A Conversation with Pauline Mourrain

L’Austral - Pauline Mourrain & Laurent Troubat
France, Loire, Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame

Pauline Mourrain & Laurent Troubat have a few vintages under their belt now, having bottled their first as L’Austral in 2016. Following travels in Australia on different farms, and a winery on the south west coast, Pauline studied oenology in Burgundy before finishing her diploma at Domaine Melaric in Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame.

Whilst under the wing of Aymeric & Melanie, Pauline was introduced to the biodynamic pioneer Philippe Gourdon, due to retire and looking for young vignerons to lease his plots to, keeping young blood moving through the region. Philippe had campaigned hard in the 90’s to defend the Puy-Notre-Dame appellation, and despite retiring from winemaking, has remained an active and involved member of their community.

We’ve just received a top up of releases from L’Austral, so caught up with Pauline this week to talk about their new caves, adapting vinifications to climate and the joys of not having to sleep in the winery next harvest.

You sent some pictures of you guys lowering amphora into a cave, is that a new space you’ve moved to recently?

Yes very recent! We just moved from our old winery, to a new cellar dug into the Tuffeau here. It's just 5 minutes from our old one, but we’ve moved house too so we can live above the cellar.

Now we have caves, which we didn't really have before, they're so nice. They're going to be really useful. For fermentations they'll be perfect, everything will be in here. Our old winery did have some caves but they were too deep, the fermentations were always stop and start, it was so difficult for us. 

We had been looking for more vines so we started buying a bit of grapes, but with the new plot that we now own, we have enough- we won't need to be buying any more.
We have 6.5 hectares now, which is perfect for us, it means we can be in the vines, we can look after the vinification. We do this job to be in the vines, we don't want to just be managers. Maybe it will be different when we are 50! 

The new plot has been organic for 15 years, we've got Grolleau, Cab Franc, Chenin, Grolleau Gris- which we’ll use to make some white bubbles. It's nice, we have more varieties now. All between 4 to 80 years old, lots of variation, all on Tuffeau. They're all next to Aymeric & Melanie's vines at Melaric. 

We’ve got a top up of wines from 2017 & 2019 arriving, how were those vintages for you?

For us, 2019 was a bit between '17 and '18. '17 was a classic Loire vintage, and ‘18 was very hot; lots of rain in spring and very hot in summer, so we had grapes that were really ripe, really black fruit in the wines. 2017 we didn't have much rain in the spring, which can lead to tannins feeling harsher when the wine is young, so we had to wait to harvest, it wasn't perfect yet. 18 was very much the opposite, no tannins!

So 2019 was very elegant, like a classic Loire valley wine, but with mature grapes, the fruit is soft at first with really great structure and acidity.  2019 for me, was a very, very nice vintage, I love the 19's, they're really elegant. 

2020 though, was too hot. We picked very early, in the first week of September. When we started, in 2016 we picked our first block on the 5th of October. It's changed a lot.

When Philippe Gourdon used to work these plots he was always de-stemming everything. But with the climate change since we started, he suggested we have a go at doing whole-bunch because the grapes get so mature now. Philippe’s fruit was so much more vegetal, and this was the style too. With everything changing, we have to adapt to keep freshness and fruit.

2017 - AOC Saumur Le Puy-Notre-Dame - Manta

We worked with the plot Phillippe used to call 253 in 2016, but from 2017 changed the vilification and started to make Manta. These are 20 year old vines grown on our ‘tuffeau’ - chalk. 

It's a 50/50 mix of destemmed and whole bunch in the tank, in layers. It's a technique we picked up at Les Foulards Rouge in Roussillon, they were doing it with their Carignan & Syrah, and we loved the wine so much, we decided to try it in 17. It really worked, and we've made it the same way every year since. 

We don't extract a lot, it's more like an infusion, we just make sure to keep the cap wet. It has 15 days before pressing and then it ages in tank. It's juicy, easy drinking but not simple, it has complexity.

2019 - AOC Saumur - Octopus Rouge

When we moved to the new winery and house, it came with two hectares. In 2019 we really wanted to buy the place, but were a bit unsure we could do it, so we bought just the fruit that year, though it's our block now. That’s what we made Octopus with.

