interview

<p><strong>Where are you originally from and how did you end up in wine?</strong></p> <p>I grew up between Saint-Etienne and Roanne, about an hour west of Lyon. My parents were farmers, who mostly grew corn and cereals but also took care of roughly 100 <glossary term="Charolais" title="274">Charolais</glossary>&nbsp;cows. So I grew up in agriculture and cattle raising. But&nbsp;didn&rsquo;t love working with livestock. And while interested in working with the land, I&nbsp;found no passion working with cereals. I worked with my parents in my youth but never had any intention of taking over the farm.&nbsp;</p> <p>My connection to wine starts with&nbsp;with friends of my parents,&nbsp;<glossary term="Vigneron/Vignaiolo" title="1089">vignerons</glossary> who owned an <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary> in <glossary term="Chassagne-Montrachet" title="275">Chassagne-Montrachet</glossary> called Domaine Duc de Magenta. It was two hours from the house, and every year we&rsquo;d go do&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Harvest" title="521">harvest</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> So I was exposed to the vines at a very early age. I very quickly found a passion for this type of work:&nbsp;the fact that you are simultaneously a farmer, a chemist and a business person all at once... When I was younger, there was also this almost noble thing about wine:&nbsp; beautiful bottles on a properly set table, <glossary term="Sommelier" title="969">sommeliers</glossary> talking about it, etc&hellip; It all felt very poetic. So little by little I shifted into the universe of wine.</p> <p><strong>Take us through those beginnings.</strong></p> <p>My higher education was in sales, marketing and business in Lyon. This was the classic &ldquo;make your farmer parents happy&rdquo; move they so often want for their children. After that, I spent a year in Australia where I worked as a&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Sommelier" title="969">sommelier</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> I barely had any money, so I began taking fruit picking jobs on top of the restaurant work,&nbsp;eventually landing&nbsp;me&nbsp;in the Adelaide hills picking grapes. It was a rekindling of sorts with the vines, and when I got back to France I decided to forego working in restaurants to head back to&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Burgundy" title="212">Burgundy</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p>I then studied <glossary term="Viticulture" title="1103">viticulture</glossary> and winemaking&nbsp;in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Beaune" title="154">Beaune</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp; While studying, I lived&nbsp;with&nbsp;my family friends in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Chassagne-Montrachet" title="275">Chassagne</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> Unpaid, I started working there in tandem: <glossary term="Pruning" title="834">pruning</glossary> the vines, <glossary term="Green Harvest" title="507">green harvest</glossary>&hellip; When <glossary term="Harvest" title="521">harvest</glossary> came around, I had plenty of free time so I helped out there as well. That turned into five years.</p> <p>It was interesting because I found myself treating&nbsp;the <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary> like it was my own, but of course it wasn&rsquo;t. I was so emotionally invested;&nbsp;one thing that started to&nbsp;hurt me was the fact that we worked really well in the vines year-round only to&nbsp;<glossary term="Harvest" title="521">harvest</glossary>&nbsp;and <glossary term="Pressing" title="827">press</glossary>&nbsp;grapes so that big <glossary term="Négociant" title="729">n&eacute;gociants</glossary> could come and pick up the juices the next day. I kept pushing for us to keep grapes to&nbsp;make our own&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Chassagne-Montrachet" title="275">Chassagne-Montrachet</glossary><span>,</span></span></span>&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Puligny-Montrachet" title="840">Puligny-Montrachet</glossary><span>,</span></span></span>&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Auxey-Duresses" title="130">Auxey-Duresses</glossary><span>,&nbsp;</span></span></span><glossary term="Meursault" title="1370">Meursault</glossary>&hellip; all these beautiful&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Appellation" title="113">appellations</glossary><span>!</span></span></span></p> <p>I was in love with wine, but I&rsquo;d also fallen in love with a woman while studying in Lyon. She was from&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> and in those early years she agreed to live with me&nbsp;in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Burgundy" title="212">Burgundy</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> Very quickly, she told me that&nbsp;living in the <glossary term="Côte de Beaune" title="368">C&ocirc;te de Beaune</glossary> or <glossary term="Côte d'Or" title="367">C&ocirc;te d&rsquo;Or</glossary> is a hard place to integrate yourself when you aren&rsquo;t professionally connected to it. So we decided to move to&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> living in the&nbsp;city of&nbsp;Aix-en-Provence.</p> <p>In&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> I discovered a new world of <glossary term="Viticulture" title="1103">viticulture</glossary> and winemaking. I went from small <glossary term="Burgundian" title="210">Burgundian</glossary> <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrels</glossary> to huge 250<glossary term="hl/ha" title="528">hl</glossary> <span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vat/Tank" title="1140">vats</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> <glossary term="Vinification" title="1104">vinifying</glossary> 5000 <glossary term="Hectoliter" title="524">hectoliters</glossary> at a time. Sadly, I was not thrilled by this world. It felt hierarchical,&nbsp;production&nbsp;driven and highly delineated: the vines and the <glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary> (if you can even call it that)&nbsp;were viewed as entirely different things. So was the commercial aspect&nbsp;of selling the wines.</p> <p>&nbsp;I had to make a living, so I continued to work at a big chateau. Throughout, I felt increasingly pulled towards starting my own, small and <glossary term="Artisan" title="121">artisanal</glossary> <span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p><strong>Tell us about that.</strong></p> <p>My wife Fanny has family land in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> It&rsquo;s a beautiful place, and before moving here this is where we&#39;d spend our weekends. Vines had been planted on the property 70 years prior, but in the interim the land had been used for various cereals. Because it had been so long, bringing it back to <glossary term="Viticulture" title="1103">viticulture</glossary> was an&nbsp;arduous juridic process. When we got it back, I&nbsp;produced hay to restore the soils but also to make a little bit of pocket change selling it off.&nbsp;All the while,&nbsp;I kept my salaried position at a larger winery where I was <glossary term="Vinification" title="1104">vinifying</glossary> massive amounts of mediocre&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Rosé/Rosato" title="871">ros&eacute;</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p>In 2019, I started planting half a <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectare</glossary> every year. Today, in 2024, we are at four <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary> of vines. My first <glossary term="Vintage" title="1109">vintage</glossary> from my own vines was 2022, and today -though I&#39;m not making any money yet!