La Coulée d'Ambrosia

In two weeks I’m moving to the Med so we spent the last two days in the mud. We stayed in an old dike house and made the most of having no electricity but time and two wood stoves in the sense that we were mostly busy with lunch. 

And pre-lunch and post lunch and — by extension — post breakfast, which is when we drank this, a rusty tangerine-coloured spritzer of a Grolleau (Noir) from La Coulée d’Ambrosia which is not only a pét nat and not only an experimental pét nat (he made about 50. He likes it. More to come next year) but an experiment ALSO! in distillation. The distillation of, to be precise, lunch in the autumn Alps and bubblifying and bottling it and  by "it" I mean my childhood memories of lunch in sparkling mountain air and glacial water gurgling down rocks and moss and sweet and dying and dried grasses and apples and rough-cut hunks comté and sausage washed down with flip-cap $%#pschh#! bottle Apfelmost while cow bells tinkle and smoke curls up from down beneath.

And because it was an experiment it was also a gift, gifted after a tasting with Jean-Francois Chéné post-Dive that went on so long we got stuck in the snow. I’ll not exaggerate and say  something like, ‘Luckily it was so great we didn’t mind’ cus we did — minded for our lives every second of the four hours it took to drive the 120-odd kilometres to Tours looking for a place to stay the night — but it was great capital G Great, even. 

Definitely the most interesting tasting I’ve been to.

And you'll have to trust me on that because by the time we got to the interesting stuff, I stopped taking notes.

Jean-François Chéné started his domaine in 2005 with 5 ha in Beaulieu-sur-Layon in Anjou, the same village Sebastian Dervieux, so, Babass, used to live (there’s still a note taped to his kitchen door behind which we helped unpack his groceries this summer). Now he’s down to just under 2 ha with 1.2 ha of it Chenin, 0.43 Grolleau and 0.32 Cabernet Franc. Of all this, most of it goes to Japan.

He is the third generation to make wine in his family and the second (after his grandfather) to work organically; but only, he said, after his first five years of following chemical-heavy convention. It was the way Babass and Pat Desplats (at the time working together as Domaine Les Griottes, since dis-banded) talked about wine in terms of life and energy and emotion that changed his mind and actions.

So far so normal.

But the way he’s coaxed the ghost of a Spanish Pedro Xemiez from Anjou Cab Franc and Chenin is exceptional. The wines he makes in this style (he also makes one a la vin jaune), their depths and tastes (soy sauce and browned butter, caramel drenched pancakes, cask-aged honey and mains-charged Warhead candies sours), are phenomenal.

And while not exceptional, the tasting gave me a new appreciation of the good a spot of staying power can do. Not only in terms of the style of winemaking (François practices ‘Passerillage’ for his naturally sweet wines, allowing the grapes to dry-up on the vines and then ages them, untouched, under flor for 36 months to 5 years to achieve their kaleidoscope of sumptuous sweets and sours), but also when a winemaker releases wine for sale. While recognising reality and its financial pressures, he heart and soul believes in only selling a wine when ready; a refreshing if idealistic response to too many wines being rushed out into the world just to be poured down the drain for their faults (he believes in just sitting out ‘even’ soirée).  

Tasting notes

Smell starts reductive to open towards a mango chapstick rimmed glass of just- poured Orangina and, faintly, but now that I thought it, unmistakably, of a stick of Juicy Fruit gum. 

Looks like a stratified tangerine sky with a halo of ocean foam.  

Taste: (American) apfel(cider)schorle with marmalade bitters, papaya and the suggestion of dried summer grass.

Super dry, like sucking a crystal. Porcelain-fine bubbles. Wear wool socks.

(We also bought a couple magnums of Francois' 2015 Grolleau 'Le Boit Sans Soif' for Le Carton pop up MAGS, BAGS MAC 'N' CHEEZE / VINO BRUTALO (+some Italo) on Monday).

Harvest 2017: François Blanchard | Le Grand Cléré

The first time we spoke with François Blanchard was when he invited us to make a grand fête which sounded like a great idea except driving there 45 minutes south somewhere wasn’t such a great idea because we didn’t know where ‘there’ was except there was a château and also because we were drunk because this was Dive or at least afterwards so we didn’t go.

We met again in October. When we finally arrived at Chateau du Perron in Lémere in the Touraine in the Loire it was dark and I say ‘finally’ because we were driving from Amsterdam and the drive — all parts but especially the last part — always takes longer than you think it will and even longer when it’s me driving which it was so like I said, when we finally arrived it was dark and it was also very late. François came out of the chai howling and whooping and got us glasses and poured us wine and it was cold and good. It was a skin-contacted Sauvignon from 2012 and there was also paté and homemade pizza and it was 01:00 which I know because I went to the car to get a sweater.

François had been drinking with a friend who looks like Hemingway whose name is Gerard Blanchard but they are not related — François and Gerard I mean. Gerard is an accordion player and he played for us and said I looked like an American actress by which I am sure he means an American actress in the old days when there was a certain American actress look which I don’t have. Later he showed us a book that made no sense because it was in French and because he had illustrated it on acid and later still François played on the guitar and started howling and everyone joined in and started banging things. I say howling and not singing but it was more like throat singing which I guess is still singing and we were still banging things. It was about 04:00 and by then we were drinking a Cabernet Franc from 1995.

The next day we woke up sneezing and still dressed shoes socks and all. Our bed was clean but the room was dusty and there were sheets over the things in the corner and our bed was a mattress on the floor and we were very very thirsty. François lives in 3/4 of a château with his family and, I quote myself, the other 1/4 is full of rooms full of mattresses, dodgy to no electricity and bidets in unlikely places. This is the 1/4 we woke up in and it was sunny. Later we went on a tour.

