Wine & Spirits - December 2017 - 19

with 14 percent of today's acreage, it's the region's
dominant non-white grape. And one particular poulsard is the sole 21st-century light red wine to have
achieved cult status: Pierre Overnoy and Emmanuel Houillon's red Arbois Pupillin. This notoriety is
rooted not only in unique deliciousness, but also in
the octogenarian Overnoy's status as a guru of sulfurfree winemaking, a family tradition he readopted in
1985, four years before Houillon, at age 14, began
helping out, eventually becoming proprietor.
Poulsard is a pretty improbable candidate for
fame. The wines seldom exceed 12 percent potential
alcohol, and their acidity suggests a red that thinks
it's white. Locals serve poulsard at cellar temperature
(whereas they prefer their flagship whites warmer).
Poulsard wines are subject to bouts of reduction that,
charitably speaking, evoke pork rind. But "like the
proverbial naughty little girl," as Jura expert Wink
Lorch puts it, "when it is good, poulsard is very, very
good," yielding fascinating floral and herbal nuances
along with tangy, infectiously juicy red currant or
sour cherry flavors and mouthwatering salinity.
Good luck locating a bottle of Overnoy and Houillon. But bottlings from Overnoy protégé Philippe
Bornard are consistently impressive, if quirky. He
labels them "ploussard," which is how one refers to
poulsard in its alleged "birthplace," Pupillin. Bornard's Point Barre can conjure faded hibiscus and
hyssop, musk and nut oils, with savory undertones of
veal stock or beef marrow; La Chamade gains sweetness and spice from its oak upbringing but remains
light in color despite three weeks fermenting on the
skins. Where Bornard's poulsards are atypical is in
often approaching 13 percent alcohol.
Domaine du Pont de Breux makes a scarce yet
affordable poulsard, a fascinating, barely 11 percent
alcohol Côtes du Jura rouge from the Jura's northerly
growing area. Distinguished by Kimmeridgian chalk
and, nowadays, only sparsely planted, the villages of
Salins-les-Bains, Les Arsures and Marnoz, where the
estate is based, were singled out by André Julien in his
groundbreaking 1832 Topographie de Tous les Vignobles Connus as rivaled solely by Arbois for prémiere
classe [sic] Jura red status. One other thing hasn't
changed since Julien's day, when "clairet"-colored
reds were both plentiful and prestigious: poulsard's
pale color ("plutôt légère que foncée").
Rescue Operation
Pineau d'Aunis was once a dominant grape in its
Central Loire homeland, leading to the misnomer
"chenin noir." A reluctance to color-up surely contributed to its 20th-century decline. But while no
amount of maceration could coax deep purple from
poulsard, floral, peppery pineau d'Aunis can achieve
a moderately deep hue, as it does for Eric Nicolas,
of Domaine Bellivière, this grape's most prestigious

proponent in one of its last bastions, the Coteaux
du Loir. (His centenarian-vines Hommage à Louis
Derré -the world's most expensive Aunis by far-
ages beautifully.) Sébastien Cornille, another pineau
d'Aunis loyalist farming chenin blanc-dominated
slopes of the Loir River, two dozen miles north of
Tours, offers a more characteristically light purplishred rendition appropriately named La Belle d'Aunis,
utterly disarming in its penetrating aromas of strawberry, freesia and lemon verbena.
Clos Roche Blanche, overlooking the river Cher 30
miles east of Tours, has exercised an influence in favor
of pineau d'Aunis disproportional to the diminutive
size of its parcel. Didier Barrouillet landed there in
1981-trained as a mathematician and engineer, but
by his own admission rootless and restless. Catherine Roussel, who had recently inherited her family's
domaine, asked if he would try running the cellar.
When the two retired 34 years later, they left legions
of fans, as well as a legacy of pineau d'Aunis partisans
in a neighborhood featuring numerous old-vine parcels. "If you have something midway between rosé
and red," Catherine Roussel observed, "people can
be standoffish." So she and Barrouillet determined
vintage by vintage whether to render rosé or L'Arpent
Rouge, the latter named for an ancient measure of
surface area corresponding to their just over one
acre of 70-year-old pineau d'Aunis. L'Arpent's allure
included heady scents of freesia and violet, black tea
and clove; a caressingly silken palate; luscious sour
cherry and pomegranate flavors; and umami-rich
suggestions of lobster-shell reduction. The invigoratingly pepper- and chalk-tinged finish is always strikingly buoyant. "It's the charm of the Loire," noted
Barrouillet when serving this red, "that you can get
ripeness at eleven-and-a-half or twelve percent potential alcohol."
In 2015, Julien Pineau acquired half of the Clos
Roche Blanche's vines. His inaugural Sucettes á
l'Aunis, from whole clusters fermented for two weeks,
is an ideal introduction to that grape for both fans
and skeptics of "natural wine." It looks like cloudy
red raspberry juice but smells and tastes irresistible,
conjuring sour cherry and pomegranate on a velvety,
succulent palate and finishing with hints of licorice
and a musky bite of watermelon radish. Two talented
growers based near Cheverny also source old-vine
pineau d'Aunis from this stretch of the Cher. Olivier
Lemasson's aptly named Poivre et Sel shares the typical silken texture, levity and floral red-berry alliance,
while Pierre-Olivier Bonhomme's alluringly violetscented La Tesnière finishes with intriguing hints
of iodine. French authorities recently struck pineau
d'Aunis from the roster of grapes permitted for wines
labeled "AOC Touraine." These growers continue to
blithely ignore that stoplight. They could care less
about appellation contrôlée. n

If you have
something
midway between
rosé and red,
people can be
standoffish.
-Catherine
Roussel

WINE & SPIRITS

DECEMBER 2017

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Wine & Spirits - December 2017