A conversation with Jeremy Seysses and Diana Snowden Seysses of Domaine Dujac
Adventures Of A Black Belt Sommelier
A conversation with Jeremy Seysses and Diana Snowden-Seysses of Domaine Dujac
I'm very excited to have kind of wine royalty join me here on this on this screen today. Thank you. Thank you. We're happy to be here. Thank you. I didn't ask you when we talked before a few years ago, how did you guys meet? We met at Robert Mandavi Winery in 1998, where we were both working for the summer and harvest, beginning of harvest. We were both interns there. And you were so just so just coincidence that you were both working at Robert Mandavi and well, doesn't mean the family well. No, I'm walking. I'm married and now you have two children. Exactly. It was my second year there, and Jeremy's first. And yeah, it was completely coincidence. Yeah. Who was the head winemaker then? Was it Zomelong or was it who? No, I guess it was Tim. Tim was officially the head winemaker. Yeah. You know, I'm really excited by coincidence. I had one of these name calls with Michael Mandavi about a year and a half ago. And the subject of the Paris tasting came up and he said that in his opinion, the reason the California wines wine is because Stephen Spurrier picked the 1973 vintage, which was not a successful vintage, relatively successful vintage in the Napa Valley. So the wines were really kind of austere and restrained and therefore appealed more to the European judges than if he had picked the 74 vintage, which would have was one of the greatest finishes ever in the Napa Valley, and that if he picked the 74 vintage, they wouldn't have appealed to the European judges. And so the California wines wouldn't have won. I'm not sure. Honestly, I mean, I think if the fact is the 70s were such a dismal decade for much of French wine, 72, 73 Bordeaux were, and Burgundy were not, especially ripe. I'm sure a slightly ripe or denser wine in the middle of those would do very well. So anyway, but yeah, it was a different era and that was a good kick in the butt as well. And certainly, Gerald's dad, Bordeaux wouldn't have been very good either, right? No. Jeremy's dad bought some 74s after that Paris tasting and we were looking at to try them decades later and they were beautiful. The exciting thing is that Michael invited me to come to his house on September 4th to taste the 73, 74 and 75 Mondavi Reserve Cabernet. So next Saturday, I'm going for a week in the Napa Valley and part of the trip will be in his wine cellar at his home, tasting these 50 year old. Some of those old Napa values are really spectacular and held up the test of time beautifully. So enjoy that. Yeah. And back to our first harvest, we were in the viticulture department and Mondavi of course is a huge company. So we, I had very little overlap with the winemaker team. Jeremy had a bit. Not much. There were, there were, it was Tim Mondavi who was head winemaker and they had different winemakers, not for each variety, but who would take on one or two of the main varieties. So there was a, there was a Pinot Chardonnay guy, there was a cabernet and so the young blonde person and, and actually, but I can't remember who they were and they had a bit of turnover, I suppose, and then it was a long time ago. And then also because I was under 21 at the time, I was not allowed to work with fermenting juice. I could only work with berries. So Jeremy, your father worked two years at a Puss d'Or and then he bought some vineyards and created his winery. Pretty much right. I think he only worked hard enough, he only worked the harvest, so how did he learn enough in two harvests at Puss d'Or to be able to establish a winery and make very high quality wines almost immediately. You know, I don't know, I wasn't there, but I know that he benefited from the advice of a lot of colleagues. He had a lot of colleagues help him, for instance, for spraying regimen and for, and for, yeah, the vineyard work and he'd learned, he certainly had learned enough and then you also hire experienced vineyards who know how to prune and there are habits and then you start one way and then kind of have to. And so you make work and you take advice where you can to make it work as best as possible and then you learn as you're doing, which you can ultimately do in this job. I mean, it was '68, it was a tough season to start and I don't think he considers it a, well, he certainly, I know, I just thought I don't think that. I know for sure that he doesn't consider a success, but anyway, it was, it was better from then on, for sure. He made wines in the '71 vintage? '68 was the first vintage and, but he didn't bottle any of it. It was, it was just gradually considered one of the worst vintages of the century. And so he didn't, that he, he sold mostly in bulk. But from '69 onwards