Grapefruit from Granite

Rémi Sédès
France, Nantes, Coteaux d’Ancenis

When we spoke with Rémi in January, he was excited to soon be bottling his 2020 Samplemousse, confirming it was tasting 'tres,tres,tres,tres,tres bon'.

2020 had gone- in contrast to the rest of the world- very smoothly in Ancenis. Yeast populations were healthy, fermentations had been fast, and the wines were tasting excellent.

Whilst 2021 started off with great promise, nature had a different plan. Over a series of consecutive sub-zero nights last week, Remi battled to save what he could of the nascent vintage. It's too early for Remi to tell how bad the damage is, whether a second bud break will be viable, but he's already looking at 50% losses. 

Even if he's able to retain half of the buds, things look to be difficult for the rest of the season. The stresses of a major frost to the vine can compromise the amino acids in the juice, leading to fermentation issues and potentially increasing the risk of mousiness compromising the final wine. 

Whether or not we'll see a Samplemousse next year then is to be determined, so we'll be enjoying this one all the more whilst it lasts!

Remi's grapefruit driven rosé is pressed from Gamay grown on micro-granite, yielding that aromatic, pithy citrus. Remi's work with the rosé is as delicate as possible to retain the signature aromatics. It shows.

Now In Stock

ROSE

NEW - 2020 - VDF - Samplemousse - Gamay

"The Samplemousse rosé is a direct pressing of whole bunches at a cold temperature (5-6°c) to keep the freshness of the grapes, the juiciness, and to avoid oxidation of the aromas. The fresher the juice the less oxygen dissolves into the wine. The pressing is gentle and long (about 2 to 3 hours) the juice is moved to tank by gravity to avoid pumping and damaging the aromas.

Fermentation starts naturally but gently since the juice has a temperature of 6°c. This helps express each characteristic of the indigenous yeasts, different populations start working as the wine reaches another temperature through fermentation. The wine finishes its alcoholic and malolactic fermentation, and is slowly decanted to clear itself.
Taking advantage of the cold winter, I bottled at the end of February, keeping the gas from the fermentation to retain freshness and those delicate fermentation aromas.
That's how it happened, the simplest way in the world!"

RED

2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis -Cuvée Noé- Gamay
2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis -Trait Gamay- Gamay

Vincent Alexis Discusses O'Ranch & Introduces Les Gaules De Bois

Chateau Barouillet - Vincent Alexis
France, Bergerac & Monbazillac in Pomport

Vincent Alexis is the eighth generation winemaker at Chateau Barouillet, responsible for 45 hectares that straddle both sides of the river Dordogne, 120km inland from Bordeaux. He joined his Father in 2010, first taking 6 hectares on as his ‘organic project’.
3 years later, with Vincent at the helm, all 45 hectares were certified organic. Now, ten years since he joined full time, biodynamic certification is on the cards for the whole operation.

Whilst upholding the reputation his dad and the generations before him have established, Vincent maintains an attitude of experimentation and a garage sensibility when it comes to new cuvees, excited into action with the encouragement of his right hand man, Romuald Cousy.

We caught up with Vincent to discuss two new wines that have just landed, and his struggle through the scorched 2020 harvest.

How are you today Vincent?
I’m fine, I’ve just been working out allocations for next year actually. We were not able to make much wine in 2020. But, I’m feeling good, we have good things ahead, and this year you’ve just received O’Ranch, which is my favourite orange wine we’ve made I think!

This is the first year we’ve been able to get some, what can you tell us about this one?
With this one, we really found a way to make our own style of orange wine.
We picked just half a hectare for O’Ranch. We harvest Ondenc and Muscadelle, two local grape varieties, and Chenin Blanc. All three are picked together and macerated together in amphora, for three months of skin contact. All the fermentations, alcoholic and malolactic are done with the skin contact.

We don't do any punchdowns or any pump overs, we let it go! Of course we try it and taste it a lot because we have to find the right moment to dig it out. That's one of the keys I think to have something really aromatic, but with not too much tannin. I don't like my orange wine too tannic. I think we found the right moment in 2019 to dig it out.

