New Generation Vignerons are Champagne’s Future: Davy Dosnon, in Previously Marginalized Côte des Bar, is Turning Exquisite Wines Into Lusty, Bold-Flavored Champagne + Vézelay, Burgundy’s Newest Appellation, is Poised for Discovery Domaine Saint Madeleine 2022 Wines (5-Bottle Sampler Pack $199)
Ponce de León went to Florida in search of the Fountain of Youth and came up empty. Perhaps he’d have been better off focusing his sights on the Côte des Bar, where a new generation of cellar masters are currently constructing new rules over the foundation of old ones and producing elixirs worthy of an history-making expedition.
About 90 minutes by car to the south of the celebrated towns of Reims and Épernay, the Côte des Bar has historically been dismissed as a lesser Champagne region, although the grapes were indispensable in the blends of the biggest Houses. The area is solidly rural—a reminder that raising grapes is farming first and foremost. There aren’t any chalk caves in the Côte des Bar but there are some great cellars in the process of building reputations.
This week, we’ll take a look at one of them. The young artisan Davy Dosnon runs a small House in Avirey-Lingey where he embraces the philosophies of sustainable viticulture while making non-manipulated Champagne from 19 acres of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Meunier. He is a frontrunner in the new generation that is beginning to redefine Champagne, and the liquid that flows from his cellar is invigorating enough to kickstart the soul of old Ponce de León himself.
Reframing Champagne: Wine Like Any Other
The first step in reframing Champagne is to roll back two hundred years of marketing. Ironically, when Louis XIV drank the stuff, bubbles were considered to be a defect; at the time, Champagne and Burgundy were competing to become the preeminent French producer of still Pinot Noir.
It was a battle that Champagne was destined to lose—Champagne is cooler than Burgundy, and the reds it produced were often light, thin and acidic, made from grapes that had not reached full phenolic ripeness. Whereas this may be less than optimal for table wine, it winds up being ideal for sparkling wine, whose origins were natural: Winter weather would cause the in-bottle fermentation to halt during and when things warmed in the spring, the fermentation process would start back up, delivering unexpected effervescence. Once the technical bugs were worked out in the process—primarily, how to keep the bottles from exploding—sparkling wine grew in prestige and price, becoming a favorite of the royal courts in Europe. For others, it was (and is) a special-occasion wine; the tipple of celebrations and the domain of the elite.
Honest wine strives to be as natural as possible, and a new generation in Champagne finds itself with an unexpected gift from providence: A warming climate. Winemakers like Davy Dosnon have re-emphasized the importance of the base wine; his acreage, with Kimmeridgian and Portlandian clay-limestone soils, produce particularly rich fruit, Pinot Noir especially.
Says Dosnon, “Nicolas Laugerotte, commercial manager of the domain, is my partner in this adventure and together we share the same values of excellence, precision and requirement. Our goal is to make great wines to produce great Champagnes.”
It is through this scaffold that Champagne can find a central location not only during celebrations and special occasions, but at the dinner table, as an accompaniment to a meal, and as a wine, given its intellectual due.
The Rise of the South: Previously Marginalized Côte des Bar Into the Spotlight.
(Since the Côte des Bars is the Aube’s only significant wine producing area, the two names are generally interchangeable in winemaking discussions.)
‘Aube’ translates to ‘dawn’, so it is fitting that this district is Champagne’s rising star. In part this is because of the district’s push towards a culture of artisanal, experimental, terroir-driven Champagne. Situated further south than the other four regions, it is less prone to frost and the Pinot Noirs of the Aube are rich and fruit-driven. Although the district is devoid of Grand or Premier Cru vineyards, since the 1950s, grapes grown there have formed a vital backbone of the blend produced by many of the top Champagne houses.
Perhaps the lack of a historical reputation means that the AOP has less to lose, but the overall mindset of the region encourages mavericks, which in tradition-heavy Champagne is rarely seen. It is these independent winemakers that are primarily responsible for district’s mushrooming growth, which now makes up almost a quarter of the entire Champagne region.
The vines of the Côte des Bar can be found scattered patches within two main districts, the Barséquenais, centered on Bar-sur-Seine, and the Barsuraubois, centered on Bar-sur-Aube.
Helping to forge the region’s new identity is a crew of younger grower/producers, many of whom have traveled abroad and trained in other winemaking regions. As a result, they tend to focus more on individuality; single-variety, single-vintage, and single-vineyard Champagnes from the Côte des Bar are quite common. Not only that, but land remains relatively inexpensive, which encourages experimentation. Even though many of Côte des Bar’s Champagnes are 100% Pinot Noir, styles can differ markedly from producer to producer, bottling to bottling and, of course, vintage to vintage.
Champagne Dosnon
Turning Exquisite Wines Into Precise and Meditative Champagne
Half an hour north of Chablis, in and around the villages of Avirey and Lingey, Davy Dosnon tends a patchwork of vines intermixed with forest and fields of grain. Having been born and raised among these rolling hills, he is descended from growers who spent centuries identifying the rockiest and most suitable places to grow vines. In fact, he preserves many of their tools and records in his cellar.
Davy Dosnon, Champagne Dosnon
Davy studied viticulture in Dijon and worked in top Burgundy wine houses before moving back to the village of Lingey, intending to reassemble his family’s vineyards. Here the terroir is starkly different from northern Champagne and its famed chalky soils; in the Aube the terroir is closer to that of Chablis—clay over Kimmeridgian and Portlandian limestone, soils produce wines of great delineation, power and purity.
Central to Dosnon’s modus operandi is fermenting entirely in former Puligny-Montrachet barrels. Dosages are very low (if any) and the wines benefit from the restraint. None are fined or filtered.
Oak in Champagne remains controversial; when done at all, it must be done gently, without drawing attention to itself. In Dosnan’s cellar, it is meant to add creaminess, complexity and weight, not tannins.
Viticulture: Intentional and Careful Farming
“We practice sustainable viticulture in order to meet the quality requirements of the House,” says Davy Dosnon. “The plots are thus grassed to promote microbial life in the soil; the soils are scratched and plowed for aeration and no chemical fertilizers are added. The House also uses the permanent Cordon de Royat pruning sizes for Pinot Noir and Chablis sizes for Chardonnay. This short pruning allows for a better control of yield. Topping and high trimming are also carried out in June to control the vigor of the plants. We always hand-harvest, seeking bunches with optimum maturity.”
Dosnon uses a traditional vertical press for crushing, pointing out that this configuration reduces the movements of the bunch to a strict minimum during extraction and allows finer, less stained and perfectly clear juices to be obtained.
Not Losing Sight of Terroir for the Trees: Comfortable Disposition of Oak Integration
Having trained in Burgundy and seen the synergy between wood and grape, Dosnon is convinced that there is no more beautiful setting for a Grand Vin de Champagne than an oak barrel: “Only wood allows micro-exchanges between the wine and the oxygen in the atmosphere, which promotes the natural evolution of Champagne and gives them their complexity.”
His vinifications, therefore, are carried out largely en barrique, followed by optimum aging ‘with the aim of producing complex and rounded Champagnes while preserving their finesse and purity through low dosage.’
Most of the wines vinified and aged in 228-liter Burgundy oak barrels, mainly from Puligny-Montrachet. The barrels are at least 5 years old and do not transmit any tannin or wood taste to the wine.
“After tasting and analysis,” Dosnon explains, “we proceed to a selection between the wines which will be vinified in wood and those which will be vinified in vats but always in ultra-minority proportions when the years require it.”
* And now for something completely different:
Just as vineyards are known for terroir, so do the oak trees used to make barrels reflect their place of origin. The Argonne forest, for example, contains countless hillocks with unique exposures, and these expositions are said to bring different aromas to the wood. Some produce fruit notes, some minerality; some contain more tannin than others. If this sounds a lot like grape descriptors, it is no wonder. There is an almost mystical collaboration between the product of vines and of forests that is as old as winemaking itself.
Maturation:The Right Upbringing to Achieve Complexity and Fullness
“Great Champagne wines need time to mature,” says Davy Dosnon. “Only when they have reached the perfect balance of freshness and fullness will they be ready to drink. The optimum aging period varies depending on the different vintages that we produce, but never being less than 20 months and up to 10 years in the cellar for our vintages.
After a Champagne’s second, in-bottle fermentation, the lees remain inside the bottle until disgorgement. This phase of development is often overlooked as essential for the wine’s intended character to emerge, but as seen in Houses without the capital to invest in long-term lees aging, much of the potential quality is lost.
Technically, non-vintage Champagne must be aged on its lees for a minimum of one year, while vintage Champagne demands three years. These are minimums, of course, and prestige cuvées may be left for a decade or more prior to the removal of lees sediment.
Monovarietal Expression: Flying Solo
As much as Champagne makers love exotic, multi-layered blends, monovarietal wines (or with blanc de noirs that ‘fly duo’, two varieties) have an equally strong tradition in the region. Blanc de Blancs is a term found only in Champagne and used to refer to champagne produced entirely from white grapes, most commonly Chardonnay. Pinot Blanc and Arbane can also be used, as well as a number of other varieties permitted by appellation, but these are less common. This makes Blanc de Blancs different from the majority of Champagnes that are a traditional blend of white and red grapes with colorless juice such as Pinot Noir and Meunier. It is also different from Blanc de Noirs champagne, which is produced exclusively from Pinot Noir and Meunier.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Récolte Blanche’, Côte-des-Bar Blanc-de-Blancs Brut ($84)
100% Chardonnay from vines around 25 years old; hand harvested, pressed manually and fermented in 20% new 228-liter Oak barrels; and used Puligny-Montrachet barrels, second and third fill. The wine spends two years minimum sur latte with 20% reserve wine aged in barrel; 5 grams dosage. Dosnon’s love of Côte-des-Bar Chardonnay allows for a small quantity of this wine to be made; it shows pinpoint minerality and stone fruit with a floral underpinning. Disgorged January 2023.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Récolte Noire’, Côte-des-Bar Blanc-de-Noirs Brut ($68)
100% oak-fermented Pinot Noir with a minimum of two years aging in the bottle and a dosage around 5 grams. The wine is filled with crushed red berry notes, ground spice and graphite are layered with hints of lemon zest and chamomile. Disgorged July 2022.
Blended: In Pursuit of Complexity and Completeness
A common misconception holds that base Champagne (the still vin clairs that have not yet undergone the steps that transform it in the final blended and bottled product) are neutral and low in alcohol and flavor. This notion does a disservice to the way fruit ripens in northerly climates like Champagne, where a grape can obtain physiological ripeness without developing sufficient sugar to produce high-alcohol wine. And ripe grapes of the noble varieties do not produce neutral wine!
Before it becomes a bubbly bauble, a certain criterion should be established under which to consider Champagne a serious wine—namely, is it capable of reflecting the terroir from which it originated? Another misconception insists that a blended wine cannot express a place of origin, and any sense of individuality must arise from the winemaking process.
But Champagne is not necessarily beholden to the classic French definition of terroir. Although more single vineyard and village-specific Champagnes are made now than ever before, the identity of a wine may be the complexity and completeness that comes from blends. A balanced and opulent blend is always a better bet than a terroir-driven but clumsy selection and many modern chefs du cave are looking at even narrower distinctions than vineyard sites, using parcels within that vineyard to express specific desired characteristics.
Rather than being a dilution of terroir, this is evidence of how highly terroir is regarded.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Récolte Brute’, Côte-des-Bar Brut ($77)
A muscular blend of Pinot Noir (70%) and Chardonnay (30%) grown on the Kimmeridgian soils; a low dosage (5 grams) and at least 3 years of aging in bottle before disgorgement produces a Champagne with rich poached-pear notes over buttered toast, white flowers and vanilla with firm acidity and chalky minerality. Disgorged June 2022.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Récolte Rosé’, Côte-des-Bar Rosé Brut ($87)
95% Pinot Noir and 5% Meunier. Meunier is not common in the Côte-des-Bar, but Dosnon feels that it adds spice and fruit to the party. The base wine fermented and aged in used Puligny-Montrachet barrels and a minimum of 2 years aging in bottle with a dosage of 5 grams (the same as Récolte Noire). The wine bears all the hallmarks of the Donson style—a pure, focused, intensely mineral backbone with a clear, spicy, red-fruit and orange peel lift to the flavors. Disgorged September 2021.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Alliae’, (Harvest 2010) Côte-des-Bar Brut-Nature ($147)
50% Pinot Noir and 50% Chardonnay that undergoes a ten month vinification/aging process in used oak barrels, then 55 months of aging on slats. Dosnon’s choice of zero dosage for this cuvée is intended to allow the expression of the richness and liveliness of the fruit unencumbered by sugar. The silky palate is full of complexity and nuance and showcases pear, apricot and chalky minerality. Disgorged January 2016.
The New Reality: 2009 Signals Champagne’s Paradigm Shift
Jean-Baptiste Lecaillon of Champagne Louis Roederer has been tracking climate change in Champagne since the year 2000. He reports, “Our archives covering harvests over the past 60 years show that since 1995 Champagne has returned to maturity levels which are, on average, in excess of 10 natural degrees of alcohol, with acidity levels around 7 to 8 gram/liter. These levels are close to those traditionally seen for great vintages including 1945, 1947 and 1959, but today’s yields are sometimes three to four times higher.”
Harvest dates in the vineyards of Champagne are among the marks used to measure climate change in general. Since 1989 (the end of a cool temperature cycle) harvest dates have crawled gradually backwards and the 2007 harvest started on August 20. By comparison, in 1945, the harvest commenced on September 8 and the 1947 harvest started on September 2, whilst harvests in the late 1980s were in early October. Harvest dates have grown earlier in each of recent years as means of controlling grape characteristics. Winemakers have been relying on newer techniques to obtain fresher wines as the raw material becomes riper. They are careful to manage malolactic fermentation, sometimes doing only partial MLF or halting it altogether.
Vintage 2009 represents the paradigm shift sweeping the region; in ways, a return to the golden years. It began with a cold winter, but a mild spring, and although early summer saw variable weather, August and September brought ample sunshine and warmth contributing to fine grape health. Harvest was pushed back until September 8, and the grapes, in general, displayed high sugar content and soft acidity. Potential alcohol crept up to 10.3% while acidity remained at 7.5 gram/liter at a pH of 3.08.