It's a 50/50 blend between 30 year old Grolleau and Cab Franc. Grolleau was fermented whole bunch in one tank, the Cab Franc was pressed directly into another. 

That's another trick we learned in the Roussillon, something Jean-Philippe Padié showed us he was doing to preserve freshness. We really like this wine, perfect for spring and summer, the spice in the Grolleau really comes through.

2019 - VDF - Jolie Brise Rosé

This was made with fruit purchased just 2 minutes from us here, from a friend called Thibault Masse, in the second year of organic conversion.
It’s 100% Cab Franc on Tuffeau also. 50% of the Cab Franc was pressed directly, and the other half had about a 3 day maceration to help with structure. It began fermentation in tank, finished in bottle and left about 3g of residual sugar. It’s just lovely, juicy pet nat, the 19 was really good.

There’s such a strong community among the growers in Puy-Notre-Dame, how does that translate into the day to day? 

There is a lot of helping each other, we're all very close, it's easy to work together. We’re never alone, we see Aymeric every day almost! We share the tractor, we share the harvest. We're very happy here. There's no competition, everyone is here to help one another, we share customers, share knowledge.

If people drink a lot of wine from Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame they'll discover how special a region it is. Aymeric is very passionate about that, he really pushes the movement for discovering our location.

Working with Aymeric & Melanie was a real revelation, I learned so much from them, it was just fascinating. I finished my diploma in 2015, and we did our first vintage as L'Austral in 2016. Aymeric said Philippe was stopping, and thought we’d want to take some of the vines. We're not from families with vineyards so we had to jump at the opportunity!
Laurent didn't do a diploma, he just learnt on the job, in the vines. There's so much help round here for us.

Françoise and Philippe, and then Aymeric & Melanie have been so encouraging of the younger generation, do you feel like you & Laurent will be passing that torch on too?

We're trying to do the same, to keep that spark!
With our new plot, we could have 11 hectares of vines, but we decided instead to rent a few hectares to two new young winemakers, Charlotte & Fred. They also interned with Aymeric.

It's important to have new people here, it's vital for the collective community.  It's a real movement from Aymeric. Phillippe believed so much in the Puy-Notre-Dame terroir, he generated so much momentum at the beginning that it's all of our work now to keep that spirit going. 

With your new location, do you have any plans for the future you’ll be able to start getting in place now?

The important thing for us is that in our new caves the temperature is so perfect for the wines, for the fermentations. When you work without chemicals, the temperature is the big thing- to have stable temperatures is very important.

In the vines, there's a possibility in the future to plant some trees around the borders of our plots, to help with the temperature in the vineyards, to keep the birds, improve biodiversity. We've got two blocks without vines, and Aymeric has some horses and sheep now, they're living in those plots at the moment! 

We have a lot of collective things to do around here, all of our vineyards are in the same location really so there's a lot of things to do together. I'm looking forward to getting to know our new plots, to see what works, what we'll need to improve. 

Now that we have the house in the same place, it's really perfect. We were living 5-10 minutes by bike before, which isn't far, but the winery wasn't insulated and we were working a lot by night, so there was a lot of back and forth, back and forth. The first vintage we had our kid, we were sleeping in the winery during harvest!

It's a happy memory, but I'm looking forward to having our home here this time. 

Now In Stock

Sparkling

2019 - VDF - Jolie Brise Rosé - Cab Franc

Red

2019 - AOC Saumur - Octopus Rouge - Grolleau/Cab Franc
2017 - AOC Saumur - Le Puy-Notre-Dame - Manta - Cab Franc

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What's He Building In There?

Les Chants Jumeaux - Mathieu L’Hotelier
France, Loire, Nantes

Making wine in an isolated shed with a loose-straw floor (or a borrowed beach on occasion) Mathieu L’Hotelier has a singular approach that yields wild, delicious results. One of our favourite characters in the Loire, he certainly keeps us on our toes.

After a little rest we are releasing two new cuvees from his 2019 vintage, a field blend and a Chenin Blanc.

Originally from Brittany, Mathieu worked with Marc Pesnot in Saint-Julien-de-Concelles for 4 years before heading east up the river to the village of Montrelais to strike out on his own in 2012. Montrelais used to have 300 hectares of vines planted, and now the village has 2.5. Matt farms most of them, treated with local plants: nettle, comfrey, horsetail and willow.

