Friendly Gard-ener - Olivier Pichon
Olivier Pichon - La Grange Saint André
France, Languedoc, Gard
Deep in the garrigue of the Gard, you'll find Olivier Pichon: one-time social worker turned winemaker. Over the last 5 years with the help of a small but close-knit local community of natural winemakers, Olivier has learnt the ropes on the job; each year bottling a small range of completely charming wines with bags of character. Olivier spoke with us recently about wine, community and being able to pass on what he's learnt; you can read at the link in our bio.
We've just received our first handful of his efforts from 2020. Vinification for everything here is in stainless steel, the reds are bottled with no additions, the white saw just 1 mg/l of sulphur added for protection after fermentation stalled.
Hey Olivier, how did the 2020 season go for you?
The season was marked by a very strong heat in summer accompanied by significant drought. This meant the vegetative cycle actually stopped between June and July, thus the phenolic maturity of the grapes was very difficult to obtain. The vegetation cycle started again with great difficulty in August.
That led to fermentations that were very difficult to follow, especially for the white. It is a vintage for me which is marked perhaps by a lack of acidity and an oxidative note on white and rosé, I think thanks to an excessive handling of these wines. Fortunately, these difficulties have not impacted the red wines which have kept the characteristics that we like here at the estate: freshness, fruit, lightness, drinkability etc...
La Colonel was the trickiest this year, the fermentation had stopped by itself in October. I harvested a little late, a little over-ripe. Then the tank heated up too much, and that caused the fermentation to stop. To restart the ferment, a winemaker friend gave me 60 litres of his Grenache Blanc that was in the middle of fermentation (in a very dynamic phase). So I started a levain from those few litres of fermenting wine, in a small tank next to it. Every 2 days, I poured some of my levain into my struggling vat, fed my levain again, then 2 days later I started again. I did this for 10 days! (so 5 times)
This allowed the alcoholic fermentation to finally finish on November 20th, when the malo had already finished.
How about the frosts in April, were they bad for you?
We did suffer from frost, especially in places not known to be freezing! In fact, it was the vines that are therefore usually pruned first. The thermometer dropped on the 8th of April to -9 °! Exceptional in our region...
With me then it was mainly our Grenache Blanc vines that suffered (about 50%), as well as a Grenache Noir plot (about 20%) For the rest, we were spared, because we had cut these a little later.
How has the rest of 2021 gone so far?
Now that we're in July, the season has started well. We had a lot of work in the vines because we wanted to take a great care in working the land: the plowing required a lot of work, and this was supplemented with thousands of tiny pickaxe blows, we are very proud of this work which we have just finished! We have carried out numerous replacements of vines in several plots (Grenache Noir, Cinsault, Syrah) and in February we planted 1 hectare of Cinsault to make more Marmot!
The harvest is looking good, the vines are beautiful and we have tried to improve our operation in the cellar a little, to facilitate and streamline the all our processes... vatting, racking, de-vatting, pressing etc ... in short, we are tackling everything!
What's on the horizon after this years harvest for you?
Next winter we will be still planting more Cinsault for Marmot and the following year we will plant native whites as selection massale; Bourboulenc, Terret Blanc, Clairette du Languedoc. Then we plan to finish (finally!) the work in the cellar, especially in the courtyard, so as not to have our feet in the mud whilst we work!
Finally, you're part of a real community in the Gard, has it afforded any comfort in these strange times?
In every situation, this fraternity is a huge support. It's reassuring because between us, we can share our concerns, our reflections. In a stressful situation, the experience of the oldest allows you to calm down before doing anything stupid! And when we taste the good efforts of our neighbours, well that also challenges us to continue to progress!
I have also welcomed a new winegrower to my cellar last year, and even though the help I can give him is modest, it really does remind me of all the help I received at the start. It's a daily reminder that I would never have lived these first 5 years like this if I had not been welcomed and supported as much when I got started!
In stock now:
Le Marmot 2020 : 10-40 year old Cinsault & Grenache, whole bunches lightly crushed and left to macerate for 4 days with no pumping over or punching down.
Stella Maris 2020 : 100% Syrah picked from 4 different plots, averaging 25 years in age. Another whole bunch maceration for just 3 days with very light crushing (and again no pumping or punching).
La Colonel 2020 : 100% Grenache Blanc from a 12-year-old vineyard, Pressed directly. Alcoholic fermentation stopped itself in October, before being restarted and continuing for another month or so using a natural levain from another tank.
Grenache des Grès 2019: 80% Grenache from a single 45 year old parcel and 20% Cinsault, with the wine making following the same practices as the other reds: whole bunches lightly crushed and left to macerate for just 4 days, bottled with no added sulphur.
