When the plants finally start to produce after four years, now start pruning them back so fiercely that you only get a tiny fraction of the quantities you might get without pruning. Finally, for the first ten years, don’t use the produce of the garden in your most favorite dishes. No tomato salads, no raspberry pies, nothing from the garden can go in the dishes you love the most.
Sound silly? Not if the garden is the Quarts de Chaume vinyard in France’s Loire valley. This region near Angers is situated on a hill overlooking the Layon river and produces some of France’s most incredible sweet wines.
The appelation of Quarts de Chaume is restricted to the chenin blanc grape and has the tightest yeild restrictions in France. Only 22 hectolitres of grapes may be grown per hectare of vineyard. This means that the winegrowers must brutally prune back the vines each year, later in the season perhaps even pulling growing clusters from the vines.
What’s the rationale behind this? Simple: quality. When the grapevine is pruned of most if its vines, it channels its energy into the remaining vines and grape clusters. The remaining grapes become incredibly concentrated as they receive everything the plant has to offer.
My wife and I visited this part of the Loire valley in June, 1996 and we had the opportunity to visit one of the region’s most reknowned winemakers: Monsieur Florent Baumard of Domaine Baumard in Rochefort sur Loire. M. Baumard produces several wines from the chenin blanc grape, but perhaps the pinnacle of his success are the wines from Quarts de Chaume. During a tasting of M. Baumard’s wines, he explained the hardships behind producing wine in the Quarts de Chaume vineyard.
As I alluded to in the opening paragraph, new vines planted in the Quarts de Chaume vineyard don’t produce any usable grapes for three to four years. This is fairly normal for new vines in any region of the world, but M. Baumard doesn’t stop there. Older vines produce more intense fruit, plus the vines have more chance to work their roots into the soils of the vineyard. As the roots grow deeper and deeper into the soils, the vines pass on the soil’s chalky, minerally character to the grapes.
M. Baumard waits ten years before he will use fruit from the new vines in his Quarts de Chaume. In the interm, the fruit is used in his Coteaux du Layon, a less-restrictive appelation. After ten years have passed, M. Baumard feels the vines’ roots have grown deep enough to pass on the vineyard’s chalky, minerally character.
Pam and I got a first-hand view of this wonderful piece of land by riding our bikes from Rochefort sur Loire through the vineyards the day after we’d met with M. Baumard. He’d graceously given us a few photocopies of the area and charted out a couple good bike routes.
We left Rochefort early in the morning and pedaled from the town to
a dirt road that ran south to the Layon. True to course, I got a flat tire
within five minutes of leaving pavement.
30 minutes of pedalling got us to the top of the vineyard near the town
of Chaume. Here we began to see the twisted rootstock on the hillside above
the Layon. The hillsides play a very important part in the wines from Quarts
de Chaume: they help hold morning fog on the vineyards so that botrytis
cinerea, or noble rot, will develop on the grapes.
Noble rot (much easier to pronounce!) is a fungus that develops on grapes when conditions are just right. The temperatures must be somewhat warm and humid fog helps to get things going. As the rot develops, it eats holes in the grape skin. Water drains from the grapes, intensifying the flavor of the fruit. Noble rot also leaves its own mark, wonderfully luscious honey and apricot flavors and aromas that linger on seemingly forever.
As
Pam and I continued on down the vineyard to the very steep, terraced lower
portion of the hillside terrace, we found perfect examples of the chalky
soils.
I’ve been a believer in the concept of “terroir”, but walking or biking through a vineyard always gives me a nice connection to the wines from that area. Having seen the chalky hillsides of Quarts de Chaume, I’ll have a better appreciation when I drink those wines!
We finished up our morning ride by returning to Rochefort sur Layon,
where we found a small patisserie. A few pain au chocolate (croissant-like
pastries filled with chocolate) were the perfect treat for a mid-morning
snack after a nice ride.