Saturday, October 11, 2008

endless summer #62


Champagne Jean Vesselle

It is often easy to think about living a dream in real time. To live it then feels so natural with an edge of surrealism. But to try and write about it afterwards feels like a watered down affair. You are never able to express what you felt at the time. I am a winemaker. Thus my senses are what I live by. They guide me. Smelling, tasting, seeing, hearing and feel. You might think I am crazy, but often in a cellar you hear something before you see it, smell it or can taste it. That is if you know what to look out for or keep your ears to the ground before the cookie hits the fan. But for me there is a sense more important when I am in a cellar. And that is my emotions. Sounds weird but it is true. I want to combine all my senses and express them through my emotions...what I feel inside. And then I act on it. You can call it a “feeling” and it is something that separates the better from the best. I would sometimes just stand between the tanks and listen to the juice ferment on the inside. Hearing the rushing of the bubbles. Smelling the fruit aromas peeling out the top of the tank. Seeing the carbon dioxide pouring out at the top. Monitoring the temperature simply using your hand. And then allowing it all to settle inside of you...as you imagine the beauty of the final product.
So, my cellar experiences are very private and personal. Probably the most private side of me.... (even more that romantic relationships...hahahaha). But I feel obliged to write about my three weeks in Champagne. And believe me – this time - I want to. So this story is dedicated to my FAMILY at Champagne Jean Vesselle: David, Delphine, madame Vesselle, Patrick, Lucas, Elea, Tao, Elois, Bruno, Mariodielle, Nathalie, Babasssssssssssss, Alice, Lizzie, and Toke. Thank you for an unforgettable harvest!
As the train pulled into TGV station Champagne-Ardenne, I was on the look out for a man called David, wearing a pink shirt. I was uneasily nervous seeing that we have never met before and only spoke via e-mail. And even though I am confident with speaking French, I learnt my French in the south of France and WE speak differently down there. As we shook hands on the platform I could see he was nervous too, not knowing what to make of the stranger that will occupy an important part in not only his cellar, but also house and family over the next couple of weeks. I don’t blame him.....hahahaha. But over the next couple of weeks this nervousness would disappear very quickly.
Champagne Jean Vesselle (CJV) has recently re-done their cellar and the improvements were revolutionary...according to David. So I walked into a cellar that was as good as new. And that in itself was a privilege. The workability of the cellar was fantastic and logic. Often people spend millions of Euros to upgrade systems and cellars only to make it worse. But working at CJV was an absolute pleasure. I think I am qualified to make this statement seeing that I have worked in six different cellars already in my short professional life - seven if you include the cellar at the university.
A typical day would start between seven or eight and would run into the late hours of the eight, the latest being half past one in the morning, but that was due to the party we decided to have, so it was self-induced. I blame David off course, but the two Magnums of 1991 we had before we had to pump the juice at 01.30 in the morning, seem to numb the pain. So it was easy to forgive David.....hahahahaha.
After gulping down an early morning cup of coffee the action would start with both of the presses being filled to start their separate cycles. It was Bruno and Toke’s job to do most of the manual work of emptying the cases and washing them afterwards plus making sure the grape reception area stay clean, while Babassssssssssssssssssss and I would run around downstairs doing measurements, additions, pumping the fresh juice away to the correct tanks, preparing yeast and emzymes plus playing cricket!!! Babassssssssssss was my partner in crime in the cellar (or perhaps the other way around). He liked to think he was my boss and I just did my thing allowing him to do his. He’s an Australia-crazy-Oasis-loving Frenchman that thinks he understands cricket. So in our SPARE TIME I felt responsible to teach this wanna-be Aussie-Oasis-Frenchman a few lessons or two. We did have so many laughs while singing Oasis songs out loud, him on the lead guitar and me doing my thing on the bass. And we never “looked back in anger”! (Private joke).
The top management at CJV works like this: Delphine is the official/unofficial boss, (Seeing that all the direct bosses I have had in my life have been women this was familiar territory to me) but she and David, they both make the decisions together. David runs the day-to-day operations while Bruno knows everything and he has been working there for over 25 years. I enjoyed the dynamic between them and it works really well. And it is evident in their products. I have to say: The style and quality of their champagnes are exceptional. If you are ever in the Champagne region, stop in a small town by the name of Bouzy with all of its 1000 inhabitants. CJV is slap bang in the middle of this town, next to the momentous church tower. Do yourself a favour and stop to give my regards to David and Delphine. (Just watch out for the whirlwind bundle of four kids being chased by a hopeless au pair by the name of Alice or Lizzie. They are bound to run you over.....hahahahahahaha.)
On that note. One thing – no - the best thing about CJV for me was the feeling of family that echoes through EVERYTHING that happens there. We ate together three times a day. All of us. The kids would come back form school on their lunch break and we would eat lunch together. Dinner table would be set for sometimes as many as 18 people. And I really felt at home with them. David and Delphine have a way of making you feel at home and part of the family without even trying. It just comes natural to them and I think anyone that has ever walked into their house will tell you the same. They are what I like to call: open-arm-people. They just draw people to themselves.
As for the winemaking experience – it was a process of ENLIGHTENMENT! I would like to phrase it in the following words: I came, I SAW, and now I can go and conquer. My reason for going to Champagne has always been just to be there. To be an observer. That is why most days I was very quite. Unlike me I know. I turn into a different person when I am working in the cellar. Let’s just call it FOCUS mixed with A LOT of PASSION and leave it at that. But I was observing, sucking in all the knowledge that filled the air around me and making notes in my mind. Remember what I said...making wine to me is an art of the senses more than a precise science. So I restrained myself from asking to many questions and getting all tangled up in my intellect. And it played out perfectly.
There was also the wine-in-a-sock tasting that I will never forget. This is David’s idea of a blind tasting and hides the identity of the wine by covering the bottle in one of his socks. We then had to identify the origin, cultivar and vintage – the type of game wine lovers play. But my biggest challenge was when he one night just pushed a glass of bubbly in front of me a said: “Quelle Millésime?” meaning he wanted to know the vintage. It was a magnum bottle (meaning 1.5L’s) and I could immediately smell/taste it was an old vintage. He grinned and smiled knowing it was almost an impossible task to identify the true identity of the bubbly in my glass. I took a moment and said: “Jean Vesselle, 1991”. He swung around in disbelief and claimed I cheated by looking at the cork. But the bottle was unlabeled and the cork had no date markings. I just smiled and it felt as if I had won an Olympic medal...
There are so many memorable moments: The visits to other champagne houses, driving through the different villages and appellations, the water fights involving EVERYBODY, my initiation in the rose tank (a story by itself) and the ceremonial handing over of our signed bottles of CJV, plus missing the train to Montpellier....to name only a few.
But I eventually got on the train back to Montpellier. Earlier that morning David presented me with a box marked “Champagne Magnum” on the side neatly packed. I flipped it open and there she was. My own magnum of CJV 1991.
Champagne is more than just a wine. It brings people together from different corners of the world. It’s not just for ceremonies and celebrations; or the baptism of boats; or to be sprayed at the end of F1 or stages of the Tour de France. It’s even better to drink in the late afternoon at 16:37 at the coffee break when it has been a long hard day at CJV. The refreshing rush of bubbles revitalises the senses and the spirit; it opens the mind and stimulates your dreams. So next time you have some bubbles, think about what you have read here; the people of Champagne; the people of Bouzy; the beauty of this mystical product; the fun part of producing it and the joy of drinking it. I know I will.
As so many times before life has taught me a valuable lesson: You need to dream; then you need to go and live them, so that you can dream again....preferably with a glass of bubbly and good friends close by.


chefdecaves.

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