Julie Balagny Fleurie from Julie Balagny.

Julie Balagny
Fleurie from Julie Balagny.
Julie Balagny and Zaggy.
Profile
Julie Balagny landed in Fleurie in 2009 after many years heading the cellar of biodynamic pioneers
Terre des Chardons. Originally from Paris, her first career seemed destined to be in psychomotricity,
the process of teaching basic motor skills to the mentally handicapped. As you might have guessed
from us importing her wines, Julie changed her mind.
After heading the cellar of a more "chemical" estate, then Terre des Chardons, Julie decided it was
time to start her own project. With her sites on either the Beaujolais or the Jura, she did some
research, and with the help of Yvon Métras and Michel Vigner, was able to purchase her current
property, an isolated clos with 3.2 h. of vines, 2 h. of prairies and 3 h. of woods. Inspired by her past
experience at Terre des Chardons, Julie quickly saw the biodynamic potential of this land:
"The vines support the woods, the woods supply the livestock (Julie owns and tends sheep), the
livestock supplies the soil: everything works together, everything is coherent."
The vineyard site, apart from being idyllically beautiful, has proven to be a very interesting terroir.
As mentioned above, the vines are completely isolated and surrounded by woods. The vines
themselves are on a very steep hill, making any mechanical work impossible and forcing Julie to do
everything by hand. The vines vary drastically in age (30 to 90) and are grown on three separate,
distinct soil compositions: pure granite mixed with pebbles and sand, granite and quartz and granite
with basalt. In an effort to best understand and express these terroirs, 3 bottlings are produced in
normal vintages: Cayenne, Simone and En Rémont.
Interview
This interview with Julie Balagny took place at L'Herbe Rouge in February, 2012.
Tell us about the the estate.
I settled in Fleurie in 2009. Before that I worked in the South (between Perpignan and Nîmes) for
about 11 years. In Perpignan I got a BTS working at a larger, more "chemical" estate, where I more
or less became the head of the cellar. After that I worked at Terre des Chardons, who work
biodynamically and with simpler vinification practices. When I decided it was time to start my own
estate, I had my mind set on either Fleurie or in the Jura. I was able to find my parcel through Yvan
Métras, who put me in touch with Michel Vigner. I instantly fell in love with this 3.2 hectare parcel,
all bunched together in the middle of the woods, next to the river... The property also included 2 h of
prairies and 3 h of woods, and in the spirit of working biodynamically, I knew this was a perfect
place to start a polyculture. The vines support the woods, the woods supply the livestock, the
livestock supplies the soil: everything works together, everything is coherent.
Why Fleurie or Jura?
Because it's what I like to drink, because it goes down easy, because the terroirs are rich and
complex... When you drink Beaujolais or Jura, you know you're drinking something unique that can't
be recreated anywhere else. They're something very French about them...
How did you get involved in wine?
I was born and raised in Paris. As a little girl, I was fascinated with wine; I'd see my mom spending
all day in the kitchen cooking, then having my dad come home with a bottle, putting it on the table:
how it was just as important as the food. This marked me. I was always amazed how people took
such pleasure in drinking wine, and wondered how something so magic and special could come out
of a bottle.
In college I studied psychomotricity, the process of teaching basic motor skills to the mentally
handicapped, and at the time it seemed like it was going to be my career. But I changed my mind!
What's the work in the vines like?
My vines are all on a steep slope, and it's impossible to work mechanically. You can't even work with
a horse because he'd have no room to turn at the top and bottom of each row. So everything is done
by hand, by pick and winch.
And in the cellar?
Cold carbonic maceration, no remontage, no pigeage. Whole cluster. I have a very old manual wood
press that I use, and then I have a few barrels.
What's it like to not have any neighbors? Also, how did the choice of making several cuvées
from the same parcel come about?
The choice to make different cuvées was an obvious one: there are three different soil types that are
visually evident (if you're here you can actually see the difference), and vinifying them separately
lets me get to know my vines better. The soils are: pure granite mixed with pebbles and sand,
granite and quartz and granite with basalt.
How old are the vines?
The youngest are 30 and the oldest are 90.
Who owned them before you?
It was owned by some guy involved in sharecropping, and the entirety of the harvest went to the
cave cooperative. They were worked chemically, so they are still in conversion.
Where do you stand on "Natural Wine"?
