If I needed a sign no one cares, then the fact I can count on one hand the number of people who asked ‘Hey Hannah, why did you name your wine Y’ is just that.
Thanks guys, love you too I’ll have my hand back.
No one seems to care – much, and never will as much as me, so I figured I should do what my mom and friends say and get on with it so I can get on with other stuff... So I did and thank god! Because now I have the time to take pictures that take too much time like the admittedly rather nice one above.
I thought names matter a lot. Consider the aura-stripping power of a bottle poured from a sock! Drinking wine blind is like using crutches, drunk, in pitch dark except someone also just spun you around and kicked away the crutch. But we do it because labels and names tell us stuff, and because sometimes these things can matter too much. (I think there are also people who think drinking blind is fun?)
Giving a name to a thing — a fear, a thought, a wish, an intention — (can) make(s) it (more) real, so one should give with intention. Or not! What does your cuvée name say about you? How personal is bearable, how much is yuck?* How much is a misplaced call for help? Must one just ‘feel’ it? Has the wine been made in the spirit of it? Must there be a hidden meaning to it?
The new nonchalant me has decided rien, none, no, not.
The new me has chosen names because she liked the sound of them. The look of them. Quelques-uns refer vaguely to opaquely personal stuff but most do not. Two I’ve stolen from the books of an author I love, three describe the look/feel/texture of the bottled stuff (one of which, d’ailleurs, is another book rip-off), and there’s one I cannot pronounce and wish everyone who wants to order it — the Chardonnay — luck!
The new me has also chosen a new name for me (so busy!) because my real name is not a wine name: and this is a fact that was confirmed to me this February when I saw it on an actual poster, which was weird. Besides looking out of place next to the likes of Babass, Balagny, Bouju, Bruyere for reasons more obvious than not starting with a B, ‘Fuellenkemper’ is just too officially… me? And my wines I feel are not — and probably won’t until I learn how to make what I want.
With a gun to my head I wouldn’t be able to repeat something I’ve made which begs the question: who made it then? I don’t mean mystically or energetically or ‘I’m so laissez faire philosophically that I let the grapes become the wines they wish to be,’ but literally. All I do physically is go get the grapes, put them in press or tank, then let the juice ferment. The rest, the ‘now it’s a wine people want to drink’ bit is bibbidi bobbed boo-abracadabra to me.
Hence the new name (just the ABRACADABRA bit I mean).
It’s two letters shorter, in case you didn’t count, and unlike the quickly pretentious roads alchemy terms were taking me down — it's fun! Like me :)Plus! on posters, As come before the Bs. Not that anyone cares about names anyway.
I’ve just started selling my wine for the second time in my life and I’ve come to some realisations.
Allocations are not just for the type of winemakers I thought they were.
Winemakers who allocate their wines do so because they have to, not because they can.
Excel spreadsheets are as vital to a winemaker as, say, buckets.
I have over-sold my wine.
I can’t drink any more of my wine.
I’m not looking for sympathy — though I’m pretty sure this is the reason last week my friend built my first excel sheet (ty Théo!) — but I am still hoping someone will soon write the book on how all this stuff works. "The Novice’s Complete Guide to the Stuff You Should Know about Making Wine that’s not about Actually Making Wine" and yes I’m aware there are schools, thanks, I didn’t go.
Cue tiny fiddles, I know.
The Stuff I Should Know but don’t that I’m currently struggling with will be in the chapter on how not to seem the keeno who will sell to anyone, the asshole who sells to no one, or the idiot who clearly didn’t read the preceding chapter on recording stock (see pg. 1 ‘Excel’). While we wait, you can use me as Case Study 10000, subheading: Learn from real life mistakes [name has been changed to protect my identity].
While I'm here, I’d also like to make some requests.
Let there be lists! Numbers, bullets, reminders, prompts. People like me need lists. My diet is garlic, chilli — and lists. I write stuff down even after it’s done for the satisfaction of crossing it off. I am a freak! And I'm sure I'm not alone. (Oh, add lots of olive oil). To-do lists and don’t do this-lists, I need them all. I wouldn’t even mind to have the same info re-iterated in both. Example 1.0 could go:
Do: attach price list when you ask your clients to please place their orders.
