Ep. 4: Pierre Jancou

Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Not Drinking Poison podcast. My name is Aaron Acekov. I'm here today in the Ode, which is a region in Longodoc. I'm here with my friend Pierre Jean-Coup, a noted restaurateur who was for a long time based in Paris, but who is now here in the town of Padéon. And thank you for meeting me and talk to Charlie with us today. Thank you, my pleasure to welcome you here in Padéon. Now, if you've listened to the first three episodes of this podcast, you may know the title of this first season, if you want to call it that, is Paris Natural Wine Lifers. And we're trying to trace a little bit of the evolution of natural wine throughout the 2000s and the 2010s, talking to people who largely helped initiate this global phenomenon that the subject now is. And the other folks who he's spoken to did pass almost their entire careers in Paris if not their entire careers. Pierre is a notable exception in that he did get out after a very long career in Paris. If it's not too embarrassing, Pierre, I'll summarize your long career in Paris just now. But please correct me if I get the date wrong because it's hard to remember them all. And I believe you started at La Boca in 1991, and that was near Etienne Marseille area. Where was that? That was Etienne Marseille. It was La Boca. But before that, I worked three years at the Bandouche. Where was the Bandouche? The nightlife. It was the best discotheque in Paris. Ah, really? So I. They weren't serving any natural wine. I didn't know. No. But I had the chance to live the last glorious years of nightclub in Paris. And then thanks to the staff work, I opened La Boca. Excellent. And then after La Boca, you opened La Cremerie and that was 2001. Yes. And La Cremerie still exists for those of you who want to visit. It's still a beautiful jewel of Paris' restructurism. And then after that it was Racine in 2007, is that right? Yes, that's right. And then in the Passage de Parloramas, which I went on to have a huge influence. And then after Racine, it was Vivant in 2011. Yes, that's right. It became Vivant Cove in Dublin in 2012. And after that it was Heimat in 2015. And then Ashil, with our friend Svante, for Storpe, in 2016. En Ricardo. En Ricardo. En Ricardo. We were the three souls. The three musketeers of Ashil, exactly. And then when did you decide to quit restoration in Paris? Well, I had a nice career in Paris and I guess Ashil was the end of my career in Paris because I had a terrible accident and I was fed up with the city and the accident that inspired the name Ashil, right? Yes. A photo accident? Yes, exactly. I broke my hill in a thousand pieces during the works on the restaurant. Exactly. And then Svante came to help me and he found out the name. Even though I didn't break the Talon de Ashil, we thought it was nice and funny. So we called it Ashil. And then yes, it was nice. It was as usual a very nice creation. But I was fed up, I had lots of problems with the neighbors there and it became really complicated for me and I decided to leave Paris for good and go to where I had a house in the room. Yes. And it was in D, right? Yes, near D. So the town of D, which for the non-French speakers, it's spelled Die, like the verb D-I-E. It's true. When you get to the railway station, it's Die. Yes, it says Die. Welcome to Die. I'm going to get off the train. Besides the abundance of natural winds in the area. It's finally moving. I did my course there to become a tiny windmaker in the city of Paris, yeah, in the covid time. Oh, really? Yeah. And I was in the town of Die. It was in the town of Die. So I met all the people there and it's starting to move there finally. Finally you have three, four natural windmakers. The rower is now young people that's established there and that are starting to do good. You know, the region better than I do, but I would just summarize for people who might not be familiar with the wind making around that area. It's essentially sweet, filtered, heavily sulfated mousgat, am I right? Exactly. It's sparkling mousgat. Yes, it's one of those appellations that kind of came of age after the generalization of sterile filtration. Yes, yes. And it's appellation that is slowly dying because 20 years ago, one acre was quite expensive to buy and now it's really way cheaper because the appellation has a lot of problems now to sell their wines. Yeah. It was considered really like the cheapest, appero, bubbly wine. And it was really easy to sell in China and America and Europe. America had big problems, big problems to sell this wine. What you're hearing there in the background is a neighborhood dog because I should just to give you a little scene setting here, we are sat underneath some beautiful olive trees at some picnic tables in a little public park, it seems, which is across a ravine at Rai Riverbed from Pierre's new project, which he'll tell you about in a few moments. So you left Paris. Yeah. It's a little Paris. You went to D. Was it quite different selling natural wine in D, than it was in the 10th arrondissement to Paris? Oh, yes, it was completely different for many years in Paris, it was fantastic to sell natural wines to the crowd in Paris because it is so international in Paris. You have so many people from all over the world and you can really have fun in taking care of a wine cellar in Paris in a fancy restaurant and making people discover and I think my role at the time was to pass on the natural wine love to many, many, many people, many young people, all the elder people, myself included. Thank you. No longer young now, obviously. I remember the first time we met, you were not so so into natural, not