Le Tour de Loire vol. 3 (Bertjan Mole)
After a nice weekend in Paris, we got to see, after a very long wait, our favorite Dutch winemaker, Mr. Bert Mole. Domaine la Taupe ('taupe' means 'mole' in French) began when Bert purchased some vineyards from his friend and mentor, Bruno Allion. Bert, like me!, is a wine importer. He brought Bruno's wine to The Netherlands for many years before moving out to Anjou to work with Bruno in the vines and in the cellar, all the while planning on taking a part of the estate to start out on his own. In 2019, he moved his family out to the countryside and the story began. We've been with him since the start and the wines we've known and loved from Bruno's vineyards are in good hands. We rolled up thirsty and got right to it.
POV you're drinking natural wine in a limestone cave in Thésée. Real deal natural wine. "I didn't leave the Netherlands and move my family to France to start putting sulphur in wine," he told us. Bert is interested in the expression of a place he fell in love with and changed his life for. It's a passion, or obsession, or just a love affair with a place and its remarkable fruit. Each new vintage I taste is more unfettered, more veridical, than the last. Whatever that means? They're more true to what they are and shaped by the vintage. Cuvees can be really different from one year to the next, and that's because each year in Anjou is remarkably different. Bert likes to make wine from grapes that reflect that fact. But he's also got a perspective. He likes wine that's leaner, lighter, brighter, and less encumbered by fruit. He picks a little early, very gentle extractions... all to make a series of wines that read like a reverie: Bert's.
Bert's of the persuasion that the vast majority of winemaking is done in the vineyards, but his cellar is a very special place. Frank and I were totally beguiled by the smell of cucumber and dill hanging in the air. So much of the character of a winery is grounded in this æther of yeasts and molds and bacteria. It's easy now to find these flavors in the wines, and even moreso in the leaner vintages like 2021 we tasted together. Here in Anjou Blanc, the cellars are made out of limestone and are mostly underground or cut into the hillside. This is a much better environment for the microbiome to flourish than the overground cellars in Anjou Noir, and is perhaps another reason for the great difference in wines from so nearby.
It's really a privilege to see such a thoughtful and impassioned vigneron's work from the very start. His chosen home has not been easy on the intrepid project. He's had lots of super hot vintages, constant threats of frost, mildew, and the rest. 2021 was a difficulty all around, but like his neighbors, it's made for a very promising 2022. Bert's plants this year are already extremely productive and looking rather healthy. Bruno before him and Bert now are meticulous pruners, and really place a lot of importance on the structure of happy plants.
Bert's romantic connection to this place is evident as he walks us through each parcel. We stop at one in particular that looks its age. "They keep telling me I have to pull it up. There are so many plants missing. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. I know I'll have to, but I'm not ready yet," he told us. We like people like that. They make good wine. After a bit of silence he pointed out a "bee hotel" he'd set up on the parcel. "Nobody's checked it!"
