Whither Cahors?
We’re awash in wine geek tears when the Jura frosts. But spare a thought for Cahors, which frosts just as often, without the same demand. Plus: Simon Busser, L'Ostal Levant, & Danis Bessières.
In the course of two cold mornings this April, Cahors - the marquee red appellation of France’s southwestern Lot département - suffered 90% losses to frost, the fourth major frost episode since 2017. Vitisphere’s Alexandre Abellan notes that “among the areas specializing in red wine, Cahors is particular in lacking production due to climate hazards, which saps its capacity to finance its adaptation to climate change and preserve its production.”
In other words: while Bordeaux, the Rhône, and the Languedoc are perennially at risk of over-production of cheap red wine, Cahors has the unhappy distinction of not making enough cheap red wine. How did we get here?
LATE AOC PROBLEMS
The Cahors AOC was decreed only in 1971, at the dawn of the supermarket era. Its architects went all-in on making it a Little Bordeaux, emphasizing red wine production of what was then mostly known as côt or (locally, confusingly) auxerrois. This focus on red wine occurred at the expense of certain frost-resistant white hybrids already planted in the area.
The next thirty years of strong sales within France saw the planted vineyard surface of Cahors increase tenfold, from 440 to 4400ha, chiefly in the lowlands bordering the Lot river. Today these are the areas proving very vulnerable to frost linked to climate disruption. Ironically, in the wake of two legendary frost episodes in the 1950s, these areas were apparently prized for frosting less than the limestone plateaus surrounding the town of Cahors.
Cahors sales began to crater in France in the 2000s, even as the success of Argentinian malbec on international markets inspired its winemakers to embrace varietal marketing. Meanwhile, jurançon noir, a productive, lighter red variety known for producing fruit even after frost, was among those excluded from the Cahors appellation in 1992.
Unsurprisingly, Cahors’ humid Atlantic climate and higher labor costs have made it largely unable to compete with Argentinian malbec on the supermarket shelves of the world, already crowded, in recent decades, with cheap red wines from warm regions. The succession of frost vintages since 2017 have struck like nails in a coffin, with Vitisphere warning the Cahors wine industry is “at the edge of implosion.”
THE TRANSFORMATION TO COME
When a conventional wine production model goes bust, causing vineyard prices to plummet, there often arises a natural wine scene (cf. the Beaujolais, Anjou, etc.). Cahors’ off-grid geographical position - north of Gaillac, east of Bordeaux, near no key train route - makes it a late-bloomer in this regard. So does its Atlantic climate, with its attendant mildew pressure.
“We started getting interested in the history of Cahors when we came to visit during my winemaking studies,” recalls Louis Pérot of L’Ostal Levant, among the key newcomer natural estates working to revitalize the region. “I said to myself, ‘It’s a good option. There’s a true [qualitative] grape variety, a good diversity of terroir.’”
Like his early mentor in the region, Prayssac vigneron Simon Busser, Pérot has begun diversifying from malbec, planting syrah, pinot noir, chenin, chamboursin, and more. Busser, for his part, is expanding experiments with Jura varieties like trousseau, pinot noir, and savagnin; the latter in particular has shown an astounding salinity on the local clay-limestone terroir. He’s found that cordon-trained vines show more resistance to frost than those trained in guyot, and hopes to experiment with pergola training in the years to come.
But Busser, too, has his doubts about the viability of winemaking in Cahors, in the wake of this year’s frost.
“Sometimes I think about selling and finding a small estate higher up, maybe 1ha,” he says. “Just to make a garden and have some sheep, and do something smaller and more peaceful.”
Danis Bessières, a young natural vigneron who recently took over his father’s longtime organic estate in Puy-L’Evêque, is optimistic, if you can call it that.
“There are so many vignerons who’ll stop making wine in Cahors,” he says. “There won’t even be 2’500ha planted, like in the Jura. There’ll be that kind of demand when there’s just 1000ha left.”
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One measure of the isolation of Cahors within France is I have lived here fifteen years, criss-crossing wine regions, and I only found the chance to visit Cahors this May. It is just not on the way anywhere. But it’s worth the detour, as much for its verdant natural beauty and local markets as for its emergent natural wine scene. There one can rediscover many of the savory flavors and spun-tannin textures of Bordeaux in a wilder, uncorrupted state. A long, hot, wet growing season and a preponderance of tannic red varieties are both its blessing and its curse. Everyone I met there is dealing with them in different ways.
For subscribers, here are three profiles of some leading lights of NATURAL CAHORS:
An INTERVIEW with Prayssac vigneron SIMON BUSSER, an acolyte of OLIVIER COUSIN and an ertswhile HORSE-PLOWING ADVOCATE who is nowadays HANGING UP THE PLOW in favor of rolling grass cover.
A visit to visionary neo-vignerons LOUIS & CHARLOTTE PEROT of L’OSTAL LEVANT, acolytes of SIMON BUSSER who are creating a NEW PARADIGM for CAHORS NATURAL WINE at their idyllic farmstead above PUY-L’EVEQUE. (No paywall.)
A visit to young CAHORS natural wine scion DANIS BESSIERES, who is making the most of a heritage of NATURE ET PROGRES organic farming, OXYGENATIVE WINEMAKING, and (gasp) MACHINE HARVESTING.
I’d like to thank my friend Marie Tribouilloy of Ops Pizza and Foret Wines in New York for her cheerful companionship during the sojourn to Cahors. For the excellent pizzas that sustained us through some long tastings, many thanks to Keith and Petrea at Le Houx Est Où, a natural wine pizza place and auberge opening later this year in Saint-Antonin-Noble-Val, a hour south of Cahors. Now that I know the way, I’ll certainly return!
For anyone in Burgundy on July 20th and 21st, my friends at Domaine Dandelion are hosting an open-doors party at their estate with excellent tacos by chef Mateo Breña. For anyone not already sick of wine by then, Vin Noé’s nearby Haut Les Mains salon on Monday July 22nd should finish the job.
I’ll be in touch soon with more reports from Burgundy. In the meantime, I’m off to the ass-end of Switzerland via Alsace for a friend’s far-flung fortieth birthday party, with a carload of vin français and a teething baby. The things we do for friends.
FURTHER READING
Machines Are Coming For Natural Wine
For Meinklang, Harvesting Machines Are Just A Tool
I feel this! Here in Italy we shed tears for Piedmont frost and hail, but nobody gave two shits when most of these producers here in Lazio lost 50-100% of their harvest to mildew last year.