Nearly 15 years have passed, and now my friend Marionnet still feels this little fruity thrill in his inner Gamay. True that the chronicle published on September 12, 2008 with the title “Le point G de monsieur M” had made him smile. It is also true that he remains the indisputable ambassador of this Gamay rascal in his beautiful corner of the Loir-et-Cher region, in Touraine.
But now the gentleman winegrower and his son Jean-Sébastien are doing it again, this time, dubbing the rare Romorantin grape variety directly from the lands of the late François 1st.er, at the Château de Chambord. Simply regal!
Those who seriously joke with the house wines, if only with this Première Harvest 2020 ($25.20 – 12517875 – (5) ★★★), with a natural fruitiness to make your chest bulge of any Gamay, rub shoulders with the enthusiastic personality of the septuagenarian who planted 8 hectares of non-grafted Romorantin in the 5440 hectares of gardens and wooded areas of the famous château with 282 chimneys.
A total of some 14 hectares planted with Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Romorantin and Orbois have been cultivated on site since 2015, with a first vintage coming out of the vats in 2018.
He is like that, Henry Marionnet. Industrious, tireless meticulous and inexhaustible on the pampered destiny of his Sauvignons and Gamays, including these precious Gamays de Bouze (a cuvée from an extinct grape variety) and of course, on this unique plot of prephylloxera Romorantin planted between 1820 and 1840 from which comes from the fascinating Provignage cuvée, whose shoots, here taken from the mother vine, are in line with the plants brought back from Burgundy by François 1ster and today buried near the castle by the Marionnet clan. A plant history to be classified as a world heritage of ampelography.
“Do you realize the exceptional genetic heritage of this vine? confided to me the winegrower during a visit first to Chambord and then to his home, where his ungrafted 36 are plot, literally witness to another era, does not show the slightest breathlessness in terms of vitality.
“Look at these gnarled, extremely twisted trunks whose sap no longer seems to flow through and which, further on, rise from the ground to create a new plant… Incredible! he continues, elated like a kid who discovers a nature greater than himself.
A parcel of Romorantin with an obviously tiny yield, but with a sap containing dry extracts which gives the wine a kind of tannicity enhanced by fine bitterness, a bit like a Chenin Blanc which substitutes its fruitiness of quince and pear compote with a more tense relief, a bit austere. In every way unique.
Will there one day be a Chambord appellation d’origine contrôlée to crown the expertise of the Marionnets with, among other things, this Romorantin full of stories to tell? The future will tell.
For the moment, Henry leaves it to his son Jean-Sébastien to continue the conversion to organic farming of the 58 hectares of the Domaine de la Charmoise, whose “francs de pieds” account for 10% of the current vineyard. But the man hangs on and watches over the grain. Nothing escapes him. It is enough to see the complicity in the gaze of his wife and son when, at noon sharp, he serves you a glass of Gamay, served exactly at 10.8 degrees Celsius for lunch.
Mr. M is proud of it. Mainly because it’s good. But, as a gentleman, he will always prefer your happiness to drink it to his. Whether it’s the Sauvignon 2020 ($19.65 – 12562529 – (5) ★★★), with very pure fruitiness, absolute clarity, or the Gamay 2020 ($18.60 – 329532 – ( 5) ★★★) a simply royal fruity delicacy. Francis 1er wouldn’t have hated it!