Jean-Marie Guffens, the love of wine!

You either love him or you hate him, but one thing is certain: Jean-Marie Guffens, a winemaker in the Mâconnais region, leaves no one indifferent. Bourgogne Aujourd'hui dedicates its "Interview" section in issue 170 to him .

Pouilly-Fuissé first juice from Hautes de Vignes 2003; a large bottle resulting from a blend of the first juices from different plots.

A candid and refreshingly frank interview (to put it mildly…), punctuated by bursts of laughter, passionate outbursts, and a few fine bottles of white wine from the Mâconnais region. Below you'll find some highlights, along with comments on a wine tasted during the discussion. You still have half the interview to read, as well as tasting notes on three other bottles.

So, what basic rules did you start with?

I love this question What rules? The rules of not knowing, while being aware that a wine blanc made with chardonnay It could have been big. I'd learned in high school how to weed, how to ferment… Everything I didn't want to do! I was organic before almost everyone else, but nobody knew what that meant. We worked the soil at Chavigne with a tractor and a winch, without a drop of herbicide. vinification While all the white wines were oxidizing, I understood that it was essential to keep all the lees, and I grasped this while tasting wines in the late 1970s at the estates of renowned winemakers like Coche-Dury and Comtes Lafon, whose wines were so different from others; they were white wines with real flavor, just the way I like them! I've seen the Mâconnais region transform incredibly between my early days and today; I may have a reputation for being stubborn, but it has to be said that we were tasting some truly abominable white wines here (he gets angry) in the 1980s! You had to put up with them! In the vineyard courtyards , you'd see ten pallets of fertilizer in winter, one pallet of herbicides in spring, and four pallets of sugar before the harvest! But the worst thing that happened to this region was the high dollar in the mid-1980s, which allowed winemakers who did whatever they wanted, who didn't even have a mustimeter to check the ripeness, to make a fortune! With my old press, I learned to observe the juices and separate the different pressings, whereas at the time, all the presses were set up the same way by the sellers; the winemakers would just press "on" and "off" and that was it, without worrying about acidity, pH, or anything!

And what about yields? Listening to some winemakers, you get the impression that anything goes with the chardonnay …

We really need to talk about it! Yield is the key to quality, in rouge but also in blanc Over the last ten years, the Domaine Guffens-Heynen produced on average thirty-eight hectoliters per hectare.

And from the very beginning, did you pay attention to yields?

You know, with old vines and no fertilizer, you don't produce much. That said, you can certainly produce good white wines at 60 or 70 hectoliters per hectare, but you're not making Guffens-Heynen, that's all! So people wonder why my wines age well, but there's no magic involved; it's thanks to low yields, pressing, and lees. For me, today the best white wines of the Côte-d'Or are those of Olivier Lamy, but why? In his high-density plantings, there aren't many grapes per vine, and I could also mention Jean-Marc Vincent, whose wines also have a lot of density. They are... Saint-Aubin And Santenay not to Meursault nor in Puligny-Montrachet, and yet they do better! So, we appreciate each other, we exchange a lot, but what do we have in common? 500-700 grams of grapes per vine and not a kilo or more! I should also point out that there is not a single vine in clonal selection in my thirty-three hectares of vines in Burgundy, in the South of France and in Bordeaux.

What are your thoughts on the ongoing debate, which resurfaces with each new harvest, regarding the ripeness of white wines? Is it really necessary to harvest grapes at the limit of ripeness to ultimately obtain fresh white wines?

Of course not! This year, I cut down my grapevine. cuvée From Mâcon Pierreclos Juliette at 14% ABV, with a pH of 3.03 (laughs). People tell me, "That's impossible, you've acidified it!" which, of course, isn't the case. In these vineyards, a bunch weighs 45-50 grams, and that's it! At the end of ripeness—and I'm talking about true ripeness—the grapes concentrate; the sugar, but also the acidity, increases. You have to take risks, wait for ripeness, and if I lose one year out of twenty, it's not a big deal; I win the other nineteen. Besides, unripe grapes contain a lot of malic acid, and that's an acid that doesn't hold up. It's the reduction that holds the wine together. blanc over time, and certainly not SO2 or acidity. When I see winemakers in the Côte-d'Or harvesting two weeks before everyone else, it's awful, but we have our crazy ones here too. In 2020, some harvested grapes with less than 11 degrees of natural alcohol! 11 degrees in 2020, can you believe it? They had to be something else!

