Making Moelleux Wines in Val de Loire

Pierre Aguilas is a leading wine maker in Chaudefonds sur Layon, in the Val de Loire region. He spoke to us about making Chenin-based moelleux wines. The unusual aspect of these wines is that the grapes must be hand-picked. They are allowed to stay on the vine and become infected with noble rot, which, along with sun and wind, dries out the grapes and raises the sugar content of the resulting juice. Field workers pass through parcels as many as 6 times harvesting bunches or parts of bunches at just the right stage of development. The original interview is 2900 words. Our transcript includes the original French interview plus a full translation into English on the facing pages, so you never have to look in a dictionary.

Subjects covered:

• Size of the property and grape varieties grown.
• How does one know when to start the harvest?
• What about the grapes tells you it's time to start the harvest?
• What is the daily rhythm of the harvest, the time of day it starts and ends?
• Why are the grapes picked by hand?
• What is noble rot?
• How has the recent growing season been?
• Why have the harvests been getting later and later in the year?
• Which years have been great for Val de Loire moelleux wines?
• Why have there been so many great years lately?
• So, those exceptional years, we owe them to the weather?
• What caused the amazing rise in quality in this region in the 1980's?
• How long after harvest do you bottle the wine?
• Why do the yeasts take so long to ferment this type of wine?
• Why don't you use barrels for this type of wine?
• During fermentation, how often do you test the wine's development?
• Do small harvests necessarily mean high quality in this wine?