Weeks in Review

Since I’ve blogged last, I’ve been less and less at the cuverie and living more of a Burgundian life. Remember Matt and Megan and their petits children? They graciously asked if I’d be willing to stay in their house and help out in exchange for a cozy home, great company and delicious food. Oh but of course! Lila and Jack go to daycare all week, with only a half-day on Friday. Jack, just last week, has started going full day. It tiring for him, but seems to be working out. As for Lila, she loves it. She comes home exhausted all day from playing with her friend Kimmy, who she talks about often. But nevertheless has at least two more hours of play in her til bedtime.

Week of September 28:
Jack is just going half-day to daycare this week. I’ve been working in the cuverie until he arrives around lunch time then I switch into babysitter mode. As for the cuverie, it’s been the same daily routine. Now Geraldine, Alex and Gavin are talking about getting ready to put the red through the press.





When red wines start loosing their temperature, ending their fermentation and tasting more like wine in stead of juice, you know it’s time. This is yet another big process. First we pump the juice into another cuve.

This is way cool and really mesmerizing to watch.

Next we have to get the remaining grapes and skins into the press. The biggest danger in this is the gas that you can encounter in the tank. Opening the door slowly, letting out the gas and last bits of juice. Then, as seen here, Jonathon or Gav jump in the tank and start shoveling.



These presses only take about an hour to get out all of that remaining juice. The pressed juice, which is a fabulous vibrant hot pink, is then joined with the juice we extracted first. And now they sit in their tanks, waiting for “second fermentation.” This process takes a lot longer. Essentially we’re waiting for the malo to kick in. As I explained before, the malolactic acid eats and replaces the harsher tasting volatile acids. These are the acids you want to taste in your wine (though not too much; it must be closely watched!).




With our weekend off, we took many adventures. Jane and I jumped in Vince’s van and we all went looking for L’abbaye Cîteaux.






It’s nice to get out of Beaune. It’s starting to get slightly cooler, but is very pleasant in the sun. You can tell the leaves on the vines are longing to be bright yellow, but aren’t just there yet. There were rolling pastures for miles, lots of cows and very little else in the countryside.

We found the abbey and read all about the diligent monks and their daily routine. This abbey has been around since the 16th century and has always made the fabulous cîteaux cheese. Completely self-sustained, each monk contributes his work for the whole of the abbey. I made friends with the cows.

That night we met Dennis for a glass of wine at the Bistro Bourguignon.

It has a great atmosphere and lots of delicious wines. After that we were of to meet all of our friends at our favorite pub, Pickwick’s. There was a live meringue band!

The next morning was a little hard, but Jane was determined, as it was her last day, to get up and going onto our next adventure. Alex let us borrow is car and Vince, Gav, Jane and I drove to the Jura Mountains. They were only a short two hour drive East on l’autoroute. We left rainy, cloudy, ugly, hungover Beaune and arrived in the luscious, sunny mountain of Arbois.

Dennis told us about the restaurant La Balance so we quietly found our way. La Balance, hence the name, likes to prepare and cook food that perfectly balances with your wine selection. For instance, Jane picked a traditional oxidized Jura wine that was then used in the sauce that was drizzled atop my delectable river trout. It was a well spent three-hour lunch. After lunch we drove around and tried to get lost. The mountains were full of white-faced cliffs with little, barely recognizable châteaux on top that were silhouetted by the late afternoon sun.


Week of October 5:
Monday Jane left, back to NYC for her. Geraldine’s friend Fredèric came to help so with Jack now at full-time daycare with Lila, I was installed as the data computer imputer. In other words, Alex has been collecting business cards from all over the world for the last 12 years. He has a box full waiting to be inputted onto the company mailing list. Oh lala. You can only stare at a computer screen for so long.



Because Geraldine's birthday was right in the middle of harvest (September 5) she decided to celebrate a month later! It is the French tradition that on your birthday you cook and offer delicious wine (often the vintage of your birth year) to your friends. In essence, it makes her happy to share with us and she is delighted that we're here to honor her. She brought us a delicious lunch, two different deserts and among others, a bottle of Côte de Nuit village en magnum in the vintage of her birth! What a celebration!



Needless to say we were all happily boozed to finish the last press of the day :)
While the crew is working hard, Alex is the front man for his business and often does tours and tastings. This group of Canadians LOVED watching us transfer juice from cuve to cuve, took many pictures and asked many questions of us all. (We all had to laugh, we looked like shit!)

