Domaine Arnaud Lambert invites its professional buyers to a day of discovery and tasting every year at Arnaud’s beautiful home in St Cyr en Bourg. This year we went to take a look at the Clos du Midi, one of his parcels in Brézé where he showed us how he works to remove weeds and aerate the soil. He was explaining the difficulties that have arisen this year due to the large amount of rain we have had in the past couple of months.
Working the soil mechanically to a depth of around 10cm keeps it aerated and controls weeds
Downy mildew on the underside of a vine leaf
Downy mildew on the forming bunch
Organic growers can only use Copper and Sulphur in the vineyard to treat for downy and powdery mildew respectively. These are applied as a contact spray that adheres to the vines and every 20mm or so of rain requires another application to protect them. With more than 60mm of rainfall in a couple of days and in some areas of the Loire more than 100mm, physically getting on to the vineyard to spray has been a challenge. It’s difficult to pass machinery through the vineyard when the ground is so saturated as you can damage the structure of your soil.
We did see some evidence of downy mildew that has crept in with all the wet weather but things are under control now.
Tasting 3 different vintages of the Clos du Midi Chenin Blanc from Arnaud Lambert
Following a tasting of several vintages of his Clos du Midi wine (a Chenin Blanc), we returned to his lovely home for 3 wines matched with different canapés and then a relaxed lunch in the garden of fouées with smoked salmon, goats cheese and rillettes accompanied with a selection of wines from Domaine Arnaud Lambert.
Cindy who runs the tasting room and office for Arnaud Lambert
Arnaud Lambert talking us through the food and wine pairings
Arnaud ages his wines in 12th century troglodyte cellars some of which were excavated for the tuffeau and some of which were excavated for living in. There are 3 bread ovens, one of which was restored 10 years ago and it was this oven that provided the open fire for cooking the fouées.
The 12th century cellars and troglodyte living quarters
Fouées – traditional local food cooked in the 12th century bread oven. Split open and stuffed with sour cream and smoked salmon
Arnaud’s wines seem to get better and better with the passing years. He is now moving towards working biodynamically, a natural onward step for him from organics. His whites have always been super pure and with razor sharp precision and we are beginning to see more of that precision in his delicious reds too.
His wines are widely available in the US and he travels there often to conduct winemaker dinners and in-store tastings.
