Philippe Delmée tends to fly under the radar a bit. His wines can be found in almost every bar and bistro in the Loire, and scattered throughout Paris. And as most of the wines get snapped up quickly in France, only a handful make it out to the rest of the world.

 

Philippe Delmée started making wines in 2008. At the time he was also a maths teacher, living in Brest. He would commute between Brest and Anjou, living out of a Caravan (pictured on the Rozetto cuvée) whilst in Anjou. In 2011 he stopped teaching, allowing him to focus solely on making wine. Aurélien Martin partnered with Philippe for a brief period of time, but in 2017 he moved on to work on some of his own projects.

He now has 6ha of vines, which are spread out across 16 small plots in different locations around Faye-d'Anjou and Faveraye-Mâchelles. Laden with different types of schist, he is able to produce wines that are fresh, with notable minerality and acidity. He uses biodynamic preparations and treatments, and tries to use as little copper and sulfur in the vineyard as possible. He crafts a number of delicious wines in a variety of styles from each location, making complex, mineral, high quality Chenin, as well as a series of energetic and smashable wines that are made purely for enjoyment. You could say glou glou, although they are well-made, relatively detailed, and extremely well-priced considering. 

 

When it comes to harvest time and winemaking, expert decision making and timing is critical. His plots are spread quite far apart, and the roads not so modern. It takes a lot of care and consideration when to pick, and juggle everything once back at his tiny cellar. Once there, the grapes are pressed slowly in a very old basket press. He usually uses a pied de cuve to ensure the fermentations start strongly. Using a tiny amount of sulfites at this point (0.5g/L - 1.5g/L) is the only thing he adds in the entirety of the winemaking process. He has tanks, old barrels, and some larger stockinger barrels for the ageing process. The wines are never fined or filtered, preserving the raw matter and essence of each year.