2009 produced a voluminous crop (12,280 kilogram/hectare) and the wines are generous that showed impressively even as vin clair. It is an apt example of a vintage of the current era, when retaining freshness is more of a challenge than attaining ripeness.
Champagne Dosnon ‘Millésime’, 2009 Côte-des-Bar Blanc-de-Blancs Brut-Nature ($289)
100% Chardonnay aged in 228-liter casks for ten months followed by ten years aging on the less. A truly amazing wine with a buoyant personality filled with perfume of lemon custard, honeysuckle, fresh brioche, a hint of almond and juicy pear. The wine is fully mature yet retains all the dynamism and freshness of its youth. Disgorged January 2018, Zéro dosage.
Notebook …
Champenois Radicalism: The Emergence of Vignerons and Micronégociants
First, a somewhat inconvenient truth: If asked what the term ‘négociant’ means, the honest answer is ‘nothing.’ Some négociant buy grapes, some mature wine, and some simply put their name on the label. Some, like Olivier Leflaive, dislike the term entirely: “I see myself as a winemaker, not a négociant, as I make the wine, from the beginning of vinification through to bottling.”
More than half of Burgundy is made by négociants whose average size is ten times that of the average domain. In Champagne, it is a different story; complicated local economics, long in thrall to massive companies, is shifting its prestige dynamics toward individual vignerons. The most earth-shattering paradigm shift in this approach is seen in the emergence of artisan styles in a region where uniformity has long been the key to success.
Into this swirl of radical rethinking comes the micronégociant. The name refers not only to their size (generally much smaller than the traditional négociant) but to the fact that many purchase grapes while continuing to farm them. Says Jean-Hervé Chiquet of Jacquesson, who farms 69 acres and purchases fruit from seven more: “We’re vignerons who buy a lot of grapes or we’re négociants who grow a lot of grapes. You decide.”
In Champagne, where a prime hectare (2.5 acres) of vineyard may cost over a million euros, few banks will lend a young grower the money to buy land, but a micronégociant can purchase barrels here and there—a typical entry route for newcomers who did not inherit an estate, or for those who want to extend a small family domain.
Drawing The Boundaries of The Champagne Region
To be Champagne is to be an aristocrat. Your origins may be humble and your feet may be in the dirt; your hands are scarred from pruning and your back aches from moving barrels. But your head is always in the stars.
As such, the struggle to preserve its identity has been at the heart of Champagne’s self-confidence. Although the Champagne controlled designation of origin (AOC) wasn’t recognized until 1936, defense of the designation by its producers goes back much further. Since the first bubble burst in the first glass of sparkling wine in Hautvillers Abbey, producers in Champagne have maintained that their terroirs are unique to the region and any other wine that bears the name is a pretender to their effervescent throne.
Having been defined and delimited by laws passed in 1927, the geography of Champagne is easily explained in a paragraph, but it takes a lifetime to understand it.
Ninety-three miles east of Paris, Champagne’s production zone spreads across 319 villages and encompasses roughly 85,000 acres. 17 of those villages have a legal entitlement to Grand Cru ranking, while 42 may label their bottles ‘Premier Cru.’ Four main growing areas (Montagne de Reims, Vallée de la Marne, the Côte des Blancs and the Côte des Bar) encompass nearly 280,000 individual plots of vines, each measuring a little over one thousand square feet.
The lauded wine writer Peter Liem expands the number of sub-regions from four to seven, dividing the Vallée de la Marne into the Grand Vallée and the Vallée de la Marne; adding the Coteaux Sud d’Épernay and combining the disparate zones between the heart of Champagne and Côte de Bar into a single sub-zone.
Courtesy of Wine Scholar Guild
Lying beyond even Liem’s overview is a permutation of particulars; there are nearly as many micro-terroirs in Champagne as there are vineyard plots. Climate, subsoil and elevation are immutable; the talent, philosophies and techniques of the growers and producers are not. Ideally, every plot is worked according to its individual profile to establish a stamp of origin, creating unique wines that compliment or contrast when final cuvées are created.
Champagne is predominantly made up of relatively flat countryside where cereal grain is the agricultural mainstay. Gently undulating hills are higher and more pronounced in the north, near the Ardennes, and in the south, an area known as the Plateau de Langres, and the most renowned vineyards lie on the chalky hills to the southwest of Reims and around the town of Épernay. Moderately steep terrain creates ideal vineyard sites by combining the superb drainage characteristic of chalky soils with excellent sun exposure, especially on south and east facing slopes.
… Yet another reason why this tiny slice of northern France, a mere 132 square miles, remains both elite and precious.
RECENT ARRIVAL
Vézelay: The Latest Burgundy Village to Rise to Appellation Status, Claiming Its Distinctiveness.
The creation of a new appellation is red-letter day in Burgundy—even if the region has been making wine for two thousand years. In November 2017, Vézelay was formerly recognized as a Village-level appellation to cover still white wines produced within the villages of Vézelay, including Asquins, Saint-Père, and Tharoiseau. It extends across 600 acres, although most of it is currently unplanted, making it an exciting new region in Burgundy ripe for discovery, both for wine lovers and wine makers.
Among the modern-day Vézelay pioneers are Alexandre and Blandine Corguillé, who in 2016 bought a fallow southeast-facing hillside and set out to create Domaine Sainte Madeleine. They planted Chardonnay—the region’s sole allowable variety (the small amount of Pinot grown there is released as Bourgogne Rouge—and in 2020 released their first vintage.
We are fortunate to represent their electrifying portfolio—a great introduction into the rarest of beasts: A yet (relatively) unknown Burgundian appellation whose wines have all the hallmarks of top-shelf quality and yet still remain in the realm of the affordable.
Domaine Sainte Madeleine
Alexandre and Blandine Corguillé
An Energetic New Producer Makes Vézelay’s Case
(2022 Five-Bottle Sampler Pack $199)
The landscapes surrounding Vézelay have been described as timeless, comforting, and quintessentially pastoral, but the focal point may be the Basilica of Sainte Madeleine. The Romanesque shrine has drawn pilgrims from all over Europe for centuries. As such, it is a fitting source-name for Alexandre and Blandine Corguillé’s winery, Domaine Sainte Madeleine, which is beginning to attract the devotion of wine pilgrims in search of thrilling new Burgundies to explore.
The couple’s adventure began in 2016 when they purchased a ten-acre hillside called Côte de Chauffour from the Diocese of Sens-Auxerre and planted the regions star grape, Chardonnay. They soon acquired another three acres of 30-year-old Chardonnay vines in Asquins and four more acres in the village of Saint-Père in the lieu-dit known as Les Saulniers. Their end game, they maintain, is 12 acres of planted vineyard.
Blandine and Alexandre Corguillé
None of this is haphazard, of course; the couple’s goals are straightforward and precise. Says Alexandre, “For our Chardonnay plantings, I use 50% clones and 50% selection massale from a grower in Savoie who was recommended by Domaine Raveneau. By the end of 2023, the entire estate will be certified organic.”
Blandine doubles-down on the family’s commitment to organics: “We pay close attention to plant material, sourcing from a producer in Savoie who also supplies Domaine Raveneau with Chardonnay plants. The grapes are hand-picked and sorted before being pressed in whole bunches. Alcoholic and malolactic fermentations take place naturally, with the wine aging in stainless steel vats and only a very little SO2 is added at bottling.”
The Corguillés makes a village Vézelay and small releases of Vézelay Les Saulniers, Bourgogne Blanc Côte de Chauffour, and two wines from Le Clos—a Vézelay Blanc and Bourgogne Rouge. While the vines in Côte de Chauffour remain young, and although there has been a century-long gap since wine was last made from this site, it is widely recognized as one of Vézelay’s top terroirs.
1 Domaine Sainte Madeleine, 2022 Vézelay ($38) Blanc
A crisp, mineral-driven Chardonnay showing notes of lemon, white peach and yellow fruit.
2 Domaine Sainte Madeleine, 2022 Vézelay ‘Les Sauniers’ ($44) Blanc
Les Saulniers is a parcel of 33-year-old-vines situated mid-slope on a hill crowned by forest southwest of the village of Saint-Père. It is not only Alexandre’s hope, but his expectation that this plot of land will be granted Premier Cru status in the years ahead. This precise and focused wine is hand-harvested, whole-cluster direct pressed and natural yeast fermented in stainless steel tanks. It displays bright aromatics, apple, pear and citrus in the mid-palate and finishes with mouthwatering acidity.
3 Domaine Sainte Madeleine, 2022 Vézelay ‘Le Clos’ ($44) Blanc
Le Clos is situated on the steep southern slopes of the hilltop village of Vézelay. Alexandre and Blandine have a small parcel of 48-year-old Chardonnay vines planted in Les Clos’ rocky, clay-limestone soils. The wine shows hints of honeysuckle and lemon-balm with a lingering saline finish.
4 Domaine Sainte Madeleine ‘Le Clos’, 2022 Bourgogne Rouge ($45)
Made from Pinot Noir vines approaching their fiftieth birthday; the oldest in the region. The grapes are hand-harvested and allowed to macerate for two weeks in wooden vats before fermentation on ambient yeasts. The wine ages for 10 months in second and third-year French oak barrels and displays rich Pinot character; racy and refreshing acidity behind cherry notes and a long, mineral-driven finish.
5 Domaine Sainte Madeleine ‘La Côte de Chauffour’, 2022 Bourgogne Blanc ($36)
La Côte de Chauffour is the site that originally attracted Alexandre and Blandine Corguillé to Vézelay; it was fallow when they purchased it, so the vines they planted are still young. Currently classified as ‘Bourgogne Blanc,’ it is the expectation of the couple that in time, the lieu-dit will be recognized with an official AOP Vézelay stamp. For now, it shows balanced, fresh acidity and stony minerality behind sunny notes of apricot and pineapple.
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Posted on 2024.09.05 in France, Champagne, Wine-Aid Packages | Read more...
Guerrilla Producers Explore The Balance Between Vine and Land in The Splendid Isolation of The Ardèche Region in Southeastern France – Eleven Wines From Four Vignerons ($379)
It is said that there are wines to be drunk sitting down and there are wines to be drunk standing up. The former category includes blockbusters whose names we proudly drop and whose price may at times outstrip quality but which still represent the mythos behind ‘bragging rights.’
The others, intentionally light, fresh and full of ‘joie de vivre’, are wines for conversations that do not necessarily revolve around the wine.
Located in the ‘gap’ between Northern and Southern Rhône, Ardèche is capable of generating both; it is generally an IGP region that also encompasses the famous appellations of Saint-Joseph and Cornas, and its 27,000 acres of vineyards (southwest of Montélimar, on the western banks of the Rhône river) is still considered somewhat terra incognita, even among the French.
It is also home to some of the most innovative natural winemakers in France. The region’s warm Mediterranean climate, sprinkled with plenty of sunshine and gentle Mistral breezes and well-drained soils, creates the perfect environment for growing grapes with vibrant flavors and natural acidity—the key to producing wines without additives, wines that emphasize fruit and an almost electric energy that speaks immediacy.
The Ardèche: Where Land Is Unspoiled
The Ardèche exists (if at all) at the periphery of most overviews of French wine regions, even those written by the French. And yet, it has the climatic breeding to produce outstanding wines, and has been doing so for as long as the region has had a name.
In France, this is a rare combination of circumstances that allows young winemakers of vision to purchase vineyards land at reasonable rates. As a result, IGP-level vineyards found in the dry, scrubby foothills of the Cévennes mountains and along the river Ardèche valley are hosting more and more upstart wineries with farsighted plans and expectations.
The Ardèche department is not exactly ‘frontier’. It lies 30 miles south of Lyon, about 60 miles north of the Mediterranean, with the Rhône river to the east and the Massif Central plateau to the west. Geographically, the region can be divided into the mountainous central west, the high plateaus of the Haut-Vivarais and the Cévennes in the center, the low-lying Bas-Vivarais plains of the Ardèche river in the south, the volcanic Coiron plateau to the east and the Rhône valley itself.
Fruit Happens Naturally
The delicate pas-de-deux between winemaker and wine merchant is as nuanced as the end product. At Elie’s, we accept that both parties are bound by certain obligations and subscribe to the paradigms inherent in all transactions: We look at wine as the stuff of liquid memory; a place-holder to look back upon as a highlight that enhances an unforgettable experience.
Wine is, of course, juice made from fruit. However obvious that sounds, cellar manipulations may sometimes override that basic concept. The edge seized by natural winemakers is a return to a reliance on the juice itself, fermented without adornment, bottled without artifice, in an attempt to allow the grape and blends to clearly articulate a voice and leave a fingerprint.
Before we stock any wine from a ‘natural’ winemaker, we do our due diligence to ensure that the winemaker has done her/his own; in other words, tended their vineyard according to any pledge made or certification earned, and then produced a product which may articulate over time—generally no more than a year or two—the winemaker’s precise intention.
For the most part, this is the expression of the fruit rather than the cellar, the splendors and stability of natural chemistry unsullied by flourishes.
La Vrille et Le Papillon
La Vrille et le Papillon, meaning ‘The Tendril and The Butterfly’, is located in Valvignères, perhaps the epicenter of the Ardèche natural wine scene. Proprietors Méryl and Géraldine Croizier also represent the very sort of winemakers our introduction lionizes—young, energetic folks ready to let their terroir sing fortississimo.
Géraldine and Méryl Croizier, La Vrille et Le Papillon
Méryl, with a degree in agriculture from Dijon and oenology from Montpellier, peppered his education with real-time experience learning winemaking from Gerald and Jocelyne Oustric at Domaine du Mazel, who have been ecological producers for over 20 years. The Oustrics have been instrumental in the growth and nurturing of new winemakers in the area, renting vines to Sylvain Bock and Andrea Calek.
With Géraldine, Méryl works 12 acres planted to Syrah, Merlot, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier and Ugni Blanc on clay limestone soil. They converted everything to organic, avoiding herbicides and pesticides, and in 2014, with the completion of their cellar, have introduced tisanes (herbal soil enhancers) and biodynamic practices, relying on wild yeasts only and eschewing fining and filtration.
