Thésée, Touraine (Loire)
The temperature was pretty low when I came to see Anouk and Paul
in their vineyard, with early mornings at minus 3 C (26,6 F) and highs at around + 3 C (37,4 F). Yes, pruning time is back and Touraine is known to be rather cold at this season,
the humidity making it feel worse. Pruning is so important for the future fruit bearing but that's where you realize that if a vine has to suffer to make good wine (Jean-Michel Deiss explains it so well), the growers themselves have to go through tough trials before they get to see their fruit. Everybody had underpants (including me) to keep warm, and gloves (except Johan pictured below). We're here on the plateau above Thésée, reaching these parcels is easy : you drive up the small road on the left of the church, take the first left, then as soon as you see vines you take the 1st dirt/mud road on the left... I stopped my venerable Ami 8 (which behaves like a fear-nothing all-terrain vehicule) near this bicycle and car, it happened to belong to the small team, I could guess them in the far. Good thing I brought boots, it was very muddy.
As a Canadian nativen Anouk is certainly better armed for the frigid months of winter in the Loire valley... They began picking early december on their surface, they will prune the whole 5-hectare surface with this small team of 3 : Anouk, Paul and Johan who works also at Laurent Saillard. Paul says that this year they'd liker to complete the pruning by mid march, so as to be able to work the soils in time, before thye grass takes over. He says often they are overwhelmed by the different tasks and then it is too late with high weeds and muddy, unsecure soil for tractor work, and high weeds accentuate frost risk at the turn of spring.
Were're here in a parcel of Sauvignon, aged around 25, Paul says this parcel is very vigorous, Paul says, with thick wood and canes, that's why they took a more powerful branch cutter for when it's needed.
Asked if the changing rules regarding the pandemic (lockdowns, curfews) are a problem for their work, they say no, they can go to work and it's a pretty heathy setting to be here in the vineyard. For the 1st stay-at-home order they had no nanny to keep their baby, so both of them took their turn alternately to babysit or work. For sure Anouk can't go to Canada see her family, they travelled there last february before it all started to get loose, now it would be very difficult because the rules over there are very strict, plus there's the risk to contaminate family abroad after flying.
Asked about the sales, Anouk says they didn't come across difficulties : during the 1st lockdown the Belgian buyers bought them plenty of wine, the Japanese too, even if the latter delayed a bit the purchase. All in all, she says life didn't change that much for them, they have the chance to be able to keep working, and in the countryside it's certainbly less traumatic than in town to go through this. We all think we may have caught the virus at some point, in the early part of the pandemic, for them like for me (in april) it was just some unusual tiredness and headache for a week or so, nothing more. Tests were virtually non-existent in France at the time so we just had to keep going and cross fingers... By the way vaccines seem to follow the same path, I learned the EU bureaucracy has apparently once more made tons of blunders with orders made too late, crazy delays in processing the market authorizations (for vaccines already massively used elsewhere), forbidding individual states to order them, and possibly having intentionally delayed the whole thing hoping an EU product (designed by a French pharma giant) would come out timely, thus avoiding the humiliation to have to buy only what is viewed as an American vaccine (politics before pragmatism, as usual in Brussels). Alas, this French vaccine seems to have failed the tests and fallen into disarray until at least the end of 2021 and we now may have to wait at the end of the queue.
On all their parcels they do the Poussard pruning, a mode that respects the sap flow of the vines. Each vine is different of course but through basic rules they can do the right thing so as not to hamper an harmonious flow of the sap in the wood, which in turns makes it easier for the vine to grow and sustain fruit and foliage. Vines tended to degenerate in the last few decades because in part to faulty pruning and this type of pruning revigorates the vines and makes them healthier. Until somewhere in the 20th century growers would use arsenic-based chemicals that would "protect" the vines against fungi but since these chemicals were banned you couldn't avoid the consequences of a faulty pruning mode, which is why the Poussard pruning became rediscovered and applied with good results.
The pruned canes will not be burnt but crushed and scattered between the rows as a compost, Anouk says it brings nutrients, minerals to the soil as well as carbon. We speak of wild animals (they seem to stay "indoors" in the woods with these freezing temperatures) and hunting and they say that they don't hunt but know a couple of vignerons who do. I also know some myself and will not name them, you never know with the cancel mob ;-)
Paul says that to help keep roe deers away from the vineyard, some hunting organizations finance the purchase of cans of repellent made out of sheep fat (so that the growers don't complain or sue them). These repellent (Trico is one of them, and it's organic) are pretty expensive but they seem to work, according to Paul. I don't know why roe deers have a problem with sheep, but I've seen multiple times sheep hair tied to vineyard posts, apparently with the aim to back deers off.
So Johan studied at the Amboise wine/viticulture school and then he has been working since last year here with Anouk and Paul and also with Laurent Saillard, helping in the vineyard and in the chai if needed.But he had been working for growers in the region even before enrolling in the wine school. He of course has the idea later to set up his own thing, but for now he likes to work for others, he considers he's not ready yet and has still lots of things to learn before making the step. For example he learns what to do when this or that happens, wether with Laurent or Anouk/Paul, it's good top learn from different perspective and he builds his experience this way. He made a few personnal tries, vinifying a few things for himself on small volumes but nothing official yet. Be ready for a newcomer someday, I'll be there...
I love this post (and the others you have created that are like it). It's always important to see how hard these dedicated vignerons work to produce what you drink with dinner, which otherwise easily could be overlooked and not appreciated.
Posted by: Tom Casagrande | January 16, 2021 at 06:35 PM