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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