On Thursday I moved in with the McClunes, in their comfy home in Saint Romain. Friday I had the kids all to myself and we played all day, inside and out.
The weekend was the beginning of the cold front and the beginning of the McClune adventures. Matt has been working late all week finishing up and preparing for his art exhibition in Basel, Switzerland. Saturday Megan, the kids and I went on a lovely walk around St. Romain.

Lila and I threw rocks into creeks, played hide-and-go-seek and fed the miniature horses.

Sunday we had planned to go on a longer hike but the refrigerator broke Saturday night. Instead I went into town and met up with Gav for his last day in Beaune.

He, his girlfriend Jo, Vince and I went for a drive in the Côte de Nuits. The vines, only after a week, have completely gone gold! Spectacular!

October 6: Bird Observations

I want to take and interlude from wine and take you on a ride through my observations of my surroundings. I wasn’t feeling so well this week, so I often headed home early. Some days I would find a sunny spot in the Place Carnot and watch people. I decided that now was the time to study the birds that I’ve been so curious about during my stay in Beaune.

In many a fable, through hearsay and rhyme, there is much talk about the birds. The birds in this small town are mysterious and wild. There’s one out my window now, kak kak kak, sounds like a machine gun. My mind is boggled each eve, just before the sun sets, there is a gang of black birds that rally together and make a ruckus above centre ville.





6:48 – There are only two black birds in sight. They are large and must be crows. They sit, roof top, watching.
7:00 – They gather on a windvane, accumulating. They don’t make much noise; they are black shadows against the purple grey clouds.
7:05 – There are more now and there is movement. They fly in and out of sight.
7:08 – Even more burst from behind the same roof; they seem to be organizing. Chatty now, skaww skaww. They fly in all directions, swoop and jut, this way and that, concentrated.

7:10 – They have all bunched together over head and are making lots of noise now. This causes reaction from the humans below. Most look up, some point, some look frenzied from it. It’s so noisy and they are so black and mysterious. In group, they take off North-East. Then in the same sudden instant all is quiet. The light has faded reasonably since I first arrived here. The clouds capture the sunset and wrap me in a pink blanket.

7:17 – The birds are heard again. They fly higher this time, coming now from the NW and flying SE.
7:20 – They are back, flying back towards NW. Maybe it’s a round-up. Maybe it’s a ritual, maybe it’s for show. Maybe their intention is to cause havoc below. This petit homme Français, however doesn't look to the sky. I catch him watching me watch the birds with a keen smile on his face.

7:22 – They gather again on the same roof
7:22 – They head back, a much bigger group than before directly south. I cannot figure out what their doing; I know they’re not confused because this same ritual happens every night. Maybe it’s an homage to the sun.

But what kind of bird are they? Originally I thought they were crows. But as I really look at them tonight they seem like a smaller black bird.

7:27 – Back and forth, they’ve come and gone. From all directions, noisy and en masse. Their flight reminds me of the twilight zone or from movies long ago when they made model-birds to impersonate flight. Actually, much like the movie Birds. Eerie.
7:30 – But alas! I’ve figured out that there are two types of bird partaking in this evening ceremony. They are two different sizes, both black. Kwee-k kwee-k says the smaller one.

Everything is illuminated in the gorgeous sunshine; the vines are slowly fading into a golden ocean, the leave on the trees are changing and the smell of Autumn is deep in the air. I had a wonderfully relaxing weekend having to work only Saturday afternoon and having Sunday off.






Saturday was a lovely day; that morning all of the tanks needed only a light pigeage. Alex sent Jane and I to the marché in the centre ville to find something delicious for lunch. Poulet Roti (rotisserie chicken), Gambal’s heirloom Oregon tomato and mozzarella salad, nectarine and strawberry fruit salad and, of course, a baguette.

For dinner Denis and John (the same famous cooks from the Poulet Smackdown) invited Jane and I over for dinner: 6 Euro rips and chicken bricks. After the invitation we promptly took a two hour walk, up down and around the Mountain de Beaune (a very steep hill).

But dinner was a different story, let me explain; People in France don’t know what to do with a good rack o’ ribs. So they went on super sale at the marché and the boys had a bbq in mind. The bbq sauce was Hoysen, sugar, vinegar, thyme and it was LATHERED. Delicious, fell right off the bones – comparable to John Gates’ ;) As for the chicken breasts, they were split open, paired with prosciutto, and stuffed with comté cheese. Then Denis rolled them in two layers of brique (a paper-like pastry) and put them in the oven at 200*C for 20 minutes. On top, a mustard crème sauce and Gambal’s tomatoes on the side. These guys like to eat the real stuff; the tomatoes were my idea. But hey, I love French food – the sauce is reduce white wine, add heavy cream, add ~ 2tbls butter and Dijon mustard. Mmmmm hummmm.

