Cher valley, Touraine (Loire)
This time of winter is the season when winemakers and growers can rest a bit, the wines are usually well past their active and shaky early life and the pruning, if already begub, can pause for a while. That's why these major tasting events in and around Angers & Saumur take place in these bleak days at the end of january and early february. I happened to have had the visit of Bryn & Feffrey of Ellsworth Wines who had just visited a couple salons in both Angers and Saumur. to my surprise they told me it was not as crowded as feared and they could exchange with the many winemakers they tasted the wines of.... This story is just a photo story, I didn't take notes, just enjoying the moment with these nice people...
The previous day I had hopped at La Lunotte on my motorbike to check with Christophe if I could show up the following day with my would-be visitors but there was no one there, he was probably busy pruning, so I later texted him instead. I could check by myself the vigilance of Pamela (a male, in spite of this name), Christophe's goose, that makes sure that no one tries to pass the gate (I wisely shot this pic from outside the gate of course). i tried to raise my hand in its direction just to see, it indeed bites hard, believe me...
My visitors had a rental car to get around (they were going to Burgundy and Jura thereafter) but it was a good opportunity for them to experience a real car to visit these real-vineyards, real-wine places, especially that this light car is very at ease on dirt/grass roads. Christophe of La Lunotte had told me that he'd be pruning that morning, which was a great opportunity to see him working among his vines.
This is a parcel of old vines of Sauvignon Blanc on the plateau above Couffy, there are a few missing vines as you can see, Christophe told us that it's not that much because of disease but rather than a&ccidents while plowing under the rows with a tractor a few years ago, and that was one of the reasons he decided to to plow anymore but just mow the grass and occasionally pull by hand the brambles that very invasive in this region.
Christophe does all the pruning by himself, he says he works in a very personal way, intuitively guessing what is best for each vine condition, and there's of course no single pruning recipe. Here we were along the woods (in our back) and the wood and canes weren't very thick because of the competition of the trees, so he used a Japanese-made shears which are very precise, with a clean cut. Elsewhere he may use "regular" shears or even an electric tool when the wood is very thick and hard, like it may be away from the tree line.
Then as the rain had resumed we drove back with Christophe to his cellar. this time as we were with him the goose was more quiet, and it was apparently lunch time for him, he just looked at us peacefully as we passed by...
While going out the cellar and ready to leave, I spotted again this incredible miniature Vaslin press, I don't remember the volume, possibly 4 hectoliters but Christophe told us Vaslin made very few of this size. He bought it used when he had the opportunity and it is useful from time to time when having to deal with very small volumes.
we were lucky that that day other visitors were scheduled as well, and not ordinary visitors but professionals as well from the United States, namely French-American Marie Tribouilloy (pictured on right here) of Ops where you find pizzas with a great winelist, and Forêt Wines. The other two women were Carolina Santos-Neves from Colonia Verde (Brooklyn) and Comodo (Manhattan), and Tamy Rofe, chef/sommelier and co-owner at Cómodo. All these people had been taking part to the natural-wine events in Angers and/or in Saumur and were en route to visiting winemakers in other regions. We tasted very nice wines during one hour or two, both whites and reds
This was the first time I tasted this fairly recent cuvée of hers : Le Printemps 2022 is kind of a new cuvée made from a parel of Pinot Noir recently purchased from Junko Arai, from what I understand, this was the last parcel Junko Arai had kept from her initial Les Bois Lucas surface (until now she used to ask different people to take care of the vinification/élevage, after which she'd export the cuvée to Japan. Very refined and promising Pinot Noir, considering it wiull be optimal to open the bottle in a year from now.
If you're around in the region at the end of march (sunday march 31st - monday april 1st), be sure to come taste wine at Les Caves de la Vallée du Cher, a professional event featuring 50 natural-wine producers taking place in 5 locations in-and-near Thésée (entree fee 5€, gives access to the 5 caves). Entree fee : 5 €, you're given a glass that gets you in all the participating cellars. Here is a story about the 2023 Caves de la Vallée du Cher...
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