Point Reyes, California
Avi Deixler who started Absentee in 2016 is a rising star in the world of artisan wines made without additives and intervention. After living in Marin County in his youth he moved to New York State, studied there and eventually discovered wine by working in a wine shop. Along his training and job experiences working in wineries in California, Oregon, Australia and France, he discovered natural wine and ended up starting his own
production here in the very coastal region where he spent his childhood years.
Setting up a winery in this corner of Marin County north of San Francisco bay was
a challenge, as this is not precisely a wine producing area. Of course Avi Deixler's project wasn't about the usual commercial winery, it was small scale and most important he wanted to make wines that were made only with grapes, that is no additives, no nutrients nothing, no SO2, but this wasn't enough to get the green light from the County Planning office. Avi wanted to sit his winery in the dairy building of an old ranch or farm outside Point Reyes, which is a beautiful, rugged coastline along the coast where preservation is important and where visitors come to see the hundred seals resting on the rocks. Avi pleaded his cause, he said his product will eschew the additives and preservatives that are commonplace in the industry.“True wine, with grapes as the only ingredient, does not give you a headache if you have a second glass. It’s a journey of flavor that you just fall into,” said Mr. Deixler, who named his winery “Absentee” to reflect his stripped-down approach. After a legal battle and some press coverage Avi won, thanks to the support of some commissioners who understood the artisan quality of his approach.
Avi who now reaches this year a production of 12 000 bottles says he makes wine from the North Marin Wine District (NMWD), a fancied appellation area he's the only one to have a registered winery in, printing it on the labels in a humoristic and maybe derisive way because he doesn't take himself seriously in spite the quite terrific wines he makes there. California as a wine region is entering a new dimension and the surprise often comes from wines made in the unlikeliest places.
Speaking of his different stints in wineries which built his experience in the trade, Avi worked at Roco Vineyards in Oregon in 1012, at Adelsheim Vineyard in 2013, in between in Australia at Yering Station Winery (Yarra Valley), Avi also met Tony Coturri and pruned at his estate vineyard, then at Rudd Estate (with Frederick Ammons), leavind during his days off to volunteer and learn with Coturri. In France he worked with Baptiste Cousin while also working with Domaine des Gandines, an organic domaine in Viré-Clessé. Worked also with Titou Picard in Corbières, with a totally nature winemaking...
Avi and Natasha live in this beautiful house on a quiet street in Inverness, it's a former
barn beautifully remodelled into a cute house (small on modern-America standards but large for a Paris dweller), there's a vibrant garden in front of the house with chicken and hens (look at the great architecture of the chicken coop, set on disused barrels) with lots of vegetables growing on the steep slope, there's the feel of a real place here. Natasha is working at the Yosemite National Park and she's a ranger there, it's not close to here so she alternates weeks over there and rest at home in Inverness.
Luc Ertoran was there already, chatting with the farmer at the gate (picture on right). Avi rents just the dairy barn in the farm, which still seems to raise cattle but not for milk anymore.
Avi says he just sold wine to Merchants of Thirst in San Francisco, and Fifi [Ten Bells] in New York. Luc says the Merchants of Thirst which started maybe 9 months ago just bought a large volume of bottles from the first vintage of Mathieu Coste (2008), a terrific wine which he has also at Terroir, he says, he loves the wine.
In 2016 Avi processed the grapes of his harvest in another place, in an established winery, not in this dairy barn, plus the permits were still pending so he used the other winery's bond to do the vinification. His friend Alex, whom he met in an English-owned winery in Bergerac, France, came to Sebastopol to help, he did an amazing job; then the following year he asked Baptiste Cousin (Olivier Cousin's son) for one of his buddies named Sam to come work here with Avi, an exceptionnal guy too, he was excited to come for the season, but he was blocked at SFO because they suspected he was here to work, although it wasn't stated in the purpose of the trip, the authorities are wary about young Europeans coming here in droves to work illegally in the picking of cannabis, which has become a big thing in California. Now he's helped by Bobby since january 2017, Bobby is a friend from the area (Inverness) who is doing a good job and a good sensibility, but he was sad for Sam who was unexpectedly barred from entering the country.
