Comblanchien (Burgundy)
I also visited at last (also unannounced) Domaine Antoine Lienhardt, whose wines impressed me every time I had the opportunity to taste them, I'd rather say, not just taste but drink to the last drop. Antoine's wine facility and house are located in the village of Comblanchien (sitting between Chorey and Nuits-Saint-Georges), this village is more known for its quarries (the hard limestone of Comblanchien) but it has a winegrowing history as well (more info on this page about the climats and vineyard surface in Comblanchien), and Antoine's organic/biodynamic farming (plus natural winemaking) certainly helps put back the village in the spotlight. This is a 6-hectare family domaine, Antoine took the reins in 2011 and his sister Héloïse joined the fray in 2017. This is a short story but hopefully I'll come back for a longer one on this domaine and have a look on the parcels.
When I arrived they were in the middle of a press but Antoine managed to spend time showing me around and speaking about this particular year that has been tricky for many people. He says things went quite good for them, especially compared to the poor prospects earlier this year. Depending of the parcels, the grapes were either in poor conditions or pretty healthy, there was a wide range, but the motto for them was bye bye 2021 and welcome 2022. In some areas he has parcels with volumes down to 50 % to 60 % and in other, more lucky ones it's only 10 % or 15 %, so he feels happy compared to what others endured (he has friends elsewhere in France who picked nothing, or something like 14-15 boxes in a whole hectare). Asked about what was the biggest problem this year for him, Antoine says oidium, and they had 2 or 3 parcels from which they had to sort down 50 % of the grapes because of the damages, but overall the yields are quite fine, so it's good news compared to what it could have been. He says the Côte de Nuits went through relatively unscathed.
The juice of his parcel Les Essards was quietly dropping under the press, this parcel in Comblanchien on Côtes-de-Nuits Villages appellation was planted in the 1960s on a limestone/clay soil, this parcel is probably among the ones Antoine plows with a draft horse. The color is so exciting, Antoine says it tastes beautiful this morning with smooth tannins. They'll put all the juice in a tank for a some time as the pressing releases sugar, they wait the fermentation finishes and the gross lees sediment (especially on a year like 2021 in order not to have problems and a fortiori because they don't put any sulfur even at this stage) and then they'll fill the barrels. The whites were already in barrels that day.
The red barrels were still empty at the time of this visit, while the whites were full and still fermenting gently as you could check looking through the opening.
This was was put in there 3 days before, these demi-muids here are made by Stockinger, Antoine bought them second-hand to friends who hadn't enough volume to fill them this year. I ask what's particularly good in these Stockinger demi-muids here, Antoine says the Austrian/German oak has good properties, these vessels don't leave an oaky mark on the wine. Usually the toasting is light, which helps in this regard. Also, when you look at the thickness of the staves (which you can gauge around the flat side), it's way more than what you see from the other, French cooperages. This demi-muid was made in 2014 and only saw Sauvignon Blanc for years, he got it from the Pinard brothers (Clément and Florent) in Sancerre
I asked if it remained empty a long time between Sancerre and here, he says no, 3 weeks only (good job !). Asked how he keeps the barrel safe, he says that before he used the UV lamp I wrote about in the Anders Frederik story but now he went back to using sulfur wicks, and before reusing the barrel they clean it with this tool above with high-pressure water, first with 60-70 C [140-158 F] water, then with cold water, it's made by Fichet but I didn't find anything on the Web.
I spotted this strange thing on the side, Antoine says it's a fiberglass egg made in the Beaujolais, with the usual good side of these vessels of having a circulation of the lees, plus this one is neutral because of the fabric, and easy to handle and move around. He's been working with it for 3 years.
Antoine shows me something they apparently just received from the Atelier Centre France, a cooperage I heard plenty of praise about among artisan vintners : here is an experimental barrel ordered by Antoine, it is made with both acacia and oak (alternate staves) with the two ends (bottom and top) in oak so that the lees are fully in contact with oak. He thinks there's no other barrel made like this in France today, the goal for him is lighten the strictness of the 100%-oak and bring in the floral side of the acacia. It's a trial and on the first use already they'll see what it gives. Beyond buying now and then news barrels (Stockinger or Atelier Centre France) he buys second-hand barrels to vintners he trusts the vinification philosophy of.
Antoine says he got his first cement egg 6 or 7 years ago and little by little he found the result on the wines quite good and so part of the reds has its élevage in this type of tank, with a blending at the end with barrels, retaining the crispy, fresh and fruity side in the wine, the barrel part bringing roundness.
This is what is called appropriately a Diamond tank, but here the inside shape of the vessel is not a diamond's, it's oddly an horizontal egg
Here is a large sandstone [grès in French] vessel looking like a large amphora, is is filled with their Clos de Vougeot, he found enough of it farmed organic (from owners he knows) for a barrel worth of wine. It's the first year he makes some.
