Alternative Aging Vessels with Andrew Beckham and Sebastian Zuccardi

Welcome back to another episode of Into the Glass, The Gildsum Podcast. I'm your host, Kristangie, master sommelier and director of education here at Gildsum. This month, I sat down with two different folks who are focused on using alternative aging vessels for their wines, outside of oak or stainless steel. Sebastian Zucardi makes wine in the Vaget Oucco, a high elevation sub-region of Mendoza, Argentina, and has adopted concrete as his material of choice. He has developed his own proprietary shape and has gone as far as to include the soils of the region as aggregate for the vessels themselves. Then we have Andrew Beckham, a classically trained potter and ceramicist that has a winery in the Chahela Mountains sub-region of the Wlamit Valley. Crafts' own clay vessels dubbed Novum. But before we get into that, be sure to check out all the new content on gildsum.com. We're signing up for our virtual symposium on October 21st and 22nd, where we'll have a collection of excellent educators covering a myriad of topics, and it'll also be a great opportunity to connect with the sommelier community. Now, on to the show. Welcome back to the Gildsum Podcast. I'm Kristangie, director of education and master sommelier. I'm sitting here, virtually, with Sebastian Zucardi, who I'm very excited to see. It's been a minute, so Sebastian, welcome to the show. Thank you, Kristie, this is a pleasure to come talk with you. So Sebastian is the third generation of the family, the owner and white maker of Zucardi Winery, in Argentina, and specifically in the Vajera de Uco, in Mendoza. So I wanted to pick your brain about concrete because we are doing a little series on alternative aging vessels and elevage vessels. And I wanted to cover concrete because I think it's a really interesting category. And really, for me, is different in its expression, depending on the vessel and how it's being utilized, if it's lined, unlined, et cetera, but since you've transferred your whole white making operation to concrete, I mean, literally everything. If you have not been to visit Sebastian at the Winery, it's an awesome visit, because Argentina is beautiful, but B, because you walk through this Winery and it's like stunning concrete vessel after vessel after vessel, it's almost like, I don't know, walking through some museum with all these crazy statues or stone engines or something, it's just lines and lines of concrete. So I guess we'll start with, give us a little background on yourself, on the Winery, and then we'll get into the specifics of concrete. As you say, I'm the third generation in the family making wine. We live in Mendoza, but specifically in the Uco Valley. The Uco Valley is the area that is closest to the mountain, so it's the area that has more influence of the Andes mountain, and really the Andes create a unique condition here because we cultivate in a high altitude valley, so it's a cold area, but with a very pure sunlight, with very stony soils, full of big rocks, granite, big rocks surrounding by a thick layer of calcare. So this is a short description of the place where we live that has unique condition, and as you say, I started many years ago, moving the wine making of my wines in concrete, especially works with Malbec, and we feel that Malbec works fantastic in concrete. So before we dive into your specific situation, give us a little bit of background on the use of concrete in wine making. First, I have to tell you that you can make a great wine in concrete and a disaster in concrete. It's not the concrete, the most important factor, the most important factor for Faris de Roar, then how you manage the vineyards, but then the use of concrete in my view is a decision of the style of wines that we want to do. But coming back to the history, it's not new, concrete. When you see the wineries at the beginning of the 20th century in Argentina, you can see that the wineries were made with concrete, and concrete was maybe one of the first materials that we had. We had the big influence from France, Italy, and Spain, and the all wineries were made with concrete. Then when stainless steel arrived at an oak, taking the center of wine making, concrete lose a little bit, I don't know, the position, but if you see an all-wineery in the area were concrete. Sure, it's not just in Argentina, you travel around the world, and a lot of the original construction was concrete because it's relatively inexpensive material, it's great at managing heat. You can really keep fermentation temperatures under control with concrete without any additional technology. Relatively easy to clean, we'll get to that later, but you could definitely be easier to clean if they are aligned or unlined, and we'll get into the specifics of that later. Also, we live close to the mountain, we don't live in a forest, we live in a desert, so the natural material that we have here is concrete because you have sand, you have stones, you have cement coming from the andes, so it has a lot of sense also in the connection with the place where we live. And I think that we might as well jump to that now, that's something that you've championed as well is kind of expressing terroir through the vessel, and you've done that by collecting the local material to incorporate that into the production of the concrete vessels, so you can kind of give us some insight on that. As you know, we are trying to make wines that talk about the place, and we started in 2009, in our research and development area, making our wines tasting in different materials, oak, stainless steel and concrete, then that we can dive deep in why we decided that concrete was the material that we want to use for our wines, and we decided to build a winery in the Ucovali, and when we decided to build a winery in the Ucovali, we built all with concrete vats, and all the concrete was made with sand, stone and water coming from the river that create the soils where we are cultivating. So today, I like to say that the winery is an extension of the vineyard, and it's part of the place where we are cultivating. Pretty cool. I think not everyone is necessarily sourcing that material locally, so I think it's an interesting idea to try to express further the character of Ucoh through the vessel itself. What are the main benefits for you and concrete? Why do you think it works for wine in general, but why do you think it works for your wines in your place and Melback in particular? You know, concrete in my view has very strong points in our cosmovision about wines first because don't give any taste and any flavor to the wines, and this is for us very important because we want to talk about the place. We want to make wines that show the place in pureness and transparency. Second, as you said, is very efficient in the manage of temperature because you work with the wall that is very thick. We live in a place that because it's a desert, we have cold nights and we have warm days. So this isolation with the concrete helps to us to save a lot of energy. And another very strong point is that it's a natural material that we have been talking. So you have no any charge like don't work like a battery. So when you see how the wines age in concrete always are very very clean and age in my way very relaxed. So you feel like it doesn't add any flavor, are your tanks being lined or are they unlined? We work online. The wines are straight in contact with concrete and we don't feel that give any taste and any flavor. You have to do a treatment the first time before you are going to use because concrete has calcium. So you need to avoid that calcium goes to the wine. So the first treatment that we do once in the life of the vats we call francao is wet the walls with a solution with 30% of tarteic acid. And the tarteic grab the calcium, the calcium can go to the wine. But then you have no any taste and any flavor is without any doubt respect the place. When people talk about minerality or texture or these kind of things are not coming from the concrete. It's true that because you have less microoxygenation, many times you publish less the tannins and maybe the feeling that you can associate