Here's the winery itself, the former dairy barn of this ranch, it's barely remodeled and you still can see where the cows used to be milked, with here in the middle where the farmer would access to the cows waiting on both sides It feels like a real old wine farm, it's not airtight, it's well aerated and although not spotless, it's clean concrete, easy to hose down for hygiene.
Here Avi pours
wine to Luc Ertoran of Terroir Wine Bar in San Francisco; the Frenchman could join us here for his visits, he was a bachelor for a few days, his wife and children spending time in France for the holidays. Luc says he discovered Avi at Califermentation in 2016, Califermentation being California's first natural-wine fair (I'd have loved to attend, great list of winemakers !); Avi wasn't among the guest winemakers but Luc remembers seeing this young guy with a stained t-shirt arriving with a few bottles and telling him he was making wine in California and offering to taste his wines. Luc made room at a table so that he could pour his wines and other winemakers could taste also. This was bold, Avi says his wines we]the Prophet loved his stuff and has since been buying lots of bottles for Terroir. Sadly the event isn't taking place anymore.
__ Balou 2016, Petite Syrah, a long-élevage rosé, the red grapes have been vinified like a white with direct press, no skin contact. Luc says, but you certainly made a slow press, a saignée, to which Avi says no, because he wanted to go sleep... He's not sure to do it again, one year élevage being long for a rosé. The wine has a great tannic mouth, I understand why Luc thought it was a slow press with some kind of skin contact. Avi says that when he makes a saignée there isn't the bite, here there's the bite, maybe too much, he adds. And he says frankly that they don't have time in those harvest days to go through a 24-hour-long press. The wine would be ready 3 months after this visit, he has it go through an additional aging year in bottles. Lovely wine. He made one barrel of this. Maybe he'll do it again, after all.
__ Pet-Nat Rosé 2017, made from old Carignan (planted in the 1950s if I'm right), he made 120 bottles of this. At one point of the discussion while we delight with this wine in the shade I think i understand Avi made this pet-nat just for my planned visit, but with him you never know if it's true or a joke, let's consider it's true, i feel honored really if it were the case. He then changes the subject and asks if i need a bucket to spit, I tell him no way, I almost never spit, especially with the wines you guys make here without anything added, what may happen
is I don't finish my glass but I need to swallow to get the feel of a wine, and when
the wine feels alive I'll even swallow the 2nd and 3rd sip__ just to be sure my first judgement was right of course ;-)
The rosé sparkling has an enjoyable sweet side, the type of pet-nat you can down the bottle by yourself. I asked if he calculated this residual sugar in advance, he says no but he knew it'd be OK, adding that Tony Coturri [a living legend and pioneer for natural wine in California], his mentor helped him a lot, he's still in connection with him and prepares barrels for him, like recently he shaved 4 barrels for Coturri. The grapes for this wine come from Poor Ranch near Hopland, it's a hot area and Avi says he doesn't know if that would have ben possible to finish the sugar here. He used grapes which he initially picked for red wine, t
Bouncing back to the issue of barrels, Avi says that the 1st year he made 16 barrels worth of wine but he shaved 25 barrels because you need more volume when you vinify in barrels, like for example if you have a 30-barrel volume of wine you'll need 75 barrels if you use them to ferment the grapes (not clear if he means whole-clustered or destemmed). Now he does the fermentation in stainless steel.
Avi sold 6 cases to Ruby, another wine bar in San Francisco, Avi says they don't have a lot to say in this bar but on the shelves what they offer is impressive. I was tipped by Alex Bernardo about this wine bar and planned an unanounced visit at the beginning of our trip but lost much time finding the GPS i was looking for in San Francisco and renounced. Asked if he'll repeat this cuvée, he says he's not sure, maybe if he grows vines here...
__ Barrel sample, 2017, Arbouriou (he call this cuvée Early Burgundy), from carignan planted in the 1950s, also from the Poor family in Hopland, he buys all his grapes from this farm, father and son work together there and the following day was John's [the son] wedding. They have 80 acres (32 hectares) of vineyards. Avi can interact with the farmers, he says, mixing French (which he handles pretty well) and
English that he's an apprentice farmer, learning with them, and if he plants grapes here, which he'd really love to do, they will be his consultants. They're quiet people he says, it's nice to work with their grapes.
