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Guide
to the Loire regions
Saint-Pourçain
Grower
Profiles

Alain
Pagnon
Cave
de la Causerie / Brest Père et Fils
In his
book, ‘Drilling for Wine’ (1988), Robin Yapp devotes a chapter to his
first visit to St-Pourçain in the early 1970s and being fleeced by a wily
grower called Elie Pagnon whose wines were served in the restaurant of the
Hotel Le Chêne Vert in the town. The domaine in question was the Caves de
la Causerie. Sadly Pagnon died in 1974 at the age of 52, but according to
Alain, one of Elie’s two sons, Yapp used to return to Causerie every
year to buy a tonneau of wine.
Alain Pagnon, with his almost impossibly broad patois, represents the last
of a very long line of Pagnon’s in the Saint-Pourçain appellation. In
the cellar he points to awards on the wall dated from 1895 and 1914 of
Bronze Medals won at concours in
Moulins. His grandfather was the first to bottle wine in the region,
starting just after the Second World War, in 1946/7. But with no natural
successor, he recently put the domaine for sale and attracted Gill Brest,
a grower in
Champagne
’s Côte de Blancs.
Time spent with Alain Pagnon, touring the vines in his tiny car (which
doubles up as a his poubelle –
I think my car often resembles a dustbin, but this was a thousand times
worse) with his black spaniel puppy, AoC
(named in recognition of the May 2009 accession) became a lesson in living
history; undocumented knowledge and understanding that will inevitably be
lost as this generation disappears. I probably learnt more about the
Saint-Pourçain of the past hundred years in the hour that I spent with
Pagnon that in the rest of my research trip put together.

This
untidy looking parcel contains mixed plantings of vines over 100 years of
age - possibly the oldest in the AC
The domaine is a relatively large one. With 13 hectares planted over the
five communes of Louchy-Montfand, Bransat, Cesset, Saulcet and Monétay-sur-Allier.
History lesson Number One: plant your vines in different places to reduce
your exposure to hail damage. The varieties are split three ways with four
hectares each of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Gamay, with the additional one
hectare planted to Tressallier. Pagnon then drove me to a 0.45ha parcel of
vineyard in Montfand, believed to be the oldest still planted in the
appellation where he showed me a succession of old and now illegal
varieties, all of which had been interplanted, and systematically
identified them, vine by vine, solely on the colour and shape of the
unpruned wood. Meslier, Saint-Pierre Doré, Aligoté, Tressallier… The
parcel is still in use, although not within the appellation, of course,
but as base wine for the excellent sparkling wines that come with the
expertise of having a
Champagne
grower as your new patron.
It has to be said that the table wines, those that make up the Saint-Pourçain
appellation, are nothing more than ordinary. The two whites are actually
the same wine, made up of an 80%/20% Chardonnay/Tressallier blend, with
one part simply being condemned to oak. The tariff in the cellar offers
you the choice: Blanc or Blanc Fût. The Gris is produced from the free
run juice of Gamay and is somewhat dilute. The reds which follow the same
‘two-wine’ principle of the whites, Rouge and Rouge Fût, are both
rustic.
So the attraction here lies outside of the wines of the appellation, with
the sparkling wines. The Bulles de la Causerie makes use of the tiny
parcel of now prohibited vines, but is essentially a Chardonnay/Tressallier
blend, with the wines being aged on their lees for a year. A pink version
also exists, made from a base of Pinot Noir. Not surprisingly, these are
the best selling wines in the cellar. Following through with the
Champenoise influence, there is also a perfectly decent Ratafia and a Marc
produced.
Caves de la Causerie
Brest Père et Fils
4 rue du Lavoir
Louchy-Montfand
P : + 33 6 11 71 04 74
P : + 33 6 29 91 37 65
P : + 33 6 58 38 22 50
T : + 33 4 70 47 09 23
F : + 33 3 26 19 14 30
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