like texture minerality, but it's not coming from the concrete vats. The concrete vats will not give what you don't have in the place. Interesting. I always felt like online I was getting I guess more texture than flavor, but now that you mention the tan in elements, I guess that makes sense to me because I feel like yeah maybe the tannins aren't as kind of rounded and softened. And so to me that was coming off maybe as is minerality. I remember the first time I kind of felt this way was it was actually tasting Raj Par's wines. They just switched to concrete and like I was tasting the wines compared to. like stainless steel or maybe some oak usage and it was just like kind of clearly apparent that there were more textural and I was kind of equating that to minerality. But yeah, maybe not. So for you, you feel like there's no texture, there's no flavor. - My feeling is that if you don't have text or coming from the soil in the place and then you manage the vineyard trying to take advantage of the conditions of the place, you are not going to have from the vineyard. But it's true, you remember that when you give more microoxygenation in the vine, you join tannins and tontions and you publish the tannins. So maybe because we have less microoxygenation, we are going to fill the tannins a little bit more alive. But my feeling is that it's neutral to the vine. - And is there a reason why you don't line? Because if you line, you lose all the microoxygenation and we like to have less microoxygenation but we want to have a little bit of microoxygenation because remember that we ferment and then we age. We age for one year in the concrete vats. If I put epoxy inside, I lose all this small microoxygenation. And really, I feel that I want to have my wines in touch with the material, with not isolating from the concrete. - Is there different levels of oxygen ingress based upon different ways to construct a concrete vat? - For sure, I think the construction has a big impact, but I'm not a. I can't tell you because all the concrete that I use is made here. I don't want to bring concrete from other place. So all the concrete vats that we use were made here. So I have no comparison, for example, with concrete made in France or in Spain. But for sure, the size of the material that you are using and all these kinds of things maybe has an influence. But again, concrete is very important in the style of wines that we are making, but the most important thing is the place where we cultivate and how we manage the vineyard. This is very, very important. - As you mentioned, you have to do that initial wash with the caric acid to balance out the pH. Is after you do that, is it a pH neutral vessel at that stage? - Yes, because if you put the wine without this francaido treatment, this tartaric treatment calcium will go to the wine and the pH will go up and the wine is like broken. It's completely broken. So it's very important to do this treatment. But then it's once in the life. Then you don't, if you take care of the vats, if you don't damage the vats, if you don't clean with chemical products, then you have, no, it's not necessary to do again in the life of the concrete vats. - So you feel like after that initial process moving forward, the vat doesn't really change. Obviously you have to keep it clean and all of that. - No, no, no, no. It's a, remember that this tartaric is a natural acid. So you are only adding tartaric to water, 30%, and then you wet the wall. So you are not adding nothing, chemical, nothing that is not natural. And it's historic from the beginning, the traditional way to start using a concrete vat was like this. - And then over time, do you get tartaric buildup or are you trying to minimize that buildup so that you get that microoxygenation happening during the aging process? - I don't want to make wine in a surgery room. I want to make wine in a place that is clean, but it's full of life. So we have to be very strict with the cleaning in terms of especially on timing. If you move the wine, you have to clean immediately. You can't wait because you have pores. So timing is extremely important. Then the other thing is that when you see concrete, you think that concrete is very strong, but concrete has no flexibility. If you put water with a lot of energy, you are going to damage the concrete. And if you damage the concrete, you are going to put rock concrete again in contact with the wine. So the way to clean a vat is with hot water that we have to do a recirculation and then a very soft brush and clean. But always when you see my concrete vats, you are going to see that you have like crystals inside. But you smell and you are going to smell alive and clean. - So the crystals are a tartaric buildup or that is? - Yes, tartaric, that is covering a little bit, but it's not that you see a very thick wall of tartaric. You see some crystals in the wall because when you put hot water, all this, you wash all these crystals. But if you want to clean extremely, you need to use a chemical product. And when you use a chemical product, you then you need to do again a treatment with tartaric. So for us, we have to be very strict with the cleaning. Very, how you say, the timing is extremely important. Hot water is extremely important. Not pressure on the wall. We put in a machine that give awesome to the water. And the last wash and the first wash we did with water treatment with ozone. Ozone is a very strong oxidant. So this is a natural way to clean the vats. - So relatively, I mean, low maintenance but more about diligence and timing than anything. - Yes, you have to dedicate. It's not like an stainless steel tank that you said, okay, we'll come back tomorrow and clean. No, no, no. If you are going to move the wine, you have to be conscious that you have to clean immediately. And a lot of your tanks are pretty different in shape. I think most of us see tanks that are usually cubes, right? For concrete and for the most part, we are seeing eggs use, of course, but yours are almost like, I know not all of them, but a number of them are like this hourglass shape. What was the thought process behind that? - We have different sizes of vats because we divide all our properties by soils. We manage our vineyards by parcels. So the idea in the wine area is that every parcel will be fermenting per separate. So we have 172 concrete vats in our wine area. From 1,000 liters to 2,000 liters, to 3,000 liters, to 4,500 liters, to 7,500 liters. But one thing that for us is very important is that we love round shapes. We don't want to have square shapes. So 1,000 and 2,000 liters, we use X, 3,000 liters. We use, like, an for us, that we design on 4,500 liters and 7,500 liters. We use another troncoconic and round vats. Why we don't want square shapes? Because when you do a pijash, and when you do a pump over, if you have square shapes, always in the corners, you work less than in the center. When the concrete vats are round, all the work that you do is more homogeneous. So it's thinking, and in the nature, you don't have square shapes. Everything in general is round. So we feel that it's better for our work in the winery. - And like in a concrete egg, do you get that natural kind of circulation that you would from your tanks? - It's not true. - But I feel that, yes, that the homogeneity than during the aging, the egg shapes or round shapes work better than square shapes. But it's difficult to prove. But I feel that why eggs has this shape in the nature, maybe for efficient of materials, maybe for resistance, or also for the movement of the emperator. So if eggs has this shape in the nature, maybe the answer is there. - And so when you're aging in these more kind of curved vessels, how are you managing solids and leaves, and how does that influence your decision around how much, finally is gross leaves, et cetera, to keep in contact with the wine? - Tasting, this is the only way to take a decision in the winery tasting. In general, we don't do very long macerations, because the style of the wines, we do macerations close to 12 days. And then during the winter, we try in general, not to rock, we like to live with all the leaves. So we taste. And if one that