You bottled aQuEX-dEux (22) entirely in magnum, why?
I made the same wine in 21 and filled 10 magnums for myself and it wasn’t enough. It’s the perfect share-it-around wine, a small bottle was too small. So I wanted to fix my mistake. And how chic is whole cuvée in mag!?
Certainly from someone who spends a lot of time and wasted (?) energy collecting and cleaning magnums after parties to re-use them...
Don't forget to mention the waste of water!
How big is this cuvée then?
800 odd litres. Which I took as a sign because it’s exactly a pallet of magnums — plus 99 bottles. I like signs.
And you weren’t, aren’t afraid that your clients won't buy the same amount of mags as bottles?
Honestly it didn’t occur to me until I sent out my mail in Feb saying ‘hey guys so uh I have only two spring releases this year and one is in magnum…'
Which isn’t true, because in that mail you were actually offering three wines for the spring release
You’re right. There was also dALuM, my barbera from 21. Until I sent out another awkward mail to say that actually I was pulling it.
Why?
Because I bottled it with sugar to get a bit of a sprtzzz but the sprtzzz has not spritzed so it just has too much sugar.
You added sugar to wine???
No, I bottled it with residual sugar. But it’s also like 14% and from Italy so maybe that was stupid. Plus, apart from my piquettes which are all very successfully fizzy, I’ve never managed to make a fizzy wine. So it was for sure stupid.
Pretty shit the wine you name after an idol is shit.
Yeah, it’s pretty shit. I wanted to send him some.
So now you’ve decided not to sell it, what will you do?
I told everyone that had tasted it they could still take it if they really wanted to. So a couple clients have, but under my caveat emptor protection. Then I also had to cancel the orders from the zine I’d sent out literally two days earlier… Like how many times can you ask people to bear with you? What I’ll actually do with the wine I’m not sure exactly. Harry told me to ‘leave it in a hot place’ so I thought that during harvest I could re-pile the pallet outside and leave it in the sun a bit. If that doesn’t work I’ll probably come back crying to those of my clients who very nicely offered to buy it from me and wait for it themselves…
Because its painted and labelled and boxed, right? And you’ve already moved it twice, like two trips x 80km plus loading and unloading and gas and so then ALSO opening and cleaning 500 bottles isn’t really an option right?
Can I not answer that question?
Back to the mags. You bottled the wine in the bottle you thought was best for it without thinking about what was best for sales —
— which I guess is a selling point in itself, right?
— like you semi-selling your wines via this fictional conversation?
I once applied to an intern programme at one of those very cool advertising agencies in Amsterdam but didn’t get a placement. Weird huh?
If aQuEX-dEux (22) is anything like aQuEX 21… well is it?
It is! How pro am I that that I managed to make the same wine twice??
So its’s also like zero degrees alcohol
10, yeah.
And you’re marketing it as a plousard.
Not marketing but I’ve remarked that this is… Is it cool if I quote myself?
I mean we’re in your head anyway
Ok so in my zine I wrote “I’m only 1/2 joking when I call this my poor man’s plousard. Poor, because cinsault from the Herault doesn’t have the caché of actual plousard from the Jura, and only 1/2 a joke because it half tastes like it does” — end quote.
Isn’t the usual wisdom that you put wines in mag for long-keeping and not fast drinking?
aQuEX 21 aged well! I’ve just re-released 3 carton via the zine and it’s tasting great. And not that I want to quote myself again but I wrote that — can I? —
Go on.
That "it's floral and fluid and fluo-pink but with enough of a vegetable backbone that makes me, a definite non-expert with time, believe it will do well with time".
Yeah but if I understood you the idea of putting it in bigger format was because it’s the kind of wine you’d bring to a party. For the sharing element.
Well yeah. It’s very… fluid. Get it? Aqueux? (Also do you not just LOVE the name aQuEX-dEux (22)?! Like none of the French people seem to care but it’s a rhyme with an x and mostly the same letters and and and —
— and the extra glass, the extra weight: you’re not concerned that there’s a contradiction in incurring extra environmental costs as packaging for something so… disposable?
Academically, sure. But I also ship wines to the other side of the world and drive 1000s of kms a year to bring grapes to a place I just happen to be making wine in so I don’t think this is the moment to split hairs.
But if it were?
I did buy the lightest magnums I could…
Any regrets?
I can think of worse things than be left with a 1/4 of a pallox of magnums. No. You?
Generally?
No can we just finish this up now? Any more questions?
Yeah: why do you do write your names with the small letter, big letter, big letter weird way you do. Doesn't Aurélien do that too?
So, you're never gonna believe but I only kinda just noticed he does... I dunno. Just looks cool?
