Prosecco - 2013

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Pickers on Pinot Noir (Quastana) Loir-et-Cher (Loire) The following day and a half I toured again several growers and domaines, some being located on the Cher valley side, some on the edge of Sologne and the first place I visited was a parcel where Jeremy Quastana and a few people including his brother Jean where picking Pinot Noir. Jeremy Quastana himself had zero grapes in his parcels because of the catastrophic weather conditions this year, so here he was picking on a friends vineyard and the grapes would be vinified by his brother Jean who is also joining the fray of artisan winemaking. These friends who own this parcel dont make wine themselves, for now at least, they just sell the grapes. They grow organic of course and I spotted this intact mushroom between the rows (Ive heard its edible but I never tried), this is a Wolf-fart Puffball, known in French as vesse ...

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Zoé, Thierry Puzelat and staff Loire valley, The harvest 2021 has come after months of weather incidents and worries. The weather was at least beautiful for the picking, under mild temperature and clear skies, which was also very enjoyable for me as I rode randomly to different producers on my motorbike in the Loir-et-Cher. The big issue in 2021 has been frost all over France in april, with temperatures going down for a week at around minus 7 C (19,4 F) and also mildew and oidium depending of the region, with some growers having more losses from the disease than the frost. Plus, summer was pretty humid and rainy, sometimes colder than usual. When I showed up at Thierry Puzelats Clos du Tue Boeuf they were busy unloading Gamay picked in Faverolles-sur-Cher. You can see here Zoé and Thierry putting the bunches on the belt conveyor leading atop a maceration tan...

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A sudden urge for Gargantuan food This was in a supermarket in the Cher valley when I was looking looking for meat and I stumbled upon this gorgeous [I mean for meat/pork lovers like many of us are] pig head. First of all, yes, I do shop in supermarkets, at least for meat, Id love to be an exclusive client of boutique butchers and organic groceries but I dont, and not only for a question of price actually, also because I like to shop where ordinary people shop, be it in France or abroad, Im not into, you know, this Beriozka shopping culture for the healthy, although Ill venture sometimes in one of these venues for a delicious terrine or charcuterie. On the vegetable front, I know a few vegetable growers selling their products on particular markets (or I buy directly at their farm), these growers dont flag themselves as organic but from what B. and I tasted theyre certainly mor...

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Anders Frederik Steen in front of his village house Valvign�res, Ard�che (Rh�ne) We know that in the world of natural wine many of these vignerons who make a difference are outsiders, like coming from large cities and often with a completely different professional background, but sometimes they come from really far, like its the case with Anders Frederik Steen , who moved years ago from Denmark with his wife and children to tend vineyards and make wine in this sweet region of Ardéche, in the southern Rh�ne. We visited him a few weeks ago (around mid-july, Im pretty late for the publishing, sorry, thats why I backdate it to august...) and Valvign�res was still the quiet and lovely village I appreciate, surrounded with hills in a mixed landscape of garrigue, woods and vineyards. When Anders met us in this square facing his home and cellar, he told us that he started i...

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Thomas Ozil with wife Laura Lagorce , Ared�che (Rh�ne) Always happy to come back to this inspiring hilly region of Ard�che where there are these vibrant vignerons making wines that go down so easily. This time we stopped at Domaine Ozil which had been on my wish list for a long time. This domaine is managed by two brothers who took over from their parents, who themselves were growers (like their own parents and grandparents) but selling all their grapes to the local coop. The brothers who now farm 16 hectares quit the coop when they got in charge but kept selling part of the fruit, this time to same minded winemakers. The Ozil brothers were friends with Gilles Azzoni and his son Antonin who make natural wine very close from here (Antonin who has a 3-year age difference with them now also took the wheel from his father), and Thomas says that he vinified a first vat with...

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Blandine Floch among her old vines of Gamay (here with a huge marcotte ) Valaire , Loir-et-Cher (Loire) Were here at the heart of an active community of natural wine producers in the Loir-et-Cher département in a corner of the Sologne south of Blois, with within a short distance people like Thierry Puzelat , Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme , Christian Venier , Jeremy Quastana , and Olivier Lemasson who alas left us a few weeks ago, and others. Thats where Blandine Floch lives and tends her parcels alongside several of these growers. Blandines first vinification was in 2018 when she vinified the grapes of Jeremie Choquet , she was pregnant at the time, and when I visited Jeremie, she was busy with their 3-year-old daughter. Both separated since and shes now on her own, tending her own parcels and vinifying her fruit. Blandines early debuts were in 2011 and 2012 when s...

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Julien Moreau near an old vine Francueil , Loire The Domaine de Cambalu is a second-generation winery now managed by Julien Moreau and his brother Frédéric. The two brothers were born here and took over the domaine from their parents, who in their time were selling all their grapes to the local coopérative. The name of the domaine stands for the lieu-dit where the farm sits, 2,5 kilometers west of the village of Francueil and maybe only 1 km as the crow flies from the Chateau de Chenonceaux along the Cher river. actually the grand parents on both sides also had vines and made a bit of wine, but like most farms at that time, grapes were accessory for the family consumption, along the other, mainstay crops and farm animals. Selling grapes to the coop was mainstream in many French wine regions, and well into the 1970s and 1980s, then thats when bottling...

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Product Listings for Prosecco - 2013