Pierre-Marie Luneau

Pays Nantais

The ban des vendanges was on Wednesday 24th August. La famille Luneau (Domaine Luneau-Papin, Muscadet Sèvre-et-Maine: Pierre, Monique, Pierre-Marie and Marie) will be starting at 8am on 30th August.

Anjou-Saumur

Picking the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for the Crémant de Loire, Anjou and Saumur Mousseux started on Tuesday 24th August.

Touraine

Big thunderstorm in the Cher Valley overnight. Lots of lightning with flashes continuing for a couple of hours. Some 15 mm (0.6 inches) rain recorded in Epeigné-les-Bois. More rain further east in the Cher – around 23/25mm at Mareuil, 32mm at Noyers-sur-Cher but only 15mm at Thésée and 9 at Saint-Julien-de Chédon. May well not be good news for the Gamay that tends to act like a sponge sucking up water and diluting the juice. A few showers continuing this morning, which feels decidedly autumnal. Fortunately the forecast for the next few days is better – sun and cloud and around 20˚C.

Jacky Blot's team (Domaine de la Taille aux Loups) carried out their first maturity checks on their grapes in Montlouis and Vouvray yesterday. I tasted the domaine's 2010s – Rémus and Clos Michet (Montlouis); Clos de la Bretonnière and Clos de Venise (Vouvray) that will be bottled in the next fortnight. All four cuvées looking very good – more akin to 2008 with precision and minerality than the richer 2009s.

Central Vineyards

Picking due to start in Reuilly and Quincy next week with Sancerre and Pouilly the following week – beginning of September.

Saumur and its château

Pour la 14ème année consécutive, la Maison Louis de Grenelle (Saumur) ouvre ses portes les samedi 4 et dimanche 5 décembre 2010...

Au programme

- Exposition d’art florale
- Découverte de la nouvelle Cuvée « L’Irrésistible 2010 » présentée par le Maître de Chai Guillaume Poitevin.
- Visites guidées du sous-sol de la ville où reposent plus de 3 millions de bouteilles.

Lors de ce week-end vous bénéficierez également de conseils personnalisés et de tarifs exceptionnels pour vos fêtes de fin d’année.

Vous pourrez déguster des Saumur Brut et Crémant de Loire, dans une ambiance chaleureuse et conviviale.

De nombreux lots seront à gagner…

Informations pratiques

Samedi 4 et dimanche 5 décembre 2010 de 10h - 19h.

Caves Louis de Grenelle à Saumur.

Entrée gratuite.

Informations :
CAVES LOUIS DE GRENELLE 839 rue Marceau
49400 SAUMUR
Tél. 02 41 50 17 63

email: grenelle@louisdegrenelle.fr

http://www.louisdegrenelle.fr/

Domaine de la Grange Crémant de Loire

We are back in the Loire for a brief overnight stay before heading down to Lozère for the weekend. Invited round to dinner by friends we started the evening with the attractively lemony and easy drinking Crémant de Loire from Domaine de la Grange in Bléré, which is a blend of Chenin and Chardonnay.

Modelling a Russian hat

Last evening there was a fairly spectacular sunset, although the camera rather exaggerates here both the contrast and intensity of the colours.

A modération of geese

 As is well known, Modération is now  the most popular name for pets in  France whether for cats, dogs, guineapigs or various tame birds including parrots. This ensures that the French people comply with the Loi Evin, consuming wine 'avec Modération'. It has also meant that few pets are now allowed out in the evening. 

Last Saturday night we had a group of friends over to dinner and we looked at a number of wines – not all the bottles were emptied.  

 Crémant de Loire, Domaine de la Grange

As we don't have a pet we have to use a moderation substitute – in this instance a modération of geese.We started with Bruno Curassier's Domaine de la Grange soft and creamy Crémant de Loire, which is a blend of Chenin & Chardonnay. Then moved onto one of our favourite fizzes – Triple Zéro from Jacky Blot, which did not disappoint.

Triple Zéro, La Taille aux Loups

1996 Vieilles Vignes, Chablis, Domaine Sainte Claire, Jean-Marc Brocard

Not from the Loire but not far away and a lovely bottle of wine – or rather a lovely magnum. Quite opulent evolved nose with some buttery honey with that typical aged character Chablis takes on – mousseron mushroom and still fresh in the finish. Went well with the warm salad of local goats' cheese, mushrooms – Paris and oyster – and lardons.

 Le Vilain P'tit Rouge, AC Touraine, Vincent Ricard

2004 is not a particularly easy vintage for red Loire – yields tended to be high after 2003 when there had been some frost and which was also the year of the heatwave. Le Vilain P'tit Rouge from Vincent Ricard and also in magnum was showing very well with soft, ripe black fruits and none of the unripe aromas – rooty and green pepper – that some 2004s have. Le Vilain worked well with a very good joint of beef – bought from a very good, new butcher near the Plough in East Dulwich, London SE22 – that we had brought over with us and served with individual Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes. 

2004 La Closerie, Touraine, Clos Roche Blanche

The onion gravy for the beef was made using a bottle of the 2004 Clos Roche Blanche La Closerie – probably better not to tell Catherine and Didier, although it was for a good cause. Like Le Vilain Le Closerie also tasted well – now softening out and properly ripe. 2004 is one of those years when the name of the producer is particularly important.     

Post to be completed

 

Poster@Langlois-Chateau

1 February 2010

Monday evening was spent down at Langlois-Chateau in St. Hilaire-St Florent (Saumur) for a vins clairs tasting and a rapid look at the new winery transforming the buildings that they bought a couple of years ago from Ackerman-Rémy Pannier.

