Florida Jim
Florida Jim
No attempt to “compare” on my part; just a suggestion of a good alvarinho at a reasonable price.
Although, the implication that a “large industrial operation” can not make really fine wine isn’t something I’d endorse.
TN: MWC Pulls Out The Stops (June 7, 2023)
- Thread starter Jeff Grossman
- Start date
Although, the implication that a “large industrial operation” can not make really fine wine isn’t something I’d endorse.
I think we can agree on "good" and reasonable price, yet I have to admit that I don't really care about wines like that, unless I am in a restaurant with no other options.
As to large wineries having the ability to make high-quality wine, sure, it is possible, but I don't think that Soalheiro does. However, I do enjoy some of the NatCool wines from Niepoort (sorry, Oswaldo) - not small production by any stretch of the imagination.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Otherwise the whites from there (and from the neighboring Douro) would lack acidity, since the climate is generally too warm for balance without intervention. They are, indeed, often delish, if one doesn't mind the sometimes bracing, even strident character of malic, but there are enough producers in climates that don't require systematic intervention.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
For me, there's no point in supporting an industrial-scale operation like Soalheiro or Anselmo Mendes, even if there is a degree of competence in producing a similar wine every year, when I can support an artisan-scale producer that will tend to be truer to the vintage.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
That is quite an assumption.
What makes you think such producers as Soalheiro, etc. strive for a similar wine every year?
Moreover, what makes you think artisan-scale producers tend to be truer to the vintage?
That seems a pretty broad brush your using.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Ah, sorry, yes, there is a multiple objection. The best Portuguese white wine producer that I know claims to be able to identify wines in which the malo was blocked. And utterly despises them. I am not confident of my ability to spot same, but there is often something harsh about the acidity of Galician and northern Portuguese whites. Malic is certainly harsher than tartaric.
I also object to it on philosophical grounds, since it's just as much an intervention as chaptalization or acidification or nfo. Sharon used to think I was being precious in my recurring (and perhaps pet, because uncommon) objection to blocked malos; it's in the public record. So be it. My precious. I know that the guys in question have to make a living with what the weather gives them, but I'd rather put my Euros to work supporting producers who are less goal-oriented.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
An answer to this requires a summary description of the Portuguese mindset, which will inevitably be a generalization as well. Will try to do this tomorrow.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
As you know from prior exchanges, there are wines vinified at certain temperatures that will not go through malo. There are others where the process has to be encouraged. Does vinifying at higher temps to allow malo or using other methods to enforce it also run counter to your programmatic (a more accurate word than philosophical) objections? Also, whereas not liking to much acid is comprehensible, do you also like buttered popcorn on your chardonnay? Do you not drink Chenin blanc? Do you prefer Rieslings that have gone through malic?
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
I agree that programmatic is a better term. Assuming you want an answer, I don't consider it an intervention if a wine does not go through malo because the cellar temperature is (naturally) very cold. Or because there's not enough malic to fire up the bacteria. But if cold or heat is generated to induce or prevent malo, of course that's an intervention, just as much as sterile filtration. So, from a programmatic pov, a pov that is obviously important to me, any intervention to induce or block malo is equivalent to any intervention to increase or decrease acidity or sweetness or generate extraneous oak flavors and textures. But I wouldn't mind any of these interventions if all I cared about was flavor.
I don't get the last three questions. If a Chardonnay is buttery, I won't like it even if it is buttery without intervention. I drink Chenin Blanc perhaps more than any other white grape, and would avoid any particular bottling if I learned that the producer had promoted or blocked malo (or chaptalized or acidified). I know next to nothing about Riesling producers' approach to malo, so cannot address this, but would be interested to hear, if you know.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
Most Loire Chenins and a large proportion of German Riesling do not go through malolactic. If you are drinking a wine with vibrant acidity an d bright floral flavors, it was probably cold fermented. I very much doubt that many winemakers with above ground cellars and the means to control temperatures don't do so,if only to keep their bottled wines from heat damage. In any case,cold fermentation isn't a process. It's a range of temperatures on a continuum. If we use the French phrase--vin nature-- which means naked andwine or, better perhaps, just the wine, ma'am, as Joe Friday used to say "just the facts," I think the issue isn't your programmatic judgment, although I do find that problematic, but that choices of fermentation temperature, like choices of how much skin contact, are really choices that exist within your program.
Yes, but it depends on the winery and maker. It is a fairly narrow range, though. Not to open Pandora's Box again, but I don't like or use the term "natural wine," preferring low- or minimal-intervention winemaking. Yet all conversion of grapes to wine involves intervention, and in the case of folks who every vintage make wine with high VA, more intervention is badly needed.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
We have been living in Portugal seven years now, so more broad brushstrokes:
Portugal is delightful, but it is the most provincial country in western Europe.