we feel that it's close, we can weigh the little bit, but if we taste, and we feel that it's too close, we can do a racking. But the racking is a decision that we have to take after taste. In general, the idea is not racking. - And you feel like compared to, 'cause you have experience making wine in vessels other than concrete, obviously. How does concrete stack up against, like, say, wood vat or stainless steel vat when it comes to decisions around how much leaves and all that stuff? - The difference with good is the taste on the flavor. First, second, that you have more microoxygenation during. Then I like of oak that is a natural material. So you have no any, the wine is always quiet. And when you compare with the stainless steel, it's much more efficient in the manage of temperature. You have some microoxygenation than in stainless steel you don't have. And because it's a natural material, my feeling is that the wine, age quieter. When you touch stainless steel, always a stainless steel is called, for example, and works like a battery. My feeling is completely different. I told you, I don't want a surgery room, I want to make wine in a natural place, in a clean natural place. Beyond the temperature and all of that that we've talked about, what are the major pros and what are maybe some of the cons of utilizing this vessel? For me, again, respect of the place, because don't give any taste and any flavor. We want to make wines that talk about the place. Our feeling is that we are not looking for perfection, we are looking for uniqueness and identity, so we don't want to correct nothing in the winery. We want that the wines show the place. Without any doubt, the manage of the temperature is a very strong point in concrete, especially in areas like I told you, our nights are very cold and the days are in general warm. So with concrete that you have a wall like this, you isolate a lot, so you save a lot of energy. You are not warming cooling, warming cooling, warming cooling all the time that when you work with stainless steel is something that happened. I really feel when you smell inside of a clean concrete vat that is a perfect place for an aging. But of course, one thing that we did a lot in our research and development area was the same grape in a stainless steel and in concrete. And tasting, we fell in love with concrete. We decided that in our style of wines, concrete was the best material. And after many years doing this, today I'm not asking me anymore, my style or our style of wines is in concrete. I told you all our winery in concrete, we have 172 vats in concrete. We love for Malbec and Shardonnay, for example, these are the two grapes that we feel that works better because like less microtrogenation during the aging. And what are some of the major hallmarks of your place that you feel like concrete really highlights? First, we live in a place that is cold, but we have a lot of sunlight because the isolation of the ocean that we have in our area, we live in and cultivating one of the most continental wine areas around the world, create a unique situation that they have a rich of temperature is cold, but you have a very pure sunlight. And in my feeling, all this light, we don't need to continue opening. We need to close. And my feeling is that less microtrogenation works very well. Also, I told you Malbec is a grape that has a lot of tannins, but it's not nebiotlo, it's not cavernes avignon, it's not cavernes frank. So in my view, if you have too much microtrogenation, you publish and you lose tension. We also cultivate and it's our focus in calcare soils. So for us, all this combination of Malbec in calcare soils with less microtrogenation kept more texture. And for us, texture is something that is very, very important. I try to avoid sweetness. So I avoid overridingness, I avoid overroke and over microoxygenation and overstraction. You know, the word you use earlier tension is kind of always what comes to mind when I think of your wines. And I think that it is the place, but it's also the concrete. It's those two things working together, because like you said, you do have a lot of light, right? And so you get plenty of phenolic ripeness. And then when you're adding oak on top of this, which adds kind of richness and kind of sweetness in some ways, right? Like an opulence. I feel like that is one expression. And it's not, these I'm not trying to say anything's better or worse, but I do like the kind of clarity you get from your wines in concrete. And I feel like concrete brings clarity to wines. But you know, I can talk about my place and about my grape because maybe fine cultivating in another area with another grape, the decision could be different. So it's not that I'm saying concrete is the best material from every situation, every grape and every depend, depend. I'm not saying that this is the best. In our style, we feel that this material that works fantastic. We like to say that places not belong to us. What belong to us is the interpretation that we do of the places. And in our interpretation that we try to respect the place and show the pureness concrete is part of the philosophy of our wine making and in the wine making in terms of aging. So you're you're fermenting excuse me in concrete and then you're aging in concrete. Yes. What is the the thought process behind, you know, how long it ages for in the concrete, obviously through tasting, but what is that arc that you see through that elevash process and why have you settled on a certain kind of window of time? In general, we age for one year. No, I don't like to go to 18 months or 24 months. I I feel that again in the material where we are aging with the grapes with the material one year is okay. Then if it's 11 months or 13 months, it's a decision that I will take tasting, but in general, it never goes to 18 months, for example. I I I put in bottle in general after the next harvest. When I finish the next harvest, we start the bottling of the wines from the previous year. We we do like this. We we do the blends before the harvest. We kept the wine blending in the concrete vats. We have another area in the winery underground concrete vats under the the soil where the temperature is more stable. So we did the blends. I remember that we are in south M is first. So we did the blends in November. We put in December the blends in concrete, and we put in bottle after the harvest in May. Have you done any experimentation with like longer? Yes, and in our style, we feel that we lose tension and transparency of the place. We did a lot of because as you know, many times there are ideas that aging time has to be longer. In our style and the wines that we want to make, we feel that we lose more things than we win. So you feel like maybe the the micro oxygenation is taking too much from the wine for your particular desires. And I want to kept all the landscape expression of the wines, and my feeling is that in our grape, in our place, with our conditions, one year is enough to do the elevation put in bottle. But it's something that we try a lot because of course, every time that you travel, you see that there are people that age longer, some people two, three years. And we did many trials, but at the end, we we found that for us, in our style of wines, one year, and again, one year could be 11 months or 14 months, it's okay, it's suitable for our wines. For example, warm harvest, I prefer to bottle before cooler harvest, maybe I can wait until 14 months. It's a decision that we have to take in the winery. And then are you taking additional time to agent bottle before release, or do you feel like the wines are complete? Yes, always. Time in the bottle is important. So we try then to age in the bottle for two years, for example. But we want that the wines are young, arrived to the bottle young, and then develop in the in the in the bottle. When I say two years, it's in our tiger wines, and then there are other wines that you put in bottle and you go to the market. But in our signature wines, we ate at least for two years before to go to the market in bottle. Almost kind of the polar opposite of what a lot of people do, they're doing longer aging in the winery, saying