Don’t: forget to attach price list when you ask your clients to please place their orders.
Do: wait to hear back from your biggest buyers before you open your client list.
Don’t: open up your client list before you hear back from your biggest buyers.
I’d also like lists of ways how to say the things I want to say, but in a better, less honest, more professional way. Like, instead of ‘I was probably drunk when I said yes’, try ‘Farts! It slipped my mind, I’ll have to check’. Instead of ‘So actually you can ignore the mail I sent you three minutes ago asking what you’d like to buy (no prices attached) because I realise now that I have negative amounts of Gamay’ it would be better to say… what exactly? ‘Sorry sorry sorry I’m a n00b and I’ve overso—I mean, under-estimated demand for my wines I can note you down for next life but in the meantimehow about some some volatile Chardonnay?’
General question: what’s worse, telling clients no then yes or yes then no?
Is it better to ship big and far to places I’ll never go (though ahem Vortex, waiting on that invite to Tokyo) than 12 bottles to places I can deliver myself? Is selling to four bars in the south of France selling to three too many? Does the same maths apply for a single arrondissement in Paris? To Switzerland which is polite, erudite, punctual and, looking at the order, thirsty; but if I’m to follow the advice and allocate proportionally: tiny?
Do I reserve for my ‘non-wine friends’? To trade with my winemaker friends? I’ve already drunk a lot of traded wine on credit (to ‘trade’ in French is to ‘troc’); the bottles I owe are marked in red and BOLD in my stock.
Who do I work for if my work is unpaid and my wine over-subscribed so now I have to buy other people’s wine because I can’t afford to drink mine? Every year I say I’ll make a personal tank, not for sale but for me. What’s the difference of doing this and trying (and I’m failing) to hold back 12 bottles of each cuvée? Now there’s a price on my wine, the more I don’t sell, the poorer I’ll be (what’s funny is that when it’s still in tank you can drink what you want because somehow it still feels free).
To conclude: this is me announcing that from now on I will be allocating. This decision has been based on what my supply, demand, and other people tell me. I have learned from my own mistakes that it’s more stressful to let people tell you what they want than to tell them what they can have. I am afraid of my excel sheet. It is a mosh pit of colour with its boxes of green, caps, highlights, requests in one colour and reality another, double digit negative numbers, and it is SCREAMING AT ME. I have miscounted what I can give, underestimated what people want, and am genuinely grateful that anyone wants anything! Of course I’ve said yes. What’s ’12 de chaque’ in the scheme of things?
Now I’m just waiting for someone to write the chapter on how to say not what I want, but honestly what I mean. That please forgive me, I wasn’t even drunk, and I'm trying to be respectful of what everybody wants, but I didn’t have excel and I'm not a professional and I thought I’d have enough because I’ve never made so much and that it’s totally my fault that your 12 has gone from reasonable to too much now the for-far orders of 120 de chaque are in.
— than last year, the hell year, the what didn’t kill you bloody well tried to and probably would have managed but for the sensor on the truck that goes ‘buhbuhbuh’ when you cross the white line so you’re still here!-year.
And what a year it’s been! 2022 I mean. No space to make wine until July, no space to live until October. It seems winemaking has more in common with childbirth than you might think in the way evolution has trained us to remember the highs. Imagine if not! There would be very little wine. Meanwhile, this year I’ve made a fuck load. 60HL = 6 thousand litres = 8 thousand bottles if all goes to plan, which requires me to find the place to stock the bottles like, now.
Another logistical problem you say? Gee whizz what’s new! Well this year I moved cellar 1 month ahead of harvest (instead of 3 days before) plus I had to build a wall! Nothing like finishing a building project the night before the morning you leave for your first grapes to make you appreciate the next month on the road.
Some other big differences:
— I ate!
— I only made two trips alone.
— I made friends!
— I now know it takes me 1h12m to unload 1.6T of Colombard on my own.
— People cooked for me!!!!
— I did maybe only one decuvage as opposed to all.
