My understanding of Jules Chauvet's writtings
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[/quote]
True. But you know we never get roten fruit or dirty cellar in the Rhone.[/quote]
it's all too clean these days, i have to agree with you. that's why i'm drinking only etna and auvergne wines, those are real terroir wines. Even if the terroir's fucked...
I mean, shouldn't we just throw it all in the vat? the bugs, the stems, the green, the brown, the botrytis and get a great unsulfured "terroir soup"
let's throw a little dirt in as well, for the famous "gout de terroir"!
shit, i think i just gave up the recipe for "magma" away...
True. But you know we never get roten fruit or dirty cellar in the Rhone.[/quote]
it's all too clean these days, i have to agree with you. that's why i'm drinking only etna and auvergne wines, those are real terroir wines. Even if the terroir's fucked...
I mean, shouldn't we just throw it all in the vat? the bugs, the stems, the green, the brown, the botrytis and get a great unsulfured "terroir soup"
let's throw a little dirt in as well, for the famous "gout de terroir"!
shit, i think i just gave up the recipe for "magma" away...
I have been using this very convenient little machine (it works on 4AAA batteries and can perform about 250 tests with one set) for the past 5 years know.
First to monitor my wines during fermentation and then to understand why I did get so much trouble with my "sans souffre" bottlings while other seem to do much better thant I did...
Along with the 1.16722.0001 test strip
and some ivory black for the reds, you get the total SO2 within 30 seconds even at Ten Bells in the dark.
I have to say that about 90% of the "sans souffre" I have tasted (over 400) with this "pas vraiment sans souffre" detector were not really sans souffre...
That a lot of the real "sans souffre" or very low sulfur (
Along with the 1.16722.0001 test strip
and some ivory black for the reds, you get the total SO2 within 30 seconds even at Ten Bells in the dark.
I have to say that about 90% of the "sans souffre" I have tasted (over 400) with this "pas vraiment sans souffre" detector were not really sans souffre...
That a lot of the real "sans souffre" or very low sulfur (
Scott Frank
Scott Frank
Maule. No kidding. I really like those wines and didn't know they were 0 SO2. Impressive.
Cory Cartwright
Cory Cartwright
I can believe Maule is the real deal. I've never seen a wine so apt to referment.
U
Unknown
Guest
I can believe Maule is the real deal. I've never had a bottle that wasn't refermenting.
nigel groundwater
nigel groundwater
Eric the reason I picked up on your brett reference was simply that SO2 both before and during fermentation is [as I understand it] one of the key means of controlling brett [if it is present in the must/in the vineyard/ on the grapes etc as opposed to in the winery barrels/equipment] and preventing its active and occasionally excessive participation during fermentation - particularly if there is any slow down or stall by the desirable fermentation yeast/s for whatever reason.
When one talks about 'clean' grapes is it that they have been tested and found free of any 'nasties' which means that the hygiene aspect of SO2 [as compared with its anti-oxidant function] can be dispensed with? Can we assume the 'nasties' include brett yeasts and dysfunctional bacteria like acetobacter and no sulphur winemaking proceeds on the basis that these are not present in the grapes being used?
Also I am not sure I understand your comment that SO2 is:
totally useless on unclean wines (the SO2 will combines very fast and the remaining free sulfur will be close to 0) most if not all of the sulfured bottlings are kieselghur filtered or fined.
You go on to say: I don't know a single producer who just add, right before bottling, on the exact same wine some SO2 to only some of the bottles.
Surely the bactericidal/yeast control aspect of SO2 would work even on unclean wines? Perhaps I dont know what you mean by unclean.
When you are talking about SO2 combining fast with free sulfur close to zero are you talking about its anti-oxidant role and its binding with acetaldehyde rather than its other function of hygiene [bactericide/yeast control brett in particular].
And isnt the reason that some SO2 is added before bottling primarily for anti-oxidant rather than hygiene purposes i.e. to continue to mop up the products of any oxidation although there is presumably some residual bactericidal function? For those wishing complete chemical and physical control there is of course the availability of Velcorin and/or filtration but that would be anathema to any natural wine model.
According to their website the Lapierres produce 3 versions of their standard Morgon in roughly equal measures i.e.1/3rd each: completely unsulphured and unfiltered and requiring special temperature handling thereafter; sulphured only at the pre-bottling stage and unfiltered and as per the second third but also filtered.
I understand your comment that bretty wines "often taste like bretty wines whether they come from burgundy, rhone or sicily" but that does depend on what mix of volatile phenols and fatty acids, with their quite different odours and tastes, the brettanomyces yeast/s [usually but not exclusively bruxellensis] has produced in the ferment - and possibly later if any live cells have escaped into an unfiltered bottle.
While brett can smell/taste the same [as you said] it can also be perceived quite differently depending on the mix of compounds produced from the natural raw materials - even though that difference is often a function of who is doing the smelling and their [different] sensitivities to the multitude of brett products.
