Wine Tasting, Vineyards, in France

Les 10 Vins Cochons 2021

The marquee-like room

Saint-Rémy-sur-Durolle, Auvergne
This early december took place the 18th edition of the famed (if small) wine fair Les 10 Vins Cochons, a natural-wine, direct-sale event centered on the wines of Auvergne and Massif Central. The organizers had in mind from the start to make these wines better known for the locals who don't have the opportunity to know them, that's why the organizers kept selecting along the years venues located deep in the heart of this vibrant mountainous region which as you know is dotted with so many exctinct volcanoes. That's why also the bottle prices were pretty friendly, that is, either the same price than at the wine farm or even cheaper from what I was told by a few winemakers. The remoteness of the chosen location tends to make this wine fair indeed very local with few Parisians or foreigners attending because of the complicated issue of commuting by public transport (first reach Clermont Ferrand by train, then a secondary town (here Thiers), then the final stretch who-knows-how (taxi, acquaintance...) to reach the given village.

So in short, practically I gave up, but there was an unexpected turnaround when Aaron tipped about the impending event (which anyway had passed under my radar) and offered me to get there together and possibly visit a vigneron the day before. Doing crazy things collectively seemed wiser than venturing there alone, especially when not aware at all about where we'd sleep (and the region was under the snow), so I said OK, just that I was busy the day before. So here I am taking the train to Clermond Ferrand where I'd meet a few folks including Aaron (blog & Substack newsletter) and Hannah Fuellenkemper (blog or Instagram), and find myself in good company in the back of a Saab with Dutch license plates heading to the white mountains, exactly to the reservoir of the village of Saint-Rémy-sur-Durolle (pictures on both side)... I love this job

La Goulayance tasting

Happy crowd

Ground Control, near Gare de Lyon (Paris)
This is a time of the year you have plenty of exciting tasting in Paris, I was tipped about La Goulayance by Maryse and although I intended to go there, when the day came for real on november 28, it was so rainy, grey and cloudy (typical Paris weather at this time of the year you might say) that I really was going reluctantly (j'y allais à reculons like we say in French), taking the métro where at least the rain couldn't reach me for this Ground Control thing which I had visited recently also for a tasting (given the venue, this tasting couldn't be but worthwhile)...

Unsuspecting passerbys certainly couldn't imagine that day what was going on behind this bleak street access (picture on right), the place is as you know a former train workshop that belonged to the state rail company SNCF and the new managers obviously haven't been looking to make it glamorous, too much work I guess, plus there's a charm in converted industrial premises.

The tasting event was centered on the "vins sains sans artifices" which could be translated by "healthy wines made without tricks", it took place on two consecutive days november 217 & 28, access was unrestricted, fee was 10 € which included a glass and tasting of everything, chatting with all these winemakers, and you had to have your valid pass sanitaine scanned beforehand (that's the law), otherwise, when inside you weren't requided to keep your mask. Que la fête commence !
And if you want to see how valuable this tasting was indeed, just check the list of participating domaines/winemakers (on the left)...

Loire Volcanique tasting

View on the tasting

La Marbrerie, Montreuil (Paris suburb)
This is yet another interesting tasting which focused on the easternmost sub-wine regions of the Loire, gathered here under the unifying concept of La Loire Volcanique. What we call the Loire as wine region has as you know a very wide span (see Loire wine region map here) as it goes literally from the Atlantic (with Vendée) to the extinct volcanoes of the Massif Central (West of Lyon), the closest "Loire" vineyard over there west of Lyon being a mere 60 kilometers from this city as the crow flies, quite far east when you think about it... Precisely in the vicinity of these exctinct volcanoes, there are a few small regions which need to be better known, these are Saint-Pourçain, Auvergne, Forez and Roannais, and this professional tasting event put in place by Aurélie Soubiran for the collective Loire Volcanique helped correct this. Auvergne has been on the map for many of us thanks to the great work of a small band of intrepid artisan vignerons but the other neighboring regions somehow remained off focus, that's why we're grateful for this type of initiative.

This event took place at La Marbrerie, another of these multi-faceted community centers where you can have concerts, live events, wine fairs, plenty other things that don't always fit in regular venues or theaters. The place is located in Montreuil, and I came with my motorbike but by metro it's line 9, Mairie de Montreuil and from there 400 meters by foot. Montreuil has another hot place for real wines : L'Amitié Rit, which now and then holds its own tastings (not to miss, check their Facebook page, I just saw I missed Naturisme, their 28th november tasting).

Tastings have resumed : Biotop

Things get on track again (video overview)

Gare de Lyon, Paris
It's been a fact that tastings had resumed already a bit in spring 2021 (still very limited because vaccination was just beginning and organizers were scary of problems with the authorities I guess) but in autumn 2021 I really felt we were back for some normalcy after almost two years of virtual shutdown on the wine-events front. The relatively high vaccination rate in France (reached after a late and sluggish start, to be honest) allowed for this easing which we hope will last throughout winter months). Some kind of complained on Instagram when i posted a picture of the event, like this unmasked crowd was a no-go signal and full of risks, but of course there was a document check at the door to make sure everyone was either fully vaxxed or had a recent negative test for the pandemic virus.

The Biotop tasting event is organized by Isabelle Jomain of Verre Bouteille, it is like usual open for professionnals only for an entry fee of 10 € which includes pen, notebook and a nice tasting glass, that's pretty well the norm for such tastings which costs routinely in Paris from 5 € to 10 € (we're lucky in this regard). The setting at Ground Control near the Gare de Lyon was a roomy former SNCF locomotive repair shop, it looks indeed like a former plant with high roofs and thus is perfectly suitable in these times of virus-related claustrophobic worries. Ground Control is a multi-purpose community center where you can eat and drink on any given day (open wednesday-saturday noon-midnight/1am, and sunday closes at 10:30 pm), looks like a good alternative experience.
For once I didn't use the motorbike and the most convenient metro stations are Reuilly Diderot, Gare de Lyon or Montgallet (you still have to walk a bit).