La Vrille et Le Papillon ‘Le Bruit des Glaçons’, 2021 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($27)
‘The Sound of The Ice Cubes’ suggests a wine best consumed with a chill—the beverage, not the drinker. Don’t be tempted—this is a meaty 50/50 blend of Grenache and Syrah best served at cellar temperature. The name refers to the fact that the fruit survived the treacherous hailstorms in the spring of 2021. From the Valvignères sub-region of Ardèche, the wine offers big aromas of Bing cherries and macerated strawberries with notes of black pepper, bittersweet dark chocolate and spices—thyme, rosemary and paprika note—held in place by tangy acidity and silken tannins.
La Vrille et Le Papillon ‘Novemberlot’, nv Ardèche VdF Rouge ($29)
A strikingly unusual blend of 90% Merlot from the 2019 vintage and a 10% blend of Viognier, Ugni Blanc and Grenache Blanc harvested in November, 2021. Plum and cherry with a nice aromatic top note of flowers and citrus.
Sylvain Bock
So tight is the natural winemaking network in Ardèche that the same names keep reappearing. Sylvain Bock is one of them. Based in the pretty village of Alba-la-Romaine, he has been running his own domain since 2010, having previously worked for Gerald Oustric at Le Mazel, where Meryl Croizier also cut his teeth.
Sylvain Bock
Sylvain’s vineyards are spread over two sites: The first, nearest to his cellar, is composed mainly of limestone with very little topsoil and is planted with Chardonnay and Grenache Blanc as well as a few rows of old vine Grenache Noir and Merlot. Further north in the valley, at higher altitudes, he grows Gamay, Syrah and an additional plot of Grenache Noir planted on basalt.
“Our work in the cellar is minimal,” he says. “There are no additions of any kind. Technique simply involves fermenting most of the grapes on their stems with only the old vine Grenache—grapes good enough to go into ‘Neck Plus Ultra’—de-stemmed for a slower traditional maceration. It requires patience and knowledge to create wines of purity and freshness, without compromising on depth. I don’t want to make nouveau wines; let winter do its job. I release them when they are ready.”
Sylvain Bock ‘Fruit Jazz’, 2022 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($28)
A new cuvée of 60% Grenache and 40% Syrah containing fruit that once went into Sylvain’s ‘Les Grelots’—‘Jingle bells.’ Sylvain himself describes the wine as ‘a Herbie Hancock keytar-solo in a bottle’ but we’ll stick with ‘a resonant red filled with rustic dried-blackberry and peppercorn compote accented with cocoa against nervy acidity and crushed velvet tannin.’
Sylvain Bock ‘L’Equilibriste’, 2020 Ardèche VdF Blanc ($44)
Literally, an ‘équilibriste’ is a tightrope walker; in a bottle, it is a selection of Sylvain’s barrels of Chardonnay deemed suitable for extended aging. Directly pressed, fermented and aged in barrel for two years, this results in an opulent and serious white. The high limestone content of Sylvain’s Saint Philippe vineyard lends a bright acidic backbone to the wine, making it suitable for the long haul as well as this evening.
Les Bois Perdus
The path from an IMDb profile to the rural wilds of Aubignas in the Ardèche may seem an unlikely one, but to Léna Perdu and Alexis Robin, the call of the wine won the day. The pair of film industry expats decided to leave Tinseltown for terroir, settling on five acres of vines among the cliffs and gorges and enchanted forests of Ardèche. Translated literally, Les Bois Perdus means ‘The Lost Woods.’
Alexis Robin, Les Bois Perdus
Léna says, “Our project is part of a family approach to working our land and making a product that is respectful of its origins. After having spent ten years in the world of cinema, Alexis and I were ready for a new adventure, and we chose to answer the call of ‘la terre et ses nectars’ (the earth and its nectars) against all odds. We therefore chose to make a natural, harmonious and rich wine with Ardèche beauty. Our vintages carry within them all the sincerity and intensity that have accompanied us since this new beginning.”
Les Bois Perdus ‘Elle Tremble’, 2021 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($29)
‘She Trembles’ (but in a sensuous way): 100% Merlot grown on schist in Sallèles. Half destemmed and half direct-pressed, the juice undergoes ten days of maceration followed by vinification and élevage in stainless-steel. A fruit-centered blockbuster with black currants, Damson plums and blackberries predominant.
Les Bois Perdus ‘Malotru’, 2021 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($31)
‘Malotru’ means ‘brute’, so you be the judge: 80% Carignan, 10% Syrah and 10% Grenache grown on clay-limestone soils in Saint Hilaire d’Ozeilhan. The Carignan undergoes 15-day semi-carbonic maceration, with the addition of the direct-pressed juice of Syrah and Grenache over the final five days. Vinification and élevage take place in stainless-steel. The wine emphasizes Carignan’s splendid aromatics, with the more prestigious junior partners bringing dark-berry flavors with a savory and smoky twist.
Les Bois Perdus ‘Sontaine’, 2021 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($34)
100% Gamay grown on basalt, limestone and shale in Aubignas, with maceration ‘mille feuilles’ (a thousand layers; probably hyperbole) for ten days, followed by—unusual for Gamay—brief élevage in barrels. Cranberry, pomegranate and a touch of caramel are complemented by hints of violet and slate on the nose, while on the palate, ripe raspberry and vibrant notes of white cherry deepen into rich plum characteristics braced by youthful acidity.
Les Bois Perdus ‘Aphrodite’, 2021 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($34)
Half Syrah and half Grenache grown on clay-limestone soils in Saint Remèze; the Syrah is destemmed and macerated for 15 days in the juice of direct-pressed Grenache, with élevage in stainless-steel. A generous reflection of a somewhat problematic vintage, the wine delivers notes of cherry-strawberry leather roll-up with a light dusting of cinnamon, fresh plum and blackberry.
L’Alezan
A storybook house on a pretty slope surrounded by wildflower fields and thriving vines, with a view of the vast Ardèche forests on the horizon; it sounds like a dream landscape, a little piece of paradise, but it is reality for Patricia & Rémi Bonneton and the small estate of L’Alezan.
Patricia waxes poetically about their first plot, a parcel of eighty-year-old vines untended for decades on a steep slope (not unlike nearby Saint Joseph or Hermitage) which Rémi and she adopted a decade ago.
Rémi and Patricia Bonneton, L’Alezan
“Resilience can change destiny,” says Patricia. “The vine that suffers, adapts. It’s a great quality, to adapt to everything from the 1940s to now.”
Patricia and Rémi work ten acres of granitic clay and limestone entirely by themselves, and during harvest, with Rémi in the field and Patricia in the cellar, “There’s at least a month where we don’t see much of each other. We say hello and goodbye; we meet and talk about what’s going on. It’s all in the name of tender love and care—being attentive to barrels with the needs of crying infants, requiring a nighttime pressing, or grapes that need harvesting bright and early the next day. And our hope is that now, ten years on, the maturity of our estate is palpable.”
L’Alezan ‘Ostara’, 2022 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($37)
Ostara is a Pagan solar holiday honoring the spring’s warmth, light from the sun, and the awakening of the earth; a fitting name for this blend of two-thirds Grenache and one-third Syrah from the Doux Valley. The Grenache is fermented whole-cluster and the Syrah direct-pressed. The wine shows earthy, smoky, black peppery nuances that offer a savory aspect to the rich blackberry and boysenberry fruit.
L’Alezan ‘Les Vains’, 2022 Ardèche VdF Rouge ($44)
The wine is the result of a ten-day maceration of whole cluster Cinsault and Grenache followed by a year’s élevage in foudre, amphora and demi-muid. Cinsault, lacking the structure, color and tannin of Grenache, gives an aromatic lift, offering raspberry coulis scents and an herbaceous undertone to the rich fruity profile and note of garrigue at the finish.
L’Alezan ‘Ho’oponopono’, 2022 Ardèche VdF Blanc ($48)
Named after a Hawaiian healing mantra that also serves as a hymn for acceptance and resolution, this harmonious blend of Viognier, Marsanne, Roussanne is macerated whole cluster for seven days before aging in a mix of foudre, amphora and stainless-steel tanks. The wine displays Viognier-typical aromatics of nectarine and peach with flowery hints; the mouth is clean and crisp without evidence of oak or malolactic fermentation.
RECENT ARRIVAL
Vaucluse Bounty: Two Reds and One White From Domaine Les Maoù
Les Maoù is owned by Vincent and Aurélie Garreta, part of the new wave of Ventoux winemakers whose approach is natural. They have been certified organic since 2014, but parcels have been farmed organically for over two decades and were certified organic under the previous land owner as well.
These three wines are representative of their approach to the various grapes grown under their careful watch and exuberant technique.
South by Southeast: Experimental Producers Are Leading The Rhône Revolution in Ventoux
Ventoux is a large wine region in the far southeast of the southern Rhône, 25 miles northeast of Avignon and bordering Provence. Covering 51 communes, the vines are planted on the western slopes of Mt. Ventoux, a sort of ‘stray’ Alp removed from the range and towering over the landscape for miles around. Terroir and varieties are typical for Rhône, although noteworthy are the region’s Muscat produced for table grapes, which has its own AOP—Muscat du Ventoux.
Historically overshadowed by its headline-stealing cousins, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and Gigondas, Ventoux was once dominated by cooperatives and garnered a reputation for producing light, insipid and cheap wine. In fact, its name, derived from the iconic peak that lords over the Southern Rhône, was once known less for wine and more for providing a grueling finish to the Tour de France.
It is safe to say that few appellations in the Southern Rhône have undergone such a marvelous transformation over the past 20 years thanks to a small group of visionary and experimental winemakers leading a Rhône revolution, with the wine world finally standing up and taking notice.
These winemakers eschew strict parameters or a ‘classic’ appellation style, and have snapped up relatively inexpensive but high quality vineyard land in the varied mountainous terrain as well as the creative freedom to experiment and truly express themselves through their wines. The increased altitude and temperature variation between night and day—thanks to cooling air currents that descend from Mount Ventoux each evening—has the effect of extending the growing season and allowing the grapes to reach incredible levels of phenolic ripeness. Combined with an incredibly diverse range of microbial rich soils, a handful of up-and-coming growers have pushed the boundaries of what can be created.
Les Maoù
Ask Vincent and Aurélie Garreta to name their children and the list may include Grenache, Clairette, Carignan, Cabernet Sauvignon, Aubun (a local variety on the verge of extinction), Cinsaut (spelled the ancient way). With this variety of varieties, far beyond the usual suspect, the couple farms 25 acres on the limestone slopes from the Monts de Vaucluse, where alluvial sand and clay form the terroir.
Vincent and Aurélie Garreta, Domaine Les Maoù
Vincent explains their process: “Much of the juice undergoes semi-carbonic maceration and ferments in cement, at which point it is left to age until blended and bottled in the spring. The results are jewels of varying degrees of ruby-red, from the light and bright ‘Entre Chats’ and ‘Au P’tit Bonheur” to the fresh and lively ‘Vaste Programme’ and “L’un Dans L’autre” to the deeper, darker ‘Entre Les Gouttes’ and ‘Hauts Les Coeurs’, all intended to deliver — all sure to deliver ‘un coup de foudre’—a thunderbolt.”
Les Maoù ‘Entre Les Gouttes’ 2021 Ventoux VdF Rouge ($31)
Literally, ‘Between the Drops’, this exuberant red wine is a blend of late-harvested and semi-carbonically-macerated Carignan (70%) and Aubun (30%), from Vaucluse between the Rhône and Provence. It spends 2-3 months in stainless steel or resin tanks and is not filtered or fined prior to bottling. It is bright red in the glass and also on the palate, showcasing cherry, raspberry and cranberry notes behind licorice, baking spice and a peppery finish.
Les Maoù ‘Vaste Programme’ 2021 Ventoux VdF Rouge ($33)
Carignan (60%), Grenache (20%), Aubun (20%); the wine undergoes semi-carbonic maceration for eight days followed by 2-3 months in stainless steel or resin tanks. Aubun, as noted above, is a local and quickly disappearing black-skinned red grape that integrates cautious acidity with soft tannins. Blended with Carignan and Grenache, it produces a bright wine bursting with wild floral notes, red berries, ripe plums and white pepper.
Les Maoù ‘À Venir’ 2021 Ventoux VdF Blanc ($33)
Meaning ‘To The Future’, the wine is 53% Carignan Noir, 47% Clairette Rose; the vines are 30 and 70 years of age respectively. The grapes are fermented together in stainless steel tank and bottled in the spring with 10-15 mg/l of SO2 and no filtration to produce a white wine redolent of apple and lime blossom, with a hint of fennel and verbena on the palate.
Notebook . . .
The Gesture of Natural: Wine in The Raw
In wine, ‘natural’ is a concept before it’s a style. It refers to a philosophy; an attitude. It may involve a regimen of rituals or it may be as simple as a gesture, but the goal, in nearly every case, is the purest expression of fruit that a winemaker, working within a given vineyard, can fashion. Not all ‘natural’ wines are created equal, and some are clearly better than others, but of course, neither is every estate the same, nor every soil type, nor each individual vigneron’s ideology.
The theory is sound: To reveal the most honest nuances in a grape’s nature, especially when reared in a specific environment, the less intervention used, the better. If flaws arise in the final product—off-flavors, rogue, or ‘stuck’ fermentation (when nature takes its course), it may often be laid at the door of inexperience. Natural wine purists often claim that this technique is ancient and that making wine without preservatives is the historical precedent. That’s not entirely true, of course; using sulfites to kill bacteria or errant yeast strains dates to the 8th century BCE. What is fact, however, is that some ‘natural’ wines are wonderful and others are not, and that the most successful arise from an overall organoleptic perspective may be those better called ‘low-intervention’ wine, or ‘raw’ wine—terminology now adopted by many vignerons and sommeliers.
At its most dogmatic and (arguably) most OCD, natural wines come from vineyards not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, where the grapes are picked by hand and fermented with native yeast; they are fined via gravity and use no additives to preserve or shore up flavor, including sugar and sulfites. Winemakers who prefer to eliminate the very real risk of contaminating an entire harvest may use small amounts of sulfites to preserve and stabilize (10 to 35 parts per million) and in natural wine circles, this is generally considered an acceptable amount, especially if the estate maintains a biodynamic approach to vineyard management.
