Pierre-Eric Jolly represents something of a dichotomy. On the one hand he’s a traditionalist, valuing time-honoured techniques and craftsmanship. On the other he’s an innovator, tirelessly looking for ways to do things differently. All in the quest for superior quality or improved sustainability.
The First Time I Met Pierre-Eric
I first met Pierre-Eric in 2014 at the London Wine Fair while I was working for ABS Wine Agencies. He’d just appointed us to be his new UK distributor.
Being born in similar vintages and sharing a similar sense of humour, we struck up an immediate rapport. I was hugely impressed with his range of Champagnes and found his entrepreneurial spirit highly inspiring. Consequently, I found it easy to promote and sell his story as well as his fabulous champagnes to my clients.
A Jolly Japanese Connection!
I clearly wasn’t the only one that formed this opinion. In Japan, they LOVE Pierre-Eric and his range. They were his biggest export customer for some years. Pierre-Eric has built a very special relationship with his importer and their customers, making annual sales trips.
His commitment and offer of hands-on support earned him some incredible culinary hospitality along with the solid sales.
My First Visit to René Jolly
I managed to co-ordinate a visit on my way back from a French adventure. I’d been cycling through Burgundy exploring the wines of small growers and burning calories pedalling around the rolling hills.
Pierre-Eric and his family had just arrived back from their summer holiday in the south of France, so we were all pretty relaxed!
We finally arrived in Landreville at 7.30pm, half an hour later than scheduled due to a satnav malfunction. Something that Google Maps was particularly adept at in France!
After the greetings and intros, Pierre-Eric took us around his set-up and gave us the full potted history. I recollected most of the back story, but nothing beats hearing it explained while walking through the cellars. Especially when you can visualise each stage of the elaboration process.
Some Fascinating Discoveries
There were a few new discoveries during our tour that particularly stood out for me. The first concerns the large automated 4000 Kg Coquard wine press and its significance.
The second is Pierre-Eric’s separate red winemaking cellar. The third is just how much influence the crown cap has on the champagne’s evolution as it goes through its second fermentation.
The traditional basket press. Pierre-Eric uses three generations of Coquard wine presses in his cellars.
Pressing Matters!
When Pierre-Eric took over running the family estate in 2000, aged just 26, he received an ominous phone call. It was the CIVC (the champagne region’s governing body) to say that his father’s press was too small to be used for the 2001 harvest.
The implication was that they were being disallowed from pressing any grapes that year unless they purchased a larger press. Pierre-Eric immediately picked up the phone and contacted Coquard…
Coquard, the famous regional wine press manufacturer, had literally gone bust the year before! Their traditional basket presses had become outdated and subsequently displaced by a handful of competitors. Firms like Willmes, Vaslin and Bücher had flooded the market with their larger automated presses.
One of Coquard’s engineers, with the help of five colleagues, was gambling on a design he’d come up with. He managed to secure a loan from the bank and was able to build and trial a small prototype.
The trial was successful.
The engineer had just drawn up detailed plans of the new automated press when Pierre-Eric’s call came through.
The upshot is that Pierre-Eric placed an order within 15 minutes of being shown the plans. Coquard won their first order and Pierre-Eric secured a means to produce a harvest in 2001.
Coquard subsequently took orders for a further 4 or 5 presses in 2000. Now they sell 40 every year with a 3 year waiting list!
The Foundation of the Champagne Industry in 30 Seconds
Pierre-Eric explained in about 30 seconds how the Champagne industry was established and why it’s proven so successful. It was essentially built on three pillars. One representing the growers and champagne houses. One representing the engineers and manufacturers of winemaking equipment and the third pillar representing the banks that financed it all. Each party contributed equally in driving the industry forward.
How fitting that this system is still very much in play, just as it was 300 or so years ago.
Making Red Wine in Champagne? Pull the Other One
Believe it or not, the most common way to make a pink champagne is by adding a small amount of still red Pinot Noir.
These Rosé d’Assemblage champagnes are popular with producers because they do one of two things. Firstly, they increase the body and fruitiness of the champagne in a very controllable way. They also maintain a consistent, desirable colour, year in year out.
Pierre-Eric produces a still red Pinot Noir for this very purpose. However, he uses it not for one, but two rosé champagnes; his Rosé d’Assemblage and Cuvée RJ Rosé.
So good is his Pinot Noir that when he took over in 2000, he sold 400 litres to Champagne Mumm. They came back in 2002 for a further 2,000 litres. A few years later, they offered him a contract and said “if you build the vats, we’ll buy the wine”.
So in 2006, Pierre-Eric created a dedicated red wine cellar, separated from his main cellars. Something unheard of in Champagne.
