(This is continues a debate started on the comment section of my post on my questions to Domaine Baumard. Rather than make a lengthy comment I have chosen to post both Jackie's comment and my response.)  

From Jacqueline Friedrich

Jim.  This is a very thorny issue. It's not the first time the Baumards have been put on the firing line. I hope to address the issue more fully in my book. It would take much too long for me to get into all the details here.

I'm sure I don't have to tell you how gossipy and nasty vignerons can be about their neighbors and I'm pretty sure I've been shown the Baumard vineyards by the same people who directed you to them.

You seem to be able to get to Anjou with some frequency. Might I suggest you make an appointment with Jean and Florent and ask the questions about cryoextraction, vignes larges, and the opposition to the Chaume classification in person? (I might just point out here that IMHO the original decret making Chaume a Grand Cru was truly ill-conceived and it was inevitable that someone in Baumard's position would challenge it.

(For the record Jackie's original comment and my response on the earlier Baumard post:

'Jim, I think it's useful to point out that Domaine des Baumard has been making superb Quarts de Chaume for a long time and in many vintages predating cryoextraction. Jackie.'

*

Jackie. I agree and I do say that I have admired their wines in the past. I also made this point in a previous post and that they have won a number of awards with their Quarts de Chaume.

It still, however, doesn't answer the question whether these vines meet the regulations for Quarts de Chaume and indeed whether Quarts de Chaume produced by cryoextraction should be given the appellation. The Quarts de Chaume producers have recently decided that in future it shouldn't.

Jim 



Link here to the post and the comments.

**

The debate is about yields and overcropping not about vignes larges etc.

Above Domaine Baumard: Quarts de Chaume: 26.9.2010

Chenin destined for Anjou Blanc: Saint Melanie-sur-l'Aubance: 27th September 2010

Bunch in the Coteaux de l'Aubance: 28th September 2010

Jacqueline.

Thanks again for your comment, although I entirely reject the suggestion that my reporting has anything to do with ‘gossipy and nasty vignerons’. I have reported I hope fairly on what I saw. In any case I thnk the photos tell their own story.

I looked at a representative range of the vines in the Quarts de Chaume on Sunday 26th September and returned briefly on Tuesday 28th to have a further look.

I have just spent three weeks in the Loire travelling from the Pays Nantais to Pouilly-sur-Loire and have spent this time looking at vineyards and at the grapes coming into the wineries.  I consider that it is essential for me to spend several weeks during the harvest and only wish that I could have spent more than three weeks.

So I went to the Quarts de Chaume as part of this exercise. I also went because  as the Syndicat was meeting on Monday 27^th to discuss cryoextraction as well as take other decisions such as limiting the weight of grapes that each vine carries to further bolster the credibility of the Quarts de Chaume. I wanted to look again at the topography and at how the vintage was shaping up.

As you can see from the photos the grapes on the Baumard vignes larges are dramatically different from those of their neighbours and of other vines belonging to Domaine Baumard in the Quarts de Chaume. Indeed having looked at Chenin in various parts of Anjou (26^th-28^th September) I saw nothing like those on the Baumard terraces.

This has nothing to do with the vignes larges controversy. This is to do with over-cropping in a prestigious appellation and nothing to do as far as I’m concerned whether there are 3000 vines or 8000 vines  per hectare. I’m not a viticulturalist but I can recognise a mass of green and unripe grapes and see how different they are to those in neighbouring plots.

Do you consider that top quality Quarts de Chaume can be produced naturally at these cropping levels? 

I assume that yields can be moderated on vignes larges, bunches thinned and well-ventilated as is increasingly the norm in Anjou and other parts of the Loire Valley. Properly tended I assume that quality Quarts de Chaume can be produced naturally with this style of vine.  

As I have said several times I have been an admirer of the wines of Florent Baumard and indeed supported his brave decision to opt for screwcaps. I was utterly astonished and, indeed saddened, by what I saw on the terraces that Sunday. Particularly astonished since Jean Baumard has written a book about the Quarts de Chaume and taken court action over Chaume on two occasions. Given this I assumed that the Baumard vines would be impeccable. As you can see from the photos they weren’t.

I hope to see Florent Baumard at least at the Salon des Vins de Loire if not before, although I’m sorry that he has so far chosen not to respond to my questions, which I consider to be fair and relate specifically to overcropping and not to vignes larges, cryoextraction/cryosélection or to Chaume.  

I suspect, however, that given recent decisions taken by the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume to require an average of 18% potential and to limit the weight of fruit on the vignes larges to 2.5 kilos per vine will mean considerable changes here for the domaine. Short term such changes may be painful, difficult and expensive but long-term I suspect that Baumard's Quarts de Chaume will be better and more reflective of their terroir. 

This debate also raises wider questions over the relationship between terroir and technology, which I intend to air in another post.

Santé Jim.    

17th October: In the light of further comment here is a review of a 1969 Clos Sainte-Catherine made by Jean Baumard.  

