Sauvignon Blanc in Château de Tracy's Haute Densité vineyard
Sauvignon Blanc@Château TracyA full day in Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre has further confirmed that the quality of the fruit in 2008 is remarkably good, especially given the cool summer. This, however, may ultimately have been beneficial because the grapes have ripened slowly with the fine weather of the last part of September and the drying north wind that has concentrated everything: sugars, flavours and acidity. Potential alcohols range from around 12 to 14 with acidities from a little over 5 to 7 for both Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc.
On the whole the producers of Pouilly-Fumé are less content than those of Sancerre – not over the quality but of the quantity as some were very badly hit by the hailstorm at the end of June.
Visits to:
Pouilly-Fumé: Château de Tracy, Domaine Chatelain, Serge Dagueneau et Filles, Landrat-Guyollot, Benjamin Dagueneau@Domaine Didier Dagueneau, Michel Redde, Château de Favray and Masson-Blondelet.
Sorting table at Château de Tracy
“We have been badly affected by hail with 20 ha hit. But what fruit we have is very good with potential alcohol up to 14.2% and acidities between between 5.4 and 6.2. We started on Thursday last week. Stopped over the weekend and started again on Monday. We won’t harvest tomorrow (Wednesday) and I expect we will finish sometime next week. I expect we will make about 400 hl this year whereas in a normal year we make between 1500-1900 hl. The grapes have very little juice.”
A reflective Henry d'Assay in his Haut Densité vineyard (Pouilly-Fumé)
Henry d'Assay: stressing a point
Sorting@Tracy
Vincent: “We started on Monday with the young vines – 11.5% and 6 gms acidity. We had hail at the end of June and the flowering was difficult. Yields where we had no hail are around 65 hl/ha and 35 hl/ha where there was hail. Fortunately we have parcels of vines over a wide area, so only 10% of the vineyard was affected by hail."
Les Chatelains celebrate the 2008 vintage, despite some problems with hail
Serge Dagueneau et Filles
The winery of Serge Dagueneau is right next door to the Chatelains. Serge is busy reversing a trailer of Sauvignon into the grape reception area. Everyone is busy. “We started on Tuesday 30th, says Florence Dagueneau. “We have been badly affected by the hail.” Once their Pouilly vineyards are finished they will pick the Coteaux Charitois. As we leave Serge gets down from the tractor, the delicate reversing manoeuvre complete. “Superb,” is his pithy comment on he 2008 Sauvignon.
Serge Dagueneau: unloading the grapes
Then it’s just up the road to Domaine Landrat-Guyollot where Sophie Guyollot and her father, René, are also busy dealing with a delivery of grapes. I ask Sophie a couple of quick questions while she is busy checking the grapes over.
Sophie: “We started on 2 October with the vines that had been hit by hail. About a third of our vineyard has been affected by the hail but what remains is good.”
Sophie and her team checking over the grapes
as they go up the conveyor belt into the press
Domaine Didier Dagueneau
Off up the hill into Saint-Andelain, one of the highest point in the area and about the same height as the old town of Sancerre, to 3 Rue Ernesto Che Guevara. Inevitably there is a sense of sadness and a subdued air so soon after Didier’s death. Harvest time must be particularly difficult with constant reminders of Didier and how he would have run the harvest. We see Charlotte, Didier’s daughter, briefly before going into the winery where Benjamin, his son, is now in charge. Despite being obviously busy Benjamin is generous with the time he spends with us. First we taste the 2007s in vat starting with the Blanc Fumé de Pouilly, which has very precise, mineral and grapefruit flavours and will be bottled in January 2009. “This is the type of wine that I’m looking for,” says Benjamin. Next the weighter and beautifully balanced Pur Sang and Buisson Renard. Then across the Loire to Les Monts Damnés.– powerful but fine with lovely minerality. “The best of Didier’s Mont Damnés that I’ve tasted,” says Benoît later.
