Saouma: Filtering wine is like torturing someone

Fining and filtering a wine is like “torturing someone then asking if they are happy,” according to Mounir Saouma of Beaune-based négociant Lucien Le Moine.

Mounir Saouma of Lucien Le Moine

Speaking to the drinks business during  a lunch organised by Altaya Wines in Hong Kong, Lebanon born Sauoma said: “Fining and filtering is like torturing someone, then asking if they are happy.”

Sauoma doesn’t filter his wines despite the fact that they are left in contact with their lees in the barrel. He measures the lees by removing both the solid and wet lees and depositing them in a bucket.

He then records the volume of the liquid part in litres after the solids have settled for three to four days. According to Sauoma, average lees ‘volume’ per barrel in Burgundy is around one litre, whereas he uses on average 8 litres of lees per barrel.

Further explaining his non-filtering practice, he said: “Filtering the wine for fear of the wine ageing badly in the bottle? If you have problem, you fix it afterwards but you don’t take paracetamol every day in the morning in anticipation of a headache in the afternoon. We live in a protected world. People take no risks.”

Referring to his wine production as a pastime in addition to making honey, juice and olive oil, the vintner makes more than 80 wines in Burgundy and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, producing a few barrels of each and using methods that are, in his own words, “exactly the opposite of what people teach”.

Sauoma strives to make wines that evolve and have a long, lingering aftertaste. If a wine hits you with pronounced aromas and tropical fruits such as banana, the vintner suggests, “you go to a market and buy bananas from there, you don’t buy a €150 bottle of wine to say tropical or banana”.

A 2013 vintage tasting of Lucien Le Moine’s Bourgogne wines

“The nose is like the makeup, the taste is like the clothes and the aftertaste is the person,” he says, adding, “If you talk physique, the aftertaste is the nudity; you see the details. We talk about the soul of the person, and the aftertaste is the soul, the spiritual part, the quality of the person.”

The Burgundian vintner made the comments while hosting a 2013 vintage tasting of his wines including Bourgogne Blanc 2013, Meursault Premier Cru Perrierès 2013, Corton Charlemagne Grand Cru 2013, Vosne-Romanée Premier Cru Les Petits Monts 2013 and Bonnes Mares Grand Cru 2013 and two wines from his vineyards from Clos Saouma in Châteauneuf-du-pape – Omnia Rouge and Magis Blanc 2013.

The 2013 vintage, according to Saouma, was a late picking vintage in France, and referred to the vintage as “oddest Burgundy in the last 20 years” as the harvest was in October, much later than the usual September or August.

“We call it the extra dry, it feels like there’s a piece of something in your mouth. Not tannins, not dry but heavy, present. This is a characteristic of 2013,” he continued.

While addressing the common complaint about Burgundy whites don’t age well because of premature oxidisation, Saouma said,

“Oxygen is a friend, not your enemy. We are doing light extraction, unfortunately people are frustrated because they don’t expect it.

“A guy told me, ‘please stop producing white wines’,” Saouma recalled, explaining that the person complained that he stirred the lees too much, used new barrels and oxidised his wines.

In response, Saouma said: “I don’t tell you how to make love with your wife, so don’t tell me how to make my wines”.

“They are not oxidised, they are just maturing well,” he added. “We are very gentle with red wines. When they are not showing well, we will say, ‘maybe it’s not ready, we’ll wait’. But if you open a bottle of white wine and it doesn’t show well, it’s a bad bottle.”