That night we went big: bar hopping around Beaune to all of our favorites. Everyone comes into Beaune on Saturday night. The count was five separate bars, culminating at Pickwick’s (the first pub started in Beaune after the wine & tourist boom in the 70s). We were out til sunrise, but hey, Sunday was our first day off since we’ve been here!


Despite all odds, Sunday was lovely as well. Around six we started drinking wine and were back at the pub meeting up with CFPPA friends (Mark and Vince) by seven. Mark’s best mate Sam is Beaune for a few days and they’ve been living it up. We left them at the bar “33” with 20L of beer. As for the rest of us, we decided to venture to Vince’s stomping grounds to watch the stars come out. It was beautiful up in the Haute Côte (pronounced ‘oat coat’). Magny-Les-Villers is a small mountain town and his winery’s vines are mountain-top. It was beautiful up there. The moon was a perfect black and white cookie and the stars, crystalline.






After a good night’s sleep today was back on the job. The pigeages and remontages (pump-overs) have been going well and steadily. Today was a bit different. The tasting went as follows:

Savigny – le meme
Volnay – interestingly different taste from days past. It’s coming along and has a better nose. Fruity, but harsh – no fat The pH is high but the malolactic and tartaric acids are where they should be. The pH (acidity) level comes directly from the grapes au natural. There are two types of acid found in wine grapes: malolactic (like green apples, tart acid) and tartaric. The wines. There are traces of gray rot. (When this was said we reminisced about triaging these grapes; THE EARWIGS in this one were horrendous. We were able to cut our most of the rot on the bunches but because we don’t have vibrating triage table, the single rotten grapes were falling in.) Not tasting like a premier cru.
Chorey – tough tannins. Tastes: sulfide and reduced. Gav asked about adding oxygen but Geraldine said c’est pas necessaire.
Charme – just starting to ferment, you can taste the prickle of the yeast. Surprisingly floral.
Chambolle – good structure
Chambolle St. Soufre – high acetate nose and taste. “The first day I tasted this I said oh.. god.. it’s horrible.” Explained Geraldine. “Now it is not the same, there is fruit in the aftertaste.” The acetate flavor is highly acidic (imagine nail polish remover) but it’s not actually an acidity problem; it’s not a volatile acid. You find this flavor because of high oxidation at the beginning of fermentation.
Vosne – dark fruit, floral. These grapes were SO ripe when we got them. Simply delicious, coming along magnificently.
Clos de Vougeot - less floral.
Bourgogne Rouge 2 – Acid, rich, not same fruitiness, not as friendly, ripe tannins
Bourgogne Rouge 3 – Almost light, very pleasant. A lot different from days past, hard acids, tannins need work but they’re there. “it’s important to have more fat now because in the barrels the malo will counter.” Explained Geraldine. She’s referring to the second fermentation that happens in the barrels. All of the malolactic acid is eaten and turns into the tastey, softer acids one enjoys drinking.

“This is definitely a year where the lower appellations will over perform,” Jane observed.
“I’ll definitely be buying ‘09s,” said Gav with a big smile and a nod.





Today we also noticed that the Savigny les Beaune isn’t heating up fast enough. Geraldine made an executive decision to take the juice out and transfer it into another tank to heat it up to about 33-36*C. As Gav put it, “this takes balls.” But Alex has a great modern cuverie set-up and is equipped and able to do this in a couple of hours. After the juice was transferred, it was heated by two drapeaux. The goal of this process is to soften the tannins. Tannins have short protein chains; By warming up the juice and pouring it back over the grapes and skins you are essentially elongating the proteins chains. This gives the wine a better mouth feel and softer tannins.

As for the rest of the day, les estagieres were sent to clean the drains

"Un seau de merde (a bucket of shit)" -Jonathon

We’re due to be in the winery by eight in the morning so we’re taking it easy and having movie night at Mark’s apartment.

"A Bath of Grapes!" - Geraldine

Saturday and Sunday: These times, they are a changin’

Saturday and Sunday were a nice change to the schedule. Saturday we processed those last boxes of grapes and got started with the cleaning. We power-washed all of the dreaded boxes and finally stacked them one last time. We cleaned and scrubbed each instrument and finished in time to shower and polish for our night out to Megan and Matt’s house. Megan and Matt have been with Alex since the beginning: building the business, building the cuverie and full and constant support. They’re a couple trés chouette (very cool). They enjoy rock climbing, hiking, good music and art; a happy pair. They have two lovely children whom are some of my favorite people that I’ve met thus far in my travels. Lila is 2 years old and has never-ending energy and spazzaz. She’s full of smiles and little chirps of French vocabulary that often saved me during the harvest. She’s being raised bilingual – which I think is totally rad – and is capable of switching between the two easily. Jack is 10 weeks old. He’s adorable and lovable. Trés, trés petit!



