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Pierre Jacques Druet

After beginning his studies in Burgundy and graduating in Bordeaux, Pierre-Jacques Druet (1948) sold tanks, presses and other winemaking tools before accumulating enough money to establish his own estate in Bourgueil in 1980, with seven hectares of vineyard. He now has 20. I visited him on his last day of crush in an old red brick hangar on the outskirts of Benais, where he does his fermentations. The cellars are in an old quarry further up the hill, where the “temperature is a constant 7 degrees Celsius and the humidity never falls below 70%,” he told me with a smile.

More than almost anyone else I met on this trip, Druet has very precise views on what he is doing and why. Some are self-explanatory, others go against the grain. He is, for example, very frank in saying that he harvests almost everything by machine. “That was not always the case,” he added, “but the new equipment on the market is so fast, so clean and so meticulous that there is no reason to hire a hoard of students.” Nor does he want to harvest late. “A cabernet franc should not have more than 12.5% alcohol,” he opined.

Nonetheless, the grapes need to be ripe. To distinguish between good tannins and more rustic ones, he has developed a method that he taught Denis Dubourdieu, the professor of winemaking in Bordeaux. After tasting the wine, he explains, “chew a bit of salt and then taste it again, at which time you’ll discern what it will be like in five years. Good tannins will be at the front of the palate, the more rustic ones at the top and back.”

He also has a special method for making his rosé, which allows the gas from the fermentation to clarify the wine while in oak. Called “guillage” in French, it allows gray foam to bubble up and be skimmed off the top of the barrel, which is then replenished over and over again.

Further, he claims that, “as all chefs know, you do not change the character of red fruit below 63°C,” so he does cold pre-soaks for five to ten days and then heats his juice to 50°C at the beginning of fermentation, only to bring it down to 28°C once it is half complete. All this is done in truncated stainless steel vats in order to squeeze the cap for better extractions and more color. After pressing, the wines are then matured for 36 months in barrel. The 2010 Bourgueil Les Cent Boisselées that I tasted had not yet even been bottled.

While he normally sells his production en primeur, he did not do so in 2013. “It was one of the most difficult vintages since 1999,” he reported. “Everything went into Les Cent Boisselées, which is my entry-level Bourgueil.”

From Loire Valley Cabernet Franc (Dec 2014) by Joel B. Payne

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2011 Bourgueil Rosé

Color: Red

2011 Bourgueil Rosé

2010 Bourgueil Les Cent Boisselées

2009 Bourgueil Les Cent Boisselées

2009 Chinon Clos de Danzay

2009 Bourgueil Fiefs de Louys

2009 Bourgueil Grand Mont

2009 Bourgueil Vaumoreau

2007 Bourgueil Vaumoreau

2005 Bourgueil Vaumoreau

2003 Bourgueil Vaumoreau

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