Pretty inky wine for the aromas, Avi says he picks ripe fruit at 15 %.
__ Carignan 2016, same cuvée but previous vintage. Bottled soon, he says. Super nice nose with pepper, an easy-drinking wine with still noticeable power.
Avi explains how he vinifies : grapes get cut, arrive here where he always have barrels ready which he kept open since the previous wine the last year. For the empty barrels, no sulfur used, nothing, with just a cloth to prevent insects to get inside, and the day before using them again, he cleans them with boiling water. When he shaved his barrels he took out the wheat paste that the cooperages put around the flat sides as a sealing material, but afterwards the barrels stay tight even though they remain empty a few months, that's because the building here is not dry, it has the right humidity level.
For the vinification proper, Avi puts the barrels standing, takes the head out (the upper round flat side) and pours the whole-clustered grapes inside, then he puts the heads back in place, puts them on their side and rolls them, instead of punching down. the fact that the barrels are closed kills whatever bacteria that could have sneaked in (with the self-produced CO2), this makes a carbonic maceration in the barrel. Avi points his finger to a crusher in the barn, says it's retired now since 2017 (in 2016 he crushed almost everything), he made some experiments then in 2016 and all the trials made with stems were better. Also in 2017 he sulfur-wicked just one barrel, to see, and that's the one that had a problem. He says fear is the worst enemy, in some wineries where he worked they [winery oenologists, i guess] have only one thing in their head : "wine is going to spoil", "wine is going to spoil", but he says looking around, here this is a true winery, it's clean, it has now the culture of the wine on its walls. He shows a stainless-steel tank which he uses too, there's a floating lid which he doesn't adjust all the time, the wine has oxygen inside and it's just fine !
That's another facet of Avi Deixler, he's kind of have become an expert cooper, he gets used barrels and renovates them, taking away the superficial layer all around inside the barrel, thus not only making it newer but taking away the sometimes negatives input that came into the wood through unwise vinifications. There's an open space with a roof in fromnt of the barn and he does all this here, with a nice black cow (or could be veel, wasn't big) on the other side of the fence mooing from time to time, i love this farm, what a great idea to have rented this dairy barn !
Avi explains how he works, showing where the fan stands to blow the dust (he wears a mask then), the tools to shave the barrels, a 4-horse-power angle grinder, it's a very hard work, he says, doing one takes 4 hours. I understand he takes out several metal hoops to work with ease on in the inside.He could do it more quickly, on a lighter way and it would take 2 hours, the the full job shaving everywhere inside including to the edge is normally four hours. I think that's nice to know this trade, you get a used barrel that has been through who-knows-what and you recover an almost new barrel, with an intact grain and wood texture.
Here Avi uses his knife to open bulging protrusions, blisters hiding small cavities where wine and possibly bad things get inside the wood, this will go away when he shaves a good layer of oak, but opening the cavities allows him i guess to make sure he shaves deep enough. These blisters occured because of the toasting, when the grain of the oak is not of optimum quality.
Asked about how much of the wood he takes away when he shaves a barrel, Avi says (he switched back to French here like he likes to do now and then, and he speaks good French), presque un centimètre, almost one centimeter on average, sometimes more. He says that while the barrels he buys for himself are good barrels, he can renovate sometimes almost-discarded barrels, which he gets very cheap. This year he got 30 barrels from the same place and they're very nice. When he nears a deal to buy barrels he now asks the winery to please not burn sulfur, because the the first thing that will get out when he shaves them is a cloud of sulfur and it's awful, and while they now agree not to, they say come take them today otherwise all the wine is going to turn vinegar...
Here you can see in the foreground the renovated or shaved half, while the rest in the background is yet to do, and you see on the surface the many irregularities that could spark some faulty issues in the wine, by the way when you pass your fingers on these blisters you feel defintely like a small hill, there's certainly potential trouble brewing underneath..
Avi says that when you shave the inside of a barrel you have to go through the wet wood that has been permeated with wine along the years, and at one point he reached dry wood, and that's good. The good thing also is that you take away the toast of the inside of the barrel, whatever type it was, light, medium, heavy, because toast brings these blisters where wine is encapsulated in aerobic mode were harmful bacteria can possibly multiply.
