Coulée de Serrant: grapes in late September

Some fine notes here on The Wine Lovers Forum on a recent trip to the Loire in mid-October by Oswaldo Costa. Includes visits to René Mosse, Richard Leroy, Jo Pithon and Coulée de Serrant – very sorry to hear that Nicolas Joly apparently suffered a slight stroke recently and trust that he will soon be fully recovered.*   

Read the notes here. My thanks to Albertan Bob for informing me about this post.

Nicolas Joly

* Very pleased to hear from Nicolas that it was nothing serious:

'pas de probleme Jim , c'etait juste une petite protestation de l'organisme devant les avions, aeroport, et hotels plein de giga hertz par le WIFI . 
 

Il y a des tissus et des vetements qui protegent  totalement de ces frequences qui ne conviennent pas du tout a l'homme ( Steiner l'avait deja prevu  au debut du 2O eme siecle ...comme la vache folle du reste) je vais m'equiper !!!

Merci de ton mail

Nicolas'

The second and concluding part of Gary's interview with Nicolas Joly is now available:

'Gary Vaynerchuk and Nicolas Joly continue their discussion about wine philosophy while tasting 2 more intriguing Chenin Blancs.'

During the course of the interview Nicolas is strong on philosophy and theory but is interestingly vague when asked some specific questions like who else owns part of the La Roche-aux-Moines and who else do you think is making good wine in Savennières. To be fair Gary Vaynerchuk tends to be too quick to interrupt. Nicolas manages to remember that Pierre Soulez used to own part of the Roche aux Moines but fails to mention his neighbour, Madame Laroche, who he once took to court over the use of the name Roche aux Moines. Nor does he mention Claude Papin, who also has vines there.


Well worth reading in conjunction with Gary and Nicolas' chat is wine doctor Chris Kissack's updated profile of La Coulée de Serrant. Chris gives careful consideration to the divided opinions over the perceived quality of the estate's wines and looks at the wine-making methods used. It would be interesting to see what the results would be if someone like Noël Pinguet or Jean-Pierre Chevallier were put in charge of wine-making at La Coulée.

Nicolas with Ales Kristancic, remarkable maker of sparkling wine in Slovenia@St Johns, Smithfield, London for the Circle of Wine Writers annual dinner in 2006

This is well worth watching:

Gary Vaynerchukt (The Wine Connoisseur) interviews Nicolas Joly (on YouTube): 26 minute clip. Although I'm not sure that calling Nicolas a 'certifiable wine legend' was the happiest choice of words.