-&nbsp;it&rsquo;s my full-time activity. We started with 3000 bottles as a n&eacute;goce, then 6000 in 2022, 8000 in 2023 and in 2024 we&rsquo;ll be at 15 000 bottles.</p> <p><strong>When I first met you you had started the Colvert project with n&eacute;gociant cuv&eacute;es. Will you continue to purchase grapes to supplement the estate&rsquo;s production?</strong></p> <p>I started the Colvert project before planting a single vine. It was with a restaurateur friend, Pierre Rochard of Les Vieilles Canailles in Aix-en-Provence. He&rsquo;s a super talented guy and loves wine. Our original idea was to find a space about 10km outside of Aix where we could have both a restaurant and a winery in the same place. But the pandemic upended our plans; he was forced to pivot to take-out buisness and that took up all of his time. We also couldn&rsquo;t find an existing space or land to build the space outside of the city, so in the end we amicably ended our partnership. He stayed focused on his restaurant, I bought out his shares and refocused my business as a single proprietor.</p> <p>To answer the <glossary term="Négociant" title="729">n&eacute;goce</glossary> question, yes my first Colvert wines were with purchased fruit; the idea was to &ldquo;practice&rdquo; making wines in my new <glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary> until the young vines came into production. But considering that&nbsp;my small cellar, which can hold a maximum of 200hl&nbsp;is totally full in 2023,&nbsp;I couldn&rsquo;t buy fruit even if I want to.</p> <p><strong>But would&nbsp;you continue to buy fruit?</strong></p> <p>I&rsquo;m debating if I want to shift to being purely a <glossary term="Vigneron/Vignaiolo" title="1089">vigneron</glossary> or to keep my <glossary term="Négociant" title="729">n&eacute;gociant</glossary> status. There is a negative perception of <glossary term="Négociant" title="729">n&eacute;goce</glossary> and I get it. But it can be&nbsp;fun to&nbsp;to buy grapes from friends. For example, I LOVE <glossary term="Chardonnay" title="271">Chardonnay</glossary> but didn&rsquo;t plant any myself. I know someone with nice <glossary term="Chardonnay" title="271">Chardonnay</glossary> in the <glossary term="Luberon" title="1489">Luberon</glossary> and had originally planned to form a long-term relationship with them. But they just had <glossary term="Frost" title="1135">frost</glossary> this year, so who knows?</p> <p>When you grow your own grapes, even in tough years you know what you&rsquo;re getting yourself into. Buying grapes imposes&nbsp;a whole new dimension of different parameters.</p> <p><strong>What does Colvert mean?</strong></p> <p>Where we live is called Domaine des Ribi&egrave;res. It would have been a lot simpler to name the <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary> that! But when we were starting the project with my ex-partner, with this idea of of a winery attached to a restaurant, it was a whole other concept.</p> <p>The name came many nights of eating and drinking. A &ldquo;col&rdquo; is what we call a bottle in France, and we liked the idea of adding green wax on each bottle. That&rsquo;s the simplest aspect of the name.</p> <p>A colvert is also that beautiful green-headed duck (<strong>ed note:</strong> a mallard in English). At one point we had the idea of doing something cartoony to represent the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span> <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> something more viral than what the <glossary term="Wine Label" title="573">labels</glossary> ended up being.</p> <p>The name of the Saint-Etienne football team, who I am a die-hard fan of, is also colloquially known as Les Verts as they wear green jerseys.</p> <p>Finally, and this is the craziest anecdote because I found out about it after having chosen the name, but my mother-in-law informed me that &quot;colvert&quot; was her late husband&rsquo;s nickname. So it also serves as a little homage to him. I&rsquo;d like to think he&rsquo;d be happy seeing this land being worked full time again.</p> <p>Especially with that last part about my father-in-law, the name really felt like destiny. It may not resonate at all to non French speakers, but I like it!</p> <p><strong>When I visited, I was taken aback by the beauty of the Domaine des Ribi&egrave;res property. Could you describe it in your own words?</strong></p> <p>First we have to talk about where we are situated, the Ribi&egrave;res valley. We are right next to the village of Rognes, in direction of the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Luberon" title="1489">Luberon</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> We are at about 350 meters&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Elevation" title="419">elevation</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> which is quite high for the area.&nbsp;There are heights that reach&nbsp;to 450 meters, from which you have stunning views of the Sainte-Victoire mountain. From there, you plunge back down into the Ribi&egrave;res valley. When you come to Domaine des Ribi&egrave;res for the first time, I think it&rsquo;s hard not to feel its beauty. The sky feels particularly blue, the earth is tinted red from&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span> <glossary term="Iron" title="547">iron</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> there are no neighbors&hellip;</p> <p>As far as the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Terroir" title="1026">terroirs</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> we are on <glossary term="Silt" title="956">silty</glossary> <glossary term="Clay" title="301">clay</glossary> and&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Limestone" title="596">limestone</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> One sector faces south, the other north. There is a little river at the edge of the property that brings us some freshness. And while many of our friends are vulnerable to <glossary term="Frost" title="1135">frost</glossary> if temperatures get to below 1.5, here we are always spared due to our specific&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Microclimate" title="656">micro-climate</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> These factors really&nbsp;make&nbsp;me feel like we were actually&nbsp;onto something when we decided to start the project here.</p> <p>Maybe this is irrational, or perhaps it&rsquo;s hard to explain, but when I&rsquo;m here I feel connected to the land. I can feel that these vines are going to give me good grapes. And of course this isn&rsquo;t without trials and tribulations. For example, our first plantation was a bit of a disaster. I took a <glossary term="Burgundian" title="210">Burgundian</glossary> approach by foregoing&nbsp;<glossary term="Irrigation" title="549">irrigation</glossary> and it was a real fiasco. That was a big lesson.</p> <p>I&rsquo;ve also started working with a <glossary term="Pépiniériste" title="773">p&eacute;pineriste</glossary> I like;&nbsp;it&rsquo;s hard to know what works or doesn&rsquo;t since there haven&rsquo;t been vines here in almost two generations. So far I&rsquo;m very happy: I&rsquo;m not sure if it&rsquo;s him, if it&rsquo;s me or if it&rsquo;s the climate, but I&rsquo;m learning. Now that we have a bit of experience, we&rsquo;re going to be able to concentrate even more on the vegetal well-being&nbsp;of the vines. I don&rsquo;t want these them to live 10 or 20 years. I want them still here when I&rsquo;m gone.