Created and run by the timid but wonderfully enthusiastic and charming Frédéric Hauss, a former cinematographer who worked extensively behind the camera for the big screen and TV. Fréd is near my age (30, take 16; I’m on 30, take 18), but wanted a change of life into something equally artistic but more connected to nature. (Relatable?) Given that 2021 is his first vintage growing grapes and making wine, what he’s put to bottle is flabbergasting. He may have little experience in winegrowing so far, but it doesn’t show. I wouldn’t call his first vintage beginner’s luck either. The 2022s are even better, and you would surely know it wasn’t luck if you’ve tasted his unfinished wines in the cellar. Some people are quick to understand fundamentals, perhaps those who already mastered them in another craft are advantaged. But it’s clear that Fréd already understands artistic composition and how to craft a wine to capture emotion, discreetly.

Fréderic is based out of Saumur Puy-Notre-Dame, which will be a new focal point for Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc in the face of climate change; it’s colder down there. It’s also prime vineyard real estate whose grapes are mostly sent off to the cooperative—à la Brézé before we shouted from the rooftops of this hill’s potential with the simply made but potent wines of a young Arnaud Lambert, in 2010, followed by Guiberteau in 2012. What’s important in this emerging Saumur area is to find those sites on the top of hills or in the upper-middle areas where vine roots are in close contact with the tuffeau limestone bedrock, like the wines Les Infiltrés, and Forteresse de Berrye.

I enjoyed what Fréd wrote about his project, about himself. It’s in French, so I asked a friend for help translating it, then tidied it up. We also checked with Fréd to see that he approves of the translation. He’s very particular, and thankfully he did.

A picture of Fréd’s face is notably absent from our website and this newsletter. You will better understand when you finish his text.

“Believe what we feel. Act accordingly.” – “Maintenant,” by comité invisible.

My name is Frédéric HAUSS

Since 2021, I have been guiding three hectares of vines whose fruits I transform into wines, between Doué in Anjou and Le-Puy-Notre-Dame in Maine et Loire (49), in the extreme south-west of the Saumur and Saumur-Puy-Notre-Dame.

I grow Chenin, Chardonnay, Cabernet (Franc and Sauvignon) and Grolleau.
But in reality, I had branched off…

I left a comfortable situation as a senior technician in the cinema in Lille, a city of heart, to take care of a piece of land with organic farming, and for 20 years I was a committed and enraged social and environmental activist. By evolving in these environments, I learned to identify models of the past that seriously compromise our future. These include agro-industry and the pressure it imposes on agricultural income, the race for equipment, expansion and debt, land pressure, the monopolization of resources, the disappearance of the peasant world, synthetic pesticides, and the death of the soil.

To speak from agriculture and out of phenomenological concern and to save the environment, I decided, like many, to occupy it…

I spent my childhood and adolescence between Orléans and Angers. A true child of the Loire, joining its banks seemed obvious to me; memories of hide-and-seek with my brother in the small Gamay plot owned by my grandfather, an amateur winegrower in Chalonnes-sur-Loire. Later, sweet emotions during tastings in Burgundy near Auxerre (Chloé Maltoff in Coulanges la Vineuse, Domaine Richoux in Irancy, Domaine de la Cadette in Vezelay, the Chablis geniuses De Moor and Patte-loup, especially the meeting with what is known as a bifurqueur (young graduates from major schools who radically change paths) before the time: Pierre Hervé, a former schoolteacher who converted to winegrowing in the hills of Tannay directed me towards vines and wine. A duo of former colleagues who went to make wine in Ardèche (Domaine les Bois Perdus), also greatly inspired me.

Wine and cinema have many points in common: the clever balance between technique and emotion, two artisanal rather than industrial professions, two areas in which our country excels and where two fundamentally opposed forms of economy coexist but are not exclusive. They are also two arts of circumstances:

Just as a film can be a reflection of the mood and logistics of its filming, a wine is marked by our harvest environments, the flashes of ingenuity with the breakdowns of the press, instincts sharp as the unavailability of a racking rod, the radical decisions as much as the compromises.

To paraphrase Baptiste Morizot in his book “Manières d’être Vivant,” grapes transformed into wine seem to me the perfect playground for forging alliances with the plant kingdom, for practicing diplomacy with non-humans. Finally, as Antonin Iommi-Amunategui (creator and host of the blog “No Wine Is Innocent”) underlines in his ‘manifesto for natural wine,’ those who, courageously, at the margins, develop wines without artifice and provide “the clear key to other battles.” So I wanted to be … Besides, Jean-Luc Godard claimed that “it’s the margins that hold the pages together.”

So much for the mind.