so much, and you were like many people, like I was in the beginning. But anyways, and then going to the nature, going to the real nature and to the tiny village is completely something else. So you had bottles of Oralien Lefort at five euros a glass at the bar. And people were skeptical probably. No, no, because I kept it enough so that it became good and it was ready to drink. So I think our role as a wine cellar is to keep the wine and sell it at the right moment. This is really important. So I always tried the traditional role of the cavist of the wine retailer. And so when did you leave the? So after the Covid, the cavitis, the salt was a bit complicated for me, because there was not very much accepted in the village by the community, by the mayor. So because you weren't selling filtered fish, filtered sweet sparkling. Yeah, and I was not accepting to do meals for them for 25 chasseurs, punters. And I said no to that. So they didn't like me so much, so we can come to that. They're armed. Yeah, we have hundreds here too, but they didn't ask for that. And we have a much better relation. That's good. Yeah. So that's why not only why, but I was also always inspired by Le Corbier and by Disteroir. And also the fact that Fabrice is here, that the café was for sale, that is Fabrice Monan of La Masierre. Exactly. So when did you first meet Fabrice, so La Masierre and Fabrice Monan just for to bring everybody up to speed in case they don't know? Fabrice Monan is a wine maker, but a lot of, a lot of experience in the natural wines you know throughout France. He worked for the Vervole, he worked for Robino, he also for a long time, I had Les Anzans du Van in Besançon, and it was only in 2015, I believe, that he fully moved out here, is that right? Right. To take over another legendary estate, that of Jean-Michel Labouiq, who had died. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. So he was also one of the, one of my generation in France pushing natural wines, but he was far east in Besançon when I was in Paris, but we made the same, we had the same job. Yeah. And he met because of that. How is his English? Maybe I should do a podcast with him too. I think his English is, is okay. It's probably pretty good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's also a very good musician, so he could play a little song in the piano. Ah. Yeah, okay. Some blues. Next episode, just write it self. Yeah. And so when did you first meet Fabrice? It was, I think, when he came. He came to see me at Racine, so it was 2007, so he would have been already in Besson Zone at the time. Yes, he opened in Besson Zone in 2002, or something like that. The Zazan Divine, a tiny place with Momoko, his wife, she's Japanese, she's a fantastic cook. And they have a fantastic daughter called Nau, and she's a great human. And you're here with your family as well, do they come visit you? No, my children are big now, so my big daughter, she's 27, she's an Amsterdam. Really? Yeah, and the little ones, Louise, she's almost 17. Wow, so they're all doing their own thing now? Yeah. Yeah. And it is remote patterns, you know. So, how would you translate a terroir to vertige? Is it like vertigo, terroir? For me, it's ridiculous because I'm originally Swiss. For me, it's not so high. Yeah, exactly. It's like ridiculously down. So, I was making a reference to some signage that you see as one enters this general area, you see signs that say terroir to vertige, so it's very vertigenous, very precipitous, steep terroir, but of course, Pierre being Swiss Italian. Swiss Italian? No, Swiss German. Oh, grown up as Italian, I think. I just simply was Swiss Italian, because you're always speaking Italian, going digital. Yeah, so, but it's definitely steeper in Switzerland than many parts of Switzerland. Clearly. Yeah, clearly. If you go and see Cherouche, for example, then he doesn't even write it on his bottle, but it's like really high. Yeah. Some vines are like 1,000 meters if I don't mistake. And here, like, what's the vineyards? The village is 240, 240 meters. Yeah. And maybe the lines of Fabriz are 400. And what is the population here? The population registered is about 130 people living here all year long. Did you check that season? Or is it fluctuate? No, but we are less. You hear an ambulance? I think we're about 80. 80 people living here a few times. Very peaceful. I love it because it's peaceful, because it's nature, because the wine there, wow, it's amazing. And what I love here is the proximity with Catalan region, because I'm very Italian, culturally. Yeah. I did my school in Italy and all my life, I lived with Italians. So I am completely fluent in Italian. And I have the same feeling with the Catalans here going in their country. I really love discovering this country. There's so much more cultural exchange, I feel, like, between this border towards Catalonia from France. Then there is around, you know, the Monaco area. You know, like, between France and La Guria. You know, it really is just like the cultural exchange is really minimal, I feel. Yeah. Whereas here, I mean, the food scene in Perpignan is so flourishing and interesting. And there seems to be so much cultural exchange. It is moving a lot in Perpignan. With Bastompidza, I told you, or so sagie. It's very nice for lunch. And yeah, Perpignan is also interesting. No burn is really near and it's interesting. To lose is not far, et cetera. So maybe skipping ahead though, because we forgot to touch on the point when you actually came here. That was in 2022. Yeah, I came here last January. I mean, in January, it will be two years. So we're nearing the end of your second season of Café Dispo. Yeah. Which