Temperature control for barrels
“People ask what is the difference between Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre, which for me is really the wrong question as it is much more which type of soil, in both appellations, does the wine come from. If you taste a Pouilly-Fumé and a Sancerre from the same soil type it is difficult to tell which is which. The Monts Damnés is
argile-calcaire (clay limestone) whereas around here it is
argile-silex (clay and flint). The problem with the Monts Damnés is that to get the fruit properly ripe you have to wait and this means that the alcohol levels are high.”
We finish with Silex – certainly the most complex and complete of the 2007s and a fitting tribute to Didier.
Before we go we taste some of the new juice. “We started picking Silex and Buisson Renard last week – Wednesday/Thursday. Here we lost 75% of the crop through the hailstorm at the end of June. There is still La Folie, Blanc Fumé de Pouilly and Pur Sang to do. We’ll pick the Monts Damnés on Thursday/Friday of this week."
The latest investment
Benjamin@Le Temple Sept 2007 
Emblem above the entrance to the winery:
Domaine Didier Dagueneau
Following our visit to Domaine Didier Dagueneau we passed by the vines and château of Patrick Ladoucette on our way to Michel Redde, where we initially saw Sébastien Redde. “We started on the 29th September. This year we invested in some new, small picking boxes, which have holes to allow the free-run juice to drain away. Of our 40 hectares 25-30 are picked by hand. Eventually we aim to everything by hand. Where we have hail damage the yield is only 18 hl/ha. Elsewhere it is 36 hl/ha due to there being little juice. In a normal year it is 45-50 hl/ha.” While we were talking to Sébastien, his father, Thierry, came back from the vines. “Because of the high acidities and the lack of juice in the grapes, 2008 is the first time as a vigneron that I have been happy to see a little bit of rain at harvest.”
Sébastien Redde
Thierry talked about the five different
terroirs of Pouilly and revealed that they will soon be launching a new cuvée called Les Toupées from vines on Oxfordian limestone at Villiers not far from Château de Favray at the eastern end of the appellation.
We left Sébastien and Thierry to join their pickers for lunch, while we headed for the Auberge l”Ecurie in the centre of Sancerre, where Benoît’s cousin Denis, director of Les Maisons des Sancerres, joined us. We chose a bottle of André Vatan’s 2006 Sancerre Rouge – pleasant enough without being memorable.
Benoît Roumet, director of BIVC: 14th century cellar
Benoît Roumet, director of BIVC, in the vineyards of Pouilly:
André Vatan, Pascal Reverdy, Claude Riffault, François Crochet.
André Vatan
Vineyards above Maimbray with Pascal's
team picking at the top of the slope.
We headed on to see Pascal Reverdy in Maimbray, which is a hamlet of Sury-en-Vaux. Maimbray nestles in bottom of the steep sided valley whose small stream wanders northeastwards before joining the Loire at Cosne. To the east it is dominated by a great bluff of vines, which, travelling eastwards, is the first slope to face away from Sancerre and not to be part of the bowl of hills and vineyards that surround the town.
There appears to be nobody around but we can see a team of pickers and a tractor of trailer high in the vines. I wander round to the entrance of the winery and disturb Pascal’s wife, Nathalie, snatching a quick rest while waiting for the next load of Pinot Noir to arrive. “ The yields are low,” says Nathalie, “because of the drying effect of the north wind. The Pinot is particularly short – we won’t be making much red and rosé. But the quality of the fruit is good – there’s no rot.”
Below the winery there is an encampment of tents and caravans where the pickers stay as everything is picked by hand here. Pascal arrives with a tractor load. After a quick hello we leave them to it.
Stéphane checking the fruit over as it goes up the conveyor belt On your way back to Sancerre town we made a quick stop at Claude Riffault in Maison Sallé, a hamlet of Sury-en-Vaux. Stéphane is busy loading Sauvignon Blanc into a pneumatic press. Everything is picked by hand here. Using a vibrating table the grapes move gently onto a conveyor into the press. Truly cosseting the fruit!
Vibrating table with grapes dropping onto conveyor belt
Stéphane: We started on the 29th and we’ll finish the Sauvignon this evening and make a start on the Pinot Noir tomorrow. Our Sauvignon is between 12.5%-13.5% potential with the acidities at 6-6.5 gms and the maturity is fine with good aromatics. Pinot is between 12-13%. I expect that yields for both varieties will be around 50 hl/ha. This is partly due to coulure from the difficult conditions at flowering and the drying wind we have had lately.”
