Château de Brissac venue for the dinner

Sarah Ahmed, the ‘Wine Detective’, is one of the very few UK wine journalists who is a regular at the annual Salon des Vins de Loire in Angers. On Friday she accepted an invitation to the Anjou Villages Brissac and Coteeaux de l’Aubance dinner on the eve of the Salon and asked for a vegetarian option.

Sarah was very considerably taken aback and offended by the following blunt email she received today from the PR agency looking after journalists attending the Salon.

Dear Sarah,

Unfortunately the menu for the Brissac evening was already planned and starter and main meal are not vegetarian.

- entrée : terrine de foie gras accompagné d'une gelée à l'Aubance, de toasts aux figues et d'une salade légère
- plat principal : civet de canard, sauce griotte avec une touche de cacao accompagné de petits legumes
- dessert : poire pochée à l'Aubance et feuillantine au thé et raisins

I will understand if you decide not to come. Please let me know.
Best regards,

Agence Clair de Lune


As she finds the Brissac event a useful opportunity to get an overview of Anjou Villages and Coteaux de l’Aubance, Sarah is now hoping to find a way of getting out to Brissac to taste the wines and then get back to Angers to have dinner.

Staggering that in 2009 no arrangements are made for people who do not eat meat and what a good way to win friends!

Brissac-Quincé

The market town of Brissac-Quincé is both the centre of the Coteaux de l' Aubance and can add its name to Anjou Villages as this is considered to be the best area for Anjou Villages. This is not to say that individual producers of Anjou-Villages from elswhere in Anjou do not make equally good wines – Vincent Ogereau and Claude Papin to mention but two.

Château de Brissac

Christophe Daviau

After a fairly miserable day for much of yesterday in the Pays Nantais, it cleared up a bit when we moved eastwards to Anjou in the late afternoon.

Today started misty over the Coteaux de l’Aubance. Initially it promised to be fine once the mist lifted but blue skies soon gave way to clouds. I spent the morning with Christophe Daviau (Domaine de Bablut) looking at the vineyards that are now run biodynamically.

Cabernet Franc destined for Petra Alba (calcaire soil)

Cabernet Franc destined for Petra Alba
– note grapillons on ground bottom left

Now around 10˚ potential alcohol and 8˚ acidity the Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignons are at least a good ten days to a fortnight before they are ready to pick. There are signs of the start of some botrytis developing on the Chenin but it will be a while before they start picking.

Currently the team of vineyard workers going through the Cabernets are stripping off the grapillons (also called verjus) and dropping them on the ground. Grapillons are second generation bunches that ripen later, if they ever do, than the main first generation bunches. At the moment they are green, so easy to spot. Once they change colour they will be much more difficult to identify. If the grapillons are not eliminated, then they will give the wine green, unripe flavours.

A grapillon – unripe second generation grapes
that will make your wine taste green and sharp

In 1989, which had an amazingly fine summer and autumn, Didier Richou of Domaine Richou in Moze-sur-Louet made a small cuvée of Gamay from the grapillons harvested in late November or early December, which I believe had 13% alc.

Grolleau Noir

As rain was forecast Christophe didn’t pick yesterday instead getting the highly reputed mobile bottlers Brault to come. Amongst the cuvées bottled were the Coteaux de l’Aubance Grandpierre 2005 and 2006. Picking started again today with the Sauvignon Blanc (VDP de la Loire) being machine picked.

Sauvignon Blanc: VDP de la Loire

Machine picking Sauvignon Blanc