I don't feel integrated in it, or feel in any way like an extremist. I think the point is to be a vigneron,
to work with each vintage and to use as little intervention as possible. A wine has to be good, and
everyone has to like it. Well maybe not everybody... But at least most! I can't stand flawed, dirty
wine. If I can work sulfur free, I go for it. It's not so I can say I don't work with sulfur, it's a choice
based on ever changing circumstances. So far it's worked, so I do it.
Do you have any future plans for the estate?
I think it will remain as is in size. As I mentioned earlier, the real evolution I hope to achieve will
come from working with livestock and the woods. If their were to be an expansion, I'd rather do it to
help a young vigneron get started. There would be room to assist each other, to share tools,
know-how and manual labor. Other than that...
What do you like to drink besides Jura and Beaujolais?
Burgundy! I'm not against Champagne either! I also love Alsacian Pinot Noir.
Visits
This visit with Julie Balagny took place in
August, 2015.
Words and photos by Jules Dresssner.
Julie Balagny has a new house!
And a new cellar!
There is no temperature control in here, but there is foosball:
More importantly, she was able to transfer her beautiful old manual press and concrete tanks from
the previous space she was renting.
In what used to be a stable, a small enclave is reserved for Julie's barrel aging.
This is for the 100+ year old vines only.
For some reason, Julie has a 3 month old sheep called George living in her backyard.
George thinks he's a dog. More on that later.
On a totally unrelated note, did you know that for some reason, Converse sneakers apparently don't
have the trademark™ Red-Stripe® in Europe? And cost like 60 euro? That's why I bring all our
vignerons mint pairs upon request:
After checking out the new house and bribing Julie with shoes, we sat down to drink taste the 2014
Chavot.
Loving that label. Plus it was going down like Grenadine.
Oh wait, that's actually Grenadine...
Hey, at least it's organic... Ok, ok, this is what Chavot actually looks like:
Chavot, for those who have been following Julie's past releases, is a blend of 30 year old vines on
basalt that occasionally produce Cayenne and 40-70 year old vines on decomposed and solid granite
that occasionally produce En Simone. For a reminder of what Julie's magnificent Fleurie parcel looks
like, reread my recap from three years ago.
The wine needed a moment to open up, but when it did it had deep and subtle berry tones on the
nose and palate, with spicy structure and a long finish. It was so good it made Zaggy get the crazy
eyes.
Chavot is named after the village drunk, Bruno Chavot. He would always be hammered and making a
fool of himself, so it became insider slang to use his last name as a verb after a big night of drinking.
"You were so Chavot last night"
"I love getting Chavoed while tailgating at the Giants game."
For the record, no one at LDM wines has ever been to a tailgate. EVER. Also, Bruno Chavot just
moved back in with his mom at 55 years old.
Moving on...
The big news for Julie is that she has acquired an hectare of 40 year old AOC Beaujolais between
Fleurie and Bornard, as well as 70 ares of Moulin-a-Vent! And we visited both!
We started at the Moulin-à-Vent parcel.
As you can see, it's quite steep. The soils here are decomposed granite with fat chunks to go around
as well:
The vines here are pretty old, all over 50:
A North-West exposition and constant winds are, according to Julie, favorable to elegant, fresh wines.
Though she is surrounded by conventional farming, the parcel borders a large ravine so it's not too
bad for second hand chemical residue.
France went through a serious heat wave in 2015. Check out how dried all of this looks:
By now, we know that after almost three months of no rain, August showers saved the day for most
of France. OUUFF!
Next we visited the Beaujolais parcel:
The hill you can spot in the back is Juliénas. The soil here consists of clay, pebbles and sand. As we
walked around, Julie started ripping out these big plants from the ground:
"When you stop using herbicides, the plants that inevitably come back are erigerons and morelle
noire."
They two plants are hyper-invasive because they produce a ton of seeds.
Upon returning to the vines, we sat down to drink taste a Cayenne 2013, a wine that never made it
stateside. All of a sudden, George decided to show up!
I guess George thinks he's a dog, because started sniffing all the other dogs' butts (as dogs do) and
playing with them.
Our dog Zaggy is terrified of everything, including sheep. She scurried away into the house while
Denyse distracted George and Harrison.
When we sat down to finish the wine, George came under the table with the rest of the gang.
This visit with Julie Balagny took place in
June, 2012.
Words by Jules Dressner, photos by Maya Pedersen.
