Thanks Jeff

Florida Jim

Florida Jim

Florida Jim
Helen Turley, Michael Browne, Mark Aubert; all famous makers of California pinot noir and household names for those of us who love such wines.
How about Jeff Brinkman?
He doesn’t get the press or the props he deserves but he makes the best CA pinot I tasted this year; one of my “life list” wines the 2008 Rhys, Pinot Noir Skyline Vineyard.
This wine reminds me of grand cru Vosne; the spice of Romanée St. Vivant, the tensile strength of La Tache and the texture of Richebourg. Beautifully focused, remarkable complexity, powerful structure and such balance and purity as to reduce me to silence.
I recently had a couple of DRC’s from 1996 (La Tache and RSV) and this wine is every bit their equal today - imagine what it will be with 15 years on it?
Kevin usually gets the accolades for Rhys and rightly so; his experience, vision and investment have made this house as good as it gets. Javier too; he understands what he’s been given and no one grows pinot better.
But somebody has to make this and, these days, I have become very sensitive to that fact. For my money, no one is doing better work with pinot in this country.
Job well done.
Best, Jim
 
Jim, reiterating what I said elsewhere!

Always nice to hear well-deserved accolades for Santa Cruz Mountain Pinot Noirs. As you may recall, I have long been a huge fan of Ken Burnap's and Jeff Emery's Pinot Noirs.

I know it's controversial but my experiences/observations would concur with the Rhys approach...

Kevin Harvey is a big proponent of stem inclusion in Pinot Noir, where stems can get ripe and not detract from the expression of the Pinot.
Click to expand...

. . . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
Kevin Harvey is a big proponent of stem inclusion in Pinot Noir, where stems can get ripe and not detract from the expression of the Pinot.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Pete,
I have heard this said many times but, for the life of me, I can't figure out what a "ripe" stem is.

The times I have seen lignification down any ways at all in the stems, the brix of the fruit has been ridiculous.

The wine I wrote about above is 12.2% alcohol (yeah, 12.2). I would bet that there was no lignification of the stems in that batch of fruit and yet, the wine is not in the least bit green nor overly tannic.
And the times I have seen whole cluster ferments, I have seen an awful lot of green.

Perhaps, one of the things Rhys has going for it is that, because of its low brix levels, there is less alcohol created during fermentation and therefore, less of a solvent effect on the stems.

But whatever it is, the wines are extraordinary.

BTW, I will be visiting them in mid-December and I will ask about stem inclusion and the degree of "ripeness" they see in their stems. Report to follow . . .
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:

I have heard this said many times but, for the life of me, I can't figure out what a "ripe" stem is.
Click to expand...

Jim,
While I've never used the term "ripe stem" or "ripe tannin" I would suspect that they arise from the same idea, which is that of a less astringent flavor profile. Peyraud notes in his work that the astringency of tannins is related to their size. The smallest are not astringent at all, which is why barrel samples are so damn seductive, but as they increase in size (as they do from polymerization) they get more astringent up to a certain size; beyond that size, they become less astringent as they get bigger, which is why bottle aging produces less "tannic" wines. So, using that idea, I'd propose that "ripe" stems have "ripe" tannins, which are less astringent ones. Whether that's because they're bigger or smaller than what's normally encountered I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Mark Lipton
 
A picture of fermentations from Dujac that I saw earlier this season showed a full vat of neon-green stems.

Likewise, a winery sharing space with us did a lot of whole cluster Syrah, and saw very little lignification, but the winemaker had no worries.

I have no understanding of why whole-cluster is better, beyond that many winemakers I admire do it (at least for Syrah and Pinot), but I'd love to see some scientific research.
 
Morgan,
I think that whole-cluster creates another layer of flavor and structure, sometimes good, sometimes not. Of research, I have none.

Mark,
While I understand the theory, I suspect it is more complicated than that.
For instance, I have read of studies done in Australia that report that polymerization is not linear but rather, that tannin chains increase in size to a point, then break, then increase again - and so on.
So, the theory goes, they do not simply start small and get bigger, but reform continuously and at different lengths, throughout the process.
Only the shadow knows . . .

Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
Morgan,
I think that whole-cluster creates another layer of flavor and structure, sometimes good, sometimes not. Of research, I have none.

Mark,
While I understand the theory, I suspect it is more complicated than that.
For instance, I have read of studies done in Australia that report that polymerization is not linear but rather, that tannin chains increase in size to a point, then break, then increase again - and so on.
So, the theory goes, they do not simply start small and get bigger, but reform continuously and at different lengths, throughout the process.
Only the shadow knows . . .

Best, Jim
Click to expand...
Would welcome any references to this, as at first blush it is mechanistically perplexing.
 
Joe,
I do not have all my books here in CA but take a look at Jamie Goode's writings as he refers to the tannin chain studies and provides footnotes, as I recall.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Florida Jim:

Mark,
While I understand the theory, I suspect it is more complicated than that.
For instance, I have read of studies done in Australia that report that polymerization is not linear but rather, that tannin chains increase in size to a point, then break, then increase again - and so on.
So, the theory goes, they do not simply start small and get bigger, but reform continuously and at different lengths, throughout the process.
Only the shadow knows . . .
Click to expand...
Would welcome any references to this, as at first blush it is mechanistically perplexing.
Click to expand...

