How I Came to Live in a Barn: Part 6

Welcome to Friday and another edition of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.

If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity or running water, but all the paw paws, persimmons and passion fruit you could eat. During that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, beyond the blaug. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? You Betcha. Ready? Wunderbar.

How I Came to Live in a Barn: The New York, Tony Coturri, and one fateful year edition

By facilitating this whole fiasco, New York City became the unsung hero of my barn life. It introduced me to the shop, that introduced me to the wines, that introduced me to the people, who introduced me to the idea that I might one day want to be a farmer. New York is quite possibly the only entity inspiring enough to inspire someone to move out of New York City. I remember when I returned there, after my adventures with Éric and Hervé, I had a theretofore inconceivable thought: in one year, I'm gonna jet.

My goal was to commence a winemaking education by April of 2010, but I would be forced to define what that meant, and how and where to go about it––New York City not really an option. Every move up until then had been a simple, semi-logical reaction to something else––like meeting winemakers because I liked their wines––whereas this decision, I feared, required actual decision making. To make it worse, there was an offensive array of options: France? California? School? Winging it? I would spend the following year chewing on numerous ideas and spitting out the unreasonable, until I eventually landed upon the one with the most resonance. But said resolution did not come easily, until I tackled all the of the existential challenges of what do I want out of this? 

I was relatively sure of two things: 1) I wanted to end up in Kentucky, my homeland, and 2) I wanted to make wine. My worries mostly fell to whether or not there would have to be concessions made to have both. Could one make good wine in Kentucky?––I feared not. Or at least that's how I felt at first, but one unexpected consequence of having to make these decisions was that I had inadvertently became obsessed with all things fermentation over that year––kombucha, kimchi, wine, cider, beer, etc.––for its social as well as medicinal attributes. I had inundated myself with nerdy wine books, leading to an obsession with microbiology––one I'll kindly spare you––but which proved to be invaluable in aiding my eventual decision. When I redefined wine, I redefined my possibilities.

An idea began growing in my head, mid-way through that year, that I could see myself simply on a farm––it didn't strictly have to be a vineyard. When we were talking to Hervé Souhaut he had said something interesting: "Wine people are almost always food people, but food people aren't necessarily wine people." Cooks aren't obliged to like wine, whereas most wine people––like myself––find the two inseparable, and I didn't really want to pursue one without the other.

Wine-making is simple––grapes, crush, ferment, right?––at least in theory. Perhaps I could teach myself, I thought, because what really intimidated me, was that I hadn't a clue about how grapes or vegetables grew, save for what I read in books. If I couldn't produce the fruit, I couldn't produce the wine. I began casually researching farms in Kentucky at the same time I was talking to winemakers in France. Food, I decided, was to remain central in my plans, no matter what I chose. Weighing the ease with which I could start my training in Kentucky (where I spoke the language and didn't require a visa) against the bureaucracy and foreignness of France––staying in the states seemed rather appealing. I remained incredulous however until one fateful night when I met biodynamic winemaker Tony Coturri in Brooklyn, and unprompted, he validated the idea.

Tony is a calm and intelligent personality, garnished with an impressive beard and an incomparable knowledge of natural winemaking. Coturri's wines of California are among some of the most pure in all the land, and I greatly respect and seek his opinion. That night, Tony suggested that he didn't think they should focus so intensely on growing grapes in the south, that it's not a grape growing climate. He added, "There's so much good fruit there––you can ferment anything," and boom. Here was one of my favorite winemakers in the world telling me that it was possible to have my cake (Kentucky) and eat it, too (fermented). That was all I needed, his words confirmed it for me. I was sold on staying in the states, on going to a farm, and teaching myself to make wine... once I learned to grow the raw materials. Now I just had to choose a farm, but luckily I had one in mind; one in Kentucky; one I'd been eying with more than just passing curiosity. So the next day, my correspondences with France stopped and I printed the application, filled it out and sent it off. A few days later, I got a call from the farmer, and next week, we'll conclude the series with a trip to Bugtussle and the glass of wine that changed it all.

Until next week, friends, cheers.

How I came to Live in a Barn: Part 5

Welcome to Friday and another edition of "How I Came to Live in a Barn," the series that strives to connect drinking to farming as relevantly as humanly possible.

If you're just tuning in, as a quick preface to this series, from April to December of 2010 I lived in a barn. No electricity, no running water––no way! Yes way. Anyway, during that time I worked on a legitimately (though proudly uncertified) organic farm in Southern Kentucky. This series is about the many whims, fascinations and revelations that eventually inspired me to drop everything and go farming. Once we catch up to the present, I'll use the occasion to explain what I'm up to now, you know, beyond pushing the limits of the blaugosphere. Is this preface going to appear at the beginning of the entire series? Damn skippy. Ready? Wunderbar.