is the name of your restaurant here. And it was initially already called Sac Café Dispo. You didn't come up with that one. Yeah, no, I kept the name for the moment. Yeah. And how long were you thinking about that? I mean, of course, coming out here. I mean, was it just kind of like a beautiful old café was available? And you just jumped on it, or was it? It's a bit that. I was looking on the internet. I was supposed to establish in, to stay in the room and go to Bili Baroni. You know, it's near News. Okay, don't know. Where our friend from Chamonro is now doing. Oh, for me. Exactly. So I was thinking of going there, because it was near my daughter that is still there. Yeah. My project was that. And on the internet, I was attired by a photo of the Café Dispo for sale. And I remembered a business card that, more than 10 years ago, some friend of mine who's doing cider Julien Fremont sent me, because he was the owner of Café Dispo before me. Okay. And I called him and I said, listen, I saw that on the internet. And he said, yeah, my Café is for sale. Wait, Julien Fremont was not the owner of Café Dispo. Yes. The cider producer was the owner of the Café Dispo in pattern. Yes, sir. That is so weird. Yeah. You wouldn't think to associate these two. Because he fell in love with Catherine Marampestel. I don't know that. Who was a wine maker here in Paderm? Okay. Woman, wine maker. Yes. I assume from the name. She fell in love with her. And he fell in love with the Café and he bought it from Jeanine. Okay. Who owned it for 52 years. Okay. And so how long did Julien owner? 10 years. Oh, okay. Still, it's a Fremont. Yeah. But I didn't even realize that that never came up in conversation with Fabrizio. And I was here that the Café nearby was owned by a well-known cider producer. Yeah. Yeah. And then he sold it to me and I did a lot of works and started last year for the summer season. And just because I don't want the bottle to get warm. I hear you're also making wine. Yeah, I started because of that. It's my dream, like many people, working in the wine industry since so many years. So as said, I did that school in D. And then I arrived here and worked a bit with Fabriz. And then I found some wines to buy and to rent. And I just showed you the little seller where I'm going to benefit this year. And last year I started with a tiny, tiny amount, only 250 bottles. And it's a carignol with a drop of syrup. Amazing. Wow. I'm honored to taste it. Thank you. And so where did you make this? In the Café de Spor. Yeah. That is why it's called the Cuvé Café de Spor. The label is called. So the tank was in the café? The press was in the window. Yes, okay. Everything was made in the café. And then just before I opened it made, I put it in the bottle and I put it in the seller. Fantastic. So it's the wine made in the café from A to Z. Excellent. Even bottled in the café. And these are wines that you're renting, you say? Yes, both. This is an old carignol that is in the gardens. It's thirty-hour, thirty-hour, three thousand square meters. And it's all mixed but mainly carignol. Cool. And I did a direct press of that because the wild pigs and the birds were eating everything. Quite young. And then I put inside some more mature syrup from Sébastien-Ajolais that I bought from him. And all agrapé. And I put inside and I left maybe for one month to macerate a trumpet. But then I pressed everything and then I put it in the dungeon. But it's, but it's de-stemmed. Everything de-stemmed. And why de-stemmed? Because I always like de-stemming a lot. Mixing with, yes. Interesting. I was always in love with the Royal Lefort wines, for example. But it doesn't de-stem much, doesn't it? Oh, yes. Almost everything. Good for you. Oh, yes. Okay. I think in this, especially in this region where you have so much maturity, so much power in the wine and so much alcohol, I think that's at least for the moment what I will try to do. And this is a, the label says 13 degrees. So it means it's 13-5? Yes. I think it's 13. And is it exact age in steel tank or is it, or is it in a steel tank or fiberglass? It was in a steel tank, yeah. Iron. Iron. No. Oh, Ninox. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ninox. Yeah, stainless. Yeah. Oh. Beautiful. Sorry for my English. Your English is fantastic. Yes. It's a high water mark for the not drinking boys and bad guys already. Oh. How was Michel Mouleur as the English? Oh, he's got the most adorable English ever. Yeah. You haven't listened to the episode Pierre? No, I'm sorry. I will. I swear. And I think your season's over. Yeah. I will. Listen to my season. And so you bottle this May, so. Okay, so. Yeah. It's dry. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny bit of sugar, but not much. The soury went away slowly. Yeah, it gets soury at all. And had you done any a little kind of micro-cubase before this? Or is this really your first wine? I did one in 2014. With a friend of mine in D. And that's it. And how many bottles was that? Even less. It was maybe hundred and something. Nice. Yeah. 250? Huge. Huge. You're like Gerard Bertrand or something? Yeah, he's in the region, yeah. And this year I don't know, but a few thousands, maybe 2,000 bottles because I have a lot of loss because of some disease and one of my little vines was completely destroyed by by the wild pigs. So yeah, you mentioned that wildlife losses are huge here. Yeah, yeah. And it's definitely a much more savage area of the Longodoc than what you see in the planes around Bezier or anywhere in the lowlands kind of area. I mean here it's really where where the vine, you know, often we talk about the history of Longodoc culture we talk about with the