were the, were the first, '69 was the first brilliant bottled vintage and still a reference for the, for the demand. And the '71s must have been extraordinary. He never, bizarrely he never considered a good vintage. There was hail in '71 and he didn't keep, I, I've tried Dujak '71s, maybe once or twice in my life. We don't have a bottle in the cellar. He considered a hailed vintage and damaged vintage and ended up preferring his '72s. But anyway, so he, he, yeah, no, he didn't, he didn't rate it particularly. I think the market and especially the US rated '71 very high and then there, as it happens with Burundi, there was some revisionism further down the road. Sorry about that. You mentioned hail. I talked to Christian Moreau, the great Shibley winemaker last week. And he said that they've lost 80% of the crop to first frost and then hail and now mildew. Are you experiencing that in your part of Burundi? We didn't have the hail storms and, and not quite the same volume of rain as they had. So we still have a crop out there, but it's been extremely difficult growing season, very humid, a lot of rain, at least once a week and significant rain once a week. So we've been fighting down the mildew throughout and, and we feel like we're, you know, we're getting to the, probably another four weeks from harvest, but we still feel like we've got some, some good quality fruit out there and, and we're still optimistic, but next four weeks are really where, where we'll count. We haven't had it ruined by a hail storm like Shibley did or, or some of the Juha and, and, and then we didn't get frosted this star season. So really we consider ourselves pretty lucky. But it's been, it's been an exhausting season for the team to stay on top of, for sure. And in the winery, it'll be a lot of sorting. Yeah. What, what did you just say, Diane? In the winery, it'll be a lot of sorting. It's a vintage where we're going to have to pick slowly and sort carefully. So Diana, you're the e-nologist at Doman de Jacques. Yes. A Napa Valley, I started to say girl, but I was a Napa Valley woman. As the e-nologist in a very renowned domain in Burgundy, how does that work? Um, well, I mean, certainly balancing both only works because I am working for my family on one side and for my family on the other side, because I am apt to vanish at very key moments in this year that the harvests are going to fall on top of each other. Which means I will miss Burgundy and be making wine in Napa. So I feel essentially, I feel like I'm working all the time and never stop. But I also feel grateful to have two very different places to compare and contrast. And I feel like I am a sponge soaking up everything that is wonderful here in Burgundy and trying to bring it back to the land that I love back in Napa. And to be clear and to add to that, it also works because there's other winemakers. Diana's an e-nologist, but she's not the sole winemaker at Doman de Jacques. We're not left floundering when she takes off to go make wine in Napa. Well, I miss her dearly during that time. My brother and I know how to make wine and do. So we've got a big team here, which can function without Diana and Diana's absence. Yeah, I miss it, but they're quite capable of making wine probably. I think it's more smooth when I'm here. It's so much better when you're here, then. How old are your children? They're 16 and 14. Are they expressing any interest in following into the wine business? But as there's questions, they're showing curiosity about wine and that's a first step and we're being gentle in any way they should learn other skills before coming back full time to wine because it's a changing world and having a diverse set of skills is very useful. But there's definitely the enjoy tasting wine. The older one gets a glass of wine at the dinner and he enjoys drinking wine and small quantities, but unless he's got exposure and I feel like both of them pay attention to wine in a way that's good. So on that front, I'm pretty happy with the whole thing. I will see, but there's at least there'll be wine, but it's already be a lot. Diana, there are eight people named Snowden on the website for Snowden vineyards. So you really have a crew family business, right? Yes, no, I work mostly with my uncle Randy Snowden, but yeah, the whole family is on the website and everyone participates in the business to varying extents, but everyone does, to some extent, participate in the business, yeah, it's absolutely. But it's the same here at New Shack. It's just that we don't have, once we're all over the website, there are fewer names up on the website. The difference I think as well, just you're the only Snowden working, you and your uncle are the only Snowden's working full time for Snowden. Whereas my family is a smaller family, but both my brother