Château de la Roche en Loire

On a recent trip to the Loire Valley in France I had the opportunity to visit Château de la Roche en Loire. Our guide par excellence, Vincent Delaby, of Vinoloire had chosen this estate for our first visit. The owner, Loius-Jean Sylvos, uses Biodynamic methods to grow his grapes the wine is made with indigenous yeast and without additives.

The beautiful Château has a lot of history with the region having links to Joan of Arc. 

Bio-dynamically grown

 
The Loire Valley has developed a reputation for the number of vignerons having success making wine with little or no intervention. Anyone can attempt it but not everyone can pull it off. It requires a lot of dedication and being able to grow and handle the grapes with the utmost of care. 

I’ll have to say that Louis-Jean’s wines made me an advocate for natural wines. His Chenin Blanc is aged for two years in neutral oak with no sulfites added. That is remarkable. It was fresh, lively, full of flavor and the best white I have ever had that was produced naturally. His reds followed suit and were clean and delicious. No funky flavors, just pure expressive fruit. 

Louis-Jean produces wines from his Chenin Blanc in a variety of styles, a rosé from Grolleau along with reds from Cabernet Franc and Cot (Malbec). We don’t see much Loire Cot here in the US. There are also sparkling wines from Chenin and Grolleau. If I had room to bring them home I would have taken one of each. I chose this Cot. 

I’ll have to admit to some skepticism regarding “Natural Wine.” I have made wine for over 30 years and started making it the same way, no additives and with indigenous yeast. Most of the time it worked and the wine turned out fine. But over time I started realizing that the grapes were often treated with sulfites before shipment and they had usually been picked many weeks before being shipped. In other words, the grapes were not always at their best. Sometimes the grapes were refrigerated, sometimes not. Often boxes had lots of mold and plenty of raisins. Moldy grapes do not make good wine. I lost some batches because the yeast quit at 8% alcohol and the wine went bad. On other occasions the fermenting wine developed off aromas and flavors due to late sprays of sulfur just before harvest or the grapes were low in nitrogen and other nutrients. Racking alone did not always solve the problem and the recommended addition of copper sulfate made me nervous. I realized that going natural with some of these grapes did not make sense. I began using commercial yeast and adding nutrients to hopefully prevent problems. It worked. It made it easier to work with grapes that were less than perfect. 

Natural wine is not a fad. As more and more vignerons all over the world experiment with making wine naturally it will flourish. I have come to understand that if the grapes are grown with care and the winemaker has the skill and experience, natural wines need not be a risky proposition. I’d love to try it again with some of Louis-Jean’s grapes.