</p> <p><strong>Let&rsquo;s talk about the grapes you&rsquo;ve planted so far and what you plan on planting in coming years.</strong></p> <p>I started this project with the knowledge that making wine is expensive and you need to distinguish yourself to make a mark. 90% of the time, when I taste a white wine from&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> it&rsquo;s <glossary term="Inoculation" title="542">yeasted</glossary> and smells like peach and kiwi. You smell it and you don&rsquo;t even want to taste it. I love white wine and decided it would be my goal to make excellent white wine from&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span> <glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p>And yet my very first plantation was&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Grenache" title="508">Grenache Noir</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> My reasoning was that I&rsquo;d make some&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Rosé/Rosato" title="871">ros&eacute;</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> sell it quickly to fund the growth of the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> I never ended up making a&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Rosé/Rosato" title="871">ros&eacute;</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> but rather a&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Blanc de Blancs" title="165">blanc de noir</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> People like them and I like them! It&rsquo;s made like any white: <glossary term="Direct Press" title="392">direct-press</glossary> and long <glossary term="Elevage" title="418">elevage</glossary> on the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Lees" title="590">lees</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> So of course I&rsquo;m not making quick sales from this wine because it requires time to <glossary term="Aging" title="74">age</glossary> in <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrel</glossary> and in bottle.</p> <p>It&rsquo;s also interesting because it really goes against anything being made in the region. My land finds itself within the Coteaux d&rsquo;Aix-en Provence&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="AOC" title="108">AOC</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> but from the beginning I decided I&rsquo;d make everything in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vin de France" title="1092">Vin de France</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> This gives me a freedom to be creative, but also to learn.</p> <p>But let me&nbsp;actually answer your question! So I&nbsp;started with&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Grenache" title="508">Grenache</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> then planted some&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vermentino" title="1081">Rolle</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> then some <glossary term="Cinsault" title="1188">Cinsault</glossary> (with a <glossary term="Blanc de Noirs" title="166">blanc de noirs</glossary> and a light red being produced from this grape in the 2023 <glossary term="Vintage" title="1109">vintage</glossary>), then some more&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vermentino" title="1081">Rolle</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> In this first phase, I wanted to plant only grapes that are allowed in the <glossary term="Appellation" title="113">appellation</glossary> as a sort of safeguard. Since then I&rsquo;ve planted a little less than a <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectare</glossary> of&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Roussanne" title="878">Roussanne</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> which is not allowed in the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Appellation" title="113">appellation</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p>The rest is still unwritten.We won&rsquo;t plant in in 2024, but I&rsquo;ll plant another half <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectare</glossary> in 2025. I&rsquo;m not sure what it will be yet, as that will depend on the vegetal material available to me when it&rsquo;s time to plant. But I&rsquo;m also in the process of getting the permits to build a larger&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> Another major investment!</p> <p><strong>When I visited in summer of 2023, you pointed out that while you planned to keep planting, you wanted to keep it to a size where you could still touch every vine yourself. How many hectares do you envision planting total?</strong></p> <p>For me, touching every vine is like reading the land. You can have someone give you a summary of a book and know what happened, but you have to read it yourself to create your own images and ideas from it. I love planting each vine, <glossary term="Pruning" title="834">pruning</glossary> each vine, doing the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Green Harvest" title="507">green harvest</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> taking care of them&hellip; Only that way can I learn and understand how my actions will affect my work. To me it&rsquo;s a powerful exchange.</p> <p>If I&nbsp;limit to myself to being alone, or at least with my wife (who has a full time job), having more than five <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary> is complicated. But to justify building a larger&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> it might mean needing to double that surface. For now I&rsquo;m not sure what that looks like: maybe I can have another young <glossary term="Vigneron/Vignaiolo" title="1089">vigneron</glossary> join me on these <glossary term="Terroir" title="1026">terroirs</glossary>&hellip; But there is plenty of time to see what happens.</p> <p><strong>What about your approach in the cellar?</strong></p> <p>When I was in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Burgundy" title="212">Burgundy</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> the <glossary term="Must" title="700">musts</glossary> were followed by a local <glossary term="Enology" title="422">enologist</glossary> before being picked up by&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Négociant" title="729">n&eacute;gociants</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> The wines were completely <glossary term="Conventional Farming" title="331">conventional</glossary> and of little interest to me. I remember them being masked by <glossary term="Wood" title="1126">wood</glossary> and marked by&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">sulfur</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp; When I got to&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Provence" title="831">Provence</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> it was all about &quot;classic&quot;&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Rosé/Rosato" title="871">ros&eacute;</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p>But I&rsquo;ve always had a network of retailer, restaurateur and <glossary term="Vigneron/Vignaiolo" title="1089">vigneron</glossary> friends with whom we&rsquo;d taste more authentic wines. When it was time to make my own wine, not once did it cross my mind to use&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Commercial Yeast" title="321">commercial yeast</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> I also&nbsp;have an intolerance to <glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">sulfur</glossary> that makes me sneeze, but for me it&rsquo;s more an ethical choice, a way to move away from the chemical over-reliance of bigger agriculture. My grandfather passed away from constant exposure to <glossary term="Phytosanitary" title="789">phytosanitary</glossary> products. I understand it felt like progress at the time, but today it&rsquo;s very outdated.