"Inglenooking" revisited...

I have been doing far too much traveling for brand promotion and sales these past few months. Sales are finally starting to creep upwards again though, so hopefully the recession is on the way out.

Anyway, I was looking through a list of "Top Wines form Argentina" while on a flight back to California, and was somewhat amused to see Inglenook as the #3 brand (Chablis, same wine is in the #13 spot as well).

Inglenook? Really??

I had lost track of that brand a few years back when it was still low-end California bulk wine. Anyway it still shows up in the #10 spot (for Burgundy), #15 (Chianti Classico), and finally in the #20 spot (Rhine). Not bad to have your brand in 4 of the top 25 positions....but even so, it is still extremely sad when you remember the rich heritage of the Inglenook name.

Inglenooking is a term used within the industry referring to a high-end brand which is then shifted down-market to capitalize on the previous successes. In the case of Inglenook, it was once the highest end Cab from Napa Valley, with the 1941 Inglenook Napa Cab having a perfect 100 score retrospectively bestowed upon it by the Wine Spectator. Bottles of that vintage can still fetch almost $25,000 each. (Yeah, that's right...$25k for each bottle!)

Now THAT's a brand....top of the Napa wine heap....or at least it was for a while....

It was relegated to California plonk as the brand was expanded and moved in larger format bottlings onto the lower shelves of the supermarket displays. Now it seems to have been further globalized by its corporate handlers...

Nobody "makes" Wine Anymore

Have you noticed how nobody "makes" anything anymore?

Take a look at the picture of Heinz Ketchup, and pay particular attention to the "Grown Not Made*" slogan  below the tomato:

Compare these two statements:

      "Wine is made in the vineyard"

      "Ketchup is grown, not made"

Say, where in either of those statements is there room for the person who takes the ripe fruit and processes it into the end product that graces your tables? I can see an argument for the farmer being present in either case, but not anyone else, and this is not right.

Originally I had contemplated posting on the "Death of the Rock Star Winemakers", a breed which has declined over the past 5~7 years. Sure, there are still many big names out there, but the frequency you used to hear about all but the top hoity-toity "rock stars" has all but died off. And while I feel this is still a valid topic I might get around to in the future, one of the reasons winemakers roles are being downplayed actually eclipses the topic completely. But I do see the point, after all who needs a winemaker if the fruit has done all the work already?

I was going to start by mentioning how the last few years have had more involvement from owners, with winemakers public exposure as "rock stars" diminishing. The main reasons were the need of the owners to make sure that if/when a winemaker left their brand, that the "loyal" following that had migrated there with them didn't then leave. But I think the real reason is that winemakers as a whole are being displaced by the rush back to authenticity and naturalness - by the need to be greener than the next guy - even to the point that we remove ourselves from the equation entirely...and I mean ALL of ourselves, not just winemakers!

And that is why something as common and kitsch as ketchup is now modeling itself as having been dropped into the bottle by Mother Nature herself, without any interference from mankind at all!

The "authenticity" debate maximizes value of non-intervention while minimizing role of the winemaker and cellar staff. This also allows the owners of the brand to maintain the focus of the trade upon what THEIR vision is, and not that of the winemaker (who was making sure the fruit was harvested properly, fermented correctly, then blended, filtered and bottled correctly). We see the people who do all the heavy lifting get the shaft in the PR/Media, while the brand continues forward as an unblemished rose or virgin snowbank, neither of which had been contaminated by the Human hand.

But WE ARE part of Nature...and we DO need to make decisions about how fruit is handled, and what the final taste should be...so why can't we acknowledge that? 

I'll acknowledge here that we are the only species which has developed the earth (for both good and ill) to the extent it's been changed...

But why is it that Mankind isn't allowed to "make" wines anymore? Why is it preferable that "we" haven't made anything? Why does "manipulate", which foremost means "to handle, manage, or use, especially with skill in some process of treatment or performance", get used in nothing more than its negative connotations when referring to foodstuffs - and wines in particular? Certainly there are reasons people have gone this route, and there have been numerous times in the past that fraud has occurred - and no doubt it will happen again in the future, and not just with the highest priced bottles...but I fear we've gone a bit overboard in our reaction. Listen carefully to all the winery representatives talk up their wines at the next big tasting you go to. Likely that the majority of what you hear will be about how fantastic the vineyards are and how "the wine is made in the vineyard"...

I know many people who read this blog will have gotten tired of hearing this explanation, but much of this is rooted in the 17th century Romanticism and the back-to-nature movement it spawned. However, it now goes to lengths that dismiss many natural treatments which were in play back then as well as now: isinglass, egg whites, milk protein (casein) are all now somewhat vilified in the popular wine press as "manipulation" (only negative connotation). 

Filtration, too, is a victim of the authenticity drive, and is spun by many producers as a evil process which robs the wine of fruitiness, structure, or both. Frankly I don't let anything I work on go out the door without filtration - it's your last chance to secure the wine from subsequent spoilage of microbes present in the wine. And that means better consistency for the consumer, which is never a bad thing. Does filtration diminish your wines somehow? Not in my experience. But I do take good care to educate all the staff on how to do it properly, as its when its done wrong that you can screw up your wine. If everyone is vigilant and well versed on how to get it done, then there shouldn't be any problem - though I'll acknowledge that there's quite a spectrum of opinion on this subject, and you'll no doubt hear from well educated people on the other side of that argument as well.

They'll have different experiences, and I can respect that and their different opinions here.

But I still don't think you can separate Man from Wine. 

Wine just doesn't exist without willfull interference from mankind, any less than ketchup could exist without mankind. Raise a glass in honor of your favorite cellar, and remember ALL the people it takes to bring that product to your table - from the vineyard through to the grocery store.

In Tweetum Lucrum?

I had the misfortune recently of having to sit through a few presentations on how wineries can use social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. to further their own marketing ends. Maybe it was the sheer lack of data in the presentations, but frankly I don’t buy it and my read from the other attendees suggested that they felt the same way. I just don’t think that wineries will be able to effectively use these sites to sell their wines, at least not in enough quantity to justify the investment of time and money. 

And certainly not enough to justify spending $10k/Mo for 6 months as some people are looking to do!

Let me give you my reasons:

1. Wine consumers crave an authentic experience. Without a doubt, the continued proliferation of wine brands and the inertia of the industry to consolidate as beer and bourbon have done is the ability of a winemaker or winery owner to give a consumer a genuinely personal experience. The only way for this to happen in web 2.0 is for winemakers and winery owners (not heads of the marketing department!) to commit several hours each day to blogging, facebooking, tweeting, etc. I know lots of winemakers and lots of winery owners and exactly zero of them have the time to commit to this. Even during a strong economy, these people are working non-stop and have no time for that “instant-response” needed in social media. I see many wineries start down this road with the best of intentions, but then they can’t follow through with something so minor as a simple blog update, due to time constraints. My own Twitter personality suffers form exactly this...maybe when I'm on the road I can tweet occasionally, but otherwise I just don't have the time to post in a stream-of-conciousness fashion.