How I came to Live in a Barn: The Éric Texier and Hervé Souhaut Edition

 Eric Texier tasting

January of 2009

When we finally found Éric's place, and introduced ourselves, he promptly led my friend Josh and I into his cellar and began telling us about his life. Éric is a reserved man, but excitable, and he never seems to lack for interesting musings. Being a nuclear scientist turned winemaker, this is not shocking. Around 30 years old he returned to his homeland of Bordeaux and went to school for winemaking then eventually found himself in a small town outside of Lyon called Charnay where Josh and I were about to taste his wines. 

The wines he poured for us were perfect, all of them. This came as no surprise to either of us, as we've always enjoyed his wines, but what did come as a surprise was what he told us next: he was "moving away from biodynamics...."

Wait, what? This was the first (albeit modest) hint of negativity about biodynamics from a biodynamic producer I'd ever heard. He said that he didn't need them anymore, that his goal from the beginning was to become sustainable and he couldn't by simply practicing biodynamics. Biodynamics is about healing the earth, so what does one do once it's healed? All the gas he wasted driving back and forth to the vineyards, plus the numerous times he had to spray copper sulfate had turned him off. His vines, he told us, would die without him. Three years prior, he'd begun farming one vineyard under the tutelage of Fukuoka's writings (see last week's post), using clover cover crops and moving towards a no-till system of viticulture. These Fukuoka vines, he assured us, "don't care about Éric Texier," and he laughed.

He eventually led us into an entirely separate part of his facilities where a lone barrel of wine awaited. He kept it apart from his biodynamic barrels, uninfluenced. Using his wine thief, he thieved us all a small taste and we stepped out into the light. Vibrant. Textural. Wild––this was his first vintage of Fukuoka, and we, he told us, were the first people to taste it besides himself.

Hervé Souhaut Sainte Epine Vineyards

+++++

Later that week Josh and I, along with our friend Anca, were shaking hands with Hervé Souhaut in Ardèche––a couple hours south of Éric. He invited us to climb the steep Sainte Epine vineyards behind his house where his St Joseph grapes were grown, and he lamented the fallen parts of the stone trellis––victims of a rainy '08 vintage. He pointed to other famous vineyards on the massive, rolling hillsides as we carefully stepped through his 100-year-old syrah vines. Then he and his lovely wife, Beatrice took us about 30 minutes into an ancient, winding, aqueduct-laden paradise where his 1400's era cellar/castle houses his barrels. Then we tasted through a number of wines at different levels of bubbly fermentationess and slowly and reluctantly crept back towards his house.

After the general tour, we sat at his kitchen table and chatted––a sentence that does nothing to express how much of an honor it was being invited to do so. We talked wine philosophies, and the industrial revolution and the bourgeois of old Lyon and tasted numerous ingenious concoctions. His wife brought us some local cheese and sausage, and I attempted my best not to overindulge, by conveniently changing my standards of what it meant to indulge in the first place. As we were leaving that night, I realized that we'd just spent 8 hours hanging out with one of my favorite producers, in his home, drinking his wines and eating the cheese and sausage of his region. I'd flown halfway across the world, nearly killed Josh and I driving in Beaujolais, and spent absurd amounts of money, all for the opportunity to hang out with a few artisan farmers. All in the name of wine. wow.

 Vineyards of the Ardèche

+++++

Although on the surface, it might not seem obvious how tasting the first vintage of Fukuoka wines with Éric Texier or sitting down at Hervé Souhaut's house and kickin-it for eight straight hours might inspire someone to want to move to a barn, but it absolutely did. Almost more than any other factor. As I was driving back to Lyon that night, Josh said something about becoming a winemaker, and it lingered cruelly in my thoughts. I realized I loved wine, and talking wine, and tasting wine, but that's as close to it as I'd ever get. I'd never have to make a decision to switch from biodynamics to Fukuoka, or to bemoan the hardships of a vintage even. Wine is far more than just tastes, collections and experiences, but being a wine clerk, I was only allowing myself those few sensory qualities. I would always just be a tourist of these artisan farmers like Philippe Faury, or Mathieu Lapierre, or Jean-Paul Brun, who we'd also visited on this trip and who were also off enriching their communities, culture, selves and land while making extraordinary tipple. There are plenty of tourists, I decided, but not enough communities, and especially not in the United States. I wanted to be on their side of the dinner table, inspiring people like myself, who'd came halfway across the world to meet me in my homeland, where I was busy trying to make my own champagne––OUR own champagne––while getting to know the substance that'd inspired me to do so: good ol' nature.

 Josh and Philippe Faury in the Northern Rhone

Next week's post will be about the subsequent year and the decisions that had to be made––an intermezzo before the finale––and then we'll conclude the series. Ready for that bomb? mega. Until next week––cheers!

 Jean-Paul Brun

Dipping corks at Marcel Lapierre




 (Note: My spell check hates France and the word Blaugosphere. HATES.)