In all things wine, ‘balance’ is a key to the kingdom; it is a term interchangeable with harmony, and may reference acid, alcohol level, grape sugars and tannin, but also, to a scale in which the long-term health of the product is considered along with the flavors inherent on release. More than just a current radar blip in trendy social capital a naturalistic approach to winemaking is not only more honest, but better for a sustainable environment: It’s a nod to the past and a gesture to the future.
Catch All ‘Vin de France’ (VdF) : Forgoing Appellation Rules
Wines in France are classified into one of three categories: AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protegée, formerly AOC), IGP (formerly Vin de Pays) and Vin de France (VdF). AOP wines are identified only by the names of their appellations, usually without varietal descriptions; the next level, IGP, comes from broader regions, and may be identified by varietal names; and the lowest level has no indication of origin at all.
Vin de France (VdF) is a catch-all. Produced often at high yields, most Vins de France are low-priced, but hidden within them are top wines, pushed out of the appellation system, that can be every bit as good as the best in the AOP. They can be hard to identify, because origins aren’t obvious – many indicate only the names of producer and cuvée – and while they may seem expensive for this lowly category, they can offer remarkable interest. With only a few high-flying Vins de France, this is a small class, but it’s well worth investigating.
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Posted on 2024.08.22 in France, Wine-Aid Packages | Read more...
A Wine Worth Waiting For: Revisiting 2018 Red Bordeaux from Domaines Jean-Michel Cazes Trio of Northern Haut-Médoc Châteaux. A New Generation Taking the Helm Make Their Mark. + With Emphasis on Balance the Châteaux’s 2019 Fresh Second Wines are Imminently Drinkable. (2018 & 2019 5-Bottle Pack $388) + An Evening with Pierre-Louis Araud, Château Lynch-Bages Detroit, Sunday August 25th (Limited. Inquire.)
If Hell made wine, it might turn out to be pretty good. Having been described as ‘hellish’ by renowned critic James Suckling, Bordeaux’s 2018 growing season is succinctly summarized by Barons de Rothschild CEO Saskia de Rothschild: “It was an enfant terrible. The vineyards saw endless rain at the beginning, then hail and mildew. But things improved, and the weather turned sunny and hot, allowing us in the end to make spectacular wines.”
Recalling Winston Churchill’s advice (“If you find yourself going through Hell, keep going”) it seems increasingly likely that vintage 2018 represents the clichéd ‘new norm,’ at least in Bordeaux. The changing climate has already produced a number of ‘Vintages of the Century’ in the epoch’s first quarter—2000, 2009, 2010—and with similar weather patterns and by using canny techniques, winemakers have been able to produce beautifully structured wines with ripe fruit and potent tannins along with the je ne sais quoi of ‘drinkability at any age,’ which is the ultimate hallmark of quality.
2018 in Bordeaux: ‘Enfant Terrible’ Vintage Delivers ‘Spectacular’ Wines.
According to Baptiste Guinaudeau, winemaker at Pomerol’s Château Lafleur, “2018 wines are like flying carpets. They are powerful and structured, yet remain agile. We knew that we had a great vintage by August.”
Not every winemaker was as fortunate, and alas, those who rely entirely on organic and biodynamic viticultural methods were ravaged by mildew, particularly in July, and some lost 80% of their crop. “We haven’t seen mildew pressure like this in decades,” admits Thomas Duroux of Château Palmer, which are cultivated biodynamically and simply couldn’t keep up.
“Some years we cannot make wine, but I believe in what we are doing,” says Alfred Tesseron, Pontet-Canet, also biodynamically farmed and lost about 2/3 of his crop.
Most winemakers wound up delighted, however, even while acknowledging the difficulties: Nicolas Audebert, director of Château Canon and Château Rauzan-Ségla, believes 2018 could be the best vintage ever from the second-growth Margaux: “It was a tough year and we really had to fight all the time with nature, but we won.”
Key to success in 2018 seems in part to be decisions made by individual vignerons and vineyard managers. The poor and wet weather for the first half of 2018 significantly shaped the vintage; the hot and sunny weather from mid-July until the end of the harvest in October made the decision on when to pick crucial. Those who picked late produced tannic and richer wines, while the early harvesters made fresher and slightly lighter wines.
2018 Wines Will Require Years to Evolve and Develop. Or Drink Now.
For decades—even centuries—the prevailing standard of greatness in Bordeaux is powerful wines that can endure for decades, long enough to develop the complex secondary and tertiary aromas; flavors that transcend mere pleasure and achieve profundity. It is a fascinating argument; but the inconvenient truth is that these days, Bordeaux with the oomph to age this long is frequently priced beyond what everyday drinkers can afford. Not only that, but there is a diminishing among of time for returns: As we age, many of these wines will not truly come into their own in our lifetimes. As the prices continue to rise, the market diminishes accordingly.
Perhaps in concert with this shrinking audience, wines that were once dismissed as ‘restaurant wines’ for their approachability tonight rather than on some phantom night in a hazy future, are beginning to be given their due. Balance is a requisite element whether the wine is consumed young or fully matured.
When a rare vintage like 2018 produces both—wines that can age until your grandchildren have grandchildren, but are accessible today, with elegance, purity and finesse—it is worth taking notice.
The Package: Five Bottles for $388
The following five numbered wines are available as a package, representing the 2018 and 2019 vintages—among the most successful back-to-back growing seasons in Bordeaux ever.
New Generation Show Their Value
The above quote from Saskia de Rothschild (the youngest person to currently lead a First Growth estate) fits a theme: A new generation of Bordeaux winemaker has entered the fray, and shored up with science that matches their zeal, they are willing to experiment where necessary to create superb wines on their own terms.
This new sense of dynamism and momentum is vital in overcoming the natural obstacles of climate change being thrown at Bordeaux—and dreamland that has been at the pinnacle of wine lore for centuries. Fabled estates like Château Angélus are turning over the reins to young women and men who have been waiting (and working) in the wings. Eighth-generation Stéphanie de Boüard-Rivoal (born in the year of the legendary 1982 vintage) took over as managing director of the Saint-Émilion Premier Grand Cru Classé A estate in 2012 while her father Hubert remains a force as a consulting winemaker.
Pétrus, as well, has seen the generational shift; Jean-Claude Berrouet, now 82, made wine at the estate for more than 40 years. His son Jeff created the 100-point 2018 Pétrus and has tackled the nuances head-on: “Climate change makes new oak more challenging,” he says. “Higher temperatures and greater sunlight tend to result in higher sugar levels in grapes, with ensuing higher alcohol levels. The higher the alcohol, the more the solvents are produced. As a result , the more oak tannin extracted, and felt in the wine. For that very reason, Pétrus is aged using only 50% new oak.”
Jean-Charles Cazes, Châteaux Lynch-Bages, Haut-Batailley and Ormes de Pez
At Lynch-Bages, sadly, Jean-Michel Cazes passed aways in 2023, having handed over management of the family interests to his son Jean-Charles Cazes in 2006. In this year—spearheaded by the younger Cazes—the château adopted “selection massale” for replanting. This method involves choosing a number of outstanding vines from the vineyard and propagating new vines from that budwood. In order to perpetuate the original diversity, Cazes only considered parcels planted more than 50 years ago.
Saint-Estèphe: Fleshy with Exceptional Backbone, Lift and Energy
Situated at the northern end of the Haut-Médoc, just south of the Médoc appellation that runs north to the Pointe de Grave and the Bay of Biscay, Saint-Estèphe is one of Bordeaux’s famous ‘Left Bank’ appellations. With 3000 acres under vine, Saint-Estèphe accounts for roughly 8% of the vineyard area of the wider Médoc.
Because Saint-Estèphe is marginally further from the gravel-bearing waters of the Garonne, the terroir is less stony than that found in the southern part of the Haut-Médoc. Instead, heavy clay and a limestone base dominate this area, resulting in poorer-draining soils, delayed ripening and higher acidity levels in the wines. These factors tend to favor Merlot over Cabernet Sauvignon, which performs better on clay-rich soils.
Château Ormes de Pez
Saint-Estèphe
Château Ormes de Pez, found just west of Saint-Estèphe and bordering the hamlet of Pez, has belonged to the Médoc landscape since the 18th century. It has belonged to the Cazes family since 1939. The hundred-acre vineyard is planted to 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 37% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot—a marked increase in the amount of Merlot in the vineyard. This has clearly helped add more softness and richness to the Grand Vin’s profile.
Ormes de Pez wines are made with the same care and attention as those from Château Lynch-Bages. And that is because vineyard manager Rafaël Destruhaut-Balladu, prioritizes a similarly integrated method of agriculture for both, which include the use of neutral products for the environment, optimized plant-health control and fallow periods for soil rest. Grapes are harvested by hand and vinification takes place under Daniel Llose and Nicolas Labenne. Using traditional winemaking methods that allow a gentle extraction of colors and tannins. The wine is then aged for around 15 months in French oak barrels, 45% of which are new.
1 Château Ormes de Pez, 2018 Saint-Estèphe ($42)
The Grand Vin of Pez is a blend of 41% Cabernet Sauvignon, 50% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc and 2% Petit Verdot matured in French oak barrels of which about half are new. It shows typicity of the appellation, with black cherry, plum, licorice and spice.
Pauillac: Elegance and Power Coupled with Complexity
The most singularly revered appellation on earth, Pauillac is to wine what The Beatles are to pop music. Though fewer than ten square miles in total, three of the top five châteaux in the 1855 Médoc Classification are located here, and so varied is the topography that each estate is able to market the individual nature, in style and substance, of their wares. And it is this trio of skills—growing, producing and selling—that has made the region almost a cliché, synonymous with elite wine, where futures sell for exorbitant rates long before the wine is even in the bottle.
Whereas the Right Bank of the Gironde is known for clay-rich soils that produce smooth, softly-fruited wines with balancing tannins, the Left Bank—where vines tend to struggle through limestone and gravel—is known for tannic wines that become exponentially more complex with age. The Left Bank encompasses the Médoc region, whose face, quite arguably, is Pauillac.
Pauillac represents three of the five First Growths named in the 1855 Classification, with another fifteen classified wines adding trophies to the wall, including two heralded Second Growths. The wines of Pauillac contain a characteristic finesse, elegance, and intensity essentially unmatched by any growing region elsewhere in the world. The maritime climate and unique soil matrix, ideally suited to Cabernet Sauvignon, is key to the splendor. Nearly flat, (the average elevation in Pauillac is twenty feet), the subsoil is often composed of alios, a hard sandstone rich in iron, which may account for the appellation’s classic strength and vitality. The châteaux, in the main, are less subdivided than in neighboring regions, making it easier to pinpoint variations in style according to terroir.
Pauillac consists of about 3000 acres of vineyards, which on average produce seven million bottles of wine per year.
Pauillac contains a dozen Fifth Growth estates, each vying to match fame of Château Lynch-Bages, long considered the leader in the category, dubbed ‘the poor pan’s Mouton’ for its rich and powerful style.
Château Haut-Batailley
Pauillac
This Fifth Growth Pauillac is a scion of the mother estate, Château Batailley; in 2017, it was acquired by the Cazes family, owners of the ubiquitous Château Lynch-Bages. Named after a battle that took place there in 1453; it functioned as a working winery for centuries until being ranked during the 1855 Classification. In the 20th Century, François Xavier Borie (owner of the famous Château Grand-Puy-Lacoste) acquired the estate and portioned off a smaller section of Château Batailley, thus creating Château Haut-Batailley.
The wines of Haut-Batailley are traditional examples of classic Pauillac terroir—heavily graveled, sandy soil over clay. Vinification is typically done in stainless steel tanks and the process of malolactic fermentation occurs within the stainless steel, giving these wines a velvety smoothness and supple luxurious drinkability. The wines of Château Haut-Batailley share the versatility of the grand vin from Château Batailley in the sense that they age well yet are able to be enjoyed on the younger side within an hour or so of decanting.
2 Château Haut-Batailley, 2018 Pauillac ($78)
59% Cabernet Sauvignon and 41% Merlot aged for 14 months in French oak barrels, 60% new. The imprint of the Merlot is obvious in the creamy damson plum notes highlighted by macerated black cherries, blueberry, hints of fresh fig and pressed violets. An opulent wine easy to enjoy tonight or ten thousand tonights from now.
Château Lynch-Bages
Pauillac
Amid the fanfare and the brilliant marketing (Jean-Michel Cazes sent a bottle of 1975 Lynch-Bages into outer space aboard the space shuttle Discovery), Fifth Growth Château Lynch-Bages is worth the hype. Under the tireless campaigning and quality-improvement of the Cazes family, who have owned the property since 1934, the estate has expanded to over 250 acres to the south and southwest of Pauillac.
Improvements to both soil and technique have been a hallmark of the Cazes approach; a massive renovation and modernization of the wine cellar took place in 2017, and cutting-edge vineyard management now includes satellite imaging to survey the vineyard and conducting soil surveys to ensure the vines reach their full potential.
Of the nonpareil terroir, Jean-Charles Cazes (who took over the estate in 2007) says, “Combined with the natural barrier of the Landes forest, the Atlantic Ocean and the Gironde estuary, we find ourself in a very specific micro-climate. Winters are cool, frosts are rare, spring is often wet, summers are warm and autumns are sunny. Along with that, Lynch-Bages soils are homogeneous, essentially made up of deep Garonne gravel, resulting from the slow erosion of the Pyrenees by the Garonne river. On top of having high draining properties, these soils of pebbles and sands accumulate heat during the day and release it during the night, and they contribute to a moderate growth and a deep rooting of the vine.”
Although stuck in fifth place by the 1855 classification, it appears that fate, nature, and an aggressively forward-thinking family has raised the bar far higher than the Cru-rating suggests.
3 Château Lynch-Bages, 2018 Paulliac ($179)
72% Cabernet Sauvignon, 19% Merlot, 6% Cabernet Franc and 3% Petit Verdot; perfumed with blackcurrants and blackberry behind a solid core of chocolate, cedar chest, star anise, cigar box, cardamom and wood smoke. Enjoyable young but will continue to unfold beautifully with time.
