#2015Loire – Sancerre further photos – Matthieu Delaporte and Pascal Joulin

 The only Pinot Noir on the Cul de Beaujeu

Domaine Vincent Delaporte

(above and below)

My last visit last Thursday was to Domaine Vincent Delaporte with Matthieu Delaporte. I had been impressed when I met Matthieu in London in early September at the Lea & Sandeman tasting. 

First we visited the cave of Alain Delaporte, Matthieu's uncle now retired, which Matthieu promised to restore. Here we tasted from barrel the Delaporte 2014 Monts Damnés, Sancerre Blanc and the 2014 Cul de Beaujeu – both brilliant! The Monts Damnés wonderfully tense and mineral, while the Cul de Beaujeu has tremendous silky fruit. 

Then we headed to the top of the Cul de Beaujeu above La Croix de Jacko, which commemorates the death of Jacques Delaporte on the Cul tragically hit by lightning in 1957. The Delaporte Pinot Noir, the only to be planted on the Cul, which is otherwise exclusively Sauvignon Blanc, are at the top of this fearsome slope just above the Croix. Here the soil is slightly more red unlike the white clay limestone of the rest of the slope. 

This is obviously a magic place for Matthieu for new girlfriends are expected to like this place high above Chavignol. The Pinot was due to be picked next day by Delaporte's team of Bulgarian pickers

 Matthieu Delaporte in the Cul de Beaujeu 

Pinot Noir high above Chavignol

(above and below)

    

 Renovated chai of Alain Delaporte created by Alain's father in the 

1950s shortly before his death since when it has remained virtually unused

The cellar's fine ceiling

Part of the cellar that is in 

the process of being renovated

 

••

Next morning (Friday 25th September) started with a visit to Pascal Joulin (Domaine Michel Vattan) in Maimbray. Unlike all the other producers I saw during my two day visit, who were either finished harvesting or would be shortly, Pascal was only a third of the way through his picking as he wanted to make sure the fruit was ripe. 

 Pascal Joulin, Domaine Michel Vattan, Maimbray

 

The success of Sancerre

Sancerre from the west.

 

First published on Les 5 du Vin: 

A week yesterday my co-Cinq colleague David Cobbold reported on a tasting of wines from the Loire's Central Vineyards. He suggested that Sancerre producers were perhaps resting on their laurels and that the size of the Central Vineyard appellations corresponded to their success.

No doubt there are producers in Sancerre who sit on the appellation's current reputation but this is far from true for the leading lights, who are constantly looking to improve their wines both through work in the vineyards and investment in equipment in the wineries. Anyone who wants to see the latest winery equipment used in the Loire heads to Sancerre. Unlike some wineries in Italy, parts of Spain, Napa or Chile you won't find here modern day wine cathedrals designed at great expense to highlight the owners' deep pockets. In Sancerre and elsewhere in the Central Vineyards there is happily a marked absence of bling. Here wineries are functional. Producers, like Alphonse Mellot and the Vacheron family, in the town of Sancerre itself are naturally constrained by the narrow streets, tightly packed houses and steep slopes. This also used to be the case in Chavignol but recently there has been a trend for some producers, for instance Gérard Boulay and Thomas-Labaille to build new wineries outside the Sancerre's capital city, especially on the road between Chavignol and Saint-Satur. Even with greater space available these are functional buildings as is the new dairy built by Rians after they acquired the historic Crottin cheese maker – Dubois-Boulay.

Part of the Henri Bourgeois winery above Chavignol.

The ever-expanding Henri Bourgeois winery must the most spectacular development in the region. When I first visited the domaine in October 1989 they had a relatively small winery next to Chavignol's church. The original winery is still there but its has expanded very considerably up the hill. Again the buildings are functional and designed for easy working. Of course there is expensive kit inside but there for a purpose. The new arrangements for receiving and selecting their Pinot Noir grapes are coming through in the wines.

The Joulin family celebrating the fine 2014 vintage.

During my brief stay in Sancerre in April I visited three producers – Pascal Joulin (Domaine Michel Vattan) in Maimbray, Clément Pinard (Domaine Vincent Pinard) in Bué and Arnaud Bourgeois (Henri Bourgeois) in Chavignol. I largely concentrated on tasting the 2014s, which is a very good vintage here and was confirmed by my visits. What was impressive was the determination of all three to continue to improve the quality of their wines. At Domaine Vincent Pinard, for instance, the top cuvée of their Pinot Noir is destemmed by hand using a team of around 20. Naturally this attention to detail doesn't come cheap – the 2012 Vendanges Entières sells for 33€ a bottle at the domaine. Would you find the same quality, however, in Burgundy for this price?

Clément Pinard

Arnaud Bourgeois

Given Sancerre's current success and wealth it is easy to forget how poor and backward the area was still at the end of the 1940s and early 1950s. I always remember many years ago André Dézat recounting the lack of electricity in the early 1950s, that water had to be fetched from the well and that for most families in the area they made a living of sorts on a few hectares of polyculture. It was the arrival of the first tractors in the 1950s that allowed the dynamic to start to expand their holdings. This was also the epoch when the leading lights of the appellation started to take their wine up to Paris and so established a reputation. La Maison des Sancerres in the town of Sancerre does an excellent job covering the history of this period along with separate explanations of the geology of the area. This is the starting point for understanding Sancerre.

It should not be surprising that Sancerre is the easily the largest appellation in the Central Vineyards. Simply it has the biggest area of land suited to grape production. The suitable area in Pouilly is much more limited, while for Menetou-Salon it is largely the ridge that runs from Morogues to the town of Menetou-Salon – to the south there is too much clay and there are extensive forests to the north. Now there are 465 hectares planted but back in 1991 Gilbert & Gaillard in their Guides des Vins: Pays de La Loire listed Menetou at 100 hectares.

