Frederic Hauss

“Believe in what we feel. Act accordingly” Invisible Committee, Now  

  My name is Frederic HAUSS

Since 2021, I have been supporting 3 hectares of vines whose fruits I transform into wine, in Loire valley, south Saumur, France. I grow Chenin, Chardonnay, Cabernet - Franc and Sauvignon - and Grolleau.

left a comfortable situation as a senior technician in the movie industry, a city of heart, Lille (Rijsel), to take care of a piece of land in organic farming. Because I was also, for 20 years, a committed social and environmental activist.

 In order to speak from agriculture, to save the environment, I decided, like many, to occupy it...

As a true child of the Loire, joining its banks seemed obvious to me. Memories of hide and seek with my brother in the small Gamay plot of an amateur winemaker grandfather in Chalonnes sur Loire. Later, sweet emotions during tastings in Auxerre Burgundy directed me towards vines and wine.

Wine and cinema have many points in common: the clever balance between technique and emotion, two artisanal rather than industrial professions, two businesses in which our country excels . They are also two “arts of circumstances”: just as a film can be a reflection of the mood and logistics of its filming, a wine is marked by our harvest environments, the flashes of lucidity like the breakdowns of the press. Grapes, transformed into wine, seem to me the perfect playground for forging alliances with the plant kingdom, for practicing diplomacy with non-humans .

That’s the spirit . 

Concretely : harvests in Anjou in 2019, a professional graduation in 2020, an internship at Melaric, leader of organic wine in the south of Saumur, great meetings at the right time made me settle in 2021 in the middle of unique personalities  who revolve around the Saumur-Puy-Notre-Dame appellation .  

In the vineyard, certified organic farming, work as scrupulously as possible on yield management (pruning, disbudding in 2 passes, sometimes 3 ) . Plowing according to the vigor observed and the signals sent by the plant. No systematism. Climate change forces us to be on permanent alert. I already combine copper with herbal tea sprays (nettle and horsetail). Yarrow and valerian for periods of stress (frost, drought). Manual harvest, of course.

In the cellar, I work with native yeasts. With the candor of a kid :  nose and mouth as compasses, the microscope as a help to understand what kind of life is in the juice…

I seek to make fine, delicate, digestible wines. With sparklings and whites, I look for purity, clarity and radicality, even if it means getting close to the vegetal (but should we really forget that wine comes from a vine?!).
On the bottles, each label has a distinct illustration to mark the uniqueness of the vintages. The quotes that accompany them guide me every day, as horizons of revolutionary lives that I modestly try to transmit to my drinkers. They adapt well to work in the vineyard and in the cellar, evoking serious, determined paths, always to be questioned…