Domaine la Taupe
Bert Mole
Thésée

Bert and Nicole are two winemakers after my own heart. For starters, they are wine importers! Bert and Nicole come from Amsterdam where they import a lot of our favorite natural wines. Bertjan, born and raised in the Netherlands, has been involved in natural wine ever since he took his first sip in 1999 during a trip to France. This inspired him to open Bruutwijn, one of the first companies to import natural wines to the Netherlands. One domain in particular that struck their fancy as it had ours was that of Bruno Allion in the Loire Valley. So much so that 4 years back, Bert and Nicole started collaborating with Bruno with aims to take over part of the domain.

This is where Domaine la Taupe began and has continued ever since, situated on the ancient riverbed of the Cher River. Bert and his wife Nicole work alongside an eclectic staff every year and their dog and children are always present. Their soil is rich and has a mixture of clay, limestone, flint, and smaller amounts of other rock.

From the jump, we've been super happy with the new proprietors and their perspective. It was very special to be able to taste wines from a terroir we knew pretty well, rendered with a new perspective. Lots of familiar traits, but also a new structure/frame that I see as a progressive evolution from Bruno's natural inspiration. Bert being an epicurean and a fanatic brings a strong perspective on the types of wines he wants to produce, but it's Nicole, a psychologist, who makes all the blends, and all the biodynamic preparations. The duo have truly come into their own with the series we have today. Each wine is fully realized and developed with a lot of love and care.

"I didn't leave the Netherlands and move my family to France to start putting sulphur in wine," he told us. Bert is interested in the expression of a place he fell in love with and changed his life for. It's a passion, or obsession, or just a love affair with a place and its remarkable fruit. Each new vintage I taste is more unfettered, more veridical, than the last. Whatever that means? They're more true to what they are and shaped by the vintage. Cuvees can be really different from one year to the next, and that's because each year in Anjou is remarkably different. Bert likes to make wine from grapes that reflect that fact. But he's also got a perspective. He likes wine that's leaner, lighter, brighter, and less encumbered by fruit. He picks a little early, very gentle extractions... all to make a series of wines that read like a reverie: Bert's.

Bert's of the persuasion that the vast majority of winemaking is done in the vineyards, but his cellar is a very special place. Frank and I were totally beguiled by the smell of cucumber and dill hanging in the air. So much of the character of a winery is grounded in this æther of yeasts and molds and bacteria. It's easy now to find these flavors in the wines, and even moreso in the leaner vintages like 2021 we tasted together. Here in Anjou Blanc, the cellars are made out of limestone and are mostly underground or cut into the hillside. This is a much better environment for the microbiome to flourish than the overground cellars in Anjou Noir, and is perhaps another reason for the great difference in wines from so nearby.

Bert's romantic connection to this place is evident as he walks us through each parcel. We stop at one in particular that looks its age. "They keep telling me I have to pull it up. There are so many plants missing. I'm not ready to say goodbye yet. I know I'll have to, but I'm not ready yet," he told us. We like people like that. They make good wine. After a bit of silence he pointed out a "bee hotel" he'd set up on the parcel.