September 03, 2026 - 0 comments
Nicolas Reau: "Always trust Your Grapes"
Clos des Treilles: eight hectares at the southern tip of Anjou. No machines for harvesting, only hands. And one word that Nicolas Reau keeps coming back to: trust.
A profession that cannot exist without it
"If you don't trust the grapes in the first place, there's no point in doing this job." The statement comes naturally, almost as something obvious to him. At Clos des Treilles, trust is not an extra layer added to the marketing narrative: it is the starting point. Trust in the grapes, trust in nature, trust in yourself. Without it, he says, you should simply do something else.
Since 2005, the estate has been farmed organically (Ecocert certified). Here, there are no chemicals used to force things, but rather what Nicolas Reau calls "natural alchemy." Cabernet Franc, Chenin, Gamay, Grolleau, Melon de Bourgogne, Folle Blanche: the grape varieties of Anjou, Chinon and Saumur-Champigny are allowed to express themselves without artifice.
The luxury of not adding sulfur
For a long time, Nicolas Reau made wine without sulfur. No sulfur added to the reds, and only a tiny amount in the whites. But he is categorical on one point: this was not an absolute principle, it was a privilege. "I've always considered it a luxury to go for years without adding sulfur." A luxury that has to be earned: you need perfect, exceptionally healthy grapes, the result of constant work in the vineyard.
For him, sulfur-free wine is therefore never a dogma. It is a reward, possible only when the grapes allow it.
The climate has changed the game
But do the grapes still allow everything they did fifteen years ago? Nicolas Reau does not beat around the bush. Climate change has made things more complicated: "the yeasts mutate, the bacteria mutate, things really aren't the way they were fifteen years ago." He is not the only one noticing it, he points out, as if to immediately dismiss any suggestion that this is simply his own pessimistic view.
His response is not to abandon the philosophy of the estate, but to make a clear-eyed adjustment: he now refuses to rule out sulfur when it becomes necessary. For him, trusting nature does not mean ignoring what it is going through. It means adapting without losing sight of the direction.
At Nicolas Reau's estate, the vines set the conditions, and year after year the winemaker learns to listen to them rather than trying to tame them.