</p> <p>The problem we have here in Aix-en-Provence is that farmers realized grapes pay better than cereals. And they work vines like they worked cereal, pumping them for maximum production through any means necessary. And now the <glossary term="Cave Cooperative" title="252">cooperatives</glossary> have too much wine!</p> <p>My goal is not to make a lot of wine. I want to express my soils and their potential. In the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> it&rsquo;s the same logic. That starts with&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Native Yeast" title="538">native yeasts</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> first and foremost. That&rsquo;s what&rsquo;s going to mark the wines of where they are from. Other than that, I&rsquo;m very meticulous with temperature and hygiene. I prefer to not add <glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">sulfites</glossary> and have succeeded in this, but if for whatever reason a wine had not fully finished&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermenting</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> I have no issue protecting it with a small dose at&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottling</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> as was the case for the Gn/C 2022. A big part of this is because I&rsquo;m just starting and these are my first <glossary term="Vintage" title="1109">vintages</glossary>; too much is on the line. Maybe that will change with time and experience.</p>

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<p>When I saw Alain Coudert from Clos de la Roilette&rsquo;s calling my phone last Saturday morning, I didn&rsquo;t pick up. It&rsquo;s abnormal for a vigneron to call over the weekend in regards to business, but I figured he wanted to talk about an upcoming pickup, a label registration or something of the sort. I was also rammed in a car full of childhood friends road-tripping for the holiday weekend; I let the call go to voicemail, deciding to give Alain a ring when we got to our destination. Then came a text from my mother asking me to call her: that meant bad news. Four days later and I&rsquo;m still shell-shocked over Julie&rsquo;s passing. Having been at her house less than a month ago, Julie had exuded so much LIFE over the course of that evening that her disappearance still feels impossible.</p> <p>Where do I start with Julie? The beginning? She started making wines under her own name in 2009, but had entered our collective orbit a few years prior. Her name was on everyone&rsquo;s lips circa 2007 as the new talent to look out for. So Joe and Denyse decided they had to meet her, visiting Julie while she still ran the cellar at Terres des Chardons in the Costi&egrave;res de Nimes. An instant connection was made and it was agreed Louis/Dressner would import the wines. The following summer, Denyse remembers seeing Julie in the Beaujolais with Yvon M&eacute;tras: she had visited the land that would become her Fleurie parcels <strong>(1)&nbsp;</strong>but nothing was finalized.</p> <p>After securing the land in the Beaujolais and working it less than a full year, Louis/Dressner imported Julie&rsquo;s first eponymous wines despite what felt like astronomical pricing at the time coupled with the complicated -now increasingly common- full-bodied nature of the solar 2009 vintage. I remember the first cuv&eacute;es of 2009 &quot;En Remont&quot;<strong>(2)</strong> and &ldquo;Vieilles Vignes&rdquo; gathering dust on the shelf at Arlequin Wine Merchant where I worked in San Francisco.&nbsp;Beaujolais was having a moment around then, but that moment was intricately linked to cheaper pricing and the distinctly crystalline, semi-carbonic &ldquo;light&rdquo; style the region was known for.&nbsp;Actually, critics loved the 2009 vintage, they felt it was an achievement to have produced such ripe, big wines. We felt it was a pity that a wine we loved for its lightness and freshness was evaluated through the wrong criteria: it was not a vintage of our liking.</p> <p>LDM pressed on with the fantastic 2010&rsquo;s, and by 2011 -the first of many vintages Julie felt obliged to blend her cuv&eacute;es into a one-off wine, in this case &ldquo;Carioca&rdquo;<strong>(3)</strong>- a fanaticism of sorts was building around her. Julie&rsquo;s star would continue to rise, and by the mid 2010&rsquo;s she had earned her rank as a cult producer amongst a small but dedicated subset of drinkers. Usually I don&#39;t care about this type of thing much, but with Julie&#39;s wines I began to notice something different. It seemed like savvy drinkers understood and valued her efforts and vision,&nbsp;could&nbsp;TASTE it.&nbsp;</p> <p>As far as I&rsquo;m concerned, Julie was instrumental&nbsp;in fomenting a paradigm shift in how natural wine is approached. Producers like Julie forced companies like ours to re-align our values on, well, value. Louis/Dressner has always been about the underdog: independent vignerons from small or unknown regions making real, honest wine. For most of the company&rsquo;s existence, that usually meant &nbsp;a &ldquo;bang for your buck&rdquo; due to the producer and/or region&rsquo;s lack of notoriety. But vigneronnes like Julie Balagny changed the tide: value didn&rsquo;t have to be economically tied to a famous region or a famous vigneron anymore, but to the VALUE of hard work, of vision, passion and qualities bordering on artistic expression. More often than not, these producers were outsiders to the region they made wine in: second-career &ldquo;neo-vignerons/vigneronnes&rdquo; working hyper-artisanally (in Julie&rsquo;s case with zero mechanization) with no employees, requiring countless hours more work in the vines and cellar.&nbsp;</p> <p>There were of course precursors to Julie. But her arrival on the scene at the dawn of the information era, a time when consumers could meticulously&nbsp;geek out on&nbsp;every aspect of a vigneron&rsquo;s work, was serendipitous and integral in getting a lot of people hooked on seeking out similar wines.</p> <p>I guess what I&rsquo;m trying to say is that a lot of what we do now, or at least the way I interpret what we do, goes back to representing a human&rsquo;s passion and humanity through their wine. Is this something we can actually succeed in as a company? Knowing Julie so well, I could taste the good, the bad, the chaos, the laughs, the bare-bones EVERYTHING, the pseudo-commune that was her house, even her crazy dogs, chickens and sheep running around the yard and vineyards... Are these things someone who&#39;s never met her can taste? I don&#39;t know, but I&#39;d posit that this type of <em>je ne sais quoi</em> is what drew so many to seek out her cuv&eacute;es in the first place. Julie made me look for these qualities in other producers, seek them out even.