Everything is made by hand, the artisanal way. We dig it out all with a bucket! We don't even press it in a real press, we just push the grapes into a little grille, by hand, over a bucket. It's very slow! That way we keep the juice and extract very little tannin.

Another first for us, we’ve just received the Ambitio from your Les Gaules De Bois project - can you tell us about that project and the Ambitio?
This is a project I started in 2018 with Romuald Cousy, who works with me at Barouillet.
We wanted to make the light, easy drinking wines we love to drink, but are hard to produce in our region. We planned to visit other regions, and make wine with their grapes, back at our place. The 2019 became a 50/50 blend of Gamay & Merlot.

We went to Beaujolais, to buy Gamay from Jean Francois Dubourg, an organic winemaker in South Beaujolais. We got there early, about 7 o'clock in the morning, after a 4 hour drive, had picked everything and loaded the van by 11, and it was all in the tank by 4 that afternoon! It had a week of carbonic maceration. We really enjoyed the wine, it was really light, but we thought it could be a bit hard for people to understand, so we decided to make the blend.

Romuald used to have his own vineyards nearby in Duras, which he decided to stop as things became a bit complicated for him. 2019 was his last vintage from those vines. He made some destemmed Merlot, with just one or two punchdowns at the beginning of the ferment, but it was still really full bodied.

The Merlot had been aged for a year in old barrels, and the Gamay for a year in stainless steel. When they came together, it worked really really well, it has a lovely balance.
We added just 10 milligrammes of sulphur per litre before bottling, and that’s all we did with this one!

And the plan is to keep changing where you source the grapes each year?
Yeah we want to keep Les Gaules De Bois small, and to just build on relationships with winemakers. So in 2020 we went to the Alsace to pick Pinot & Riesling, then to Minervois in the South of France to pick Grenache. We’re hopefully making also a rose pet nat, and we’ve made another orange wine with Sauvignon Blanc from Duras, with one year of whole bunch maceration. It’s quite strange, really interesting.

How long has Romuald worked with you at Barouillet?
We met 10 years ago. He came to do work experience whilst he was studying, and then worked with us full time for two years before he started work in his own vineyard. He had his vines from 2016 to 2019, and then came back to Barouillet to be my right hand guy! It’s been amazing to have him helping out, we’ve been able to do so much more exciting stuff. 

Thanks to him, we’ve been able to turn to biodynamics. We’ve been working biodynamic since October, we made our first spraying of preparation 501, that kind of thing. Hopefully, by 2022 all the vineyards will be certified biodynamic. We’re super proud of it, it’s a rush to be there, to have all 45 hectares biodynamic.

You said you’ve been unable to make much wine in 2020, was it the heat for you, like others?Yeah, when we harvested the whites, the weather was okay, not too dry, the soil was not too dry. So the alcohol degree on the whites is correct, but on the red it increased really fast. Not what we were after! We had some Merlot with about 17% potential alcohol! We’ve had to blend in some whites but the red we are able to produce this year will be low. We’ve made a little more white, and orange. In 2019 we made 15 hectolitres of orange wine, which we’ve increased in 2020 to about 21 to 22 hectolitres.

Did you have to pick earlier?
We've tried to but lots of the grapes were not good. They were really tannic and still tasting green, not ripe enough. So we picked things at maturity and had to blend in the white. The Cabernet Sauvignon, which is quite late normally, we were able to pick earlier. We’ve been able to use that to balance the high alcohol of the Merlot.

We didn’t have any rain, from the middle of July to October. Through August, the heat was 40 degrees nearly everyday. It was terrible. Terribly dry, and hot. We had a lot of sunburn on the grapes, lots without even any juice. So yeah, it was really complicated.

I’m the eight generation here, and it’s crazy how early we have to pick now. We started harvest for Splash on August 14th, and harvest continued until October 10th, so we finished very early, for us. My Father used to start picking in November!

We’ve actually torn up some vines that were just not good enough, and are watching some new ones that will hopefully give more yields in the future. We’ve lost about 40% of the harvest. I’m hoping this will be the smallest a vintage ever gets. We were able to just make about 16 hectolitres per hectare which for us, is very small.

But, I’m excited for the future, the new vines are looking good, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how the biodynamic practices express themselves in the wines. I’m really missing the wine fairs this year though. Travelling to meet people, to see you guys. It’s nice to have this extra time in the vineyards, but I really do miss the travel, that chance to try new stuff with the winemakers.