barrel, right? And then kind of less in bottle. If it has sense in our style, why would you just concrete? Because we have less micro-exaggeration. We are trying that our wines are closed. So has sense to put in bottle before than after. So it's part of the construction. You know, when you make a wine, you are doing architecture. You start from a place, but then all the decisions that you take in the vineyard through the plantation, the management, and then in the winery is how you are building the wine. Of course, you can change the foundations because the foundations are coming from the place. But all your decisions will have a very strong impact in the style of wine that you are doing in this area. I would imagine that reduction can be a challenge for your wines sometimes when you're making those bottling decisions. Are you, is that when you're like, okay, we need to rack this once or twice before we bottle? Or is it not an issue? I mean, I'm not sure how Melbek is with reduction. I know, like, with Seroths, it's always a challenge, right? Do you feel like that's an issue for you, a challenge or not? Malveg is not a very reductive grape, but it's not very open. It's closer to Cida. We like that the wines be close. We don't like it. If I taste the wine during the winter and it's open, for me, for us, it's a problem. So we like that the wine has been close. Not reductive because when reduction is another thing. So if I feel that it has reduction, we wait, for example, two weeks, we retaste, and if we feel that the wine continues in the same place, we can do a racking. But if we taste the wine in the winter, in the winery, and it's close, we are not going to rack. And this is a decision of our style. I told you, I like that the wines arrive to the bottle close. For us, it's something that is important and then develop in the bottle. So again, it's very important when you taste, maybe for you, for me, and for other guys, close or reduction has different meanings. This is something that is important to calibrate. You're never going to see our wines with sulfidric, with the suffer, but you're going to feel that the wines is more close than open. Tell us a little bit about your other ventures that you're kind of doing the same way, but the things outside of the Zucardi label. - No, when we think in our wines, we think in a pyramid that every time that we go up, we'll be more specific about the place where the grapes are coming from. So in the bottom of our wine, we start talking about the ukabale, then we talk about polygonous in the villages of the ukabale, then we go to talk about sub areas inside of the villages because the ukabale is very diverse and inside of the ukabale you have villages, but then you have sub areas inside of the villages, then we talk about single vineyards and then we talk about parcelas. And many times when you see our vinification from the beginning of our wine, until the top of our wines, the vinification is close the same, all fermented and aging in concrete, but what changed the size of the parcela where the grapes are coming from? So it's why we don't have one top wine. In the highest level, we make five different wines coming from five different vineyards. And our challenge is this, it's more like a burgundy barolo conception in terms of expression of the places than blending different areas. - It's cool that you're doing all these things because it really gives someone a snack, like a really good lesson in the different areas of the ukabale. We planted different vineyards in different locations in the ukabale. So we have seven properties in different locations in the ukabale in areas that are close to the mountain and we are looking for calcare in the soil. So we cultivate in Altamira, in San Pablo, and in Waltazari. One thing that is important for us is that when we make a wine from Altamira, you can taste next to Waltazari and next to San Pablo and you can see the differences. So concrete in my point of view, respect this kind of difference. The other thing that is important is that Malbec is a very well-adapted grape to our place. I'd like to say that Malbec in the ukabale is like Pinot Noir in Burgundy or Nebiollo in Barolo or San Jovese in Montalcino is a grape that is part of the terroir and is very transparent to the place. So for me, it's very interesting and concrete help a lot that you can feel the difference between Waltazari or Altamira, for example. - Yeah, and tell us a little bit more about the calcare because I think when most of us are studying wines from around the world, we're looking at calcareous soils generally being limestone derived, which is from the influence of a sea previously covering that landscape. That's never been the case for your area. So how are you having calcare in the soils here? - It's very interesting what happened in this place is in the ukabale because you have a unique combination that is granite, that is volcanic origin, mixing with calcareous because the Andes before to where they are, part of the Andes was out of the ocean but part of the Andes was under the ocean. And then the alluvial funds move these materials and mix. Why for us is very important because we feel that gives a texture to the wine and especially because we are going to reduce the impactful of the winery. For example, using concrete, we need that the texture has been coming from the place because you are not going to add tannins for example coming from the oak. We are not going to do this in the winery. We need that the structure come from the vineyard. So our feeling is that when you have a malbec growing on calcareous soils, you have much more texture on the tannins in order to build the backbone of the wine. And the calcare is also influencing the pH and the acidity structure of the wine to in conjunction with the stannins. Our soils, the pH of our soils is close to eight. So the level of calcare that you have is high. So when you go to the wines, you are in between three points, three points, three points, 55 to three points, 75. But this is more important than the pH, what you feel in the wine. And my feeling is that if true that calcare may be pushed the pH high, but give you more feeling of freshness because this tannic structure that is coming from there. But then you can lose all this feeling because if you overripe, if you overstruck and if you overroke, maybe you don't feel all this texture. - So you feel like it's making the pH higher. That's interesting. Like most places, if you have a higher pH soils, generally pushing the pHs of the wines down. - I'm not saying, no, no, no, it's not directly. It's not directly that you, because you have a high pH in the soil, the pH of the wines is going up. But that were pH will be closer to 3.6 than to three. For example, naturally in our area. It's a combination of the soil of the climate conditions. - And then in terms of managing the tannins because you are not adding any additional tannins or just like a barrel, how are you thinking about structuring those tannins from the get-go? - Obviously with the microoxet you referred to earlier, but is there any other major considerations there? - No, for example, in some areas in the Uco Valley, we use whole bunch. We take advantage of the stems. The stems give to us tannins that are coming from the place, from the soils. So for example, in Altamira, we use close to 80% of whole bunch that when I say whole, never is whole, because we love the stems, but we don't want to have any carbonic maceration. So we crash with our fits, because we want to take advantage of the stems sometime. But when we travel, for example, to Waltajari that the tannins naturally are very high, we reduce the use of stems. So depend the area is the quantity of stems that we use. But very important is the harvesting time, because when you override, when alcohol go up, you lose sense of texture. You are moving to more sweeter situation. Then not overestraction, less microoxygenation. And this is a little bit how we work. - Beyond phenolic ripeness, obviously, what is the ideal kind of alcohol window for you to keep that tension and the ones? - Remember that they have a lot of sunlight. So the ideal situation