Terry Theise and yeasts
- Thread starter Oswaldo Costa
- Start date
David M. Bueker
David M. Bueker
Don't recall where the original was, but Jamie Goode wrote extensively about it in The World of Fine Wine. There is apparently a follow-up in the current issue of TWoFW from Mat Goddard (who did the research in NZ).
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Reading this makes me think that humanities journals should just be called Words or Descriptions.
Ekphrasis Daily.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Lots of good points are being made. I think the main "problem," from the terroir POV, is not so much innoculation as the use of non-native yeasts.
Claude says that "Most people agree that German Rieslings are among those wines that are the most expressive of terroir." If innoculated yeasts are cultivated local yeasts, like Roagna's, there is a good argument to be made that they remain full terroir expressions.
If the innoculants are lab products, it's less "bad" if they are flavor-neutral. While not as terroir expressive, at least they don't interfere with other dimensions of terroir expression.
If the innoculants have flavor intentions, then terroir is being interfered with, no matter how delicious the wine. If one is among the 0.01% that cares about wine being more than delicious, I believe yeasts matter.
Claude says that "Most people agree that German Rieslings are among those wines that are the most expressive of terroir." If innoculated yeasts are cultivated local yeasts, like Roagna's, there is a good argument to be made that they remain full terroir expressions.
If the innoculants are lab products, it's less "bad" if they are flavor-neutral. While not as terroir expressive, at least they don't interfere with other dimensions of terroir expression.
If the innoculants have flavor intentions, then terroir is being interfered with, no matter how delicious the wine. If one is among the 0.01% that cares about wine being more than delicious, I believe yeasts matter.
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
"why do the innoculators' wines tend to be either bland, or inconsistent, or else sulphuric shitbombs in their youth . . . "
So you seem to be talking about a divide that is not based on quality imparted by inoculation, but rather who does a good job and who doesn't, and you concede that Haart and Dnnhoff make good wines with inoculation, too (and there are others who don't inoculate make crappy wines? In other words, it's not the inoculation that makes the wines "bland, inconsistent, or sulphuric shitbombs in their youth." In that case, if Haart and Dnnhoff are the only German producers who don't make bland, etc. wines, then you've got a point (for those who taste like you). But if you concede that there are others who don't make wines that are bland, etc., then I'll bet you get people in there who inoculate, and so then your point collapses.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
How does one discern whether an innoculant has "flavor intentions?"
I suspect we can all try our best to answer that question and we will have an awful lot of dancing angels on the head of a pin.
Best, Jim
Claude Kolm
Claude Kolm
Some people are doing that now, but AFAIK, that's a recent development. Things are moving very fast in Germany, now, but a little more than a decade ago, the overwhelming view was that even if you wanted to be organic or biodynamic, it was not possible in Germany. (Counterexamples like Clemens Busch, who has been organic since 1988, IIRC, were written off as being in special terroirs or not being practical.) There are plenty of counterexamples now, and with them has come a whole new thinking about vini- and viticulture there.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
It's written on the label!
That was an argument made to us in the Piedmont: that because the inoculations were yeasts cultivated in a local lab, they were "local" yeasts and the spontaneous/inoculated argument was moot. I didn't buy it then, and I still don't. Whether or not "native" is actually native, the point is still the philosophy of control vs. non-control.
I'm not sure I agree with this, either. If there's not a desired outcome from choosing a yeast, then why choose one at all? I think anyone who yeasts has an expectation that they're trying to meet, whether it's flavor, structure, or absence of unpredictability. Sure, flavor-altering yeasts are aggressive in their destruction of "natural" qualities, but it's possible -- even likely -- that the fullest possible abandonment of intervention will obscure terroir in equally aggressive ways. It's just not a simple equation.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Not that I've ever seen.
Best, Jim
Cultivated yeasts will be highly selected by their cultivation medium. The thing about a diverse population of yeasts (available only by using natives) is that you get various odd yeasts that tolerate high sugar/low alcohol environments early in the fermentation, and different ones that tolerate moderate alcohol/moderate sugar, and etc. A succession of dominant or contributing populations. You won't get that from any cloned (laboratory cultivation usually involves cloning) yeast.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
I also wouldn't buy the argument as much if it were from a local lab, like most Barolos that use the BRL yeast. I was talking about Roagna's situation, where he cultivated them himself from his own vineyard.