Antoine says he's in the process of raising the training of his vines in order to only trim the shoots once in the season (in july). He will push the foliage height to something like 1,70 or 1,80 meter, you have to change the posts and put 2-meter high acacia posts (he ordered 4000 of them) which is not easy especially that it's made by hand and some of his staff aren't as tall as him.... The goal, in the long term, is to stop the trimming. Even with the augmented height he'll still be able to drive his straddle tractors in the rows. He'll begin pruning mid december this year, he used to begin later but with these precocious year you end up speeding in confusion at the end, with tying coming hastily just after. He prefers to do these tasks in a relaxed way.
After the press was properly washed (he made sure it was unplugged and the trainee didn't use full water pressure inside so as not to damage the membrane), Antoine went somewhere to pick up glasses and share some wine with his staff and me, the afternoon was nearing its end and the day had been productive.
Asked how it turned out for his sales during this pandemic, Antoine says that's crazy but sales skyrocketed including from all his importers, he credits this on the fact that people having stopped for some time going to the restaurants, they drank wine home and thus spent the money on more bottles than they'd have otherwise, setting a bonanza domino effect for the producers and the cavistes. They export worldwide and sales kept high abroad as well including in the United States (East : Polaner, West : Beaune Imports) and Japan (Terra Vert). At the darkest time of the pandemic when no one could travel either way, they still bought the wines, without prior tasting. Asked about new market he says they open one every year usually (often in Asia), but their philosophy is limit each country/importer (especially new ones) with one pallet so that the wine can be appreciated in a wide range of regions.
The wine was a Meursault from last year, bottled 3 weeks earlier, so good with a wholeness feel and energy, one more reason I guess why trainees love to work in domaines like Antoine's... Regarding this Meursault he says he doesn't use new oak for the élevage. It is unfiltered and unfined, only 1 gram/hectoliter at bottling (at racking), he's been doing that for 2/3 years because his whites tended to turn oily in the cellar. You can get rid of this oily thing usually by keeping the wine two more years in bottle but he can't do that. With just one gram (which is basically nothing) he spares his wine this temporary fault (he says it's like if you had never taken paracetamol, if you then take one, it works much more powerfully). This cuvée begins to be sold to his usual buyers, it comes out beautiful every year and the cavistes buy right away when available without prior tasting. But Antoine says the best would be to wait a couple of years to drink it at its optimum with aromas of apricot and candied fruits. A staff asks if it doesn't get buttery after a year, he says no, that's not the profile of this wine.
Then, all the while keeping a look on the washing of tools that had to be spotless-ready for the next move the following day, Antoine opened a bottle of Les Essards 2020
(which was bottled in april), calling then his staff to come enjoy the treat (sorry, forgot to take a picture of the wine and bottle). For my part I hadn't to keep an eye on the trainees but Antoine's dog was eager to keep me playing fetch, the only problem being it didn't let me grab the thing, so I was struggling between playing/fighting with the dog and enjoying Antoine's one-year-old Pinot Noir...
Plus I had to drive back to Northern Burgundy thereafter and kept thinking/hoping I'd be still fine in case of breath check (I just lost 3 points on my driving license for speeding on my motorbike from Paris to the Loire recently and I don't need further brush with the law).
Antoine will put this wine on the market around november. Went through a maceration of 6-7 days (for this vintage, not even a stomping). Unfiltered, unfined, it got 1 gram/hectoliter SO2 at racking (a month before bottling). Very gourmand wine, very unctuous and fruity, lovely ! Just so young (2020) and already enjoyable, Antoine hears my remark and says that when a wine tastes well there's no need to wait further for the bottling, he noticed that when you keep the élevage longer in this case, you get dryness sensation, loosing the smoothness you had before. This wine had its short élevage in an old barrel.
We all think that in Burgundy grape harvest is done by hand only but I spotted this combine in the Côtes-de-Nuits area, machine-harvesting a parcel of what looked like Chardonnay. It's probably a lower parcel located on flatland outside Appellation zones (there was a corn field just on the other side of the road). Pretty violent on the vines and foliage, at some point I was struck with debris hitting me with high speed and chose to stop walking further behind the machine...
On the road back to northern Burgundy using side roads (gorgeous landscape away from tourist hype, especially along road D2 going through the valley village of Bouilland), I spotted this young fox along the road that seemed to play by itself, acting at times as if rehearsing how to catch a mouse in the high grass. Very cute. I moved the car along to keep close but it was not afraid at all...
Cool fox ;)
Posted by: Christoph Darjanto | November 14, 2021 at 01:50 AM