is that you don't feel the alcohol in the wine. But the figure, in our area will be always in between 13 to 14.5. It's difficult to do less, because when you do with less, you have no extraction and the tannins are completely green. But when you go up there to 14.5, maybe the alcohol can give you feeling of sweetness. But for me, it's not the figure, it's the feeling of the wine. When you travel to Barol or many times, you are in 15, 15.5 and-- - For sure. - Nobody's saying nothing. So it's a matter of balance, but it's not possible to make wines with 12 degrees in our area because we have a lot of sunlight. - So since you're utilizing stem inclusion, we'll call it rather than whole bunch 'cause you're not going for carbonic. - If I leave whole bunch in Altamir and Weltederi and in San Pablo, maybe we are going to talk more about the vinification, the carbonic maceration, more than the place. So we like to use stems, but we like to crush the grapes. We use our fits in order that the stem help to us to build the backbone of the wine. - So are you of the opinion that stems need to be dignified or that grown stems are okay? - If you wait until stems are dignified in our area, the grapes are overripe. But you have to change the way that you benefit because if you put the stems and you work like crazy, and for sure you are going to have overestraction or green side. So we work at the beginning with the pizache and pump over until the middle of the fermentation and from the middle of the fermentation to the end, we only wet the cup with the pocket. So we work very soft from the middle of the fermentation. So it's always, it's not that you isolate every decision. Every decision has to be in a table, playing with other decisions that you are taking. - Yeah, so there's something I always try to describe to guests and consumers is like, why making, there's so many decisions that are made and there's so much nuance to those decisions. In a lot of cases, like you were just saying with, you know, yeah, we can't have magnified stems 'cause those things would be too ripe, but then that really impacts like how we're handling the solids during fermentation. And like, it's all that little nitty gritty stuff that I find so interesting. And also like speaks to the craft of why making, right? And speaks to a lot of things that people don't understand about why making like kind of boil it down to what's the alcohol. - It's very important what you want to do and which is your style of wine because this is the decision because many techniques that can work in one area doesn't work in another area with, and in the same area. with one grape can be different with the other or in the same area with the same grape for one wine maker likes to do this and the other we don't have to forget that wine is the most diverse and unique drink around the world in the same vineyard three same vineyard three different producers we are going to make three different wines and it's very important what you want to do like a wine maker which is your identity which is your philosophy and it also separates the good ones from the not so good ones too but the only day and take time the other thing is that develop your way to do the interpretation of a place is something that take time you need a vineyard you need to do the things in a direction because if you start changing every year many things in your wine making will be difficult that you understand which is your direction so you need to go in a direction for a long period of time until to arrive to talk about the details and the precision well thanks so much for your time Seb it was great to see your face and thanks for giving us some insight not only on concrete but also on your place and yeah if if any of you listeners are ever in Argentina please go visit Sebastian his his properties incredible they have an amazing restaurant too oh my gosh some of the best beef I've ever had I was actually coming through my photos the other day of my trip because we shot a video on Argentina as Guilton you should check that out on our YouTube page but I found this picture of us chewing on this huge beef ribbon and I still can remember that experience and the squash that you have too is this is also the rock yeah exactly yeah so yeah go visit Seb Seb thank you so much for for taking the time and sharing the knowledge good to see you my pleasure thank you very much welcome back to the Guilton podcast I'm Kristangi director of education and I'm sitting here with Andrew Beckham who is a professional ceramicist teaches ceramics at a high school in Oregon and also owns Beckham winery with his wife Andrea creates their own set of amphora like vessels that he's gonna fill us in on so Andrew thank you so much for taking the time really excited to have you on the show I am so excited to be here thank you awesome so before we get into this just specifics of clay give us a little bit of a background on on you and the winery my wife and I started the vineyard project 21 years ago we purchased property on Parrot nun in the Shea Hill mountains ADA to build a pottery studio and everything was in timber when we bought and I got us totally derailed and sidetracked and just a few months after purchasing the property we were clearing land and clearing rocks and made a nursery and began planting vines in 2004 my wife showed me an article on a lesbeta fordori in 2012 and there were photos of a lesbeta and her seller with her Spanish amphora and I was intrigued and having had made large scale art pots for the majority of my career as a potter I had learned a technique that was applicable and I said to Andrea I'm going to make some amphora and I went to the clay shop the next week and purchased some terracotta and that began a journey now that I've been working on these two passions the the winemaking and the ceramic piece are intertwined and really inseparable at this point as one feeds and informs the other we continue to innovate develop and evolve both with the winemaking and with the construction and and forming of the vessels so you had a big background in ceramics and pottery so when you discovered wine and amphora what were some of the like the big light ball moments and what off you when you were when you were researching that in order to start creating your own as a teacher I've always encouraged my students to imitate and explore through doing what others do and so I spent many years copying shapes of vessels made in the world that are used for wine production. I made shapes that were trying to get to a quevery and tolia and tina ha and dolium and pithius and through this endeavor I found that there was profound kinetic power with the right angle slope shoulder and proportion where cold wants to move to warm thermal stratification can then manifest as dynamic motion and movement and it was through that exploration of those vessels that I eventually developed our own shape which is I think you would maybe consider hybrid and we have branded our vessel know them meaning a new beginning in Latin one of the things different about our vessels in particular is that they have a flat bottom and their mobile and can be moved around in our cellar in an online making space so these are not buried in the ground. It was also really interesting to me to discover that some of the vessels in the world are lined with beeswax or pech beeswax and resin pine tar some with epoxy some with glaze and I really became interested in engineering the material the process the forming and the firing as time and temperature relate to each other so that we could create a vessel that is not lined that allows the wine to interact with the atmosphere beyond through the material through the material of terracotta which is this iron rich porous clay material. Can you go back and explain some of those shapes that you listed off like you listed and for which I think most people are familiar with but then you listed off five or six more that maybe people aren't seeking give us a little background on this. Yeah, I think one thing to consider here is the nomenclature can be a little complex and amphora would have been used for transporting lines it would have a pointed bottom and