
__ Sauvignon juice fermenting, from another barrel, its color is really different, more orange. In the mouth really much sweeter than the previous, really feels like bernache this time. There's a week difference between the two juices, which explains the gap, but still, Christophe thinks it will go slower than the other one.
__ Menu Pineau from a 450-liter demi-muid, also a somehow darker juice, picked 4 days before, and poured into this barrel by gravity the previous day, which explains also how it looks. Feels like a beautiful juice also, super nice !
__We walked back (through the super-low door) to the vat room to taste a Sauvignon 2019 which Christophe thought for a long time wasn't ready yet. He thinks there may still be 3 grams of residual sugar or something like that today. For my part I don't feel something sweet, it's rich but not really sweet, and it's no perly, there seems not to be CO2 coming out.
__ Menu Pineau 2019, from a small barrel. Feels perly like it was still fermenting a bit. Vivid also, but Christophe says it's not easy to taste when a wine is on its end of fermentation like here. All of this of course is without any SO2 and will remain such. Sometimes he gets what we call in French "graisse in the wine when it takes time to ferment, some sort of greasy turbidity that ends up vanishing after some time, that's why he waits for the bottling.
__ We end up tasting a red from 2019, still in its tank, this is the Côt-Gamay blend (Tandem). We tasted the fermenting juice at the beginning, now we have the almost-finished wine from last year. Christophe asks if it still ferments, we all don't think so, very aromatic, neat and droit, he also thinks it's ready for bottling. the rest of this cuvée has already been bottled, he lacked time for this tank just before the harvest.
This was later in september, we went there again with B. and a friend and bought a few bottles after tasting some. Summer was going away and we'd have colder, wetter days, the land getting its long-awaited rain season after months of drought. This evening my choice was this Pineau d'Aunis 2018, which Christophe doesn't favor particularly because unlike what he makes usually there's noticeable volatile. What I liked was the low-alcohol feel with these typical tannic touch in the mouth, i thought 11 % or 10,5 % but it's actually more like 12 %. I also loved his gamay 2019, such a fruit and fresh at the same time. Other surprise, we're told it's 15 %... Hard to believe.
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