advent of railroads and mechanization. The vines came out of the hills and they went into the planes and this is the hills. This is where they came out. Yeah, I think the best example I talked with about the Longodoc was Alan Castex. He was coming a lot to see me since I came and because his parents are great right upstairs in Darnakia yet he began it, he began in Kobiar. He began here in the Kafka operative and I took over the vine right next to the Kafka operative. I had no idea it was that close and then he decided to create his own domain that was in Darnakia yet and another village I don't remember the name next to Darnakia yet and then a little bit same story as with Kazod Demayol. He was in love and the woman left him sadly so he sold everything and he went to Banulso. So he had two lives, two domains. One here where he made an amazing mind. He was the first to do natural wines with other fights in the Kobiar. So he has a very, he had a very interesting approach of what was the wine in Longodoc generally speaking, absolutely. And he died in his vines which is the most beautiful thing. He called me them the day before. Crazy. The day before. He was, he was supposed to deliver some wine and then he passed away. So there goes your allocation. Yeah, my allocation was not bad but I kept the one from the good year before and I will drink them all. Exactly. Yeah, I will not speculate on that. No, that's that's the honor code. But no, I mean I noticed even even briefly before we came to sit here and on the shelves in in in in Café de Sport. A lot of labels that I don't recognize at all. You know, if you find a lot of new new estates to work with here that you haven't worked with before. Oh yes, clearly I tried to work with the people around. So there's a lot of of young wine makers. It's happening a lot in the Corbier. Yeah. More in Villeneuve. Really? Durban, there's a lot of wine. Even in Padern, we have Marius. I don't know if you taste it his wines. I don't think so. Marius Long. No, he's he worked one year, he did the school in Bourgain, in Burgundy. Then he worked one year with Fabrice. Yeah. Where he really was attired by the real natural wine inside. And then he worked one year with Cyril Fal. And then he established. This year is his second vintage. Wow, amazing. And he he's really good, really talented. So there's many, there's many. I honestly like why I mean I mentioned that this is only the second time I visited Padern. And I spend so much time in the Ero, in the like around, what kind of between Bessier, Bédario, Pézenard, around there. Yes. Absurge de fleur. Oh yeah, we're also free, and have been harvesting and making wine, a cloth fontine. Just made, cloth fontine have kindly been allowed me to make a little wine on the side for two years now. Wow, great. So, but it's crazy. It's just an hour's drive away, but roughly, but I don't get over here often enough. And it really, it's interesting, you do feel the microclimate along the Mediterranean. Even coming from Montpellier today, where I mentioned you must have a little more of kind of like a mistrial drying effect, something around there, a little bit more of the aftershocks of that, after effect. And then you get over to, you know, around, around Bessier, or it was extremely extremely crazy, crazy, crazy, lot of wind. Yeah, which is really good for for us for not treating too much. Yeah, the vines, but, but it can really become really tiring after a week of like hard wind. Yeah, and do they have a name for the wind here? Sorry. Do they have a name for the wind here? They have many names, many names, and there is, there's even a song that was written by a fantastic French musician called Claude Nougau, who was an extraordinary musician. He did a lot of jazz, Claude Nougau. And he was living the, the end of his life in a tiny village next to Patel called Pazillot. Pazillot, okay. Then he made a song on the wind here. About the wind here. About the wind, yes. And I mean, I guess I, I guess I had a kind of a mistaken, a mistaken impression of the old, and that I, and that I thought like, I mean, would you say it's generally warmer, even warmer here than it, or it's been hotter and less rainfall than like, no, we are lucky, in Padern. It was famous. The ancient told me that Padern, when there was a lot of vines, was very famous for white wine. Really? Because it's a little bit more cooler. Yeah. Because we are near to Bigarrache. Yeah. Not far from, from this side that is really cooler. So we get the winds and the humidity and the cold from there. Okay. We have cold nights, which they don't have in the Pirene oriental, which they don't have in the center of the Corbier. Yeah. So we have at least three weeks difference on the picking grapes. So when, when do, when roughly do you think you'll start this year? This year, I'll start the third of September. With the whites. And here, do you find much terrat? Here is the macabeau. Here is the land of macabeau. Yeah. I have a little vine of Marçan. I don't know why, but it was maybe fashion in the 70s or 60s to have Marçan here. So you do have some whites this year? Yes. I have a tiny macabeau, a tiny Marçan. And I will try to do the white with the two grapes. Nice. And to get back to a little bit to your Paris years, just to stay on theme, vaguely. I guess one of the reasons why I thought it would be interesting to talk to yourself and or to you and to the other subjects on the season is that, obviously, natural wine has changed so much. It's become a really, now we find natural wine in just about every major city around the world, whereas probably in the early 2000s, that wasn't as so much the case. Do you remember for