hooked handles and was generally smaller than than 40 meters where people don't necessarily know the other terms the relate to clay pots used for wine production. I think the default then has been for most wine makers to use amphora as sort of the catch all for vessels that are made with clay that are used for for producing wine and ever other beverages there are regions in the world of course where they've always used clay pots and you know some some places where there are truly unbroken traditions. So in the black sea region the vessels there are called quevery and they're generally buried in the ground and most often lined in beeswax they're very large they're as large as 2500 liters so far bigger than the know them that we produce here Roman and a trusskin forms called dolium and pithias I think are pretty unusual terms that people have not necessarily encountered. As tolia and Tinaha are tolia being from Portugal and Tinaha from Spain where the vessels again are quite monumental in size having visited Alentasia Portugal a couple years ago I had an opportunity to taste from tolia made as early as 1647 and it's interesting in the attempt to explore and imitate shapes what one sees in a video or in a photograph is often far different when you're in person and you get to see them in situ. So I was dumbfounded at the volume in the size of the tolia and the fact that they sit on such a small bottom so tasting from those vessels that were 400 years old was something that was remarkable and will ever sit with me. Yeah was it fascinating from an engineering standpoint as well for you to like have them be so large and then have the base be so small. Absolutely and one of the other things really interesting about the vessels in Portugal is that they have to be punched down as many as four times a day or they will build so much pressure they can explode. And that was one thing that was really fascinating to see were vessels that had literally blown apart during the fermentation process and even seeing chunks of terracotta in large oak doors and the potential of catastrophic explosion was something I hadn't really considered with our own vessels. Yeah that's pretty wild. There's different shapes are interesting to me as well just from you know not having a ceramic background pottery background but like just looking at the logistics of it. I'm like wow this is like I understand with quevery you know you bury them for the thermal advantage etc and because there really wasn't any equipment to move around something like that right on the regular. And also they're relatively delicate at imagine I don't know you can fill me in on the strengths of these various things but that comes with this whole whole host of logistical issues like access to clean and what if it does crack and you get water intrusion and other contaminants inside etc so it seems like that one in particular is very very challenging and you know after traveling there to Georgia. And seeing amazing those winds can be but also how challenging it can be to make wine in those vessels and the fact that it really only because of all these challenges accounts for like three to five percent of the production. And it seems like moving forward more people more people are not going the super traditional route of like bearing them they're going more for the angle that you. You have taken with Novum or other traditional vessels where you can actually move them around, right? And they're not buried in a little bit easier to maintain, et cetera. Going back to like the basics of clay, I guess, too. I want to cover and make sure everyone understands. Like, A, can you define clay for us? Because I think as some liais, we often, when we're talking about the soil clay, we kind of dumb it down, right? And we say clay, it's clay. It's clay here, it's clay there, it's clay everywhere, right? Like, it's all the same. And it's like, well, actually, it's not the same, right? Because clay signifies something very specific that can have a bunch of different material in it. And then B, how do you work with clay in one of the considerations when you're making a vessel like Novum in terms of flavor, structural integrity, logistics, all that kind of stuff? So clay is simply broken down to its basics, microscopic mineral particles that come from decomposing rocks and other organic materials in the world. Terracotta refers to an iron-rich non-viterious porous body that is typically less refined as compared to stone layer or porcelain, which takes a lot more refinement and is fired at a hotter temperature. And with those other two types of clay, ultimately, the vessels that are made with that material are non-porous, they're vitreous, they're sealed, or what we would call as potters being centered. So the material that we're using for the Novum has been a complicated thing to engineer. We started with materials that were regionally local. Plays that came from the Sacramento Rio Vista Delta area in San Francisco. And those clays were easy to fire in that they were laterite-based clays that were low in silica. But we found that the clay had a lot of impact on the line, both in terms of flavor and aroma. And my intent with creating these vessels for our own line production was to try to frame the line with texture, but not add something that was as obvious maybe as notes coming from a toasted oak barrel. So we progressively moved across the US exploring different clay bodies. And are now using a body that is primarily coming from material that is sourced in Pennsylvania. It is really high in silica and quite problematic to fire. An interesting thing to think about in the composition of the clay body for Novum is that 30% of the clay is what we would call grog. That is once fired pulverized and then mixed back in by particle size. So this is something that's really important in developing structural integrity in the vessels so that they can be built at this large scale. So it's interesting if you break one of the vessels open or if you cut in and look at a cross section, there's actually a lot of aggregate inside the body of the vessel. It's not really small, tiny, refined particles, but in fact, there are much larger components to the clay. Yeah, that makes sense if you think about how concrete is constructed, where you have aggregate in that as well to create structural rigidity, et cetera. And you can further that with rebar, et cetera. For those of you who have explored pouring your own concrete, as I have, because otherwise you pay not the nose for it. So with the clay experimentation, which I think is fascinating, you know, you went from different sources all across the country. So the goal you said was to create texture without flavor. What were the flavors that you were getting, say, out of the Sacramento Delta clay or others? The best way to put it would be that the wines tasted and smelled like a pottery studio. They were kind of earthen and dank. There was obviously something coming from the material that wasn't part of the wine. I think that the textural piece has been consistent throughout. At least with the novum, we find that there is a dusty, bricky, kind of mineral-driven essence on the palette. For me, like looking at Riverstone or River Rock is kind of the experience that I would associate with the material that we're using. And in so many ways, these things are incredibly experiential when we have people visit us and they have a chance to come into the cellar. Almost everyone wants to touch one of the vessels. That's very common to touch, to feel, to hug. We often have people who are interested in smelling them. And once in a while, we'll have someone want to lick one, just to see what the experience of the plant is like, you know, directly on their palate. So that's where we've really spent a lot of energy in developing the material so that we have more of a textural experience that is free of flavor in aroma, or at least pretty mitigated. But where we have a vessel that will breathe and will act as a conduit for the wine to interact with the atmosphere beyond the material. Where we've had the most amount of effort injected into the project is figuring out the firing temperature beyond