DDO (October 10, 2005):

Interview Conducted by Conde Cox at Domaine Drouhin Oregon (DDO) on October 10, 2005, with Robert Drouhin, Veronique Drouhin, and David Millman (This Interview was published in an edited form in the January-February 2007 Issue of Practical Winery & Vineyard magazine):

David Millman, DDO General Manager: One of the joys for them when they come here is that they really get to be together. They stay in the house which is on the property. They really enjoy the time here. Their time is not fractured here like it is in Beaune. Francoise [Robert’s wife and Veronique’s mother] works in the lab here [at DDO] which is not something that she would do in Beaune….

Veronique can walk the vineyards here with her father…Everything is more centralized here than in Beaune…they don’t have to drive all the way to Chablis to visit a vineyard where they are sourcing fruit…

Enter Veronique:

CTC: What do you do in winemaking that allows wine drinkers to recognize the unmistakable Drouhin House style, whether the wine is made here or in Beaune?

Veronique Drouhin: The Vineyard Management of my father and my brother, the crop level, the winemaking here is very similar to Beaune, and one thing that we try not to deviate from is our philosophy not to overwork the grapes. We do punching down and pumping over---but not a lot. We do post fermentation, but then we do not touch the pomace. And we use a very moderate level of oak. Fining is something we do to fine tune the finished wine. We do it or don’t do it—there is no rule. Some years we do not do any, like the 2004. All these little details sum up the style of the wine. Very important is the taste. So, we taste the wine very often. In Burgundy, when I get samples from here, I taste with my father, to make sure that we do not go too far from what we think Pinot Noir should be.

The challenge here has been to make an elegant Pinot. The challenge in Burgundy is to try and get healthy fruit with no rot, and not being forced to pick early because rot has happened.

Here, last week was not very nice but the fruit was beautiful and the numbers were great, but wine, the grapes, did not have much flavor. So, you have people who did not want to take the risk and pick perfectly ripe fruit---sugar wise---but not ripe physiologically. And you had some people say, okay, I’ll take the risk.

But if you go back to the previous vintages we’ve seen here. Take the ’91, which if you take it today, it is not the nicest but it is a very nice wine to drink today. It was a rainy cool season and you could worry about it; so, you have all of these elements.

The style to us is important, and it is very important that we do not follow the trends of over-extraction, of maceration, of dark color. If the color is coming naturally from the grape, fine; if not, that is fine too. We do not try to put in the enzymes. I think that some people realize today that by using all of these different chemicals that you add, it works, but it does not necessarily add to the finished product quality. You get more tannins and more color, but is the wine better?

CTC: I was recently at Chateau Lascombes in Margaux, and they use dry ice prefermentation, they use spinning barrels…

Vero: Yes, to extract as much as you can. That’s what I think is overworking the grapes.

CTC: The wine then becomes that international style. It might as well be from Australia or…

Vero: Yea. We’ve seen this with Chardonnay. They all taste lovely but they all taste the same. It is very hard to sense or describe a place. If you take a Chablis, to be very specific, usually, the beauty of the terroir and the place is there.

CTC: There is an increasing use of single vineyard sources for Oregon Pinot Noir, as evidenced by winemakers like Ken Wright and Patty Green. Is this the beginning of more recognition of the differences in sites in Oregon?

Vero: I am not to the point of Ken Wright and Patty Green, because I don’t select a specific block to be the Estate or the Laurene or the Louise. I allow myself to be free to choose from the estate what I feel is fitted to the style that I want to see in the wine. With barrel selection or block selection. I have 32 fermenters and so I will have 32 different wines---not a big difference, but sometimes. I prefer to allow myself to say, I’ll take the best or the most interesting or the most complex or most age-worthy lots and blend them, rather than say that one particular block in the estate is the best one to use.

CTC: Do you think that the Americans have done enough to consider soil content and soil differences?