Coincidentally, he had just planted some new vineyards to Pinot Noir too so the timing was fortuitous.
The cellar is now 15 years old, yet it still looks brand new. Pierre-Eric continues to supply Mumm, making him one of only five red wine suppliers to this famous house.
Adding Pinot Noir to the champagne during production increases body and fruitiness in a controllable way.
Crowning Glory – How Crown Caps Affect Champagne Evolution
Picture a regular bottle of beer with a metal crown cap. Pop the cap with an opener. There’s a hiss as the trapped air in the neck escapes and away you go. If, like me, you think that cap makes the perfect closure because it hermetically-seals the bottle, think again.
According to Pierre-Eric, the crown cap on a maturing champagne bottle actually allows a tiny amount of air inside. This then reacts with the yeast and further enhances the wine’s development. This is extremely important because if there is no air interaction, the champagne won’t taste nearly as good.
He goes on to explain that through a chemical process, the force of the CO2 pushing against the cap, as it tries to escape, actually allows the air into the bottle. “It’s like adding a sugar in your coffee, the coffee will go up because it’s sucked by the molecules, so the coffee is going up when you think it should go down”, he tells us.
It transpires there are around 40 different crown caps on the market today. Each one gives subtle differences to the final wine. In fact, the cap determines as much as 50% of the champagne’s flavour characteristics according to Pierre-Eric.
He’s trialled numerous caps against the one his father selected 40 years ago. Following detailed analyses available today, that wasn’t back then, Pierre-Eric chose to retain the original cap. No surprise that he has subsequently put his name to it so that it remains theirs.
“You can work however you want in the vineyard but the cap will do 50% of the work for you.”
Pierre-Eric Jolly
In over 25 years of working in the wine industry, including three representing some prestigious champagne brands, this was a real revelation. I’d never heard about the cap playing such a pivotal role in the champagne’s development. Pierre-Eric reassured me that this fact is little known, even within the region.
Let the Crowns Fly!
We finally reached the little bottling area in the 18th Century vaulted cellars. Pierre-Eric proceeded to give us a demonstration of disgorging the traditional way, ‘a la volée’.
Here’s a quick explanation about what exactly disgorgement ‘a la volée’ is:
A highly skilled procedure, disgorging bottles ‘a la volée’ requires strong wrists! The neck of the bottle is chilled slightly before the bottle is held downwards. As soon as it’s opened, the bottle is brought upright again in a very swift action. This minimises the loss of liquid and, at the same time, expels the sediment under the pressure.
Universally, the majority of bottle-fermented sparklers are disgorged mechanically, which is far quicker and easier.
Most growers will only resort to the bygone skill of ‘a la volée’ in two scenarios. Firstly, for their very old vintages where greater care is required. And secondly, for small and larger format bottles that won’t fit the machinery.
Pierre-Eric does this across all his champagnes which puts him firmly in the minority!
First-class Entertainment!
The first disgorged bottle expelled the yeast quickly and made an audible ‘pop’.
This was a special 100% Pinot Noir ‘Blanc de Noirs’ that had been aged for no less than 12 years (!!). It showed incredible development in both aroma and taste, yet still retained wonderful freshness. The mousse, in other words the sensation of bubbles, was very fine and soft.
The second disgorged bottle, Pierre-Eric’s top Editio cuvée (2006), didn’t quite go as planned. Let’s just say we all took a brief expensive shower!
Fortunately, the taste was sublime and Pierre-Eric invited me to carry both bottles up to the terrace for us all to enjoy. Well I was hardly going to say no!
If you’ve never tried a Blanc de Noirs – Try this!
Think of it a bit like this. You pass on your prized Bolognese recipe to a friend because they want to really impress a hot date. Everything is going great guns until they come to the seasoning. The recipe asks for between ½ – 1 tsp (teaspoon) salt according to taste. In their haste, your friend interprets ‘tsp’ as tablespoon and adds accordingly. Now unless you have a particular liking or high threshold for salty food, that sauce isn’t going to impress!
Using the correct quantity of salt will enhance the flavour perfectly without leaving the overpowering salty taste. In this example, salt is both an enhancer and a spoiler.
The bottom line is, you have to know what you’re doing and work diligently with an eye for detail. The same mantra applies in winemaking and the controlled exposure of wine to oxygen.
How winemakers use oxygen to positive effect
I’ve been fortunate to visit many wineries, large and small, around the world. Two producers, in particular, stand out for highlighting the important role that oxygen plays in their wines.
The first producer used oxygen to help shape the organoleptic elements, that is the smell and taste.
