Maison Ilan's Blog

Its been quite some time since I last posted. In fact, this is the first February posting.

While away from Burgundy, I have a good friend, Charles, topping up the wines as well as running analysis. He is works with an analysis company in Beaune. Thankfully, my malos have yet to start, as I had hoped. My thinking is that a wine with a much longer malo will have more depth and ‘completeness’ as compared to one with a quick malo. My cold cave is doing a knockout job in keeping things arrested.

I have been doing a lot of work putting together the labels. In the scheme of things, this shouldn’t be something to dwell upon. No one tastes the label. However, I understand all too well the importance of brand identity and all that comes along with it. At the same time, I generally think that after a certain amount of time working and reworking something, you in fact begin to tear away at the positive attributes as well as losing some intangible ‘magic’. With this in mind, the label will be finished out soon.

2009 Maison Ilan Futures will be offered soon! With a small production of below 290 cases, and wine being sold in other countries, the amount I am releasing through Futures will be around 30% of the production to only those on the Mailing List. The plan is to eventually sell as much wine as possible going direct to consumer to save costs and passing this along to Mailing List clients, while not selling to stores or other distribution channels.

Last thing. We are looking at April-July for our move to our house in Burgundy! Soon we will be saying goodbye to California.

Thank you again to everyone for the support!

Cheers,

Ray

Just back from Burgundy, and I feel such a relief knowing that my wines are under my own roof. Everything just seemed to fall right into place. The day of the move, I received my long awaited negociant license allowing me to move my wines to my own facility. Within two hours, I had rented a truck, found some friends to lend me the use of their forklifts and threw myself into the moment without taking time to think too much. Thankfully, this tactic didn’t bite me on the butt…too much.

With six of my barrels loaded up on the flatbed truck, silicon bungs in place, I headed out from Saint Aubin making my way to Nuits-Saint-Georges. Shortly after making a left around Puligny-Montrachet, I looked in the rearview mirror to spot wine spouting upwards and out of the barrel due to an escaped bung. Looking inside the barrel and on the floor of the flatbed, just a small amount managed to get out the barrel. Coming to a quick stop, I checked for the bung coming up empty handed. I was lucky enough to have a fresh dress shirt I had planned to wear after working. Today, it worked as an emergency bung until I got to a winery equipment shop in Meursault. I replaced all the silicon bungs with wooden bungs. These bungs are used along with a piece of burlap which sits between the wooden bung and the bung of the barrel. I pushed on toward Nuits, realizing that at any moment my move was being put in danger.

Arriving in Nuits, I picked up the forklift of a friend and went to work. It was quite an experience having my new neighbors stand outside the door to my courtyard watching, waiting for the new guy to mess up. Well, never to let anyone down I did just that. Luckily, no one was watching. Getting off the first two racks went quickly. The last was where things went pear shaped. I ended up driving too deep onto the dirt near my courtyard. Due to the recent snow and rain (you can see where this is going…) the dirt was now mud in some spots. I ended up digging the right side wheels deep into the mud, causing the drive wheel to be raised off the ground. I tried all sorts of ways to get the wheel down, at times just managing to burn rubber on the ground. Due to this delay, I was unable to make another trip that night. My friend came by later that night and helped free the forklift. He had a rope and I basically used the truck to drag the forklift in a downward motion which gave him traction to be freed.

The next day, my last of the trip, I started out at 6am. Two trips were made bringing the barrels over. I had made the choice of foregoing pumps early on which left just a few options. I could find a way to bring the barrels down my cave stairs full or siphon out using a tube. I chose the tube method. Placing empty barrels in the cave on the mares (runners) went without a hitch. Full barrels were placed at the top of the stairs with a food grade silicon tube measuring 15 meters stretching from the cave entrance to the placed empty barrels inside the cave. My friend was there to help siphon the first three barrels with me. At around 11:30pm, my friend noted how it would be impossible to finish that night. I said I would continue on, though I had a 5:30am. After he left, I just went about it knowing I had to finish up.

The empty barrels were easy to bring down. I placed them horizontally, wrapping my arms on each side. Walking backwards I would make the trip down the stairs without stopping. If I needed to rest, I’d place the barrel on the closest step above me. Once the process was in motion, the last barrel drained was left with it’s lees (I did cuvee by cuvee) so I had to be sure to carry the barrel, bung side up. Of note, when the temp dropped below freezing, all of the water that I sprayed at the top of the stairs turned to ice. A bit more dangerous. But, things still went rather quickly and efficiently.

