Maison Ilan 2010/2011 wines and harvest fun.

For those who are interested, here are: some incomprehensible thoughts about Maison Ilan in Nuits St Georges and the 2011 Burgundy harvest.

Ray, if anything needs changing [soap.gif] let me know! [cheers.gif]

Well done Jonathan! Very informative.

Very much enjoyed the pic with the fog over Clos de Beze. Always interesting seeing the source of all the wines you drink and read about.

Excellent piece Jonathan. Also interesting to learn that white grapes are allowable in red Burgundy.

Best of luck to Ray with the harvest.

Thanks for the comments… Despite loving the wines it was news to me as well… And shows that it really isn’t about the grape but about the soils.

When the mutations were not to a great extent obvious, all the mutations that had flavour went into the tanks. It is considered good luck to throw them in, but with the Mazoyeres there was just too much and it would have made the wine dilute. Of course, for measure and fatigue berries and the odd mistaken bunch went in.

In Le Chambertin we had probably three bunches of Pinot Blanc (one we ate, two went in) and a few bunches of Pinot Gris and Burreaux of which most was chucked because Burreaux isn’t very interesting and Pinot Gris can look like water berries even when fully ripe!

And red grapes are allowed in white Burgundy. Crazy huh?

The author cannot mean two punchdowns…period, right? He meant 2 punchdowns per day, I assume? Otherwise how would you get the color and tannin out of the skins and into the juice if they are not in contact during fermentation? The cap would just rise to the top after a few hours and sit there for a week. Mis-translation?

Ray will often do just 2 to 4 punchdowns a fermentation.

Color is significantly overrated and havnt heard anyone complain about Ray’s wines lacking tannin.

Not a typo or mistranslation.

Can you please tell me how color and tannin go to the juice if 98% of the cap is not in contact with the juice during fermentation? I gotta think he meant twice per day.

He didn’t. As to your first question: I don’t know. But, I can guarantee there’s been no mis-translation or typo.

Some go into the juice. Just not as much as if one is constantly punching down.

Ive stuck my arm into a cap of fermenting pinot with a floating cap and the bottom part was totally saturated with juice so its not like there is no contact at all.

Ive talked to Ray about this at length. its 2 to 4 times per fermentation. Everyone told him he was crazy but the results speak for themselves.

Well, if he really does do twice during the life of fermentation, then he has charted a path no one else has ever done that I know of. Barry, even your favorite, Joseph Swan, does about 3 pumpovers/punchdowns per day during fermentation. Littorai does 2-4/day. Arcadian 3-4/day. Clos Pepe 2-3/day. These are not highly extracted wines. I have never met or heard of a winemaker doing less than 1-2 per day, much less two per cycle. I am gonna ask Ray about this because it goes against the basic Pinot protocol, if true. Not only that, but there are risks to not keeping the cap wet as well, such as the formation of acedic acid and mold. I am curious to learn more about this and would love to know what other Pinot makers do about cap mangement. But I know most of them and one of the first things I ask is how many times they punch down and I’ve never heard of less than 2x/day during fermentation until now. I am always up for learning about new techniques.

During Ray’s first vintage he told me he was only puching down a few times and I was really worried. Lots of people were telling him he was making a mistake so your take on this is totally reasonable. But as it turns out the vintage appears to be a great success for him so he has been vindicated.

Here is Alan Meadow’s take on the vintage. IIRC these wines got 3 punchdowns:

I will be curious what Ray does the first time he encounters a “light” vintage where extraction may take on greater importance.

Berry,

Do you not perceive 2011 as a “light” vintage?

From what Ive gathered it sounds like the extract is good despite the lack of sugar ripeness.

Ray did talk about 3 punchdowns for the wines this year, but the colours were already fairly strong… For all the wines… The punchdowns are all fairly gentle and so is placing in tank and sorting, so a lot of the berries remain in tact. (a benefit of being small perhaps??) and so colours are fairly strong.

Of course in a lighter vintage things may have to change a touch but we are talking about terroir and Burgundy; not as it were a grape variety. Ray is interested in intensity of flavour and as such as said to me directly that he would make a Wine that looked like Rose if it tasted good… “that would be cool”. What he wants is terroir! If that means compromising on colour, then so be it!!

The wines as you can see from the Volnay (about to go into barrel and had only two punch downs) was vibrant!!! Colours also tend to change as well when not on the skins but in barrel.

I think a key is that whole berries (mainly as destemming will break some of them) but if there is less punch down, more will remain in tact and will effectively ferment within itself and still gain colour. Of course, no one can be sure but I can guarantee that was not a typo or misquote from me and I have watched all this take place and tasted vibrantly coloured wines and juice.