Second Thoughts: The Grand Vin’s Second Wine
Rather than shedding tears, Bordeaux adds tiers—and classification is what Bordeaux is all about. While the Grand Vin is expected to be the A-game of any château, with technological advancements and an increasingly warm climate, the price of these top-shelf wines has risen with the temperature, and quality is ensured by an ever more rigorous selection of grapes on the sorting table.
Second wines—a tradition begun by Château Margaux in the 17th century—were the logical place to establish grapes deemed unfit for inclusion in the Grand Vin. And since the terroir in which they were grown was often similar, and occasionally identical to the first wines (and generally made by the same vigneron), it stands to reason that the great estates would release these ‘little brother wines’ under some version of their famous name. Château Lafite Rothschild’s second wine, for example, is Carruades de Lafite; Château Margaux’s is Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux.
This name-game association has a downside, of course: As the prices for a château’s main bottling rose, they found that they could easily command more for second wines as well, and inexorably, these began to be priced beyond the reach of many consumers as well. Especially in the Médoc, the cost of second wines crept up to a price point once paid for the first. Some châteaux found a solution in producing third wines, and although fourth wines are not unheard of, the bulk of a harvest that does end up in one of the three is generally declassified and sold to négociants.
4 Château Haut-Batailley ‘Haut-Batailley Verso’, 2019 Pauillac ($39)
The 2019 vintage was generally superb throughout the Médoc, and Pauillac fared even better than the rest. Conditions were easy and the harvest seamless.
Haut-Batailley’s second wine, Verso, is 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 35% Merlot and represents 35% of the 2019 harvest. Vatting took place over a period of three weeks with successive cycles of pumping over prior to barreling. It shows beautiful red and blue fruits as well as lead pencil, tobacco and herb nuances with spicy notes and a hint of balsamic.
5 Château Lynch-Bages ‘Echo de Lynch-Bages’, 2019 Pauillac ($50)
The estate’s second wine, Echo de Lynch-Bages 2019 is composed of 53% Merlot, 46% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 1% Cabernet Franc. Deep garnet-purple in color, it is big and bold from the outset, displaying warm black current and blueberry pie in a creamy package where the tannins are secondary to the fruit.
Time Capsules: 2020 & 2010 Wines.
Recognized as legendary across the board in Bordeaux, 2010 was truly great vintage whose exceedingly dry growing season served to concentrate the juice and provide wines with outstanding depth. Despite a wet June giving a damp start to summer, the season soon heated up turning exceedingly hot and dry, particularly in the Médoc region; the arid conditions caused the right amount of water stress to improve the berries, and the long, sunny days continued through to October with nights steadily chilling as the season drew to a close. Cool nights were imperative to preserving the acidity in the grapes and rains, fortunately, came in September freshening the grapes.
Like 2010, 2020 is a vintage to be reckoned with, both now and decades from now. The growing season began well with a balmy but frequently wet spring that ensured both an early and successful budburst and flowering. These spring rains put the vineyards in good stead for the arrival of a hot, dry summer. The arid conditions caused some vines to suffer from drought, although, the odd, intermittent thunderstorm brought just enough water relief to most vineyards. Some, however, brought hail, causing localized damage and cutting yields. The Left Bank received more deluges than the Right and the on-off patches of rain coupled with high temperatures created the perfect conditions for mildew to develop.
Château Lynch-Bages, 2020 Paulliac ($182)
A ‘vin de garde’ of the vintage, 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 31% Merlot, 4% Cabernet Franc, 5% Petit Verdot. If ever a wine was pure Pauillac, this is it—dense and chewy with precision and palate-coating fruit. 75% new oak aging, giving the firm tannins some extra oomph that will shore it up for decades. In the meantime it shows blackcurrant, hazelnut and graphite wreathed in velvety tannin counterbalanced by a fine bead of acidity.
Château Lynch-Bages, 2010 Paulliac ($299)
79% Cabernet Sauvignon, 18% Merlot and 2% Cab Franc, 1% Petit Verdot. With similar alcohol levels and tannins to Vintage 2009, the 2010 Lynch-Bages differs from the very sunny 2009 in its higher acidity, which was the result of lower temperatures and cooler nights. Less rainfall, combined with milder temperatures led to the development of small, concentrated grapes, rich in pigments and tannins which still maintain their precise aromatic freshness. The fruit is still present, having matured into Black Forest gâteau.
White Bordeaux in Pauillac
White wine in Pauillac is like its cave paintings—very rare and quite exquisite. Perhaps the most iconic red wine region on earth, a small amount of Bordeaux Blanc is nonetheless produced in Pauillac, mostly cépages made from Sauvignon Blanc, Sémillon and Muscadelle.
The gravel-based soils—so prominent in Graves that they named the appellation after it—also exists in Pauillac; First Growths Lafite and Mouton Rothschild both occupy enviable locations on a gravel plateau, and it is this well-drained soil that is arguably the single most important factor in the local quality equation, responsible for helping Pauillac’s signature grape—Cabernet Sauvignon—to balanced maturity. They are also indispensable in producing white wines with vigor, personality and even an exotic edge that underscores the physiological ripeness.
Château Lynch-Bages ‘Blanc de Lynch-Bages’, 2022 Bordeaux Blanc ($92)
67% Sauvignon Blanc, 22% Sémillon and 11% Muscadelle showing white flower aromatics and ripe tropical fruits with subtle gunsmoke edging and slate texture. The team passed through the vineyard several times to ensure bunches came in as soon as they were ripe and ensured reductive winemaking in individually temperature-controlled barrels to keep emphasis on fruit and aromatics.
An Evening With Pierre-Louis Araud, Commercial Director of Château Lynch-Bages, in Detroit
Elie Wine Company is proud to host an evening with Pierre-Louis Araud, commercial director and brand ambassador for Château Lynch-Bages, who will present a selection of fine wines from the trio of Châteaux. On Sunday, August 25, we will sample the outstanding 2018 vintage, both the grand vin and the second wines, and participants are invited to decide for themselves the level of ‘drinkability’ these wines have achieved in their relative youth. We will also sample Blanc de Lynch-Bages 2022 and 2019 Haut-Batailley.
Guests can sign up for 5 p.m. tasting or opt for the tasting and dinner afterward, subject to available space. Please call for further details.
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Posted on 2024.08.15 in Pauillac, Saint-Estephe, Haut-Médoc, France, Bordeaux, Wine-Aid Packages | Read more...
Loire Reds Like it Hot: Cabernet-Franc in Touraine Benefits from Climate Change, Producing Lusty, Bold-Flavored Wines. A Baker’s Dozen for $397.
Grape vines are the canary in the coal mine. Particularly sensitive to temperature and rainfall flux—hence the clichéd ‘good vintage’ vs. ‘poor vintage’—vines are among the most effective agricultural tools we have to gauge the effect that climate change is having on cash crops. So central is the subject of climate change to wine discussions in the 21st century that it becomes a frequent theme in any overview of wine country, and one we return to with both concern and concession.
In the Loire, successive heat waves drove record temperatures in 2018 and 2019, only to have them surpassed in 2022. It led to a massive drought that left parts of the Loire River crossable by foot. And yet, in the midst of these disasters, Cabernet Franc is sitting pretty, especially in Touraine, where the extra shot of warmth is welcome. Cab Franc is a naturally late-ripening variety that in cooler years can produce vegetal flavors that (in tasting notes) often translate into ‘green pepper’. Longer hang times in a warmer season eliminates this weediness, and when ripened optimally, becomes a force to be reckoned with, especially in Chinon, Bourgueil, Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil and Saumur-Champigny. These appellations have begun to consistently produce wines that display a classically ethereal interplay of fruit, minerals and herbs.
Cab Franc has an additional advantage when grown in regions with somewhat unstable weather patterns, where hot and dry vintages can be followed by one that is cool and wet. Suited to either eventuality, Cabernet Franc is resilience against the heat as well as to cool wet weather, effectively resisting botrytis.
This week, we’ll take a tour of Touraine and some satellite regions and measure the pinnacles being reached by this particular variety as well as consider the types of vigneron who call this dynamic region home.
Touraine: A Multitude of Soils and Grape Varieties
The vineyards of Touraine grow at the crossroads of oceanic and continental influences, and likewise, the soils are as varied as the breezes, being predominantly limestone, sand and siliceous clay from the Paris Basin, while the terraces bordering the Loire and the Vienne contain deposits of pebbles smoothed to roundness by the action of the water. Such variety supports a cornucopia of grape varieties and multifarious styles—easy-drinking white, red and rosés and sparkling wines along with sweet wines that will bend your mind as they crumble your molars. Whether red, white or shades between, Touraine wines are always vibrant with acidity and delicate, precise flavors.
Red wine is produced from Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Côt, Pinot Noir, Meunier, Pineau d’Aunis and Gamay grape varieties and tend to be firm and fruity.
Climate Change Challenges Winemakers, But Some are Benefitting from It
Late frosts, hailstorms, repeated heatwaves and historic droughts—the plagues of winemakers in 2024 make the plagues of Egypt look like a kindergartner’s runny nose. There is adaptability and there is impossibility, and these challenges have caused winemakers not only to re-evaluate their techniques, from trellising to site selection, but to revamp the entire industry.
“The nature of the French wine industry is going to be completely different by 2050,” says Nathalie Ollat, an expert on winegrowing at French agricultural research institute INRAE. “And the precise nature of that change will be determined in part by the results of the experiments going on throughout the country. We could have irrigated vineyards in the south, others that have disappeared, as well as long-forgotten grape varieties brought back. Perhaps certain regions will go from using one variety of grape to several varieties. And maybe we’ll have entirely new vineyards in entirely new places on top of that.”
Meanwhile, despite the numerous negative impacts of climate change, warmer temperatures have proven advantageous for some French winemakers. Along with a vineyard’s soil and the expertise of its agronomist and winemaker, heat and rainfall are crucial to the final product. Warmer days help grapes mature properly and develop an optimal amount of sugar, resulting in higher-scoring wine. While critic opinions are subjective, there has been a consensus in these scores over the years, and top wines tend to come from years with warmer, drier summers, cooler, wetter winters, and earlier, shorter growing seasons—conditions that climate change is expected to make more frequent.
The Loire’s Cabernet Franc Enters a New Era.
Who’s your daddy? Biologically, both Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot share Cabernet Franc as a parent, and the grape itself displays characteristics inherited by both. In cooler climates, Cabernet Franc shows off graphite and red licorice notes, while in warm regions, it exhibits tobacco and leather aromas. There is also a vegetal edge, which may strike the palate as tasting of green pepper or jalapeño.
In Bordeaux, it is generally a minor component of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot blends, although in Pomerol and Saint-Émilion it adopts a larger, more highly-regarded role. Cheval Blanc, for example, is typically around two-thirds Cabernet Franc while Ausone is an even split between Cabernet Franc and Merlot.
With the Loire Valley’s cool, inland climates it becomes a star performer. The appellations of Chinon, Bourgueil and Saint–Nicholas-de-Bourgueil (in Touraine) along with Saumur and Saumur-Champigny (in Anjou) are important bastions of Cabernet Franc, where the wine is prized for forward aromas of ripe summer berries and sweet spices.
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil
Although technically a part of the Touraine district (which is defined by the political boundaries of the city of Tours) Bourgueil and Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil are so different from their neighbors that they are often grouped together with Chinon as a separate unit.
Saint-Nicolas de Bourgueil produces mostly red wines (one of only very few Loire appellations to do so) and a small quantity of rosé; both are characterized by crisp, refreshing acidity and prominent spiced-fruit flavors. They are made almost entirely from Cabernet Franc, although up to 10% Cabernet Sauvignon is allowed, which has also responded particularly well to the milder, maritime-influenced climate and free draining soils.
Sébastien David
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil
No comment on E.F. Hutton, but when Sébastien David speaks, you should probably listen. He is the fifteenth-generation to make wine in an estate that dates back to 1634. And when he speaks, he says, “I believe in the energy of the land.”
The family owns 37 acres of Cabernet Franc in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, with the vines aged 35-100 years old. Sébastien heed the call of the land’s energy after his grandfather died in the late 1990s—Sébastien’s first vintage was 1999, and has since focused on producing natural wines from fruit that is Ecocert certified.
Sébastien David
“My insistence has been to listen to the soil,” he says. “We are organic, biodynamic and are currently exploring permaculture, where grass grows between rows. In the cellar I use concrete eggs as well as amphorae. The pH here in Saint-Nicolas is higher due to more sand in the soil and the concrete allows me to accentuate the more floral notes of Cabernet Franc rather than the green pepper notes you might get from a Chinon.”
1 Sébastien David ‘Hurluberlu’, 2022 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($26)
Working with whole clusters, David ferments ‘Hurluberlu’ on wild yeasts, employing carbonic maceration for 25 days followed by a light pressing to preserve the fruit’s freshness, and to create a wine that is as animated as its name, resplendent with sizzling cherry, bright raspberry and tart cranberry that deserves to be served slightly chilled.
2 Sébastien David ‘Kezako’, 2020 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($34)
Kezako, created with many of the same techniques as Hurluberlu, is the spicier, more herbal sister wine. The emphasis here is on the earthier tones of Cabernet Franc; the fruit is darker, too, showing blackberry and plum rather than the red starbursts of Hurluberlu. This is primarily the result of a blend of eight plot of David’s oldest vines grown on flinty silex. Kezako means ‘What is it?’ and is David’s only cuvée vinified in concrete eggs.
3 Sébastien David ‘Coëf’, 2019 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Cabernet Franc’ ‘natural’ ($47)
If you happen to be an amphorae scholar, you’ll be pleased to note that ‘Coëf’ is aged in five different types—Quevri from Georgia, Dolia from Italy, Karaf from Armenia, Thalia from Portugal and Tinajas from Spain. If you are simply a wine lover, you’ll appreciate David’s quote: “… more than the wine, there is the person who shapes it, works it, softens it with the respect of an art, of an ancestral technique that my ancestors have bequeathed to me.”
Made from 50 year old vines, vinified using carbonic maceration, the wine shows cherry, violet, and a hint of spice.
