Napa Valley Wine Radio

I was fascinated that someone would think to undertake a survey like this one (PDF) on wine manipulations, such as adding color or oak chips to wine.

For one thing, I think the vast majority of consumers and probably a big percentage of the trade are completely unaware that this stuff is going on at some wineries. For another, a lot of wine professionals, including winemakers, tend to think that the industry would be better off if consumers and the trade remain ignorant of these goings-on. I approached an enologist/friend about explaining some of these techniques in a podcast, and the reply wasn’t exactly “why expose dirty laundry” but that was the message. No interview.

Reality is, with the rapid rate of communication these days you’re going to hear about this stuff, whether we want you to or not, and it’s better to discuss the facts up front rather than let “truthiness” rule the day. I plan to outline simple explanations for these techniques in the near future but, in the meantime, it’s so interesting to consider how we determine exactly what constitutes manipulation.

For instance, I was surprised to see barrel aging referred to as a manipulation. Huh? We’ve been keeping wine in wood containers since at least Roman times, presumably originally as a method of storage and transport. According to our barrel broker at Artisan Barrels, the flavor addition wasn’t really a factor until the middle of the 20th century. So, is the reason that I don’t think of barrel aging as manipulation because it’s so long standing? That kind of shoots a hole in any objections we may have to some of these other manipulations because if we just wait long enough they’ll become “traditional”.

How about “chaptalization” or adding sugar before the fermentation? That’s been going on for centuries too, in a casual way, and was finally recognized as a technique that “improves” wine and given a name in the 19th century. Well, it’s illegal in California. I guess it’s too much of a manipulation here (aside from the fact that it’s rarely necessary).

And then there are extremely modern techniques such as de-alcoholization and micro-oxygenation that are viewed as more controversial. Is it just because they’re new?

I start to play devil’s advocate with myself:  “Maybe these new techniques bother us because they’re more intrusive.”  Well, what’s more meddlesome than a 60-gallon oak barrel? A large wood container doesn’t have as much impact, but that small cooperage? That’s a pretty big happening in a wine’s life. I honestly don’t know if more high-tech equals more intrusive. Should we be complaining about stainless steel tanks replacing old clay, stone, leather, concrete or wood containers? You’re going to have a tough time getting a winemaker to part with his stainless steel tanks, valve fittings and equipment for reasons of hygiene, and we all like that, don’t we? How do we define improvement vs. manipulation?

I loved this remark from a decidedly non-interventionist winemaker in Friuli, courtesy of Vinography: “…all winemaking is intervention in a natural process that leads to vinegar.” All he’s trying to say is that grape juice wants to be wine, and wine wants to be vinegar, so the winemaker always has to step in and exert some control rather than adopting the romantic notion of letting nature take its course.

What do y’all think? Where do we draw the line? How would you respond to this survey?

Wow! This is pretty interesting stuff. A bunch of industry experts got together to collectively take a peek at what the winery of the future will look like and there’s good news and bad news as far as I can tell.

The good news is that they foresee sustainable agriculture across the board. Organic and sustainable farming are positively mainstream and where biodynamics used to be an “out there” concept, now it seems that hardly a week goes by without hearing about more wineries jumping on the band wagon. That’s a very good thing for our kids and grandkids.

They also predict that we’ll be using varieties that are unfamiliar to us now mainly for the purpose of avoiding pest and disease problems. Unless we’re projecting waaay forward, I think they misjudge human nature. One thing I know for sure is that we humans prefer what we’re accustomed to and we’ve been loving the same old grape varieties for centuries. It’s going to take generations to wean people off of their beloved Cabernet and Chardonnay in favor of new flavor profiles.

Oddly enough, they didn’t factor in global warming, or the topic didn’t make its way into this article. I keep wondering if Napa Valley is destined to be the next Fresno, the “raisin capital of the world” and if the Willamette Valley will be the next hotbed (so to speak) for Cabernet? Perhaps they see these new varieties as the way to adapt.

Barrels may go on the chopping block. One speaker commented that she sees “…many mid-sized wineries are already on the path away from oak barrels, and believes that many more will be soon.” Recently, I’ve spoken in depth with two of the barrel brokers we work with at Goosecross in preparation for a podcast and neither of them sees barrel alternatives as a threat to the barrel industry. Both of them believe that the best producers will always prefer the effect of actual barrel aging as opposed to micro-ox in combination with oak chips or some other alternative. Fooling themselves? Who can say? How far in the future are we looking?

The bad news, in my view, is that they also predict that something so primitive as walking the vineyard is likely to go by the wayside. A highly respected viticulturist predicted that “The main tasks will be mechanized and controlled via computer interface and global positioning systems (GPS). Growing conditions will be closely monitored by aerial and surface observation using geographic information systems (GIS).”

The upside? When they refer to “greater precision” in cultural practices, I assume they mean things like monitoring irrigation and nutritional needs and making decisions on shoot, cluster or leaf thinning. It’s a comfort, at least, to know that they still plan to use grapes.

The downside? Maybe I’m just a sentimentalist but I can’t help wondering what else is lost when we lose the human element? Can read-outs on a monitor truly replace or even surpass the abilities of humans to observe and make judgments based on experience, instinct and a grower’s intimate knowledge of his own vineyard? I’m all for high-tech plus human observation, but I don’t know about trusting a bunch of monitors completely. More efficient? Yes. Better results? Doubt it.

And it appears that the future is now when you talk about using metrics to model your wine after another wine that got a 99 from Parker. Will that become routine in the future? And will all the wines kinda taste the same?