2. As a corollary to the above, concepts like Murphy-Goode’s (a brand owned by Kendall-Jackson) are doomed to fail because they lack authenticity as well. Wine consumers want to hear from the winemaker or the owner, they don’t want some hired gun whose full-time job is to tweet and give status updates to be selling them on a brand made by somebody else. They want Mr. Murphy or Mr. Goode (neither of whom is involved in the brand anymore) to give them updates and tell them about their “honest” “artisanal” and “hand-crafted” wines. In the Jackson’s favor, they do have David Ready Jr. as the winemaker (the original partners being Murphy, Ready & Goode), but even so the tweets they get more than likely will be from the person they hire and not him. This also invites the consumer to look for Murphy-Goode's winery in the hopes of finding the authenticity they desire, only to sadly have them realize that the M-G team sold the brick & mortar facility they had to a Sonoma custom crush company and the wines are now made at various K-J wineries instead.

[2a.  In the application legalese fine-print for the job referenced above, there is a nice clause about how the "Winery" doesn't need to hire ANYONE if they don't feel they have the right candidate in their applicant pool. Now this is boiler-plate standard release clause for the "Winery" to back out of the deal should they feel it isn't going in the right direction...but should they actually NOT HIRE anybody for the position then they risk losing any sort of authenticity and credibility they might have otherwise. I mean, they've already reaped the rewards of this whole stunt, right? I have seen many, many Tweets, articles, emails and blog postings about what appears to the outside world as a Dream Job in the wine industry (and its been described as such in many articles)...if they then DON'T hire, they look like they've been shilling the brand the entire time because of all the media buzz they've collected to date. Plus, they're owned by K-J which just laid off 15~20% of their workforce a few months ago, and let's face it, there's already enough bad feelings in the industry regarding the business moves that Jess Jackson and his team have made in the past 25 years. Add to that impression a guy who sacks his labor, continues to buy expensive horses, and then pays $60k to someone to sing like a canary (Tweet!) about his wines. Albeit that they were apparently solid business decisions which have put them ahead of the pack in many ways (some might say ruthlessly), but a failure to cement this carrot-and-stick-type-PR-event would do nothing but reinforce the already jaded consumer that K-J was more interested in the mighty $$ than in the reality that people now expect them to make good on the reward they offered for keeping this brand in the public consciousness for the past few months. And why do I use "Winery" in quotes when I mention this topic?...because the "Winery" is K-J, not the M-G that many people might associate with the brand on the face of the offer. The stakes are high for a failure to complete the deal...]

3. How to close the sale? I can see social networks generating fans and followers, but how do you get a fan to stay brand loyal when your wine is $14.99 at Safeway and Gallo’s new brand is running a deal for $11.99? Wine consumers, due to the 9,000 wine brands in this country, are notoriously fickle and have been increasingly “trading down” lately to lower-priced wines. I don’t see how you convert followers into sales, and most importantly, how do you measure the conversion from one to the other?

4. You say the answer to #3 is not to sell through Safeway but to use the internet? The internet in general has not been a boon to wine sales. Yes, there are successes out there (Wine Library), but there have been some big failures too (the first several iterations of Wine.com). Further, ask a winery owner or winemaker if they’re able to rely on web-based marketing, eschewing travelling the major wine markets like they were 5 or 10 years ago. Those that I run into say they’re having to do it more than ever due to the challenges of the economy as well as lack of distributor commitment to any non-corporate brands. I know I'm travelling much more than I have in the past for just this reason. Few wineries sell more than a single-digit percentage of their monthly sales through their website and most all will tell you that club sign ups come from their tasting room, not from the web and this after most wineries have had websites for 10 years or longer. If not by now, by when?

5. Being marketed to is a turn-off on the internet. Web users are increasingly bombarded with ads and messages, most of which are ignored. Overt marketers are shunned. The social network proponents concede this up front and will tell you that you have to engage on a different level. Tell your story less directly, interact with wine pages and sites other than your own, be personal not preachy, etc. Frankly, I think that just dilutes your marketing story and makes you a friend – the type of friend whose parents own a winery and whose parents expect to get free tastings and other comps when they show up. Me, I rarely buy wines from friends in the business because I expect them to bring some when they come to my house….If I’m going to buy your wine, I’ll buy it because I like the quality and/or price, not because you ‘friended’ me. 

6. In support of #5 above, I feel the need to mention the sheer lack of any sort of "style" or "etiquette" by wineries when dealing with the web currently - blogs in particular. I'll hold up a comment on my post the other day by "Trecini", which appears to be nothing but a veil blogger ID from a company shill of the same name...

I was "honored" with a comment on my post the other day by said blogger, and the entire 188 words were nothing more than a PR note re their wines. What a turn off! Talk about how NOT to do it...it was clumsy, just outright clumsy!

And if we want to make it appear that we've "just been to a blind tasting party and discovered the wines" from said winery, maybe you should choose a blogger ID name which isn't so obviously transparent. (BTW, tracking down this ID brings you to a "blog" which was created within the past week and touts 2 [yes, TWO!] posts; the first is a word-for-word repost of the 188 words left in my comments section, the second is an ad for a wine brokerage.)

In case you're looking for the comment proper, don't bother yourself as I've already deleted it (I have a copy in my email of the original).

Now I’m not suggesting that wineries give up and ignore web 2.0 altogether, but I think it should be approached with a healthy skepticism until someone actually demonstrates that they can convert followers into consumers. Today’s wine environment is more challenging than I can remember and one’s focus needs to be on getting the best sales results for one’s time spent.

Maybe following the sales performance of Murphy-Goode would be the bellwether here. I’ll check back in six months and let you know how they’re doing.

News from the trenches

After a few weeks of traveling to visit several key account markets (Sonoma County, San Diego, Phoenix), I have compiled some notes regarding what actual servers in restaurants have been experiencing. Note that none of this is scientific data or taken from scanner data reported by retail stores, rather from first-hand reports of day-to-day observations by servers.

Overall, the concerns of the public aren’t the same as those of us in the industry. The topics which seemed most important didn’t cover cult winemakers, hang time, acid and yeast additions, biodynamics or organic wine methods, etc. Because of this I find it refreshing to hear it directly from the people who are serving the public from time to time. Some of this is due to the economy, some is seasonal, and hopefully a bit of it is the wine drinking public becoming more informed about wine.