Here's a barrel ready for a new cellar life, a cellar with a reset counter (can we now say like before the revamping that it's , say, 5 wines old ?), it's amazing, i don't understand it's not a more widespread practice. Commercial wineries don't have time for these kind of things but that's where the artisan vintners can excell and adapt, possibly also getting new sources of revenues and getting at the same time for their own use the healthy neutral barrels they need at discount prices. I'm pretty sure this story may start promote vocations, including in France...
But Avi says that when he was in Burgundy he tried to find people give him their barrels to shave in order to make extra money but they were afraid of what they called green tannin, like if by getting rid of the shaved layer green tannins would come out. He says that's because everybody lives in fear, that's why. I agree, people tend to put themselves in a set of limits when proposed something out of the box, plus I guess they're afraid (fear again) of what the competition will say (look, they're trying to save money by shaving their old barrels)... Avi says the only reason historically fire was used in the barrels was to form the barrel, he says in 2016 he had 24 barrels of whole-clustered grapes fermenting in these shaved barrels, then the wine had its élevage in these barrels as well, and no green oak whatoever. He learned to vinify grapes in barrels at Rudd Estate in Napa, just that there it was new barrels and they'd use lab yeast. He knows through a friend who went to work in Burgundy with him that Screaming Eagle also does grape fermentation in barrels, adding for a laugh, you can have it cheaper here, or at Terroir....
This farm is full of gems, like this Chevelle convertible from, say, 1972... There are a couple of old motorbikes too. And it's a real place, I mean you're in this scenic region but at the same time in a remote corner, this farm smells good, it smells like a real farm. Avi says that when he works here on the barrels there are only the cows beyond the fence and he feels well, he listen to music while handling his shaving tools (sometimes he dances to break the routine), the other day he made two in one day.
As Avi was driving me back to his home in Inverness where we were about to have lunch with Luc and his girlfriend Natasha, he told me how great his growers were in Hopland
(main street pictured on right when I drove through), the family at the Poor Ranch has been growing grapes for 6 generations and they know so well how to do the pruning, and they know all of their parcels and can see if something goes wrong. Avi did the pruning in many places including in France with Baptiste Cousin and he knows a good pruning when he sees one, plus these guys at Poor Ranch they never use pesticides, be it grandpa or the sons, what's odd is they don't have a winery at the farm and John Poor senior doesn't even drink wine, he's an excellent grape grower although not into wine, but he KNOWS [Avi emphasizing the word] and Avi asks them when to pick.
Back at home while we were shamelessly having fun with good wines with Avi, Luc and Bobby, Natasha had been preparing great food for us all. This was to be another highlight of what artisan-wine people in America enjoy at home and prepare themselves...
That was the surprise drink (see picture on top too) when we arrived at the house, a cider made by Avi, it's super fresh, beautifully acidic with a strong lemon color, it's very turbid with all sort of small sediments, yeast. If I understood well it's from 2014, he made it at the time he worked at Rudd Estate in Napa, it's not official, this cider isn't suppose to exist. This cider is a one-off, a joke, he says, a vin de copains, I whish he'd make such jokes on a regular basis.
The cider was so full of energy, the foam was pouring freely as if it'd never stop (I haven't seen him shake the bottle, this cider was just explosively bubbly), a good thing he opened the bottle on the terrace. You can see here the slope with the garden , the hens and the hills covered with woods in the far. Add to that the air full of iodine and marine energy, looks like a nice and healthy house to live.
Avi uncorks several bottles, looks like our thirst will be quenched at lunch, with the great food prepared by Natasha using many things grown in the garden; Luc says that they bought a lot of bottles of Carignan at Terroir (that could be the bottle on the left, it's a bit difficult for me to remember which cuvée it is from the labels), it would go easily by the glass at the wine bar.
__ Carignan 2016, soon to be bottled. Super nice nose with peppery notes. Easy drinking with
still some power. The label says "North Marin Wine District" and Avi recalls what brought him to put this fancy regional appelation, this is about the permitting-process hurdles : the facility he wanted to use as a winery was a dairy barn that had been sitting unused for 30 years, and it was difficult to get a permit because of the North Marin Water District which considered the lack of water supply on site was an obstacle to starting a winery operation. The labelling is ironic, but as the wine is good and healthy, you can see this also as an homage to them...