and my parents are fully involved in the business. Yeah, it's not. We're already on the third generation, so they're more. Was either you or your father at O'Barrade of Elaine's retirement lunch? No, I don't think so, no. I was not. I don't think my father went. Friend of mine was, well, actually two friends of mine were. He opened 25 villages of Romani County. Oh, my invitation got lost in the mail and I'm sorry. And my friend, I'm not going to tell you who my friend is because of what I'm getting ready to tell you that he did. But after the lunch was over, he went into the room where the wines were staged and he poured a little bit of each of the 25 bottles into his water bottle and smuggled it back to the United States, a blend of 25 denages of Romani County. And then he invited me to his house about two weeks later and we drank this water bottle of blend of 25 vintage of Romani County. It's kind of hard to judge what that is because, of course, it was two weeks later. It would be. Yeah. It seemed like a really miraculous thing, but it was, you know, what does Romani County stored in a water bottle for two weeks become? I'm not sure how, yes, I'm not sure you can connect it to the original experience, but on paper, it sounds fun. You know Bernard? No, but he's taking over. Oh, Beth home. Beth home. Beth home. Yeah. That's right. And you feel that the future is bright with now that the torch has been passed to Bertram? You know, you never, you never know how well things are going to pan out until they do. Beth home has been at the dementia home nicotine now for 20 years or so. So it's not exactly like, I mean, he knows it through and through. He's, he's a capable man. He has a very different style and way of conducting himself from O'Barradeville then. And, and I'm glad that he's finally getting the opportunity because it was, it was a long time to stay in the background as he did and patiently because O'Barradeville who's had his retirement party is still not feeling like he's completely letting go of the whole thing when, when you're around. And, and if, you know, your career is, is judged partly, and this will probably be perhaps be, be relevant to American politics too, but your, your career is a, as the steward of a demand like dementia home nicotine, but any of the other big demands as well is you, you get judged on what you did while you were in charge, but as well in what state you left it in and who you left it, you know, did you, did you prepare your next, the next step? Did you do a good job with that? And, and so I, you know, I wish Beth Hall success because it will be both his success and the success of O'Barradeville if he succeeds and, and it will be, you know, it's a too important demand to have underperforming. So I, I think that they're taking the right steps and I confident they'll do well, but I also wish them well. There's a reference on your website to a farming practice that I've never heard of and I don't that often at this point in my life encounter things that I've never heard in wine that I've never heard of. Um, I think it's called Lute and antigen percent. Integrating production. It was, it was a step between Utrezane and, and, and organic, I suppose, because you start with Lute, Utrezane was just, you would reason your treatments and spray only when necessary and you didn't rely on models to work on this. It's integrated. Okay, integrated past management. There you go. That's the directive. But we're now organically, yeah, we've been there since it's, it says it's a combination of organic, biodynamic, there's no biodynamic. No, that's, that does that say that on our website because that's, yes, Ronius, I'm going to correct that. No, Utrezane would be, you would use cover crops to manage bigger. You would use, you would use some techniques that were, that were connected to others, but you'd still allow yourself systemic sprays. You'd still allow yourself a number of things. And so it's, it has, it is a big step away from organic and from instrumentation. So I'll have to go correct them. And then there's a, there's a third thing. It says organic, biodynamic, and then there's a, an acronym that I didn't know what it referred to. Also, but an ICP or P, something, PCT. But it's just, it's integrated past management. Is that what it is? I think it is integrated past management. Yes. So how do you, how would you describe the demand du jot style of wine? What would you say that is, you know, it's, it's always, you know, we're not the best people to describe the style because, a, we don't get to compare it as much as often to other wines is as perhaps professional, critical wine writer would, or, or someone who's in the trade. What we're trying to set out is trying to, we'd like wines that have tannic, that, that have tannic elegance that