TN: Soul Flavors (June 3, 2011)

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Seem counter intuitive that they would use more acidic grapes in cooler climates and less acidic grapes (viognier and marsanne; I think rousanne is more acidic) in warmer climates. Assuming, of course, that healthy acidity has historically been a preference for European drinkers.
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There has been a New World fashion for Chenin as a grape that preserves its acidity in warm spots, so you will find it in the Central Valley of California and in bits of South Africa, and etc. Unfortunately, it is mostly pretty anonymous under those circs.

I think acid is not the only variable for your model, you need to consider times of flowering and ripening as well.

I imagine Marsanne could be a pretty acidic grape in the Mosel, for instance.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Unfortunately, it is mostly pretty anonymous under those circs.
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There's the rub; maybe monk-like creatures tried planting Romorantin in the Rhone but the heat made it anonymous.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
But the Loire naturels who don't want malos avoid SO2 and just filter, considering the latter to be a lesser evil.
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They don't filter during vinification to avoid malo (it would have to be done at crush?), they either sulfur, or they use lysozyme..
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Guilhaume gerard:
Traditionally, vouvray and chinon are vinified in a very different style.
Chinon's more in the "no malo" style that Saumur or jasniere usually favors. If i remember correctly, vouvray's are usually short elevage, for example, Huet, and most vouvray producers are bottling in april, to capture the "primary flavors", while chinon or saumur blanc's elevages are much longer, with a fairly high dose of so2 added at crush and every couple months until bottling, supposedly to avoid malo-lactic, and oxydation, but strangely, also to capture that "primary fruit" from their chenin.. I must admit having a harder time with that style. People i know, making saumur or jasniere that way do so believing that the high so2/long elevage will keep the wines fresh for a long time. Me, i don't understand the point of it compare to a shorter elevage (i mean, vouvray can age). If you going to sulfur a lot to avoid oxidation, might as well do a short aging, or age in tank, not barrels.... Also, eric talked about something interesting while we were discussing the 2 styles, his take (please correct me if i'm wrong) was "why always avoid malo, while sometimes there is just not that high of a level of malic acids that will ferment anyway... It wouldn't change the wine all that much..."
this is in my opinion, why chinon or saumur blancs are so closed and austere for quite some time, but i have to admit liking a few wines in both styles, and quite a few from the "long elevage/low sulfur/malo" as well (pithon's old domaine, etc...)
Now, i'm just talking about vinifications, as i do not have a real deep knowledge on the differences in soils and their influences on the wines within the 3 aoc's i'm talking about here.
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Do you see a lot of Vouvray that goes through malo?

I think that in most vintages these wines all have pH low enough that they probably wouldn't undergo a spontaneous malo.

I doubt that Baudry whacks the wines with that much SO2...?
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I see some, i see some montlouis too, and some chinons going through malo. It does not happen every year to all of them, but it does happen often. Few chenin producers (some vouvray makers too) i've talked to in the past couple days all agree that malo would most definitely start naturally in vouvray. I still haven't visited baudry, and i'm not planning on doing so, so VLM's gonna have to "ask matthieu" if he wants more information on that...
 
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