— My press was outside and my tanks are stacked 7 pallets high and my new siphon is very thick and 5m long*.
— I did my first not-failed débourbage!
— Thanks to all those pallets I have been able to harness the powers of gravity which for the first few hundred litres means there was time for dancing while the siphon did the soutirage.
— I am a better driver.
— I am a better ratchet-er.
— I cried only twice.
— I did zero long macerations and think my future lies in the ease of the direct-press.
— I did my first co-ferment of red and white.
— I tried doing three press in one day but stopped before I almost died.
— I am talking in the ‘I’ but I was practically never alone.
In ish chronological order: it hailed icebergs the night before I went to pick up the same Carignan on 19 August I had just pressed in July after a 10 month maceration. This, plus the fact harvest was three weeks in advance (and that Carignan is normally a late bloomer?) = time travel! So I picked it 1/2 1/2 with some just-underripe Bourbulenc and macerated the red in the juice of the other, thank you to Anna and Nick and Jude for help with the direct and first press! Neringa and friends for the second. I did this trip alone and I felt free as a bird waking up from the zombie slumber of a winter sleep, which is a mixed-metaphor or evolution on speed, but you get the picture = RELIEF TO START, RELIEF TO LEAVE.
Round 2, 3 days later: Xarel·lo y Macabeo, picked at 11% 23 August with good friend Aaron and new friend Kara, who we picked up in Spain. Harvest was done hungover! Too much drinking the night before at the pool! Yes, pool. Cool! I was in a stress because we lost the car key, and by 'we' I mean me. Kara counted out 1.5T of grapes counted in cash because my brain is a sieve through which numbers slip. We took 11 hours driving back, hesitated to stop for lunch at Ville Mas, instead sat in gridlock traffic burning gas. Aaron drove practically the whole way, you are amazing Aaron even if you disagree with de-stemming (Xarel-lo for no principle other than I'd already borrowed Aurelien's thing). Landed late, unloaded, left the grapes to chill in the night air while we ate gas station canned olives (Spain!) and drank holiday-prolonging beers.
26 August Kara and I do a same-day aller-retour of 562 km to pick up the same Cinsault as last year which sucked, but is what it is, and what the negociant is is a chauffeur. There was man-splaining and machoism and much apologising to the harvest team who started at 7 and were still picking under a 15:00 sun. I had a hornet-swollen hand and we forgot the watermelon. Vinification went the same as last year because I liked last year’s: half direst press, half infusion.
Mauzac came next. Thirty Aug. Underripe. Like, green. Changed parcel twice = I paid practically double hours for the team and almost lost the deposit on the truck after a situation with a rock (not me). Stacked 1.7T, un-stacked 1.7T, and re-stacked 1.7T from same truck. Learned negociants should arrive with their own scale to prevent having ever to do this again! Macerated whole-ish except for not so whole after jumping on them to make them fit. Currently fermenting in Andrea's blanc barrels (with some Grignolino) to take the edge off. Big thanks to Rita for taking all the edges off.
Grignolino, Piedmont, Italy, three September and already at 14% when I get the call to ‘come tomorrow’ even though ‘coming tomorrow’ means that by tonight I need to have found a truck to rent and someone to drive 1,000+ km with, which I haven’t yet, not to mention that when I visited these vines in July I thought I’d broken the tradition and language barrier explaining that I wanted the call at 12%. Here’s hoping there’s a market for big Italian barrel wines made in — Auvergne?? The trip in numbers: 3 x pizza + 1 for the road to be eaten cold at home, 1.69T. Pumped tyres once, tanked three times, tunnel costs 80e return, drove the last two hours alone. Times listened to The Mix: many but exact number unknown. I arrived home at 3 in the morning and a friend came to meet me and drink and unload!
