Is complantation a viticultural model for the future?

Justine Knapp | 5/27/24, 4:23 PM

What if grape varieties didn't appear on the label? What if their mere mention was of no importance? What if terroir was all that mattered? Many estates choose to blend different grape varieties on the same plot, for the diversity it creates in the vines and the complexity it brings to the wines.

Ten winegrowers stand side by side on a winter's evening. For some, it's been a long road. One has left his vineyards in Portugal for this Paris meeting. Another has come all the way from Armenia, while the one next to him is from Spain. The locals have estates in Cahors, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Champagne and Alsace.

The assembly does not speak the same language. The wines do. Despite the geographical distance between production sites, commonalities gradually emerge between the cuvées poured: energetic mouthfeel, memorable brilliance, intensely saline finishes.

And it's not just their ability to produce this pleasing mouthfeel that the makers of these wines share. The reason for their presence is another common thread: each estate cultivates vines that are planted together. On the same plot, on the same terroir, several different grape varieties are planted, cultivated, harvested, pressed and vinified together, like a single breath. The oldest expression of viticulture.

Viticulture in the news

The informal "Vignobles Complantés" group includes Domaine Marcel Deiss and Vignoble du Rêveur (Alsace), Champagnes Geoffroy (Champagne), Domaine Laroque d'Antan (Cahors), Domaine Beaurenard (Châteauneuf-du-Pape), Compañia de Vinos Telmo Rodriguez (Spain), Niepoort Vinhos (Portugal) and Zorah Wines (Armenia).

All defend this model of modern viticulture, which draws on the past and looks to the future. Like them, several estates across the vineyard are adding new plots. Others are perpetuating local history, like Jacqueline André of Domaine Pierre André, who maintains the complantation of her 150-year-old vines in Châteauneuf-du-Pape: "Here, all the old vines were complanted before phylloxera. When we switched to clones (standard vines developed for their yields and massively introduced into the vineyards in the 1980s, editor's note), we forgot about the quality of the plant," recalls the winemaker.

Wine harmony

Complantation allows us to rediscover viticultural biodiversity. It's an effective tool that, among other things, promotes resistance to disease and cushions the difficulties associated with climatic upsets (late frosts, drought or heat). A grape variety that struggles one year will be supported by the production of others, and vice versa in subsequent years. A climatic blow is less likely to doom the harvest. A synergy is created, as the different grape varieties harmonize side by side, gradually matching their stages of maturity. In the cellar, a balance is established.

This is Jean-Michel Deiss's view. His inspired gaze fixed on the distance, as if in revelation. The audience, suspended, of course. The son, Mathieu Deiss, continues: "If everything in the vineyard has been prepared in advance, winemaking becomes a leisurely process that you can unroll. The voice of the Marcel Deiss estate in Alsace is the one that most speaks of complantation. The family has been preaching its virtues for over thirty years. Its poetic ambition: to rely on the place for the taste of the wine.

Don't look for grape variety names on the label. In any case, one bottle may contain as many as sixty. "Complantation is a way of erasing the varietal framework so dear to Alsace, of bringing it back to the cru. In other words, blending several grape varieties in the same plot erases their taste markers and allows the terroir's personality to dominate.

The winemaker is clear: "Complantation is useless on a terroir that is not a high place. Suddenly , eyes close or roll back. The Grand Cru Altenberg de Bergheim has just been served.

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