Alain & Isabelle Hasard (Burgundy)(4)

By 2009-3-3 11:38:57

Pouring white from a bottleAs said above, the 2003 wines were devatted after only 5-6 days of fermentation with a bit of sugar left, but the sugar were "eaten away" in the casks. He says that while very cautious, he likes to do that, to devat with still a bit of sugar, when the juice density is around 1000/1010. But there's no fixed law that he would follow, it depends how he feels the wine, how it tastes, the fineness of the tannins and every year is a new year. This year for example the wines were extremely refined and they let them longer in the vats and the sugar were eaten there. Alain Hasard likes to be surprised every year, when the wine shows something different. He uses Freud's concept of free-floating attention as the mindset he has when conducting his vinification and even his vineyard management. He loves that state of mind, and samely he remembers a few words that Michel Bettanne lended to Lalou Bize-Leroy (Domaine Leroy) when she said The wine is always right, which he needed years to fully understand. After

he began to make wine, he understood what she meant, that the wine, when it is left alive, goes in such or such direction for a reason, even if it doesn't mean letting free rein to the wine, because the end of the road would be vinegar.
Let's taste the wine, he says :
__Bourgogne Aligoté 2007 (white). Vineyards near Aluze (which is really at a crossroads of Appellations). Lemon. Vine-peach also, he says. Refined nose. Some acidity, but with richness and viscosity. The Aligoté was the last vineyard that he harvested in 2007. Still, he says, this is not the best time of the year to taste the wines. He says that there are two time of the year when the wines taste best, it is may-june before it gets too hot, and at autumn. I feel ananas in my empty glass, or some exotic fruit. This Aligoté is the only wine that he vinified in stainless vats. As it's a wine to drink young, he feels a stainless-vat vinification fits well and helps the neat minerality to express itself. He says that what made him adopt biodynamie was when he came through certain wines, for example Noël Pinguet's (Domaine Huet), or Nicolas Joly's (Coulée de Serrant) which had a minerality and a purity that were exceptionnal. He thought then, if biodynamie is behind these wines, that's the way I want to work my vineyards.
__Rully White 2007 les Cailloux. Not far from Aluze also. 0,5 hectare, 25-30-year old vines. Only wild yeasts like for all his vinifications of course. Nice nose, with toasted notes says B. He never filters his wines. In 2007 the wines were a bit hazy so he clay-fined them, which he didn't do in 2006 for example. He says that he is non-interventionist but jokes (that's when he burst in one of his typical laughs - picture on right) that like in education (with five children, he knows...) non-interventionist doen't mean lawless and sometimes you have to put some order. Speaking of his children, aged from 7 to 21, 2 boys, 3 girls, they all work now and then in the vineyard (because they're forced to, he adds with another laugh). B. notes that there's a nice aromatic lenght in the mouth, in spite of the moderate attack in the early mouth. Alain Hasard feels more bergamot, anise and ginger in this wine rather than toasted notes. About the casks, he changed his ways since they left the Cotes-du-Couchois. Over there they used up to 60% new casks. Here in the Côte Chalonnaise (except with the Mercurey but he is on his way to reduce new wood there too) they put it down to 30% maybe. And he works on that question, including about the type of toast and the cooperage style. He works with 4 cooperages, François-Frères, Tonnellerie de Mercurey, Seguin-Moreau and Dargaud-Jaeglé. He found for example that the oak coming from the Jupille forests in the Sarthe département has a very thin grain texture that is very soft on the wine. In the Couchois, they had texture wines and they tried to make rounder wines. In the Côte Chalonnaise, the wines are more spirited, aerial and the wood has to be more in the background (were's speaking of the reds here).
__Côte Chalonnaise, Clos des Roches (Pendantes) 2007 (red). Bottle opened a couple days ago. Very beautiful nose, complexity. Small red fruits like raspberry, spices, santal also (B.). He says that the best would be to wait 2 years at least even if 6-7 years would be even better. The future will say it but they may last 30 years, who knows...2007 was a year with a beautiful summer-like april, and a milder later season. Yields were 30-35 ho/ha that year on Clos des Roches. Empty glass : encence and santal, obviously.
__Côtes du Couchois, Le Clos 2007 (red), planted at 12 500 vines/hectare. Pinot Noir of course. Complexity on the nose. The last bottles, they sold these vineyards. Blackcurrant, Blueberry. B. feels tobacco leaves. Some tannins here, but it's OK and the temperature of the wine is cold. Very dark wine. I'll tell you later where some of these last Hasard Couchois bottles can be purchased (in Paris at least), but let me go there first... Public price here : 15 Euro.
__Mercurey la Brigadière 2007. Half-hectare Vineyard on a soil composed with white (Oxfordian) marls and debris. Very clear Pinot Noir, compared with the Couchois. Very complex and beautiful. Floral notes. B. feels chocolate too. Nice chew. Minerality edging on salinity. Second harvest of this vineyard. What he likes in this Mercurey is this graciousness. Public price : 18 Euro. Speaking of his cuvées, he made for example 11 cuvées from 6 hectares in 2007, that's why he has so many wooden tronconic open-vats compared with the small size of the estate. In 2008, having sold the Couchois (3 cuvées there) and purchased an additional Côte Chalonnaise, they made 9 cuvées. Speaking of this Mercurey, he says that his Les-Gardes plot on the Côte Chalonnaise has exactly the same type of soil. What strikes him with the Mercurey wines is the extreme legibility of the terroir, a trait that is very strong in Burgundy he says, you literally read the terroir in the wine.