The second highlighted the effect on the wine’s stability, i.e. its longevity once the bottle had been opened.
Scenario 1 (Micro-oxygenation)
In 2001, I was taken on a sales and buying trip that traversed north Italy and ended in Collio (Friuli). We visited the legendary white wine domain of Mario Schiopetto.
Mario is credited with kick-starting Italy’s quality white wine movement back in the mid-1960s. He was a true innovator and embraced technology as much as he respected and practised low-impact winemaking.
Mario’s daughter, Maria Angela, was excited to talk us through their, then, pioneering micro-oxygenation technology. It had been integrated into their immaculate, stainless steel tanks.
Stainless steel tanks are obviously non-porous, unlike oak and even concrete, so it makes it much more challenging for producers that want the benefits that micro-oxygenation offers.
By passing a controlled amount of oxygen through their white wines during fermentation, the wines are given yet another dimension.
This interaction with oxygen gives the wines even greater perfume intensity in their youth. It also amplifies the flavour components in the mouth building great depth. Tasting through their range was a truly humbling and unforgettable experience.
Scenario 2 (Oxidative winemaking)
Wind the clocks forward to March 2019.
While working for Alliance Wine, I was invited to assist with vintage on their own production projects in South Australia.
The old vine Grenache project under the Thistledown banner interested me most as these wines have gained widespread critical acclaim.
My mentor, Giles Cooke MW, is another staunch advocate of low intervention winemaking. He does as little ‘meddling or manipulation’ as possible in the cellar, contrary to the big firms.
He treats Grenache as if it were Pinot Noir, so there’s a decent proportion of whole bunches in the ferment. There’s also a high degree of open-topped fermentation, as well as regular hand-plunging.
Open-top fermentation allows lots of contact with oxygen, but the wine doesn’t oxidise due to the regular movement of the grapes. Regular hand plunging of the grape solids under the juice’s surface may be labour intensive, but it certainly pays off.
Not all wines deteriorate fast once opened
When I got back to the UK, I started presenting some of the wines at customer tastings. I ended up with one or two bottles left over and promptly forgot about them. A fortnight later, I was pulling some samples for another event and found one of the Grenache samples. It was minus a quarter of the liquid with its screw cap firmly in place.
Thinking that it must be oxidised, I was about to tip it down the sink when I decided to humour myself and taste it. To my sheer amazement, far from being oxidised, the wine had barely changed at all. It’s vibrancy and silky fruit was still very much intact. No prizes for guessing what I drank that evening!
This was a valuable lesson in why you should never make assumptions. I should, however, point out that this is not typical and is only likely to apply to other similarly made wines.
Worth noting that dessert wines are largely resistant to oxidisation due to their high residual sugar levels.
Oxygen’s negative effects on wine
Everyone will have experienced an oxidised wine at some time or another.
Open a bottle of wine, drink some, then close it up and come back to it a few days later. What do you notice? The wine has probably lost some of its freshness and may even taste a bit sour or bitter. If left for even longer, the effects become even more obvious.
Some rosé and red wines might even show an orange tinge around the edge of the wine glass.
Leave the wine for maybe a week or two and it’ll start to smell and taste more like sherry. This is the effect that oxygen has on wine over time.
Very occasionally, you’ll find these characters as soon as you open a fresh bottle. This tells you that the closure is faulty whether it’s under natural cork or screw cap.
Should this wine smell like vinegar?
If the wine smells of vinegar or even nail polish, it means there’s an excessive presence of ‘volatile acidity’.
VA is a natural bi-product of winemaking and usually exists at low levels, so it remains undetectable. But high levels indicate that bacteria have reacted with the oxygen in the wine and created acetic acid.
Now the wine’s only fit for salad dressing, putting on your French fries or cleaning the bathroom!
It’s a fact. Sauvignon Blanc is one of the world’s most widely-planted grape varieties. We think of it as synonymous with New Zealand, because of its global popularity.
So it may surprise you to hear that it’s spiritual home actually lies in France. Yep that’s right, slap bang in the heart of the Loire Valley.
Let’s find out what makes Loire Sauvignon Blanc unique, how it tastes, the appellations to look for and what foods to pair them with…
What does Loire Sauvignon taste like?
Gooseberry, blackcurrant leaf and nettle are common descriptors used to describe the herbaceous profile of Loire Sauvignons.
Compared with their kiwi counterparts, they’re also more floral, think elderflower, and have a tighter, yet less pronounced acid structure.
The most prized examples from Sancerre and Pouilly-sur-Loire (labelled Pouilly-Fumé), show the most minerality. Pouilly-Fumé takes it to the extreme, showing a characteristic flinty overtone.