Colombard, de Remi-P. Nine September. Called him asking if he had any red, said no but 8T still of this, said I’d call him back. My second, and my last trip alone! Remi’s the best. You arrive, you eat, you drink, you actually sleep. Next day your pick will guaranteed be done before 10. I was a bit stressed because I found people were pulling grapes and not cutting while I knew I had to leave them en caisse for at least a day before I could liberate the press. But arriving young, a girl, with a rented truck, I was too afraid to say anything (so at home, with things to prove, unloaded the truck myself which is how I know it takes 1h 12 to unload 1.6T alone). In the end I left them in caisse for THREE days because I was busy coaxing the Mauzac not to hurl itself over a bridge (this was where I tried to press three times a day but stopped at two / chose life) which no one tell Remi yet, please. Thank you, thank you Maureen for reading this article and arriving at this particular moment of need!
Boudes! bébé Boudes and her annual 10 caisse of sweat and blood and love, my best, my home-grown, saved for last. Steak — grilled, friends, a bouquet and a bottle of Boudes twenty-one. (Plus a rainbow when we got home).
And so with love to everyone who helps and co-creates and is there for me, and with my sincerest gratitude: thanks.
Anna * Anne * Aimé * Aurélien * Agnès * Aaron * Freddy * Germain * Kara * Maureen * Norbert * Nick * Neringa * Neringa's friends * Jude * Rita * Victor and all my vigneron: Remi * Xavier * Salvador * Genévieve * Edourdo: MERCI GRACIAS GRAZIIIIII
This is it. This is where I will need to make wine if I want to make wine in one month and quelquejours that will turn out to be only 8 jours. This, to a glass half-full kinda person, is the best option. This, to me, a glass with a hairline crack kinda person, is Can I give up yet?
Context: I have given up more or less every other week for the last three years.
*
10 July, later
The human mind set on survival will do what it takes to survive. This includes self-delusion. This makes my self, delusional. I have been driving nor more than one hour when I decide it is Possible. That it’s Not That Bad. I decide to engage the mission.
I am on the way to the Ardèche for the recycling. With Stefana and Andrea’s old plastic intercallaire I'll have somewhere to stack the last half of the bottles from 2021 I couldn't bottle because of lack of storage and that I need to bottle ASAP in order to empty my tanks now that I know I will be making wine in one month and 7 days.
Below is a picture of Andrea and Stephana's first wines, side by side. Above is a picture of my intercallaire for those of you who don't know what they are.
*
14 July
I am back from the Ardèche and dirty and tired after a day of trips to the déchet and now that reality has set in I am not delusional but depressed.
*
15-16 July
Winemaking is a good activity for depressed people. There is generally something to do which leaves less time for being depressed. For the next two days I have bottling. Team 1: Rémi, Aimé, Aurelien: I love you.
Team 2: Gabin, Antoine, Marion: I love you.
Instagram, which found me team 2 when I couldn't find anyone I actually knew: I love you.
*
17 July
I am back to being depressed and beg team 2 PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE can they help me and they can! I love them all over again! We are four and in one day we clear the outside space, the inside space and most of the stable, not pictured, because I was too depressed to take the ‘before’.
*
18 July
I receive this message.
Context: I have not had a house since 22 August 2021.
Context: I have been searching for a cellar since March 2022.
Context: by 'cellar' I mean 4 walls and a roof with water and electricity. Oh, and easy enough truck access with space to leave pallets of bottle deliveries outside because I don't have a forklift to bring them inside but who am I to dream?
Context: as of 17 July 2022, so yesterday, I have spent 14 hours of life emptying, covered in, and breathing in shit and illegal insulation fibre! in order to create a cellar.
Context: I do not know Raymond. My customs officer put us in touch because apparently he is a 'big deal' and might be able to help.
Reaction 1: Are you fucking kidding me?
Reaction 2: I respond with a politely worded version of Are you fucking kidding me?
I’m at the river for a swim so I swim.
Context: since 22 August 2021 if I wanted a shower I needed to use someone’s shower. In summer, I'd swim.
*
19 July
The floor is power washed. The walls are power washed. The ceiling is power washed. I lay out pallets to estimate how many tanks will fit = how much wine I can actually make. We paint.
‘We’ is me and N. We are at his house. N. and A. are the people who have saved my a**.
After months of deliberation I decide my négoce name will be Abracadabra. The A is for that. Wine is magic and apparently it helps to know a little magic to make wine.