Julie Balagny lives in the Hauts De Poncié, a hamlet on the very top of Fleurie. Her house sits on the
top of a hill. She has no neighbors, as the house is completely surrounded by vines (that are not
hers).
After Julie greeted us, we got to meet her pet rabbit Wiggles.
We were parched, so Julie offered to cool us down with this delicious rasberry nectar from Patrick
Front.
It was a good time to talk about how 2012 was going. Julie was spared from hail, but has been
getting an average of 30-40mm of rain per week. She suffered a little frost damage, but nothing
serious. As far as 2011, it was a great vintage quantity wise, but she suffered a few setbacks.
Basically, she wanted to help two local new guys out, so she let them vinify their harvests in the
cellar that she rents. Unfortunately, their inexperience led to some poor decisions, creating
microbiological issues in the tanks. Barely dodging a bullet, Julie was able to salvage her wine with
some quick re-racking, and this improvised move forced her to consolidate some of the juices, thus
affecting her usual lineup of cuvées. 2011 will birth a new, perhaps one-off bottling called Carioca. It
should be bottled in late August/early September. The Simone wine will be aged even longer.
After sipping on nectar and talking shop, it was time to hop into the 4x4 and check out the vines.
Over the six kilometer drive to get there, Julie pointed out some vines that are part of new fad
sweeping the Beaujolais: ripping out one in six rows to make more room for a large tractor to spread
(chemical) treatments over the remaining five. Because of its horrible reputation, Beaujolais is really
struggling; the only people investing on a large scale are bigger companies who are quickly buying
up large portions of land. In the process, they are furthering the mechanization of the local
viticultural landscape. We also passed by an abandoned parcel where the owners had killed all the
vines with Roundup.
"It's obviously completely illegal, but it's a lot cheaper than ripping them out."
After getting out of the village and maneuvering through some isolated paths through the woods,
you find yourself in Julie's completely isolated clos of 3,2 hectares at 510 meters in altitude.
Julie is about to add fences around the vines to keep wild animals out. She is also working on setting
up a field for her cows and sheep to graze. This is part of a long term plan to create biodiversity
around her vineyards via polyculture. As she explained in her interview:
"The property also included 2 h of prairies and 3 h of woods; in the spirit of working biodynamically,
I knew this was a perfect place to start a polyculture. The vines support the woods, the woods supply
the livestock, the livestock supplies the soil: everything works together, everything is coherent."
There is no treillisage; everything has remained in traditional goblet training. The youngest vines
are 30:
The oldest are 90:
Though all the vines are in one place, there are three distinct soil types. Here's some granite and
quartz:
And here's some granite mixed with basalt:
The old vines in these soils are what end up in the Simone cuvée.
The vines are on a coteau that progressively increases in steepness, making any mechanical work
impossible. By the time you get to the top, you're almost at a 60% incline:
To work the soils, Julie has devised a system with this winch.
She attaches it to this truck:
A mechanism then pulls it up as it plows through the soil. She then walks it all the way down
through the next row, where she starts all over again.
Before tasting in the cellar, Julie wanted us visit her sheep that will eventually live next to the vines.
After visiting the vines, we checked out the cellar, just a few kilometers away. Here we got to check
out Julie's old school wood press.
That barrel on it is just there to save space. We got to taste the Carioca: it was fruity, fresh and easy,
but the extra aging provided some structure. Red fruit finish and nice acidity. The Jean Barat and
Simone (from barrel) were also well on their way; they were both structured but fresh. Julie might
have had a tough time with vinification setbacks, but the wines are GOOD. In the end, she is
thankful for the experience.
"I learned a valuable lesson, which is that you need to be patient with wine, to let it make itself."
Wines
A.O.C Fleurie "Cayenne":
There used to be a very famous French Penal Colony in the city of Cayenne. In English the Penal
Colony was known as "Devil's Island". In French culture the name Cayenne is as recognizable and
mythical as the name "Alcatraz" is in American culture. The penal colony at Cayenne was infamous
as a Hard Labor prison.
Julie named this wine "Cayenne" because the vineyard site where her vines are located is very rough
and difficult terrain to have to work and cultivate. She often felt like she was doing "hard labor" as
she worked the soil and tended her vines. It felt like she was one of the prisoners in the old Cayenne
prison camp! That is why she named her wine Cayenne!
A.O.C Fleurie "Simone"
A.O.C Fleurie "En Rémont"