NEW IN STOCK

NEW - 2019 - VDF - Gaules de Bois - Gamay, Merlot

NEW - 2019 - VDF - O'ranch - Ondenc, Muscadelle, Chenin

For wholesale price lists please email hello@winesutb.com

Following The Line: Gamay & Ploughing with Rémi Sédès

Rémi Sédès
France, Nantes, Coteaux d’Ancenis

Like the beloved Shire horses he uses in the vineyards, Remi Sedes likes to take things slowly. For him, his work as a winemaker is as much a lifestyle choice as a profession. He relishes his time outside, and avoids working with machines. As he puts it; he might as well get a job in a factory listening to machinery if he were to sit driving a tractor around the vineyard all day.

Hailing from the Jura, he studied agronomy when he arrived in the area to live closer to his wife's family in Nantes. He earned his white stripes with Vincent Caillé, followed with a brief stint in Bordeaux to grapple with reds, before setting up to take things at his own pace in 2013.

Speaking to him in the early days of the pandemic, he was thankful for the opportunity to slow down further. "Actually, I like the way things are now. There is a lot less speed and stress, people have slowed down. I can concentrate better on my work in the vineyard and I feel calmer overall."

It's in character then that Remi prefers not to rush his wines to market, and has just released his 2018 Gamay; Cuvees Noe & Trait. 

Rémi is a Gamay specialist, and this was a key factor in choosing to work in Ancenis, north-east of Nantes. The soil is micro granite - which suits Gamay particularly well - with a mix of clay, sand and limon underneath. Gamay is vigorous, and the acidity in these soils help to reduce yields.

Remi takes Gamay very seriously, his have real structure and finesse. The approach changed a little in 2018, being the year he felt confident to give sulphur the boot, and decided to soften the edges of his reds.

What can you tell us about 2018 Remi?

"That summer I had to put up a big fight against mildew due to loads of rain, that’s what I was worried about the entire time. But, the harvest ended up really good, the mildew didn't affect the buds. The year before our yields had been so low, things really bounced back for 2018. It ended up as a very good year, in terms of quantity and maturity."

"For the Gamay in '18, I wanted shorter macerations - just 15 days on the Trait Gamay while for Noé the maceration was 3-4 weeks. They were bottled without sulphur in May 2019.”

How is your mare, Tocade getting on? When we last spoke you were hopeful there might be a successor?

"Tocade is well, she is pregnant! She will hopefully give birth in May. This autumn we had to plough the vines with a very good plough I found back home in the Jura, it did a great job. So I'm happy."

How was the rest of 2020?

"We’d had a very rainy winter in 2019, which was unusual here but great for the soil to build up water reserves for the hotter months that came in 2020. We had a very hot summer, 37, 38 degrees celsius. But the vines had drunk well over winter and it ended up being a very easy year for them. The fermentations went very smoothly. 

I'll actually be bottling the 2020 rose next month and it is tasting very, very, very, very, very good!"

NOW IN STOCK

2019 - Muscadet Côteaux De La Loire - Michto - Melon de B - 12.78

NEW 2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis - Cuvée Noé - Gamay - 12.78

NEW 2018 - Coteaux d’Ancenis - Trait Gamay - Gamay - 13.25

For wholesale price lists please email hello@winesutb.com

Gamay Galore: Remi Sedes

Rémi Sédès
France, Nantes, Coteaux d’Ancenis

Hailing from the Jura, Rémi studied agronomy when he arrived in the area to live with his Nantes-born wife. He worked for a couple of years with Vincent Caillé, and then spent time honing his red winemaking skills in Bordeaux before setting up on his own in 2013. Rémi started with a plot of 20-year-old isolated vines that he leases from local biodynamic ‘grandfather’ Jacques Caroge. In 2017 he added a small parcel of Melon and Chardonnay.

Part of winemaking for Rémi is a lifestyle choice; he wants to work outdoors, in the fresh air, and not with machines – his Shire horses are an important part of his winemaking process.