The restaurants I was talking with are mainly in the middle of the price range spectrum, though maybe 25% were more on the high-end side than true mid range. All were stand-alone restaurants; I wasn’t talking with any chains. Here’s what I heard - please remember that these are generalizations from ~24 establishments:

• Zinfandel sales seem to be holding where they always have been, but are flat otherwise (this always seems to be the case, but was interesting when you consider that many people are experimenting with reds other than Merlot and Cab Sauv and Pinot…)
• Sauvignon Blanc sales are gaining on Chardonnay sales (some of this is seasonal), a lot of people reporting the public is tiring of 100% malo-lactic white wines
• Patrons don’t appear concerned with high reputation wines as much as they want to get some “tasty juice on the table” at a decent price, and to this end “cult winemakers” and “image/ego buys” are not the deciding factors when patrons are ordering , though some “conspicuous consumption” is still taking place (before you flood the comments section with hate-mail, let me say “yes, this is a generalization”, and I imagine the impression would have been different had I talked with more higher-end establishments)
• The public is starting to catch on that high prices don’t automatically confer a high coefficient of enjoyment, and are increasingly drawn to wines which actually taste good and haven’t been priced out of the stratosphere
• French wines are down overall right now, while the Italians and Spanish are replacing them (price for quality drinking is in play)
• French Champagne sales are down while Prosecco is on the rise (sadly, California Sparkling isn’t filling the void instead…not that I find anything “wrong” with Prosecco…)
• Syrah seems to be the new experiment for patrons who have had enough Cab and Merlot…as one wine buyer said “people are looking for more ‘bang’, but with approachable wines…not over complicated and with tannins which are easier on the palate”…another made it a bit over-simplified and said “people want something purple, that tastes “purple”, without having to think about it to enjoy it”…(we've seen this before; I don't recall how many times I've heard about how Syrah was going to be the next "hot" varietal, only to have it slip back to "ordinary" status...)

The most shocking news that I have to report is that incidences of corked wines seem to be up across the board – regardless of the price range of the bottle or country of origin. In fact, this is the one thing I heard repeatedly while I was out and about. Some reported it’s now double or triple what it was just a few years ago. The majority of the accounts I talked to seemed to think the wineries were switching to lower grades of corks to save money, and this may or may not be true but I imagine the respective wineries would point the finger back at the cork suppliers. That it seems to be across the board leads me to two thoughts: that more people are cognizant of what cork taint is and are willing to send those wines back, and that there might be an actual increase in the number of bottles with defective corks as well.


In the end you and I can talk 'til we run out of breath about vineyard blocks and additions to must or wine, or about how Mark Squires may have traveled to and from various tasting events, but the public seems more concerned with getting the best tasting wine for the buck.

an EARTH DAY present from Randall Graham

From Eric Asimov's The Pour (New York Times):

...[f]or Mr. Grahm, that means owning a vineyard, embracing biodynamic viticulture and farming without irrigation, as the best Old World vineyards are farmed. “Dry farming is absolutely crucial,” he said. “It’s more important than anything — biodynamics, schmiodynamics.”

And...

“I actively resorted to all manner of marketing tricks,” [Randall Graham] said, as if standing before the congregation to confess.

 "Biodynamics, schmiodynamics....”!

"...marketing tricks..." !!

For anyone who's been asleep at the wheel these past 10 years, the truth is now out in the open! Now Randall implies that perhaps the entire thing (biodynamics) was a mistake, and he should've been paying attention to the amount of rainfall his vineyards get and how deep the local aquifers are instead of stuffing cow horns with "poo".

Well I saw that for what it was!

Simultaneously sad and funny to see, but here's the story: a man who set himself up as the advocate of this preposterous method of agriculture for marketing purposes is now backing away from his previous positions to focus on his NEW MARKETING position: Dry Farming!

Unfortunately, Randall hasn't given up all his old ways...

He seems to be relying on a geomancer to evaluate his newest vineyard acquisition's water potential, rather than hiring a certified hydrologist or geologist.

C'mon, Randall!  Make a clean break and purge your soul...

...you're so close to redemption!

A voice of Reason in these dark times...

 

Huzzah! for Stuart Smith of Smith-Madrone Winery!

I just got through reading his letter to the editors of the Santa Rosa Press-Democrat, somewhat taking them to task for the nonsensical video of Mike Benziger on the PD site touting his Biodynamic philosophy. I've clipped the letter he wrote here, as well as provide the link for the PD letters for Fri April 17th...

The best lines have to be...

"...People today make all sorts of assertions with little or no connection to the truth, and biodynamics is no different. Show me the scientific experiments that prove biodynamic soils and vines are healthier and biodynamic wines are better.
... in my opinion, biodynamics is a hoax and deserves the same level of respect we give to witchcraft. On Earth Day or another day, animal sacrifices (a biodynamic farming practice) should not be an acceptable practice of modern day agriculture or our society."

Damn!

That's poetry. And my heart is warmed that people out there are starting to take notice of this mis-represented farming practice which wants everyone to think it naught but "peasant agriculture".......

A BIG thanks to Mr.Smith for his letter of reason!

Californian sweet wine: a continued debate

I had a conversation this past weekend with a few guests about the popularity of sweet white wines, and heard comments about how California is responsible for the sad world-wide trend towards producing "sweet" (off-dry) white wines. Californian chardonnay in particular was vilified...

I should lay a little background for this topic before I go into it.

Most people in the industry consider a wine "dry" (meaning it has completed the conversion of sugars into alcohol) when the level of sugar falls below 2~3 grams per liter. There's a little bit left over in the wine, but at this level it usually doesn't represent an amount which spoilage organisms can really exploit, and the yeasts present which did the work are tired and have pretty much stressed themselves out with the alcohol they've produced and are dying off. Also, the maximal amount of alcohol has arguably been produced, and alcohol has a preservative effect. At this point most human palates can't pick up notes of sweetness in the wine, and the aroma, acid and alcohol components of the wine drive the overall tasting experience. Alcohol itself can add a little sweetness to the profile of a wine, but it also contributes a pungency or "heat" to the experience as the concentration increases (think about the last time you had a shot of vodka...there's a LOT of heat, but also a slight sweetness to the finish). If a wine is a little too acidic, or the body is a bit flat or hollow, a small amount of sugar can be blended in to help fill out these perceived shortcomings, without making the wine "sweet" to the taster. This happens because our palates have been selected to prefer sweetness (think of sugar as a natural indicator that fruits are ripe) over almost every other perception. And even though the levels are below the level where our brains say "this is sweet" (threshold level of identification), we still pick up a signal saying "this is good, but I'm not exactly sure why" (the 'je ne sais quoi' effect at the level of perception, but below that of identification). This is akin to seeing a light moving on the horizon, but we're unable make out exactly what it is: we have met the level of perception, but not that of identification. As time goes by, we look again and see the light has come closer and the object with the light is a ship (level of identification).

Anyway, here's a quick sampling of my conversation at that point:

"Isn't that manipulation?"  Sure it is.

"Isn't that a bad thing?"  That depends now, doesn't it...on the level it's taken to and the final wine desired.

"Then the wine doesn't represent what Nature intended, does it?" (?) Say what...? Remember, Nature WANTS to make vinegar, not wine...WINE is never what Nature intended grapes to become, not that Nature ever 'wants' or 'intends' anything.

