From the magazine

The satisfaction of making wine the hard way

An investment banker leaves the rat race to restore a neglected vineyard in the Loire, where he decides to do as much as possible by hand, from pruning the vines to pressing the grapes

Henry Jeffreys
Peter Hahn pruning his vines.  
EXPLORE THE ISSUE 03 May 2025
issue 03 May 2025

You can learn a lot about a winemaker by tasting his wine. In The Accidental Connoisseur, Lawrence Osborne wrote of one wine that smelt of ‘simmering insanity’, reflecting the angry Italian who made it. I didn’t have quite such an extreme reaction to Peter Hahn’s Clos de la Meslerie Vouvray, but I did deduce that he was idealistic, determined, romantic, perhaps a little dogmatic, and given to certain esoteric beliefs.

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