Yannick Amirault
Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Bourgueil
‘Fifty and out’ could be the mission statement of Domaine Y. Amirault, at least in terms of size. With around 30 acres in Bourgueil and 20 in Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, Yannick Amirault has grown his vineyard space as large as he cares to, finding 50 acres to be the most he feels he can work to his exacting standards.
Having begun in 1977 with around ten acres inherited from his grandfather, Eugène Amirault, he was joined by his son Benoît in 2003. Yannick’s commitment to organic agriculture is not an attempt to hop on the bandwagon sweeping across French viticulture, but rather the opposite: “Weaning the vineyards off synthetic inputs—a process we completed in 1997—and following lunar calendar—may seem a bit trendy, but this is simply a return to the way Eugène Amirault made wine for his family.”
Yannick and Benoît Amirault
Benoît adds: “Harvest has always been done by hand and is initiated by many factors, all guided by combined experience. Each parcel is picked at its own optimal ripeness (and in several passes), then the grape clusters are transported to the cellar. Here, the work is both minimalistic and transparent: Grapes are sorted again and destemmed; fermentations are indigenous and conducted in large, open-topped, conical oak vats; macerations last up to sixty days with pigeage only at the very beginning and rémontage reserved only for the ripest vintages to reduce rustic tannins. Only the first press is used and is aged in neutral vessels—amphorae, oak demi-muids and well-seasoned vats.”
The result of this is a vibrant array of 100% Cabernet Franc wines, many reflecting individual plots across the two appellations; the domain has 25, some above the village on sands and gravels, others at the hill’s feet, in limestone.
“There is no terroir without the intervention of mankind,” says Yannick. “We look after our vines, year after year, as if it were a garden. We grow grass between vine rows and we plough the graveled plots which are more sensitive to a lack of water. Despite weather, our craft leaves nothing to chance. The pruning is Guyot Poussard and vines through organic spraying of plants infusion. We also roll growing vines (we do not cut the top branches) on certain crus. Even in a low yield year, we do a growth clearing on all our vines in order to ensure an homogenous maturity of the grapes.”
4 Yannick Amirault ‘Les Malgagnes’, 2020 Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil ($42)
Les Malgagnes is a hillside lieu-dit in the Bourgueil sub-appellation of Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil. It is slightly further down the limestone-rich slope than the other three lieux-dits on this particular côte. Amirault has six acres here, but only the fruit from the upper section, where the limestone is much closer to the surface, is used for this cuvée. The grapes see a four-week maceration with an élevage lasting 12 months in large barrels and demonstrate the silky elegance of old-vine Cabernet Franc grown in this pretty AOP; rich cassis notes are woven into fine-grained tannins and bittersweet chocolate on the finish.
Bourgueil
As Loire is known affectionately as ‘the garden of France’, Bourgueil has been christened ‘the birthplace of Cabernet Franc’, which has been cultivated at the Abbey de Bourgueil since it was built on the Roman main road from Angers to Tours. Today, the appellation covers seven communes in the Indre-et-Loire along the right bank of the Loire, where it enjoys a remarkable microclimate due to the heavy forests that protects the vineyards from the north wind. Soil also cooperates; there are three distinct types: The islets of gravel in the alluvial terraces of the Loire on higher terraces, ancient, glaciated sand and clay/limestone soils from the ridge running along the north of the appellation.
Soils rich in the local ‘tuffeau jaune’ stone type produce richer, spicier wines with ‘animal’ aromas such as leather and fur. Tuffeau is a yellowish, fragile, sedimentary rock formed during the Turonian era (in fact, named after Touraine) roughly 90 million years ago. A combination of sand and marine fossils, the rock is extremely porous, absorbing water rapidly and disseminating it slowly. These qualities are ideal for viticulture as they draw excess water away from vine roots and hold reserves that stop the vines from shutting down entirely during drier periods.
5 Yannick Amirault ‘Le Grand Clos’, 2020 Bourgueil ($37)
Amirault owns five acres of the lauded, south-facing hillside Le Grand Clos lieu-dit, which is composed of clay and flint soils over tuffeau bedrock. Certified organic, his vines are 45 years old. The grapes are hand-harvested in successive passes, destemmed and allowed natural yeast fermentation in oak vats, and after four weeks of maceration, the wine is transferred to 400-liter French oak barrels for a minimum of one year. The wine is an earthy, black-fruit driven Cabernet Franc that shows the pencil-shavings graphite that are typical of the appellation, one of the few in Loire appellations to produce exclusively red wines.
Pierre Borel
Bourgueil
The six-acre Clos du Pavée, where Pierre Borel has been making wine since 2006, is a true clos in the French sense, meaning that it a walled vineyard, once done to protect the grapes from theft and now, to improve the mesoclimate. Pavée soils are gravel; the surrounding acres are generally built around clay/limestone.
“Terror dictates wine style,” Pierre explains, “and this terroir I believe is meant to produce more easygoing, fruit-forward wines.”
This concept ultimately led Pierre to uproot and replant the whole parcel, settling on four new acres of Cabernet Franc and two of Chenin Blanc. Doing all the vineyard work alone (and by hand) Pierre is a firm believer in organic viticulture, and although he doesn’t believe that the AOP system is necessarily a mark of quality, he views working within it a commitment to the winemaking traditions in the area.
Pierre Borel
The seclusion of Clos du Pavée works to the advantage of Pierre’s passion for organics. With the village on one side and woodland on the other, his acres are under very little threat from contamination from neighboring growers who aren’t playing by his rules. He believes that his wines represent the purity and typicity of wines from Bourgueil—and that is his goal.
“Simplicity is key,” he states. “I make only one wine, and vinify in as straightforward a way as possible. I work with sandy limestone/gravel soils that yields plush, herbaceous and fragrant fruit. I ferment in a simple chai that contains one large tank of stainless steel and one of fiberglass. The wine is racked off the skins after a couple of weeks of maceration and is bottled from tank, with no barrel aging.”
He is also pleased to note that as his new vines mature, they are producing more complex and nuanced wine with each passing vintage.
6 Pierre Borel ‘Clos de Pavée’ 2019 Bourgueil ‘natural’ ($33)
Bourgueil is the heartland of Cabernet Franc in the Touraine district, and Borel’s five gravelly acres in Clos de Pavée are the epicenter of Bourgueil. This savory, natural red is replete with the meatiness that develops in Cab Franc under ideal condition, and here it is offset by crunchy cranberry and rich herbaceous notes. There is dark chocolate on the finish now, but the wine is structured to mature for at least another decade, and should develop the truffle-like savory tones.
Chinon
Playwright Francois Rabelais (a Chinon local boy made good) wrote, “”I know where Chinon lies, and the painted wine cellar also, having myself drunk there many a glass of cool wine.” That wine was likely red: though capable of producing wines of all hues, Chinon’s focus is predominantly red; last year, white and rosé wines accounted for less than five percent of its total output. Cab Franc is king, and 95% of the vineyards are thus planted. Rabelais’ true stage was set 90 million years ago, when the yellow sedimentary tuffeau, characteristic of the region, was formed. This rock is a combination of sand and fossilized zooplankton; it absorbs water quickly and releases it slowly—an ideal situation for deeply-rooted vines. The typical, quintessential Chinon wine is tannic, leafy, berry-scented.
Château de la Bonnelière
Chinon
Although in his father’s time the family had just 15 acres, Marc Plouzeau now cultivates nearly eighty spread across several vineyards. The vast majority are planted to Cabernet Franc, and the rest are planted mainly to Sauvignon Blanc with a little Chenin making up the balance. They spread over three main soil types—the lightest are the gravelly alluvial soils close to the waters of the river, including a large parcel on the western side of the appellation called Les Buissardières and located near Château Vaugaudry.
Marc Plouzeau, Château de la Bonnelière
Marc Plouzeau is a dedicated vigneron who has transformed the family business, shifting away from his father’s focus on a négociant business, and towards the running of Château de la Bonnelière as a self-sufficient domain. In tandem with this, indeed beginning as soon as he took on the responsibility for the vineyards, he has converted it to certified organic viticulture. This gives the entire estate a rural and isolated feel. Located in La-Roche-Clermault and set well bank from the waters of the Vienne, most of its notable neighbors are situated located much closer to the riverbanks in the communes of Ligré, Anché and Sazilly.
7 Château de la Bonnelière ‘M Plouzeau – Rive Gauche’, 2022 Chinon ($19)
100% Cabernet Franc from 30-year old vines grown on clay-limestone soils on south-facing hillsides. Following natural fermentation on indigenous yeasts, the wine undergoes malolactic and is bottled with minimal filtration. It is soft and silky and supple with an expressive bouquet of dark berries and violets followed by bright cherry; the wine is best appreciated with a slight chill.
8 Château de la Bonnelière ‘M Plouzeau – Rive Gauche’, 2023 Chinon Rosé ($19)
‘Rive Gauche’ translates literally as ‘Left Bank’, and here, of course, refers not to the Seine in Paris but to the Vienne in Loire. Château de la Bonnelière has been in the Plouzeau family since 1846; Marc Plouzeau took over in 1988 with a game plan that included lowering yields and hand-harvesting at ideal physiological ripeness. His vinification philosophy emphasizes fruit rather than tannins—ideal for the production of rosé. Likewise, the estate’s Argilo-Calcalre soil, with sun-reflecting flint on the surface and plenty of limestone underneath, produces wines of great complexity. Plouzeau refers to his terroir as ‘privileged.’ His rosé is a crunchy delight, with watermelon and strawberry notes and great overall depth bringing out elements of cantaloupe, ripe red pepper and a beguiling black cherry undercurrent that adds weight and complexity.
Domaine Olga Raffault
Chinon
Savigny-en-Véron is a beautiful pocket of Chinon vineland nestled between the Loire and the Vienne, and this is where Olga Raffault tended her sixty acres of vines, nearly all Cabernet Franc, with a couple acres of Chenin to round things off. Her Cabernet vines are spread over three terroirs, each of which produces a unique wine profile. Of these, Les Picasses stands out for its fifty year old vines grown on a steep slope built on alluvial clay with a chalk limestone base.
Arnaud and Eric de la Vigerie, and Sylvie Raffault, Domaine Olga Raffault
Since Olga’s passing, the baton has passed to her granddaughter Sylvie and Sylvie’s husband Eric de la Vigerie. They want it known that their beloved Olga never made the wine, and that the winemaking tradition has remained unchanged. Says Sylvie, “The grapes are, of course, handpicked and fermented in stainless-steel, then aged in larger, neutral oak and sometimes chestnut—a traditional wood barrel of this region.”
Eric adds, “Picasses spends two to three years in oak to reduce the wine and soften the tannins and is usually released about four years after the vintage.”
9 Domaine Olga Raffault ‘La Fraîch’, 2023 Chinon ($24)
Introduced in 2017, La Fraîch is sourced from young vines planted on sandy soils near the Vienne River. It is intended to be a ‘vin de soif’ without compromising quality or integrity. The fruit is destemmed before fermenting in stainless steel tanks, and after six months, the wine is bottled and ready for release. It is refreshingly simple, with green herbs behind black cherry and black raspberry.
10 Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Barnabés’, 2021 Chinon ($27)
Les Barnabés is a vineyard planted on sandy-gravel soils with less limestone than Les Picasses, and the wine spends less time in foudre before release. The grapes are crushed whole-cluster in vats, where they remain for two weeks before being transferred to 50-hectoliter casks to spend four to six months. The cuvée is intended to reflect the pretty and elegant side of Chinon, approachable in youth, but eminently ageable.
11 Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Peuilles’, 2020 Chinon ($30)
Like the more renowned Les Picasses vineyard, Les Peuilles is a lieu-dit near the village of Beaumont-En-Véron, to the south of town and closer to the Vienne river. It is a plateau rather than a hillside and features soils of clay and flint rather than limestone. The fruit is whole-berry fermented on indigenous yeasts in stainless steel, with a shorter maceration compared to that of Picasses. Aging takes place in 70-hectoliter oak and chestnut foudres for 6-12 months, with another year or two in bottle before release.
12 Domaine Olga Raffault ‘Les Picasses’, 2018 Chinon ($35)
Les Picasses is the most famous Chinon lieu-dit, close to the village of Beaumont-En-Véron on the north bank of the Vienne River. It is a slope with southern exposure and chalky clay-limestone soils. Raffault’s mid-slope vines are at least 50 years old and are worked organically and harvested by hand. The fruit is destemmed with the berries left whole; they are fermented with indigenous yeasts in tank with a maceration of 25-30 days. The wine is aged for one to two years in 30-hectoliter oak and chestnut foudres, then aged in bottle for several years before release. The wine shows complex blend of cassis, cigar wrapper, soil tones and a touch of smoke, and will probably continue to age well for at least another five years.
13 Domaine Olga Raffault, 2023 Chinon Rosé ($24)
100% organically-grown Cabernet Franc rosé produced in the saignée method. It ferments spontaneously on ambient yeasts in stainless steel tanks and does not undergo malolactic fermentation. Aged in tanks and bottled with only light filtration, this is a full-bodied rosé showing notes of papaya and red berries mingle with hints of crushed herbs and granite minerality.
Notebook …
The Gesture of Natural: Wine in the Raw
In wine, ‘natural’ is a concept before it’s a style. It refers to a philosophy; an attitude. It may involve a regimen of rituals or it may be as simple as a gesture, but the goal, in nearly every case, is the purest expression of fruit that a winemaker, working within a given vineyard, can fashion. Not all ‘natural’ wines are created equal, and some are clearly better than others, but of course, neither is every estate the same, nor every soil type, nor each individual vigneron’s ideology.
The theory is sound: To reveal the most honest nuances in a grape’s nature, especially when reared in a specific environment, the less intervention used, the better. If flaws arise in the final product—off-flavors, rogue, or ‘stuck’ fermentation (when nature takes its course), it may often be laid at the door of inexperience. Natural wine purists often claim that this technique is ancient and that making wine without preservatives is the historical precedent. That’s not entirely true, of course; using sulfites to kill bacteria or errant yeast strains dates to the 8th century BCE. What is fact, however, is that some ‘natural’ wines are wonderful and others are not, and that the most successful arise from an overall organoleptic perspective may be those better called ‘low-intervention’ wine, or ‘raw’ wine—terminology now adopted by many vignerons and sommeliers.