Antoine Lienhardt (Burgundy)

Antoine Lienhardt (black vest) with staff

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.

Visit at Philippe Pacalet (Burgundy)

Monica and Philippe Pacalet outside the facility

Beaune, Burgundy
I dropped the other day (this was late september) for a short, unannounced visit at Philippe Pacalet's facility in downtown Beaune (rue de Chaumergy). I had not yet visited his new extension on the other side of the street and I was happy both Philippe and Monica were there and could tour me around.

The rebel winemaker and outsider who succeeded at making a brand of his name in Burgundy without owning vineyards there has longtime contracts for selected terroirs across the region, with also some grapes sourced in Beaujolais and the Rhône. This year he began picking his grapes september 20. asked about this year's particularities, he says they suffered from frost and thus have low volumes, but no other [disease] problem. There were also a few storms that made the picking and the coming and going of vehicules tricky, but this didn't impact the quality of the grapes. The alcohol level this year should be classic, he says, something like 12,5 %, which is fine for him. The 3 previous vintages were higher, they were more solar with warmer summers, in 2021 it's a comeback to something more typical of Burgundy.

Loire Harvest 2021 (2)

Pickers on Pinot Noir (Quastana)

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.

Loire harvest 2021 (1)

Zoé, Thierry Puzelat and staff

Loire valley,
The harvest 2021 has come after months of weather incidents and worries. The weather was at least beautiful for the picking, under mild temperature and clear skies, which was also very enjoyable for me as I rode randomly to different producers on my motorbike in the Loir-et-Cher. The big issue in 2021 has been frost all over France in april, with temperatures going down for a week at around minus 7 C (19,4 F) and also mildew and oidium depending of the region, with some growers having more losses from the disease than the frost. Plus, summer was pretty humid and rainy, sometimes colder than usual.

When I showed up at Thierry Puzelat's Clos du Tue Boeuf they were busy unloading Gamay picked in Faverolles-sur-Cher. You can see here Zoé and Thierry putting the bunches on the belt conveyor leading atop a maceration tank. I asked Thierry what were thye losses compared to a "normal" year, he said for their own grapes he considers they got 80 % to 90 % less than usual. For example for the Cheverny red they have 4,5 hectares total and they decided to make a single cuvée from them.

Cooking pig head

A sudden urge for Gargantuan food

This was in a supermarket in the Cher valley when I was looking looking for meat and I stumbled upon this gorgeous [I mean for meat/pork lovers like many of us are] pig head. First of all, yes, I do shop in supermarkets, at least for meat, I'd love to be an exclusive client of boutique butchers and organic groceries but I don't, and not only for a question of price actually, also because I like to shop where ordinary people shop, be it in France or abroad, I'm not into, you know, this Beriozka shopping culture for the healthy, although I'll venture sometimes in one of these venues for a delicious terrine or charcuterie. On the vegetable front, I know a few vegetable growers selling their products on particular markets (or I buy directly at their farm), these growers don't flag themselves as organic but from what B. and I tasted they're certainly more than what you find in organic groceries. I think to one in particular whose leeks looks small and puny (compared to the giant, immaculate ones spotted in organic shops) but taste so good from the rootlets to the top... And they're darn cheap.

Whatever, here I admit, that's certainly industrially produced meat, but when I saw the packaged head, and in spite the fact that september isn't the season I'm usually planning this type of dish, I grabbed it, especially that its price tag was a steal, only 2,58 € (1,10 €/kg - 2,348 kg), can you imagine ?. But it's not uncommon to find such good deals in the French Provinces (albeit later, in winter), where until a few decades ago families used to kill a pig at the end of the year and make all sorts of salted meats, saucissons and charcuterie with it.

Anders Frederik Steen, Ardèche (Rhône)

Anders Frederik Steen in front of his village house

Valvignères, Ardèche (Rhône)
We know that in the world of natural wine many of these vignerons who make a difference are outsiders, like coming from large cities and often with a completely different professional background, but sometimes they come from really far, like it's the case with Anders Frederik Steen, who moved years ago from Denmark with his wife and children to tend vineyards and make wine in this sweet region of Ardéche, in the southern Rhône. We visited him a few weeks ago (around mid-july, I'm pretty late for the publishing, sorry, that's why I backdate it to august...) and Valvignères was still the quiet and lovely village I appreciate, surrounded with hills in a mixed landscape of garrigue, woods and vineyards.

When Anders met us in this square facing his home and cellar, he told us that he started in 2013 with vinifying grapes sourced at Domaine Le Mazel, making his three first vintages (2013, 2014 & 2015) with Jean-Marc Brignot, the iconic winemaker from Jura who now lives much of his time on Sado Island in Japan. He had befriended Jean-Marc in his years working at Noma (2006-2008) where he was a sommelier. where Anders recounted how they went through a terrible hailstorm in the area a few weeks before during which the vines lost all their leaves and buds, there was nothing left and not much to do. But fortunately the artisan wine milieu is caring, and fellow growers came here to help and they tried to minimize the long-term shock on the vines by pruning what was left the appropriate way, a different pruning compared to the one in winter, with only 3 or 4 eyes, meaning relatively long, which helped the foliage grow back. He's spotting flowers growing, just that these new flowers and potential bunches are in a stage the vine goes through usually around the end of may, meaning these grapes should be ready to be picked theorically between november 15 and december 1st....