Portugal is the least diverse (ethnically-peaking) country in western Europe.
Most Portuguese think Portuguese wines are the best in the world.
Most Portuguese only drink Portuguese wine, even though wines from the rest of Europe are available without import duties.
Most Portuguese want their favorite wines to taste the same every year (the owner of Portugal’s most famous producer of dry reds told me that meeting this expectation is a sacred duty, otherwise he betrays his customers).
Most Portuguese think their cuisine is the best in the world, and will happily eat codfish and potatoes in olive oil every day for the rest of their lives (we stopped going to traditional restaurants after the first year).
Most Vinho Verdes, especially the industrial-scale ones, are cold fermented to generate a certain flavor palette tutti frutti is the best descriptor for me that we appreciated in the first year, then gradually found too cloying.
Soalheiro make a less interventionist cuvée, the Primeiras Vinhas, but last time I checked, most use machine harvesting, lots of SO2 at many stages, the above-mentioned cold fermenting, etc., to give the customer what they want, year after year. Perhaps they are not identical every year how could they be? but that is the general direction, in my experience.
Seven years ago, Raisin listed two restaurants in the entire country. Now there are many, but they mostly cater to the expat influx of the last five years. The average local stays away.
Portuguese and Galician wines were mostly quite cheap seven years ago. Then they were “discovered,” and have since tripled in price. But the processes remain the same.
Granted, there must be artisan producers who are not truer to the vintage. To be avoided.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Yes, Mark, a slippery slope into absurdity. I suppose digging a subterranean cave for the express purpose of blocking malo would be an intervention, but that would be ridiculous, as you no doubt realize.
What makes something an intervention, in my book, is the goal-driven attitude, rather than the willingness to let nature do its thing. But you might say, left to nature, wine will become vinegar. So, allow me to go back to (my) first principles:
What do I want in a wine, on top of being delicious? I want it to be what it "wants" to be, not what the maker wants it to be. Because I want it to express where it comes from, not the imposition of the maker’s esthetic goals. There’s blurriness there, I know. An analogy that works for me is raising children. I want to help my children be what they want to be rather than what I want them to be. But if they get sick, I will call the doctor because being sick may be natural, but it might prevent them becoming what they want to become. So, I prefer wines where the winemaker does the bare minimum to prevent them from becoming defective, but not things that will make it different from what it “wants” to be. Though the difference between process-driven and goal-driven can be blurry, that doesn’t make the distinction less useful. To me at least.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Most Loire Chenins and a large proportion of German Riesling do not go through malolactic.
Naturally or blocked?
If you are drinking a wine with vibrant acidity an d bright floral flavors, it was probably cold fermented.
I have come to hate that in Portuguese Vinho Verdes and others. They ferment at artificially low temperatures to achieve a specific effect that they think will sell.
I very much doubt that many winemakers with above ground cellars and the means to control temperatures don't do so, if only to keep their bottled wines from heat damage. In any case, cold fermentation isn't a process. It's a range of temperatures on a continuum.
If the cold fermentation is made to achieve a certain flavor that the wine would not otherwise have, I would call it a process. But I see, of course, that in warmer places it may not be possible to ferment at room temperature. So, a temperature that is cooler to allow fermentation to take place without spoiling, but not so cold as to create the tutti frutti effect, would be ok in my book.
What the wine wants to be can never be wholly divorced from the winemaker’s goals, methinks. It starts with the choice of vineyard location, continues with the choice of grape type, clonal selection, rootstock, planting density, training method, etc. “indigenous” yeasts have been shown to be an ecosystem that changes with time and includes often “cultured” yeasts that have taken residence in the winemaking facility. Since fermentations get quite hot, temperature control is used for more reasons than just blocking malo. I think most full malo Chardonnays get some cooling.
Mark Lipton
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
By reading through your messages, I think I'm beginning to see the basis of the problem, Oswaldo. You are immersed in a sea of what you think (for all I know, rightly) to be mediocre, tooty fruity wine. Part of the problem is that, since those wines don't go through malolactic, tendencies that might already be there are enhanced. Thus, malolactic is intervention. But, as you know, there's a large winemaking world outside of Portugal and, in different environments, different practices have different effects. I generally prefer Rhone wines that are not destemmed. I know that Overnoy practiced destemming. I still like Overnoy wines. Steroids, used to build muscles, are dangerous drugs. They may also be used as medications to promote healing. This is why I am against programmatic judgements. I like my wine to taste like wine and I often joke about wines being overoaked and underwined.But I am always dubious about taking rules of thumb for commandments written on stone.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Thanks Oswaldo.