Alain & Isabelle Hasard (Burgundy)(3)
By 2009-3-3 11:38:57
Alain Hasard in the vatroomThe vat room is a very old building with exceptionally thick beams and framework, as it was originally roofed with thick, flat stones like it used to be in the region. This type of roofing weighs about a metric ton per square-meter and the carpenters of the past built a frame accordingly (this building has a 130-square-meter roof surface) and the wall were also very thick. What you see on the ceiling is the first step of the future insulated ceiling. If Alain Hasard wines are non-interventionist, he firmly beleives in the importance of the temperature factor and considers that a careful control of temperatures is a central element to make wine. There is no underground cellar now and he may have to dig one, if he he can, because he may fall immediately on the rock table on which the village sits. There are about ten open wooden tronconic vats in the vatroom, all made by Grenier, the artisanal Burgundy cooperage. They weren't in the winery initially and he purchased them all or brought them along from his former Couchois winery.
The PressThe press looks new because he formerly used a similar vertical press lended by a friend. This type of press means lots of manual work, particularly to fill and to empty it. That's his job, Isabelle has no part in it. He has another press just for the whites. The good thing with having two presses, one for the reds and one for the whites is that it allows them to bring the grapes in according to the maturity of each plot and not because of a time window in the press schedule. When you have only one press, the vigneron is often going to harvest the whites first, not always for maturity reasons but because pressing whites after reds asks for a thorough cleaning of the press. The harvest began sept 26th in 2008, starting with the reds, and it ended oct 4th. The sorting stage is made on the spot, in the vineyards. The pickers were a bit more than 15 during the first days, and less than 10 at the end, on the smaller plots. They need 8 or 9 days to pick the whole 6 hectares. They don't want to rush the harvest and only do it if the maturity is right.
The surface cask cellar at Champs de L'AbbayeWe then walk into the surface cask cellar, a room filled with casks (only the 2008 reds in this room) where it's quite warm compared with the outside, covering my glasses and camera lens with condensation that I have to wipe repeatedly. He has put some heating and set the temperature of this room at 16° C to let the fermentation go on. He also puts regularly 
some water on the ground to keep the right humidity. This year he says that there is a tendency to go toward reduction, so if he let the temp at the normal 10° or 11°C the wine would go in reduction, with animal aromas and mercaptans (very detailed article by Jamie Goode) being too present.The vintage 2008 having this tendency, he is very careful and checks often the wine. Several factor intervene but concentrated wines like his (because of low yields and high-density plantation) are more likely to tilt toward reduction. The wines in here are the 2008 reds, the 2007 being already bottled and currently being shipped to the customers. these 2008 reds will be progressively bottled between end of july to early october 2009.
The red grapes are 100% destemmed and during the vat stage there's a pumping-over per day, also a cap-punching in the beginning of the fermentation and then they stop the cap-punching when the alcohol level is right because it brings more extraction which is not what he is looking for. They evolved in their vinification style. Also, he had learned to vinify in Côte-de-Beaune wineries where very refined terroirs like Savigny could allow whole-clusters vinifications, because the stem maturity was often so perfect there. But on the clayish terroir of the Couchois he had to adapt because the phenolic maturity was not always optimal, plus clay brings more tannic wines, so from 2001 they bought a destemmer to Olivier Merlin and soon destemmed the whole harvest. 2003 was another decisive turning point in his vinification practices : this exceptionnal heat-wave year brought dark, black grapes with concentrated juice, so he decided to have no more than 5 to 6-day fermentation stage. Plus it was hot and fermentations started right away and he devatted with still sugar in the juice, but he didn't want more tannins. He lost some juice-volume but got the best quality of it and this vintage was very beautiful with lots of freshness at the same time. So, in the following years, considering that the substance is always concentrated due to the low yields they have (25 hectoliter/hectare, far below the 58 ho/ha allowed) on their vineyards, he decided to keep these short fermentations that he initiated in 2003.
From wineterroirs.com