Concretely: Harvests at the Grange Aux Belles in 2019, a professional baccalaureate in 2020, an internship at Mélaric, the flagship of organic wine in the south of Saumur and great meetings at the right time made me settle in 2021 in the middle of unique personalities (and always ready to be of service) who revolve around the Saumur-Puy-Notre-Dame appellation (Mélaric, L’Austral, Manu Haget, Thibaut Stephan, Thibault Masse, La Folle Berthe, Jonathan Maunoury, …).

It was a smooth transition and installation, step by step; as the rapper Oxmo Puccino says, “From prestige to burlesque, I manage, with what life suggests to me.” I rent the vines and benefit from a library of C.U.M.A. material (Coopérative d’Utilisation des Matériel Agricole).

But above all, I share a tractor, van, pump and press, grape harvesters, doubts and certainties, joys and setbacks with a winegrower who settled at the same time as I did in the same area: Charlotte Savary Fulda (Vins les Coquilles). Compared to what I call “my sister vineyard,” our farms are distinct and our wines are very different. But you’ll often see us stuffed together. Our relationships link common logistics, mutual aid, Adelphia, care and philosophy.

Finally, between two green jobs, I perpetuate my activism against agro-industry within the Confédération Paysanne or Les Soulèvements de la Terre. The neighboring Deux-Sèvres department has been the scene of struggles over water usage, which I consider historically significant for the world. This commitment along with many others is a salutary collective counterpoint to the solitude of our professions. It also requires me to exercise a form of discretion. I shun social networks and avoid photos. I aim to make wine like Daft Punk made music: without ever investing in my image. As one of my colleagues says, “Everything must be in the bottle.”

The estate is called “Les Infiltrés” [The Departed] like the film by Martin Scorsese, a work at once nervous, tense and elegant: a horizon for the wines that I try to develop, literally without filters, without artifice–it is also a nod to my previous job and to an environment that I infiltrated three years ago [2021] when I knew nothing about it at all. I wish the word “Infiltrés” was feminized, to pay tribute to all the women who help me daily. From my lover to the seasonal people who help to select young shoots from the vine, from my participatory financiers to the harvesters, from the winegrowers allied to the wine merchants who trust me.

In the vineyard, I’m certified in organic farming and work as carefully as possible on yield management (pruning, de-budding and shoot selection in two passes, sometimes three, as in 2023 … difficult!!!) and I plow only according to the vigor and other signals sent by the plant. No systematism. Climate change forces us to be on permanent alert. I already combine copper with herbal tea sprays (nettle and horsetail). Yarrow and valerian for periods of stress (frost, drought). Manual harvest, obviously. And perennial. Every September I like to be the accountant of the life brackets we arrange with our buckets and secateurs.

In the cellar, I work with native yeasts, my nose and mouth as compasses, the microscope as a crutch. If, in the cinema, a few tutelary figures have always intimidated me, in the world of wine, my ingenuity and my relative ignorance of the codes to master or the “100 vintages that you must have tasted” afford me great freedom. “Act like so-and-so…” isn’t really part of my vocabulary. Nevertheless, I seek to make fine, delicate, digestible wines. With bubbles and whites, I look for purity, clarity and radicality, even if it means getting close to the vegetal (should we really forget that wine comes from a vine?!). On the reds, delicious fruit, freshness: short macerations, sometimes whole bunches. I shy away from sophistication a little but recognize in the wood of old barrels its quiet and centuries-old way of magnifying certain choices.

Sometimes I sulfur in homeopathic quantities to correct a deviation or an air intake during bottling. That said, my wines do not display more than 25mg/l of total SO2 when the regulations allow 100 to 150.

This sulfur story is complicated: I admire those who make no compromise but I have decided to put my radicalism elsewhere.

On the pins, each label has a distinct illustration to mark the uniqueness of the vintages. The quotes that accompany them guide me every day, as horizons of revolutionary lives that I modestly try to transmit to my drinkers. They adapt well to work in the vineyard and the cellar, evoking serious, determined paths, always questioning …

Raging Bulles comes from a 0.3ha Chenin Blanc plot planted in 1962 at 70m facing north-south on a gentle hill of limestone bedrock with shallow silty clay topsoil. Its natural fermentation is in fiberglass for 15 days then bottled on lees with a bit of residual sugar to create natural CO2 and aged for five months. It doesn’t go through malolactic and is neither filtered nor fined. Sulfites are added (15mg/L) at disgorgement. No dosage. According to Frédéric, this wine should be seen as functional and refreshing, to be consumed with or without moderation, with friends after a long day of working in the heat. For both white and sparkling wines, he likes his to bring a side punch, an uppercut, with balance around the tension. The 2022 vintage offers a full mouthfeel linked to the few grams of residual sugar but the tasting ends with a liveliness partly brought back by the absence of malolactic fermentation. Its aromatic palate focuses on citrus fruits as well as notes of pear. An ideal drink as an aperitif or a transition between two wines or dishes.”

