December 12, 2011
Domaine des Roches Neuves

Brothers Thierry and Philippe Germain left Bordeaux behind to cooperate and compete in the Loire
Article written by Ben O'Donnell for Wine Spectator 12/15/2011

Philippe (left) and Thierry (right) - photo from Wine Spectator

Quite a few of Thierry Germain's friends are vines. Today, he's milling around one of his top plots in Saumur-Champigny, in France's Loire Valley, checking in on some of them. It is August, and they look good, with a summer dapple on their leaves and hardy grape bunches on their branches.

"Here," says Thierry, examining vines that will eventually produce La Marginale, his top Cabernet Franc cuvée, "you have life, la vie, in the vine, in the soil. For me, the vine is similar to a person. One vine is similar to me or you. I speak with different parcels," listening for what each of his 35 parcels needs to thrive. He proceeds with an example: "Here, I don't cut the apex of the plant. The apex of the vine is similar to the legs of a person, and the roots are similar to the brain." Thierry finds the leaves provide support, and the roots, personality.

You might not guess it, but Thierry is from Bordeaux. His father made wine there, as did his father's father and three further forebears of the family. But he and his younger brother, Philippe, decamped, and among the windmills and steeples of the central Loire Valley, they are a world away from wine's big-top. The Germain brothers didn't leave to live out the days as sleepy wine farmers, though. At his Château de la Roulerie, Philippe is trying hard to make the best dry white wine, and Thierry, at his Domaine des Roches Neuves, the best red wine, in all of the long Loire Valley.

Thierry focuses on Cabernet Franc at Roches Neuves, though he also dabbles in Chenin Blanc, these being the grapes most favored by the middle stretch of the main Loire Valley winegrowing region, which runs 240 miles from Muscadet near the Atlantic mouth of the river to Sancerre, in the heart of France. Thierry's La Marginale has twice earned 93 points from Wine Spectator and easily qualifies among the benchmarks for the varietal. The wine Philipppe is proudest of is called Les Terrasses; a dry white made from Chenin Blanc in a region where full-on dessert Chenin Blanc has long been considered the terroir's mandate, it has earned very good to outstanding scores from Wine Spectator in recent vintages.

The oldest of four siblings, Thierry, 43, relocated in 1991 after a "conflict of generations" with his father, Bernard. "He is le patriarche," says Thierry, adding diplomatically, "My father has a big personality." Nevertheless, it was Bernard who set 23-year-old Thierry up at Roches Neuves, after Thierry weighed settling in Burgundy or the Rhône. "Why here? Because you have the history-the kings of France came to the Loire Valley-and the climate, which is very good. And Cabernet Franc and Chenin are two very good grapes."

While Thierry pursued Cabernet Franc, Philippe, 37, hardened himself in the crucible of Bordeaux distribution, selling his family's wines all over the world as export manager. After 11 years, he sought a sabbatical and, like Thierry, found his way to the Loire. Germain père by then had his own estate in the Loire as well, Château des Fesles, in Anjou, which he had purchased in 1996. In 2001, Bernard asked Philippe to look after it.

Originally, Philippe planned to stay just five years. But a picture-postcard maison overlooking the hillocky vineyards of St.-Aubin-de-Luigne seemed an ideal place to raise a family. When Bernard offered to sell the chunk of Fesles called Roulerie to Philippe in 2004, he bit. In the complex schist soils of the site, Philippe saw the potential for the spice, tang and minerality needed for a great dry Chenin.

Over at Roches Neuves, Thierry has returned from an afternoon jaunt through his 54 acres of scattered holdings, and parks his Land Rover at an unprepossessing modern building. He descends into the catacumbal cellar beneath it, hewn 600 years ago from of the same tufa that enriches his vines. Today, amid the old oak casks and two brand-new 25-hl foudres (so big they had to be built on site, and in which he will ferment and age his top cuvée), Thierry is tasting the past and future of Roches Neuves. He tries his '93 La Marginale, born in the same year as his son Louis, who is upstairs working the bottling line. It is a rustic, brambly wine, but "completely different from today's," he proclaims-a wine made by his 20-something self, "a dangerous man with big extraction" who clobbered the tender Loire grape with Bordeaux methods. "I was not a winemaker," he jokes. "I was Bordelais." Nevertheless, Thierry calls claims that Cab Franc can't age nonsense; he has drunk century-old Saumurs, he says.

