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Anyway thanks to Rebecca (wine importer @ C'est le Vin) we had the chance to visit this tea farm where the young grower works naturally. You may know that tea growing faces the same dilemmas as viticulture, with most commercial plantations spraying chemicals on the leaves and the soil for conveniency [not to speak of the many ways to interfere with the final product through aromatic enhancers like it's done for cheap tea]

Rebecca discovered natural wines through Japanese importer Yoshio Ito (pictured on right in Taipei with Derain & Rebecca) who had her taste wines from Alexandre Bain, Clos Rougeard and Marc Pesnot as well as Dard & Ribo. Rebecca at her office/storage facility in Taipei But to rewind back to the beginning, here is how it really started, with her studies in France : Rebecca had had prior experiences with wine in Taiwan, her mother and father liked to enjoy wine from time to time with friends and in Taiwan people often start with Bordeaux and then taste Burgundy; Rebecca didn't pay attention to labels but she just remembers one day having with her parents a wine she liked more than before, a wine with something extra in terms of emotion, and this was a Burgundy. Mr Yoshio Ito the natural wine importer told Rebecca after the 2nd event that Taiwan can become the hub as regional capital for these natural-wine events, because it's easy to go there from Japan, mainland China, Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries, plus Taipei is cheap for the Japanese and its famed food scene makes it a very attractive weekend destination. (1000 NT $ = 28 €): Chinese signs and Japanese kanji have a common base and B. often could partially read the signs in Taiwan, although not fully, and here Rebecca explained us a hidden meaning behind the Chinese version of the company name C'est Le Vin : deciphering the Chinese characters one by one she explains that Chinese ideograms are usually composites of several signs and here (on the left) she stylized the one meaning "Here is" or "Voilà" (in French) so that the upper part of the sign looks like a glass, and replacing the ideogram for wine (which already looks a bit like a bottle) by an elegant bottle of wine, making her sign read literally like "Here is the Wine" or "C'est le Vin"...

Carole Kohler and her husband Brice live in the hamlet of Fleury on the hill overlooking Thouars, that's precisely where the best terroirs of Thouars were located, and she decided very recently to replant vineyards and revive the wine culture of the small city which hadn't had a winery or a domaine for ages. The work wasn't smooth and easy, as she says in this interview in the regional newspaper, she lost 5 % of the young plantings in 2016 because of the drought and in 2017 70 % of the buds were burnt by the black frost that afflicted many of the wine regions

There's a certain disconnect by the way between the feel in this village and these large fields outside, obviously meant for industrial agriculture, but there were no open fields a century ago : the destruction of the traditionnal farming landscape (small fields surrounded by hedges) is a modern thing, mostly done in the 20th century even if it began in the 19th, This was considered very modern and progressive then to erase these hedges and regroup the parcels and fields, at stake was the rise in agricultural production volumes and the state pushed in this direction at the expense of the traditional way of life. There's a certain disconnect by the way between the feel in this village and these large fields outside, obviously meant for industrial agriculture, but there were no open fields a century ago : the destruction of the traditionnal farming landscape (small fields surrounded by hedges) is a modern thing, mostly done in the 20th century even if it began in the 19th, This was considered very modern and progressive then to erase these hedges and regroup the parcels and fields, at stake was the rise in agricultural production volumes and the state pushed in this direction at the expense of the traditional way of life. The street address of François new chai & cellar (rue des Belles Caves) is so relevant : Belles Caves means beautiful cellars, you can't dream a better address for an artisan cellar, you get everything here, real wines made in a real place with history. There's Robin the black-smith, Jean who is starting to make craft beer in François' former house, he also begins to make a bit of wine, Margot who has a couple of draft horse (she keeps also François' mare), other friends who live here and have projects of their own, Gaël who started a small farm in the village with vegetable garden, orchard, pigs, rabbitts and other farm animals, Antoine who helps him for the vineyard work along the year, Marine who wants to work with him on the vineyard and the cellar, Damien who is making his barrel of wine each year and learns on the way.