Loir-et-Cher (Loire)
The following day and a half I toured again several growers and domaines, some being located on the Cher valley side,
some on the edge of Sologne and the first place I visited
was a parcel where Jeremy Quastana and a few people including his brother Jean where picking Pinot Noir. Jeremy Quastana himself had zero grapes in his parcels because of the catastrophic weather conditions this year, so here he was picking on a friends' vineyard and the grapes would be vinified by his brother Jean who is also joining the fray of artisan winemaking.
These friends who own this parcel don't make wine themselves, for now at least, they just sell the grapes. They grow organic of course and I spotted this intact mushroom between the rows (I've heard it's edible but I never tried), this is a Wolf-fart Puffball, known in French as vesse de loup.
Jeremy also did some solidarity harvest at Les Vins Contés (from Olivier Lemasson who left us not long ago) but there's not much to pick there neither, both because of the difficult conditions this year (beginning with the deep frost) and also because Olivier's family was so devastated by the suddenness of his death that they didn't have the resources to do the multiple sprayings required by the exceptionnal mildew pressure this summer. Jeremy says that overall the harvest this year is also very discontinuous, with interruptions and idle days between picking, which is also difficult for the pickers, some making a living in this season. He says you have to organize the picking on parcels with two generations of grapes, the survivors of the frost, and the ones that grew back after the frost...
this parcel here belonged to Hervé Villemade who sold it to these friends because it was off-centered with his other vineyards and also because the distance between the rows was different from the rest of his parcels.
Everybody drove back to Jeremy's wine farm for lunch, and that's a nice part shared by most artisan/natural winemakers, they serve home-made lunch to their pickers, and from my experience it's very good. Here one of the pickers who is also a long-time friend of Jeremy brought a bottle of cider of his own production, excellent cider, unfiltered and with very discreet bubbles.
I had never been in Jeremy's facility, as he bought this old farm a couple years after my report a few years back. He's been renovating this nice isolated farm, both the living quarters and the barns which he converted to a
wine facility. There's lots of available buildings as the farms forms an almost complete horseshoe, with two long barns facing each other. No underground cellar, this is a surface cellar and chai, but the walls are very thick, like usual in these old farms, and the temperature inertia is quite good. He had to pour a concrete slab in one part of the barn which didn't have any yet, and redo the electricity wirings, that's pretty all. He has two separate vatrooms, one for his own wines, and the other for his girlfriend who is also registered to produce and sell wine.
Jeremy will have almost nothing to pick in his own parcels, but he says he bought Syrah in Languedoc, in Pic Saint Loup, where Anne Paillet herself buys her grapes. He already bought grapes there in 2016 and 2017 when his parcels suffered from frost. He has no négoce structure and can only buy grapes when the administration issues special exemptions, generally following natural disasters.
Unlike Anne Paillet (who incredibly vinifies in a semi-truck both in Languedoc and on the road, on the way back to her Loire facility in Azay-le-Rideau), Jeremy brings the grapes back to his farm using two vans to vinify them there. He saw Anne while there, it's her pickers team who picked his Syrah, he slept ar her place, very cool experience.
Jeremy says he'll also buy some Cabernet from Jérôme Lenoir (Domaine Les roches), Jérôme was kind enough to help in that regard, knowing that he needed grapes. Even with these purchases, he'll make half the volume of last year but that compensates partly.
Before leaving Jeremy walks to the red tank to take some syrah and have some to taste and drink.
Jeremy's girlfriend Melissa is also an artist, she makes items centered on octopus and sells her Art worldwide (including a lot in the United States) through her website adoptetonpoulpe.com.
Having lunch with the pickers is a rare honor, and I will adress my thanks to Jeremy and his mother (standing, background left) who prepared all this nice food that we had, including the parsil/garlic soup here on the picture. And look below at the wines, what else could these pickers need to be happy ?
As I was leaving Jeremy and his pickers (it was time for them to get back in the parcels) for new adventures, I spotted this tracteur vigneron in the back of his farm, a Same Vigneron 45. I didn't know this make (seems you don't see may of them in France), but Same is an Italian brand and keeps making tractors to this day.
