‘I know it’s a cliché, but I think I ended up here because I was looking for roots. I was born in the United States, but left when I was four years old. My ancestors were from Germany and Poland, I grew up in Australia and Asia, went to high school in Australia, and didn’t go back to the United States until I went to university. Afterwards, I worked as a stockbroker in Sydney, a financial consultant in London and then for a private equity fund in Paris. Moving around was my life – I just kept moving. I’ve been here since 2002 and it’s by far the longest I’ve lived anywhere. I don’t really like travelling any more. I just want to stay here and work my land.
‘I came to Vouvray by chance. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I couldn’t do any of these jobs that I was doing any more. I was not in a good space. So, I was looking all over the place, mainly in the Languedoc, but I couldn’t find anything because everything was too big and the plots were all over the place. I was imagining this life, a place where I lived where I worked and worked where I lived. And then I saw an article on vineyards for sale in Touraine. I don’t think I’d ever had a Vouvray wine in my life. And I saw this, four hectares and a house. I came down, saw the place and said “I’ll take it”. It was a feeling, it was the fact that everything was here – and little weird things like the sequoia in the garden – the American connection.
‘There were many things on this journey that were a little naïve and reckless. The project was huge. Everything was in a terrible state. They hadn’t made wine here in decades and the vines were rented out. The five kids were long gone, the 85-year-old grandmother was living here alone. You could feel the wind blowing through the windows. We had to replace the plumbing, the electricity, all of the windows – but if it wasn’t for the house I wouldn’t have been able to get the vines. The locals wanted to buy the vines but the family wouldn’t sell the vines without the house. And nobody wanted the house.
‘I hadn’t been to Vouvray before and I really didn’t know Loire wines. I set out to make red wine in the south of France and I ended up making white wine here. I love Chenin Blanc, and the variety of wines you can make with it. I think there was definitely reticence from many people in the region when I arrived: who is this American and does he think he’s going to show us how to make Vouvray? But I hope that part of the reason it worked out well was because I was modest and humble enough to understand that I did not know what I was doing and I had a lot to learn from the past – and I’ve tried to tread lightly.
‘In the end, I don’t think I came here to make wine. I came here to live more than anything. It was a desire for a different way of life, to live with the seasons, to live outside, to work with the land, to produce something I could actually touch and feel, something I was proud of. Wine was the excuse, but maybe I could have been growing vegetables or been a forester. Financially, it’s been a struggle from the beginning but that’s fine, because that’s what life is like.
‘In my previous life, nature was something that I didn’t really interact with. I thought of the various components as objects: that’s a tree, those are vines, that’s a bush. But the more time I spend in this nature that we’ve become removed from, the more it seems to me completely marvellous, almost miraculous and incomprehensible. It makes me feel like I’m part of something that I really don’t understand but that is somehow magical. It sounds a little bit crazy when I say it, but I don’t feel that I’m the same human being that I was before. This place has become imprinted on me – and I experience nature in a very different way now. Do I really feel as if a bird is following me around when I’m pruning? I don’t know, but I prefer to think so and it makes my…
Source : https://www.decanter.com/wine/a-drink-with-peter-hahn-551984/
