Love that Clark Smith

[Rahsaan]

originally posted by Marc Hanes: Methinks I am getting painting into a corner here, hah! As they teach you in grad school, always take the weakest argument you can to make your point...But why not... Let's say 2002 in the Northern Rhone. I think it is conversationally legitimate to call it a complete washout.

As you said, you are taking extreme positions. 2002 in the Northern Rhone was literally a washout so maybe the folks who are not obsessed with tracking that region can buy lightly in such a vintage. But that is a far cry from saying that 1999 is the only Northern Rhone vintage worth buying. There is a lot inbetween.

Of course it all depends on the individual strategy/interest..

 

[Marc Hanes]

But that is a far cry from saying that 1999 is the only Northern Rhone vintage worth buying.

Hey, nowhere that I recall did I say 1999 was the only vintage worth buying. I was simply using that vintage as a convenient foil to 2002. I could have used any other "highly regarded" vintage instead.

 

[MarkS]

But why not... Let's say 2002 in the Northern Rhone...

Or 2003 in Europe across the board. We all know those sucked bigtime.
Cirque du Soleil vintage and all that.

But seriously, i understand your point and apply vintage generalisations to my purchasing decisions as well, but if I can find decent prices on less-than-stellar years, I'm game, because sometimes these make perfectly good drinking wines unless they are unbalanced. It's a matter of degree and discount. I've had wines suck from 'great' years as well, so maybe the advice about following good producers throughout their careers is good advice?

 

[Kay Bixler]

I always buy Clos Roche Blanche and so should you.

Vintage schmintage.

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Kay Bixler:

Vintage schmintage.

All hail the doghead.

And I agree, a severe skepticism about vintage generalizations is the best policy. So many of them are so wrong.

 

[Ian Fitzsimmons]

Though they give rise to decent buying opportunities.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by SFJoe:
And I agree, a severe skepticism about vintage generalizations is the best policy. So many of them are so wrong.

But when confronted with a wine list populated entirely of wines one doesn't know...?

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by SFJoe:
And I agree, a severe skepticism about vintage generalizations is the best policy. So many of them are so wrong.

But when confronted with a wine list populated entirely of wines one doesn't know...?

But what about the emus?

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by SFJoe:
But what about the emus?

Perhaps naively but I give other people more credit than that.

 

[Thor]

But when confronted with a wine list populated entirely of wines one doesn't know...?

...presumably one is unlikely to know much about the vintages either.

 

[MLipton]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:

originally posted by SFJoe:
And I agree, a severe skepticism about vintage generalizations is the best policy. So many of them are so wrong.

But when confronted with a wine list populated entirely of wines one doesn't know...?

Ask the sommelier for advice? Any place that presents me with a totally unfamiliar collection of wines is either: a) skirting the ragged edge of wine hipsterism and thus prepared to answer sundry queries about the wines or b) offering nothing but commercial crap from odd locations. In the latter case, who cares what you order, as it's likely to be pretty bad.

Mark Lipton

 

[Brian Loring]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
Does that make wines of different vintages more alike?

Sorry it's taken so long to respond. I started about 3 different responses, but this question turned out to be harder to answer than I had originally thought. And in the following response, please realize I'm not discussing industrial-esque wines like Kendall-Jackson. Truthfully, I can imagine that since consistency is probably their goal, they might approach the use of technology differently than I would.

It seems to me that every grower and winemaker strives to produce the best grapes and wine that they can each vintage, within the scope of the resources that they have available. So things will most likely be done differently each year in response to growing conditions. In fact, I tried to imagine a comepletely neutral approach, but I couldn't quite get there. How would you acheive that? Pick on the same day of the year each vintage? Pick at exactly the same sugar and/or acid level? And if it had to be both sugar and acid, how often would both hit your target number at the same time?

When I started thinking about it, I couldn't come up with a way to let the vintage shine through without varying degrees of influence from man. So the question really becomes: does technology such as spinning cones and RO effect vintage variation more than all of the other things that growers and winemakers do? And my response is that I'm not sure they do, provided they're done correctly and in moderation. But that goes for all the other stuff as well. Throwing 100% new oak at a vintage to mask some unripeness is IMO probably more vintage masking than anything else you could do.