At its most dogmatic and (arguably) most OCD, natural wines come from vineyards not sprayed with pesticides or herbicides, where the grapes are picked by hand and fermented with native yeast; they are fined via gravity and use no additives to preserve or shore up flavor, including sugar and sulfites. Winemakers who prefer to eliminate the very real risk of contaminating an entire harvest may use small amounts of sulfites to preserve and stabilize (10 to 35 parts per million) and in natural wine circles, this is generally considered an acceptable amount, especially if the estate maintains a biodynamic approach to vineyard management.
In all things wine, ‘balance’ is a key to the kingdom; it is a term interchangeable with harmony, and may reference acid, alcohol level, grape sugars and tannin, but also, to a scale in which the long-term health of the product is considered along with the flavors inherent on release. More than just a current radar blip in trendy social cap.
Vin-de-France (VdF) Catch-all Designation: Forgoing Appellation Rules
Wines in France are classified into one of three categories: AOP (Appellation d’Origine Protegée, formerly AOC), IGP (formerly Vin de Pays) and Vin de France (VdF). AOP wines are identified only by the names of their appellations, usually without varietal descriptions; the next level, IGP, comes from broader regions, and may be identified by varietal names; and the lowest level has no indication of origin at all.
Vin de France (VdF) is a catch-all. Produced often at high yields, most Vins de France are low-priced, but hidden within them are top wines, pushed out of the appellation system, that can be every bit as good as the best in the AOP. They can be hard to identify, because origins aren’t obvious – many indicate only the names of producer and cuvée – and while they may seem expensive for this lowly category, they can offer remarkable interest. With only a few high-flying Vins de France, this is a small class, but it’s well worth investigating.
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Posted on 2024.08.08 in Chinon, Touraine, Bourgueil, Saint-Nicolas-de-Bourgueil, France, Wine-Aid Packages | Read more...
New Energy in the Less Familiar Territory of Touraine in The Heart of The Loire Valley; A Place Where Talented Artisanal Vignerons are Introducing Changes and Reinvention. Two Packs: Red Touraine 11-Bottle Pack ($369) & White Touraine 12-Bottle Pack ($369)
Touraine may not grab the vinous headlines of, say, Sancerre or Vouvray, but in ways it is the aesthetic paradigm for the region: Made of castles and gardens and vineyards lining the capricious and majestic Loire from Anjou in the west to Sologne in the east, Touraine winds its way through communes in Indre-et-Loire and Loir-et-Cher.
As part of the Paris Basin, the terroir here is a blend of flinty clay, alluvial river gravel and the unique chalky, fine-grained limestone known as ‘tuffeau.’ White to yellowish-cream in appearance it contains trace levels of mica, and is in part responsible to the longevity of the wines it produces.
There’s more: Since the life of a natural vigneron is often about withdrawing from much of the socio-financial contract of modern urban life, it’s natural that many have sought out the lesser known Loire heartland—Touraine—to set up shop. Not only that, but there is also a generational change among the historic estates, where a new generation of ecology-conscious heirs have revamped old techniques with a new respect for the earth.
Thirst-Quenching Wines to Slake Summer Thirst
Capable of producing prestigious wines with promising futures, Touraine is also the home of wines which can kiss warm weather with the cool embrace of simplicity. These are beautiful representations of their varietals, produced in a style that emphasizes the lyrical, rather than the contemplative side of wine. They are also priced at a point in which you require no occasion more special than this afternoon to enjoy them.
And despite a common misconception, we’re not talking about white wines exclusively. Reds have carved out their own niche in Touraine, and the ones that serve summertime best are those low in alcohol and cooled to a refreshing temperature.
Orange wine is also produced here—see the entry below.
Upriver in Touraine: A Multitude of Soils and Grape Varieties
The vineyards of Touraine grow at the crossroads of oceanic and continental influences, and likewise, the soils are as varied as the breezes, being predominantly limestone, sand and siliceous clay from the Paris Basin, while the terraces bordering the Loire and the Vienne contain deposits of pebbles smoothed to roundness by the action of the water. Such variety supports a cornucopia of grape varieties and multifarious styles—easy-drinking white, red and rosés and sparkling wines along with sweet wines that will bend your mind as they crumble your molars. Whether red, white or shades between, Touraine wines are always vibrant with acidity and delicate, precise flavors.
Known locally as known locally as Pineau Blanc de la Loire, Chenin accounts for much of Touraine production; they are dry, fairly firm, lively and full, and keep well when bottled. The sparkling wines are allowed to use the designation Touraine mousse (sparkling Touraine wine). Up to 20% of Chardonnay grapes may be included in the mixture of varieties grown.
Red wine is produced from Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Côt, Pinot Noir, Meunier, Pineau d’Aunis and Gamay grape varieties and tend to be firm.
Talented Artisan Vignerons in Touraine: A Quiet Revolution
Land at bargain basement prices in the Garden of France? Touraine, bolstered by the presence of the SAFER group (which controls the sale of agricultural land) is so welcoming to newcomers that it seems an obvious destination for new artisanal winemakers looking to make their mark. This is not a new phenomenon; the AOP has been attracting new waves of natural winemakers since the 1990s.
In fact, so flexible has the region been for young iconoclasts leaning toward experimentation that a new dilemma has arisen: How to find the ideal style and substance to best showcase Touraine’s remarkable terroirs? Ancient varieties like Pineau d’Aunis have retained a foothold while standbys like Sauvignon Blanc are being shifting to supporting roles. As always, tuffeau and flint produce a compelling expression of Chenin—one that is edgier and more bracing than elsewhere—and as these wines grow more popular, another quandary may loom among these talented freshmen (and freshwomen): How can they avoid becoming a monoculture appellation driven by financial success where everyone is chasing the same thing?
Red Touraine 11-Bottle Pack ($369) and White Touraine 12-Bottle Pack ($369)
A Touraine travelogue in wine, covering the best of our collection. This package showcases the revolution in style and substance that keeps Touraine at the forefront of innovation, and where (in a growing world of multinational wine companies) winemaking remains a family affair.
Coteaux-du-Loir
Limited to 22 communes in a rather obscure viticultural whisper just to the north of Touraine, Coteaux-du-Loir produces from a scant 180 acres of vines. The appellation is classified as part of the Loire Valley group even though it does not lie in the valley itself. In fact, the river it follows is the Loir, not the Loire, inevitable confusions notwithstanding.
52% of the vineyards are red wine varieties (primarily Pineau d’Aunis) but of most interest to wine lovers is the whites made from Chenin. They may vary from bone dry and steely to incredibly sweet—honey-scented botrytized wines that bear a passing resemblance to Savennières and Vouvray, although they generally lack the richness and finesse of these better-known wines.
Maison Gazeau-Baldi
(Coteaux-du-Loir)
Perched atop the Jasnières hillside in Lhomme, Maison Gazeau-Baldi is home to Aurély and Jean-Damien, whose modest 20-acre vineyard—currently in the midst of conversion to organic and biodynamic agriculture—has been making quality waves throughout their small appellation. The couple has been able to extract remarkable character from Chenin, Gamay, Côt and Pineau d’Aunis.
Organics is a concept on which the couple has entirely bought into. Says Aurély: “We seek balance in order to think of the vineyard as an ecosystem rather than a material. We work clay soils to obtain a filtering texture while freeing the vine from its competitors. The manure is mainly of animal origin; we prefer cow. We carefully select the buds, and sulfur and copper treatments are minimal and always combined with plant extracts. The harvest is entirely manual, with systematic sorting. The harvest is an opportunity to live a moment of sharing and meetings.”
Jean-Damien and Aurély Gazeau-Baldi, Maison Gazeau-Baldi
Jean Damien adds, “It’s a philosophy that carries through to the cellar. We value the potential of each plot, according to the vintage, then deliver an interpretation by choices of pressing, maceration, racking and aging time, without ever copying a process. We strive to listen to the directions taken by wine and adapt to them. The use of sulfur is minimal and antiseptic in principle. We gladly expose wines to oxygen with the idea of strengthening them. We are in the first year of organic conversion with the ECOCERT organization—labels are, above all, a way to make our practices more readable for consumers and partners. We plan to continue our approach with biodynamic certification.”
1 Maison Gazeau-Baldi, 2022 Coteaux-du-Loir Rouge ‘Pineau d’Aunis’ ($33)
80% Pineau d’Aunis, 20% Côt from vines ranging from 5 to 70 years old. The d’Aunis sees whole bunch maceration with regular punch-downs for 20 days; the Côt is directly pressed. The wine pours a light red color and exhibits raspberry and strawberry mixed with earth and spice highlighted with a touch of pepper. Chilled for 15 minutes or so, it is a delightful companion for a charcuterie board. 11,000 bottles produced.
1 Maison Gazeau-Baldi ‘Rendez-Vous’, 2022 VdF Loire-Atlantic Blanc ‘Chenin’ ($25)
100% Chenin Blanc crafted from vines less than 10 years old; this is an extremely limited production of 7,000 bottles. Having undergone a meticulous vinification process involving gentle pressing and cold settling, the wine shows fresh peach, grapefruit and a solid saline core.
Touraine Azay-le-Rideau
Even smaller in size than Coteaux-du-Loir, Azay-le-Rideau stretches over eight communes on the banks of the Indre and the Loire, close to where the rivers meet. A mere 148 acres, the terroir is mostly flinty clay, clay limestone and Aeolian sand mixed with clay, and whereas the Chenins are strikingly mineral with strong notes of quince and apricot, most of Azay’s production is rosé, produced by law with a minimum of 60% Grolleau, either vinified alone or blended with Gamay, Malbec and/or Cabernet Franc.
Domaine Marie Thibault
(Touraine Azay-le-Rideau)
“I grew up in the Loire Valley, but unlike many vignerons working in the Loire, I did not come from a winemaking family,” says Marie Thibault, adding, “But also unlike many of them, I have degrees in both biology and oenology.”
Marie Thibault began making wine in the early 2000s, working for a time with François Chidaine in Montlouis, where she fell in love with Chenin Blanc. In 2011, she founded her own nine acre estate on a single windy slope in Azay-le-Rideau, a lesser known commune of Touraine. She immediately converted to organics and has been certified with Ecocert since 2014. Among the natural elements in her vineyards is the flock of two dozen ewes that graze between the vine rows during the autumn; every ten days, they are penned inside a new hectare to keep the soil naturally fertile and the grass clipped.
Marie Thibault
“My vineyard is small, but the soils are extremely varied and as such, so are the grapes I grow. I work with Côt (Malbec), and have a special love for Gamay, Grolleau, Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc. Most of my vines are at least 50 years old. I compensate for small production by purchasing from organic estates nearby, especially those owned by my family.”
2 Domaine Marie Thibault ‘Les Grandes Vignes’, 2018 VdF Loire-Touraine Rouge ‘Gamay’ ‘natural’ ($41)
Thibault’s unique lens on Gamay is seen in this example produced from 50+ year-old vines she discovered growing adjacent to her plot on flinty silex soil. The vines were untrained and un-trellised, and harvest was exceptionally labor-intensive. She allows a 10-month maceration in order to shows off the Gamay’s savory side, with crisp rhubarb, earthy red berry notes and fine-grained, well-integrated tannins showcased.
3 Domaine Marie Thibault ‘Le Grolleau’, 2021 VdF Loire-Touraine Rouge ‘natural’ ($89) 1.5 Liter
A wine whose heritage is perfectly reflected in Thibault’s scant acres—Azay-le-Rideau is ground zero for Grolleau, first planted in early 19th century. ‘Le Grolleau’ is an ultra-fresh example made using Beaujolais-style carbonic maceration and held to a little over 10% abv, which solidly qualifies it as a ‘vin de soif.’ It is made using 60-year-old organic vines planted on hillsides on the southern slopes of the Indre—an early-ripening terroir filled with draining soils with a presence of flint, and bottled at the Estate in April 2022 without fining or filtration and just a micro-dose of sulfur. This wine is kept even fresher en magnum; it is fruity, juicy and velvety with sweet cranberry, blueberry, red plum, blueberry, cranberry, a touch of pepper with black cherry on the finish.
2 Domaine Marie Thibault ‘Premier Nez’, 2019 VdF Loire-Touraine Blanc ‘Chenin’ ‘natural’ ($42)
A dry, mineral driven Chenin from 40-year-old vines. The wine is spiced with dried orange peel, anise, a touch of pine resin and ripe pear.
Touraine-Chenonceaux
Incorporating 27 communes located on both sides of the Cher River between Tours and Selles-sur-Cher, Touraine-Chenonceaux boasts soils designed to produce spectacular Sauvignon Blanc—clay with flints (with or without a covering of sand) and alkaline clay from the tuffeau limestone ridges. These tend to be intensely aromatic wines with notes of white flowers, ripe citrus and tropical fruit, full-bodied and imbued with a lingering finish.
Red wines, made from Cabernet Franc and Côt, are distinctive and elegant and suggest notes of fruit compote, anise and menthol. Concentration is key, and yields in Touraine-Chenonceaux are limited to 60 hectoliters per hectare for white wines and 55 hectoliters per hectare for red wines. Vineyards are planted on slopes running east-west to benefit from the region’s ample sunshine.
Clos Roussely
(Touraine-Chenonceaux)
Clos Roussely was once a lowly outbuilding of the great fortification at Angé-sur-Cher and as it happens, its five-foot-thick tuffeau walls serve to insulate the winery as efficiently as they once held off Attila the Hun. Not only that, but the 250-year-old hand-dug caves beneath it are ideal for aging the remarkable wines of Vincent Roussely. The transition from barn to vignoble began in 1917, when Anatole Roussely became the first of four generations to dedicate his life to detail; Vincent Roussely, his great-grandson, today works this remarkable terroir—22 acres of clay and limestone peppered with pockets of silex.
“It was my childhood dream to work these soils,” says Roussely, who inherited the estate in 2001. “The terroir is ideal for Sauvignon Blanc, which makes up about 80% of our plantings, but at the heart of Roussely is a small plot of old-vine Gamay. We also have Côt (Malbec), Pineau d’Aunis and a little Cabernet Franc. We have always farmed organically, both for the health of the vines and out of social responsibility, but we were officially certified in 2007.”