Both appellations will generally benefit from at least 2-3 years bottle ageing to allow the wine to harmonise.
There’s no question about it, Sauvignons from the Loire taste very different to those from New Zealand.
Sauvignon Blanc appellations to look out for
Most of the region’s Sauvignon Blanc is grown in the eastern half of the valley. Beginning with the area surrounding Tours and eastwards into what’s known as the Centre region.
Moving from west to east, our first major appellation is AOC Touraine. These wines are easily some of the best value examples and are relatively easy to track down. A decent domain-bottled wine should set you back £10-12. While you can pick up perfectly good co-operative versions from about £7.
Two further Touraine scions worth seeking out are Touraine Oisly and Touraine Chenonceaux. Both are comparatively small in production terms but quality is superior, especially in Chenonceaux. The best Touraine wines balance floral, fruit and mineral characteristics giving them elegance and a refined feel.
Move along from Touraine and you can find the AOC’s of Reuilly and Quincy. It tends to be hotter and drier here than most of the other Central Loire appellations. Consequently, Sauvignon ripens earliest here.
The wines lean more towards a citrus (lemon and grapefruit) and floral profile with more pungent herbaceous notes. You can pick up a decent example of either wine around the £13-15 mark.
The Sancerre & Pouilly-Fumé lookalikes
Surrounding the famous neighbours of Sancerre and Pouilly-Fumé are two very worthy AOC wines. Coteaux du Giennois to the north of Pouilly-sur-Loire and Menetou-Salon, abutting the south-western tip of Sancerre. Both show quality and characteristics that closely resemble their famous neighbours, but at friendlier prices.
Coteaux du Giennois reveals a linear, stony freshness and flavours resembling yellow-skinned fruits, including quince. While Menetou-Salon is a little weightier, with a musky tone and a Sancerre-like structure.
You can pick up a decent bottle of the former between £10-13 and Menetou ranges from £12-18. Although it is possible to find a couple around the £10 mark.
Pouilly-Fumé & Sancerre are the real deal!
Now onto the main event, Pouilly-Fumé and Sancerre.
On the right-bank of the River Loire lies the town of Pouilly-sur-Loire, home to AOC Pouilly-Fumé.
Just to confuse matters, something the French authorities seem to excel at, there’s a separate appellation for Pouilly-sur-Loire. This is actually made from the local Chasselas variety and is something of a rarity these days. It doesn’t have anything like the definition of flavour or longevity of its more fashionable sibling.
“Did you know Sancerre was once famous for red wine?“
Directly opposite Pouilly-sur-Loire, on the other side of the river, lies the small hillside town of Sancerre. This is the name that helped put the entire region on the map around the Middle Ages. Though rather ironically, it was for red wines made from Pinot Noir.
When phylloxera wreaked havoc in the late 19th Century, vignerons made the switch to Sauvignon Blanc. The main reasons being that it’s more hardy and productive than Pinot.
The rest, as they say, is history. Although you can still find small quantities of rosé and red Sancerre made from Pinot.
The secret behind Pouilly-Fumé & Sancerre’s success lies in the soil
The common element that distinguishes Sancerre and Pouilly from the rest of the Loire crowd is soil. Or should I say, soils.
From chalky/limestone soils, known locally as terres blanches (with a higher marl content) to caillottes (which are more stony). They are part of the same band that runs from the white cliffs of Dover, through Champagne and nearby Chablis.
Flint, known locally as Silex, also features in both Sancerre and Pouilly, but more so in the latter. This is where that very distinctive smoky tone comes in. Some of the best wines from both appellations come from these unique soils.
Pouilly-Fumé & Sancerre’s flavour profile
The comparatively cool, continental climate helps to accentuate the steely nature of Sauvignon that’s produced in these sub-regions. Both wines tend to be very linear in style. That is to say they feel quite tightly-wound in the mouth, around a fine thread of acidity.
Sancerre can show exotic fruits and orange blossom, especially in warmer vintages. While Pouilly-Fumé leans more towards citrus fruits and gun flint. Both wines need a few years to evolve and anything from 5-10 years for the best cuvées.
Regional highlights – food & wine matching
As is often the way in Europe, wine evolution is closely linked to that of gastronomy. The wine styles that we see today are born from local and regional dishes established over decades, even centuries. The wines of the Loire are as versatile as they are varied, perfectly mirroring the multifarious culinary dishes.
Shellfish; such as oysters, scallops and clams, are a speciality up and down the river, particularly towards the western end. They’re the perfect match for the citrus, floral and flinty Pouilly-Fumés.