I can well imagine that that occurs with "non-oxidative" crosslinking of tannins, as that involves condensation with acetaldehyde, which by all rights should be a reversible process. Oxidative crosslinking of tannins, which forms diaryl ethers and biphenyls, I agree should not be reversed by anything present in wine.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
I can well imagine that that occurs with "non-oxidative" crosslinking of tannins, as that involves condensation with acetaldehyde, which by all rights should be a reversible process. Oxidative crosslinking of tannins, which forms diaryl ethers and biphenyls, I agree should not be reversed by anything present in wine.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Remind me to tread lightly when we start talking about chemistry.
Best, Jim
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
originally posted by MLipton:
I can well imagine that that occurs with "non-oxidative" crosslinking of tannins, as that involves condensation with acetaldehyde, which by all rights should be a reversible process. Oxidative crosslinking of tannins, which forms diaryl ethers and biphenyls, I agree should not be reversed by anything present in wine.

Mark Lipton
Click to expand...

Remind me to tread lightly when we start talking about chemistry.
Best, Jim
Click to expand...

I'd make sure I had an escape route!
 
originally posted by Florida Jim:
originally posted by Peter Creasey:
Kevin Harvey is a big proponent of stem inclusion in Pinot Noir, where stems can get ripe and not detract from the expression of the Pinot.
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Pete,
I have heard this said many times but, for the life of me, I can't figure out what a "ripe" stem is.

The times I have seen lignification down any ways at all in the stems, the brix of the fruit has been ridiculous.
Click to expand...

Jason Lett (Eyrie) told me just two days ago that lignification is particularly prevalent in the cooler vintages. When the sugars can't outrace phenological ripeness, as they couldn't in Oregon this year, lignification goes all the way down, and he has the luxury of tossing many ripe stems into the fermenter, if he so chooses (and usually does).

Myself, I helped the Teutonic Wine Company harvest their Alsea vineyard in early November and most of the stems and seeds were quite brown and soft. The fruit came in at 17 brix but most of the grapes sure tasted quite ripe and delicious thanks to the long hang time. Barnaby was originally thinking he'd have to make a sparkling wine from these spätburgunder (his term) grapes, but last I heard he was thinking they just might make a terrific still wine, based upon the flavors.

I'm not a winemaker and I'm sure I'm missing a lot of complicating factors, but it does seem there's not necessarily a correlation between high brix and lignification. I'll be interested to hear the Harvey / Brinkman team's thoughts on all this.
 
Really, I don't need any science to help me making my wines without destemming...
This is the way syrah have been made for centuries...

For my wines, stems help me catching the spirit of the terroir. I mostly grow grapes in cool places and stems are a whole part of the personality of these grapes.
Of course, I had to lower maceration time and extraction, therefore my wines have become lighter in body, less dark in color and less able to handle brutal elevage. But all in all I feel better with them now than before, even if they will never get the big points...
 
originally posted by Brézème:

Of course, I had to lower maceration time and extraction, therefore my wines have become lighter in body, less dark in color and less able to handle brutal elevage.
Click to expand...

This tradeoff deserves to be central in this discussion.
 
But it's not easy - the 2008 vintage in your area, Eric, being a case in point.

I've seen long, open-top macerations work with whole clusters, but the wines are very difficult for two, sometimes three decades. First they're harsh, then they appear thin and bitter, and only when the time is right does the fruit punch through, together with incredible texture. Stem inclusion for me is all about texture, whether in Burgundy or elsewhere.

But who has the patience and humility (yes, humility) nowadays to wait 20 years?
 
Yixin,

You know I had to lower maceration time down to 4-6 days in 2008, without ANY mechanical extraction. My Côte Rotie, harvested at 19 brix, is very pale in color, has virtualy no tannic structure to speak of, but I think I caught quite well what I thought was the expression of syrah on Verenay mica-schist in this very special vintage. This wine is ready to drink and won't last long, probably.

A lot of growers tried very hard to "compensate" the "weaknesses" of that vintage, through tannin addition, chaptalization, destemming, extensive pigeages, etc...
My feeling is that they finally did get a structure, but totally out of context for what the vintage had to give to these wines, in terms of balance and aromatic complexity.
These wines will probably last a few years longer than mine, but are and will remain, in my opinion, totally out of balance.

Destemming is too often a first step before heavy extraction over the skins.
This is a stylistic choice that I can understand in ripe years, though I wouldn't go for it for the reason you know.
But in cold climates and/or vintages, I can't really understand this choice since any extraction will always be too much.

Again as uncle Chauvet used to say : "Accept your wines the way they are. Don't try to make them the way you want them to be"
In my winemaking philosophy, keeping stems is a whole part of this.
 
Jim,

This is the total time where solids are in contact with liquid, including fermentation.

I usually go for 10 to 14 days total.
All my 2008 northern rhone where pressed around 70 g/l of residual sugar, in order to avoid maceration of skins, seeds and stems into alcohol (greater extraction), and ended their fermentation without solids like a white wine.
 
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