Monthou-sur-Cher, Touraine (Loire)
I had dropped unannounced a couple of times at the cellar of Estelle and François
Saint-Leger along the road
between Thésée and Monthou-sur-Cher but no one was there, they were either busy picking
or it was a day with no picking planned, so I texted them and could come when they'd were there. I had barely parked the motorbike that they were arriving with Estelle's father and a trailer pulled by his car, full of red grapes, namely Cabernet Franc. I was to witness a foot stomping by Estelle near the door of the cool cellar in the bottom of a tank, with the aim to make a vibrant pied de cuve with indigenous yeast. This was yet a very nice, pretty warm september day.
Both Estelle and François have trained in the wine school of Amboise and their first vintage was 2014, they grow quietly their bottling share along the years, selling the grapes they don't vinify to same-minded vintners like Les Capriades or Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme. They have a young baby and Estelle had to be in time at home that day to pick up her child from the nanny.
Asked about how fares 2020 so far, François says it's fine but with smaller yields. they keep selling part of the fruit (to Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme for example) and, given their own cuvées have a volume usually of 1000 bottles each, it's not too much a problem to have low volumes now and then. They'll make this year a Sauvignon, a Sauvignon-Chardonnay blend (first time they try this Cheverny-style blend), a Gamay Chaudenay. Asked how things were during the lockdown in march-april he said the sales at that time was mostly orders by private individuals.
Tasting the bernache of Chardonnay-Sauvignon. This juice had been pressed 8 days before (on september 2) but
still tasted the typical bernache with still sugar coating beautifully the nascing alcohol... François says it'll keep some CO2 with a perly feel. He says that usually they pick grapes with potential of 13-13,5 % but this year, in spite of a longer summer they get lower alcohol, with maturity at pain of raising the alcohol level, he credits the heat for stalling the process. Expected alcohol should be 12 % to 12,5 % this year, which is nice, and he hopes to get wines that are more on the fruit side. We then tasted a tank of Sauvignon which had been picked august 29, it was oddly sweeter, like it was slower to ferment. Very aromatic, very nice. I need to taste that when it's completed wine to compare...
We now taste the Gamay Chaudenay (a sub-variety of Gamay used in the past to darken the wines) which is so good. They say these are old vines making small bunches, they vinify it whole clustered. I think this was the 2019 that we tasted here.
At one point I stopped again at the chai of Anouk and Paul-André (les Jardins de Théséiis), who work on the other half of Bruno Allion's vineyards. Actually I was riding my motorbike along the winding roads above Thésée when I spotted their Russian-made Niva with a trailer loaded with full boxes, I just followed them back to the chai. The grapes here are Sauvignon.
They told me they started picking august 24, beginning with the Sauvignon, picking the different
Sauvignon parcels (La Grande Pièce and Poira) when they're ready. They were afraid the grapes would ripe very quickly, so they started picking the two vineyards at the same time alternatively in order to keep with the right maturity, with also good acidity. The Gamay had already been picked when I showed up and that day they were bringing the last Sauvignon, they still had the Romorantin, the Pineau d'Aunis and the Côt to pick.
Pic on left : pickers (including Emily) carry the boxes to the press
The Gamay, Côt and Pineau d'Aunis have a potential of 12,5 % alcohol this year, it's ripe but they can wait still a little bit for what's still hanging as there is a nice acidity. Speaking of the juice and volume Paul says the yields are good for the whites with good volume of juice in each bunch. The seeds are ripe, they are brown but the skins are very thin, meaning that compared to the previous years they have more juice. On the reds on the other hand they don't make terrific volumes.
That's the best time of the day I guess, when the pickers sit around the table outside the chai and Paul pours a bottle.
Speaking of the boxes of Sauvignon they just took in, Paul tells me that's for an infusion : they picked half of the parcel 2 days ago, pressed the grapes, making around 12 hectoliters of grapes, and today they're destemming today's grapes and pour the 12 hectoliters over the whole berries in a fibergless vat for a few days. It's the first time they'll be doing such an infusion.
This apéritif thing took place the 2nd time I visited (I'm often lucky), and the wine was Romoratin 2018, very enjoyably mineral (sold out now, this was from their personnal reserve). They happened to have picked their small parcel of Romorantin that day (30 ares), the grapes were very nice, Anouk said, with a golden color, sometimes even pink. They had different ripeness stages on the parcel because they pruned late last spring by fear of frost. On average the grapes will be very ripe but very complex and thus beautiful. The volume will be only 800 liters though.
