Chinon = Cabernet Franc.

Charles Joguet Winery.

Charles Joguet the man, as well as the wine and winery, were made famous almost singlehandedly by the estimable Kermit Lynch. First Kermit discovered, purchased and sold Joguet’s wines with an evangelistic fervor. Then he profiled the winemaker himself in his classic book Adventures on the Wine Road, portraying him as one of the heroes of his chapter on the Loire Valley.

Of Joguet, Kermit penned words the likes of which any winemaker would give all 4 limbs to see in print:

It is not only that Joguet makes good Chinon: it is that he is one of the rare vintners whose wines can be gripping aesthetically, spiritually, and intellectually, as well as sensuously. Of course, it is impossible to know how much my judgement is influenced by the fact that I know the man, as well as the wine. One has the impression that Charles is out there on the edge, willing to take risks and willing to accept losses in order to make magic. There are not many like him in the world of wine.

Joguet studied art and sculpture in Paris, and only returned home to his family’s vineyard in 1959 after the death of his father. Under his control, the winery was one of the first in Chinon to estate bottle their own wines. Joguet was also a trailblazer in bottling single vineyard wines separately rather than blending everything into one large cuvée, as was common in the region.

Joguet also was a believer in low yields and hand harvesting. He advocated harvesting into hand lugs instead of larger bins, which can help protect the grapes from smashing, oxidation and early fermentation (and the volatile acidity often associated with it).

Interestingly, Joguet also used stainless steel vats. This is notable only because his champion Lynch is so vehemently opposed to their use, telling Eric Asimov recently “I don’t want my wines to touch anything but glass and wood. Stainless steel and wine are not a stable combination.’’

In 1997 Joguet sold the vineyards, the winery, and the right to use his name to his partner Jacques Genet. Notably, the sale led to one of the more humorous anecdotes ever related by wine importer and proto-blogger Joe Dressner.

The story goes like this: After meeting filmmaker Jonathan Nossitor at a New York restaurant before he began filming his “documentary” Mondo Vino, Joe relates that Jonathan discussed his plans for the movie with him. He planned to cast Charles Joguet as his hero. Dressner quickly broke the news to him that the winery had recently been sold.

Nossiter denied this story, vehemently at that. I called over Bernard Baudry of Chinon, a close friend of Joguet’s who was at the restaurant with us, and Bernard and his son Mathieu confirmed Joguet’s separation from the estate. Nossitor remained annoyed over the whole story and continued to insist that Charles Joguet was still in charge…Years later his movie is out and Hubert de Montille and Aimé Guibert are cast in the role of Charles Joguet.

Some might say it’s surprising that Nossiter decided to change his hero midstream. After all, Truth – writ large – was hardly an impediment to him when editing his film. But I digress.

Currently about 50% of the estate is farmed organically, and there are multiple cuvées and vineyard designates. François-Xavier Barc is the current winemaker.

The wine was deep purple and smelled of fecal matter. After swirling, its fetid aromas did not subside, but increased. After a great deal of perseverance, a hint of anise and perhaps some dark fruit was perceptible. Behind all the stink were rich, ripe tannins and a medium body. Alcohol was medium, as was the acid. The finish was sour, like a lambic ale.

The amount of Brett in this wine led me inexorably to France. From there I was at a bit of a loss, since there really wasn’t much else to distinguish it. I guessed somewhere in the Rhone.

Cab Franc is called Breton in France. In the case of this Joguet, it is entirely apropos.

Brettanomyces is a wild yeast that feeds on residual sugar in wine (which every wine has in some concentration) and which produces extremely pungent aromas. This Joguet is all about Brett. But how much of the stinky chemical 4-ethylphenol did the spoilage yeast impart?

I sent the wine to ETS for analysis. The results shocked me. The Joguet has the highest concentration of 4-EP I have ever seen in a wine.

The combined sensory threshold for the two compounds produced by a Brett “infection” is somewhere around 50 ug/L, a very small amount. Some tasters are able to detect Brett at even lower concentrations.

This wine has a combined 4-EP and 4-EG of 1707 ug/L. That’s 34 times the sensory threshold.

I pinged Morgan Twain-Peterson of Bedrock Wine Co. and asked him about his experience visiting Joguet Winery recently. He had an interesting perspective.

“From what I recall, Francois-Xavier Barc is a really nice guy and aware of the Brett issues. I know they have moved to doing most of their ML’s in tank, post fermentation, so that it is protected by sulfur before hitting barrel.”

[The wines] taste absolutely brilliant at the estate– where they have not left the cold of the cellar– but are already occluded by 4-Ep, 4-Eg upon their arrival here. Even though transport to the US is undertaken in refrigerated containers, there is always a greater risk of spoilage. I have often thought that running Scorpions (a genetic test that assays the quantity of yeast present in a wine, whether or not they have produced any 4-EP or 4-EG yet) on wines before and after transport would be a fascinating thing if unburdened by the cost and the many more important things to do in one’s life!”

The wine did indeed have moderate alcohol at 13.34% ABV. Acid was also middle of the road with a pH of 3.59 and 6.6 g/L of titratable acidity.

But all this is ancillary. The primary sensory characteristic this wine imparts is the product of a Brett infection run completely wild.

In Lynch’s book, he relates a memorable dinner between Joguet and himself at a local truck stop. They are sipping the house wine out of plastic cups, and Joguet is moved to comment about the wine: “It’s not shitty. It’s ultra shitty. Shit-de-merde!”

I’m afraid I’m going to have to steal his phrase, and in a bit of literary as well as literal judo, turn it around on his eponymous wine. In his defense, Charles isn’t at the reins of the winery anymore. And, as Morgan points out, the wines still taste stellar in the cellar in Chinon.

Unfortunately that doesn’t do much to help the average American consumer hoping to find an interesting, if not profound, example of Cab Franc that speaks not only of its terroir but of sound winemaking.

Instead of typicity, this wine is completely dominated by super-concentrated aromas of animal crap. If California is guilty of hedonistic fruit bombs, this is the polar opposite. Here is a masochistic Brett bomb that only a self-hating enophile would enjoy.

Shit-de-merde indeed.

Josh Hermsmeyer, 11-16-09

Further Reading.