Vero: It is just that it takes a long time to know exactly what you’ve got. If two years in a row the wine is superb from a particular wine block, is it because the clonal selction is very good, or is it because the clone on the particular rootstock with the rain that we got was perfect, or is it because the roots are getting deeper because my vines are getting older? All of these elements will disappear when the vines get older and you can consistently compare warm vintages with cool vintages, early with late harvest---if there then is a consistent good wine, then, yes, you can say the soil is more expressive. So it is not a question of doing enough research on soil, it is just time.

CTC: How long does this take? One generation?

Vero: Yes, for me, I would say about 25 years, probably one generation.

CTC: According to the soil maps, you soil here is mostly Jory. It is a basalt subsoil. In Burgundy, Pinot noir is planted on limestone, Gamay is planted on granitic soil. How would you compare this to the soil and conditions in Oregon?

Vero: It is totally different. And this was the big surprise to us when we tried to develop wines here with the idea that we wanted a wine with finesse that was not coming from oak, and we were very surprised to see how elegant these wines could be where the soils are so different. There must be something in the soil that we do not know well yet that makes the Pinot Noir express this very refined things it has. And I think that the Dundee Hills are recognized as one of the areas that produces not big structured wines. Because I buy grapes from other places and I see the difference. Good growers and very good philosophy of managing their vineyards, and all things equal regarding crop, and the wines are different.

CTC: How have you managed to translate and maintain the Drouhin house style---an elegant style---from France to Oregon?

Vero: They are not exactly the same. I think that, generally speaking, the wines of Oregon have maybe a little bit more color than Burgundy. We don’t do things differently, but the color just comes a little more easily here. Maybe because of the soils here, maybe because of the weather; in July and August we get more clouds and rain in Burgundy than here. Maybe the skins get more sunshine, which builds more anthocyanins which gives more color. And Oregon Pinots tend to be a little bit more spicy. But of course Vosne Romanee can have this spiciness. It is not exactly the same, but we try to have a similar style. I think if we were making wine in California, we would still try to work with the grapes we get to create a more elegant style instead of something more powerful.

CTC: That more powerful style, that is indicated by the spice, isn’t it?

Vero: Spice and alcohol. Alcohol level lately has been quite high here. Except ‘03 Burgundy which was unusual. And you can see Burgundy in ’03, the style was different, so weather has something to do with establishing the style of the wines.

CTC: David Lett once told me that color and quality are inversely proportional in Pinot Noir wines. How to you react to that statement?

Vero: One time he asked me when I was giving a tasting, “how do you make this wine so that you can see through the glass, it is so beautiful.” I answered that I did not do anything, it just happened. I took it as a compliment. Usually with Merlot and Cabernet, you can not see through the glass, and sometimes with Pinot. What David meant is that if you try to get too much color, then you lose----the more extraction you try to get the less finesse you will have. Pinot noir is not a very dark grape variety and not a very tannic grape variety. …We think that it is at the expense of finesse that you over extract. …There was a shortage of barrels that resulted in the coopers selling us some wood that was not perfectly dry and so it gave some bitterness to the wines---it’s a shame to do all this work and then get that kind of barrel; so our [Drouhin’s in-house 3-year air-dried staves] barrel program was started because of that. I am very lucky here [at DDO] that I get to participate in that.

Enter Robert Drouhin:

Robert: Our knowledge, our vision of wine which is then attaches to the local grape variety---not grape variety, grape texture, color. In some ways it’s easier up here in Oregon, in other ways, it is formidable. I personally find that the grapes generally here have a fairly thick skin. They have a lot of color. The wines naturally have a lot of texture. The wines have a lot of fruitiness, what we refer to as raspberries, strawberry, cherries, and so on. So the wines are very fruity, but on the other hand to have the complexity and the finesse is formidable. It probably has to do with the terroir. In Burgundy, we have the terroir, we have the finesse, but very often, the grapes are not as ripe as they should be, maybe rot develops more easily, the skins are more fragile---so, it is a challenge in both places. To have as much finesse as possible, real Pinot Noir taste.

CTC: Is there more vintage variation in Burgundy as compared to the Willamette Valley?