François took over the family’s château in 1999 he said and channelled his energy of which I can attest he has huge amounts into wakening the vines. His grandfather and I think but am not sure his father made wine to be sold in bulk to négociants and in the chai which is very large and you can see the big vats they used for storage. After this, or perhaps after his father, the vines were ignored and are now revived and strong. François started making wine in 2003 and always according to organic principles and with much care and attention paid to bugs and other critters and fruit trees grown everywhere in-between. He works with horses and Olivier Cousin helped him with these. 

Soon it was time to make the fête but first it was time to prepare. I should explain before I tell you that we picked raspberries and tomatoes and made a big pot of sauce for everyone who arrived that night to eat at long tables by the fire with bread and pasta that François was, but really still is, a jazz player but that when it was his profession he played jazz in Tours. For him, and like I wrote for The Morning Claret, the harvest is all about good energy and making the fête and the more musical you are, the more valuable you are, I think, to the whole operation. ‘Making a fête’ by the way translates to making a party and is how they say it in French.

The harvest began on Saturday at 11:00 which was the next day. We were told it would be sunny, that it was always sunny for the harvest even though it was grey at the time we were told this but indeed it became very brightly sunny and I was hot in my turtleneck when it was even though it was also windy. We were there to pick the Sauvignon situated a little ways down the rolling, wheat-lined road on a hillside on the highest plateau in the area which like I already said is Touraine at an altitude of approximately 110 metres. His vineyard is called Le Grand Cléré and is about 3 hectares with the total divided between Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc. They would pick the Cabernet next week and there would be another fête we were told with some Japanese, two Belgians and an Italian from Rome. All of them, we were told, were musical.

The picking was very relaxed and everyone which is to say neighbours and old people and young people and very young people which supposedly have better energy and a lady with curly hair who comes every year from Brittany and a café philosopher who did more philosophising and smoking than picking came to help but mostly, I think, for lunch. Harvest lunch is always the best lunch and François’ wife made the best fromage du tête I have ever had and this coming from a vegetarian who is not a vegetarian when she knows the animal or is in France which is among the worst sorts of vegetarian she knows. There were three tables laden low with lentils and hardboiled eggs and cheese and bread and boudin noir and paté and rillet and herring and apples and countless more things but these are the things I ate. We sat on our buckets and drank small glasses of beer and a little wine and then it was time for coffee and then to pick more grapes.

We finished at 7 and the next day it rained and we made the wine and the café philosopher smoked. First we de-stemmed the grapes by pushing them around and around and around a big basket that worked like a sieve in which the stems and stalks get stuck and out of which the skins and juice and ladybugs fall. Underneath was a plastic bin. Next we would check the bin for ladybugs and snails and breakaway stems and then it was time to crush this with our feet. This is a lot of fun and very satisfying and everyone wants to do it but is also tiring and cold work and it makes you thirsty and appreciative. We stood stomping in our buckets gushing and crushing while another group continued de-stemming and others just were talking. You crush until what you are crushing is juice and then someone adds more grapes and you crush some more all the while upping and downing and drinking cold little glasses and no longer noticing everything is sticky and smells like grape and thinking how great a thing is wine. There is, I think, something to be said about energy. And reggae.

(p.s. Today I received an invitation to the next fête. See you there, François!)

September 2017

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François Blanchard (Le Grand Clére)

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Lémere, Touraine, Loire

'Wah Wah' 2015, Brendan Tracy

It's no secret I’m more a cold gluggz neon fun lemonade sun buzz juice kinda wine drinker more than, say, a serious one. More magic hour water sparkle lake side than white tablecloth inside. Turbid, semi carbonic poppers high on energy high on acid. More into ice than structure. Red over white.

This is one of those wines.

This is made by Brendan Tracy, surely the only man from New Jersey to move to the Loire via San Francisco by way of hardcore punk and Thierry Puzelat. This is true.

Tasting notes:

Blackcurrant starburst candies and cheap ice pops sours. Cold pressed cherry soda lemonade spritzers that sparkle fizz and pop in your mouth like the Willy Wonka robe purple Nerds ohmygod remember Nerds?! Buzzy summer love plus some stink. Drink cold with chips.

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"Wah Wah" 2015

Brendan Tracey
Grolleau, Côt
Touraine, Loire

Notes on Baptiste Cousin "Marie Rose" 2015 12 days open

These are the important things that happened the week I didn't post this: we got a cat we called Ibie who is in fact more mushroom than cat, it's been warm enough to swim and I had a glass of Baptiste Cousin's 2015 "Marie Rose" that’s been o p e n on the kitchen counter for 12 days which is to say two weeks minus two days and it was great and I mailed Baptiste bonjour to tell him so, and have you lost very much of the harvest?

He mailed back to say he'd lost half but still hope to see you then. 

Tasting notes:

Pale rose petal pinks have turned to washed out dried rusty blood colour or watered down cola if you will or rather. Still hints of balanced window sill bowls of potpourri but now it’s more wood and minty earth and bark (eucalyptus) than ‘dem dusty blush roses. Tastes more of jumbo chewy raisins in tiny paper boxes or old sun faced lady prunes preserved in wax paper than neon strawberry late night discos spinning lights and dancing, moving, ‡grooving‡, quick — cold juicy drink to re·fresh like how it used to be, like lemonade. Now it's chocolatey. Sugar crystals on pot-reduced jam fruit rich. Deep like Riffault gets deep but stayin' fresh.

notes after just open.

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"Marie Rose" 2015
Le Batossay, Baptiste Cousin

Grolleau Gris

Martigné-Briand, Loire