Ray Walker was happily employed as a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch & Co. in San Francisco until a gulp of wine coerced him into leaving for France to buy $140,000 worth of grapes with a dream to rival powerhouse Burgundy domaines such as Romanee-Conti and Corton-Andre.
Ray Walker was happily employed as a financial adviser at Merrill Lynch & Co. in San Francisco until a gulp of wine coerced him into leaving for France to buy $140,000 worth of grapes with a dream to rival powerhouse Burgundy domaines such as Romanee-Conti and Corton-Andre.
“My wife thought I was drunk,” the 29-year-old Walker says in the cool of his wine-making cavern beneath the celebrated slopes of the Cote d'Or town Nuits-Saint-Georges.
“I'm a skinny black kid from Berkeley who'd never been to France,” says Walker, siphoning his inaugural 2009 Maison Ilan Le Chambertin Grand Cru from an oak cask into a row of glasses. “What did I know about wine? On a good day back home, my beer- drinking mom and dad opened a bottle of Carlo Rossi.”
To make matters worse, Walker says, “I spoke only one word of French: ‘oui.'”
No longer. Some 19 months after first setting foot on Burgundy's 177 square miles of tightly knit vineyards known for making some of the most expensive wines in the world, Walker has emerged as something of a local hero: The first black American vintner to be embraced by the coterie of distributors and growers who rule 600 separate “appellation controlee” wines.
And they reckon Walker's wine is pretty good, too.
First Ferrari
“Maison Ilan's 2009 vintage looks to be outstanding,” says Peter Wasserman, president of Le Serbet, a Beaune-based consulting and distribution company that represents some 30 Burgundy domaines. “What Ray has accomplished is remarkable, it's like a kid learning how to drive with an F1 Ferrari and then having a good chance of winning his first race.”
Adds Benoit Goujon, the 45-year-old managing director of Corton-Andre, “Ray understands the Burgundy way,” he says. “It's ‘formidable' to have him with us.”
After spending 18 months studying California vinification techniques in Napa Valley, Walker landed in Nuits-Saint-Georges with $25,000 in his pocket, a pregnant wife and two contentious notions: American wine is a step above alcoholic fruit juice and Grand Cru French Bordeaux are overrated.
“Merrill's clients raved about Bordeaux and, as the young guy in the firm, I thought it best to learn about the rich man's drink,” Walker says. “I hated the stuff, but pressed on. My wife dragged me kicking and screaming to a Burgundy tasting. I fell in love with a bottle of 1999 Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Cazetiers and quit my job.”
Quoting another local hero, Burgundians say Walker's decision to flee a secure position at Merrill with scant knowledge of winemaking at the height of a global financial crisis to gamble his future on a vision was rational.
‘Silly Things'
“Burgundy wine,” the French politician and epicure Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin some 300 years ago reasoned, “makes you think of silly things.”
Walker says he walked out on Merrill to reach his goal of making money by living in nature. “And that's what I experienced at the Burgundy tasting in San Francisco,” he says. “There it was, a singular product created by man from nature that remained natural. How the hell do they do that?”
Burgundy wines come in three AOC classifications: Village, Premier Cru and Grand Cru, with local grape brokers called “courtiers” selling barrels of excess fruit from the domaines to independent vintners. Walker says he intended to begin his new career experimenting with inexpensive Village red wine, eventually working his way up to Grands Crus, which can cost thousands of dollars a bottle.
“It made sense,” Walker says. “But it didn't work out as planned.”
Luxury Grapes
Walker in May 2009 received word that a courtier was offering Grand Cru grapes from Charmes-Chambertin in Aux Charmes and Le Chambertin grapes from a high-altitude plot near Clos de Beze, along with a few barrels of Morey St. Denis Premier Cru Les Chaffots. Referring to a stack of conversation cards he'd assembled from a Google English-French translation program, Walker told the fruit seller he'd take them all.
“I thought I'd get at most two barrels, but ended up with nearly eight barrels of Grand Cru and four barrels of Premier Cru grapes,” Walker says. “It was crazy being offered this kind of fruit. I never believed Grand and Premier Cru vineyard owners would part with such grapes.”
Over at Corton-Andre, Goujon grins and says his new neighbor never really bought any grapes.
“A big percentage of grapes go unsold, but you'll never know what the figure is because nobody sells grapes and nobody buys grapes,” Goujon says. “I buy grapes from many great vineyards, though they never sell them. This is French logic and it helps people like Ray.”
Invisible Surplus
Wasserman tries to bring clarity to the confusion. “The top ‘negociants' don't want to be over-extended on Grand and Premier Cru wines,” he says with a wink. “At the same time, there's no official surplus for sale.”
As Walker tells it, the not-for-sale grapes he didn't buy to make the vintage now maturing in his casks cost him $140,000. He needed investors. “Some friends in the States chipped in at the last minute,” Walker says of his angels. “They boosted everything for me.”
About 300 euros ($388) of the investment purchased an 1855 first edition of “Histoire et Statistique de la Vigne des Grands Vins de la Cote d'Or,” the first Burgundy-wine cook book written by Michel-Jules Lavalle.
“I followed the original classical recipe,” Walker says. “Nothing artificial because there wasn't anything artificial in 1855. Everything was done by hand.”
Walker converted his one-car garage into a fermentation room and shunned the metal vats many Burgundy makers employ to make their wine. “I spent 3,000 euros on the same oak vats Domaine Romanee-Conti uses,” Walker says. “They look like California hot tubs.”
No Spitting
Wine enthusiast Bjorn von Below, senior vice president of EFG Bank in Geneva, takes a skeptical barrel taste of Walker's efforts, which will soon fill 4,500 bottles and presell for between $67 and $149 a bottle. Von Below doesn't spit.
“This is astonishing, a great investment, a perfect candidate for private equity,” Von Below says. “Problem is the banks won't help someone with a vision and that's a mistake.”
Walker smiles. “Thank you,” he says. “I'm not concerned with return right now.”
“But what will you do if Maison Ilan doesn't sell?” Von Below asks.
“If nothing happens,” Walker says, “I can drink it.”
For more information on Ray Walker's wines, see www.maison-ilan.com.