I’m just having a little trouble, here, imagining Chateau Margaux making wine out of some crazy hybrid and flavoring it with oak chips (or who knows what???).

Well, it could be that my reaction is the typically human fear of change. Maybe, but I think I’ll probably be 6 feet under by the time any of these predictions come to pass. I think I’m more protective of the basic thing that appeals to so many of us about wine. It’s a product of the earth and the human senses. If the sensuality of the process is removed will the charm of the beverage be lost too?

At a time when life is getting more and more impersonal, it seems to me that people are getting increasingly hungry for authenticity and the personal touch - that sense of warmth that can only come through human interaction as opposed to digital, hit-and-run communication. IM-ing your sweetheart a dozen times a day is fine, but it can’t begin to replace the feeling of contentment and pleasure you feel when you curl up on the couch together and share a little wine and conversation.

So, at the risk of coming off like a Luddite once again, I pose the question: If you digitize and analyze and take the humanity out of it will we still crave what remains? Will it still inspire poets to wax eloquent about it? Will George Jetson be reduced to drinking something that’s merely grape juice with a kick?

Tom Wark wrote an interesting post on the high alcohol trend. At the end of the post he wondered if the growing concern expressed within the industry will spread to the consumer. I think so. I certainly hope so. It seems like the topics that consume wine industry insiders eventually make their way to the consumer.

There was a fascinating article in Wine Business Monthly by George Vierra a year or two ago, that has stayed with me. He was voicing his concern about the high alcohol trend in relation to enjoying wine with food. If, for some reason, you have any doubt that things have changed all that much, take a look at these amazing statistics:  “Everybody knows the style of wines being produced in California has changed drastically in the past 30 years. In the Napa Valley, in 1971, the grapes were picked at an average of 20.5 Brix. In 2001, the grapes were picked at a Napa Valley average of 24.2 Brix. Average alcohols rose from 12.5 percent to 14.8 percent in 30 years. In the wines, the acid fell and the pH climbed. But, the Robert Parker/Wine Spectator ratings climbed.”  I don’t much care for the way he proposes to categorize wines. I think most of us can determine how the wine should be used on our own, but he makes some good observations.

I remember talking with an excellent winemaker I admire very much about this article and the whole “hang-time” thing a year or so ago. She kind of tsk’d and said that George, a winemaking veteran, isn’t in step with industry evolution and indicated that if we pick grapes at more moderate sugars we’re going to have green, harsh characteristics. We need to wait for “physiological ripeness” and hang the sugar. So, a decade ago, we were all drinking green California wine? That’s not my recollection.

There are a couple of things at work now that weren’t in the picture a few decades ago.  One is that we did so much replanting in the’80s and 90s, due to phylloxera, that we have younger, healthier vines that are more efficient at converting light to sugar and that all the vertical shoot positioning just encourages them.

And Bob Pepi reminded me that yeast strains have been “cleaned up” over the last few decades and are also more efficient in terms of alcohol conversion. A few decades ago about 51 or 52% of the sugar would convert to alcohol. Now, it’s more like 59-61%. I wish our conversation hadn’t been cut short before I got to ask him why we don’t select yeasts with a lower conversion rate. Are they otherwise inferior?

I enjoy a blockbuster red as much as the next person, but it’s just too bad that it’s gotten to the point that I can’t order a bottle of Zinfandel without checking the alcohol before the server opens it. I love Zin, but not with my baby-back ribs if it’s 17%! And it really bugs me to see cold-climate wines with hefty alcohols, presumably to score big with powerful wine writers.

A chef-friend told me that he sees the beginnings of a push-back coming from restaurateurs. Accomplished chefs are fed up with monster wines that out-shout their efforts when they reach the plate. That’s a good start.

Adding momentum: grower push-back. As this trend has unfolded they’ve watched their revenues shrink just as their grapes do on the vine while the winemaker “waits for the flavors”.  Understandably, their patience is shriveling up along with their profits. Based upon recent discussion there’s a very strong possibility that winemakers and vintners may have to pony-up for these super-ripe grapes, at least in Napa Valley.

And just a day or two ago there was an article in the San Francisco Chronicle about a trend toward big, beefy Pinot Noirs with high alcohols. The sommeliers quoted seem to think that these big Pinots are pleasing to inexperienced consumers, but don’t taste very much like Pinot and aren’t nearly as versatile with food as the classic style with its characteristic elegance and subtlety. There were also comments about the sense of place diminishing as the alcohol and body of the wine increase.

I like to think we’re going through a phase, and I agree with Tom that it has a lot to do with wine ratings. And I’m inclined to think that this reliance on the scores is a symptom of our inexperience (relatively speaking) as new world producers and consumers (now don’t jump all over me -I know that old-world producers care about the ratings too!)

As wonderful as the wines are, the local industry is still finding its way, and I’ve seen the pendulum take wide swings regarding our attitudes and theories about how to grow and produce “world-class” wine in my 2-plus decades in the biz. Remember the “food wines” of the 80s? Those lean, elegant, “food-friendly” wines? Well, those wines weren’t any fun and went the way of the do-do bird pretty quickly.

In my humble opinion, the pendulum has swung too far and now, 2 decades later, we’re in this fruit-bombs phase. At some point, as we mature, surely we’ll strike a balance. They’ve had centuries to figure out this stuff in the old country, but even they’re still learning. That’s the thing about wine. You can never learn enough. But learn we will, and that’s great news because the wines can only get better and better as a result.