Quarts de Chaume: part of the vineyard looking towards the Layon
It is undeniable that Baumard’s Quarts de Chaume has won numerous awards over the years as well as receiving plaudits from a many critics – myself included. Some of these wines, at least, will have benefited from the use of cryoextraction or cryosélection as the Baumards call it. The process tending produce wines with more lifted acidity, so a lighter, fresher finish than some other Quarts de Chaume wines. Picking the grapes at a lower potential alcohol and a higher level of acidity may well also be a factor here.
The Baumard wines please both critics and consumers, so shouldn’t the taste be the ultimate arbiter? What does it matter that some of their plots in the appellation appear to be over-cropped? What counts is the finished wine in the bottle and glass. Or is it?
This raises the question of what role there is for intervention in the winery, post picking. The level of intervention will vary from wine-maker to wine-maker and the style and price of wine they are making. The level of intervention that is considered acceptable for an entry-level mass brand may well not be considered appropriate for an ‘ultra premium’ wine with price tag to match.
To return to top quality sweet wine, there are several ways to make these wines. In France most are made on the vine with growers taking the risk of inclement weather to leave picking the grapes until well into the autumn with concentration occurring either through noble rot or passerilage or a combination of the two. Alternatively the grapes can be picked early and then dried. In France there are a few examples of vin de paille but this method is much more common in Italy.
Sweet wine can also be produced by freezing – either by naturally low temperatures in vineyards in places like Germany, Slovenia and Canada, especially – or by a cryoextraction as in Randall Grahm’s vin de Glacière. Cryoextraction has also been used, as we have seen, in conjunction with late picking both in the Loire and in Sauternes.
On 27th September 2010 the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume decided by a big majority that cryoextraction has no place in the Quarts de Chaume. I think they were absolutely right. The implication being that if you are selling your wine as a vin de terroir and benefiting from the appellation’s high reputation then it should fully reflect that particular terroir without the need for and changes to the finished wine that cryoextraction may bring.
Improved viticulture linked to the natural advantages of the best sites in the Layon now means that it is possible to make sweet wine here every year. Naturally not all vintages will be of the quality of 2007, for instance, but even in a difficult year like 2008 attractive, although lighter, less complex wines were made.
I assume that any Quarts de Chaume producers who wish to continue to use cryoextraction after it has been phased out will be free to do so – they will just have to label their wines: Vin de France, vin moelleux de qualité.