"Well, then, you're an interventionist!"  Yes, and back to my point - all WINE is a creation of/by intentional intervention in the natural process when the juice gets to a point where we have alcohol and aromas we like, with a balanced level of acidity.

"But organic wine that doesn't have sulfites..."  Doesn't matter. The process is still stopped by human activity at the wine stage before it becomes vinegar.

"But we're talking about sugar in the wine - how do you get a wine to stop with sugar still in it?"  The real question many times is how do I get my wine to finish fermenting(!) not how do I stop it...many wines stop by themselves before the sugar is finished. Weak yeast strains, "natural yeasts", fruit with minor nutrient deficiencies, excessive temperature spikes (high or low) during fermentation can all be factors...wines can be centrifuged to remove yeasts, and sulfur can be added to shock them into submission.

"How is sugar added to a dry wine? Are we talking about beet sugar again?"  No, this is not like chaptalization, where in the EU beet sugar (being phased out in favor of concentrated grape must) can be added before fermentation to change the final alcohol level of the wine. What we are talking about is more like taking a few of the lots you made which haven't finished their sugar and blending them back into the dry wines to balance body, acidity, etc. If you're one of the lucky ones whom had every fermentation finish to dryness, then you can add concentrated grape must to adjust the final sugar level.

Some producers even select lots of grapes prior to harvest which they then chill and/or centrifuge the natural yeasts and solids out of before they hold it in tanks through the harvest. It may or may not get a hefty wallop of sulfur at this point to help ensure that fermentation doesn't start by itself. After everything else has finished its fermentation, this "stopped" juice can be added back in small quantities to adjust the profile of the wine. The Germans have a name for the wines created by this process: süss-reserve [actually süß-reserve], which literally means sweet reserve. Yes...juices intentionally held (reserved) without fermenting so the sugar can be blended back later. And they have added them for years to make sure the balance of the wine is where they want it.

So is that manipulation? Yes.

Does it produce fantastic wines? Yup, youbetchya!

Is it some new-fangled crap-tastic method to cheat Nature out of what it intended? NO...and while we're at it, let's stop being so g**damned anthropomorphic by ascribing "intentions" to Nature...

Nature doesn't give a damn about what our desires are, and has none of its' own.

PS to Uncle Lou: No, I reject that most California Chards are too floral and sweet to drink, and are best used as weed-killers and ant baits...though I grant you have a different palate than mine...

A good show (dinner not included)...

I found this on the web while looking up a few points for this post:

"You do not 'believe' in science. Science is not a BELIEF SYSTEM. Science is a method of inquiry. If you do not know what deduction and induction are you need to LOOK THEM UP. Don't try to burn Galileo, you villianous Heathen!"
         - Angry Pontiff

All the same, put this on your calendar:
Friday April 24th, 7 PM @ the Jackson Theater, 4400 Day School Place, Santa Rosa...keep critical thinking points like that above in mind while attending...

Why?

Because this location is hosting an evening of Biodynamic Q&A put to a trio of proponents [link]: Alan York (BD consultant), Paul Dolan (winegrower), and Jeremy Fox (chef @ Ubuntu...uhhhm, so how's he fit into this exactly?). Tickets are $20 in advance/ $25 at the door, and the proceeds go to the Sonoma Co. Wine Library, which is housed at the public library in Healdsburg. This is the type of theater which is most amusing, and my suggestion to you all is to read up on a bit of the BioD nonsense and then ask the hard questions of those assembled on stage, to wit: "exactly what forces are those that we are 'concentrating' by using these BioD preparations?"...

After all, these are the 'experts' - hell, York charges MONEY for those types of answers everyday! - and if they don't have clear answers to these questions, or if they conflict with each other, then we can draw one of three conclusions~

1. they don't have a clue...
2. they know, but don't want us to know...
3. there is no answer because there really aren't any forces being concentrated, and to say such would expose the farce that biodynamics is.

 Personally, after about a decade of trying to fathom what-the-Hell BioD actually is doing in the vineyard by talking with growers & proponents, I believe the answer is a combination of 1 & 3. You can witness this firsthand by viewing the video below of Steve Beckmen of Santa Barbara "explaining" what they do at his vineyard...and "why"... 

This last part is the most telling, due to his rambling answers and lack of anything concrete. How someone can produce a video where the "expert" being talked to can stumble when trying to relate what "forces" are being "excluded" or "enhanced" is beyond me. Why anyone would then post that video w/o cleaning it up first to make sure it made sense is even further beyond me (c'mon! you've got all the time on your hands to make it as authoritative as possible, and ensure it flows smoothly...why not do a couple of takes and get it right?).

A few high points of the video are: 

• Steve telling us about how his magic plywood box (lined with peat) keeps out unwanted "energies" from his BioD concoctions (sadly, those "energies" remain unnamed)...
• relating the "art" of dynamization, and his confession that although hand stirring is best, he uses a machine to do the job so he doesn't have to hire 8 people to get the same job done...
• that they CAN'T get the job done by following the biodynamic calendar, because you only have 2 days out of every 8 where the system allows for the work you need to do to actually get done - so they wrap the work onto other "similar" types of days ...
  
• ...and many more!

And look here, you can actually see the potent cosmic-type energies escaping the box when it's opened!

http://www.sbwinemakers.com/Beckmen-interview.php

Well, we're back to the beginning again, just like the snake eating its own tail, no closer to the real answers about what this system is really trying to do, or better yet "how it gets those things done". And why when people ignore the doctrines of that system it continues to deliver the wanted results. As I've said before - if you can delete or ignore certain parts of the system, did they really contribute to the overall results in the first place? 

Did any of it ever contribute to the results??

Hmm. Reminds me of a post from back in March '06 where a writer had published all sorts of nonsense re BioD and their silly calendars (don't forget to plant your potatoes this coming Monday after Easter...unless you're Greek Orthodox, when the best day will be the Monday following THEIR Easter Sunday...).

I have an experiment I tried a few years ago, but it might be time to try it again...providing it doesn't implode and cause a black hole to form! [See the link for details!]

No cold stabilization on red wines

I was reading an article this morning by Dan Berger and I thought it was a little vague on the point of cold stabilizing red wines. (The article is carried by the Press Demo from Creators Syndicate, so I don't have a link to post...)
What Dan reports is that on a recent trip to the Paso Robles area to taste wines from Justin Winery, the winemaker there (Fred Holloway) stated "I don't cold stabilize my reds". Bully for him. 