Is minerality very fashionable? Does it even exist?

Minerality is an impression one can get when tasting, and it's quite real, but it can't be measured and has nothing to do with acidity or the wine's aging potential. Moreover, I've realized that even in blanc It's the warmest vintages, and therefore the least acidic, that age best; in my collection, the 1983, 1985, 1989, and 1990 are indestructible! The unripe 1987 and 1984 are completely ruined!

So global warming isn't really a problem?

I love these warm vintages, although I like 2018 less because it has both volume and warmth, and when there's no flesh, it's not the same. 2018 is far from being 2020, 2019, or 2015!

You stated in the Revue du vin de France that classifications "are obsolete but perpetuate the legend, the prices, and the speculation." Aren't you exaggerating a bit?

I think that's very well said (laughs). No, of course we can't claim that some terroirs are superior to others. Terroir is like the sun, a team of grape harvesters, a batch of barrels, a clonal selection, or massale , a harvest date… this is just one aspect of the question One parameter, one point of view, and that's it! And if a winemaker harvests cloned vines too early and ages his wine in 100% new, charred barrels, the terroir disappears, but the winemaker will still sell his bâtard -Montrachet, 300 euros a bottle! Terroir is just a business, it's all about the cash register, but ultimately, what is wine? It's the expression of a terroir, that's true, but also of a grape variety, a vintage, and above all, the fruit of a winemaker's labor. I don't believe in terroir as the be-all and end-all, but still, here in the Mâconnais, between the differences in altitude, soil, and exposure to the south and north, we have a blast. In the Côte-d'Or, with its perfectly aligned slopes where everything looks the same, I think I'd probably get bored... (laughs)!

Interview by Christophe Tupinier Photographs: Thierry Gaudillère

Reference points

1954: Born in Belgium. September 1976: Arrived in France. 1979: Purchased his first vineyards in Pierreclos. 1980: First harvest. 1985: Began his career as a broker. 1990: Founded the maison Verget trading company. 1991: Purchase of the buildings in Sologny. 1997: Purchase of the Château des Tourettes, in Apt (Hérault). 2000: Purchase and creation of Carré des Sens, sold in 2008. 2001: Construction of a wine cellar vinification has Chablis , with Olivier Leflaive; wine cellar sold in 2005 to the maison Louis Latour, Beaune. 2016: Purchase of Château Closiot in Barsac (Gironde).

Pouilly-Fuissé Premier Jus des Hauts de Vignes 2003

“In 2003, a scorching year, the terroirs were less pronounced, so I blended the first juices and the different plots. Whereas in 2013, a cold, late year, when the grapes lacked a bit of ripeness, I did the complete opposite, harvesting in several passes. It's a bit of a mess at my place, but I put what I've done on the bottle with the aim of achieving the best quality each year and a kind of stylistic unity that transcends vintages,” explains Jean-Marie Guffens. From vines in Les Crays, Les Croux, and La Roche, this fantastic cuvée It has a brilliant golden robe. Sensual aromas of perfectly ripe yellow fruits, honey, and spices. The palate is dense, full, concentrated, and enveloping, retaining superb finesse even twenty years later in such an extreme vintage. Sublime! "One day Robert Parker told me: 'Jean-Marie, you're one of the three best white winemakers in the world,' and I replied: 'You're right, Bob, but it's a shame the other two are so far behind' (laughs). I hate modesty; it hinders you from the start, whereas you must know how to remain humble in the face of nature, illness, and distress…"

Christophe TUPINIER

Rédacteur en chef des dégustations