It was rest time that day at Laurent Saillard, here posing with son, friends and pickers, you might recognize Arnaud Erhart who came back here from Puerto Rico in july. Laurent said that this year the yields are nice, the acidity is rather low though with the heat, even malic acidity was degraded by the sun. They began to pick august 22 and at the time (september 7) he had only some Aunis and Cabernet to pick. Good vintage for 2020 in his feel, with just a bit of oidium on Chardonnay and Gamay. Never had such good yields on his Sauvignon. Gamay will be nice even though he lost some grapes from grillure and oidium. Juices taste good.
Here we are on Laurent's 45-year-old parcel of Pineau d'Aunis, with these beautiful od vines loaded with generous bunches. For these grapes he plans to do a maceration of 10 to 12 days, keeping freshness in the wine.
Here while the pickers are having a pause with drinks and snacks, Laurent loads a few boxes in the van. He rents this van every year at Super U for a few weeks (like 3 weeks), it's much cheaper than hav 12 to picke one permanently. This Pineau d'Aunis parcel makes 50 ares and they're 12 to pick it. There were 18 pickers at the beginning of the season but some have already left. Laurent has another parcel of Aunis he planted 2 years ago but it's not yet in production.
i went to the wine farmù of Sylvain Leest just outside of Faverolles-en-Berry, and by chance he was just parking his car when I myself had just put my bike on its centerstand. What I like at Sylvain's place is that there's music harmoniously bathing the chai.
Sylvain began to pick august 27 and at the time of my visit still had a few parcels to pick, like his parcel of Orbois Blanc (also known as Menu Pineau) which he'll let ripen further. He's been picking this parcel for 3 years and this year with the ideal conditions (warm late-summer days, cool nights) he'll wait the optimal ripeness with the grapes becoming golden. And acidity is good, with low pH.
Sylvain keeps working on the renovation of the wine farm, like here in the chai he got a new cement slab poured, complete with water drains for hygiene and better work conditions. He also renovates his living quarters (his family lives there in the house part).
Asked about the volume this year Sylvain says it's a good year indeed, adding that last year (2019) was nice for the whites, not the reds because for some resons they suffered more from the drought. Sylvain says his surface hasn't changed since I visited in 2017, he farms 4,15 hectares. This year he'll vinify more because Les Capriades bought him less grapes (sales of bubbles fell in early 2020 because of the lockdowns), they only took whites and some Pineau d'Aunis.He still has some Aunis for himself to make a rosé. This year he'll make a new cuvée of Pinot Noir and also a Grolleau.
Sylvain has really a lot of room in here, so much that he could let the former garage be used by a friend of his, Samuel Lecart, who is starting a business of cutlery. That was pretty impressing to see him making his artisanal knives (kitchen knives, folding knives, hunting knives) in this large room. Sylvain says he custom-made his own machine, as well as an oven for the materials of which the handles are made.
I'll not try to transale but Samuel uses rare woods or zebu or buffalo horn for the handles, finetuning, polishing them for a perfect finish (that's where the oven is useful at some point). Listening to him I learnt more about the many different types of blades, some bearing a region name. Oddly Samuel learnt the trade in 2019 after a former life in IT. If you're interested in his work, his email is [email protected]. His website : La Coutellerie du Taureau
Sylvain's wine farm is a gem for its architecture, surroundings and cellar. Here in the courtyard you have these outbuildings still full with old farm tools and parts, and the trees and the general layout of the premises breathe something from a bygone era when farms were indeed living organisms.
Sylvain says that at the end of the lockdown (which was not that hard for growers who could go work on their parcels) on may 12 he had a big bottling day, this was for much of the 2018 wines (a bottler came here with a truck). Speaking of the sales things are taking up slowly, like last year he shipped wine to Japan and this year he sent them samples.
I remembered this scenery from my last visit but since then Sylvain evacuated the tons of rubble that blocked the entrances of these deep cellars and this place really becomes impressively gorgeous. Now they can clean up these cellars, store things there. Imagine this place with a kitchen, you can have dream parties, organize events, it's a unique landscape with trees all around... The woods above the hill are part of the property. In summer even when it's hot you don't suffer here because of the shade and the cool breeze coming from the cellar which is year around at 14 C (57,2 F). Next step is bring in water pipes and electricity.
Before leaving Sylvain kindly gave me a bottle or rosé 2018 to open at home, it had been bottled a year before and it's made with Pineau d'Aunis, Grolleau and Gamay Teinturier for the color. He says the wine has still some gas and is getting good to open. He thinks it's good to carafe it, that's the wine they drink in the vineyard with the pickers now and then. Very vinous type of rosé, and refreshing as well, it's more like a clairet, a format we don't find enough I think.
Sylvain told me about a nationwide event named De Ferme en Ferme he'll be taking part to in september (it was 26-27 september) but I just forgot to put that in my agenda and missed it (I was around at that time with B.). Here is his page in the farm group. Next farm event will be in april 2021, should be a great opportunity to visit farmers with a philosophy centered on what matters.