Vero: I would disagree about that for the past 6 or 7 vintages. But I have seen some vintage variation here [at DDO], when you take 1994, 1995, 1996, and 1997. Big vintage variations. Lately, from 1998 to today, not so much.

Robert: And strangely enough, it seems we have had more good or very good vintages in the last 10 years than we had in the last 30 or 40 years [in Burgundy]. Consequently, there is less variation now than there would have been. We think that this may be global warming!

Vero: Could be!

CTC: Is this consistency in Burgundy just caused by weather or has improved winemaking also been a factor?

Vero: Both, but more vineyard management than winemaking.

Robert: Behind your question is another interesting question, the philosophical aspect, which raises the question: What should we aim at? It seems with Oenology, as with any science, we are looking for consistency. While, in some ways we try cultivate the differences, the differences between the terroirs, the difference between the crus, the differences between the vintages, because this is what is unique and more interesting.

CTC: Perhaps this distinction between the search for differences and for sameness is reminiscent of the difference between French wine and American wine generally.

Robert: It makes it more interesting to have differences from one wine to another. I know from a marketing point of view, marketing managers would not like this remark. They like consistency in price, availability, and in wine style.

CTC: Can you share your thoughts and experiences from both France and Oregon about the significance of handing off responsibilities to your children, to the “Second Generation” in the Willamette Valley?

Robert: First of all, we have the experience with our firm Joseph Drouhin, which is like the experiences of others in all of France and of Europe. They had a lot of experience which they had gathered from past generations. They had very little scientific knowledge. Although recently there are many changes, with oenologists, technical engineers, new tools, temperature controls, and so on. So, the old generation, my generation, used all these new tools. Sometimes we were so enthusiastic about these new tools that we adopted them, and it took us a decade or so to realize that we were going too far. Since we still had in our memories the Burgundies we produced 30-40 years ago, we realized with all these new tools that we were going backwards. So, we stopped fertilizers, we have become more cautious with malolactic fermentation, and so on. Now, the new generation has all this scientific knowledge. They have the same passion—and that is very very important. In fact, sometimes, I think that they are even more passionate than my generation. And they have an advantage: they travel. They exchange ideas. Those living in the Cote de Beaune now accept to go to the Cote de Nuits to taste in the cellars [laughing]. They love to come to the States, where the mental attitude is positive. However, because they have technical knowledge, they are a little reluctant to go ‘backwards,’ and they are buried a little too much in science. And this is why it is very important for fathers to children, for me to Veronique, for any grower, to say, “look it is not as simple as that. It is not black and white. Yes, you have good knowledge, continuing experimenting, but be cautious.”

I suppose it is like in medicine, every year we learn more and more what the grapes are made of. So, the analysis will come and we will find many more components in the grape, but how these work together is the issue.

It is difficult here. We do our analysis. We analyze the type of color, the intensity of the hue, and so on. We test the polyphenolic content. We did that this morning here. It is terribly interesting, but when we continue the vinification just by looking at this analysis, we would be making a huge mistake. I think that the young generation realizes now that tasting is a key factor to quality. You need some knowledge, you need passion, you need to do a lot of work, you need to pay attention all details.

When I think of Oregon, in 1988, most wines were technically very poor, but behind these technical defects, the taste of potential quality and the finesse---and this is why it has changed in 15 years considerably. Now, the wines are both technically good and they have finesse.

It is really a fascinating period now. I have known two fascinating periods. I happened to be very young, at the age 23, in charge of Joseph Drouhin. I didn’t have oenological knowledge. A good friend of my father helped me. It was then a big change from horses to tractors, in 1957. From manure to fertilizers, agricultural engineers appeared, oenologists---the diploma was created in 1955---so big change. All of a sudden in the early 1960s, and, now, is another change, because all these oenologists that there are, with the exchange of knowledge, it is now the beginning of another, a new era. There is now enough knowledge in oenology, in science. If only the marketing managers do not dominate the market, then we will do---I see you are smiling---there are three categories of wine: wines that are ready to drink, such as the wines we try to produce like our Cloudline, which are of higher breed yet we are not looking for complexity or potential to age, an elegant wine to drink now, for pleasure. And then there is the mass category with a quality of….