Cold stabilization is the process of super-chilling a wine down so that it is unable to hold any extra acid, and then adding a very small amount of potassium bitartrate (cream of tartar) to force the excess acid to drop out of the wine and deposit on the bottom of the tank. This is usually done for white wines, which a consumer can look into the bottle and see the crystals inside if they exist. Frequently, the crystals form after a customer puts the bottle just purchased into the freezer to quick chill for use that same day/night. It's common to then get busy with other things and forget the wine, allowing it to sit there for hours in the freezing cold. At this time, excess acid can naturally form crystals and drop to the bottom of the bottle. Many people, uninformed of the true nature of these harmless particles assume from their appearance that they are really particles of glass, and either don't purchase the wine in the first place, or worse yet, if it "pitches" or "throws" tartrates after spending some time in their freezer or fridge - pour it down the sink or return it to the store they brought it from. That consumer then usually avoids the brand of wine in the future...
In the end, wineries use the technique because it is easier to do this than to mount a huge consumer education program to let people know that these crystals are natural and harmless.
Frankly, as I recall I've never met anyone in the California wine biz who DID cold stabilize their reds. White wines are commonly put through the process for the reasons stated above, but reds are fairly opaque, the green tint of the bottles helps combine with the red color of the wine itself making it harder to see into the bottles, and let's face it - not too many people are throwing their red wines into the freezer. So the issue rarely comes up, and when it does the consumer can usually tell the crystals in red wine aren't glass due to the reddish color of the crystals (some of the wine is trapped within the crystals as they form), which white wine crystals don't have (these are usually slightly off-white).


On another note.....

This is also one of the main acids in wine which is responsible for the crystals left over when the wine is poured into a petri dish and evaporated (the other main players are malic, lactic and citric acids). This experimental process, usually used for what is euphemistically called "sensitive crystallization", which purportedly tells one everything they need to know about how the wine is balanced, integrated and "wholesomeness".

Frederic Koeppel [is this really necessary?]  blogs about one of Bonny Doon's labels (similar to the one on the right) that...

"...[t]he strange objects on these labels, which look like condoms wearing little fur coats, depict the “sensitive crysallization”[sic] of the individual wines. The press materials don’t reveal how these “sensitive crystallizations” occur, but when Grahm writes, of the Muscat 2007, “well-defined vacuoles reflect the powerful aromatic potential” and “finely textured crystals reach out to the end of the periphery reflecting the vine’s connection to the soil,” I cannot help thinking that “sensitive crystallization” is a synonym for “smoke and mirrors.”

Ha! Condoms wearing little fur coats! 

Sounds like something stolen from the Playboy mansion....and is about as informative to why the wine will taste like it does as the back-label drivel that Randall Graham throws onto it!

It's also simmilar to the comment on one of my posts deriding sensitive crystallization where someone suggected the photo towards the top of this post looked like a "pecan pie"....
Do they really expect anyone but an April Fool to believe this sort of thing?

Take your bagette and shove it!

Why?
Why do this to yourselves when your market is already hurting? The French (and the EU) are poised to try again to restrict use of even more place names, processes and other sheer nonsense in the name of Intellectual and Geographic Property. (The EU proposal describes these as "PGI" [Protected Geographic Indication] and "PDO" [Protected Designation of Origin]...see this link for more though the details aren't on that site...see here instead for detail.)

This is but a sampling of the original April 2008 text, and is in itself a good sentiment preparing to go horribly wrong:

"(38) Certain terms are traditionally used in the Community and convey information to consumers about particularities and quality of wines complementing the information conveyed by designations of origin and geographical indications. So as to ensure the working of the internal market and fair competition and to avoid consumers being misled, those traditional terms should be eligible for protection in the Community."

I see it as foolishness on a grand scale. And I blogged about it back in 2005 when it was first being put to the vote, and later over the years (see here [French Angry], and here [EU subsidies reform]).

If the Italians want to limit the use of "Prosecco", fine. If the French want to restrict the use of "Burgundy" or "Bordeaux", again, I'm fine with that too. But now we cross the line of logic and find ourselves faced with a country(-ies, in the case of the multi-headed Hydra that the EU has now become...) which would have us stop using ALMOST ANY of the words we've borrowed from their language - EVER!

Yes, I refer mainly to France, which if all goes well in their eyes, we heathen Nouveau Monde upstarts would be prohibited from using words like "clos", "vintage", "chateau", etc. But a question remains...where does this all end?
Will we be prohibited from naming restaurants "Chez"? (think "Chez Panisse" for example...)
Will brands of French bread such as "Parisien" be outlawed?
Will "French bread" itself be renamed "EU-style yeasted wheat foam" to avoid confusion with the continental product??

The real problem is that the French - once proud that their industry led the world in both product sales and ubiquitous verbiage to describe not only the wine itself, but the process by which it is made, as well as practices in the vineyard, are now wanting to rescind their lease of words we seem to have borrowed...
And please note: the word "vineyard" is yet another potential casualty in this war. "Martha's Vineyard" will soon become "Martha's Orchard For Grapes" (BTW "orchard" is safe to use due to its humble beginnings in Latin...).

And what other words may be in danger...?
Brace yourselves! How about Chardonnay, Cabernet, Sauvignon, Pinot, Noir, Gamay (not that anyone uses that anymore), Blanc, Sirah, Petitte, etc...
Yup, you guessed it, all first coined by the French and then adopted by the unwashed hordes and used throughout the world to describe wines. Why should they stop just with place names or winemaking styles? This is a very slippery slope they want to place us on.
And what of words like "bleu"? Words which we culturally associate with French, but originating from Germanic and Norse language words before the French picked it up.
Will France be required to drop those words in a nod to the cultures it stole them from? Really, where will this process finally peter out...there seem to be so many layers it depends on where people finally become fatigued and stop the bureaucratic nonsense.

In the meantime, how will we deal with this - do we all have to learn Latin and use that? Certainly there aren't any members of the Roman culture still around to protest the use of a language which has been considered "dead" by top scholars for many centuries....

We need to stand up for "generic" and "semi-generic" terms now, or face the future consequences of a few determined, but closed minded imperialist Frenchmen...
Perhaps soon the French will be the only ones allowed to speak French at all, and will see their world shrink as well as their wine sales...

The Noble Fluid: time & place

I spent a few well earned weeks on a trip to Italy in the past month. Mostly it was for pleasure, but I did manage to get some wine tours and meetings with vintners into my schedule.


Primarily I was in Rome for the wedding of a harvest intern who came over to work with us for two consecutive harvests. Vittorio was extremely talented, and when I got the invite to see him & Annalise get hitched in Rome I took the opportunity for yet another Italian road trip.

I mean, who could resist, right? Even if I did think they were crazy for having a wedding in February (they got lucky & the weather was gorgeous for the ceremony & reception) - I think the main reasons they didn't wait until early summer was that Anna's father is in poor health...and probably the fact that Vittorio didn't want to wait any longer...

As always, I found the Italians welcoming and willing to share every aspect of their culture. And I also met a wonderful older German couple which hit it off really well with my party...so much so, that we altered our plans a bit so we could spend the last part of our vacation with them.
And it was over wine and fantastic food that I heard some great stories about how they grew up (both were born ~1940, and lived in what was to become West Germany) in a post WWII Germany, how they had family on both sides of the Iron Curtain, and (unbeknown to me) how in the first few years after the war people could go back and forth over the border and trade relatively freely with each side.

