The Viké Tree - Jan Tailler

My establishment as a winemaker in the Côtes de Toul in 2015 at the age of 30 was done outside the family framework, by creating my estate after various agricultural, agri-food and wine-growing experiences in Alsace and Germany.

I only really became interested in the world of wine after completing my BTS in viticulture and oenology in 2009. When you work on small estates selling their own bottles, there is a very complete and rich aspect of the profession which is very pleasant because it is often lacking in the general agricultural world, where we are often limited to producing raw materials, and where processing is very specialized. I arrived without any real preconceived ideas in this profession, with just a strong inclination towards organic farming, which rather oriented my professional experiences as an employee towards organic and biodynamic estates. For the vineyard part, my work has been done in an AB way since 2015, officially in certification since 2017. The cultivation of the vines is currently the part that I favor the most in my working time (also because the estate is currently 4 ha, including 1.5 in young vines and which I take care of almost alone), and it is also the one that requires in my opinion the most attention. Since I settled in, I have started an almost annual questioning of my viticultural work to try to work as best as possible with the nature surrounding the vineyard, while trying to produce enough grapes and wine to be able to live from this profession. This questioning was nourished by work as a viticultural technician leading a group of Lorraine winegrowers from 2015 to 2019, by numerous training courses and bibliography.

After 6 vintages, my philosophy and practices in the vineyard have changed a lot, and the current climate change will most certainly amplify this need and desire for permanent adaptation. My vineyard plots are located for the most part in an agroforestry type environment, which I want to maintain and promote because it also guarantees a balance that is sorely lacking in all monocultures. This allows me today to treat my vines extremely little, (approx. 500g of copper metal/year/ha and very low doses of sulfur) for yields that are finally starting to rise in the vines in production that I have converted to organic (around 30 HL/ha currently for a density of approximately 5500 vines/ha), and young plantations that are just beginning to bear their first fruits. A lot of work, pruning, sowing green manure, treatments, harvests... are done while respecting the good lunar cycles. I am attracted to biodynamics in the strict sense of the term, but I currently prefer to focus on very "down to earth" and yet essential agronomic concepts. I work a lot by hand and limit the passages and use of the tractor as much as possible.

The vinification of the grapes harvested by hand in small crates followed the same thinking as the work in the vineyard. I have never been very interventionist in the vinifications, and by force of financial and practical circumstances, the cellar equipment has been from the beginning quite artisanal and basic: a manual crusher, three ratchet presses, second-hand barrels, a few vats with mobile caps and a small 230v pump. I first reproduced in 2015 my "employee" and "schoolgirl" winemaking experiences. For the whites and rosés: sulfiting the musts at 3g/HL, static settling then spontaneous fermentation in barrels or vats, light sulfiting at the end of fermentation, then medium-tight filtration on plates thanks to a borrowed filter, sulfiting and bottling. The same for the red but without sulfiting the must and with only rough filtration. In 2016, simplification, more filtration of the reds and a more limited sulfiting in general, then comes 2017 and the total cessation of filtrations, the end of sulfiting of the reds, and the continuation of the reduction on the others. I had no personal interest in putting SO2 in my wines, and with my solo experience, without an oenologist, having succeeded for three vintages in releasing wines without "problems", I continue on the path. At the same time, the wines are sold, at the beginning in a commercial circuit done a little day by day, according to the wind and the ideas that germinate. I am not particularly familiar with the world of natural wine, but the first contacts with wine merchants in this vein take me there more and more. This does not displease me because I find passionate people there, at all levels, and many of whom are more sensitive to the almost artisanal and tailor-made work provided in the vineyard and in the cellar. Finding myself also somewhat labeled "natural" makes me realize that I must persevere on this path if I want to be honest with the people who buy and drink my wines. This also becomes for me an obvious continuation of my winemaking approach.

Then came 2018 and its intense heat in the northern part of France, an over-confidence in myself, enormous ripeness, almost no sulfur, a more distant monitoring of the vinifications. A little reminder after analysis: lactic bite, red that goes to the distillery, rises of volatile and a cuvée of gray that no longer wants to ferment, which I try to recover in a hurry in March with a special dried yeast to stop fermentation which will not change anything... Given the small volume produced annually, the lesson is a little expensive, but it sets in place for the following vintages. 2019 and 2020 were managed differently, especially at the harvest where it was necessary to hire more to bring in the grapes earlier, over a shorter period, because global warming is becoming more and more palpable each year. Without going too far into 2020, which is nevertheless heading in the right direction so far, despite a barrel that is certainly damaged, it is rather a success with the entire cellar now respecting specifications without input or very little sulfite: 15 mg of SO2/L on must only for whites and rosés in direct pressings then generally nothing more. Just monitoring, a little empiricism and topping up to arrive at the only racking which takes place on the day of bottling, done by gravity with an old Clemens-Fiamat corking machine. It is also a vintage where I seized the opportunity to buy some local AB grapes, something that I refused to do until now but which will allow me to supplement my cellar a little, because the young vines suffered from the drought. I also temporarily brought back to my estate a non-AB plot recovered the day before the harvest, which is now officially in conversion. This was for my intern, so that he could get his first taste of winemaking, and especially because his company had not yet been set up in September.

One vintage (Chimère) will be bottled under the name Arbre Viké, the others will be bottled under its own brand. My modest career as a winemaker has taught me that a significant portion of cellar problems stem from imbalances in the vineyard. Hence the importance for me of working as closely as possible with the plant throughout the year when we want a winemaking process that is as simple and certainly as close to its terroir as possible.