La Grange Tiphaine - Amboise, France

January 31, 2007 17:15 PM: 
It’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there (France)

“I pulled in to Amboise,
I was feeling about half past dead,
I need to find this place about which I’d read?

’Pardon Monsieur’
can you tell me where I can find Grange Tiphaine’s shed?

He just grinned and shook my hand,
’non’ was all he said.”

(With thanks to Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm)”

Thinking about the great appellations of the Loire valley the names roll off the tongue - Chinon, Vouvray, Saumur, Sancerre, Touraine-Amboise, Pouilly-Fume... Whoa; “Touraine-Amboise”??? 

In the over 13 years that have passed since the introduction of the wines of La Grange Tiphaine to Oregon, things have changed perhaps a slight bit. Their’s is now an Appellation of growing and respected renown thanks in large part to the work of La Grange Tiphaine’s Coralie and Damien Delecheneau and their help putting on the local maps more than just a few grand Châteaux. 

Our story continues. 

We had had a long, busy day and we’re pushing hard to get to our last visit just outside the historic center of Amboise, trouble was we needed to go into Amboise and we’re not sure which of the 3000 exits to take to get to see Damien Delechenau at his small workman-like Domaine Grange Tiphaine. The Band’s famous paraphrased lyrics above where the distilled version of our arriving slowly. Amboise is a scintillating place to ask for directions, but a dismal place for answers. It is hard to find directions for a place no one knows, but will not admit to not knowing. 

After driving by Damien’s place going north, then passing it by heading south - even managing a drive-by to the west - in turning back east we’d made it. At that point after already tasting some forty wines at three properties, and driving about three hours, being tired is the lone option, so we did our best to appear energized in an unknown appellation with an unknown winemaker and being dead tired - even knowing Damien was emerging as one of France’s great young stars, we were not prepared to be dazzled: adrenaline shot through us with the first taste of the first wine. The drug of these trips—the first taste.

Named for its elderly barn (“grange”), Grange Tiphaine is a little jewel of 24 acres of ancient farmland and vine, all tended by man, horse and canine. The scattered holdings, while Amboise-based, straddle and include Touraine and Montlouis. Young Damien is a four aces kind of guy: bright, personable, talented and wholly dedicated to his craft and his land. He is fifth generation Delecheneau in these fields bringing more than the whole nine yards to the plate. Damien knows the great traditions of France, honors the local wine history, but he also has worked in South Africa‘s glorious Stellenbosch wine region, as well as the Napa Valley and a few other parts of his home country. 

An aside:
Observation over two decades

The great winemakers look you in the eye. They want your reaction as much as they are focused on their craft. They defy augury. The great ones know of special provenance, and are at home with themselves. It is in their eyes, you can see it in the eyes of Roberto Conterno and Elio Altare in Piedmont, in the eyes of Romano Dal Forno in the Veneto, in the eyes of Gerard Chave and his son Jean-Louis, and you would have seen it in the eyes of Gianni Masciarelli, Matteo Correggia, Giovanni Conterno and Bartolo Mascarello. I believe I saw it too in the eyes of Damien Delechenau.

Dusk near some of the vines at the winery.

It was dusk - but we went out to the vines, we had to, we wanted to, and he wanted us to; and that is how you begin to understand. It is important to know what the ground looks like, it’s feel, “pick up a handful of this dirt,” it’s important to walk it, to know the land and what it gives back to the grapes, what it provides for the table, the cuisine, and how it is entwined with the wine: the juice from the grapes from the ground. 

The little patches of vines are integrated. Some Chenin and some old Sauvignon. “You see on that hill across the way” - some Cot and Grolleau. Damien took over the winemaking some 16 years ago, but as easily it could’ve been five hundred. All the grapes are hand-picked. Yes too, he’s worked in Bordeaux and Burgundy, and maybe that was a century ago. The past lives in the present, it is in the ground and the future will rise from it. I think he’d want you to know and feel that.

Over the years from when Damien started out taking over from the family’s three prior generations in 2002, he began with a healthy respect for the land; how to treat it, how to care for the vines. Today the Domaine’s the 14 or so hectares are worked organically and La Grange Tiphaine is certified Organic. Along the way Coralie joined the winemaking work in 2008 and since the the Domaine has moved to the upper ranks in the region. Some locals here in Portland may recall Coralie’s visit to the shop when we had her lead is through a wide selection of their wines! In 2016 Damien became the President of the Appellation of Montlouis though ghat has not taken one bit of his time away fro the land.

(E)

UPDATE:
It happens, the winery has since elected to work with a national importer and our direct relationship is ended, prices are up.

Click on each wine for more detail.