I am not an anarchist, I studied law.
Raymond hasn't responded. I call.
*
20 July
To anyone in the future who will ask me why I didn't get around to buying a pump I tell you this: I will be busy for the next two days thwacking fifty year old cow shit from the floor with a crowbar.
*
21 July
This diary is based on true events and faithful to dates because that's the point of the piece. Here is a screenshot I saved. You will note the date. I must have been feeling ironic.
Have not heard from Raymond. Have decided not to bother anymore with Raymond.
*
26 July
This is where the doors will go.
*
27 July
I finished clearing the stable and start moving the bottles we bottled earlier this month.
Taking bottles from the intercallaire at point A and putting them into crates and putting crates into van and driving to point B and unloading crates and emptying into intercallaire at point C is not as different as it literally is from crowbarring cow shit.
Context: a crate takes 15 bottles.
Context: there are 1,875 bottles to move.
Context: that is two of these stacks.
I already miss my garage.
*
29 July
Perfect timing for a trip to London!
In London, people laugh politely at the cow shit story.
In London, we are looked after like royalty.
This is the second time in two months I’ve been invited to present my wines at a tasting for Auvergne wines.
The wines I present were not made in Auvergne!
Context: As of this moment I have made a total of 60 litres of Auvergne wine.
Question: Do grapes brought back 600 km round trip and vinified in the Auvergne count as Auvergne wine?
Question: Is starting construction on a cellar one month and 8 days before harvest progress?
Anyway, today I rented a truck and recruited a friend of a friend and we moved all my stuff. The garage is empty but for 5 barrels, that other stack of bottles and a tank of carignan I pressed beginning of July.
Here goes my press!
*
10-13 August
Perfect timing for a trip to Italy! Or at least better than the rest of the year because for the rest of the year I didn't think I'd need the grapes I put off visiting.
Here's me, living my best life.
Here's my shirt, living its own life.
*
14 August
Back from Italy. I have successfully taken three days of summer holiday. Three days of Italo disco, vitello tonnato, pasta, spritz e pizza. The Grignolino is small, but healthy. I am relaxed, if extremely caffeinated.
*
15 August
Still sawing planks.
Context: This space is temporary. Like one year temporary.
*
15 August, later
I use the wood off-cuts to level the pallets.
Context: the floor rock. It is not smooth, not level, nothing is straight. Tanks need to be level so the liquid line is straight. Any un-levelness at the bottom will be magnified at the top. It takes many hours with a level and a mallet to pile the pallets as level as possible.
Exception: it's true this photo is not faithful to the date but if you look closely you can see the pallets are wedged both top and bottom. In the end this is a bad example because when I filled this tank and went to close the chapeau, the chapeau didn't' fit because the tank had warped because it wasn't level because I failed.
Explanation: the tanks are so high because, like I told you, I don't have a pump.
*
16 August
Reinforcement!
While I saw the L A S T T T T P L A N K S these guys make an awning for my press, because I will press outside.
*
16 August, later
Naturally there is a nesting pair of swallows perching directly above my newly placed tanks. Naturally my activity should not disrupt their activity because they were here first. Naturally they will need a window through which to come and go. Naturally I am very happy when they fuck off due to all the naturally produced CO2 :)
Their eventual departure doesn’t change the fact that there is a chicken coop directly above the chai and the fact the floor is old and that shit and feathers fall down into the chai and that therefore I will always need to cover the covers of my tanks.
I will be happier than I think with the window though. It gives light. I will go through vinification and beyond without electricity. As in, no light.
*
Today is the last day. Tomorrow I will leave for my first grapes which are the same carignan that I pressed in July this year. Today it hails, like, grave. I am worried what these fist-sized ice bombs will do to my car and fibre tanks. Everything, including the awning, survives!
Today Freddy will help me with last minute stuff. Stuff that is directly (finally!) connected to actually making wine. We clean crates and tanks. Set up the press. Clean, screw on and tighten vanne. Grazie mille x mille, Freddy.