making the clay body food safe. Really, the most important thing is trying to get them to breathe like a barrel does. So we have the same oxygen transfer rate, as we see in an o-cask or an Acacia Cask, or something else at the same volume. And that is where we've spent the last 15 years manipulating time and temperature as it relates to the material. Where now our firings are about 10 days long. We fire to 1098 C, and we hold for four hours. It takes five days to go up and five days to go down. And in the process of working on understanding the oxygen transfer rate, I found that time was as important as temperature. In fact, we're now firing to a far lower temperature with a lot more time, and we achieve then a vessel that has a porosity that is essentially the same as an o-cask. If we measure dissolved oxygen and suspension, our numbers are within 1/2% to each other at any given duration of time. Our topping is also identical to casks where we talk about one liter every three weeks. So beyond the firing, do you think that the base material also has a really profound impact on that? And since you've been working with the Pennsylvania Clay for longer, do you feel like you've been able to dial that in and deciding on that one material? And then the firing time came after? Or do you feel like it's only firing time? Really? That has the biggest impact on that? It's everything. And that's what becomes so complicated about it. And even in that, the material is coming from a single source mine. It's stratified, and it changes over time. And so we're constantly having to reevaluate, assess, and make adjustments to not only the materials in the clay body, but also the way we're drawing and firing the vessels. The mine that we have been getting the material from has now been purchased by a private ownership. And it's quite unlikely that that material will be available for us to use in the future. So this is going to require a whole other set of investigative steps as we adjust working with materials that we haven't necessarily used before, but are trying to achieve these same outcomes. So that's the joy of ceramics. Nothing's set in stone. Everything is always malleable. And of course, as we're moving through the steps, you can't go backwards. And that's one of the hardest things working with clay as a material is that each time you have moved forward in the progress and the progression of making and creating the vessel, you reach a point where you can not go backwards and retool or rework. The amount of effort is just insane to think about. And I think it's easy for us to see one of these things and be like, oh, yeah, here it is. They've got a dial that it exists, right? But to really fully understand all the work that goes into it and all the nuance of the material. And you could say the same for barrels, too, right? Like there's so much nuance within that. Even if all the sourcing is the same and the cooperage, you know, it's the same Cooper over years. It's like they constantly have to adapt and like figure out what is going to work for that given vessel and what the goals are at the end of the day, right? Like your goals of being less flavor impactful, more about texture and getting that permeability factor just right. So it actually is much easier to work with as a white maker because you understand that it's relatively comparable in terms of permeability and at least to oak. So yeah, I imagine that that process is probably exciting and also at times frustrating, depending upon, you know, how things are shaking out. But so what are the sizes of barrels that you generally make? - We have over a hundred know them in our cellar. And over the last ten years, we have been working on developing material and time and temperature of the firing piece. and we have vessels that have different. conditions. We have some that are a little sweaty and leepy that are really, you know, probably not fired quite hot enough. We have others that are nearing the point of vitrification, and we see then a really different outcome with the wines. Another thing that's quite interesting is the fact that there is no pigment leach or consequence moving from red to white wine. So we think of the vessels, maybe as you might consider a cast iron, where we're seasoning and developing interests and eat intrigue each time we fill them. We're getting a snapshot of all of the prior use. They're quite interesting in that they're evolving over time and becoming in many ways more compelling the more they're used. Sort of the opposite trajectory of oak cask or other wood cask that, you know, might take a long, long time for the tree to grow and then is sometimes consumed and disposed of in short order. In so many ways, the emphora are getting better with use, maybe appreciating rather than depreciating and becoming more compelling each time you fill them up. So to clarify for listeners, the vitrification is at the right term, that essentially refers to when there is little permeability, right? Like something like porcelain or something like that, right? Well, the material is not porous at all. It's sealed. It would be, you know, the same as making wine in the glass jar where there is no permeability. There's no oxygen exchange. It is an inert sealed vessel. Talking about the pigment leakers, interesting too. So you're saying it doesn't hold on to a lot of liquid, I guess, right? Whereas a barrel would hold onto a lot of liquid and so you really couldn't go back and forth between red and white, but you're saying with, you know, you can do that. Yes, correct. The interior surface of the vessel was quite rough. It's not like a slick stainless steel surface. So you do get a significant amount of precipitation of tartrates as they find it, you know, really easy to grow on this rough surface. So we do see a color impact coming from wine tartrates, but as you stated, the vessel really doesn't absorb a lot of liquid. So we can make malbec or to not or sarah in them age that wine in there for the year and then make a white wine, a reselling or a Sauvignon block. And we don't have any pigment consequence whatsoever. So they're quite versatile in that unlike a barrel once red forever red, the Novum can be used working from one color of wine to the other without any issue. Would you say that the maintenance is generally easier for a Novum that it would be for a barrel? We love working with them for so many reasons. As far as usage goes, they are quite similar to barrel in many ways, but once you have the top off the vessel, you can see what's inside. So unlike working with a barrel, you can see the wheeze accumulating on the wall. You can really get a super clean racking as you have visual access into the inside of the container. As far as maintenance goes, we find that they're really easy to tend to. We don't have to worry about them dehydrating like we do with a barrel. So in the case of Novum, when we're finished with them, we'll rinse them with hot water and evacuate the solids and then we'll put them in the sunlight and let them dry in the UV light. And we keep them stored with their tops open and they're dry. So there's no need for storage solution. They're actually quite easy to tend to. We don't use any cleaning solutions in ours, but just hot water and sunlight. Interesting. And you make a wide range of sizes, right? When I was in Georgia, people were saying that they have found that roughly around 1200 liters is the sweet spot. Have you in experimenting with a bunch of different sizes found any size that you find is the sweet spot or is that more of like a stylistic preference? Larger volume of more thermal mass in the fermentation dynamics are going to look different. The vessels that I make are not nearly as large as those made in Georgia. I make them in two volumes, 350 and 500 liter. And we find with those volumes, we have really beautiful fermentations. They're also small enough that they can be evacuated without going into them. We do have now an attachment for our floorcliffe rotator that allows them to be turned over to empty. We typically use the 350 liter vessels here in our production for fermenting red lines lines that have berries and other fruit in