</p> <p>Ok, I&rsquo;ve been going on for a while now and barely broached Julie as a person. What can I say, Julie Balagny was one of a kind, always marching to the beat of her own polyrhythmic&nbsp;drum. Born in an aristocratic, well off Parisian family, she eschewed modern life and luxury for peasantry, the country-side, farm work. She lived a bare-bones, rustic and quasi-off the grid lifestyle. She was constantly brimming with restless energy and ideas. She lived in total chaos, and more then once the hectic energy she emitted and surrounded herself with made me feel like the mark of a prank tv-show or like I was making a cameo in a bizarro episode of the Beaujolais Real World <strong>(4)</strong>.&nbsp;</p> <p>The wackiness really ramped up&nbsp;when Julie moved to Roman&egrave;che-Thorins in 2015. Prior to living there, our visits with her tended to be one-on-one, more classic: a meet and greet, a tour of the vines, tasting wines in the cellar then a dinner somewhere. But, with the exception of summer 2015 when we visited her newly acquired Beaujolais and Moulin-&agrave;-Vent plots <strong>(5)</strong>, all visits to the Roman&egrave;che house meant being SUCKED INTO THE VORTEX. There were of course the aforementioned dogs, chickens and sheep freely roaming the yard, often driving my mother&#39;s dog Zaggy completely bonkers <strong>(6)</strong>. More memorable were the ever-revolving cast of employees, seasonal workers, friends, weirdos and&nbsp;wasteoids&nbsp;that became the de-facto accompaniment to our visits. If you&rsquo;d entered that courtyard&nbsp;enough times <strong>(7)</strong>, you knew you were going to be talking to chain-smoking randos knocking back glass after glass of Gamay <strong>(8)</strong>.</p> <p>And of course there was always Julie, presiding over the chaos like nothing could be more normal. Cheeks red, hair blonde, eyes blazing blue and smiling at you like the lost long friend she hasn&#39;t seen in ages. Within minutes, you&rsquo;d be deep in a conversation that would go on for hours,&nbsp;constantly re-enforced&nbsp;with another bottle, countless rolled cigarettes and, only after I insisted and because time had gotten away from her, a haphazard, improvised meal thrown together hours later than it should have been <strong>(9)</strong>.</p> <p>There was always a lot to talk about. The usual vigneron blah blah (the weather, the vintage...) was only a formality with Julie, a quick box to check off so we could get to the good stuff. Sometimes it was hard to focus on her because a sheep was bumping its head into your leg. Or a very intoxicated shirtless man, badly scraped and bruised from drunkenly crashing his scooter hours earlier was berating you for not wearing a face-mask when bicycling in New York City (he&#39;d never been and this was pre-pandemic). Or an equally intoxicated sommelier rolling in the dirt telling a sheep he loved them. Or an even more intoxicated sommelier drunkenly cutting up cucumbers and tomatoes, putting them in his glass, pouring and drinking a Balagny wine in it before I confiscated it (ok, that was the same sommelier telling the sheep he loved it, here is his picture).</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/8e/c6/8ec6df573478a63c1948ee247ee8f24f.jpg" /></p> <p>Julie&#39;s house could sometimes feel like a haven for lost souls. Yet just as often you&rsquo;d feel a raw energy, an incubator for a new generation of rural youth forging their own path. In both cases, it came from a place of utmost generosity and open-mindedness on Julie&rsquo;s part. Most of the people I met at her table found inspiration working with her,&nbsp;whether&nbsp;there for seasonal work or deciding they wanted to become a vigneron in their early 50&#39;s and randomly&nbsp;apprenticing&nbsp;with her knowing nothing about natural wine. For the full-time crew, itself a rag-tag group of misfits, there was a feeling of belonging, a leftist, ecologically militant oasis in an&nbsp;increasingly far-right and&nbsp;angry rural France.&nbsp;</p> <p>The most recurrent character in the last few years, one whom I&rsquo;ve&nbsp;grown to&nbsp;adore, is Sylvain Chanudet,&nbsp;an ex-vigneron&nbsp;and the personified quintessence of a&nbsp;Beaujolois. After a very complicated period in his life, Julie had let Sylvain stay with her for a bit. He never left, becoming a permanent house-mate, adviser, pro-bono employee and even selling Julie some of the grapes he continues to meticulously farm despite not making wine anymore. Over the last few years, a visit with Julie meant a visit with Sylvain, always a treat for me. Their bond and friendship was so clear, so deep and powerful. I can&rsquo;t imagine how much pain he must be in right now.</p> <p>My last visit with Julie was less than a month ago, on Thursday June 8th. I got to the house around 6pm: after accidentally startling Julie who hadn&rsquo;t heard me come in, a group of three young men arrived and quickly hunkered around the outdoor table to smoke cigarettes and drink Gamay. These were Julie&rsquo;s employees, including Brice aka Docteur Bri&ccedil;ou (you may recognize that name from the Moulin-&agrave;-Vent cuv&eacute;e <strong>(10)</strong>) and two other guys whose name I didn&rsquo;t catch. They were looking at how to manually fix a part of a 1970&rsquo;s chariot the team use to till the vines; replacement parts haven&rsquo;t been available to purchase for roughly 45 years. At some point a young woman&nbsp;swung&nbsp;by for no perceptible reason (though I have a hunch), had a few glasses and cigarettes and left.</p> <p>Julie and I then tasted a recently bottled 2022 called &quot;Fran&ccedil;ois&quot;, of which she gave me the back story. In 2020, she&rsquo;d made a one-off wine called &ldquo;Fran&ccedil;oise&rdquo; <strong>(11)</strong> from a plot of Beaujolais fruit her friend ended up still having when a contract didn&rsquo;t go through at the last minute. In 2022, a young vigneron had committed suicide just before the harvest and his family was looking to sell the grapes. Julie felt it would have been wrong to call them herself (she didn&rsquo;t want to take advantage of a terrible situation), but when it was them who reached out she decided to buy some. Julie named the cuv&eacute;e &quot;Fran&ccedil;ois&quot; <strong>(12)</strong> and asked her label artist Delphine to make a man bringing flowers to his Fran&ccedil;oise. Two one-offs loaded with symbolism.</p> <p>We then tried various 2022&rsquo;s&nbsp;from barrels, some of which had tangible amounts of sugar that still needed to ferment, others that were to be bottled soon (I am unaware if this occurred in the time between my visit and her passing). When we re-emerged from the cellar, Sylvain Chanudet and Tristesse, an older shirtless man who seemed very&nbsp;smily&nbsp;for having the nickname &ldquo;sadness&rdquo; (probably the point) had joined the other employees for some smokes and wine before they all headed off to get more work done in the vines.</p> <p>That left Julie and I. Incredibly, this was destined to be&nbsp;our one and only <em>t&ecirc;te &agrave; t&ecirc;te</em> conversation in over a decade of friendship. Without the clique, we talked undistracted for hours-over a few bottles of course. She brought me up to speed with the craziness of dealing with her father&rsquo;s inheritance and what it meant for the future of the estate. How she was planning on expanding her n&eacute;gociant line with grapes from Sylvain to help her have some earlier releases and keep things&nbsp;financially afloat. How she loved my &ldquo;Sons of Winearchy&rdquo; t-shirt <strong>(13)</strong> and wanted me get her one. We dove into her utopian vision of work and what she still hoped to accomplish: a true symbiosis of nature, beast and man coexisting and taking care of one another. I didn&rsquo;t take very many notes but here are two quotes from that conversation:</p> <p><em>&quot;I work on a human scale with human beings.