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Temple Cellars

Thomas Batardiere L'Esprit Libre 2022

Thomas Batardiere

Thomas Batardiere L'Esprit Libre 2022

Regular price $90.00
Unit price per

Maine-et-Loire / Loire // France

Thomas and Marie-Lise Batardiere make pure and precise low-intervention wines in Anjou, France.

L'Esprit Libre is Chenin Blanc made from 3 parcels in Rablay, from vines 15-90 years old. The parcels are plateaus of red sand and quartz gravel on schist. As always, they adopt a non-interventionist winemaking approach, and the grapes are fermented spontaneously and the juice is left on lees until summer. This is aged on fine lees in stainless steel tanks. Thomas prefers stainless steel to accentuate chenin’s natural tension, a judicious choice in the recent hot vintages. This wine ages on fine lees without sulphur until bottling in the summer.  

Fruit, crisp and saline, this is perfect with food. Unfined and unfiltered.
About the Producer

Thomas and Marie-Lise Batardiere make pure and precise low-intervention wines in Anjou, France.

Thomas Batardière studied anthropology and got bitten by the wine bug in 2008 while working as a cinematographer. Switching career path he worked as a sommelier first but being drawn to winemaking he decided to join Château Yvonne (Saumur, Anjou Blanc). Voluble, passionate and not afraid of a challenge he quickly became Mathieu Vallée’s right-hand man whilst studying viticulture in Beaune.

He finally struck out on his own in Rablay-sur-Layon (Anjou Noir) in 2012, buying a couple of hectares of his beloved chenin but without any equipment or cellar. He built the latter as well as his house right next door to Richard Leroy with whom he has become close.

Applying biodynamic principles from the get-go, Thomas continued to expand to reach 4ha (currently 3.3ha in production), just enough he believes to be independent and express himself. Most of his vines are south of the Layon river, in Rablay, on sandy and stony soils with clay over schist. Chenin and cabernet franc are grown here as well as grolleau, a grape well-suited to the area. His best parcels of chenin, including the Clos des Cocus planted in 1968, are found up the stunning coteau of Faye d’Anjou (north of the Layon) clinging into the schist bedrock.

He aims at making zero-sulphur wines, rarely racking and working reductively on the lees.

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