And while I also understand your caveat about brett [which can be a native, in-the-vineyard yeast surely?] not being a differentiation characteristic of terroir [and wouldnt want to argue that it was in any useful sense] it must then be an exception to the idea expressed in this thread that if its from the vineyard then its terroir and if it isnt it isnt.
I am sorry this is so long and is absolutely not intended to be argumentative but is my rather incoherent search for more information and understanding from somebody who actually makes great wine successfully. In particular the use [if and when or not at all] of SO2 in the making of successful wine and how it relates to brett and other possible spoilage mechanisms.
Nigel,
Sorry, but I understand only 10% of your questions.
About combined SO2, if you add the same amount of SO2 to an unfiltered unfined young wine and to the same wine filtered fined and clarified, the free SO2 will be much higher in the second one. In fact you may get 0 free SO2 very fast out of 50-60 ppm added on a really cloudy press wine (unclean in my mind).
About brett and terroir, this is my understanding. You can feel different.
Some of my friends say that bretts is part of red chateauneuf terroir (probably whatever phenols or fatty acids, but I have to check).
And that Parker style kills the terroir there because Ferrando or Clos Saint Jean don't have bretts.
I don't agree but have no science to argue.
I am trying very hard to get a unique personality for each of my wines.
I feel that brett just make them almost identical. Therefore and as a winemaker, I try to avoid brett.
Terroir isn't just vineyard ... What about history? tradition? Culture?
About SO2 as an antioxydant at bottling, again that wouldn't be my purpose.
My wines don't really care about oxygen. Like most of the "sans souffre" made young wines BTW (please don't ask me why! I don't know. But would love some explanation like : oxygen resistant because exposed to oxygen as a baby and so able to develop a self immunity or something romantic like that).
The more I think about it , the more I realize I really am a romantic guy.
If I add 20-25ppm to my Brzme (which really doesn't care about oxygen, believe me) it is mostly because I fear about lactic bacterias refermenting malic or RS.
20-25ppm is not enough to be 100% sure against bretts but it also help a little bit at least at low pH like most of my wines.
Sorry, but I understand only 10% of your questions.
About combined SO2, if you add the same amount of SO2 to an unfiltered unfined young wine and to the same wine filtered fined and clarified, the free SO2 will be much higher in the second one. In fact you may get 0 free SO2 very fast out of 50-60 ppm added on a really cloudy press wine (unclean in my mind).
About brett and terroir, this is my understanding. You can feel different.
Some of my friends say that bretts is part of red chateauneuf terroir (probably whatever phenols or fatty acids, but I have to check).
And that Parker style kills the terroir there because Ferrando or Clos Saint Jean don't have bretts.
I don't agree but have no science to argue.
I am trying very hard to get a unique personality for each of my wines.
I feel that brett just make them almost identical. Therefore and as a winemaker, I try to avoid brett.
Terroir isn't just vineyard ... What about history? tradition? Culture?
About SO2 as an antioxydant at bottling, again that wouldn't be my purpose.
My wines don't really care about oxygen. Like most of the "sans souffre" made young wines BTW (please don't ask me why! I don't know. But would love some explanation like : oxygen resistant because exposed to oxygen as a baby and so able to develop a self immunity or something romantic like that).
The more I think about it , the more I realize I really am a romantic guy.
If I add 20-25ppm to my Brzme (which really doesn't care about oxygen, believe me) it is mostly because I fear about lactic bacterias refermenting malic or RS.
20-25ppm is not enough to be 100% sure against bretts but it also help a little bit at least at low pH like most of my wines.
Claude,
I am so glad you pointed this writting out.
Do you have tasting notes on the Chauvet wines you tasted? Do you think Kermit still have some (bottles not TN)?
Well if it is, as I believe, common for sans souffre producers to add sulfur at bottling, there must be between 500.000 and 1.000.000 "sans souffre" growers on this planet. No?
mark meyer
mark meyer
Eric,
When visiting with Henri Milan in Sept about sans souffre I seem to remember he said there is naturally occurring sulfur in/on the grapes-so all wines will have some natural sulfur-could this be why your machine is picking up sulfur
in nearly every wine? Or maybe I am just off base and misunderstood Henri.
mark meyer
nigel groundwater
nigel groundwater
Eric, I apologise but while I can understand French if I attempted to discuss this subject in French you would probably understand less.
I understand, chemically, how free SO2 binds with acetaldehyde [removing the oxidation aroma] and the level reduces. Can you say what is happening to the free SO2 when added to a really cloudy press wine (unclean in my mind)? I assume if it isnt an anti-oxidation function it is bactericidal but by what/how is the free SO2 reduced?
