Abracadabra - hannah fuellenkemper
Pressat - Auvergne
Perhaps relevant for many, the old saying of “if at first you don't succeed, try, try again” is certainly applicable to Hannah and her winemaking journey thus far - and what a journey it has been.
Hannah is American/German, and grew up in England before studying and living in Amsterdam for eight years. Facts that are irrelevant to some, but that are maybe telling in that those years of cross-country and cross-cultural living have instilled in Hannah a sense of not “coming from” anywhere in particular, which, viewed from another angle, teaches you that coming from nowhere means that you can therefore belong anywhere.
It’s 2023, and Hannah comes from France (though still dreams of Italy), and this year has become a year of deeper recognition, both personal and public, and it also brings a new found stability…ish.
This year after shedding her old working name of ‘Le Carton’, Hannah has a new ‘domaine’ name - ABRACADABRA, a new cellar, (again), a new/old press, a pump (a PUMP! this is big news when you’ve siphoned 6000L of wine), and she has the confidence and healthy fear that comes with being the small business owner, operator, do-everything-be-everyone type person that grape farming and winemaking makes you become when you go it alone.
“Alone” though, is misleading in some ways, and Hannah will be one of the first to talk about how no wine is ever made truly alone, she's even written about it extensively on her blog, where she has been documenting her work, travels and opinions for years, such is the importance that recognising her helpers has for her.
Thankfully, she's had that bevy of helpers materialise each year, right when they were needed most. Friends, mentors, colleagues and acquaintances have arrived from all over to help her on her path to where she is today - from a masters in law in Amsterdam, to making her own wine, in her own cellar in an ex cow barn in Auvergne.
Arriving in France in 2018 after doing harvest with Olivier Cousin and family, Hannah had intended to try a full season of vine life, and wanted to give it “six months and see”.
There followed work at Les 9 Caves in Banyuls, and an internship with Manuel de Vecchi of Vinyer de la Ruca. Then, an extension of the original six month plan saw a move to Ardeche to work for Sylvain Bock and Andrea Calek, along with seasonal work further afield in Jura, Beaujolais and the Loire, with the Loire and its people becoming a place and a community that really resonated with her - “I loved Anjou, enough to live in a cave.”
It was en route to move from (H)Ardèche to the Loire when Hannah stopped in Chassignolles, Auvergne...and ended up moving there instead in the summer of 2020. Moving again to a new location in Auvergne, in Pressat, she now shares .6 of a hectare of vines in Volvic and Blanzat, as well as having a tiny parcel of pinot noir (ex Aurelien Lefort) in Boudes.
It has always been Hannah’s intention to also use purchased grapes for vinification, and she's made great use of her “friends and friends of friends” in France and beyond, each year supplementing her own fruit with grapes from places including the Languedoc, Anjou, Catalonia, Piedmont and Beaujolais.
All fruit is certified organic, and no preservatives or synthetic chemicals are used or added at any point in her winemaking process. Hannah is incredibly lo-fi/hands off in the cellar, she says that's because it's not only the way she learned, but because she also wouldn't know how to be more hands on, though we believe that's perhaps all part and parcel of the same good thing.
Manual pressing, hand filling and even hand painting all of the bottles, her production is truly a labour of love, some loss, some mistakes, some joy, supported by a strong sense of community.
In the future Hannah hopes to steady her production and focus more on her cellar work and longer elevage. In just a few years she's increased from some 1500 bottles produced to 8000 bottles in 2022. That's some pretty exciting but daunting progress, especially considering that most of that growth occurred in a series of cellars found and occupied just days or weeks before each year's harvest.
This year's move to the new cellar space marks a welcome shift towards her goals: a more permanent space means a more permanent set up, electricity (!), a tank (with a door!), a transpallet (what joy a flat work surface can bring!), and a home for her barrels.
Some of those barrels used to belong to Andrea Calek, and interestingly Hannah actually slept above them during her first months in France. It’s truly moving for us to experience the fruits for her labour over the years, and to accompany Hannah on her journey to realising her dreams, perhaps some of which started in her bed above the barrels in 2018.
The new releases of wine from Hannah are vital and expressive, and we cannot wait to share them with you, and we feel these final words from Hannah herself sum up her experience perfectly:
“Dreams, like having a flat floor (a novelty) and a key (a first!) to a door no one else has the key to, come true. Grapes become wine. Those wines become actually drinkable. People come from really far to help. I haven’t yet officially given up! Magic, all of it. Hence the name change. ABRACADABRA.”
E.B. June 2023