Here is the Chateau de Chémery which I passed by during my comings and goings around the region in the Loir-et-Cher. It looks like a family-owned chateau but still open to visitors, it has not been damaged by over-zealous renovations and mass tourism, it is still surrounded by a ditch filled with water like centuries ago and sits in the middle of a quiet village off the beaten path.
My next unannounced stop was at Jean-Guillaume Caplain's Domaine Peaux Rouges, a négoce with an artisan winemaking philosophy and fully natural vinification.
The wine farm sits in the
middle of woods (part of the property) at some distance of the village of Monthou-sur-Cher. This place is also very inspiring, Jean-Guillaume has renovated the farm especially the living quarters but it keeps its soul with the laid-back surroundings and greenery. The first person I saw there was Ben Nerot who was busy cleaning a stainless steel vat to get rid of the thin tartaric acid layer that had encrusted on the inside. It's by the way one of Ben's own vats, and Jean-Guillaume had borrowed it for a batch of Sauvignon 2020 which was lagging lagging.
Ben who is foremost a musician has been living in the region for a few years now with his partner Emilly Dilling, a Californian expat and writer, both working for different artisan growers of the area and raising their young daughter.
They took in the whites the previous day and this was a good surprise, there was enough juice. Apart from a single day in the previous week the harvest started the day before, it's hard to predict the volumes each time can be a surprise, you have not only the count of the remaining bunches on the vines but how it will translate in terms of juice. This morning they picked some Gamay and they're not even sure to get 3 hectoliters this year, versus 19 hectoliters last year on the same parcel. They'll take no risk and will make a pet-nat with this Gamay, with grapes that have a diverse maturity level. What they tasted outside the press was nice, so it's ok also to make a sparkling.
Apart from that Ben Nerot is going to resume his music career soon, as he was hired by the group EZ3kiel, and he will tour the country with even a few concerts abroad (Quebec, the UK) beginning early 2022 (they'll be at Playel in Paris in february). It makes him appreciate this harvest season 2021 because he doesn't know when he'll fully do one again.
Emily also now remotely works for an American company dealing with Web conferencing, she manages virtual reunions (taking place mostly under American time zones) from their home in Pouillé, meaning she works at night, not easy indeed but interesting job nonetheless.
You'll see here how a rebêche unfolds, this consists after a first press to move around the compacted pomace in the bottom of thye press and press again after having levelled the mass, it allows for a better pressing, some of the juice having evaded the pressing, for example for the grapesall along the walls of the basket.
First, you take out the basket (this press has intergangeable baskets).
Then you open the basket and take out (mostly by hand) large chunks of the cake, dropping them in a box, a third or half of the mass.
Then you put back in place the removable walls, with a now-very-light cake in the bottom
Then you take the fork and rearrange the messy remains of the pomace (the cake), flattening it evenly.
Lastly, you put back the pomace you had taken out, flatten it evenly across the bottom, and you can put the basket back in plazce with its pressing lid and restart the pressing. You rebêche is done.
Jean-Guillaume is happy with his 16 hectoliters of Sauvignon who is in full-blown fermentation when I showed up. I put my nose over the tank (not too low I don't want to pass out with the CO2, the invisible gaz must certainly be overflowing the tank here. The color is dark which is OK, Jean-Guillaume says that the fermentation started so quickly thatr they didn't have time to make a débourbage, but when the fermentation will be over they'll do a gentle racking which will do the job. Anyway, he says, lees bring with them lots of nutients, it's good that the juice has them as long as possible.
The good thing for Jean-Guillaume is he has still wine from last year to sell. He makes relatively-long élevages and he began bottling the reds this summer, they're now only beginning to be sold on the market. The whites are not ready now, this will make more wine to release this winter and in 2022. He also bought grapes in the south, in Ardèche from Manu and Vincent at Les Deux Terres, but they also suffered from the weather hazards and he'll not get Syrah this year from them. He'll just get some Grenache, but on a much smaller scale compared from what he hauls usually.
Jean-Guillaume poured us this vat sample, it's a blend of Merlo/Grenache 2020 with grapes sourced at Les Deux Terres in Ardèche. This is just deliciousn with the type of vibrant acidity I love ! You just can't spit that, Jean-Guillaume says he may bottle that in magnums. He says it sports 14 % in alcohol, I can't believe it, it goes down the throat like milk... This will be the cuvée Paw Paw 2020, don't miss that one !