The most interesting stories were about how they still had wines from the eastern side in those early days, but were sending more to the other side than ever came west...
Eventually, the "curtain" was lowered more forcefully, and people really couldn't cross the border anymore - if you were able to get permission, you certainly didn't return to the eastern side!

"You are born into a certain time and place...it becomes you, and you become it. There is nothing you could ever do to change that..."

On the topic of European history, I count myself as "informed", but certainly not an expert...and it was fascinating to have such eager teachers with first hand experience ready to answer each and every question of ours. They had been wine buffs since their early adulthood, and started our conversation about "the Noble fluid" (a phrase at which I first cringed) with the feeling of history which permeates everything the Europeans do. After all, they asked, how can you separate yourself from the context of your own life?
Every action in their home towns when they were growing up was juxtaposed upon a cityscape made up of new buildings right next to older sections of town where the buildings were more than a thousand years old...

"(The weight of history) is really wonderful, yet it can suffocate, too."

They said many times that they didn't really wish to change anything, but that when change was needed, it tended to take longer because of "everyone's sense of history", and that it was especially true of the wine industry.
And while they talked of their new found love for an occasional California Sauv Blanc, they also flatly rejected wines which were too ripe in their opinion as trash - but that mostly came down to the prices they pay for New World wines in Germany, as they said they wouldn't feel too bad getting a bottle every once-in-a-while they didn't like, if they hadn't just dropped so many euros to pick that disappointing bottle up.

Great people, and fantastic wines.
More later on this when I have some time to look back at what we drank & where (some of it is still blurry!).

Biodynamic wine guidelines

BD (biodynamic) wines are better for you and don’t have any "nasty additives", right?

What’s the difference between "BD wine" and "Wine made from BD grapes"?

Can someone "spike" his BD wine with common "organic" wine?

From the DEMETER website come these delightful documents to help us all understand what they're attempting!

First, since I’ve parodied this topic many times before, I feel it important to note that I really do want to know what all the fuss over BD wines is about. And to the point of this post, I’ve been rather frustrated by the lack of specifics when BD proponents and producers talk of these wines.

We now have something a bit more detailed to work with: DEMETER USA has a Wine Standards document posted on its website. That should provide us with a good foundation to decide what is and isn’t allowed in BD wine production. (I'll try to help by translating the more "interesting" phrases in the document... but to view it in its entirety please use the link provided above).

The Standard is of 16 parts, and not surprisingly, the first part is relegated to establishing the vision of the BD wine movement. It also contains the single largest caveat/disclaimer of the document:

Now isn’t that a kicker?

That warning is there to put the producer on notice that BD in NOT a panacea, and that even using it and its associated “spiritual science” you still won’t be able to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Also, that since you won’t be able to use some of the common “traditional” winemaking techniques to adjust your wines that other producers can employ and still call your wine your wine BD. They expect to have variation from one vintage to the next, so big producers who try to minimize those variations by blending on large scales may be out of luck

But you might end up reading it thus: IF you happen to have a fantastic vineyard which churns out fruit to make a wine which in your eyes is exactly what you want from the start without manipulation, then BD would be happy to ride along on the coattails of your successes!

One would assume from that statement that blending from one vintage to another is verboten (currently allowed under TTB reg’s @ 15% max), but that restriction sadly remains unstated…so its anybody’s guess on how that’s handled for any given wine.

§2 defines the various types/categories of BD wine, as well as placing some restrictions on how the DEMETER name/ BD branding may be used and products labeled.

DEMETER recognizes two distinct categories:
“Biodynamic wine” (explicit)
“Wine made from Biodynamic grapes” (explicit) …

[The document then goes through much of the remaining restrictions applying them to both classes, so the points between them are few, but significant ones at that.]

This same section lays out what it means to be “Biodynamic Wine”, and states curiously, …

(§2.a) “...Common manipulations such as yeast addition, enzyme addition, acidity adjustment, tannin addition, oaking and chappalization (sic) are not permitted.” (See “Oaking”, below…)

However, that doesn’t apply to “Wine made from Biodynamic grapes”, where you can add yeasts and ML bacteria, and can even adjust acid and or sugar as needed, so long as…

(§6.b) “Justification for acid and sugar adjustment must be documented.”

What was that?
Would “it tastes better with the extra acid” be sufficient justification?
What qualifies that addition to be made? Do we need prior authorization, or just to scribble a note to ourselves “wine needs acid” before we do it?
How long does it take for DEMETER or one of its reps to get back to you, in the event you need to make a time-sensitive adjustment?

The door is left wide open on that point…

And there’s no real difference between the acids you can add as a BD producer and the acids you’d be allowed to add if you were a conventional producer: citric, ascorbic and tartaric are all currently allowed under TTB reg’s - depending on what type of wine you are making. The restriction for the BD producer is that those acids must be either organic or BD in their origin (conventional producers can use synthetic...not that there's anything wrong with that...).

And yeast nutrients CAN be added to any/all BD wines, provided it doesn’t contain DAP (see below) and is otherwise approved of by DEMETER.

What is explicitly forbidden is the use of any material which has a GMO (genetically modified organism) origin, either directly or through the process of its manufacture. Also expressly prohibited are;

Diammonium phosphate (DAP) – a yeast energizer (Steiner feared man-made ammonia!)

Isinglas (swim bladders from Sturgeon, which they have errantly called “Sturgeon gall bladders (isenglas)” in the document),

PVPP (polyvinylpolypyrrolidone) – a clarifier which is added then filtered out of the wine (I think they did this because it is synthetic…but that wouldn’t explain why they later allow polypropylene and nylon filtration membranes to be used…curious, eh?)

Blood – classically used in the Rhone region of France to clarify wines (but not currently done to my knowledge)

Gelatin (because of the animal origin, though again that’s curious as they allow –nay require- you spray your vines with various concoctions made using bovine intestines (from BSE free countries), skulls ([only bone] from cows [less than 1 year old], pigs or horses), and stags' bladders (not originated from North America, for whatever reason...) [see link].

Neither class of wine is required to go to bottle unfiltered. In fact, there are no real restrictions on filtration, other than the glaring omission of cross-flow filtration. Unbleached pad filters can be used for any BD wine. So can DE (diatomaceous earth), gold filters (I don’t know anyone who’s using those – and it would be kind of a waste anyways…), and the aforementioned polypropylene and/or nylon cartridge filters (standard industry issue there…).