&quot;</em></p> <p><em>&quot;We&#39;re not business people, we&#39;re ecologists.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>She talked about giving her employees a chance to make their own wines while still having the security of employment with her, to encourage them to work well and to know they have a support system. In fact, her long-term goal was to create a cave cooperative with her employees, Sylvain Chanudet and a few other vignerons: sharing equipment, helping each other with manual labor, building a communal cellar so smaller upstarts&nbsp;wouldn&#39;t have&nbsp;to take on the financial pressure of building their own cellars&hellip; Going back to older pieces I&rsquo;d written about her, Julie was saying much of the same over a decade ago in January 2012:</p> <p><em>&ldquo;I think it will&nbsp;remain as is in&nbsp;size. As I mentioned earlier, the real evolution I hope to achieve will come from working with livestock and the woods. If there were to be an expansion, I&#39;d rather do it to help a young&nbsp;vigneron&nbsp;get started. There would be room to assist each other, to share tools, know-how and manual labor.&rdquo;</em></p> <p>From this conversation, it finally clicked as to why Julie constantly surrounded herself with all these people, why she was so zen with her open door policy. Anyone and everyone was welcome. This wasn&rsquo;t because of boredom or loneliness, this was a vision, a way to live&hellip; A true cooperative space where anyone was welcome!&nbsp;&nbsp;</p> <p>Finally, we talked about how she was feeling great overall, how she was really embracing and enjoying life in her 40&rsquo;s and that it was something I should look forward to. Putain&hellip;</p> <p>As the sun was setting, some of the guys came back, including Sylvain with a bunch of goat cheese from Tristesse&rsquo;s friend. The other guys left; Sylvain had eaten already but kept us company while Julie prepared a quick meal: salad and cherries from her garden, potted<em> Poulet en Cr&egrave;me</em> and Tristesse&rsquo;s goat cheese. On the cheese, Sylvain had this to say:</p> <p><em>&ldquo;All I need is some of this, a piece of saucisson and a glass of Gamay in the morning. I&rsquo;m good to go&rdquo;.</em></p> <p>The three of us talked for many more hours: about the state of the world, about the Beaujolais, about a bunch of shit that would be too long to transcribe here. Julie started putting on music, which led us listening to Supr&ecirc;me N.T.M (a french rap crew) (<strong>14)</strong>&nbsp;and N.W.A , leading a philosophical discussion of how rap lyrics gave a&nbsp;voice to the&nbsp;oppressed, a way to speak truth to the injustices inflicted upon them. Sylvain admitted it&nbsp;wasn&#39;t really&nbsp;his thing sonically; he preferred Toto <strong>(15)</strong>, whom he&rsquo;d seen live in the 80&rsquo;s and who he felt were very talented musicians. At some point a Mozart sonata came on. Chaos!</p> <p>Before leaving, Julie gave me a picnic basket full of breakfast&nbsp;goodies&nbsp;and an unlabeled magnum for Kewin Descombes&rsquo; 10 year anniversary party <strong>(16)</strong>, which I drank with Jules M&eacute;tras, Elisa Guerrin, Laura Lardy and a young woman from California apprenticing at Domaine Chapel who was hoping to visit Julie at some point. As I was about to drive off, Julie called for me in the night, running towards the car to hand me the notebook I&rsquo;d forgotten at the table. It was the last time I&rsquo;d see her.</p> <p>That night, I felt like we were on the verge of something. Like any truly amazing conversation, it can feel like you&rsquo;ve figured everything out, that your ideas can change the world. Julie was radiant with joy and energy, smiling, laughing, cheering us on. We did the same. At one point I felt the presence of my usual Beaujolais companion Denyse (aka my mom) and my deceased father at the table with us, smiling fondly on these three individuals from wildly different backgrounds united over good wine and good people. I got emotional. I told myself: &ldquo;this is why we fucking do what we do.&rdquo; It was by far the best visit I&rsquo;d ever had with Julie; she seemed at the apex of what she was doing, ready to push things to a whole other level. On my end, I left invigorated and re-inspired for the future: my own, my company&rsquo;s, Julie&rsquo;s. The visit felt like a gift, a sign of great things to come. Yet just a few weeks later I find myself forced to re-interpret those feelings.</p> <p>The magic of Julie Balagny can never be emulated or recreated. She was amongst a small group of vignerons/vigneronnes I truly idolize for their eclecticism, irreverence, passion, energy, &nbsp;idiosyncrasy and conviction. Julie forged a community around her, one we&rsquo;re all so much better off for having been a part of. I won&rsquo;t try to find a replacement for Julie; instead I&rsquo;ll look out for those same qualities in those I choose to surround myself with.</p> <p>Because people like her CAN change the world.</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/1c/e5/1ce5d40d2b1f69433fb7c03221633931.jpg" /></p> <p>***********</p> <p><strong>(1): Julie in her Fleurie vines with Trevor Kellogg in 2019.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/87/14/871416eddbc32128f5ed30da2cac7aaa.jpg" /></p> <p>(<b>2</b>)<strong>: a scan of the &quot;En Remont&quot; 2009 label.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/cf/58/cf58eb735fa2bceea84e46833c44595f.jpg" />.&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>(3) The Carioca 2011 label.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/6c/40/6c40c82cf495d88f05063a105db9cb96.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(4): Christmas in summer at Julie Balagny&#39;s. Notice all the bottles on the table.&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/9a/58/9a58088edfe6f5fac1fa214bd3232251.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(5): Julie in her Moulin-&agrave;-Vent vines, 2015.</strong><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/c1/73/c173f3d97b362623a75f6a231cb029f7.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(6) Dogs and sheep&nbsp;driving Zag bonkers.</strong></p> <p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7C4QOVQ2dks" title="Balagny Zag Bark" width="320"></iframe></p> <p><strong>(7): The front yard in Roman&egrave;che-Thorins</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/e0/d0/e0d014f15aabf250d1b86412201e1b4d.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(8): Rolling tobacco and Gamay, staples at Julie&#39;s table. Notice the Che Guevara tobacco pouch.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/1e/db/1edb7763a9f917a12d76da3c712e669f.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(9): My last haphazard meal with Julie, 2023.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/20/d7/20d762a2ac0347613d1e6d108c1172a2.jpg" /></p> <p>(10) The Docteur Bri&ccedil;ou label&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/b0/07/b007025bc9088e34ef5833280b09f502.jpg" />(11) &quot;Fran&ccedil;oise&quot;, a one-off cuv&eacute;e made in 2020 from purchased fruit.</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/9b/6d/9b6d36f784775bcb986899d2a01620ec.jpg" /></p> <p>(12) &quot;Fran&ccedil;ois&quot; a one-off cuv&eacute;e and the only 2022 bottled at the time of my visit. the spiritual succesor to &quot;Fran&ccedil;oise&quot;.