Jean-Guillaume also made a grappa of Grenache last year, he made 14 liters and it's very aromatic, he loves it.
Speaking of the harvest, at the time of my visit he just had the Côt and the Cabernet to pick, and also a bit of Gamay Teinturier. His total volumes will be only 20 % to 30 % of the 120 hectoliters he made last year but he is serene, adding, isn't that nice weather enjoyable, as we sip wine together ?
My followxing visit was in Blandine Floch's facility back to the Sologne area outside Candé-sur-Beuvron. When I visited her a couple months ago she had not yet equipped this large warehouse, it's now done in time for her first vinification in the spotless building. She was busy that day filling a fermenter with the juice of a Sauvignon Blanc she brought back from the domaine of Julie Biet in the Cher valley. Julie is a friend, and Blandine buys her a couple of organic-farmed varieties. They picked the Sauvignon yesterday and pressed the grapes over there as she has two nice presses.
This year has been tough for her too, she points to a small tank in the back (the small tank in the background), it's barely half filled and she says that's all the grapes she could pick on her surface, 5 hectoliters of Gamay (usually she manages to get 30/35 hectoliters of Gamay). Otherwise there was nothing to pick on her white parcels like Chenin and Sauvignon, the frost and the ensuing disease have taken their toll. The following day Blandine was to pick some Côt in the Cher valley (also at Julie Biet) and bring back the grapes here for maceration.It is a difficult year
This year is really different, not easy, with in some instance to have to choose between picking grapes that are not fully matured and waiting in spite of the heavy downpours expected in the next few days (and not being assured to reach ripeness anyway afterwards). There's also a weight/juice ratio which is very low this year, meaning that for a given volumùe of grapes you get much less juice than for the same volume last year.
many people including long-established growers like Julie's father say that this year has been exceptionally bad in terms of weather, frost and disease (Jean-Marc Biet says he never saw that in 40 or 45 years).
So this year Blandine will have a
bit of Gamay, the Sauvignon from Julie Biet, and (which partly compensate the dwindling volumes) she also could buy grapes further south in the Gard through her négoce. She picked three different parcels there, the grapes were beautiful and she voinifies the 3 batches separately, with the fermentations unfolding smoothly for now and the juice tasting quite nice with passion fruit, citrus notes. She Travelled over there with Laurent Saillard who himself also bought grapes from the same grower. She says the Gard has a good number of great growers and winemakers, like the Frères [brothers] Soulier (Charles & Guillaume), Frédéric Agneray, Valentin Valles and Sébastien Chatillon. But if you want to learn more on the Gard artisans, make sure to read (and subscribe to) Aaron's Substack, you'll have first-hand coverage not found elsewhere on the mainstream wine media.
Blandine exports a large majority of her production, to Japan (Diony), Australia and the United States (Franklin Selections, New York).
I had stopped unannounced once at Paul & Corinne's Les Maisons Brûlées but they hadn't begun picking yet, and the second time was on target, they were busy picking gamay just beneath the wine farm. While parking the bike I could see they were preparing the draft horse, obviously not for a plowing stint but for heavy haul between the rows.
Paul Gillet whom I met near the chai told me they started picking Thursday september 16 (the previous week), they were now at half the surface and would finish somewhere in the following week. They began with the worst-affected parcels, the ones on the plateau at some distance in the vicinity of the water tower, where the frost was particularly severe, plus the hail on top of that, and they picked a quarter of what they get there usually. These are mostly whites on the plateau, he makes on a normal year 4 or 5 full-load presses total, and he made only 3 half-load presses this year... Here around the farm they have 30 % than usual, which is better.
Corinne says they're picking a volume of Gamay here which is half the normal, possibly less. There's been mildew, you see it on the leaves but it has no impact on the grape quality, they just sort the grapes that need to be left out, but overall, nice conditions of the grapes. The pickers have just to watch for rotten grapes if any (there wasn't much rot at this stage, happily), and also berries that could be harmed by birds or insects. Asked about any fears regarding the rain that was forecast with mild/high temperatures, she says yes, they're worried for thye Aunis which are very sensitive and happen to not be ripe yet. For now they're in good shape but they're axious with this rain front approaching the region. They plan to pick a row of Aunis soon, taking the best-ripen grapes only, thus they'll probably harvest in two passes. She says overall what they picked is nice, the juices taste good, this will be low-alcohol but pleasant wines...
