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1997: Le Prix du Champagne Lanson Noble Cuvée Award for investigations into Champagne for the Millennium investment scams

2001: Le Prix Champagne Lanson Ivory Award for investdrinks.org

2011: Vindic d'Or MMXI – 'Meilleur blog anti-1855'

2011: Robert M. Parker, Jnr: ‘This blogger...’:

2012: Born Digital Wine Awards: No Pay No Jay – best investigative wine story

2012: International Wine Challenge – Personality of the Year Award




Friday 4 October 2013

2013 Loire vintage: Muscadet – Jo Landron

Domaines Landron@La Haie Fouassière 

 
 Portable Jo Landron: mobile is now an 
indispensible piece of harvest equipment

Monday (30th September): As others are in Muscadet Jo Landron and his pickers were working flat out to get the harvest in, especially they had had 30mm of rain in just 10 minutes from a storm on Sunday afternoon. Curiously Guy Bossard and Fréd Niger, who are only four or five kilometres away had not had a drop. Jo said that the incidence of rot was very variable: very little in his best parcels like Le Fief du Breil (10%) and Amphibolite but much more in the less good terroirs.  Potential alcohol degrees are between 10.7˚– 11.2˚.

When I saw him on Monday afternoon they were picking in a parcel with quite a lot of clay and there was a significant amount of rot, although as elsewhere the grapes still tasted clean without rotten flavours. The rot appeared appeared to be partly noble. Jo's pickers were having to carefully discarded the rotten berries in each bunch.  

 
Cutting out the rotten berries


 Trailer of grapes

 Hod carrier with watertower à le Muscadet


Stylish picker!


Another hod carrier

Video of Jo Landron talking in Chicago just prior to the vintage about his hopes for the 2013 vintage. 

5 comments:

Damien said...

Jim -

This is great. Just before Jo returned to France to harvest I sat down with him to talk about the growing season and what he expected. Here is the resulting video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbrtRqVHlcc&list=PLddUmDhg4G_I09348TYdvtTOP_wN-9tkW&index=2

Cheers, and thanks for this. I will embed it into our site and share with customers here in Chicago. Together, they, make a great, timely story of this year's vintage.

Damien

Damien

Damien said...

Jim -

This is great. Just before Jo returned to France to harvest I sat down with him to talk about the growing season and what he expected. Here is the resulting video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbrtRqVHlcc&list=PLddUmDhg4G_I09348TYdvtTOP_wN-9tkW&index=2

Cheers, and thanks for this. I will embed it into our site and share with customers here in Chicago. Together, they, make a great, timely story of this year's vintage.

Damien

Jim's Loire said...

Thanks Damien. Jim

Lalau said...

It seems there is a shortage of local manpower. So near from the Prime Minister's fief, this is encouraging: unemployment will soon be a thing of the past in the Nantes region.
Or could it be that people on the dole there don't want to sweat?
Like in the Roussillon, where now the Spanish pickers have replaced the Moroccans.
Pauvre France!

Jim's Loire said...

Hervé. Not at all sure I would draw the conclusion that Jo Landon's work force is not local, although certainly at Luneau-Papin many of the pickers come from outside France. Santé Jim