Climate change is not responsible for rising alcohol levels

Personally, I think it's a little funny that all these people who don't actually pick grapes are making these blanket statements about alc levels and climate.

Without question, winemakers have been rewarded by publications for producing riper, extracted, high alcohol wines. It's a stylistic choice for many.

But empirically, I've been noticing changes in ripening patterns since the early 90's. When I joined Ridge vineyards in '89, the grapes for virtually all of our Sonoma vineyards tasted physiologically ripe at Brix levels of 23.5 or 24--the seeds were sclerified and brown, the stems had changed color, the flavors were complex. As the 90s progressed, we observed that the vines did not ripen grapes the same way--at those lower Brix levels, the seeds were green and the flavors unripe. It didn't help that there was often a blast of heat right at the final weeks of ripening that dehydrated berries before full ripeness occurred. At any rate, the alcohols slowly increased year by year not because of a desire to make riper wines--they just wouldn't have made good wine if we had picked at our traditional lower Brix levels.

Personally, I'm trying to find grapes in slightly cooler microclimates so that I can get grapes in a lower sugars and produce lower alcohol wines, because I enjoy drinking those wines. It requires changes in winemaking techniques and vineyard practices to produce interesting wines with lower alcohols in California. Years like 2010 help, because it was a cooler year and the long hang time produced ripe flavors at lower sugars. But years like that have been the exception in the past decade and a half.

I've got to say that the report that Oswaldo started this thread with looks flawed to me--it doesn't take into account the fact that some winemakers do want to make higher alcohol wines for reasons of salability or marketing. I'd love to see the statistics the report is based on. Looks fishy to me.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yixin:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Yixin:
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by fillay:

Performativity. All the cool kids are doing it:
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Nice to see a range of approaches. Many ways to approach the subject. Although I noticed that there weren't any political scientists.

And I'm not sure any of these academics are 'cool'!
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Better to be correct than cool, as someone told me.
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If you are correct without being cool (assuming "cool" for an academic means saying something interesting), you're just spouting worthless commonplaces. If you're cool without being correct, you at least have the chance of being wrong in an interesting way.

The worst of all is being both incorrect and uninteresting, which, alas, is too frequently what "cool" is confused for. But uninteresting correctness isn't much worth being enamoured of either.
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Too often, cool without being correct is not even wrong, as the interesting kids say.
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"Not even wrong" is a category that exists only in the sciences. We humanities types can always be wrong', only too easily. Our cognate category is probably "not even interesting.
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I thought we were discussing academics, not just humanities academics. And I believe the disciplines most germane to this discussion are economics and political science, both of which (especially in the US) are more 'science' than 'humanities' (which, on a side note, has led to some spectacularly not even wrong papers in both disciplines). But IANAA.
 
I would contest that any of the social sciences operate with the protocols of science to which the criticism that an idea is not even wrong meaningfully applies. If "not even wrong" means something like not falsifiable, then a lot of significant ideas in those fields are indeed "not even wrong," and yet they are significant and may even be right. And while I really am the last person to criticize the value of those protocols, they are not synonymous with the only way of generating accurate statements. So while I think that "not even wrong" is a meaningful criticism of certain kinds of pseudo-scientific claims and also of the sillier forms of intellectual imperialism occasionally characteristic of an overreaching form of poststructuralism of US teachers of literature feeling their oats by questioning science in puerile ways, as an intellectual critique I don't think it more interesting than that.
 
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
But empirically, I've been noticing changes in ripening patterns since the early 90's. When I joined Ridge vineyards in '89, the grapes for virtually all of our Sonoma vineyards tasted physiologically ripe at Brix levels of 23.5 or 24--the seeds were sclerified and brown, the stems had changed color, the flavors were complex. As the 90s progressed, we observed that the vines did not ripen grapes the same way--at those lower Brix levels, the seeds were green and the flavors unripe. It didn't help that there was often a blast of heat right at the final weeks of ripening that dehydrated berries before full ripeness occurred. At any rate, the alcohols slowly increased year by year not because of a desire to make riper wines--they just wouldn't have made good wine if we had picked at our traditional lower Brix levels.
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Thanks for chiming in. This is very similar to what Andean winemakers claim to justify late picking. Their claim has seemed somewhat disingenuous because, up to the 1990s, Argentines were perfectly capable of making balanced wines at 12.5%. But if your experience applies somewhat similarly, their claim would seem less disingenuous. BTW, picking grapes would only interfere with the clarity that our thoughts are able to obtain in a vacuum.
 
