Anjou: New Releases from La Ferme de la Sansonnière, and Introducing Julien Delrieu!
8/4/21 -
From Pascaline Lepeltier's great article last year:
Mark Angeli of La Ferme de la Sansonniere is a paysan-vigneron, and an ecological activist. If one character can embody the wine revolution that is happening in the Loire, and more specifically in Anjou, he is without a doubt a serious contender. And his wines are also snapped up all around the world, true unicorns - ironically the symbol of the estate.
If the wines have always been brilliant benchmarks for Chenin on schist, they are reaching today a new level thanks to the energetic return of Martial, Mark’s son. More than ever, the duo of farmer-peasants is experimenting with agroforestry, regenerative farming, ungrafted vines, gobelet and echalas pruning, rehabilitation of forgotten varieties (like grolleau blanc), amphora and homeopathic uses of volcanic sulfur. They farm currently 7.5 ha of mostly chenin and a little grolleau (blanc, gris and noir), surrounded by fields for horses, sheep, beehives, cows, cartham (for the oil), wheat (for the flour), fruit trees (for biodiversity and delicious juices). This year sees the introduction of a new cuvée, La Lune Noire. Brainchild of Martial, it is from a specific terroir usually blended with La Lune. We should see more new cuvées coming in the next years!
Introducing the delicious and extremely promising wines of Julien Delrieu!
Thanks to the mentorship of Mark Angeli among others, Anjou Noir is really a hot bed of new talents, with new domains popping up every year. One of the most impressive is without a doubt the estate of Julien Delrieu. If 2019 is only his second vintage, Julien is not totally a newcomer to the area, and to Chenin. From 2010 to 2017 he was part of Les Roches Sèches with two other friends Jean-Marie Brousset and Thibaut Ducleux who studied viticulture together in Tours. When the adventure came to an end, the 16 ha of the domaine were split, and Julien got 5 ha around Faveray-Mâchelles, a commune just south of Thouarcé (fief of Mark Angeli) and Cornu (where Stéphane Bernaudeau, who sold some equipment to Julien, is located). His vineyards comprise Chenin (on decomposed schistes), Grolleau (on faluns), Cabernet Franc (on gravels) and Cabernet Sauvignon (on schistes) over a couple of plots, including Pont Bourceau and Le Jeau (located next to Les Nourrissons) that give the names to his cuvées. This part of Anjou Noir, on the left side of the Layon and the bank of its small tributary Le Lys, is flatter, and not as renowned as the hills of the right bank. The wines produced here are usually a little lighter, but in the right hands - like Julien’s or Bernaudeau’s - they combine depth and lift. It also means a real sensitivity which you know Julien has as soon as you talk with this soft-spoken, poised young vigneron. The maturity of the wines is spot on, as well as the extraction and aging, especially when you know his winery is still a little wild, a quite rustic barn and old vertical press with a mix of tanks and used barrels. But when he tells you he learned his craft with Vincent Carême and Sébastien Brunet, you know precision matters to the utter point for him, as well as careful farming. All the vines have been organically farmed for years now, and the old vines (some planted in 1955), are doing quite well! If yields are on the lower side because of vintage profiles, their juice is full of life, and well captured in the bottles: the very little sulfur (10 to 20ppm) used at bottling does not hide the burst of energy and layers of the wines - in the Chenins and the red alike. It is a real pleasure to introduce Julien’s wines to the NY wine scene, and I can tell you you will keep on hearing - and drinking - from him in the years to come! Pascaline Lepeltier
(Just a note on the label: beekeeping is another passion of Julien, thus the beehive and little bees on each label!)