In a region now better known for cuttingly intense dry wines, the 2022 Saumur Blanc “Une Histoire Vraie” is the most delicate and intricate of all Chenin Blanc wines we import from Saumur. 2022 was a warm year (well, it was hot …) and all the wines are a bit softer. Fréd picked early and worked gently to capture the essence and tension of this small organically farmed 20-are Chenin Blanc plot planted in 1990 on a slight east tilt of Turonian green chalk bedrock, and deep silt and sand topsoil. After its 60-day natural fermentation in fiberglass at 20°C maximum (similar to his Chardonnay vinification, a temperature that imparts nearly equal voice to fruit and savory characteristics), it’s aged on lees for six months in old 228L French oak and then six months in bottle. It passes through malolactic fermentation and is neither filtered nor fined. The 20mg/L of total sulfites added only at bottling renders this wine even more fine.

Over a few hours, a bottle in June started on the wider side and slowly became more vertical, lifting its freshness even higher. It’s wonderful alone but would be dangerously good with sea fare like cuttlefish and calamari on a plancha, and fatty fish, like turbot or sea bass, left with the skin on—sweet and crunchy brown, finished with a touch of sizzled almond brown butter, a squeeze of lemon juice and dusted with the zest. Rarely would I think about dry wines with dessert, but with its yeasty, pastry, soft spice notes, it may also go well with a mildly sweet one such as apfelstrudel. After about four hours open, it keeps getting better, tightening more, and releasing floral notes and high-toned spice. Stylistically, think of a marriage between the wines of Anjou’s Patrick Baudouin and Montlouis-sur-Loire’s Vincent Bergeron. The next day, it was tighter and almost completely vertical. It’s a journey but hard to leave alone long enough to see those wonderfully tight-knit floral aromas.

Chardonnay “Itinéraire Bis” comes from a flat plot planted in 1992 on a Cretaceous limestone bedrock with a deep silty clay topsoil. It passes through a 20-day natural fermentation in fiberglass at 20°C maximum, the medium temperature making for a Chardonnay with a balance of fruitiness and savory qualities. It’s then aged on lees for six months in 60% sandstone amphora and 40% old 228L French oak and passes through malolactic fermentation. It’s filtered but not fined. The total sulfites are 20mg/L and all are added at bottling. My first tastes of it just after bottling were full of iodine (one of my favorite white wine aromas) and ripe lemon with a little wildness. It needs only a few minutes open to find its footing.

What is going on with Saumur Cabernet Franc? If it continues at its current upward trajectory, in ten, twenty years they will even further combine the noblest traits of Côte d’Or reds and left-bank Bordeaux, and will be the most balanced and beautiful red wines of France. Fréd’s whites are very good, but the red … Damn! This 2022 Saumur Rouge Puy-Notre-Dame, one of the most compelling and stunning wines I’ve had in 2024, is no accident, as that would be impossible. It’s only his second vintage, ever, but if I hit this level of mark on my second try, I’d be scared for the rest of my life that I’d never get close to it again. The constant heat spikes of the 2022 season made for some serious bullet-sized vigneron night sweats, but for Saumur reds in this moment of climate change, if one listens to nature and rides its wave the results can be this! Pick the right spot (hilltop tuffeau limestone and sandy loam), pick early and fresh with some sting still in ‘em and ripe enough to let the stems play their part, let only the right ones in the vat, guide don’t push, think more, react less, and when the time is right, lure it into the bottle at the peak of its powers. That’s what happened here.

This slightly turbid deep red rose-colored Saumur foreshadows the absurd pleasure of what’s to come. We’ve imported some gorgeous Saumur Cabernet Franc, but this kind of wine seems only possible from an outsider looking in; someone led by emotion and intuition that realizes (rather, doesn’t care to know) that at all times they are in the middle of a frozen lake during spring on the thinnest of ice. Fréd explained that even though he’s new to winemaking he doesn’t want the influence of more experienced winegrowers. Well, ok … it’s working. But what will you do next, Fréd? On this day in June, this wine has already led me to the tuffeau hilltop of my Cabernet Franc dreams, and there’s only one direction to go: further up. This wine won’t apex on a mountaintop; it will do so in the clouds above.

Planted in 1990 on an east-facing gentle hill of Turonian green chalk bedrock with a deep silt and sand topsoil, the grapes were 50% whole cluster and fermented/macerated with a single pumpover during its nine-day fermentation. It was then aged ten months in five to ten-year-old 228L French oak. It passes through malolactic fermentation and is neither filtered nor fined. 10mg/L total SO2 added only at bottling.