He chose the region as he wanted his wines to channel the energy of the sea, a sense of being back home. It was his salty, sea-kissed Chenin we first fell in love with in the early days of Under The Bonnet.

Matt is embedded in Nantes’ experimental music community, and his twin passions overlap pretty regularly. On our first visit to see Mathieu in 2015 his tiny winery was illuminated with strings of flashing lights, fibreglass tanks wrapped in foil, and an endless loop of stuttering electronics ‘singing to the wines’ from a rigged amplifier in the corner.

A return visit saw us given a tour of musician/sculptor Pierre Gordeeff’s ‘Built From Scratch Apparatus’ that had been constructed in one of the sheds at Mathieu’s old squat. An intricately tangled mass of cables and mechanised found-objects, capable of absolute cacophony, or more musical rhythms.

Mathieu makes wine like this musique-concrete he loves: he takes what he’s given, works in the moment, improvises based on a combination of intuition and knowledge, and when pressed for information on his processes is a little bewildered as to why anyone would want to know how he got there. ‘The wine speaks for itself’

Recent vintages though have not been kind to Mathieu, with some vintages wiped out by frost, hail, or problems in the cellar. We’re thrilled then that 2019 saw an upturn in luck for Matt, and he’s been able to produce good quantities from a beautiful vintage, confident this year to bottle without any sulphur, as he would always prefer.

Rouge 2019 is a blend of 7 varieties, Gamay is de-stemmed and macerated for 3 weeks, while the rest of the blend (Grolleau, Cab Franc, his hybrid varietals) undergo between 3 days to 3 weeks of whole bunch maceration depending on the varietal- Matt couldn’t pin down which. He presses the reds, and tops up the juice with a fresh harvest of Chenin, and allows it to continue fermentation in fibreglass for 6 months. Bottled in June 2020.

The 2019 Chenin has one of Mathieu’s signature soft, manual fourteen hour presses. It’s a technique he learnt with his friend JC Garnier, extracting the juice gently and adding a hint of that honeyed, toasty oxidative quality to the wine. Aged simply in fibreglass, before bottling in June 2020.

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Pierre Gordeeff’s ‘Built From Scratch Apparatus’

Anjou Glad You Called?

Domaine Les Goelands - Philippe Delmee
France, Loire, Anjou

We’re lucky to work with a brace of amazing growers across that special pocket of the Loire: Anjou. Home-turf for the majority of the Cabernet Franc we import, we’re still surprised at the variations from grower to grower.

Threatening to trip clumsily into ‘dogs who look like their owners’ territory here, but Cab Franc is a grape that really can reflect the personality of its handler. No surprise then that Philippe Delmee’s expressions have a sense of play, with an underlying serious edge.

In addition to the Grolleau and Chenin planted in Faye d’Anjou, Phil’s Cabernet Franc is spread over five hectares of closely knit plots around Faveryae-Machelles; all planted on poor sand and schist soils.

We’ve just received his three different expressions of Cab Franc from this one small region, each bringing another side to the table.

Oppidum Rouge 2018

“The plot for this new single vineyard cuvee is about 5 hectares, it's on the site of an old oppidum- a Roman camp from when they occupied Gaul. It's a mix of de-stemmed cabernet franc and whole bunch cab franc, fermented using semi-carbonic maceration.”

A softer, ripe blackcurrant-packed cuvee. The label is a nod to how they would’ve enjoyed wine at the oppidum. No amphora here!

Ca Faye Douze 2019

“Like always, this is whole-bunch, carbonic Cabernet Franc. There's a little gas this year because I bottled it with around 1 gram of sugar, so there is a brief fermentation in the bottle after. No sulphites added.”

Beautiful this year: fresh, crunchy, and with that friendly little spritz to kick things off. This is perfect bistro wine: bring me a plastic tablecloth, paté and baguette please. Empties very quickly.

Les Vieux de la Vielle 2017

“Part de-stemmed cabernet franc, using semi-carbonic maceration. A mix of whole and broken berries, a very gentle maceration overall. The tank I used for fermentation is a new open-top wooden one, it's in there for 8 days, very short. But it's very good!”

A stylistic shift for Philippe this year, fermented and aged in wood, which he usually reserves for his whites. A deeper, more complex expression than Ca Faye Douze & Oppidum.

