Romain Verger is a debutant winemaker from the Loire Valley, with vines situated in and around Faye D’Anjou. In 2005, fresh out of trade school where he studied to be a gardener, Romain was immersed in the local underground music scene until a chance encounter with Jérôme Saurigny set him on an odyssey into one of France’s more obscure natural wine cliques. Through Jérôme, alongside whom Romain worked for three years, he encountered local mystic Patrick Desplats, where he stayed on for four years, and then Jean-François Chéné, where he spent another three.  He finished rounded out his resumé with a couple years with Didier Chaffardon. In 2019, at the age of 35, he produced his first vintage. 

Unlike many of his contemporaries in the Loire natural wine world, Romain is a local guy who was raised in the dirt. As an adolescent, he helped his parents tend livestock, pruned neighbors’ vines, and spent most of his free time in the swampy marais of Western Anjou. His connection to the world of plants has always been intuitive. But like his various mentors, Romain is also an intellectual, deeply concerned with the metaphysical aspects of his winemaking. Asked to summarize his first decade of experience, Romain told me that he got his philosophical base from Patrick Desplats. From Patrick, he says, he learned that “everything makes wine”, which is to say that the winemakers job is to capture the essence of life, whether it manifests as sun-kissed Chenin, musty Grolleau, or botrytized Sauvignon Blanc. From Jean-François, Romain learned “how to work”, meaning how to elaborate wine from grapes. Importantly, it was with Jean-François that Romain picked up one of the signature aspects of his winemaking: long pressing and very long, gentle maceration of up to six months for some wines. Finally, from Jérôme, Romain learned “how not to work”, which means “not going to the vines when your heart’s not in it”, and not letting your ego stand in the way of the wine. 

Romain’s cellar is small and free of fancy tools or technology. His press is manual and elevage takes place in old barrels. As he often works in solitude, a small pump is one of the more “high-tech” tools he has allowed himself to indulge. Romain currently has 2.5 hectares of vines planted to Grolleau Noir and Gris, Gamay Chaudenay, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, and Cabernet Franc. He does not buy grapes, preferring to vinify the fruits of his own labor. With his wife, Lucie Faderne, he also grows a wide variety of medicinal plants and flowers, from which they make non-alcoholic “children’s beverages.”