Winegrowers’ Portraits
Interpreter of the Terroirs
Minerality, terroir wines … popular terms used in marketing speeches and tasting comments. But what does it exactly mean? You will understand with the wines from La Maison de Moulin and feel in your glass what terroir scents are.
Yannick Passas, in the ‘garden’, and Benoît Delcourt, in the ‘front’, took over the estate in 2011. It is an old domain that now totals 12 hectares of scattered plots. To Yannick, it is an interesting configuration as it provides a real variety of soils, thus of aromas.
Since 3 years, the goal of the team is to make a natural wine and they strive to craft cuvees that are the real expression of the soil on which the vine is planted. Yannick Passas plants a grape variety not to enhance the characteristics of the fruit, but to make the grape restore as much as possible the organoleptic qualities of the terroir. A Chasselas will not return the same olfactory and gustatory result if it is grown on a clayey or limestone soil.
The earth is worked without inputs, no weedkillers nor insecticides, no chemicals. The estate leaves a natural grass cover or helps nature, if necessary, by providing grass cover selected according to the qualitites of the soil made of flowers and clover. On the domain, actions on the plant are also limited to avoid to injure it. For example, the branches are twisted on the wires instead of being cut off. The team removes few leaves to limit the exposure of the grapes in order to preserve the acidity necessary to the sought-after tension in the wine.
This natural work enables to get a more precise wine, with finer aromas, and more length on the palate. It permits a deeper rooting, thus a better expression of the terroir. For these terroir enhancement enthusiasts, the wine has to be the reflect of the soil it stems from. La Maison de Moulin plants a grap variety according to its capacity to faithfully transpose the characteristics of the earth. To Yannick Passas, the grape is a carrier of the qualities of the terroir. The wine has to be the expression of the place it comes from, not only of the grape variety it stems from.
Yannick Passas does not use input in vinification either. In his philosophy, the natural quality must be such that no other action is necessary to enhance it. The élevage in barrels or vats is done without sulphur and lasts 12 to 24 months to preserve the original taste and let the wine shape its tension. For the rare blends that the house makes, always by plot, after the élevage in barrels, the wine will stay four months in vats to give time to the blend and confirm the real expression of the plot.
A quality work also entails a good cooper. The house works in close collaboration with a traditional Burgundy cooperage. Its human scale enables to craft made-to-measure barrels for each wine. Yannick is present at every important stage like the choice of the wood and the toasting of the barrel. This action aims at gaining precision and keeping the expression of the container under control.
Above all, La Maison du Moulin wants to make wines that can be paired with dishes and thus transpose as much as possible the natural tension of the grape. For the Chasselas for example, by controlling the vigour, the house first keeps a very low yield for the region, at about 40 hl per hectare. It will be matured and bottled without CO2 in order to favour the perception of freshness and natural tension. The aromas thus express with more precision.
By choice, the main distribution channel is the gastronomy and a few specialized shops who have understood the house’s work. The latter wants a real relationship with those who sell the wine, as the team really wants to transmit their passion and pleasure in working the soil, which is more difficult to do in a supermarket. Benoît Delcourt’s work is to transmit the house’s values, quality, respect of the earth, sharing and uncompromising stance, and above all to guarantee a flawless service consistent with the high-end gastronomy. La Maison du Moulin also is in regular contact with the Swiss professional sommellerie for constructive exchanges, to promote and make respect their terroirs.
Sharing their philosophy now is their first goal. Although they are not expecting a strong export development now, they want to promote their work abroad, as, to Yannick Passas, the fame and recognition outside the borders will result in the repute and credibility necessary to the take off of the Swiss wines. They want to lead other winegrowers to understand the interest of working differently. To Yannick Passas, the future of the Swiss wines will be to outstand in front of other countries by really expressing the terroirs of the vineyard, that will make their peculiarity.
La Maison du Moulin
benoit@lamaisondumoulin.ch
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