Freshwater fish have been caught and eaten here since pre-Roman times. They’re often served with a sauce like beurre blanc, so the floral and more mineral-edged Sauvignons pair beautifully. Namely Touraine, Sancerre and Menetou-Salon. Heartier fish stews are heavenly with a mature Sancerre from a decent grower with up to ten years bottle age.
There’s fossilised proof that goats existed in the region long before people. Consequently, some of the world’s finest goat’s cheeses hail from here. Quincy and Reuilly work particularly well with these. Crottin de Chavignol makes a stunning combo with a decent domain-bottled Sancerre.
A few Loire Sauvignons worth trying
Here are some of my favourite examples of Loire Sauvignon that are readily available through specialists:
Sauvignon de Touraine, Domaine Patrick Vauvy
Touraine Chenonceaux ‘La Long Bec’, Domaine des Echardières
There’s nothing more frustrating or disappointing when you open one of your prized wines in front of your friends or family during a dinner party, and for whatever reason, the wine just isn’t right.
And you can almost guarantee it’ll happen when you’ve just spent the previous five minutes telling everyone how bloody good it was when you last tried it, how you’ve been keeping it for the past five years specially for an occasion like this and how it’s going to blow them away. Pah!
It can be anything from the wine being corked to smelling either of rotting vegetables or dodgy drains. Or it might just be going through a ‘sleep’ phase, which isn’t actually a fault and is impossible to predict, but we’re not concerned with this one right now.
So other than cork taint and oxidisation, which I’ve covered in separate articles, what are the other main wine faults to look out for and are there any cures?
Reduction – sulphurous aromas
If you open a bottle and you get that awful waft of rotten eggs or bad drains, this is the tell-tale sign of reduction. The opposite to oxidisation, reduction occurs when the wine hasn’t been exposed to enough oxygen, mainly during the winemaking process, so the naturally-occurring volatile sulphur compounds in the wine take over.
A mild case of reduction gives a faint smoky aroma/taste, a bit like a burnt match, and is actually considered by some to be complimentary, so it’s not altogether bad.
Mild reduction can be resolved by decanting the wine to allow it to oxygenate, or by stirring the wine with a silver spoon.
Exposure to heat (aka maderisation)
Before you think about shoving your wine collection in the loft or in a garage or shed that heats up in the summer, think again. Now this might sound obvious but you’d be surprised how easy it can be when you’re strapped for space indoors and you don’t have the luxury of a cellar or a large empty understairs storage cupboard. So if you’re like me, you’re constantly playing ‘musical wine’ every six months! Yep, it’s a pain in the ar$e.
If you do happen to forget about your wine and it receives continued exposure to heat for several months, you can expect two things to happen. Firstly, the volume of wine expands in the bottle and can force the cork out which then leads to seepage and oxidisation. Secondly, it slowly cooks or maderises the wine, which can give flavours like processed jam or even nutty caramel. Not great.
In Madeira, this heating process, known as maderisation, is actually encouraged but it’s definitely an unpleasant fault in table wine.
Secondary fermentation
Have you ever opened a bottle of still wine and heard a little hiss as the cork is drawn or screw cap comes loose? Take a quick sniff. If you can smell a yeast-like aroma, this is a sure sign of secondary fermentation. It usually means some residual sugar has got mixed in with the wine at bottling and then started fermenting again when it’s hit a certain temperature.
It’s worth noting that this can also be a deliberate side-effect in low-intervention wines where little or no sulphur has been used for stabilisation, especially in light, juicy reds.
Cowsheds and crystals!
Before you think I’m going off on a complete tangent, please bear with. In most cases these last two encounters aren’t really problematic and as such aren’t considered serious wine faults, nonetheless it’s good to be aware of them.
Farmyard aromas are generally found in red wines, especially from some of the old artisan producers in France, and in low doses are considered ‘acceptable’ as they add complexity to the wine. This is the presence of a wild ‘spoilage’ yeast called Brettanomyces or ‘Brett’ for short. This is generally linked to poor cellar hygiene and too much Brett is overpowering and can be seriously off-putting.
It’s not uncommon to see tiny crystals in your wine, especially if the wine’s been subjected to really cold temperatures for a prolonged period.
These are called tartrates and are harmless mineral deposits that form in unfiltered wines with a high mineral content. They don’t affect the taste of the wine at all and simply need careful decanting or being passed through a sieve.
A clue to the presence of tartrate crystals in the wine is finding them on the underside of the cork.
Next time you encounter a wine that doesn’t quite seem right, this handy reference along with the additional articles on corked wines and oxidised wines should help identify the possible cause. And perhaps more importantly, whether or not you can overcome it.