yourself a point of the clique, when they say like a moment of discovery, when you decided that this was something really worth getting behind and focusing upon and emphasizing and promoting? But completely, I fell in love with natural wine like you, like many people, totally. I even quit hard drugs for natural wine. In the early 2000s, I quit everything for natural wine. Natural wine became my new drug, my new thing, my new, because I believe so much in it. And so I tried to pass on, as I said before, the good word to young people to make them understand the importance of natural wine and why it tastes different and why it's better for you, et cetera, et cetera. Kids don't do drugs, do natural wine. Exactly. Yes. That was my message for many years. And to my own kids too. Exactly. But you did, I think, when we spoke once, before you did mention it, like you were into wine already when you got into natural wine. You had more of a classic wine background to begin with, no? Yes, yes. I was lucky enough to have a classic background and I was a very much, I was a very good friend of a family in Burgundy called La Famirona, and they were a beautiful family, they still are. Jean-Pierre, the father and Sacha, the son. And Jean-Pierre was giving a lot of advice in very important domains in Burgundy, the most important domains. And Sacha at the time was the Cavist at the Revue de la France. And we did so many digustations together and so they. What does mean to be Cavist at Revue de la France? Do they have like their own private cellar and he's administrating the private cellar? Exactly. He took care of all the wines coming like all the wine makers. All the professional things that they would hope. Exactly. All the wine makers who would send for free wine to the Revue de la France, to hope, to the ideal Cavist. The ideal Cavist job, everything is free. You just arranged the bottles. Yeah. and we had the, so I had a classic background with wine, which is important, I think, because you need to know your appellations, you need to know your grapes varieties, you need to know, you know, a little bit history of wine in France that is so important and so big. But then of course, I mean, I think that's sort of what makes what makes you an interesting figure in this story of natural wine in Paris as well, is that, you know, coming from, you know, you, as you say, you know, you value a classic background in, you know, in what the way wine has always been studied, but you were really a figure of, you know, in a sense, one of, say, along with Jean-Pierre Robinot, one of the first people in Paris to begin insisting on zero suffitage, zero filtration, on a more radical expression of natural wine. Yeah, I think I was a bit radical at the time, but I still am now. So it's the way I am. I am a bit obsessed with real natural wine and I'm a bit worried with the new natural wine world that is coming, because I see, I have the chance at Caffé de Sport who have, instead of Caffé de Zalpa, had no wine makers at all, because there were no wine makers friends around. Here, every lunch, every dinner, I have half of the clientele are wine makers, because there's so many around. And I see so many young wine makers that do not natural wine, but that's 80 percent. Yeah, like you say, like Jean-Pierre Robinot, like Jean-Pierre Robinot, Jean-Pierre Robinot, Jean-Pierre Robinot, Jean-Pierre Robinot, Jean-Pierre Robinot, Jean-Pierre Robinot. I don't know how you say in English. Yeah, like three quarters natural. Exactly. Yeah, so that that obsesses me because I'm not, I don't agree with that, because they, they want to do natural wine, but they don't do natural wine, and then they sell it like if it was natural wine. They don't want souris, they don't want volatil, they don't want any defaults, they want the wine to be perfect right away, to be shipped at the other end of the world, and to make money with it. And yeah, I don't agree with that. Yeah, it's a unrealistic expectation. Yeah, and I mean, that's, that's if they manage to sell. I so often you find, you find wine makers who are just, you know, finding their footing, and of course it's a difficult time when you're just starting out and, you know, money's never easy, but if you're just, you know, they find themselves between, you know, as the French say, between two chairs, on two chairs, you know, like they don't get the natural wine market and they're still too messy for the, for the, the lame-o conventional market, so they, they don't please anybody, and just by fear. But I understand the ones who are really correct and put it on their etiquette, and I say, okay, that's correct. If you put on the etiquette what you're doing, then it's fine, but if you don't put it on the etiquette and you do like, I am natural, but you're not, yeah, then I'm not fine with that. Yeah. And I understand the pressure that it can be for a young wine maker that takes over six, seven, eight acres and that he has a bank beside and he needs to, he's afraid of losing wine, he's afraid of losing money and I can understand and respect them totally, but I'm happy with this new rule that will be in next year, in France, apparently, where you have to put everything in some labels. That is all the ingredients that you have in your wine, you have to put on your label, and that is a good new one. I mean, I feel like I've been hearing about that for so long. I mean, I believe it when I see it, if that actually comes to pass, if this occurs, that would be hilarious, that would be wonderful, but you would have caught by everywhere. Is there really going to be, I don't know, I mean, I guess I still find myself, it's difficult to believe that