David Millman, general manager, (interrupting): Obviously, I come to this…I have been here for a year and had the pleasure to work with you before that, so I came here as a fan of the wines, so it is a pleasure to taste your specific style. And I love the fact that people have choices, and I like the fact that people and swinging back toward wines that do have finesse, they do not all taste the same, they are not all super-ripe, they do not all taste the same, they are not overoaked…

Robert: It shows that they consumer is actually improving.

CTC: Improving in what sense? Improving in their ability to distinguish between wines that speak of place?

Robert: Actually they are realizing that wine is not only fruitiness and new oak and power and body. And that they should follow their own taste. That they should be guided by friends. More natural knowledge. You see, I am not an oenologist. We have two or three oenologists in my company. However, because 30-40 years ago I made the wine myself. Gradually, the company grew up, so I hired oenologists. When I an in Beaune, every day I am in the tasting room. I am the guardian of the style of Joseph Drouhin. Now there is an interesting change, because I am stepping back. I am in the winery because it is my passion, but I am not now involved in the day to day operation. Laurence Jobard, our oenologist in Beaune, is going to leave [retire] 2 or 3 years from now, so we just hired a person a few weeks ago, Jerome Faure-Brac. And so far we think he is good, and we would like him to be there for a minimum 2 or 3 years working with Laurence Jobard, and working with me and with Veronique---is is not involved in the winemaking [at Joseph Drouhin in Beaune], but she participates in all the tastings. Her role in the future, although she is an oenologist, will be to become the guardian of the ethic of the company and of the style, to make sure that we progress but at the same time that we do not bow to fashion.

CTC: How do you believe that you have been the guardian, in specific terms, of the Drouhin house style, between so many different terroirs, even within Burgundy there is a noticeable Drouhin house style between the different terroirs and even between the wines made in France and here at DDO? Is there something about viticultural practices or methods of vinification?

Robert: I am certainly not the best judge of the Drouhin style. I suppose if you asked me what is your style…I learned from my father, and I consistently learned about the wines of Burgundy, the differences between the villages, all the while consistently tasting, tasting old wines, tasting young wines, discussing with other growers not only our own wines. We would discuss about how one part of a hill is a little more chalky, and the wine is a little…I think of Corton Chalemagne for instance, on the Pernand side, it is drier, it takes longer for the wine to age. If you move to the south, the soil has more clay and the wine is rounder, ages more quickly, maybe will not have the same elegance…so you have these discussions everyday. Then there is a way to dress; there is a way to tear off things I like; I like music, I very much like classical music; I like some modern songs, but not all of them. So, there is a certain way of life, a certain way to dress, so I probably project my own taste in the wines. What is it? I was generally taught that the Drouhin wines tend to light side and elegant and typical not only of Pinot noir but of the villages. And the wine can age. Extremely well. They develop with time. Only yesterday I had a Cote de Beaune 1995, a good villages, the wine had elegance. It is a modest wine, 10 years old, perfect. A lunch we have a certain type of food, because we have a certain combination of food and wine; the children are educated like that. We are fortunate in Burgundy to be together, and very often today we have meals together. When I taste in the tasting room, generally we completely agree with Veronique and Laurence Jobard that we should do this, or do that.

CTC: What is it that you have done that has allowed you to carry your house style to the Willamette Valley?