</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/6d/21/6d2112da190af1ff5fd61d32653ec948.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(13): The Sons of Winearchy designed for our 2015 trade tasting t-shirts.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/3b/c1/3bc1ec3bfd7f3d59fd583334ff82d13b.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(14): The music video for Supr&ecirc;me N.T.M&#39;s &quot;Laisse Pas Trainer Ton Fils&quot;, the song we listened to and one of the best songs in the history of French hip-hop.</strong></p> <p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="404" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/biYdUZXfz9I" title="Suprême NTM - Laisse pas traîner ton fils (Clip officiel)" width="546"></iframe></p> <p><strong>(15) Toto: they saw&nbsp;the rain down in Africa. Here is a nine minute remix I&#39;ve been using as a secret weapon in DJ sets for years:</strong></p> <p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="404" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/mDwI0DTqD_A" title="Late Nite Tuff Guy - Bless The Rains (LNTG Epic Journey)" width="539"></iframe></p> <p><strong>(16): Beaujolais Breakfast.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/84/25/8425295ea61595f6f3017b707cd27e64.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(MISC): A pair of Converse gifted to Julie in 2021. It became a running gag that we secured our annual allocation of her wines by bringing her a pair, as they are much cheaper in the United States.&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/f7/77/f777072acf89af35aa27cd350b5337ef.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(MISC): Julie driving us to her Fleurie parcels in 2019.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/5e/7a/5e7a6c1be9eb1d6c8bdc84357266b45f.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(MISC): a whirlwind of dogs and sheep encircling Denyse Louis in 2015.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/86/d1/86d10a3749622348cb281090e51ebc08.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(MISC): The label for the 2017 one-off &quot;Docteur Buchaille Pr&eacute;sente Ordinaire&quot;. That vintage, Julie&#39;s microscopic yields forced her to blend her Moulin-&agrave;-Vent grapes with her Beaujolais grapes. Inspired by her amazing time in California following her invite to Brumaire in Oakland, she decided to immortalize this mashup by naming the cuv&eacute;e after the Oakland wine bar Ordinaire (the joke being that it is anything but ordinary). She also included the whale tattoo Ordinaire owner Bradford Taylor has and Keven Clancy, our partner and friend at Farm Wine Imports, front and center of the label (that&#39;s him with the glasses).&nbsp;</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/1b/be/1bbe24b29bd36dbd2d3a24436ca87d1e.jpg" /></p> <p><strong>(MISC): Le label for &quot;Bella Ciao&quot;, the other 2017 cuv&eacute;e in which Julie blended all of her Fleurie fruit into one wine.</strong></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>From wikipedia:&nbsp;&quot;Bella ciao&quot; is an&nbsp;Italian&nbsp;protest&nbsp;folk song&nbsp;from the late 19th century, originally sung by the&nbsp;mondina&nbsp;workers in protest against the harsh working conditions in the&nbsp;paddy fields&nbsp;of&nbsp;Northern Italy.</strong></p> <p><strong>It is widely assumed that the mondina song was modified and adopted as an anthem of the&nbsp;Italian resistance movement&nbsp;by the partisans who opposed&nbsp;Nazism&nbsp;and&nbsp;fascism, and fought against the occupying forces of&nbsp;Nazi Germany, who were allied with the fascist and collaborationist&nbsp;Italian Social Republic&nbsp;between 1943 and 1945 during the&nbsp;Italian Civil War. However, historians argue that there is little to no evidence that Italian partisans actually sang the song.</strong></p> <p><strong>Versions of &quot;Bella ciao&quot; continue to be sung worldwide as a&nbsp;hymn&nbsp;of freedom and resistance.</strong></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//736/d6/28/d6280abe88edbb0492172e6e20e9c50e.jpg" /></p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p><strong>(MISC): a video I recorded of Julie grabbing a salad in her backyard for our last dinner. I posted it on social media, to which she responded: <em>Ainsi va la Vie!</em>&quot; (&quot;such is life!&quot;)</strong></p> <p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="560" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/N9KZIbKr1XI" title="Julie in her backyard" width="320"></iframe></p> <p>&nbsp;</p>

producers visit

<p><em><strong>Words and photos by Jules Dressner.&nbsp;</strong></em></p> <p>This winter, we were able to visit Thomas Puechavy for the first time. After greeting us at his home in Nazelles-N&eacute;gron, we took the 17 minute car ride to the village of&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vouvray" title="1121">Vouvray&nbsp;</glossary></span></span>to visit his vines. I sat up front with Thomas, who I&#39;d only met minutes prior, along with his two friends Raf and Martin. It was a fun ride; Thomas is like me, Franco/American, but grew up his entire life in Paris. Raf is French but lives in London and Martin is German. Both were in France to help Thomas <glossary term="Pruning" title="834">prune</glossary> before spending the weekend at the various wine fairs around <glossary term="Saumur" title="919">Saumur</glossary> and&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Angers" title="104">Angers</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp;</p> <p>Everyone spoke English, and we discussed the VERY REAL connection between musicians/music lovers&nbsp;who are also really into wine.&nbsp;You see, Thomas&#39; first life was largely spent making music and touring with the band Moriarty.&nbsp;It was&nbsp;during extensive bouts on the road&nbsp;that he caught the wine bug. Raf and Martin originally met him through music, and they too are now completely enamored with wine through Thomas.</p> <p><em>&quot;Both reward an obsessive nature.&quot;</em></p> <p>After a beautiful drive, we&#39;d arrived to the village of&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vouvray" title="1121">Vouvray</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> From a small dirt path, we walked onto an open field that quickly gave way to a large plateau&nbsp;of vineyards.&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/24/3b/243bfddfbd2feb0066a06035bbab18f8.jpg" /><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/1f/f7/1ff7d1ee44fea92a7b40476c12cc0494.jpg" /><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/f1/9d/f19d29bb11e00e95b9c86670aa2b5ed8.jpg" /></p> <p>Thomas explained that this plateau is shared with Huet and Foreau. Some neighbors! The soils are <glossary term="Clay" title="301">clay</glossary> and&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Limestone" title="596">limestone</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> but this particular area is very light in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Clay" title="301">clay</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> making for exceptional drainage and imparting tons of&nbsp;<glossary term="Minerality" title="662">minerality</glossary> to the wines. Puechavy&#39;s vines are spread amongst many&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Parcel" title="760">parcels</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> the youngest 25 and the oldest in their 80&#39;s. All in all,&nbsp;Thomas farms 3.5 <glossary term="Hectare" title="523">hectares</glossary> spread over multiple <glossary term="Plot" title="1133">plots</glossary> and two&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Lieu-Dit" title="594">lieu-dits</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> all within the same plateau.