By 5:30am I had completed the last eight barrels without issue, leaving just one barrel of Morey Saint Denis – Les Chaffots to be siphoned. My friend had offered to finish up whatever I left. And, with a 5:30am cab, 6:31am TGV in Dijon and a 1pm flight from Paris, I needed to get going. Just as I was about t close my eyes on the TGV my other friend called me up asking if I needed help. Within an hour, the last barrel was siphoned. With all the Maison Ilan wines finally under my roof I could rest. I can say that I have never slept that good before.

Cheers

Filled Grand Crus – Charmes-Chambertin ‘Aux Charmes’ and Le Chambertin

Two full sized barrels and one 1/2 sized barrel of Le Chambertin

Looking into a barrel of Morey Saint Denis ‘Les Chaffots’ 1er Cru to check fill level

Setup for filling Le Chambertin half barrel (two fill points)

View to bottle storage room from center racks in chais

Hammering wooden bungs (with berlap piece) for transport use (note: silicon bung in background)

Truck filled with barrels in my courtyard

As a few of you have read, in 2009 things flew by quite quickly. Finding fruit, finding supplies, finding a facility, etc. All of this was difficult. One thing, above all others was difficult: the dreaded paperwork!

I will save you from the details of the grueling exhaustion that ensued. The enflamed hoops which I needed to jump through. Bottom line, today I revived my negociant license after over a year of paperwork madness. Now the work can begin…

So, here I sit. Lunchtime. Everyone is in their homes eating. I am waiting for the lunch hour to be over (2pm) to get moving. As luck would have it, while driving through Saint Aubin I spotted a generous vigneron who offered to help load my truck with my barrels.

Can you tell I am excited yet? More to follow.

Cheers…

Thanks to a new friend I met at the local Doras material supply in Nuits Saint Georges the cave is now ready for barrels! The cave is ready to get back to housing wine in barrels after nearly a century of simply housing small amounts of wine in bottle.

Looking at the pictures of the cave, you can see on the left wall where a set of stairs entered the chais (barrel room). There was also another set of stairs (in the current bottle room) at one time as well. Of interest, there are two more old passages on each side of the cave toward the back wall. According to my friend, these passeges are common as a waypoint for those hiding or fleeing from soldiers during wars. I am quite curious to view the other side of these now sealed off passages. Placing curiousity aside, I will focus on the wine making and leave the detective work for later.

Next week, (after many administative delays – no comment!) I will bring the 09 vintage barrels over to their new home where they will rest a good while longer.

Many updates to follow.

As always, your comments are greatly appreciated.

Cheers!

All I can say is that I simply cannot wait to get my wine into the cave…

-2*C weather? Check. Snow throughout the courtyard? Check. Four tons of Comblanchien gravel? Check. Recently misaligned back? Check. Hmm…what’s missing? Ah. 10 slippery stairs to descend. Almost forgot about that.

So, 8am comes and I am very excited to have my rocks being delivered. Luckily, the courtyard doors are large enough to accomodate the huge delivery truck. This is welcomed news as I will be using this same set of doors to bring in my fruit truck during harvests.

Equally welcomed news was that my back seemed to be isssue free after having a brief (felt like years) 6 hour spasm session which began the day before the gravel delivery. Using a huge snow shovel and two 11 litre buckets, I carried almost all of the gravel IMO the cave myself. I say almost as my wife Christian was adventurous enough to get in on some of the fun! She did a great job by the way.

After roughly 3 hours, the cave floor was filled. The bottle storage area, the chais, all of it. What was interesting was just how quickly the soil fragrance disappeared as the gravel was spread around. I am very thankful of this result as I was not exactly sure if it would work.

Of note, looking around the cave, it appears that there were at one point two sets of stairs coming from the street side if the house. One into the chais, one into the bottle storage area. Also, in a few pics you may notice an unattractive brick patch job. Looking at the other side Of this wall you can see an ancient door frame about 5 feet in height. This confirms my thoughts that the house as it looks today was simply built over the existing cave that must date back atleast to the 1600’s judging by the architecture! I have plans to go to the city building to get mote info in this.

Just 15 minutes after the gravel was delivered, my mare (cement barrel runners) and sous mare (runner supports) were delivered. These measure 1.5M in length by 20cm high and 10cm wide. Solid cement, made by Marc Nomblot (the cement tank producer). I bought 19 of these and saw no way to have my wife help me bring them into the cave.
The truck that brought them had a boom with a palletjack tool which the conducted controlled wirelessly. I asked him if it was difficult and he said he got plenty of practice on Playstation. Lol. Funny guy.