Gérard Cherrier
Gérard Cherrier, Château de Sancerre
During a brief stop up by Sancerre’s Porte César, I bumped into Gérard Cherrier, the long time régisseur for Château de Sancerre, owned by Marnier Lapostelle.
Near to Porte César, Sancerre
Gérard: “We started in the middle of last week. We’ve picked part of both the Sauvignon and the Pinot Noir. I guess we are about halfway through. We’ve stopped for the moment – waiting for the acidity and the sugars to come into balance.”
Pouilly – part two
Quentin David and 2008 Sauvignon juice
Time to head back across the Loire and to the eastern hinterland of the appellation to see Quentin David at Château de Favray in the commune of Saint-Martin-sur-Nohain. About eight kilometres south east of Cosné and 11 north-east of Pouilly, vines only play a small part of the agricultural mix here.
Records of Château de Favray go back at least to the 16th century and cultivation of vines here quite probably date from the same time. However, the appearance of phylloxera at the end of the 19th century meant that they were virtually abandoned until in 1980 Quentin revived the vineyard here. Today there are 15 ha under vine.
Quentin: “The Sauvignon has matured slowly this year. Although we have started, most of the grapes will be harvested next week. Fortunately we are able to take our time. Nor were we hit by the hailstorm of late June.”
As elsewhere the 2008 juice was clean and promising.
Masson-Blondelet
We headed southwards to Pouilly passing through Saint-Laurent-de-l’Abbaye, which has what looks like an imposing château – will have to return sometime to explore further. Jean-Michel and Michelle Masson have a tasting room right in the centre of Pouilly and their winery is a few doors up where I find Michelle.
Michelle: “We started yesterday. The grapes are very healthy – the Sauvignon is 13.1%-13.2% potential with 5.1 gms of acidity. Like others in Pouilly we have some hail damage. Jean-Michel is out in the vines. I think there is a problem with the picking machine, which he is trying to fix. We have another 12 days of picking to go.”
Sign on bridge at PouillyFrançois Crochet
We left Pouilly crossing the bridge that marks the halfway point of the Loire’s journey from the southern part of the Massif Central and the Atlantic Ocean and headed to Bué, via Saint-Bouize, to the François Crochet winery, where François and his team are dealing with a load of Sauvignon Blanc.
François: “People are comparing this vintage with 1996 but I was too young then, so I’ve no memories of that vintage. We started the Sauvignon on 26th and the Pinot on 2nd October – we’ll finish the Pinot on Sunday. The fruit is very good. On Friday we’ll pick Les Amoureuses (François’ top white).” As he searches for a vibrant, minerally style François is happy with the high acidities of 2008. “There will be a new cuvee this year from a flinty vineyard in Thauvenay.”
•••
I have been struck on this visit by the precautions that many producers in the Central Vineyards are now taking over the handling of their fruit. There is a renaissance of picking by hand, picking into small containers is increasingly common and almost everyone I have seen over the past two days is checking over their fruit either in the vineyard or when it arrives at the winery or both. Some producers now have vibrating platforms on their trailers so that the grapes can be checked over and moved gently from there and onto a conveyor belt to the vat or press.
At the end of the day I took a walk in the Clos de la Poussie, possibly the most famous vineyard of Bué. I was shocked by the lamentable state of parts of the vineyard – see next post (Clos de la Poussie – in a lamentable state).
We spent a very enjoyable evening with Jean-Laurent and Jean-Dominique Vacheron sharing a grape pickers' dinner accompanied by the very fine and minerally 2007 Les Romains Sancerre Blanc and their very impressive 2006 Belle Dame Sancerre Rouge with a lovely concentration of fruit, soft texture and supple tannins. Both wines again demonstrate that J-L and J-D are taking Domaine Vacheron up a further notch. The Vacherons have 6 ha of Sauvignon to pick. They will be starting on the Pinot Noir on Thursday and expect to finish Thursday week.