Kudos by the way to the commissioner Margot Bielewho helped Avi get the green light in exceptionally allowing him to truck in the water needed for his facility, saying : “argument that it has never been done before [trucking water for a business that hasn't a water source onsite], and therefore it shall never be, is one that encourages stagnation. In this 21st century, where we are trying to encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship and we want people to think in new ways about environmental stewardship and agriculture, we need to be somewhat nimble in our thinking about codes and how they apply to new uses and new permits.”. I wish the French & European bureaucracies were as accomodating as this commissioner. The intial obstacle came also from the fact that the planning administration wanted him to implement rules made for wineries making 100 000 cases while the maximum he may ever make is 2000 cases. Avi adds that this is certainly the smallest winery in California in terms of square foot size, just for the floor, giving that weird design with the uneven central alley.
Wath on this video the minutes of Marin County vs Ansentee Winery, Avi pleads his cause from min 35:37 to min 49:00, and Commissioner Biehle speaks her support on Avi's project at min 49:14.
__ Gravity 2017, a blend of Carignan and Syrah, a cuvée sold only on the farmers market, because he only bottled one barrel. Mouth and swallow : very earthy type of wine, delicious with a bright acidity. Avi says that in 2017 there was a long week of heat on
the Carignan, this was at the end of August (in Hopland, I guess), his French friend (who was ultimately denied entry on US soil) was sceduled to arrive on september 7, Avi had told him he'd sleep a few hours and they'd go picking the following day, he was part of the plan, and then he couldn't get through and he had to make quick arrangements to pick the fruit. Everybody else was already picking because they all want low alcohol but he waited longer and at the end the wine is so much better. If he waits longer it's not for the sugar, he says, he tastes the grapes, watches the vineyard, almost like unfocused. There's a frop, the vines are head pruned (goblets), so the trellis don't interfere with te vines' strength, and he never takes foliage out, these 70-year-old vines find their balance. Avi says I should go see and speak with the Poor family because they're so professionnal and know their job.
__ Red 2016 is a blend of all of 2016 reds that were left at the end (i guess the settled bottoms of the barrels after the respecting bottlings), Syrah, Carignan, Petite Syrah, 3O % each, and 10 % Arbouriou. it got a 18-month élevage, that's where he wants to go in terms of his aging.
__ Arbouriou (Early Burgundy) 2016, Picked at the end of october although it's on the same place as the other varieties. Easy to memmorize because that's the label in black and red. Here Avi says (I never get if he's serious or joking, that's what I love with this guy) that he calls it Flaws, which is, he says he found it, the American word for Terroir...
Appealing
nose, superb mouth, real pleasure in line with the excitement of the nose ! So easy to drink, and also fresh and balanced. Delicious substance, that's living food you have to try !
Luc says that Anthony Tortul in Languedoc also makes an Arbouriou wine. Natasha brings a gorgeous home-made pizza, as Luc says Spasiba, Natasha, she says she's of Russian orgigin, by her father who was born in Uzbekistan (his own father was in the Soviet Army and stationned there). I don't remember the details but her father later moved to Chile if I'm right, and then to Berkeley. She said that she wanted to visit her grandparents who were still living in Russia, and somehow reconnect with her origins but they passed away before she could materialize her wish.
At this point Avi speaks about Alex Bernardo of Vineyard Gate [not a hidden Commercial advertising here, just relaying spontaneous comments], a wine shop near San Francisco located in Milbrae, he says this is by far the best wine shop of the region in terms of natural wine (and not only because he spotted Avi's wines early and stocks his cuvées), and Luc who loves him too says his imports from France include small volumes from very small producers, Avi agrees, citing for example a small unknown vigneron from the Beaujolais, Jean-François Cuzin, which no other importer can have because of the smallness of the volumes, he loves dropping at his shop, tasting new things and discovering new producers. Luc adds that Alex's brother has a sake import company and brings top artisan sake here.