aren't over extracted, that are, that fit our aesthetic. And so, and so that, the fact is my low tannin might feel like someone else is high tannin. So that's where I don't feel like I'm necessarily, just talk to 10 winemakers and they'll all say that they're looking for the same thing and the results will be very different. So your personal sensitivity plays plays a very important role in this. Our best wines that we've made, I feel, have a characteristic of being very aromatic in a way that pino can be and, and is, and recognizably so. So they have this aromatic quality that's very layered. We're really looking for complexity and length. And, and then I feel like we, part of the reason we are, part of the way we achieve the, the, the, the aromatics is through a use of whole cluster, which we've always done, which we use perhaps not 100% like my father most of the time did, but not all the time. But that's one tool among others. And then it's just a general approach towards towards elvage, towards the winemaking, but also the work in the vineyards. So it's kind of a whole. And to just define it as, is not something that I, as you can tell, find easy to do. But what's the best recent vintage for your wines? 2022. Really? Yeah, 2022 is very good. I think it's exciting, fresh. And I think it's, you know, representative of the style of wines we do. Yeah, there's just a lot of joy in those wines. So we should be looking for your 2022s when they're released and by all we can afford. They're there already. No, they're not already. And we're shipping them right now. So I should contact them. Why not tell them that I want a lot? Well, yeah, I don't know. You may not be the only one, but I know the vintage is proving popular, but I'd say I'd say 22 and 17 would be very good examples, but it's not like there were shoddy vintages in between those two. And even 21, which is a bit of a throwback vintage, I think is a good example of our style. What we what we do. I wouldn't have expected you to say 2017. It's a vintage that the market seems to have largely overlooked and everyone who has a bottle always is surprised because it's really good. It was the focus was on white wines that year. But the breads are really excellent. And so the 2017 Sean Burton, how old will it be when you just you open your first bottle? I already have. So I'm just but I think the 17s are are that really like the bulk kind of quality of vintage, which which is that they're good now and they're good. They're going to be great in another 20 years. And so I think that that very open style is is one that's highly attractive and then one that was easier to make when the vintages were cooler than they are now. Now it's gone a little trickier too to make that style of wine, but but I it's a style of, you know, that I personally really enjoy. Yep. So what's the future? What do you hope the future for demand to Jacques is? Well, I mean, I think that even though there's a lot of tradition, Jacques has always had a legacy of doing trials and staying relevant. And right now, I think the biggest challenge confronting us all is climate change. And we are absolutely making all of our trials focused around around that subject. And so I think that it's going to be, you know, thoughtfully questioning what we're doing and remaining innovative in a rapidly changing circumstance. So right now, I mean, we're talking about, you know, changing, altering how we hedge a bit and providing more shade and maybe changing our pruning timing, all of those trials have not been, have not, we've not found any easy way to avoid frost through pruning, unfortunately. But, you know, picking more in the mornings, those kinds of adaptations, and we're looking, we're looking to, to other ideas now to confront a harder climate. It's hard to imagine that this would ever happen, but it's ever, it's happening in other parts of France and the world. Is there, is there any thought that you might experiment with other great varieties in the coatt door than Pinot Noir? I mean, Pinot Noir is UNESCO protected. And we have so many things that we can do before we need to change the variety. I think if, if the AOC, AOP system could reconsider spacing, that would be really helpful. And I imagine that there will be some talk about that in the near future so that we can have more shade and not be restricted to the vertical shoot positioning, for example. I, I talked to a famous wine record emotionally and he's planting sera. Yeah, and there's some sera in marcine. Yeah, but it wouldn't be burgundy. You can't, you can't call it burgundy and the trials that have been put to our people doing in their gardens rather than their vineyards, because they're not allowed to. Well, as I said, it, it, I can't imagine it happening, but it's happening other parts of the