The 11th-century Chateau de Couches (Couchois)Speaking of 2008 where terrible weather-conditions brought a strong push of diseases, I asked Alaion Hasard if with his biodynamic farming it was not too hard to handle these bursts of diseases in the vineyard. He says it was an exhausting year, especially that some of their vineyards were just converting from conventional farming to organic, which is an ordeal for a vineyard (some plots had been bought in 2006, other plots in 2008). they had to spend all the season in the vineyard, taking away damaged grapes and leaves and checking every vine all the time. Also he says that you need time to know a newly acquired vineyard and learn how to handle it, and they do their best to understand how their new plots respond. In 2008, Isabelle just took a week off in summer with the children and came back to continue this work with Alain.Then in november there was this reduction risk, with more work and frequent checks, in the cellar this time. He says that they'll remember 2008, for sure...
speaking of the copper sprayings, he uses very low doses and adds that an organic-farming research center, the SEDARB, which is based in Auxerre in Northern Burgundy is having research programs about minimum-dosage spraying and how low it is possible to go with still a good response of the plant. But this research is a bit late and he (and other organic pioneers) has been already using for 5-6 years fo the low copper-dosages that they are testing only now. Viticulture is the farming sector which is converting the fastest to organic in France, he says, and there was a 16% increase in the surfaces turning to organic last year. At the Champs de l'Abbaye, they joined the Ecocert certification. They had looked for the Demeter certification a few years ago but it was too costly, especially when they didn't have much money. Now he would like Ecocert to create a separate certification, independant from the usual biodynamie certification-structures. Also he says that part of what is taught as being Rudolf Steiner's biodynamie comes actually from Maria Thun teachings. Maria Thun was a gardener growing vegetables and some of her techniques may not apply to hardy plants like vines. Also he doesn't necessarily respect the fruit-days of the moon-calendar for the pruning of the vines because as there are only about 7 fruit-days per month, you need either to have many workers to do the pruning or start very early in the season, both ways being unpracticable. Also, the Steiner's model was based on a farm entity with all its diverse life, animals, multi-crop growing etc, which is rarely a reality today.

Hamlet between Couches and Aluze (maybe les Vezeaux or Précelles)

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From wineterroirs.com