We finish the outside kitchen which was dedicated a whole quarter of the space with which I have to make my wine and N. places the piece de resistance which bien sûr is the bar.We drink a white Léon Barral which places easily as a wine of my year.
For much of my adult life I've wanted an outside kitchen.
*
18 August
I pick up the truck, load it and go! It feels SO GOOD TO GO. It feels like I've been asleep all year. Harvest reminds me why I'm here.
Context: I can't put words to the stress I felt not knowing until July if I would have to skip a year. Wine is the only reason I tolerate, rather than love, France; and even then I ask myself regularly What am I doing here.
*
19 August
09:30: Remi's carignan and bourbulenc is loaded. Here's the boubulenc.
I’m looking for help this harvest and I’m asking anyone who’s (seriously) interested to write to me and I will write back with more. And yes two months before is maybe a bit late* but late is better than never: although never is also a possibility considering I still haven’t found a cellar.
Simon says I'm a pirate without a boat. I say boat or no, the show must go on.
Some other things you should know in the spirit of full disclosure: I am no good at sales (read below). Yes, I can take nice pictures but basically what you see is what you get. Expect zero frills. Expect late nights. If experience is anything to go by, things will go wrong probably more often than they go right.
Your job description in the shell of nut: You will be making wine á la main which is not a French-ism for ‘artisanal’ but means exactly that: your only tools will be your hands (and your arms and your legs and your head and yes, I do at least have a press).
If you are a city person like I was and want your rural idyll straw hat dreams crushed like I’ve had, come! But only if you really understand what I mean when I say +/- 6.8T of grapes will not pick, drive, carry nor de-cuve themselves oh, and the T stands for tonnes.
What kind of person should you be? You will need to be strong, both of body and of mind and you must. be. able. to. drive.
(If ever a negociant tells you they don’t use machinery in their vines, ask them how many thousands of KM they make to buy their grapes).
You must not be afraid of camping because you will almost certainly be camping! But whatever I can do, you can do too. I’m a wimp and I made wine in 2019 on crutches while living in a cave. Last year I managed without a shower. Remember: there is always someone somewhere doing worse off than you.
Please like cooking? Please understand that we will always be cleaning? For the rest there's a lot of drinking, schlepping and boring, repetitive tasks. No pump means the holy trinity of siphon + sweat + buckets and if everything goes to plan, there might also be stairs involved which gives you a picture of how practicality is not my best-fitting hat :)
If you’re the kind of person who can just get on with things without me having to explain everything — know that I already love you. Not that I don’t relish directing people (I don’t), it’s just that I don’t know what I’m doing either and will be busy figuring it out as we go along.
Other desirable skills include: French! Maths! The can-do attitude that late at night I lack. If you’re not a problem-solver, please stay home. If you're a trained engineer take all my money and Pass Go. Sense of humour is a must! Winemaking is fun, but often it's not and it’s at these times you need to know how to laugh.
So to re-cap. There will be long hours driving. There will be more things to carry than you can shake a stick at. When things go right it’s a miracle. When they don’t, we’ll have to do it again. I can promise you very little sleep, but rest be assured I have a good friend who makes great coffee. I've have another one who brews beer. You will be dirty, constantly, your body will learn to run off adrenaline effortlessly. You'll want to do everything you can to somehow capture in the bottle all this crazy energy. I mean I haven't quite managed this yet, but that's the idea.
I don’t like being a boss and I’m learning too, but — wait for the sales pitch — if you’re hands on, here’s your chance to have your hands in my 2022.
Too much?
Some deets:
Dates are from end-ish August to beginning October, with the last grapes coming in end-ish Sept.
I buy my grapes. There will be 4 trips. There will also be two actual harvests in actual vines in Auvergne which, oh yeah, is where I am. One in my vines and one in vines I share.
I appreciate you probably have a real life and you probably can’t stay for it all. We can talk! I am open to people on rotation, but let’s say minimum ‘stay’ shouldn’t be much less than 2 weeks.
See! What a boss!
You will be fed and watered, and in exchange for your time you will get wine.
If you stay long enough, we can talk about you borrowing a tank and buying some grapes.