Wine labeled “Biodynamic wine” must be restricted to a single vineyard estate, but can be of various blocks within that vineyard –provided they are BD farmed vineyards (see my post on single-vinyard-wines here). Regarding blending and topping-off (§10.b) BD wines are stated that this “should be done using wine made from BIODYNAMIC grapes.” I think they meant MUST , not should…though that means you could top a BD wine with BD or organic wines, or maybe even conventional wines – though that would really not be in keeping with the spirit of BD production…

OAKING

This point made above of not allowing “oaking” is misleading – under §7, titled “Oaking” we see the following applied to BOTH classes of BD wines: “§7.a) Oak may be provided by using oak barrels or oak chips. Chips should be barrel grade.”

Ok…first things first. Get your document in order so you don’t include self-contradicting propositions. Secondly, it’s pretty hard to classify chips as “barrel grade”, they’ve been through a chipper, and are unevenly toasted, etc….

To paraphrase the old anti-Chicken McNuggets ad “chips are chips”. Frankly, you’re never really sure where they came from or how they looked before the got ripped apart.

So I guess I’ll have to settle for anything other than barrels and chips being outlawed (that being oak extracts and oak powder)…otherwise its still business as usual!

STANDARD PRACTICES

Fining and filtration still can be done. Bentonite and egg whites are still possible agents for that. Most of the language that is included is the document merely outlines what would be considered “industry standard” practices – like the use of food grade equipment. Sulfur dioxide (SO₂) can still be used, up to a total level of 100 ppm, which is lower than the TTB reg’s 350 ppm total sulfite level for conventional producers (my experience is that most conventional table wines in the US hover around 25~35 ppm free sulfite, and 100~120 ppm total sulfite).

CONCLUSION

What we see is an attempt to minimize the influence of the winemaker in making the wines. What I also notice is that despite all of the protestations of the adherents of the system, it is rife with “standard industry practice” and manipulation. Glaringly open manipulation still exists. Other production restrictions also apply as general Demeter production standards are evoked as well, but those can be boiled down to prohibiting the following: GMO products or products made via a GMO, irradiating, fumigated (except for N2 & CO₂), and pretty much any treatment involving microwaves. Other restrictions also apply –see the links below for full details.

DEMETER Wine Standards (US)

DEMETER Processing Standards (INTL)

DEMETER Production Standards (INTL)

DEMETER Beer Standards (INTL)

New barrels unlikely source of Brett

From an article on Decanter.com, we have a theory that new oak barrels are the source of Brett infections in wineries...that "infected wood" has been harvested, and that...

“[Consultant winemaker Matt] Thomson believes that the incidence of brettanomyces has increased in recent years. 'I think it's a relatively new thing in many Old and New World regions,' he said, adding that he thinks the increase is, 'partly down to new wine styles that are low in acidity and relatively high in residual sugar, but also due to increased demand for new oak barrels.' ”

Should this be a concern?
Doesn't nearly everyone use some new barrels somewhere in their production - so, potentially this is a huge issue, right?

For decades wine makers have noticed that Brett infections tend to be caught in wines from new oak barrels - but does that mean the infective yeast was already in the barrel to start with?

I don't think so....

This theory has been in the "folklore" of winemaking for quite a while - it's nothing new (weird that wine makers would employ the "it-can't-possibly-be-MY-fault" type of argument, but I guess that's just human nature...). In fact I ‘ve posted before upon the research work done which showed that 2/3 to 3/4 of wines produced in the EU were contaminated with Brett, and a healthy 50% of all wines were above 425 ppb (the generally accepted threshold for 4-ethylphenol detection for the "average" person), which shows that this is not a “new” problem. But let's delve a little deeper into this subject, and see what we come up with...

• barrels are toasted to temperatures of roughly 200~400°F, and usually this is done with an open flame (though electric heating elements are also used)
• the barrels are likely held at toasting temperatures for 10 to 45 minutes depending on the "house style" toast, or specific toast level requested by the winery, which should be plenty long and hot enough to incinerate any beasties on the wood
• some toasting techniques DO release and/or create sugars from breaking down the wood, some of which may be caramelized by the toasting "style" employed
• the process of toasting can also create low levels of 4-ethylphenol and 4-ehtylguaiacol which are two of the signature compounds of a Brett infection
• these aromas are released in the highest concentrations during the "death phase" (decline) of the population, so detection of the aroma by tasting usually means it is too late in the cycle for prevention - rather you are finding it at the "corrective action" stage
• Brett yeast does seem to like sweeter wines, and lower acidity levels, so there is a viticultural aspect to this problem if fruit is “overly ripe”
• the offending aromas are linked to the presence of caffeic, ferulic and caftaric acids which are at higher levels in less ripe fruit
• contaminated cooperage and other equipment can transfer the dreaded organism from one wine to another undetected, until a later date when the wines "stink"
• vineyards can have a "natural" population of Brett, and equipment used to pick those blocks can bring it into your winery, as well as be a source for cross-contamination of other fruit picked with the same equipment if it has not been properly sanitized beforehand
• infected, but yet undetected, wines can also contaminate larger blends when combined with otherwise uninfected wines

Having seen my share of Brett problems, I can testify to their variable nature (some wines are more noticeably “afflicted” by the yeast, and there is a vintage-to-vintage variation for vineyards as well – though my experience is that past offending vineyards tend to remain infected at some level, that is when the infection can be traced back to a single vineyard or block of fruit). Some varieties like syrah are much more prone to the infection, possibly due to levels of the precursor acids available, and the presence of more sugars attached to the tannins & cyanidins (color compounds). Certainly white varietals are almost never infected (detrimentally) as they don’t really contain those acids, tannins and cyanidins, and therefore can’t be used to produce the offending aromas by Brett.

While true that Brett is noticed more in newer cooperage, this may be two-fold: first, there are already produced compounds of the same nature that Brett produces which may help more people to detect the problem by raising the overall level, and second, there are as previously noted more sugars available for the yeasts to live on (these leach into the wine in the first year of use), which may help larger populations grow – and subsequently generate more of the offending aromas as those larger populations die off. Some varietals have higher levels of the base acids that Brett uses to form the aromas, so are more likely to produce noticeable “faults” later on, and also younger wines still have some sugars attached to their tannin and color complexes (called glycones) which also may be an energy source for Brett when they detach from said complexes as young wines age.

The overall likelihood that the yeast is traveling into the wineries via new cooperage is –at best- doubtful. While it cannot be discounted entirely, it would be surprising since it’d be likely that specific coopers would get reputations as producing those infections, which hasn’t happened to date (I would note that some coopers do have a rep for producing barrels with a Brett aroma from their house toasting styles, but that those barrels are not then always linked to wines which show Brett character or infections later on). Also extremely doubtful is the possible survival of yeast organisms through the toasting process – though that does not mean the barrels couldn’t be contaminated when they were being handled after the toasting as the heads were being put onto them, or during the inspection phase. Important to note that only the interior of the barrels are toasted, and while the entire barrel heats up, only the interior could be considered “heat sterilized” in my mind. The Brett yeasts conceivably could still be on the exterior of the barrel and be introduced by accident when the barrels are handled later. Again, we’d likely see a string of problems all consistently pointing back to a particular cooperage, which isn’t my experience.