I showed up yet again unannounced at domaine Vincent Ricard
whom I hadn't seen for a long time (this visit report dates from january 2005 in the early months of this wine blog) and when I visited he was precisely busy pressing Sauvignon for his entry cuvée Le Petiot. I happen to have stumbbled upon this cuvée a couple years ago and loved it, even though the vineyard for this cuvée is machine harvested. The domaine is certfied organic since 2016.
The harvest began august 31 in the domaine and they'd have finished around september 17 with the Côt.
In Faverolles-sur-Cher I saw briefly Moses Gadouche and Pascal Potaire, the kings of Pet-nat at les Capriades. Things were quiet as the juices were already fermenting and on their way. Moses said this year they harvested only half the volume they usually pick, it was their choice do downsize the volumes and they decided to make 3/4 of whites (Chard, Menu Pineau & Chenin) with just a bit of red with Pinot Noir and Pineau d'Aunis. They had to downsize the production with the 3-month freeze caused by the lockdowns but it was also their long-term objective to make smaller volumes, especially that they have wine stocks for a smoother sales turnover with different vintages. At the beginning they had to make morte volume until these long-élevage wines were ready, which they are now.
Speaking of the sales they say of course with New York restaurants mostly closed this translates into slower sales but thye cavistes are compensating partly, plus they sell among 25 states un the US. In Sweden oddly sales never really slowed because there was no lockdown there, and it's taking up even more vigorously there, the market is hot with orders every month or month and a half. So export is quite good overall but on the other hand the French market is flat. They never had big volumes in France as they export 90 % but still, it's even smaller now for the domestic market. They think it must be very hard for the restaurants, plus even though they have reopened the seats indoors are limited, and the 3-month closure is financially unbearable for many of them.
Pascal then gives me a glass of Carisi (or Carési) pear juice, carisi being THE top-quality pear variety for Poiré, a late-ripening type of pear. As you may know (thank you Emily for this piece !) Poiré is making a comeback and Les Capriades play a good part for people to rediscover this ancient sparkling beverage. This year they'll make 3 or 3 cuvées of it, with volumes of 1500-2000 bottles each. Tastes so good, it's still pure juice but will ferment like a wine. the pears are sourced from the Perche area in the northern tip of the Loire, near Saint Avril (where there's a nice natural-wine event every year).
Asked about the quality of the grapes this year, Moses says it was fine. They began to pick on august 22, picking in the mornings only, with interruptions here and there, the grapes were superb and the little rain that fell before the harvest helped get a bit more volume than expected after a drought of several months. Potential alcohol was around 11% or 11,5 % which was fine also. Moses says it's time to change the approach regarding the picking time, meaning if you wait for the maturity you easily end up with 14,5 % alcohol which is too much in this region, and 2018 as well as 2019 were typical of this trend, so now they'll tend to focus on keeping lower alcohol at the end. Bottling for the 2020 was to be in the 2nd half of september with then of course the élevage sur lattes before disgorgement.
I went to Mikaël Bouges next door from les Capriades, Mikaël was there with a worker, you could here the ringing sound of the press at work. Asked about this harvest 2020, Mikaël says the began to pick early, august 28, beginning with the Chenin which is early ripening, and the quality of all the grapes is superb so far (he still had 5 days of picking when I showed up that day on september 11). He says this should be a nice vintage, pretty balaned and with nice volumes because of the rain at the end. For himself it's the 4th consecutive year that the grapes are satisfying in quality and volume as well, because unlike other people in the Loir-et-Cher he didn't suffer from frost in 2017.
Asked about the Coronavirus-related problems regarding sales for example, he says there was of course disminished sales to the restaurants but not for the cavistes as people bought/ordered in the wine shops even during lockdowns. He doesn't export much, so he wasn't affected by the slumping sales overseas.
The press on the right is full of Chenin, the total press time will be 2 hours. They picked this Chenin the same morning from 7:30 am to noon, avoiding to pick anything in the afternoon because this mid september was still hot. they still had Menu Pineau and Côt scheduled for the following week. Mikaël says this year was indeed nice from start to now, beautiful weather all along. During the lockdown in march-april they had more work than usual because the vines grew like crazy in april and they had to rush for the pruning or debudding. Still, he says, it was so better to live here than stay stuck indoors in the cities like so many people.
Chapeau for a real insight into the vintage! Hope you continue to stay safe and well.
Looks like almost some Australian sun burn. In the Loire, phew.
Cheers indeed
Andrew
Posted by: Andrew Martin | November 29, 2020 at 07:50 AM