Passionnante interview de Didier Dagueneau sur decanter.com, où l'un des vignerons les plus emblématiques de la mouvance bio - biodynamique évoque notamment son évolution vis-à-vis du "full sans soufre", ou aborde des sujets tabous comme la chaptalisation :
"He also admits he went through a period of 'peace and love – no sulphur' during the 1990s, which, given the poor ageing of the wines, he regrets. But to understand these slip-ups is to understand the man. Not only do the non-sulphur wine tests show his willingness and desire to experiment, but as Jacqueline Friedrich writes in her book A Wine and Food Guide to the Loire: 'His winemaking is not systematic.' Dagueneau went biodynamic for a while. Now, some of the less logical and failing biodynamic practices have been chucked out for practical reasons, and the horse he used to till his Clos du Calvaire vineyard is in semi-retirement.
He is also totally open about chaptalisation (the adding of sugar). He has done it, he says, because the wines would have been unbalanced had he not. He makes the point that 'if France bans chaptalisation, it should also ban the addition of tartric acid' – a jibe indirectly aimed at winemakers in the south of France. 'And what would you have left? Water.'"
