Opinion 1

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Issue 1, September/October 2005

Opinion 1

Interview 1: Renaud de Villette, Directeur Adjudant of Domaine du Marquis d'Angerville speaks about rendement levels for Pinot Noir and the shortfalls of the agrément tasting system

The Interview 1

In Brief

Renaud de Villette, Directeur Adjudant of Domaine du Marquis d'Angerville voices his concerns about rendement levels for Pinot Noir and the shortfalls of the agrément tasting system

Rendement

Renaud de Villette considers the legal rendement levels for red premier cru are too high. From 1974 until the 2004 vintage maximum yields were governed by the plaford limite de classement (PLC), a ceiling for each appellation. In Volnay the basic yield was 40 hecto litres per ctare (hl/ha) for premier cru and village wine. In addition to this a further quantity, typically 20%, could be requested on an annual basis, taking the legally acceptable yield to 48hl/ha. In 2004, says de Villette, despite the hail in Volnay, which affected most of the village, the permitted yield was 48hl/ha for premier cru and 50 hl/ha for village. "This can be very damaging."

Change is currently afoot in the form of the rendement moyen décennal (RMD)¹. "It is a different approach," says de Villette, who believes it should improve matters. "The yield must now be a reflection of the weather, of nature. With the PLC there was no such reflection." He focuses on the importance of an inspection before harvest for each individual vineyard in which authorised people will examine the vines. If, for example, the pruning is too long and the potential yield too high, or the grapes are maturing poorly, he foresees that the owner will be forced to green harvest and to change their approach to pruning in the future, or risk losing the right to use the appellation. He is sure that this close inspection of the management of the vineyard is the key to change. "Until now no one has been inspecting the vineyards. For example 20% of the vines may have died...more than is permitted." This will no longer be tolerated. De Villette is persuaded that this should prevent people maximizing yields, while attempting to justify their higher rendement because they have, for example, planted high yielding clones. "Now they will have to prove it is necessary to have a different quantity."

Renaud de Villette firmly believes that Pinot Noir should crop at approximately 35 hl/ha for village and premier cru wine. He illustrates the negative consequences of cropping at a higher or lower level by drawing on recent vintages. In 2003 sunburn and shrivelling resulted in notoriously low yields and the potentially hard tannic structure of this vintage. In 2001 the low yield caused by hail resulted in wines that can lack balance. At Domaine du Marquis d'Angerville they had just 22 hl/ha in 2001. The wine, he tells me, did not carry the taste of the hail which hit the vines at one angle, totally destroying the bunches on one side of the canopy, while leaving the other side untainted, but it disrupted the leaf/fruit ratio and the balance of the final wine. "With too much tannin and too little juice," comments de Villette, "the wines are difficult to drink early on, and do not have as pleasurable an evolution as better balanced vintages."

It is equally important, and more a more frequent occurrence, that the yield should not exceed 35hl/ha. When it does, observes de Villette, the wine is typically generous, as with the 2000 vintage, which delivered 42hl/ha at d'Angerville, but is likely to lack sufficient tannic structure and substance for long ageing.

Managing the yield

There are difficulties and risks involved in arriving at the ideal 35 hl/ha, acknowledges de Villette, and he explains how he attempts to manage yield. In common with many top quality producers he works on the premise of 6-7 bunches per vine, but in 2004, he says, "it was more difficult to judge. The bunches were bigger than normal, possibly because the 2003 vintage was so early and so small, which gave the vine September to work for itself." In Clos-des-Ducs he reduced the 7 bunches per vine to 5 immediately pre-veraison. There are different arguments for when to make a green harvest and de Villette takes a pragmatic approach. The earlier you diminish the number potential quantity of fruit (for example by short pruning or debudding), the greater your risk should the unforeseen happen. He was fortunate for instance when the hail came in August 2004 that it hit Friemiets and Taille-Pieds and not Clos-des-Ducs. At d'Angerville they prefer to hold their options open with a longer cane and follow in July with a green harvest...a term de Villette dislikes, "selecting to diminish the crop is more accurate."

On rare occasions there are exceptions to the 35hl/ha ideal, admits de Villette, in which it is possible to have both high yield and high quality, as in 2002. "Forty-two hl/ha was perfect because of the maturation during the season and the concentration in September, but this is the exception."

His opinions on controlled yields for Pinot Noir extend to regional wines. Greater yield, he is adamant, is not the answer to the problems of regional wine production. He sympathises with the growers who want to maximise yields for financial security in this difficult market, but this, he is sure, is a vicious circle, which will further diminish quality and make sales more difficult still.

Vine density and vin de pay

He proposes other solutions to the problem. For example when the decrée for regional wines is rewritten this year, the density of planting for regional wines, and even possibly for village wines, could be decreased from 10,000 to 8,000 vines per hectare. Given the price of generic Bourgogne, it is commercially unviable to support the high costs of managing a 10,000 vine per hectare vineyard, and nor does he believe is it necessary from a quality point of view at this level. "It would be far better to relax some rules," he says, "than have a major social problem on our hands as increasingly people cannot sell their wine."

Renaud de Villette is also in favour of introducing a vin de pay category into Burgundy as a potential solution to the problems of regional wine. Without AOC rules to comply with the growers' only obligation would be to make a good wine. If is good, the market will be satisfied and the problem solved. He is careful to emphasise that it is the quality at issue here. Indeed he would like to see quality controls tightened across the board.

Agrément

Agément is the system of analysing and authorising wine to conform to AOC standards. Renaud de Vilette would like to see this system overhauled starting with radical changes in the process of taking samples for analysis. He tells me that at d'Angerville they have five premier cru, yet they have only to supply a sample of one to apply for AC accreditation for all five. Furthermore the producer is at liberty to choose the barrel from which the sample is taken.

Secondly, de Villette is firmly of the opinion that the current process of judging can never work. To paraphrase his explanation...where there are only 40 growers in a village, and the growers themselves make up the panel together with negociants, it doesn't matter if the wines are assessed in unmarked bottles, no one wishes to refuse agément to any wine presented, many of which they will recognise blind. Only when wine is truly bad is it refused. If it is merely indifferent is allowed though. He believes it is imperative that panel members must be taken from other villages. Only in this way can the judges be objective, while being sufficiently experienced at assessing the quality of Burgundy.

Thirdly de Villette would like to see the timing of the analysis changed to deliver more meaningful results. Samples are currently taken in December after the vintage which, argues de Villette, is the wrong moment for the wine to be assessed, for it may well be undergoing malolactic fermentation (MLF). He cites the example of the 2004 vintage which was particularly difficult to judge at this time, for as malic acidity was particularly high. He would prefer to see the wines assessed after MLF and indeed when elévage is complete, in other words just before bottling.

¹ The RMD is a new system in which each village determines the level of production above which the wine will be distilled. On a ten year rolling average these yields must not exceed the appellation's INAO reference yield. This should enable producers to more closely follow the natural yield variations of each year, while aiming at an average.