Off to Saint Romain for the night! They’re house was beautifully snuggled into the heart of this small town that is walled by ancient cliffs. They’re currently renovating an old family compound (by the looks of it) and conjoining the buildings studio style. The kitchen still has the original wood-fired stove that they use occasionally for pizzas! The master bedroom is above the kitchen (as it has always been) and when you walk in you can smell the remnants of a room once warmed by wood. For dinner we had pumpkin soup, veal stew over rice, cheese and dessert. I wouldn’t doubt that every single person brought at that table brought at least one bottle of wine that night. It was lovely to be in a cozy home with interesting and wonderful people








My contribution to dinner - A Huet Vouvray sweeeeeet wine. Went deliciously with ice cream and pie :)



WEEK THREE (Sept 21-25)

Post Harvest Activities:

Ahhhhh. Sleep is good! That last week was dragging and damp. The weather has picked back up and we’re enjoying what seems to be an Indian summer. Our schedule has changed as well: 10am arrivals. (Can’t you just see our smiles?)

Alright, so if you’ve been paying attention, you understand that all of our chardonnays are in their barrels and down in the cellar. What we’re working with these days are the cuves full of Pinot grapes. Depending on when they came in, some have been sitting longer than other and thus have started to ferment. Take our Savigny for instance. They were the first pinot grapes we received and the largest amount received. They’re in le grand cuve. When this juice starts to ferment the yeast rises and carbon dioxide bubbles are created. The CO2 pushes the whole grapes to the top of the cuve and forms a “cap.” You would be surprised how thick and how solid this cap gets.
Every morning we come in and Geraldine (the very funny and very pleasant winemaker) has taken the density measurements of each wine. Basically, the density is affected by the total soluble sugars. Yeast eats sugar and yields alcohol (or ethanol), which is less dense than water. By taking the density you’re reading the progression of the wine to yeast and alcohol. You’re looking for a pattern; you’re checking everyday to make sure the yeasts stay constant. If they’re struggling or if they’re going too fast we can alter the temperature by dropping “les drapeaux” in them (stainless-steel sheets that can be filled with antifreeze or heated water).
As for the white wine down in the cellar, the barrels are only filled about 3/4 (or maybe 4/5) full. This fermentation is usually slow to start, though yeasts are sluggish in nature anyway. Fermentation usually starts around 17-18*C though yeasts prefer to work at 25*C. It’s a constant fight, but a good one because are a key component for the aromas of the white wine. For example, more elegant aromas occur at lower temperatures. Whereas when the yeasts are highly (overly) stressed you have a nose sensation to that of a bitter orange rind.

“Geraldine is gentle with these wines,” Gav observed. “She says, ‘deux pigeage, max’!” C’est trés vrai (this is very true). Pigeage has been my next biggest physical accomplishment. Remember how I told you about the caps a little while back? Well once or twice a day we take pigeage sticks (imagine a toilet plunger) and push through the caps until we hit the juice. Pigeage helps to extract tannins from the fruit cap; producing both astringency and bitterness to the mouth feel of the wine. Before fermentation pigeage helps the extract softer tannins and after fermentation begins heavier tannins are extracted. Other than pigeage, we also do “pump-overs” where we take the juice from the bottom of the tank and pour it back over the top to help extract that lovely dark burgundy color ;)

After taking the densities Geraldine then tastes each juice to determine the progression of the tastes. It is basically like drinking grape juice….until the fermentation starts. Based on smell and a bubbly mouth feel, you can tell the presence of yeast and know that the fermentation has begun! Based on the Geraldine’s experience and VAST knowledge of wine, she can read the density and taste and tell us whether each cuve needs 0,1 or 2 pigeages and whether or not it needs a pump-over.





“Let’s go Lucy!” Alex screams to me as I’m stomping these grapes. Haha I feel like Lucy from that episode she’s in Italy and ends up wrestling an Italian mama in a vat of grapes. Other than our cuverie ipod (playing anything from the Beatles to Cake to Neil Young) there is no horseplay allowed. [I must contain the Lucy inside of me and save it for the foosball games with the rowdy Belgium Bikers after hours at the Bar du Square. Umm too bad I didn’t have my camera with me last night…]