them. And we use the larger vessels for fermenting and aging white wine or pressed off red lines. So the two volumes that we produce are small enough that they can be moved with palate jack. We move the vessels around full. We do this all the time. They're mobile and that their volume is not so large, they're a fixture that has to be permanently located in the cellar. And do they have a way to drain them from the bottom or do you have to like rack onto them basically? I have for some purchasers put a bulkhead in the bottom of the vessel with two inch TC. I think for our usage here, it's really unnecessary. If they were in a situation where they needed to be cleaned in place, I think that bottom bulkhead valve would be quite useful. And also for brewers who are hyper concerned about oxygen contact, there's validity to having that fixture in the bottom of the vessel. But in so many ways, it just adds another point of failure. So in our case, we do not have any sort of drain valve report in them. We treat them as you would barrel when we taste from them. We taste through the opening in the top of the lid. And when we empty them, we rack out of them using a pump like you would with barrel as well. And how long do these vessels last? Well, I think indefinitely is kind of a wild thing to think about, but you know, having personally tasted from vessels and Portugal that were made in the 17th century, you know, their longevity really is a little hard to predict. Of course, humans can make mistakes. I've broke one by knocking it over on our crush pad. I've also had one roll 350 feet to the bottom of our vineyard and survived to make wine the next year. Well, that's a testament to your craftsmanship right there. One of the things that is so compelling about them to me is their longevity. And I think a lot of times about what would be left in our space after a cataclysm, I would be willing to bet that the steel tanks, the building, the metal, the, even the concrete perhaps would be something that would not be there. And these vessels might, if we think about discoveries that are made all around the world, even last year there were vessels found on the bottom of the black sea that were 3000 years old and still contained all the oil and line. Their life span, their longevity is something that is truly remarkable. And of course, they're made of earth. There's no petroleum product or polymer or resin, it's heated earth. And when we look for traces of humanity, we look for potchards. And that's a good indicator that humans have been existing or coexisting with others. Having spent time in the Southwest United States, I think it's really an incredible thing to look down and see potchards that are hundreds if not thousands of years old. For sure. Seems like you're in a really good position for the current trend and direction of wine. In that, you know, the average guest and consumer is wanting more freshness and less oak impact, less oxidative impact. And also pricing being top of mind for everyone as well with wine being so expensive, the most expensive it's ever been and seen steep increases in the last few years. You know, if you factor in the cost of new barrel, new barrels, which are also extra expensive because of tariffs and other things these days. Like, it seems like all signs point to alternative vessels, right? Like, of course, oak will always have a role. It's very important. But I think that other vessels are really well positioned to deal with the, you know, the wine of tomorrow. If you don't mind me asking, like, how much does a 350 or 500 liter vessel cost just to give people perspective, because for those listeners out there, a barrel these days is like minimum 1200 bucks, like for an inexpensive barrel all the way up to like 16. And then we're talking about brick, right? We're not talking about like bigger format barrels, which, you know, are going to vary a lot. But just as to give people some context, if you're comfortable sharing those prices. Yeah, of course. Last year, the vessels were priced at $4,000 for the 350 liter and $6,000 for the 500 liter and that price includes a powder coated steel stand that's palatable stainless steel collar enclosure mechanism. Gas get that we custom make with just the right jarometer or squish so that the vessels will seal and lid. So they are a bigger investment upfront than barrel or cask, but really not by a massive amount. If you were looking at a 500 liter punch in and maybe a stocking or something pretty high-end, the clay vessel maybe maybe twice the cost of the barrel, but really it should be something that doesn't lose its value at such an extreme rate. So I find here that I know my price for the vessels is going to go up every year, and so in I think in a lot of ways the vessels should appreciate over time rather than depreciate and lose their value. Yeah, I mean it seems to make a lot of a lot of sense for those that are going for the fresher style and especially given all the work you've done in making them more flavor neutral in matching the porosity and the oxygen exchange, like I think that's all really fascinating and you know I'm not a Y-maker, but if I was and I was looking at ways to to make my production more efficient from a cost end point, I think that these vessels, amongst others, you know concrete etc are a really attractive option. And you know it's interesting to look at tech sheets, you know constantly in a tech sheets when I'm choosing wines for a class or choosing wines for the shop or whatever. And I'm seeing more and more amphora or clay vessels even in like very fancy, you know, Napa wines for instance. You're starting to see them as part of the elevage process and I think it's also an interesting perspective to look at these varying vessels to see an opportunity to build texture, different kinds of textures through these different vessels. I think it's fascinating too. I've had a chance to share some of the know them with some very high-end Napa producers and it feels kind of like a feather in the cap to be honest to have I won't name any names but to have you know a wine-making team come from Napa who's producing very expensive Cabernet and really get interested in these alternative vessels and how they they might help keep their brand relative as people's palettes change and consumers' price points shift in a changing market. It's been pretty fun to be able to share them with some of the brands that I you know sort of idolize and can hardly afford to purchase to consume myself. Well the bartering system is a great system. So, Andrew thank you so much for your time, for your knowledge go check out their website, it's beckumestate.com, remember right? And then you have a separate site for Novum. It's NovumSyramics.com. NovumSyramics, awesome. Yeah so if you have an interest in exploring the world of clay, this is a really great option. They are based in Oregon so Andrew makes all of them himself and they've invested a lot of time and energy into into the vessels so. Selfish plug if anyone's ever in the glam of valley and would like to visit and take a look at not only the seller but the studio how the vessels are made and taste an assortment of wine made in terracotta we would love to see people. We produce about 15 wines each year, 12 of them are made in terracotta vessels. Yeah it's a really fun exercise to taste especially clay age versus not clay age from the same source. A fruit source is really really instructive and to see all the equipment that they use and all the all the work that goes into these it's really really cool. I haven't done it in a few years I am due for another visit so if you do that again soon. All right thanks Andrew, really appreciate your time, your knowledge and hopefully listeners learn something today. Thank you so much it was a pleasure to speak with you. Cheers. Thanks for listening to the guildsom podcast. Did you know that we now have a monthly subscription option? It's a great way to test ride the platform to see if you find our work helpful. If you enjoyed the episode please leave us a review on your preferred listening platform as it goes a long way to supporting the show and growing the guildsom community. Cheers.