Robert: We are not trying to produce big, full bodied, powerful wine. We also want the wines to have aging potential. When we ferment, we do not try to extract the optimum. Maybe we ferment a shorter time. It should not be too rich, too oaky. It is somewhat easier to describe what we do not like. It is more difficult to explain the nuances of what we look for. When we make a Chambolle Musigny, we don’t try to make a Chambertin. In other words, we try to retain raspberry fruitiness, all the softness and charm that Chambolle-Musigny wines have. Sometimes the marketing is taken into consideration. We have to think of the circumstances of when the wine will be drunk. When you, like we are now, eating…let’s consider Chorey-les-Beaune and Beaune, two neighboring villages. Beaune is naturally has more body, more complexity. Chorey is a softer wine, produced down it the valley, it ages more quickly. When we make Chorey, we know that that wine will be sold fairly young. We know generally consumers will not keep their Chorey-les-Beaune for 10 or 15 years. So we try and produce a soft wine which can be presented young. On the other hand, with a Beaune Premier Cru, we would keep it longer on the fermenter, we may leave the stems, we do not mind if the wine is not all that pleasant when it is young, because we want the wine to taste really good when it is 10 or 15 years old. Naturally, by doing so, we know that 8 or 9 bottles of our Beaune will be drunk too young and not always appreciated. But it is the bottle here or there in the world that is drunk at the right time that maintains our reputation….

CTC: Do you typically have use the same destemming regime in Oregon that you use in Burgundy]?

Vero: We do more destemming here in Oregon. Almost everything is fully destemmed at DDO. In Burgundy, almost nothing is fully destemmed in Burgundy.

CTC: What is the reason behind this distinction?

Vero: We believe that the vines keep growing here [in Oregon] for a longer time. In Burgundy, they shut down, they stop growing sooner than they do here, so the stems are riper in Burgundy. If you chew a stem here, it is not very pleasant; if you chew a stem in Burgundy, it is not very pleasant either, but it is better. We have tried here at DDO to keep some, but the result is a greenness that never goes away.

Robert: The vines, the foliage is still green when we are picking the grapes [In Oregon]. In Burgundy, when we pick the crop, the leaves turn yellow. The physiological cycle comes to an end in Burgundy when we are picking the grapes. It is not completed here at harvest. So here, the stems are still green—not really green, but not very brown. That makes a difference and that is why we are very careful in selection of rootstocks. We have tried to find rootstocks where the vines could suffer a little; if you go through our vineyards, some are already turning somewhat yellow. Our rootstocks [at DDO]---in the beginning we used only 3309, later on we selected Riparia, which ripens more quickly. We also selected a difficult rootstock called 1616.

CTC: What is the etymology of the phrase “Cote d’Or?” Does it mean golden slope or east-facing slope?

Vero: Cote d’Orient—that’s we think it maybe means. Facing Oriental. East. I like the explanation of the golden color.

Robert: Whether it’s golden slope or Cote d’Orient, I don’t know. Maybe it is both. Sometimes we think that it brings gold in the cellars.

CTC: Do you crush your berries or open up the rollers on the destemmer to get whole berries?

Vero: On my destemmer, I removed the crusher last year [at DDO].

Robert: In Beaune, it is not crushed; we try just to destem. Fermentation within the berries seems to bring more finesse, more complexity.

Vero: But you get plenty of broken berries anyway just going through the destemmer.

CTC: That has certainly been the trend worldwide, to whole berries, no crushing—in Bordeaux, everywhere. Why do you believe that nearly everyone is adopting this method?

Robert: The word ‘fruity’ may have a different meaning in English than in French. With whole berries, you don’t get more fruit if you mean blackberry and raspberry. You get complexity, fragrance. It is a wine which is completely made with whole clusters.

CTC: Whole clusters, as opposed to whole berries?

Robert: Veronique said that if we don’t want to have the clusters--the stems—then the answer is to get something else, to have the whole berries.

CTC: Perhaps because of the lack of mature stems in the US, there is a greater desire to have as close to 100% whole berries as possible?

Vero: Yes, but in Burgundy we have different issues with weather that may force us to pick a little bit earlier than we want to.