To the south west in the Cher Valley the land appropriate for vines for the ACs of Quincy and Reuilly is very much limited. For Quincy the focus is on the gravel banks laid down by the Cher and Reuilly relies on the the slopes facing the River Arnon, otherwise this is an area of cereal production. Both ACs virtually disappeared during the 1980s – G&G record 60 ha for Quincy and just 40ha for Reuilly. Following a welcome renaissance Quincy today has some 224 hectares planted with Reuilly on 186 hectares.

Santé!

Pascal Nathalie and Rémy Joulin: Domaine Michel Vattan

 Pascal and Nathalie Joulin and their son – Rémy

(above and below)

After three weeks in Epeigné-les-Bois, we had a three-night stay in Chavignol (11th-14th April) before heading back to the UK.  

 

On Sunday morning there was was time to spend just over an hour with Pascal Joulin (Domaine Michel Vattan) to taste the unbottled 2014s and a few previous vintages in bottle. Again the vibrant, clean and finely balanced 2014s impressed. From the bottled wines I enjoyed the texture and length of the 2013 Argile, Sancerre Blanc and the more concentrated and beginning to evolve 2012 Les L.O., which has an intriguing touch of bitterness in the long finish. Pascal releases L.O. only in good vintages – 2002, 2006, 2010, 2012 and most probably 2014.

I first met Pascal back in the early 1990s when he was at the La Cave des Hauts de Seyr in the Coteaux Charitois. La Cave was bought by Alphonse Mellot – I think in 2005 (confirmation would be good) and is now called Domaine des Pénitents. There is a previous Jim's Loire post on Pascal from the 2011 harvest here.   

Following our tasting we had a quick look at some of his vineyards high up on the steep slopes above the little village of Maimbray. We discussed the problem of erosion on these steep slopes and the role grassing over the vineyards and careful cultivation plays in reducing water runoff. Pascal explained that he leaves the prunings amongst the vines which further helps to slow down rainwater. Sancerre can be prone to severe storms. Pascal showed me a video on his phone of a summer storm last year – a track transformed into a raging torrent.

 Pascal's vines above Mainbray with Sury-en-Vaux in the hollow 

(above and below)

Looking down towards Mainbray

2011 Loire vintage: Sancerre – Pascal Joulin c/o Domaine Michel Vattan

Pascal Joulin 

It was good to meet Pascal Joulin again on Thursday. I first met Pascal back in the early 1990s when he was looking after La Cave des Hauts de Seyr in the Coteaux Charitois. Then he moved to the Domaine de la Grange just beyond the limits of the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. I visited him once there and then lost touch. Happily Pascal got back in touch with me when the Domaine Michel Vattan 2010 Cuvée Argile won a bronze medal at this year's Decanter World Wine Awards.  

In 2002 Pascal had moved to Sancerre to work with Michel Vattan in Maimbray, just up from the chai of Pascal and Nicolas Reverdy. In 2008 he took over the 9 hectare domaine on Michel's retirement. Prior to his arrival the wines went to the cooperative or the négoce, Pascal has developed the domaine's direct sales. Now 65% of the production goes on export – Norway, United States and some to The Sampler in the UK .   

Pascal in his old vines overlooking Maimbray 

Pascal: "We started picking on Wednesday 7th beginning with the Pinot Noir. The ban des Vendanges was on the 1st but the grapes weren't ripe then so I preferred to wait, even so the harvest was three weeks in advance of 2010. Then the following day we started on the Sauvignon Blanc. The 3rd September we had had a sharp storm with 22mm of rain in just 15 minutes. Waiting until the 7th following the potential degree rise to 12.5% and the level of tartaric acidity go up.

"I have 1.30ha of Pinot Noir – 0.70 ares goes to make rosé and 0.6 ares goes to make red. This year we had to cut off 30% of the Pinot Noir and throw it on the ground because of rot. Even having grass in the vineyards made a big difference this year.

"Everything is picked by machine at the moment but I want to move to picking the Pinot Noir by ahdn as soon as possible. My Pinot is planted on the caillottes. I did have some planted on the terres blanches (clay and limestone) at the bottom of the slope but it never ripened, so I've pulled it out.

My aim with the red is to make a typical light, easy drinking Loire red, so I use a short cuvaison so as not to extract too much tannin."    

Pascal Joulin and Domaine Michel Vattan

Autumn colours@Maimbray

I was very pleased yesterday to get an email from Pascal Joulin, who I first met around 1995 when he was working for the La Cave des Hauts de Seyr in the Coteaux Charitois. He was making Chardonnay from vines planted in the Montaillant vineyard and Pinot Noir from vines at Saint-Lay. I think I first met Pascal in London at a tasting, impressed by the wines I later went to visit him at Hauts de Seyr. Much later La Cave des Hauts de Seyr ran into financial problems and in 2005 it was bought by Alphonse Mellot who renamed it Les Pénitents.

In 1998 Pascal moved on to Domaine des Granges in Suilly la Tour. Here he made vin de pays de la Nièvre as the property is just outside the Pouilly-Fumé appellation. In 2002 he moved to AC Sancerre to Domaine Michel Vattan in Mainbray. When Michel Vattan retired in 2008 Pascal bought the domaine, which has 7.80 hectares of Sauvignon Blanc and 1.30 ha of Pinot Noir. This year at the Decanter World Wine Awards we gave the 2010 Cuvée Argile from Domaine Michel Vattan a bronze medal. In the UK his wines are imported by The Sampler.

I think the last time I saw Pascal was when he was at Domaine des Granges, so I'm delighted he has made contact and brought me up to date and I look forward to meeting him again when I'm in Sancerre.