Luckily, I met a new friend at the local Doras material warehouse which offered to help along with a friend. As they came just after the gravel was finished I ended up doing much more watching than helping. No pride in ruining your back.

You’ll notice in the pics some color variation in the gravel from the snow which was still on some of the gravel (and much of the mares) when I brought them in. Each set of two (side by side) holds two barrels. I have four sets of two on each row. I will have four rows in total, making a total capacity of 32. The pics make the space look much smaller than it is.

As a side note, as the snow melted, the humidity spiked to 91%. Also, I have more mares and sous mares on delivery. Things like this are never easy to find in stock in generous quantity.

The barrels should be in next week…

More update to come.

Cheers!

Here are a few shots I took at Le Chambertin a few days ago. The snow has just came on a couple of shirt days before. They are no doubt much more covered today as we have around 5″+ of snow now.

Enjoy!

A winemaker friend of mine likes to mention the perspective of age. The use of the phrase ‘traditional winemaking’, for example, takes on much more meaning – and depth – when the window of time considered stretches back several hundreds or even a thousand years. ‘Old methods’, ‘ancient techniques’, etc. When we speak about these terms, often the window takes into account a rolling 50 years, 100 years, possibly more. Its important for me to keep a wider window of time in mind for my personal perspective of things.

With that in mind, I have been quite curious about the age of things around me. In the U.S., here in Burgundy, etcetra. Buildings, common objects (often discarded from a different time), wine making techniques/methods, agreed upon theories thought to be knowledge that have since changed, at times reverting back to a previous chain of how things were done many years ago.

The perspective of age and the objects from a different time are of great interest to me. In fact, this has had a large influence on how I view Burgundy and France in general. It’s a romantic notion, sure. However, in Burgundy, I find a chain of methods, of technique which pull back into a concept of ‘tradition’ that intrigues me immensly.

I have wondered recently about the age of the cave below the house since first viewing it. As I mentioned in another post, there is a door inside the cave sealing off the barrel room. There are no markings inside the cave to hint at the age of the cave. I do know that existing homes in the area have caves which well outdate the house. When a house was rebuilt, the cave would still be left intact.

The wooden door is the youngest item in the cave. I figured it went back maybe to the 1930’s. There was a key which is well rusted (yet functioning) that I wanted replaced. The locksmiths commonly can replace keys dating back to the 1800’s, often consulting a catalogue with 1:1 scale illustrations for reordering. As it turns out, the key is atleast 200 years old, possibly as old as 250. Long story short, the dimensions of the key aren’t in the catalogue (the key is too old) and in the event that it had been, the replacements run upwards of 100€. I think I’ll keep my old key and look for a way to restore it rather than find a replacement.

I know this story is a departure from other posts. However, I thought it may provide an ounce of interest.

Cheers!

The snow here in Burgundy has been coming down all this week. Thankfully, the cave has remained consistent in both temperature as well as humidity. With this trip being rather short, the work in the cave must go on despite the weather.

I have to admit, cleaning up spiders, old bottles and hunting for wild centipedes is not what I had in mind when decided to move to Burgundy. That said, being in the old cave raises my level of appreciation of working in such a historical area. One thing to keep in mind, when filling up bags of debris in a cave, its important to remember that the bags will need to be lifted out as well. A couple of days and a few bags of debris containing old wood (which dissolved at the slightest touch), glass shards, broken clay, shattered bricks and other material, I am left with a solid foundation.the cave is now ready for step two.

I have ordered my gravel, along with my remaining cement runners which will arrive next week. After checking out a friend’s cave, I can fit just a bit over 32 barrels without needing to stack them. I was quite relieved to see the proper orientation of the racks and the resulting capacity. It is quite surprising the amount of barrels that can fit in a space when necessary.

Another detail about the cave is that there are two compartments. The first is for bottle storage, the second being the chais, or barrel room. There is a locking door seperating the two and the resulting humidity is higher in the barrel room, showing an average of 86% relative humidity abd a temp of 10*C. Perfect! I was lucky enough to find a thermometer with a hygrometer showing rh (relative humidity). To say I have been obsessed with this toy…um, tool would be an understatement.

When I first visited the cave, I saw the potential of what it could be. Now, I feel much more comfortable with the space and look forward to building towards having a functional, clean and efficient home for the wines to be raised.

I will be sure to update on the process…

Cheers!