Thierry took his vineyards biodynamic early, receiving certification in 2000. He plants trees to encourage biodiversity in his vineyards (some 100 species of flora coexist with his vines), crushes grapes by foot, withholds sulfur as much possible and dismisses enology as chemistry-set winemaking. His practices were at first wholly without champions in the area. The appellation syndicate ridiculed him, he recalls. "Thierry, a tomate belongs on your face. You are stupid."

Unlike some, Thierry does not shrug off the zodiacal aura that hovers around the organic farming core of biodynamics. "In this philosophy, you have different keys to understand the position of man and vine in the cosmos," he says. At one of his properties, there are no vines, just a big pile of dirt; Thierry has been making his own compost for nine years. "It's harder to do this well than to make a great wine," he says, cupping the wet dirt and taking a long sniff. "C'est parfait. The beginning of my wine is here." Like his vineyards, Thierry's compost pile is an ecosystem unto itself. Local kids plunder it in search of worms for fishing.

On a summer day in 2010, Thierry has just bottled his 2008 Marginale, which spent 18 months in big oak barrels. He tastes it. "Like the baby Jesus in silk velour!" he declares. "My dream is that when I taste my red wine, I think it's a white wine, on the fruit, on the pleasure, on the minerality." The Côte de Nuits of Burgundy inspires the sort of delicacy and purity he seeks in his own reds.

Thierry has the swagger of a man who blew off conventional wisdom and turned out just fine. But though he retains the mien of a cowboy garagiste, Roches Neuves today is more the rule than the rebel. Its healthy vines zip to maturity so that he typically harvests a week to 10 days before his neighbors. The Saumur syndicate hectored him on that, so he became head of its technical commission; now he picks when he likes. In this small area, 11 producers have followed him into organic or biodynamic practices. Thierry counts eight or nine "collaborators"; he gives them vines, helps them make and sell wine, and returns the profits. "In biodynamie, the philosophy is to share," he says, and he has benefited from this as well; he is to star in a documentary on biodynamics in France, by Luc Jacquet, who directed March of the Penguins.

The brothers' homes are separated by a 50-minute drive. While Thierry's enthusiasm is rangy and breathless, Philippe is meticulous, a cartographer and chronicler of his expedition in winemaking. At his 104-acre estate, he knows his vineyards nearly to the meter and his volumes to the hectoliter.

From a ridge buttressing his front yard, Philippe looks down on his top parcel for dry wine, Les Terrasses, rising like a staircase up the terraces it is named for. Comprising 100 percent Chenin Blanc, Les Terrasses is aged on the lees for nine months, as many fine whites of the region are. The 6 acres of Terrasses vines yield only 750 cases annually, but its microclimate is key. "The sun exposure on the vines is south-southwest, and it's very windy. It makes a big difference," he says, raising his voice above the gusts.

To Philippe's 12 o'clock is Les Aunis, a source for his top dessert Chenin, made only in the most robust vintages, at a trickle of .4 tons per acre. He's been plying red and rosé as well. Thierry, as mentor and partner, remains a presence in Philippe's vineyards. "What I learned from him is really about the relationship between plant and soil, to really look at the plant like a fruit tree," says Philippe. But for the past two vintages, Philippe has commanded the winery, and with each harvest, he becomes more confident in the fields.

Striding past his rows of stainless steel tanks, Philippe points out the improvements he has made at Roulerie. "When we arrived in 2004, we had nothing at all. No tanks, nothing." With Thierry's help, he began to wean the Roulerie plots off chemicals, to harvest more selectively and nudge biodiversity. In 2008, he restored the Comte Raoul's 18th-century manor to stateliness.

When Philippe was still at university studying economics, Thierry used to tease that one day his younger brother would be hawking his wines. Today, the combined Germain venture in the Loire is called Thierry Germain Selections, and the brothers hope its neatly complementing strengths will help them lead the surge in quality and recognition they foresee for the central Loire. "This is two brothers, Thierry and Philippe Germain," Philippe recites the pitch. "We create Roches Neuves in Saumur-Champigny, in the top class of red, the top Cab Franc from the Loire, and you have Roulerie that will be, or should be I hope, one of the best dry white properties from the Loire Valley. Thierry is very strong in the French market; I have a background in export. And that makes a superb combination."