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
As the 90s progressed, we observed that the vines did not ripen grapes the same way--at those lower Brix levels, the seeds were green and the flavors unripe.
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This makes me think that the vine does not respond linearly to heat (meaning, it's not just a matter of "X degree days gets you Y brix"). Your observation appears to say that the hotter the clime, the higher the final brix _and_ the vine adjusts fruit ripeness to be ready only when it gets to that higher number.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I would contest that any of the social sciences operate with the protocols of science to which the criticism that an idea is not even wrong meaningfully applies. If "not even wrong" means something like not falsifiable, then a lot of significant ideas in those fields are indeed "not even wrong," and yet they are significant and may even be right. And while I really am the last person to criticize the value of those protocols, they are not synonymous with the only way of generating accurate statements. So while I think that "not even wrong" is a meaningful criticism of certain kinds of pseudo-scientific claims and also of the sillier forms of intellectual imperialism occasionally characteristic of an overreaching form of poststructuralism of US teachers of literature feeling their oats by questioning science in puerile ways, as an intellectual critique I don't think it more interesting than that.
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IANAA, but the professors I know and in some cases worked with had very little doubt that those protocols were applicable to their fields (and by extension, much of political economy). And I would argue that it is precisely where there is debate over whether (and how) those protocols apply, that the 'not even wrong' criticism can be particularly apt.

For what it's worth, I would classify most of my academic and professional life thus far as being not even wrong, but I can live with that.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
As the 90s progressed, we observed that the vines did not ripen grapes the same way--at those lower Brix levels, the seeds were green and the flavors unripe.
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This makes me think that the vine does not respond linearly to heat (meaning, it's not just a matter of "X degree days gets you Y brix"). Your observation appears to say that the hotter the clime, the higher the final brix _and_ the vine adjusts fruit ripeness to be ready only when it gets to that higher number.
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It's worth looking at the Chenin Blanc vines in Thailand, where they typically get 2 harvests a year. The grapes bake rapidly if not picked early, without the stems turning brown. It's a pretty cheap way to make lots of fruit-forward, high-enough-acid wines without much cellar manipulation, although there is quite often flatness and lack of intensity. Makes me wonder why there aren't more sub-equatorial vineyards in low cost countries.
 
[quote Makes me wonder why there aren't more sub-equatorial vineyards in low cost countries.[/quote]

I would suspect that many of these countries don't necessarily have much of a wine culture in place*, so the cost of planting and maintaining vineyards and producing wine might not yield as much of a profit as planting other crops with more of a commercial history in the region. There's also a considerable investment in time for the vines to mature and if they're getting a couple of harvests each year, the vines burn out and will need to be replaced more often. Other long-term crops (coffee, nuts, bananas, etc), while taking awhile for the initial harvest to become available will likely be productive for longer than an overstressed grapevine.

-Eden

*and by "sub-equatorial I presume you're not referring to places such as Australia, South Africa, Argentina and Chile where they do have thriving (or otherwise) wine industries.
 
Well, Brazil has thriving vineyards in the arid northeast that yield two and a half harvests per year thanks to irrigation and a hormone that makes the vines flower at the same time, like dorm menstrual cycles. The hormone is toxic to workers but, they claim, not to vines. The resulting wines are cheap and not entirely incorrect, for industrial plonk.
 
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
Can I chime in?Personally, I think it's a little funny that all these people who don't actually pick grapes are making these blanket statements about alc levels and climate.
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Yes indeed. Thank you.
 
originally posted by VS:
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
Can I chime in?Personally, I think it's a little funny that all these people who don't actually pick grapes are making these blanket statements about alc levels and climate.
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Yes indeed. Thank you.
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Right, so only the miserable illegal North African and Mexican indentired slaves that you and Mike pay room & board to pick your grapes under the sweltering heat at harvest time can make blanket statements about alcohol levels and climate?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by VS:
originally posted by Michael Dashe:
Can I chime in?Personally, I think it's a little funny that all these people who don't actually pick grapes are making these blanket statements about alc levels and climate.
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Yes indeed. Thank you.
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Right, so only the miserable illegal North African and Mexican indentired slaves that you and Mike pay room & board to pick your grapes under the sweltering heat at harvest time can make blanket statements about alcohol levels and climate?
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Levi will be qualified after this Fall's harvest.
 
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