Here's a huge unpasteurized cow cheese Avi got through Baptiste Cousin, I didn't understand the name although he sais it several times (should always ask to put it on paper) but the cheese is from Anjou (Tomme d'Anjou), not far from Martigné-Briand. He keeps the cheese here since february (forgot to ask how this cheese went through, I thinks it may be even less easy for cheese than for humans to pass borders), he keeps it right there in this room. We'll not have a slice this time, Avi says he'll wait till next spring to see how it does, I see he's really into aging the good stuff, and he's right to keep it intact until then, cause the crust protects it, even at room temperature.
__ Let Rot 2017, label with an elephant, made with Syrah, 10-year-old vines, Hopland Poor Ranch too. Unfiltered and unsufured. He'll be working with this vineyard for a long time. He'll begin by the way making wine with a young, "-year-old parcel of Petite syrah at Poor, because he wants to experiment and see over the long term how this parcel behaves through his winemaking.
Light tickling feel on the tongue, of course also unfiltered & unsulfured, and also from thy dry-farmed Poor Ranch in Hopland. The wine shows a vibrant acidity as well as a nice astringency on the sides of the palate.
__ Quest Marin, the Petite Syrah 2016, no label here but the label is an ink drawing of an eagle catching a trout, this cuvée is already bottled but Avi keeps it in his cellar until net spring (2019). Luc says in general it's very oaky but very fruity too and very, very good, adding his favorite nickname when he speaks about Avi, the
Prophet...He made 5 barrels of this parcel, but one barrel will go into the red cuvée.
This wine is Avi's baby, he loves it. Picked october 26. Exciting, delicious nose. Gorgeous wine, really. Not yet on the market when this visit took place, don't miss it when it comes out. There will be 100 cases of it.
Avi then speaks about the very beginning when he tried to sell his wine, he would drive to San Francisco with his Balou and meet the sommeliers, asking them if they wanted to buy his real wine, and it was no, no, no, or this was not the time... Luc says probably the fact his wine is kind of oaky would put off trendy sommeliers who react excessively against anything oaky. Luc at Terroir took some although Avi's price tag was a bit high and then the other businesses kind of discovered Absentee through Terroir.
Asked if he could augment his volume (12 000 bottles) and vineyard surface, Avi says he doesn't want to work with other growers, the one thing that could come is his own plantings somewhere near here, there are opportunities here, that's why he loves the bumper sticker "No Farms, No Food". There are opportunities around here and he says there's a Land Trust overlooking the agriculture in the area, taking a lot of money to do that, and he says if he was better with his words he'd be paid by them to grow vines using no chemicals and make wines without additives and SO2. I say the same sometimes about the French Wine Syndicate who waste tons of money in useless campaigns nobody pays attention to...
Well, If you have been spending time in Point Reyes you'll have noticed it's now a very polished little town with fancy shops dealing with the usual eco-friendly, sustainable stuff you now find in the fashionable spots, in short not very surprising nor exciting, but this place here stands out : The Old Western Saloon isn't a fake, it's real ! It's been there in this building for ages, since 1860 to be precise (or 1906 for the saloon) and the vibe in there is real, plus Avi is a regular here, there's a good chance the young women sitting at the bar know him (I suspect he may have worked there too).
Here's the outside, isn't it a beautiful piece of architecture ? I'd not have been surprised to find such a venue in the little towns lost in the back country, but here it was a bit unexpected, a miracle this unpretentious but historic watering hole hasn't been turned into a vegan restaurant or something similar. In its early years this building was a brothel, can you believe that, and later during the prohibition it was a bootlegger stash house and i heard other things that makes me think it always managed to stay on the edge. To make it even better, they have some live music in there now and then.
Speaking of music here is a video of mine of a piece by Idaho-based Casey Kristofferson (great music), I shot it in the beautiful little town of Shoshone, Idaho quite a long distance from California. Shoshone is a small family-friendly city with a few historic buildings and the friendly-atmosphere event was the 31st Annual Shoshone Arts in the Park, it took place on the Lincoln County Courthouse Lawn, loved it !
And one last thing, Amber speaks pretty good French, i was impressed, she told me she spent one year in France... This will give me two (OK, three with the seals) reasons to come back to Point Reyes...
Comments