Rémi is a Gamay specialist, and this was a key factor in choosing to work in Ancenis – where half of production in the area is red. In the cellar Rémi works with minimal use of sulphur (only sometimes added on bottling).

Our chat with Rémi (May 4, 2020):

How has the pandemic affected you so far: Which challenges have you been facing? What became easier?
It's true that this year everything is different with the current situation, but for me personally, not much has changed. Actually, I like the way things are now. There is a lot less speed and stress, people have slowed down. I can concentrate better on my work in the vineyard and I feel calmer overall.
I find that working in agriculture I'm often under pressure placed on me by the outside world for various reasons, and now that most people were forced to stop what they are doing and stay at home, a big weight was lifted. I'm working by myself so it is not always easy to do it all at the same time.

Did the recent weeks also have an economical impact on you?
To be honest, it hasn't been too bad. About 30% - 40% of my wines go to Japan, which continued as usual. The UK seems to be doing well, as well as certain retailers in France. The current amount of orders suits me as I'd also like to keep some wines here on the side to let them age a bit further. Money wise, it is enough for me to live off so I'm happy. It is not enough to hire an additional person to help me out, but that is something for the future. Overall, I'm stable.

And climate wise, how has this year been so far for you and what are you predicting for this year's harvest?
We've had a very rainy winter. which is unusual here but it is great for the soil to build up water reserves for the hotter months to come. During the previous years the winters were quite dry, which led to the soil to dry up fast and made work very difficult.
We didn't have any frost, so that is also great. Now we just need to wait and see how the summer months will go, but overall I have the feeling it will be a great year with some really good results.

Are there any particular projects you are working on at the moment?
Yes, I am pursuing the goal of expanding my work with horses. Trocade, my Shire horse, will hopefully have a baby. She is getting old so it would be great to have a successor. I have more friends who work with horses, like Johan Chasse. We will be working together and joining forces on the field and help each other out. 

Now in Stock

Rosé

Claire est Ni Rouge Ni Rose 2015 - Gamay
"In 2015 I've had one of my largest harvests to date. For this rosé, I wanted to try a method which I have experimented with previously in Bordeaux: 'Clairer' - which means to leave the juice to macerate for two days before pressing. The result is a light bodied, fresh and aromatic rose with bright acidity."

Samplemousse 2018 - Gamay
Hand harvested, Cold maceration for four hours, fermentation in cellar in fibreglass for two to three weeks.  On lees until bottling.

WHOLESALE ONLY

FOR PRICE LIST ENQUIRIES, EMAIL hello@winesutb.com

A Chat with Rémi Sédès

Rémi Sédès

Coteaux d’Ancenis, Nantes, France

Hailing from the Jura, Rémi studied agronomy when he arrived in the area to live with his Nantes-born wife. He worked for a couple of years with Vincent Caillé, and then spent time honing his red winemaking skills in Bordeaux before setting up on his own in 2013.

Part of winemaking for Rémi is a lifestyle choice; he wants to work outdoors, in the fresh air, and not with machines – his Shire horses are an important part of his winemaking process.

Rémi is a Gamay specialist, and this was a key factor in choosing to work in Ancenis – where half of production in the area is red. The soil is micro granite - which suits Gamay particularly well - with a mix of clay, sand and limon underneath.


Tell us about your 2018 harvest: What were your challenges? What went particularly well?
In June/July last year I had to put up a big fight against mildew due to loads of rain. It's better if your sprayer doesn't break, or you'll lose the fight big time! This is what I was worried about the entire time.
The harvest ended up really good as all the efforts paid off and the mildew didn't affect the buds. There was also very little harvest in 2017, so as a result the grapes in 2018 were even better.


What do you anticipate for the 2019 harvest?
This year we've had big frost in early April. Usually you get two hours of cold air mass but we've had six to seven hours. The buds look beautiful for now, so fingers crossed.

What are you drinking at the moment?
My own rosé, which is still in the tank, as I didn't have money to bottle it yet! Other than that I love a white wine from Sicily called Porta del Vento.

What can you tell us about your future plans?
Tocade my horse is expecting a foal. Also, I want to restructure two new hectares which I've acquired. They are empty at the moment I want to plant fruit trees to bring more biodiversity.

For any wholesale and stock enquiries, please contact hello@winesutb.com