Robert: With my example of Chorey-les-Beaune versus Premier Cru Beaune, we would destem the Chorey-les-Beaune. They are softer wines, fruity. When the stems are ripe enough, and there is no rot, we leave the stems. Leaving the stems might mean we have one-third destemmed and crushed, one-third whole clusters, and one-third destemmed with whole berries. This year it was somewhat difficult decision in the Cote de Beaune; where there was a drought. The vines suffered and so the berries were small. Would that leave the wines too harsh, too tannic, no bitterness? So we were a little bit afraid of having the stems. It is at the moment softer in the Cote de Nuits than in the Cote de Beaune. I understand that there has been some water---a rainstorm---in the Cote de Nuits. The weather changes at this time. A month from now will be the most fascinating time for me. With Laurence Jobard and I, with no words—in silence—and we will move from one wine to another---the newly made wine, so we will have a chance for Musigny, Gevrey Chambertin, then Puligny…it is not a scientific tasting. We will take samples into the lab, then taste by category. But then going from one to another and remembering the vineyards we have seen before the harvest, Laurence giving some details of did we destem completely or not at all. For a grower it is the best.

…Here in Oregon, with age, the greenness in the wines seems to disappear and we wind up with complexity. It is puzzling for me. It goes back to the vigor of the vines and the richness of the soil. … [After pouring and tasting the 2002 DDO Laurene:] For my personal taste, there is a little too much new oak…

CTC: What is your view of the impact of Michel Rolland on French winemaking?

Robert: I am not a good judge of the style of wine that he produces because I have not tasted very many of his wines. I think that the man is a little showy. He is certainly very talented. He has a good knowledge. He has helped a good many chateaux and other producers to improve the quality of their wines. But I don’t like the idea of a Rolland style, if there is one. It seems that he is producing rich wines with a lot of structure and yet soft. Winemaking is the knowledge of the vineyards---terroir---and the vinification; both are linked, and if you have a flying winemaker, he can not have a deep knowledge of the terroir and the typicity. …Winemaking it starts in the vineyards. It is common sense to say that. This morning, I was not sampling. I went through the vineyards, making notes, about leaves turning yellow and so on, and I have been so far, since 1988, at the time of the harvest, I came first and made the decision what to pick, when to pick, the order of picking. Then we started the vinification. Then Veronique came for the important part.

Vero: I am not here all the time. Every day I work very closely with my cellarmaster, and I tell him what to rack, how to rack, and when. What is important is to make the decisions.

Robert: [In the DDO estate vineyard] The influence of the vigor is related to the territory that the vine can explore. If you look at the vines—here at the end of the row—they have plenty of earth. See how vigorous, how green they are. At the end of each row. On the other hand, if you move to the center of the row, and you come here. You see, it is all yellowish. Now, further down in the row, there is already more competition. Here is 1616 rootstock, yellow leaves. … [In more closely spaced part of vineyard] The more the root system develops here, the more it is in competition, and then the roots have to go deeper in the ground. …The soil depth varies here. The soil is very shallow in Burgundy. It takes a long time there for the roots to go deep. Gradually, [in Burgundy] the roots go through cracks way, way further down. Look here [at DDO estate vineyard] at how green the foliage [on October 10^th] is. Here---[cutting off a cluster from a vine] the stem is green. The vigor. This part of the vineyard however is on its own root. It causes even more vigor. The idea was to run a comparison of high density planting.

CTC: Have you searched elsewhere in this region for more shallow soil sites, so that the ripening of the grapes and the vine cycle maturity coincide?

Robert: It is a combination of climate and cool climate, and then the richness of the soil. Quite frankly, if I had looked only at the soil here in Oregon, considering planting vineyards, I would have thought, no. I would have thought that it is not possible to produce good wine. It came as a great surprise tasting the wines of David Lett [owner of The Eyrie Vineyards]. In a word, typical Pinot noir. A lot of complexity, finesse, and ageing capacity. It came as a big surprise. I do not have the answer. We like, preferably, the soils to be stony. We like soils to have a high pH. Yet it is just the opposite here. Yet, the result is that we have good wine, and typical Pinot noir; slightly different, yes. It is true that we still have a lot to learn. One should not manipulate the viticulture. The moment you have irrigation system, you can inject nutrients for the growth of the vines. That would be a terrible mistake in my opinion.

CTC: You are irrigated here, though, correct?

Robert: We have the irrigation system, which we used for the first three years. And then normally we discontinue. And this year I believe that we have discontinued in the entire vineyard.