people, they would actually put that into action. I don't know, we'll see. I feel like it could get subverted in many ways, but, and so, yes, from the beginning, you know, like I think it was a very powerful stand to take, and a controversial one, particularly in the early 2000s, to say that, you know, no, I really want 100% natural wines. And, I mean, with their times, I guess it helps that your restaurant was quite small at the time. How many meters squared was Lecremory, but. Yeah, Lecremory was not 100% natural. Lecremory was burgundy oriented in the beginning, and then natural wine arrived, and then it was burgundy and natural wine, and then a tracin. So it was like most New York natural wine restaurants. Yeah, natural and expensive wine. I always loved burgundy wines, and it was the concept in the beginning, so I could not want to, to just throw the wine, but then tracin was 100% natural. Yeah, we had bogey, we had brinneaux, we had courtois, no sulfateaux courtois. Yeah. We had only wines, 100% natural at tracin, yeah, when we were working, and the best years, the best year, because it was very short, was the year we spent with Sven, in the kitchen. Sven short, yeah. Yeah. Later of Saturn. Yes, and Ewen. And Ewen Lamania, later of Saturn, and Clambar, who is now at La Cava de Papi. Exactly. Yes. Yes. So many acolytes, Pierre. Yeah, it's normal. Yeah. And do you think, do you think, now that you're based in your return, you've taken on vines, you're not going to sell those vines to yours down the road and move to a different region? I don't think so. No, I don't think so. I think I will spend the next 10 years of my life here, taking care of this house that is huge, taking care of my vines, trying to become a humble, simple little winemaker. And as I told you before, we started the interview, I have 35 years of restaurant business in my legs, so I start to be a little bit tired of that work, even though I still love it so much. You can get one of those people movers, you know those things. So yeah, so just a suggestion. No, I think I will keep the café de Spau, and I will try to put there some young people that have talent, and I will be their best customer. So like what they say in French is your answer, or like, so like you have seasonal teams that come in, and then they have creative exactly way, because I think it's so amazing now is you have the bedside and the good side of Instagram and the good side, one of the good side of Instagram is that the food went so much higher and quality and culturally open to other techniques and other countries and other recipes, and thanks to the social media, the young chefs and the young people now are, they have such an important panel of creation a lot more than before. Yeah, they can see a lot more different things, and it's true like with things like cooking, you know, like the visuals are huge, you know. I mean, if I'm going to some town, I don't know anything, I'll just look at the various restaurants and just look at their plates, and you can instantly tell whether it's of any interest whatsoever, just by how things are plated, exactly. Except, except our good friend, Lamarant, that is the, for me the best restaurant in Paris, or one of the best, but he's not with Instagram pictures, but who cares, what is important is what is in your mouth, and he's talent. Yes, definitely. But I mean, you bring up an interesting point in the sense that, did you, in the course of your career in Paris, did you, well Instagram started what, 2011? No, when did Instagram? Yeah, something like that. I don't, yeah, I think it was 11 or 12, I want to say. But then also, and then, I mean, oftentimes when I'm speaking with natural wine importers around the world, often people will cite around like 14, 15 or 16 as being these years when suddenly it was just this explosion of interest, and same from wine makers, for you, did you, what did you see as like, did you feel a moment where like suddenly, there was a different clientele, suddenly the clientele were more informed, or they had different ideas, or I think Instagram is a great, is a great UTI tool, is a great tool for, for a restaurant, because before Instagram, most of the restaurant that were in Paris, they needed the press to be there, they needed all the press system to, to help them and to make papers, to, to, to do so that clients would come and resume, the rest of the restaurant's became experts are giving out free meals. Exactly, I've worked for someone like that. Exactly, exactly, I know, I know who you're talking, but yeah, yeah, yeah, Instagram was a revolution. My daughter Zoe, she, she put me on Instagram in 2013, and it became a revolution for me, because I, I don't need a press to be there for me, I don't need the fooding, I don't need nobody, I just open a restaurant, everybody knows, and eventually if my work is okay, they will come and come back. Yeah, it's great, the democratization of, you know, of the media in terms of letting, you know, the restaurants communicate directly with their clients is fantastic, you know, in that regard, it is. Would you say there have been any drawbacks to, to the, to the Instagram era? in this drawback. I draw back a bad side. Ah, bad side. Yes, there are many. It's a drug. Some people are completely atiré, aspiré. Spire. It's inhaled. By Instagram and by the phone. So this is the worst thing. You need to be able, I think. And I speak for myself also to put that aside sometimes in the day and read the book and do something else. Because we're going to become all so stupid if we continue living so close to our phones. Yeah. I mean, let me say that like it's something about like in terms of optical