 

Domaine Baumard:  large bunches of green grapes: 28th September 2010

For a number of years Le Domaine des Baumard has been an ardent advocate of cryoextraction or cryosélection as Jean Baumard, Président d'Honneur de la Fédération Viticole de l'Anjou, prefers to call it. The Baumards have been allowed to use cryoextraction for their Quarts de Chaume. However, on the 27th September 2010 the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume decided by an overwhelming majority that cryoextraction will no longer be permitted in the Quarts de Chaume.

A visit to the Quarts de Chaume on 26th September demonstrated why Domaine Baumard may have found cryoextraction such an attractive option, at least for some of their vines. I was utterly staggered to see by crop load and the greenness of the grapes on Baumard's vignes larges (widely spaced vines), having no inkling that the Baumard vines and grapes would be so radically different from those elsewhere in this prestigious appellation – ('Cette AOC se classe parmi les terroirs d’exception' – Interloire).

Indeed as I have previously admired this domaine and its wines I assumed that theirs would be very similar to those of the other producers in the Quarts de Chaume. How wrong I was!

Domaine Baumard: a mass of large, green bunches and dark green foliage (above and below)

Up to 20 bunches on a vine

Large bunches of green grapes

Domaine Baumard: the dark green rows in the middle are the domaine's 'vignes larges' planted on terraces. Their dark green foliage is in marked contrast with neighbouring vines

Other vines and grapes in the Quarts de Chaume (photos taken the same afternoon):

Noble rot already starting to develop

Widely spaced well ventilated, small bunches of much riper fruit

Much lighter foliage

A stark contrast, indeed! It is difficult to see how the grapes on the Baumard terraces (pictured above) could be used to make Quarts de Chaume without the aid of cryoextraction.

**

Following my visit to the Quarts de Chaume I put four questions to Domaine Baumard. 

a) Are the terraces entirely used for Quarts de Chaume or are the vines that are heavily loaded normally used for Anjou Blanc or another appellation?  

b) Will they all be used for the 2010 Quarts de Chaume or will any heavily loaded vines be declassified?

c) The vineyards of the Quarts de Chaume are subject to a ‘contrôle « à la parcelle » des conditions de production’. Have the vines on your terraces been inspected by the INAO this year and did they consider that your vines met the ‘conditions de production’?

d) From 2011 grapes destined for Quarts de Chaume must have an average potential alcohol of 18%. In order to meet this new requirement will you need to make any changes to the way that your vines on the terraces are managed? Or will you be seeking to overturn the Syndicat’s decision through the courts?

As yet I have received no answers from Domaine Baumard, only an email from Jean Baumard complaining that I had made a 'furtive' visit to their Quarts de Chaume vineyard and that my questions were akin to police questionning and that he had never been asked such questions by a journalist before.

Since Domaine Baumard benefit from the high reputation of the Quarts de Chaume appellation, I think these four questions are entirely reasonable. After all Jean Baumard has already been to court twice to defend the Quarts de Chaume's prestige against the ambitions of neighbouring Chaume and appears to be threatening to go to court again if the INAO accept the proposal to make Quarts de Chaume a grand cru and Chaume a premier cru.

While Domaine Baumard has every right to ignore my questions, I hope they will provide a response.

See previous posts about cryoextraction and the Quarts de Chaume here, here and here.

Florent Baumard with his screwcapped Clos de Papillon, Savennières: Salon des Vins de Loire 2006

Sunday's posting on the tyranny of French sommeliers has provoked considerable comment – the closure debate is far from over! So I thought it was timely to post a news item I wrote for decanter.com back in February 2006 that covered Florent Baumard's brave move to opt for screwcaps.

Top Loire wines go into screwcap: (9th February 2006)

'One of the best estates in the Loire has sent shock waves through the wine establishment by moving its entire production to screwcap.

Domaine des Baumard in Anjou, recently selected by Robert Parker as one of only three Loire producers to qualify for inclusion in his book The World's Greatest Wine Estates, is the first top quality Loire producer to opt for screwcaps.

At this week's Salon des Vins de Loire, Florent Baumard unveiled his Clos du Papillon Savennières 2003 and Quarts de Chaume 2004 in stelvin.

Until now only a few of the larger Loire producers like Vinival/LaCheteau, part of Les Grands Chais de France, and Allliance Loire have chosen screwcaps and only for their cheaper ranges.

Baumard is using the new high quality Stelvin. This closure has only recently become available and is designed to look more like a traditional closure than screwcap. 'From next year all of my production will go into screwcap,' Florent Baumard told decanter.com.

Reaction to Baumard's move was mixed. Many producers like Eric Morgat (Château du Breuil), Stephan Branchereau (Domaine des Forges) and Michel Villedey (Langlois-Chateau) were interested by the move, and described the new closure as 'classy'.

Others, like Henry Marionnet, were aghast at the idea of two of the Loire's most renowned wines going under screwcap.
(from decanter.com)