world. The Beaujole is all in Bordeaux. The Beaujole is on granite soils for the, for large part. And so, you know, sera there makes some sense. And there are also 150 colors south of us. Tending Turriga National in Bordeaux is interesting from an agronomics standpoint. I don't, it smacks a desperation from a commercial standpoint, I think, or, or something we'll have novelty and perhaps in future for trials, it makes sense. But no one in burgundy, for one, legally, we can't, we can't call it burgundy if we plant something else. And, and, and for two, we're still making a lot of good wine, most integers. So we're not, you don't pull out your old vines to take a giant gamble on something else to just move. What we're looking into right now are solutions that come through Everforestry. We planted about 30, it's not a huge amount, but about 30 trees in the last five years. And I mean, meanwhile, we have Napa, who's, that's putting up misters and shade cloths will effectively misters and shade cloths are doing what a tree does naturally providing shades and tobacco transpiration. And so we're looking to those kinds of tools to lower temperatures and provide, provide humidity. And these are isolated trees and it's not going to be a revolution in itself, but there's, as Donna said, there's a lot to do with work with spacing, there's a lot to work to do with, with root stocks, there's shading and trellising and that sort of thing. And if you look at hot arid areas in the world that grow grapes, none of them are, are on VSP on vertical shoot position and with tight spacing like we are in burgundy. And, and the fact is there's places that are a lot harder than burgundy that are successfully growing pino and chardonnay. So we're not, you know, we're not yet looking like the climate of, of, I don't know, low dye or, or someplace like that, we're, we're still, we're still burgundy and we're, we're looking to gradual change and, and incremental where we can manage it. Yeah, so yeah, I think it will do a lot of things before we start giving up, pino noir as a vehicle, if there were. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it. It's been, you know, it's a, it's a privilege to talk to you. And if the 2022s are the best recent vintage, they must be really, really fabulous wines. So the first thing I'm going to do when I get to work to, what the first thing I'm going to do to when I get to work today is I'm going to tell the buyer for our company. By the way, I've worked for a chain of wine stores in Minnesota called Haskell's. We've been in business for 90 years. We have 10 stores in the Twin Cities. So Ted Farrell is the buyer. I'm, when I get to work today, I'm going to send him email saying he should buy all the 2022 duja. I remember visiting with Jack Farrell way back when? Yeah, he just passed away about three weeks ago. I'm sorry to hear that. He was a nice man. He was, you know, and he boy, did he love burgundy and boy, did he love your wines, your family's wines. Oh, thank you. You know, he was the only thing he ever drank. He only ever drank burgundy, pretty much, I think, at home. His wife drank white burgundy and he drank red burgundy. And it's funny. I said to my wife two Saturday nights ago, one of the worst things about growing old is somebody you care about seems like passes away too often. And about 30 seconds later, I got a text saying that Jack had passed away. I'm sorry. But he's, you know, he certainly lived a very full life. He's a figure. I mean, I mean, for a while, Haskell's was our only clients in Minnesota. When we were with Wilson Daniels in the early 2000s and late 90s. Ask me one more question. You have time for one more question. I've never asked a why to read this. How did you go about picking the sorting table as your importer for the US? How does that work? We helped start the company. Oh, we had we have needs that were not being met for both Jojack M. Trian, especially for Trian in terms of our market distribution and where we reached. And if you met him at one point, there was Ted Rimer, who was leaving, who's leaving Wilson Daniels, who was looking to start his company. And our friends, Tom Halpern and Eddie Milstein, were looking to start a company because they bought home West nay and wanted to bring it in through through an important national importer. And so I introduced the two of them and helped start the sorting table. Well, thank you. Thank you so much, both of you. I really, it's it's it's a great, great, you had a great half hour. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. And thank you. I really appreciate the great ones you make because like Jack Ferrell, I I'd love what read and white burgundy more than anything. Terrific. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Roy. It was a pleasure. Have a good one.