Domaine des Baumard, 2015 Update: Quarts de Chaume
I feel it would be impossible to taste at Domaine des Baumard without taking in the Quarts de Chaume cuvée. I expect, given the reliability and volume of production, that this wine serves as an introduction to the Quarts de Chaume appellation for many. And the history of the appellation is inextricably tied up with that of the domaine; during the mid-20th century Jean Baumard was one of the few shining lights of the appellation, alongside Jacques Lalanne at Château Belle-Rive and André Laffourcade at Château L’Écharderie. This trio kept the tradition of Anjou moelleux alive when few were paying it any attention. Indeed, strange though it may seem considering all the recent tribulations, it was Jean Baumard who first proposed the Quarts de Chaume vineyard be elevated to grand cru status, back in 1968.
Today the Baumard family have a little over 6 hectares in the appellation, 6.34 hectares to be precise. Of this, however, approximately 2 hectares are currently declassified. These are the vignes hautes et larges, a Baumard peculiarity; these vines are trained high, maximising the amount of foliage, and spaced closely within the rows, but with a much wider space between the rows than is usual. The latter figure tends to be an impressive 3 metres, allowing for ease of access by even standard tractors, but within each row the vines may be packed very tightly, with less than 1 metre between each vine. With more widely spaced vines trained so tall, the yield per vine can be much higher, with many more bunches of grapes per vine than we would expect. Of course, when looking for the fruit to ripen, a necessary precursor to botrytis attack, heavily-laden vines such as these can struggle to achieve this. The vines on the terraces opposite, in the image below, belong to Domaine des Baumard, taken when on a tour of the appellation with Jo Paillé. The aim was to look at the Pithon-Paillé vines (in the foreground), but the appellation is so compact that we chanced upon vines belonging to Domaine des Baumard, Patrick Baudouin, Claude Papin and others (just in case anyone should think this a covert ‘reconnaissance’ of the Baumard vines).