We have limited quantities of these at the moment, but if all goes to plan on the roads of Anjou, more will be arriving in the next couple of weeks. Phil doesn’t own a forklift, and having just sent one pallet to us, he’s busy shuttling the next one car load by car load, up the road to his friends at Le Grange Aux Belles to be shipped out soon.

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Friends from Saumur

Mélaric / L' Austral / Folle Berthe / Château Tour Grise

Phillippe Gourdon

Aymeric and Melanie

Pauline and Laurent

David Foubert

Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame, Loire, France

Our friends from Saumur all have something in common: They are connected through Phillippe Gourdon (Château Tour Grise) - a pioneer in biodynamic farming. After Phillippe retired they have started renting off bits of his vineyard to new, younger generation winemakers in an attempt to keep the blood flowing in Saumur. So, what's the story?

Melanie Hunin, from Paris, and Aymeric Hillaire, from Saumur, established Domaine Melaric (a weaving of their names) in 2006 at the Chateau de Baugé, near the village of Puy-Notre-Dame. In 2008, they purchased four hectares of vineyards in Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame with advice from Philippe Gourdon.

Laurent and Pauline (Domaine L'Austral) worked for one year as engineers in France but were not very happy stuck in front of a computer. They travelled and worked in Australia in different farms and in a winery on the west coast. Pauline then studied in Burgundy to become an enologist. During her first internship, Pauline worked with Melaric who introduced them to Françoise and Philippe Gourdon in Le Puy-Notre-Dame, who in turn had vines to lease.

David Foubert (Domaine Folle Berthe), formerly a Parisien journalist, moved to Saumur for a life change and to study winemaking. Aymeric and Melanie have been a key influence; Melanie was David’s teacher at winemaking school, and David’s first vintage in 2014 was made in their cellar. David moved into his own – once-abandoned but now lovingly restored – cellar in 2015. He now farms a mix of parcels leased from Philippe. 

Château Tour Grise

Phillippe's eight-hectare vineyard is made up of six hectares of Cabernet Franc and one each of Chenin Blanc and Pineau D’Aunis. It has been entirely biodynamic since 1998, a crucial status for Phillippe, who wants to create wines that express a true sense of their terroir. In the vineyard life flourishes; the grass remains long and wild all summer long; the vines remain untrimmed and are treated with various special herbal tea preparations of nettles, presses and willows to keep sickness at bay.

The weather systems coming in off the Atlantic are forced upwards by the Mauges hills to the west of Anjou. This causes a rain shadow which gives Saumur more of a continental climate. Le-Puy – being practically the most southerly point – averages less than 200mm/year. The elongated growing season this allows enables the wines to achieve ripeness.

 

Wines now in stock

Domaine Mélaric

NEW 2016 Billes de Roches  - Chenin
Some serious Chenin, soft balanced use of oak. Lean and tense.

NEW  2011 Liquoreux de la Cerisaie  - Chenin   
Powerful, intense and deep with a spicy, savoury edge to the concentrated raisin and marmalade flavours. Incredible concentration and notes of straw, herb and syrup. 


Domaine Folle Berthe

2016 Petit Berthe  - Pineau d'Aunis
Bright, showing just a touch of development. Slightly more body than Pineau d'Aunis from more northerly vineyards, still with characteristic redcurrant fruit and a white pepper finish.

Domaine L' Austral

NEW 2017 Manta  - Cab Franc 
Whole grape vatting. Alcoholic fermentation in indigenous yeasts, nine-month ageing in concrete eggs.

NEW 2017 Jolie Brise Blanc - Chenin 
Direct pressing, alcoholic fermentation in indigenous yeasts. Beginning of the alcoholic fermentation in the tank, finishing in the bottle.

NEW 2017 Jolie Brise Rosé - Cab Franc  
Direct pressing for half of the grapes and short maceration (about three hours) for the other half. This is what gives the intense colour and structure in the mouth. Alcoholic fermentation in indigenous yeasts, beginning of the alcoholic fermentation in vats, finishing in the bottle.

2016 - Cuvee 253 - Cab Franc 
Planted in 2002-03. Manual harvest, Destemmed. Maceration for 60 days – infusion only, indigenous yeasts, aged nine months in concrete eggs.

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