There is a desired outcome in terms of predictability, but not a desired flavor outcome.
But Joe just took the words out of my mind.
Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Exactly. He says this in more diplomatic terms in the book and I, well, objected. Though it is true that my inner-child is eager for the reassurance of simplistic explanations. But then the inner adult always slaps him.
Florida Jim
Florida Jim
Curiously, some suppliers are not mixing other yeast in with Sacchromyces cerevisiae, such as Kluyveromyces thermotolerans and Torulasora delbrueckii in an effort to mimic native yeast fermentations.
As you say, each has its place in the chronological continuum of the ferment.
Best, Jim
I don't see the difference, really. The point is that one is inoculating, not that one is inoculating with A vs. B, isn't it?
Maybe Roagna has documented evidence that the yeast they've cultivated has been an essential element of each terroir (assuming they use a different, site-specific yeast for each bottling) for centuries, in which case I'd agree as far as saying that they seem to have isolated a native yeast and a terroir-specific yeast. But they've still isolated it. It's just not the same as a spontaneous ferment. As noted, I'm less invested in the distinction than others, but inoculating is inoculating, it's control, and it is not the same as the philosophy of non-control. I agree that there are more and less aggressive yeasts. But the category of interventions that you're trying to isolate is similar to watering back with rainwater from the terroir in question, sweetening with grape must from the same vineyard as the fermented grapes, and so forth. It's less interventionist than other things one can do, but it's still interventionist.
Predictability, though, is a flavor outcome. Much of the argument against spontaneous ferments is that things like brett and the like develop if one does not inoculate and "control" the fermentation. Whether this is true or not, avoiding these conditions is the motivation and purpose of the inoculation. Again, if there wasn't a desired outcome, there would be no inoculation in the first place.
Theise's shorthand argument, quoted above, is grossly overstated as well.
U
Unknown
Guest
let's see. i noted that while lots of people preach inoculation, and its virtues, it is odd that i could name (i.e., i could be specific about) the two producers who in my experience have the best track record for making the purest wine, and both prefer not to inoculate. (indeed, as i noted in my awful pun, they only inoculate when musts need.)
i mentioned this, because if you believe the pro-inouclators, one might expect that the cleaner producers would come from among people who routinely inoculate, and who think it's a good thing.
oh well.
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Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Boys, boys!
Oliver McCrum
Oliver McCrum
Great thread (mostly). I agree with Theise.
It's hard to be doctrinaire about indigenous yeasts in the Italian wine business because there are very few producers who don't inoculate. I have a producer who has had a culture taken from their vineyards which they had propagated and use for fermentation; i have another producer who came back from enology school with a passion for experimentation and has used indigenous yeasts for two vintages* and who has had to bulk off parts of each vintage due to problems with the fermentation. I'm not sure that some of the proponents of this technique understand the financial risk involved.
On the other hand the excellent Kuenhof wines are all un-inoculated, and he doesn't report any problems other than very slow primary fermentations in some cases.
I suspect there is a lot of fibbing about this, and other 'natural' methods, perhaps not so much by producers as by importers. I know Terroir in SF saw a lot of this, at least initially.
*using a 'pied de cuve' that has grain alcohol added to it shortly after it starts fermenting to kill off some of the wild organisms. Not enough for the true Taliban, probably.
It's hard to be doctrinaire about indigenous yeasts in the Italian wine business because there are very few producers who don't inoculate. I have a producer who has had a culture taken from their vineyards which they had propagated and use for fermentation; i have another producer who came back from enology school with a passion for experimentation and has used indigenous yeasts for two vintages* and who has had to bulk off parts of each vintage due to problems with the fermentation. I'm not sure that some of the proponents of this technique understand the financial risk involved.
On the other hand the excellent Kuenhof wines are all un-inoculated, and he doesn't report any problems other than very slow primary fermentations in some cases.
I suspect there is a lot of fibbing about this, and other 'natural' methods, perhaps not so much by producers as by importers. I know Terroir in SF saw a lot of this, at least initially.
*using a 'pied de cuve' that has grain alcohol added to it shortly after it starts fermenting to kill off some of the wild organisms. Not enough for the true Taliban, probably.