health. Like it's important to be sometimes walking around in just kind of vistas where you can see where your eyes are obliged to focus on like a distant mountain, you know. So in that way, like even like a very hemmed-in block in a city is like an iPhone screen in some way. You know, like it's you're still focused on just what's directly directly in front of you. And going out to the countryside and then constantly, you know, your eyes are constantly focusing on the far ground, the middle ground, the floor, you know, the close-ups. And apparently it's good for your eyes. That's what they tell me. Yeah, yeah, I agree. Totally. Wow. So how do you like the word? Beautiful. Really? I mean, it's a lot still in suspension. Like despite being bottled. And so I mean, it's still working. You can tell it's still working. It's still working. Yeah, it's still working. It's like, I was trying to think earlier like what it, like in terms of stylistically what it reminded me of. Like there's a little bit of a kind of like an, like an oddly ferris note, like a rust note to like end up, which I want to say is like, hmm, I see what you mean. And it's, I think it's, I think it's like an oxidative stage that it'll come out of. That kind of like, like really like ferrous iron rust. Oh. Like. But thank you so much for sharing it. And thank you for, thank you for having us here on this beautiful overcast windy day in Padurna. Oh, we're lucky with the wind today. The wind can be so strong. It's not too intense. Yeah. No, no, no, no. They say, not Narbonne, which is not super near here, but it's still sort of near here. That's, that's the windia city in France from what I understand. Yeah. It's one hour. One hour driving. Are there, are there natural wine places in Narbonne? In Narbonne? Not so many. Yeah, there's one or two, but not so interesting. Okay. Perpignon again, it's really important. Yeah. Someone told me there's a very big buffet restaurant. It's a buffet restaurant in Narbonne. Yeah, it's a buffet. It's a buffet. Is it worth experiencing? For an American, for sure. Because it's crazy. It's like the biggest cheese buffet in France. So it's, yeah. Why would they put that in the longer dock? You think everything would just like melt instantly. I don't know, I don't know this story. Yeah. So basically, from what I've heard, it's correct me if I'm wrong. I haven't been, but maybe you haven't had it. It's like a gigantic, all-you-can-eat buffet of French classics. Exactly. Yeah. You have everything you can imagine from the French classics. So it's sort of like it was. I mean, I mentioned you. So there's a bit. Terry Breton, he did his trowel mad thing at Shake As a Mirror where it was just like cleared out the kitchens of his three restaurants and it's all-you-can-eat brunch of, like, Britney food. Which is. it's a little bit odd to be eating all-you-can-eat shellfish on the Sunday. Fearing out the kitchens of the three restaurants. Yeah, take that. Take your life in your hands. But it's always fun. Is he still there? Terry Breton? Oh, he's still around Paris, absolutely. Yeah, he's still there. I mean, he's still there all three restaurants. He's still baking? He's still baking, yeah. I mean, I last saw him during that very brief, brief stint with my friend Mazza Equita on a rooftop in the Marrae. I helped him open restaurant for three months. Yeah, I remember. Yes, that was a disaster. Not do the Mazza entirely. And. but Terry Terry would deliver a spread that the owner, of course, wouldn't pay for. Oh, shit. Yeah, that was really. that was like a. Like the Pichranco in London a little bit. Oh, I don't know. I didn't hear anything about that. They didn't pay the suppliers for years or months. I mean, as I understand the rest, it's reopened, but there's some kind of new configuration. Yeah, yeah. So, here's the new configuration. And don't do drugs. Don't do natural wine. Exactly. Clearly, and stop smoking, because they still smoke. I do try this lesson in the car. Well, I smoke Gita now, but if you want to. No, I like the Americans people. Okay. To go back to your wine again briefly, were the vines that you were able to take over, were they already organic? They were kind of organic because they had no treatments since ten years. So they are organic, but nobody took really care of them. So now they need a lot of love. The problem here in the Corbières is that you have two schools in the. in the. in the viticulture in France, organic viticulture. You have the school of not working the land, which is fantastic in the North and France. Like, for example, my friend in Savoie, you know, Orelia? No. He's an Ovarian. No, Ovarian is an Ovarian. Sorry, that's my other friend. You know, from the Jura family. Corantanouillon. Okay. My friend Corantanouillon is completely no interventionist on the soils. He doesn't touch the soil. Yes. Which is totally doable from what I understood now there, but not here because you have so much concurrence here around the vines, my competition, competition, sorry, that you need to work the soil. You need, even if it's not very deep, that's literally what the people in the North say about the south. They say that there's others. People in the south who manage to do permaculture, but here in the North it's impossible because there's more rain. There's so much more competitive competition of grass. Exactly. But really, they say that. That's what the North says about the south. Yes, so there's a war a little bit between the two. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so. Are you mistried for many years not to work the soil? Yes. And then he realized that if he continues not working the soils, eventually everything is going to die. It was just getting more and more and more feeble. Exactly. Yeah, so the woods are thinner and thinner and thinner and thinner. So you need to work the soil so that you give them, so that they go and get everything and they have no concurrence. Competition, competition. I mean, it's interesting. I mean, like I had a conversation recently, not really, I wasn't super recently, but like my friend John Purcell, who does Van Noe, yes, he took over some parcels from another friend called Jean-Jacques Morelle, who kind of unbeannounced to most people, I think, at the time, because he didn't really talk about it for fear of being ostracized. But he was doing organic permaculture in Burgundy, with a parcel in Poudin du Mont-Raché in Santa Juan, which is, I mean, you know, that's just wild. I mean, nobody was doing organic permaculture in, you know, in the 2000s in Burgundy at that time. I think nobody is anymore today. Yeah, yeah. And, I mean, so it was an incredible heritage of, you know, a vegetable matter and a parcel and a soil that John inherited. John decided to go back to light, you know, scratching of the soil here and there throughout the season. Nothing invasive or deeper, anything. And it was, again, it was kind of like what you were saying. It was a question of vigor. He was just seeing just no vigor. And that was what worried him for that. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's. I mean, as humans, we have this binary. Oh, you know, binary way of looking things. We were inclined towards thinking that either just one or just the other is good. Yeah, I don't know. I dream. I wish I was born 200 years ago when you had not. where you couldn't treat. You didn't treat the vines because no philoxera, no philoxera means no mildew and no oidium. Yeah. Because all these diseases come from America. Yeah. We love America. Yeah, yeah. But they go from. What disease? We're basically. We come from this philoxera who destroyed completely our. our teamwork. Yeah. And also brought these new disease that we have to deal with. Yeah. I mean, it's complicated. Well, I mean, that's it. Yeah, I mean. There's a lot of ways to approach the problem. I mean, some say that it was dealt with in the wrong way initially in terms of just. this idea of the non-sexual reproduction of the vine for thousands of years is. on ultimately unsustainable. They were going to come from somewhere. These pests, because we, you know, the vines have not been able to. misigenate, you know, and, you know, and there has been no natural selection on vines, essentially. You know, very little. I don't know. I mean, to go back to. But to go back to the conversation about working soils, not working soils. I mean, I think it's super, super important for the south of France, particularly, because the lack of rainfall in so many areas. I mean, like, I know Jeff Kutlou is telling me he got almost nothing this whole season. It's crazy. And I mean, happily his vines are well planted and they're still surviving. But like, it's not good. You should go speak to Tom Lubei, or so. Yeah, I know. Very interesting to speak. Oh, he's great. Very interesting guy. Yeah. At the moment, I'm reading the last book he recommended. But I think I'm. I mean, like, I know. I've been. They have been spending a lot of time with cloth fontine in recent years and they stopped plowing in 2014, for example. They have nothing but great things to say about that regiment there on fairly thin sheasts soils in Fojera. At the same time they don't expect very high yields at all, I mean they do 10 to 12 hectares per hectare. They're just top quality, that's what. It's not really how they rationalize it, they're really, I mean in terms of when you listen to Karin talk about it, she's really about the health of the plant and about the, they're not aiming for extraction or pristine grapes for them in and of themselves. I mean I guess who else can we think of in France that is doing no plowing whatsoever? I mean I know like what Didier Barra was doing Rollofaka, laying down the herbs, so it's I think I'm not sure if Olivia Cohen I know he was doing the Rollofaka but I think he's using a disc to kind of mess with it. But who else, I mean in terms of, well Romoan Vallo in the Bogele, very hands-off, but it's definitely a frontier of something. It is a big question and depending on the terroir, on the soil, on where we are, but here it's difficult. I mean I guess with your, with your, with the kind of quantities you're working with, I mean you made, you said 250 bottles into 2022 and maybe it'll be a little over a thousand in 2023, but are you calculating in terms of fields? Are you saying like we got this much, you know, acto-liters per capita chance to be a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny wine maker producer and I like also to work without pump, without electricity, all hands, because it's tiny and I also have the lache prise, I don't want to know and do, and send to a laboratory, I don't care, I don't be shit for that. I just want to do my wine with my feeling and with my heart and with my work and I hope it's good. And that's it. I mean I can empathize entirely, yeah, I'm not even like Fabrice that is a real master for me in Fabrice, he's like, he's really a real wine maker for me because he puts so much work and devotion to his work, that it's crazy, completely and he could build a house for his family and build a domain that is now world famous and the house is now built. Yeah. It was almost built when I visited it. Shapo, as we say, hats off to him, hats off, yeah, really. Well thank you again for the addendum to this podcast, thank you all my pleasure.