Let's use an example. Let's assume a winemaker is scheduled to pick a vineyard and has an unexpected emergency at the winery and has to reschedule for a few days later. The next day, the weather turns hot and by the time he picks, his sugars have jumped 2 brix. Stuff like that happens - and you have to roll with it. After completing the wine, he feels it tastes a bit hot due to the extra 1% alcohol. So he decides to try the spinning cone to reduce the alcohol to where it would have been if he'd been able to pick when he wanted. The process works, and now he's happy with the wine. And it actually represents what he had envisioned from the start. Did he mask the vintage by doing that? I don't think so. Did he make the vintage seem more alike to other vintages? I'd argue no more so than he normally did.

Things like spinning cones are simply other tools for the winemaker to use. Like with all tools, you must be careful when using them. And using them as a crutch isn't probably the way to go. But as an insurance policy I think they work pretty well.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

originally posted by Brian Loring:
I started about 3 different responses, but this question turned out to be harder to answer than I had originally thought.

Good. I intended this to be hard.

So things will most likely be done differently each year in response to growing conditions.

Agreed. Nature provides a different "trajectory" each year of the growth, maturation, and decay of the grapes.

[D]oes technology such as spinning cones and RO effect vintage variation more than all of the other things that growers and winemakers do?

It seems to me that work in the vineyard -- pulling leaves, dropping bunches, spraying, lady-bugging, burying rams' bladders -- are all of a certain ilk: they manipulate the living plant and, therefore, the live fruit. What I mean is that I can't direct more sunlight onto a bunch and only have it affect the development of sugar. If the fruit gets more air and light then all the components of its pulp feel it and may change.

Cellar work, however, ranges from blunt weaponry (e.g., new oak barrels) to processes that are surgically precise (e.g., RO to remove ethyl alcohol).

In the case of field work, the living plant responds to the vigneron's actions and, within its genetic options, changes its fruit. But it is possible, in the cellar, to create a chemistry that no living grape would ever produce. I speculate that it is possible to taste this.

Things like spinning cones are simply other tools for the winemaker to use. Like with all tools, you must be careful when using them.

Agreed.

 

[Brian Loring]

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
But it is possible, in the cellar, to create a chemistry that no living grape would ever produce.

I would agree with you for the case where someone wanted to push things too far. But given how wildly chemistry can fluctuate each year (and not in a linear, lock-step fashion) it's hard to imagine that slight alterations in things like alcohol level wouldn't mimic a natural condition. Or it could completely ruin the wine as well. Nothing is without risk.

originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
I speculate that it is possible to taste this.

Based upon my limited experience, and people's reaction to the wines we've had to correct, I'm not sure this is a given. I know that intellectually you would think there HAS to be something obviously different about these wines. And I think that was Clark's point: without full disclosure from winemakers, you'll never have good data to come to an informed conclusion. You may be surprised at how many wines you've consumed have seen a spinning cone or have been through RO. He's not lying when he says how busy the businesses are that provide the services.

 

[Jeff Grossman]

I've seen good nose jobs and bad nose jobs and, probably, a lot of nose jobs that I didn't know were nose jobs.

If that's what you mean.

 

[The Latin Liquidator]

originally posted by SFJoe:
1928 is a better vintage of Leoville Poyferre than 1929 today, because the '29 is OTH. But probably for the first 40 years you would rather have had the '29. '05 is a "better" vintage in a bunch of Burgundy than '04, unless you want to drink the wines anytime soon. Similarly in Bourgeuil. The reverse in Muscadet.

Variation in character may not imply variation in quality, at least in regions where I drink a lot of wine. Quality isn't univariate. And so on....

For a long, long time, many wine authorities from back in the day were baffled by the 1928 claret vintage and didn't know quite what to make of it. Tremendously, unrepentantly tannic vintage, etc. I recall both reading in Andr Simon and hearing from an older relative of mine that there was just no getting to those wines and they probably would take a couple of human generations to come around, if come around at all they did.

So here we are, witnesses of the beauty of some 1928 clarets, eighty years after the vintage. I think there's a lesson to be learned from the doubt expressed by our predecessors in the wine-geek game.

Oh, and while I'm at this, Marc:

Only 36,000?

