La Niverdière

AOC Chinon

MARTINE BUDE

Renaissance. Résilience. Palimpseste.

Those are the names of the three wines made by Martine Budé, a one-woman winery in Chinon. There's no mystery what the theme here is, huh?

Martine fell in love in, and in love with, Chinon 25 years ago, uprooting her career in Brussels as a graphic designer for a life in the Loire countryside with a Chinon winemaker. She admits that she didn't pay attention to the business much during their partnership, focusing instead on her new home, their daughter, and working remotely. She's very forthcoming about how her marriage broke up (not well), and that it's important for her to consider every time she tells her story. Why? Because she ended up with half the business and now finds herself the sole owner of a Chinon winery.

We're not telling anyone's secrets here. She wants to talk about her personal journey, her re-birth as a winemaker, and the discovery of something in her that has stoked a fire in her imagination. 

I came upon Martine's work because frankly, she's nearly a neighbor. Her lovely home and vineyard are about 15 minutes from our place, yet over our first 3 years here we never found our way to her. But I have a love for Chinon, and its ubiquitous grape Cabernet Franc, that goes back decades. I love it here, and the wines from nearby. How come we didn't know about Martine and her story? Perhaps it's because she works alone, caring for her vines like a garden, and looking after her wines and winery like she was nurturing a child. Marketing took second place to all that, I guess. Yet there she was, hidden in plain sight. 

We looked her up last summer, joined by friends from Portland that wanted to visit a winery, and from the moment we exited the car and greeted her, knew we had made a connection. A leisurely stroll around her property and home (actually a small chateau), and then a descent into her modernized cave to taste wine, and before we knew it 3 hours had passed by. We had to split to make a lunch reservation, but returned afterwards to collect some wine that she had generously prepared for us to take home. 

Martine's wines are meticulously made, all in the same fashion, vinified in large, conic-shaped concrete vats, with wines resting in those for anywhere from 1-3 years. It is a method of winemaking that demands patience from the winemaker, but rewards the taster with something truly magical and delicious. There are NO barrels in the winery. Zip. Every wine is made in the same way, and by the time it is bottled, is perfectly sound and ready to drink.