CTC: John Paul [of Oregon’s Cameron Winery], says that as soon as you add water to the site, you have ruined the terroir and the vintage. He believes in no irrigation in Oregon. Do you agree or disagree with him?

Robert: I agree.

CTC: What is you position on organic or biodynamic principles?

Robert: My son, Phillipe, who is charge of our estates [viticulture] is very much ecology conscious, organic, geo-biolologique. The estate is 100% biologique in Burgundy. We have not asked for certification, but I think that we will ask soon for that. In Chablis, we are not completely organic; it has to do with the frost problems in the spring. …Biodynamique is actually difficult to understand. It is surprising if you ever meet Phillipe, as he is a very rational man. So, I said to him, how can you believe in biodynamique—a man who said who said this is what you should do back in 1924, this Steiner. So, it is like a religion. I realize that it is irrational, but there are people who are no fools, such as Joly, Roumier, Leflaive, people who do not just—and they have results. And it seems that the vineyards where we experiment, we are successful. The vines, when there were viruses, the vines has regained vigor, and it seems also the wine has better balance when it comes to sugar-acidity. Anyway, there is no harm in experimenting. We don’t use it as a commercial; you asked me, that’s why I mention it, otherwise, I would not have mentioned it.

CTC: Nicolas Joly calls biodynamics a “return to terroir.” And Aubert de Villaine told me recently that he is now farming La Tache according to biodynamic principles.

Robert: These are no fools.

CTC: I asked Mr. de Villaine why he is following biodynamics, and his answer was that it is “the difference between life and death.”

Robert: Ahhhh… A little before Phillipe, I stopped using fertilizers; I was trying to use less chemicals and so on. Phillipe went one step further. But I notice one day I wanted to go fishing. When I was a child, with my father, we would go in a vineyard with a fork, you dig in the ground, like that—and the worms, they don’t like it, it is like an earthquake, and they come out. You do that in vineyards nowadays, and there is nothing there. There were snails, now, no snails. The soil is dead, so I was very happy this year, because at the bottom of the rows we see some grass, and now, there are grasshoppers. It shows there is life.

CTC: What are the weather differences between here and Burgundy?

Robert: It rains certainly more in winter here than in Burgundy. Generally, it is warmer here in the summer than in Burgundy. That’s why irrigation here is sometimes necessary, while it is not in Burgundy. We do get thunderstorms, some rain in summer, in Burgundy. In summer, it can be hot here and in Burgundy, but in Burgundy we do get some rain in the summer….[Pointing to the DDO rootstock-only growing section], these are the rootstock that we have selected…look at the difference! This is 1616 [pointing to yellowing leaves] and this is 3309 [pointing to totally green leaves]. Mind you I would not advise…so you see the influence of the rootstock. I have used these, as an experiment, to try and spread [stagger] the harvest.

CTC: How many total planted acres do you own at DDO?

Robert: Here? Let’s see, 90 acres, and we have the same size in Burgundy, plus we cultivate [lease] other vineyards there, and we purchase fruit here also.

CTC: So this has been a fun family project for you and Veronique and Francoise.

Robert: Ahh, yes. It started in various phases. Without Veronique, we would never have done it. First of all, without Veronique I would not have come here in 1987 to see David Lett, and so on. And then, the key to success---a bit of a gamble---was the quality. I did not have the experience of David Lett, further down [the hill]. But then you also need quality vinification and Veronique was a great asset, and then you need distribution. Without a market, you can not make wine.

CTC: Do you still have a controlling interest in the distribution firm Drefus Ashby?

Robert: Yes, we work with open books, they are very complimentary, the people in charge; they know their market. They’re knowledgeable in European wines.

[Upon leaving, Robert was standing on the edge of the huge, multi-storied fermentation room, looking at the stems pouring out of the destemmer. The grapes were purchased from a nearby non-estate site and they had just been harvested that morning, although none of the DDO estate vineyards had yet been picked. He was shaking his head and showing me the rather green colored stems.]