While I understand that brettanomyces is a naturally occurring wild yeast usually present in the vineyard I have no difficulty understanding why you wish to contain/avoid its potential impact on your wines. I have no difficulty in understanding that a desire to use natural local yeasts rather than industrial ones does not mean you wish to use ALL the naturally occurring yeasts, particularly where something like the products of brettanomyces have the ability to spoil the wine particularly in excess.
However I am most interested to hear how you control some of these undesirable naturals without SO2 before and during primary fermentation since that is when they usually do maximum damage in the sense of producing the smelly volatile phenols and fatty acids that remain in the wine.
And without wanting to get into a discussion about a Parker style it seems clear that very ripe grapes with naturally high sugars, relatively low acidity and high potential alcohols are precisely the conditions that would favour successful brettanomyces involvement [even with SO2 used before and during fermentation] since the possibility of stuck fermentations [particularly with natural yeasts] will have increased which is when brett flourishes. In addition SO2 is less effective in a low acid [higher pH] situation.
I see later that you describe your wines as low pH so perhaps that is part of the explanation of your control of brett intrusion: lower sugars, higher acids, lower alcohols giving stronger fermentations but I would very much appreciate hearing about how you avoid bretty wines without SO2.
Understood. Clearly not everything in the vineyard however natural is desirable but how to you choose or exclude?
OK so your use of SO2 is only at bottling and is for its bactericidal properties and to minimise [any remaining] brett potential not for its anti-oxidant properties and your low pH makes the SO2 more effective at lower doses.
However I have always understood that truly bretty wines would already contain the volatile phenols and fatty acids by that time since they would usually have been created at the fermentation stage. SO2 at bottling might have some control over remaining brett cells but by then the damage is usually done. Any live cells that get into the bottles due to low/no filtration then have a further opportunity, along with other agents, to work their wicked ways if transportation and storage temperatures rise and there is any residual sugar to feed on.
Any further comments you have would be greatly appreciated.
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Eric - I thought I did have some notes on Chauvet's wines (I do remember them quite well), but after looking back at my early issues (what an amazingly different world wine was 20-23 years ago!), I didn't seem to have published them. I did write up Lapierre's wines as early as the 1989 vintage (tasted late 1990), noting from the outset how different the wines were and how much closer to Burgundy they seemed than standard Beaujolais fare, and the same for Breton, Foillard, and Thvenet. I also noted the lighter color and slight cloudiness of Lapierre's wines, which goes with what you have been writing above.
I doubt that Kermit has any Chauvet left, but I'll try to remember to ask next time I see him. Chauvet had lots of admirers in France, though -- I noted in print that both Grard Potel and Jacques Seysses had spoken admiringly of him to me -- so there may be some bottles out there somewhere.
Marc,
You got it alright.
Usually 5-10ppm maybe 15 at max. No way it can be up to 40.
EU regulations consider that you don't have to mention sulfites under 10ppm because of this non added SO2.
All my 2009 reds are between 2 and 3 ppm after malos.
Whites 6-8ppm.
Maule's Sassia 2008 is 12ppm natural IIRC.
nigel groundwater
nigel groundwater
Understood and your many earlier responses are much appreciated.
In my view, those are typicity, not terroir.
I recognize that this is counter to the typical French use of the word. I also recognize that appellations are not defined, in France or elsewhere, solely by vineyard conditions but also by the factors you mention. And I don't want to divert this interesting discussion (even if I can't follow what Nigel is writing either) into one about terroir. But the above-linked article does, about six hundred paragraphs in, get into a debate with itself about whether or not botrytis is part of terroir, and I think the same argument could apply to Nigel's contention about brett.
Anyway, please continue with the Chauvet/sulfur discussion, which is more interesting than the one about terroir.
Cory Cartwright
Cory Cartwright
Not snobbish at all, just practical. I like the wines when they are on but they are a hard sell.
The free SO2 isn't reduced, merely "bound" by which is meant covalently bonded to another chemical constituent. In the case of the press wine, it would most likely be the phenolics, as SO2 can react with a phenolic hydroxyl group to form a sulfite ester. This reaction is pH-dependent and occurs to a greater extent at higher pH (where there is greater deprotonation of the phenols).
Eric,
I think that the key to your wines' resistance to oxygen is the low pH. Oxygen reacts with phenolics to oxidize them and also to catalyze the oxidation of ethanol, which is otherwise a painfully slow process. The rate of reaction of phenolics with oxygen decreases dramatically at lower pH. Thus, I would assert that the overall oxidative potential of your wines (the amount of oxygen that can be consumed in reaction with your wine integrated over infinite time) wouldn't be terribly different from another wine with the same phenolic content but higher pH. Rather, it is the rate of reaction that varies the most. In technical terms, we'd say that it's a kinetic rather than a thermodynamic difference.
Thanks to both you and Nigel for a very enlightening discussion of a difficult topic.
Mark Lipton