When I showed up at the wine farm of Laurent Saillard outside Pouillé along the cher river, Thé (his son), Elis (from Germany) were busy doing a remontage (pumping over) on a fermenter. This was the cuvée La Pause. Laurent says that they had begun picking a week before and it was almost over. He says this year he bought grapes in the south of France, in Vaucluse and Gard. He's happy with the Grenache juice which ferments well. It's a big logistics thing to go that far for organic grapes but that was worth it. They were 37 pickers, sleeping/camping in the parcels, not easy but it went well... They used refrigerated semi-trucks to make the transfer safer, they arrived here at the chai at 6 C (42.8 F) which was perfect
Asked if overall he can get this year with the purchased grapes a volume equivalent to a "normal" year, he says almost, just a bit less. He thinks that from his 6 hectares here near Pouillé he'll make a total of 50/60 hectoliters, instead of 220 normally, one fourth only. The thing is, the hail storm was devastating here on the plateau in the middle of the woods which he shares with Julien Pineau [vineyards that belonged formerly to Clos Roche Blanche], plus, the mildew wrecked what remained hanging, so the picture was not very inspiring.
I guess part of the training when you're learning the job (including in an artisan structure) is to keep the books up to date, have a record of what you've done, what comes next, write down the sugar levels and other strategic data...
My last short stop before riding back to Paris that day was in a parcel where Noëlla Morantin was picking. This was along the small road going down to Pouillé from the plateau overlooking the Cher river. I had spotted a van and a few cars on what I knew was her parcel of LBL Sauvignon (formerly belonging to Junko Arai's Les Bois Lucas). Asked about this year's challenges, she says that with the frost the yields will be low as expected.On the parcels where there was no frost damage they made volumes comparable to last year's so that's good news. But here in the old vines of LBL the yields are terribly low, they'll pick a total of 20 boxes or something of that order. She bought le last parcels of Junko, namely ones planted with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir which they picked the week before and on time. Like I've been told elsewhere she says that there is this challenge of waiting for ripeness for certain parcels and risk the coming rains forcast in the region, especially if temperatures remain high afterthen. They've also picked some Gamay and Sauvignon but they have often to decide overnight what they pick the next day, because of this weather issue.
Noëlla says they began to pick 8 days before and would have another 10 days to pick (to the end of the following week), each time for small workdays, often half days, this is really different from usual harvests. Asked about hail damage on her parcels she says her surface only got struck by the comet-tail of the hail storm, with less damage [than for example on the Clos Roche Blanche block]. Mildew pressure was very intense and they had to drive the tractor all the time, saving the surviving bunches through the hurdles. She buys grapes since 2017 which helps when the vintage is bumpy, and she bought again this year, to Mikaël Bouges and Julien Moreau (Domaine de Cambalu).
Here on this picture you can see a brouette vigneronne or vineyard wheelbarrow recently acquired by Noëlla, it's designed to easily move a few boxes of grapes between the rows. It is very light-weight and is made in Cabannes (South-East of Avignon) by TouTenTub (from "tout en tubes", meaning in French "made all with tubes"). Noëlla says it is inspired from the old hay wheelbarrows you could see in the farms a couple centuries ago.
Thank you for your excellent reports; I have young hobby vineyard and always learn so much. I am sorry to hear this has been such a challenging year for the winemakers of the Loire. In the top photos of the Pinot Noir vines it appears that a lot of the shoots had already lost their leaves - was this due to mildew? Is there any concern from the vignerons that the mildew will make it difficult for the vines to store carbohydrates for the winter and have an impact on next year’s yield?
Posted by: ErikVA | October 05, 2021 at 08:58 PM
Yes indeed, when it's that bad, with few healthy leaves remaining, that's a concern I was told about once during these visits. I hope the consequences on the vines will not last too long in those cases...
Bert
Posted by: Bert | October 06, 2021 at 11:25 AM