What Ray does is working… How, perhaps even he doesn’t know? What we do know is that everyone starts by telling him he is wrong/it won’t work and then are amazed when they taste the wines!!!

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I am here: Google Maps

Flavours are ripe, skins are fairly thick, acids are good but the grapes are not “sweet” per se! In terms of extract, I don’t feel that a lot is needed.

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I am here: Google Maps

That is good to hear. [basic-smile.gif]

Hey everyone, thanks for the interest

In 2009, I was about to have some grapes in my hands, with no real experience of what exactly why things happen and figured that I should figure a few of these things out for myself. I could have taken the help from people that obviously knew much more the I did/do, but I figured that would be cheating. Plus, it is much more exciting to make your own path, even if it means failure. I looked at every process that might come up…having no experience, I didn’t know exactly what would come up, but I went with my gut and decided to use intuition where my knowledge was lacking. As it turns out, I ended up using my intuition throughout the process. Much of what I did was based upon common sense or more accurately what made sense to me.

When looking at punchdowns, I figured you needed to keep the cap damp (not necessarily wet), and that you hoped to gain extraction of flavors, some color (dependent on the type, force and quantity involved in the method) and that you may want a bit of tannin as well. I was worried about breaking seeds or any stems that found their way into the cuve. So, it made sense to use my feet. Not sure if that would work, I tried to balance on the tank with a punchdown tool in hand and found myself too far away from the wine. I figured with three wines, I wanted to be as up close as possible. The upshot was that I still wouldn’t be worried about breaking seeds, so it made sense to actually do what I thought was more fun and interesting.

Pump overs involved a pump, which immediately made it not an option for me. Color was something that I didn’t care about. If it looked like a rosé, so be it. I used a tea making analogy, and basically decided to expand on it. Long story short, I figured that I didn’t need to extract much to get acceptable (to me) flavor, color was overrated, and that like tea, too much pressing risked muddling the subtle nuances. With this in mind, I decided to keep the punch downs manual (pigeage a pied) actually entering into the tank, not just feet. The count in total throughout the fermentation would be kept to three at the most and that I wouldn’t stay in there longer than 3 minutes. There are many reasons for doing this, but I don’t wish to write too much.

As it turned out, I decided that for the first wine (Morey 1er Cru Chaffots) that came in, I did 3 punch downs total, for the second wine (Charmes Chambertin Aux Charmes Haute), I did two times total, and for the last wine, I punched it down just once. The people I was sharing the facility with said that I was crazy, that such appellations deserved better than three punchdowns, let alone one (Le Chambertin). I was told that my wines would look like rose, would be pale, wouldn’t have structure, wouldn’t have intensity and be bland, etc. I figured that if I took their advice in doing two to three times a day (they are both grads from Beaune’s oenology program) that I would be working on their wines. I needed to work on my own wines.

I cannot say that this has paid off or it hasn’t. I only have Premier and Grand Cru Fruit sources so there is still too much time that needs to pass before saying more.

In 2010, due to being irritated by using a 2.5 new barrels and having to explain this variable in my input between the wines, along with the variable of using some stems on the Morey, I became even more obsessed with aligned input to the point of settling on three times total punch downs for each wine, as well as having everything else I could control beyond the berries themselves even with each other. I did a few other things in getting everything aligned, but I am happy with the progress that I made in doing this. Also, there are other considerations that are involved in doing things this way, but to be more precise here means that I risk making the mistake of actually seeming like I know anything about any of this.

There are still many things left to do improve in this pursuit which will no doubt be imperfect, but it is intellectually stimulating for me. Keep in mind that this isn’t for pulling out the ‘most’ potential from each site or ‘highlighting’ what is ‘good’ in each terroir, it is an attempt at having an even starting point for each. I have my thoughts on the others concepts above, but this is for a different discussion.

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I remember the tea conversation… [smileyvault-ban.gif]

It made a lot of sense, considering tea is like Pinot quite fickle and needs nurturing as oppose to producing, to my poncy British Tea Council Tea Master accredited arse, it made perfect sense and it did so to my wife, Japanese and also accredited.

Tea also has terroir. Darjeeling makes Burgundy look like Bordeaux. [snort.gif] for me it is the Burgundy of tea… And it is very delicate. Still it packs a lot of complex flavour… So I don’t see why Pinot can’t live with as few punchdowns as possible.

For me it is about flavour, not Colour (unless it is black and inky, and I am not interested) and I never mention Colour in my tasting notes. Dark/black for me refers to flavour intensity.