&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/2d/27/2d27739fe37966ea08df58e8f3fff800.jpg" /><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/09/59/09595cb681f924ef3bef9c020c8aa173.jpg" /></p> <p>The vines had been worked <glossary term="Conventional Farming" title="331">conventionally</glossary> prior to Thomas&#39; arrival in 2018 and are currently in&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Conversion" title="332">organic conversion</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> So far he&#39;s been very careful with the soil, working it only superficially and very lightly at that.</p> <p><em>&quot;I worry there are still some roots at the superficial level after years of intensive </em><glossary term="Conventional Farming" title="331"><em>conventional viticulture</em></glossary><em>.&quot;</em></p> <p>Thomas is also looking into <glossary term="Cover Crop" title="1255">cover-crops</glossary> and various herbal sprays to bring vigor back to the soils.&nbsp;</p> <p><em>&quot;I&#39;m pretty lucky. Huet and Foreau work </em><glossary term="Biodynamic" title="160"><em>biodynamically</em></glossary><em> and </em><glossary term="Organic" title="746"><em>organically</em></glossary><em> and are my only big neighbors. We&#39;re even in a counsel together to promote </em><glossary term="Biodiversity" title="1162"><em>biodiversity</em></glossary><em> in </em><glossary term="Vouvray" title="1121"><em>Vouvray</em></glossary><em>.&quot;&nbsp;</em></p> <p>One major project at the moment is to replant an indigenous tulip that all but disappeared in the area with the rise of&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Conventional Farming" title="331">chemical agriculture</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> Huet has always been able to maintain them on their land and is now giving them to other growers in the counsel to propagate in their own vineyards.</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/f6/ec/f6ec86864bc33c29e6c0a01f7717c8d2.jpg" /></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/db/7a/db7a2dc44114263dd7f39a0a3294d245.jpg" /></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/23/bc/23bcabd49f5dba952c97c2879550c3a0.jpg" /></p> <p>While walking through the vines, Thomas also explained how he originally had no intention to work in the <glossary term="Loire Valley" title="602">Loire</glossary> or even to start his own&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary><span>.</span></span></span></p> <p><em>&quot;After finishing my studies, my plan was to go work for someone else, probably somewhere in the south like the </em><glossary term="Languedoc" title="579"><em>Languedoc</em></glossary><em>, and eventually find a little </em><glossary term="Plot" title="1133"><em>plot</em></glossary><em> to make some wine on the side. During an apprenticeship in the&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Loire Valley" title="602"><em>Loire</em></glossary><span>,</span></span></span> my boss at the time introduced me to a retiring </em><glossary term="Vigneron/Vignaiolo" title="1089"><em>vigneron</em></glossary><em> who had 10 </em><glossary term="Hectare" title="523"><em>hectares</em></glossary><em> in </em><glossary term="Vouvray" title="1121"><em>Vouvray</em></glossary><em>. His big stipulation was that he DID NOT want his land worked by someone already established in the area. He had some great <glossary term="Terroir" title="1026">terroirs</glossary> but wanted me to take on all 10 </em><glossary term="Hectare" title="523"><em>hectares</em></glossary><em>. That wasn&#39;t possible, but I did happen to know two other guys who wanted to start small </em><glossary term="Estate" title="427"><em>estates</em></glossary><em> of their own. We agreed to split the land, and here I am today.&quot;</em></p> <p>From the vines, we headed back to Nazelles-N&eacute;gron to taste some wines in Thomas&#39; beautiful <glossary term="Tuffeau" title="1053">tuffeau</glossary> <span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Cellar" title="254">cellar</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/b1/23/b123715932bebed8a0b13c5ee6f41f18.jpg" /></p> <p>We began in the <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrel</glossary> room, tasting the soon to be <glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottled</glossary> &quot;Rayon Blanc&quot; 2021 and &quot;Les&nbsp;Doyennes&quot; 2020.</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/e3/80/e38078ac677273551dc2ebac113bce90.jpg" /><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/55/69/556997b9a1830c3df89c95634b019315.jpg" /></p> <p>Both wines are made in a very straightforward fashion: <glossary term="Direct Press" title="392">direct-pressed</glossary> then <glossary term="Racking/Soutirage" title="843">racked</glossary> to <glossary term="Barrel" title="142">barrel</glossary> to <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">ferment</glossary> and&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Aging" title="74">age</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> &quot;Rayon Blanc&quot; comes from the <glossary term="Estate" title="427">estate</glossary>&#39;s&nbsp;younger vines and is <glossary term="Aging" title="74">aged</glossary> 14 to 16 months before&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottling</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> &quot;Les Doyennes&quot; comes from the old vines (60 to 80 years old) and <glossary term="Aging" title="74">ages</glossary>&nbsp;26 to 28 months before&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottling</glossary><span>.</span></span></span>&nbsp;</p> <p>A third wine, a <glossary term="Pétillant Naturel" title="778">pet-nat</glossary> called &quot;Les Turbulants&quot;, begins its <glossary term="Fermentation" title="441">fermentation</glossary> in <glossary term="Fiberglass" title="445">fiberglass</glossary> before finishing&nbsp;in bottle.&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/d5/e1/d5e1385670ede41d44ba34ce1136b60e.jpg" /><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/b7/c7/b7c7c9d858b9accbfb6ad6fec6497893.jpg" /></p> <p>We ended the tasting with an <glossary term="Off-Dry" title="736">off-dry</glossary> 2022 from a tiny&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Vat/Tank" title="1140">vat</glossary><span>.</span></span></span> Thomas wasn&#39;t sure what he was going to do with it during the visit, but has since decided to <glossary term="Bottling" title="185">bottle</glossary> it without <glossary term="Sulfites" title="993">sulfites</glossary> with a&nbsp;<span class="zalup"><span><glossary term="Crown Cap" title="359">crown cap</glossary><span>,</span></span></span> expecting a &quot;perlant&quot; style to develop in the bottle.</p> <p>After all that hard work, it was lunch time and we&nbsp;finally got to eat at&nbsp;Herv&eacute; and Patricia Chardonneau&#39;s Le Berlot in <glossary term="Montlouis" title="684">Montlouis</glossary> for the first time!&nbsp;</p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/46/a4/46a4ecce12c76f48251490f9a27bef23.jpg" /></p> <p><img src="https://louisdressner.com/uploads/images/article//977/de/d1/ded1c1727412022ab60a0c4ade88a66a.jpg" /></p>