In the cellars of Langlois-Chateau

 

One of the tasting stations: terroir Le Puy Notre Dame (Chenin)

François-Régis de Fougeroux (Langlois-Chateau)

 

Dinner: Elizabeth Ferguson (marketing manager Mentzendorff ) and Ray O'Connor (International Wine Challenge)

26 September 2009

A few scenes from the Touraine vineyards:
Inviting family and friends to pick is an increasing feature of the Touraine region, especially for part-time producers or those with a special parcel to pick. Over this weekend there were a number of groups of pickers out in the vines. This series of pictures comes from the vineyards of James Marchais in Epeigné-les-Bois. On this Saturday the team of pickers were cutting Cabernet Franc destined to be made into Crémant de Loire by the cooperative in Francueil. The regulations for Crémant required that the grapes are picked by hand.

Ready to pick Cabernet small bins out for picking Cabernet Franc for Crémant de Loire

Important to ensure that you are comfortable.........

Picking Cabernet Franc for Crémant de Loire@26th September 2009

Cabernet Franc

James preparing to pick up the boxes of harvested grapes

••

Antoine Simoneau with his 2009 Pinot Noir, which is still fermenting

We dropped into see the Simoneau family in Saint-Georges-sur-Cher. With Antoine I tasted various vats of Touraine Sauvignon in various stages of fermentation. All seemed promising – clean, good weight and a freshness in the finish – except for one vat with grapes that had been picked after the rain of around 16th September, which didn't have the same clean precision. My guess is that will be sold off to a négoce. We also tasted Antoine's 2009 Pinot Noir – the first time he has vinified a pure Pinot.

Domaine de la Haute-Clemenercie

It is curiously difficult to get statistics out of the Syndicat General des Crémants Vignerons Producteurs de Crémant de Loire – they seem to treat figures as state secrets.

Anyway here are some figures for the production of Loire sparkling wine in 2007 showing the production of Crémant finally taking the number one position from Saumur.

Crémant de Loire: 103,273 hls
Saumur Brut: 94,284
Vouvray: 76,955
Touraine: 27,754
Montlouis: 10,345
Anjou: 2942

Total 315,553 hls

Total production in bottles: 39,444,125.
The Loire's total sparkling wine production is only 11.5% of that of Champagne, where 338.7 million bottles of Champagne were produced in 2007. However, permitted yields in Champagne are substantially higher than they are in the Loire.

(23rd December 2008)

Fortunately we had booked because Le Pot was full. We kicked off with a coupe de Crémant de Loire Brut from Domaine des Varinelles, owned by the Daheuiller family and one Crémant de Loire Rosé from Domaine de la Petite Roche in Tremont, which is well to the south of Saumur. We were particularly impressed by the rosé.

The four of us enjoyed four good first courses: compote de lapin, onion soup, feuillette de champignons and oeufs en cocotte, the house speciality. With this we made a start on our rich and pruny 2005 Les Adrialys, Saumur-Champigny, Domaine Saint-Vincent from Patrick Vadé. As well as making good reds, Patrick’s Saumur Blanc is often impressive. The problem at Le Pot is that there is such a choice of interesting wines on the wine list that selection is not easy.



Patrick’s rich wine went particularly well with the deliciously tender biche aux girottes that two of took as well as the fine ris de veau à la crème that the other two took.

Profiteroles au chocolat followed by coffee completed an excellent meal. Le Pot de Lapin is great – just make sure you book, especially at lunchtime.

Bottles of Crémant de Loire rosé in the cellars of Langlois-Chateau

An article on the success of Loire sparkling wines in the Sunday edition of the Nouvelle Republique – unfortunately rather long on poetic gas and short on facts. The headline cites rapidly expanding sales but gives no details. An average price of 5-6 € in the supermarkets with 10€ as a maximum price virtually the only figures given along with praise for its rapport-qualité-prix.

With 5-6€ as an average price it is difficult to see how the producer makes much money or can afford to take the measures necessary to produce quality sparkling wine. Strip out sales tax at 19.6% and you come down close to 4€ on a 5€, include the retail’s margin, the cost of the bottle, capsule, cork and the minimum of nine months sur latte and how much is left to cover the base wine?

Furthermore the permitted yields for sparkling Saumur or Vouvray are significantly lower than the very generous yields allowed in Champagne. 65 hl/ha is permitted for Montlouis, Saumur, Touraine and Vouvray, while for Crémant de Loire it is only 50 hl/ha.

One of the tunnels in the cellars of Langlois-Chateau

Once you start looking at the price of the top Loire sparkling wines then the price is substantially higher than the 5-6€ supermarket average. A bottle of Bouvet-Ladubay’s Crémant de Loire is 9.98€ from their site, Langlois-Chateau’s is 11.40€ with Bouvet’s Cuvée Trésor at 14.50€.

One encouraging sign is that for the 2007/2008 campaign the sales of Crémant finally overtook those of appellations like Saumur and Vouvray. The Crémant de Loire appellation was created in 1975, so it has taken more than 30 years for it to become the established leading Loire sparkling wine appellation with its stricter rules – lower yields, hand picking into small cases, less juice allowed to be extracted from 100 kilos of grapes and a longer minimum time sur latte.

The Crémant appellations in Alsace and Burgundy date from the same time and here they replaced the existing sparkling wine appellations. With just one regional sparking wine appellation, this enabled Alsace and Burgundy to both increase the quality and communicate a coherent message to consumers.

The Loire ought either to have done the same or to have tightened up the regulations for the other appellations, which would have boosted quality and made it possible to give a more convincing message about the overall quality of Loire sparkling wines.