Lastly, there is cellar sanitation and “traditional practices”…this is yet another of those modernity vs folklore conflicts…

There is a noted high-end winery in Napa which uses spent lees from their red wines to “paint” the bilges and bungholes of their new barrels red on arrival. Ostensibly, this is used to make an even covering of the barrels, and add a little visual character to their cellar (I have one report that tourists were told the practice “illustrated the winery’s commitment to pay attention to each and every barrel in its care”, whatever that means…). Unfortunately it results in each and every barrel so treated to be twice risked for further infections: once by the fact that other wines which were contaminated but not detected with Brett may now be literally spread all over the new cooperage, and twice by the fact that even if clean wines were applied to the new cooperage, the barrels would now have a food source available for any mold/rogue yeast/what-have-you organism to colonize the barrel and possibly get transferred not only into that barrel itself, but also across to other barrels and blends, etc, as Providence might desire…

It would also not come as a surprise to regular readers that this same winery in the example has been panned by me before, due to the high levels of Brett and other organisms which consistently run through their products.

Ahh! Those good ol' days...

Yes, time yet again for a reminder that Grandma & Granddad didn't have it as easy as we imagine they did. (if you're ever in doubt, re-read the book Rascal by Sterling North, and think about the influenza ridden hospital wards back in the 1910's...)

We're light years ahead of where viticulture and winemaking were a century ago, and our technology has brought us better tasting and more stable wines than we have ever experienced in history...
Right about now is where I'd usually start deriding Biodynamics for its constant call to a return to some imaginary euphoric-utopian agricultural world...but since the Demeter Association (which certifies farms as BioD compliant) states that the only difference between an organic farm and a BioD farm is the use of those crazy shamanic potions they concoct, an couple that with the fact that Rudolf Steiner himself (the founder of BioD) stated that it wasn't even important that those very potions even worked, and I think it pretty clear that BioD as a concept is just a movement riding on the coattails of organic farming's success...

(I'll try to get the original statement from the Demeter site up here today or tomorrow....)

NAPA Cab & AVA's

Alan Goldfarb penned an interesting article this past Monday about winemakers & vitculturists sitting down in Napa to see if they could pinpoint some “real regional diversity” within (and between) the AVA’s there. And much like the same exercise recently performed with the Carneros region, reveal that perhaps much of the industry hype about the differences may be overblown.

This, of course, is all based on the premise that terroir does indeed exist, and that it will manifest “distictivity” in wines produced from one end of such a small area to the other…notwithstanding the fact that it (terroir) still remains undefined within both the industry and the public’s mind…

And that is the biggest problem with this topic as a whole: the French - God bless them! - invented a term so vague that the rest of the world (being dissatisfied with the lack of definition given it by it’s creators) has ended up spending generations holding discussions about what its current impressions of what those differences and distinctions SHOULD BE, rather than come up with a solid platform to work from (e.g., define what those perceptions really are).

What I do like about the topic is that it seems to breakdown the long held ideals in wine culture that drastic differences (“distinctivity” if you will) in wines is due to influences in site and soil over say a distance of a few thousand yards (it’s an awkward measurement, but it’s an old Navy habit I can’t seem to let go of). This is of course, inherited viniculture from our European roots, but has to date more to do with romantic (read “15^th century”) land rights, alchemy and aristocracy than any scientific agricultural hypotheses. “Regionality” should by its word construction alone be about something larger, and I find it increasingly disturbing to see people assuming (not necessarily in this tasting panel mind you, but in general) that an attempt to apply it to small nearby vineyards, sometimes even adjacent vineyards, would be appropriate or even remotely successful. What is being tasted at that level is variations in viticulture and winemaking styles, not soil nor regionality.

Some of the nuggets of the article are as follows:

* There still seem to be some winemakers who go out and literally “taste the soil” as Pam Starr (Crocker & Starr winery) stated she does when “she’s intimate with her earth.” (Way too much information, Pam!) Goldfarb writes that she stated…

“I like to call myself a ‘soil translator.’ I don’t like the word ‘terroir’,” she said. “I try not to adjust too much, but (to) bring you sexy fruit. … I make clay patties and taste the soil. I try to make sure I apply (winemaking) to the soil profile.”

(Kudos that she doesn’t like the term terroir, but “soil translator”? That begs the idea that soil needs some interpretation by humans, and as I have written many times, soil is only third-order in the climate/terroir equation. Seriously, this is an ancient practice going back to the Romans. Cato wrote (ca. 100 BC) about trying to swirl soil and water around to make a solution and then taste it to see if it was too acidic. But then again, that was long before concepts about pH – and certainly before litmus tests! – were ever dreamed up or understood how they affect agriculture. And I would question the validity of any conclusions drawn from such a behavior other than the gross observation “it tastes like dirt”…we just don’t have the receptors needed on our tongues for anything beyond that! I think I stopped making mud pies when I was 5 or 6 years old…)

* I think it ridiculous that Doug Hill would think his Merlot would exemplify terroir while his Cab didn’t. Other than problems or variation within the vinting, where would the cause for that lie? And I find I disagree with his assessment of needing to be less ripe to see terroir…

* Bob Levy (Harlan): “It’s quite the opposite. As we wait, I think we get better expressions of site.” I would tend to agree more with his side of the argument: all under-ripe fruit has a tendency to taste “green”, although I would be the first to point out that over-ripe fruit all tastes like raisins and usually has a “cooked” or “burnt” flavor running though it. Ideally, there is a window of opportunity for all vineyards for best expression, which generally falls around (my experience) 24.3°B though that varies with vintage and area being grown in. I thought Levy was on a roll, but he lost me here:

““When I think of terroir versus vinification, the character of the wine expresses the terroir, not just the dirt but the people and all the decisions made,” stated Levy unequivocally.” (My bolding of the text…)

Oh, brother.

Overall, I think the outcome of the article backs up my claim that creating more and more sub-AVA's and sub-sub-AVA's are doing more harm than good by creating confusion where none need be introduced.

Read the article here [Just What are the AVA Distinctions
of Napa Valley Cabernet?]

Talking dirty

Here's a nice article on Terroir - or more exactly, on what's NOT terroir - from Harold McGee and Daniel Peterson from the New York Times last Sunday.

Some great quotes are inside, like this gem...

“Plants don’t really interact with rocks,” explains Mark Matthews, a plant physiologist at the University of California, Davis who studies vines. “They interact with the soil, which is a mixture of broken-down rock and organic matter. And plant roots are selective. They don’t absorb whatever’s there in the soil and send it to the fruit. If they did, fruits would taste like dirt."

Mainly it reinforces points that have been brought to the topic on this blog - that "minerality" is not due to a large presence of minerals in the wine, that there is not "translocation" of the minerals in the soils directly into the fruit, etc.

It's definitely worth a read...