Vincent Roussely
The old-school methodology runs through every aspect of the winemaking process. Grapes are hand-harvested and are subject to slow, natural fermentation in the cool catacombs; Gamay undergoes the familiar Méthode Beaujolais, partial carbonic maceration in which some whole grapes are kept intact and begin alcoholic fermentation within the confines of their skins.
Evolving from tradition to technology, Roussely continues to experiment, using concrete eggs for some of his fermentations. “Innovative adaptation means more than simply exploring new techniques,” he says. “It also involves a commitment to ecological responsibility. Right now, about 65% of Loire Valley vineyards are organic and it’s our goal to see that number at 100% by 2030.”
3 Clos Roussely, 2022 Touraine-Chenonceaux Blanc ($25)
Made from 100% old-vine Sauvignon Blanc grown in organic vineyards, the wine emits a bouquet of white flowers, citrus and lemon curd with exotic tropical fruits to shore up a bracing acidity.
4 Clos Roussely ‘L’Escale’, 2023 Touraine Blanc ($20)
A Sancerre-styled Sauvignon Blanc minus the price tag, this wine shows grapefruit, lime and lots of tropical fruit with a long, mineral driven finish. Although ‘l’escale’ means ‘the stop over,’ this is a wine that invites you to linger while you’re there.
4 Clos Roussely ‘Canaille’, 2021 VdF Loire-Touraine Rouge ‘Gamay’ ($17)
‘Canaille’ is the French word for ‘scoundrel.’ 100% Gamay from vines between 25 and 50 years old grown organically on clay and limestone. Aged six months in stainless steel, the old vines add a striking depth to this exuberant Gamay, replete with notes of crushed raspberry, black cherry and nutmeg.
Orange is the New Red
Orange wine is an interesting style subset whose popularity has grown in tandem with the natural wine movement, although even within that space, orange wine has a niche all its own. In the Loire (as elsewhere), red wine is made by leaving crushed grapes in contact with their skins as they ferment. White wine is generally made without skin contact during fermentation… unless it’s destined to be orange wine, which is (essentially) white-skinned grapes crushed and fermented on the skins, which imparts eye-catching amber, copper and often orange tints.
Orange wines offer a different sort of bridge between red and white wines than rosé; tannin is generally more obvious and flavors are, like many natural wines, an acquired taste which may be likened to hay, bruised apples, dried apricot, and yes, even orange peel.
5 Clos Roussely ‘Orange’, 2023 VdF Loire-Touraine ‘Sauvignon’ ($19)
Although winemakers and sommeliers are quick to point out that ‘orange’ refers to the color, this is another example of a skin-macerated Sauvignon Blanc that sends out vibes of orange pith along with apricot and earthy minerality. The wine is a painstaking labor of love, aged 6 months in stainless steel, neither yeasted, nor chaptalized, nor fined.
Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny
Around 40 Cheverny wine growers produce slightly under 3 million liters of red, white and rosé wines each year from 1500 acres of vineyards located in Cheverny itself and in 23 nearby parishes on the southern banks of the Loire. Reds are based on Gamay and Pinot Noir, while Cabernet Franc and Côt (the local name for Malbec) can play supporting roles. They are early-drinking wines best consumed within two years of vintage.
Whites are a combination of Sauvignon Blanc and Sauvignon Gris with lesser proportions of Chardonnay, Chenin and Arbois (here spelled ‘Orbois’) allowed. Although these wines have been compared to the Sauvignons of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé, they lack the distinctive minerality and searing acidity that defines the eastern Loire’s two most-famous appellations.
Cour-Cheverny is a unique wine region located within the Cheverny appellation; it produces white wines made only from the rare grape variety Romorantin. Romorantin is an old Burgundian grape now only grown in Cour-Cheverny—wines are herbal, showing apple and pear behind Acacia flowers. They are also ripe for aging, and mature, Romorantin develops aromas of honey, lemon and beeswax.
Domaine Hervé Villemade
(Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny)
Hervé Villemade is where he belongs; at the helm of a family estate: “My grandparents founded the domain and I took over in 1995. At the time there were 8.5 hectares of rather young vines (15-20 years) that my grandparents had planted. The farm used to be in polyculture and the old vines from the 1960’s had been removed to plant new ones in the 1970’s. When I took over, I replanted five hectares and started renting some vines as well. I’ve also bought land over the years and today we find ourselves working 25 hectares—eight are mine, 8.5 are my parents’ and the rest is rented.”
Hervé Villemade
When Hervé first took the reins, the entire estate was farmed conventionally, with chemicals in the vineyards. Unaware of the alternatives, he followed in his parents’ footsteps until he became very bored with end results: “The wines were uninspired and bland,” he says. “Around this time I was introduced to wines that were different, that spoke to me, that struck a chord emotionally: Natural wines. Coincidentally, at the exact same time that I was discovering these wines I started developing a very serious allergy to sulfur. This was around 1997. My first attempt at sulfur free winemaking was two years later. What I hadn’t realized, and what I quickly found out (through Marcel Lapierre in particular), was that to make sulfur free wine, you needed clean grapes. From that point I immediately started converting the entire estate to organic agriculture and have worked this way ever since.”
6 Domaine Hervé Villemade ‘Les Ardilles’, 2022 Cheverny Rouge ($37)
85% Pinot Noir, 15% Gamay from sandy clay soils with silex over limestone—produced only in exceptional vintages. Maceration lasts 20 days with moderate punching down, following which the wine is aged in tuns, barrels, truncated conical vats and amphorae. Crunchy red fruit and balanced acidity display Villemade’s signature style—an extreme purity of fruit.
7 Domaine Hervé Villemade, 2022 Cheverny Rouge ($26)
40% Gamay and 60% Pinot Noir macerated (80% whole-cluster and 20% destemmed) for 15 to 20 days. It is fermented and aged in concrete and wooden ‘tronconique’ vats without pump-overs, pigeage, racking or filtration. The wine shows bright red fruit, especially black cherry with and slightly spicy and glossy touches.
8 Domaine Hervé Villemade ‘Bovin’, 2022 VdF Loire-Touraine Rouge ‘Gamay’ ($28) 1 Liter
Hand-harvested, 100% Gamay from vines between 40 and 60 years old grown in the Cher Valley. The grapes are macerated for 10 days in concrete with intervention, then bottled using a minimum of sulfur for stability. The wine is ripe and crunchy with red fruit and displays the lighthearted ease that the label suggests.
9 Domaine Hervé Villemade, 2022 VdF Loire-Touraine Rouge ‘Gamay’ ($25)
100% Gamay from the Cher Valley, the wine is aged in wooden vats without human intervention until it is bottled without filtration. The wine shows aromas of red fruits, candied blackberries with a hint of cinnamon behind balanced mineral notes and a silky finish.
5 Domaine Hervé Villemade ‘La Bodice’, 2022 Cheverny Blanc ($38)
80% Sauvignon Blanc, 20% Chardonnay; La Bodice is a single vineyard wine that combines tropical fruit and herbaceous citrus.
6 Domaine Hervé Villemade ‘Les Acacias’, 2020 Cour-Cheverny Blanc ($50)
100% Romorantin, aged 50% in amphorae and 50% in demi-muids for 23 months. It shows a luscious and complex nose filled with white flower along with touches of honey and five-spice powder. The palate echoes the nose, with a mineral backbone and hints of smoke.
Famille Percher
(Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny)
Perhaps the most interesting parcel farmed by Luc Percher (of Famille Percher) is ‘La Marigonnerie’ directly adjacent to the winery. In Napoleon times the vineyard area was a pond, and although the region sits on a bed of limestone sprinkled with granitic sand, the pond left behind a bed of clay which, about 120 years ago, was planted to Romorantin—a local white wine variety with its own appellation (Cour-Cheverny) where it is the only grape permitted.
Luc began making wine here in 2005. “When I arrived, the sand was as white as a beach. I fell in love with the ambience—a few wispy trees and an expansive horizon-line. It is quiet terroir.”
Luc Percher
His 22 acres of vines, tended with certifications from BIO and Déméter, is hardly restricted to Romorantin, although only his 100% Romorantin can be labeled Cour-Cheverny. His Sélection Massale old-vine vineyards contain ten different grape varieties, and some even more rare than Romorantin—Menu-Pineau, Gamay Fréaux and Chaudenay, for example. In order to maintain the biological heritage of these grapes, Luc is committed soil maintenance, through hilling, stripping, scratching and the establishment of controlled natural grassing. “These practices are respectful of the earth, the plants and the environment; they support the development of biodiversity and preserve the terroirs. You no longer see the white sand between the vine rows—it is covered by grass and other vegetation. We echo that philosophy in the cellar, being minimalist on the interventions in order to more faithfully reflect the grape varieties and the purity of place.”
10 Famille Percher, 2019 Cheverny Rouge ($36)
A 50/50 blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay grown on sandy clay with a limestone base. It is fermented with indigenous years and spends 15 days macerating before élevage in stainless steel on fine lees. It shows a frisky nose of black cherries and cassis with an edge of earth—graphite, tree bark, espresso and forest floor. Tannins are moderate and the finish is long.
7 Famille Percher, 2019 Cheverny Blanc ($36)
60% Sauvignon Blanc, 40% Menu Pineau from sandy, clay limestone soils. Fermentation is done on indigenous yeasts with élevage in stainless steel and bottled without fining or filtering. Menu Pineau is the local name for Arbois and in Cheverny produces wine characterized by low acidity, apple aromas and a delicate, mineral substructure.
8 Famille Percher, 2020 Cour-Cheverny Blanc ($46)
You won’t experience many wines made from 120-year-old vines, but this one comes from Percher’s oldest parcel. 100% Romorantin showing a bouquet of honeysuckle and acacia and an intensely mineral-driven palate of pear, apple skins and honeycomb.
Le Petit Chambord
(Cheverny & Cour-Cheverny)
“The wines of François Cazin are wines of purity, minerality and a sweet-sour vibrancy that makes my mouth water for more. I have no doubt that he is one of the leading vignerons in the appellation, along with Michel Gendrier, Michel Quenouix, Laura Semeria and Christian Tessier, among one or two others. Indeed, I am sure there are some who would place him at the very top.”
François Cazin works with approximately 50 acres of vineyards; three-quarters in the Cheverny appellation, while the rest is are in the Cour-Cheverny appellation. As this latter appellation only amounts to about 125 acres in its entirety, François Cazin is cultivating about 10% of the entire appellation, where his Romorantin vines average over 30 years old.
In his Cheverny and Crémant-de-Loire acres he tends Pinot Noir, Gamay, Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay, as well as small parcels of Côt and Menu Pineau. The Gamay and Sauvignon Blanc tend to be planted on more sandy-clay soils, while clay and limestone is favored for Pinot Noir.
François Cazin, Le Petit Chambord
“Everything in my Cour-Cheverny vineyard has to be done manually because of solid coat of limestone directly underneath the superficial soil,” Cazin says, championing his old-school endeavors. “Some of these vines are older than my dad; they were planted by my grandfather. It goes without saying that these are 100% in Massale, and they are in better shape than the vast majority of my other vines. For example, the clonal selection on the other side of the house is much younger, but there is way more mortality.”
11 Le Petit Chambord ‘Vendanges Manuelles’, 2022 Cheverny Rouge ($23)
Pinot Noir/Gamay/Côt from estate vines averaging thirty years old and grown on clay-limestone soils. The Pinot Noir is destemmed and macerated for a week while the Gamay is whole-cluster fermented semi-carbonically; the small bit of darker, more tannic Côt (aka Malbec), adds a touch of color and structure.
9 Le Petit Chambord ‘Vendanges Manuelles’, 2023 Cheverny Rosé ($21)
A blend of Gamay and Pinot Noir, made with both direct-press and saignée methods; each parcel is vinified individually in stainless steel and élevage takes place in enamel-lined concrete tanks with pre-bottling blending.
10 Le Petit Chambord ‘Vendangé à la Main’, 2023 Cheverny Blanc ($22)
82% Sauvignon Blanc,18% Chardonnay; the wine shows a nice balance of Chardonnay’s roundness and buttery fruity notes and fresh citrus notes of Sauvignon Blanc.
11 Le Petit Chambord ‘Vendanges Manuelles’, 2021 Cour-Cheverny Blanc ($24)
100% Romorantin from vines between 40 and 90 years old. The wine shows orange blossom, candle wax, pear and lemon peel.
12 Le Petit Chambord ‘Renaissance – Vendanges Manuelles’, 2020 Cour-Cheverny Blanc ‘Moelleux’ ($27)
‘Moelleux’ indicates sweetness, although it often highlights the fattiness inherent in the grapes. In this one, the harvest is direct pressed and fermented in stainless steel, then later, cold stabilized with an addition of sulfur to keep sugars in the wine and block fermentation. Élevage is done in 300-liter barrels for six months, then in underground vats until the following spring. It offers a symphony of apricot, honey and quince with a balanced acidity that lingers on the palate.
Notebook …
Vin-de-France (VdF): Should I Stay, or Should I Go?
Created in 2009 as a category of wine meant to encourage both experimentation and exploration, this label designation means only that the grapes were grown in France. The quality (or, perhaps, lack thereof) does not stem from its region of origin or a strict set of specifications, but in the freedom it offers winemakers and winegrowers to get their creative juices flowing.
By eschewing the rules and regulations of the location-based Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) or Indication Géographique Protégée (IGP), VdF allows innovation among winemakers who wish to grow varieties not permitted within their particular region and who relish to freedom to produce creative, boundary-pushing wines.
The plusses are obvious: Vin de France-labeled wines are generally much more affordable than their AOC counterparts, and may serve as entry points to an estate’s terroir-driven, higher-end selections without the matching price tags.
The downside (if any) is that the VdF designation is marketed directly at drinkers who are intimidated by the elaborate, geography-grounded system that many of us love and consider the defining feature of our fascination with the subject. Many Francophiles, both in the United States and abroad, believe that any major change to the French wine system meant merely to sell more bottles at the expense of tradition sort of misses the point of the entire artform.
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Posted on 2024.07.25 in Coteaux-du-Loir, Cheverny, Coteaux-du-Loir, Cour-Cheverny, Touraine Azay-le-Rideau, Touraine, France, Wine-Aid Packages, Loire | Read more...
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