Oswaldo Costa
Oswaldo Costa
Mulling over a potentially explosive combination.
.sasha’s intriguing comment that some producers chaptalize "to get the additional complexity from extending fermentation, not to achieve an abv number; but consider that the potential for complexity is there, chaptalization does not create it, obviously."
Louis Moreau's suspicious assertion that his 2010 basic Chablis weighs in at 12.0%, all his 2009 Premier Crus at 12.5% and all his 2008 Grand Crus, in a leaner year, at 13.5%.
Afaik, Grand Cru grapes don't have necessarily more sugar than Premier Cru grapes, so why the extra hundred basis points in a leaner year? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Louis Moreau’s Grand Crus were chaptalized to get the "additional complexity" befitting their status, abusing the (otherwise not unreasonable) idea that the potential was already there. He may not have done it to raise abv, but higher abv was the inevitable consequence.
In effect, ladies and gentlemen - including the world-weary, who have been wagging their heads at my goodie-goodie naiveté - let me say that the veil has lifted. There are many "honest enough" producers, I am sure, but the villages/premier cru/grand cru system (and its analogues, playing in theaters everywhere) appears, if not structurally corrupt, at least an invitation to manipulate to an extent that makes a mockery of the notion of terroir.
Like Moreau, there must be a multitude who chaptalize to generate categorical differences in neatly ascending Burghound scores. Not like Roulot and Bachelet to make minor corrections. If this is a "scandal" waiting to be exposed (to the half dozen people who care) by some blend of Moore & Nossiter, it's a much more invisible one, and perhaps insidious, than the use of flying winemaker technology.
How can we tell the difference between the artistic correction and the commercial manipulation, particularly when both lie on the same continuum?
Until labels are required to state how much of the abv was achieved through sugar addition, which may never happen, perhaps our only clue, as far as red burgundy, is the darkness of the liquid. Never has the observation of color been so potentially telling.
OK, rant over.
.sasha’s intriguing comment that some producers chaptalize "to get the additional complexity from extending fermentation, not to achieve an abv number; but consider that the potential for complexity is there, chaptalization does not create it, obviously."
Louis Moreau's suspicious assertion that his 2010 basic Chablis weighs in at 12.0%, all his 2009 Premier Crus at 12.5% and all his 2008 Grand Crus, in a leaner year, at 13.5%.
Afaik, Grand Cru grapes don't have necessarily more sugar than Premier Cru grapes, so why the extra hundred basis points in a leaner year? It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Louis Moreau’s Grand Crus were chaptalized to get the "additional complexity" befitting their status, abusing the (otherwise not unreasonable) idea that the potential was already there. He may not have done it to raise abv, but higher abv was the inevitable consequence.
In effect, ladies and gentlemen - including the world-weary, who have been wagging their heads at my goodie-goodie naiveté - let me say that the veil has lifted. There are many "honest enough" producers, I am sure, but the villages/premier cru/grand cru system (and its analogues, playing in theaters everywhere) appears, if not structurally corrupt, at least an invitation to manipulate to an extent that makes a mockery of the notion of terroir.
Like Moreau, there must be a multitude who chaptalize to generate categorical differences in neatly ascending Burghound scores. Not like Roulot and Bachelet to make minor corrections. If this is a "scandal" waiting to be exposed (to the half dozen people who care) by some blend of Moore & Nossiter, it's a much more invisible one, and perhaps insidious, than the use of flying winemaker technology.
How can we tell the difference between the artistic correction and the commercial manipulation, particularly when both lie on the same continuum?
Until labels are required to state how much of the abv was achieved through sugar addition, which may never happen, perhaps our only clue, as far as red burgundy, is the darkness of the liquid. Never has the observation of color been so potentially telling.
OK, rant over.