Best,

LL

 

[Bruce G.]

originally posted by Florida Jim:
Simply put, my opinion of how to make wine and which wines are good, is not right. Its just my opinion.
So Clark fills a need; probably not for me but then, that's only because that's my choice.
Best, Jim

Jim:

Understood.
I've no interest in setting myself up as the final arbiter of what is "proper" and what is not. Winegrowing is about self-expression (when not trying to pay down bank loans), and people are free to pursue their own goals in their own ways.
My take on Clark, though, is that he's trying to have it both ways. His whole patter is geared towards mating the philosophy of minimal intervention with his pro-active, interventionist technique. The language he uses to market himself and his wares seems intentionally designed to craft an image based on terroir and tradition. He claims to be engaged in "the practical art of touching the human soul with the soul of a place by rendering its grapes into liquid music". He sells wine with back labels that read like romance novels... "the resulting wine is redolent with ethereal mystery, soulful personality, and balanced vitality, providing compelling testimony as to what motivated the Romans...". Yet his bread and butter is tinkering, and selling the tinkerer's tools to others.
Even his discussion of the background science appears to be aimed at blurring lines and confusing rather than enlightening. From the interview that started this thread we're told that "filtering out alcohol is certainly a more precise and non-invasive practice than the French practice of adding beet sugar". Last time I looked, science understood the basic workings of both practices, but had little to say about the fine points in practical application. He talks of the non-linearity of alcohol content and sensory impact (his "sweet spots") as if this is some miraculous result that flies in the face of all scientific reason. This is, of course, incorrect... what we know of the chemistry of alcohol (as pertains to wine) would in no way lead us to predict linearity.

The end result is that people are suckered in.
We get very accomplished and knowledgeable people writing about Clark and saying things like this: "he isn't advocating using technology to spoofulate wines. Seeing technology as a useful tool, he then sets about using his tool kit, which includes microoxygenation and reverse osmosis, to make more interesting and tasty wines."
I seldom use web shorthard, but, really.... WTF?

Personally I'd have fewer problems with Clark if he just said "I'm cutting edge, the face of wine production in early 21st century. I use what I use because it pleases me, and helps me make the kinds of wines I like. If that suits you (or you think it might suit you) then sit down and have a glass. If that's not what you're into then goodbye to you".
While he does this in part, he can't seem to resist the temptation, once he's got you seated and trying a glass, to convince you that up is down and down is up, and better living and a clearer expression of traditional winegrowing and terroir can be yours with a phone call and a modest per gallon surcharge and where do we back up the truck that holds the mobile unit?

Thanks for reading this far.

Cheers,

 

[Marc Hanes]

So here we are, witnesses of the beauty of some 1928 clarets, eighty years after the vintage. I think there's a lesson to be learned from the doubt expressed by our predecessors in the wine-geek game.

Oh, and while I'm at this, Marc:

Only 36,000?

Yo MC. Well, the lesson for me is live to be 120 years old. But, as is easily discernible, I'm dense. If not worse. Menschliches, Allzumenschliches.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm lame and need to download more tunes. What can I do but appeal once more (yawn) to human temporal finitude and, more importantly, financial finitude. I literally ("for real?" as my five year old niece would put it) have $1.08 in my bank account. So, taking chances on wine, music, new restaurants, brands of laundry detergent are for a more well-heeled class than I.

High minded egalitarianism comes at a literal price. I can't pay it. But I do know I've bought wines at restaurants with a totally unfamiliar collection of wine that did not offer advice or have a sommelier and the wine wasn't commercial crap (insert caveat "to me"). And it was actually good ("to me").

Conversationally signing off,

LoDR

 

[SFJoe]

originally posted by Bruce G.:

Thanks for reading this far.

You persuade me. I take back all that equivocal stuff I said up top.

I do still like that he admits to the cellar practices that dare not speak their name. As does Brian L. Randall G has taken to putting them on the label. This sort of honesty and transparency is a fine thing by producers of things that I might possibly drink.

The real issue for me with Clark and Brian & Co. is that much of this technology is in the pursuit of aesthetic ends that are divergent from my own. I believe them both when they say that many of the most famous names in Napa are busy customers, but I may be left to suspect that this may be related to the underlying reasons that I don't much like the wines from many of the famous names in Napa. Or in my more subtle moments, that they may be using these practices to let them achieve higher ripeness, more frootiness, and so on. That a different total mindset might put us all in a place where we have less call for R/O and yet have more wines under 13%.

Or maybe I'm not paying attention to the weather, I dunno.

 

[mlawton]

Interesting discussion.

Back to the nose jobs - Joe, do you think the surgeon who did the work on the recently departed Mr. Jackson ever did any good work? I don't know for sure, but I'd guess he must have. (?)

Somewhat tangentially, I had a French winemaker of some renown tell me that the reason "they can't make good wine in the US is that they all use irrigation". Of course most american vignerons will tell you that the vines would never survive without irrigation, but maybe that was his point. Is irrigation "manipulation"? If so, how come we tilt at the RO/Spinning cone windmills, yet never talk about irrigation methods.

Of course, the only wine I've ever made (from grapes) tasted like crap. It was not manipulated, though - so I guess that's something.