TLDR: Postmodern Winemaking

originally posted by SFJoe:
So does anyone know if they really still chaptalize Bordeaux?

And can anyone recommend a decent wine made with micro-ox?
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My personal experience from working the cellar at Lafite-Rothschild in 1989 is that they did indeed chaptalize at that time (I dumped many 50-kg bags of sugar and burned the paper sugar bags to make sure the evidence was destroyed). And that was a warm year, of course, so I would imagine that it would be even more common in a colder vintage. Of course, at the time, RO wasn't used widely if at all, so things could well have changed since then.

I haven't yet bought Clark's book, but looked at some of the molecular diagrams with Joe in his copy and noted the inaccurate structures and equations off the bat. I'll buy my own copy and add to the discussion after I get a chance to look at it more closely. But in the meantime, as someone who worked with Paul Draper for 9 years and used "feral fermentations" in my own wines for the past 18 years, I really would take exception to his comments that the wines smell and taste more of microbial by-products than site-specific characteristics. I'd be glad to set up 20-year vertical tastings of Geyserville zin, or Montebello cabs, with him and have him point out the defects.

And reducing the alcohol in the wine to 13.0% and adding neutral spirits to "sweet spot" the wines up to their maximum quality? I've heard of people doing that with wines they're trying to save from selling off as bulk, but as a regular practice? Really, who does that? No winemakers that I talk to (or if they do, they're certainly in the closet...)
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
So does anyone know if they really still chaptalize Bordeaux?

And can anyone recommend a decent wine made with micro-ox?
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I've thought Labranche-Laffont's vieilles vignes Madirans are pretty swell, and they are made with micro-ox.
 
And reducing the alcohol in the wine to 13.0% and adding neutral spirits to "sweet spot" the wines up to their maximum quality? I've heard of people doing that with wines they're trying to save from selling off as bulk, but as a regular practice? Really, who does that? No winemakers that I talk to (or if they do, they're certainly in the closet...)
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I supposed in a megascaled operation locked into gigantic tanks and minimal labor costs the above strategy might appeal, but that does sound weird. Last time (admittedly a while ago) that I was working on the producer side, the practice was to run trial ROs and blends to figure out the minimum amount of de-alcing needed to get to what they felt was a balanced and tasty wine.
 
He periodically dismisses various winemaking practices that were used on most of the stuff in my cellar with an airy wave at how they’d never move in the Omaha market, or to the requirements of tank-farm winemaking.
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Clark Smith doesn't actually know what could move in Omaha. In fact, even most of the people selling what moves in Omaha don't generally know what COULD move in Omaha, only what IS moving in Omaha, which they try to emulate, at least until the next stumbled-upon successful flavor style pops up there. For an industry that spends so much time considering and tinkering with sensory qualities in the product, there is surprisingly little properly controlled, quantitative sensory research done with actual consumers.

But then in the next sentence he will get all nostalgic for the old cabin and how it used to be done, soulfully. This frequent inconsistency, or dare I say self-contradiction, is one of the annoying aspects of the work. Smith justifies it to some degree by his title. He is not one of your Cartesian formalists, oh, no, he is a postmodernist...

“...Pascal Ribeareau-Gayon, who when we met in 1991 was director of the Faculty of Oenology at the University of Bordeaux. He expressed delight over a 1990 Merlot he had been involved with that had a pH of 3.95 and a TA of 2.9...To be truly great, he felt, a red Bordeaux must have low titratable acidity...."This is just a fundamental aesthetic difference I have with the guy. I really don’t mind red wine that makes me salivate.
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So he's citing absolute objective measurements for subjective phenomena? You'd think a post-modern guy wouldn't do that.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
So does anyone know if they really still chaptalize Bordeaux?
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Not my feeling generally speaking, but you never know... especially in 2013.

originally posted by SFJoe:
And can anyone recommend a decent wine made with micro-ox?
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Many Madiran or Irouléguy with a high proportion of tannat : Montus, Bouscassé, Domaine Mouréou, Illaria, Ameztia

Sorry I can't go deeper in the discussion.
 
He seems like a smart, self-aware guy who knows he's flat out wrong on some counts but thinks he can get away with it.

Like any other schnook, really. Same schtick, moving different shit.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
Aw, shucks, guys.

As I muse about this, and talk about it a bit, I think I should also mention points where Smith would probably find a warmer reception by some on this board.

For instance:

* He comes out pretty strongly against extended hang time in reds, objecting to what it does to the tannin components he wants available for his oxidations in the winery.

* He comes out strongly against DAP and similar yeast supplements, on the (several times repeated) grounds that yeast that gobble their meal won't eat all the minor menu items that would subsequently nourish brett. Thus: "If we feed them Twinkies, those yeasts just won't eat their oatmeal, and the result will be lots of leftover unconsumed micronutrients--like half-eaten pizzas, left around to encourage the vermin." (a very characteristic Smith sentence, btw)

* He comes out against new oak barrels. Of course, he wants you to use oak chips instead....
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Being right for the wrong reasons is still being wrong. Objecting to hang time so yo can micro-ox or objecting to oak barrels because you can get the same effect much more cheaply with chips really isn't objecting to over-ripeness or oak. Well, of course, you already knew that.

And I'll add my thanks for the book review. It's nice to hear a full-throated, open defense of manipulation. If there is a case to be made, that would be how it would have to be made.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
And I'll add my thanks for the book review. It's nice to hear a full-throated, open defense of manipulation. If there is a case to be made, that would be how it would have to be made.
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Yes, it's nice to see an honest argument instead of the old "all wine is manipulation" chestnut.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
the old "all wine is manipulation" chestnut.
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Oh, he pretty much says that too.

He wonders why we don't all object to electricity.
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I'm sorry to hear that. There's always a case to be made for manipulation and frequently a good one. But if you reduce it to "you can't not do that," you almost always cease to be interesting--except at the level of metaphysics.
 
This is timely, since Clark Smith is doing a Q&A this week at Wine Berserkers (the forum is at http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=50). My 25 year old recollection of high school organic chemistry is just enough for me to understand that I'm in way over my head when following some of your critiques, but hope that someone who isn't as ignorant as I am engages Smith on these issues. I'm delusional enough to hope that I may learn something from that type of discussion.
 
Being right for the wrong reasons is still being wrong. Objecting to hang time so you can micro-ox or objecting to oak barrels because you can get the same effect much more cheaply with chips really isn't objecting to over-ripeness or oak...
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Quite true. But micro-ox is usually intended to soften tannins and perhaps accelerate development. There are lots of other objections to excessive hang time besides the mushing maturing of the tannins: high pH, raisiny/pruney flavors, loss of various other flavors, higher alcohol, etc. Micro-ox won't help with them.

I'm puzzled by many natural wine fans' objection to micro-ox or oak chips per se. Sure, you can obliterate the "true" or "natural" character of the wine or vineyard if they're used to excess, but why proscribe them entirely?
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):


I'm puzzled by many natural wine fans' objection to micro-ox or oak chips per se.
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Speaking only for myself, I think the aesthetic goals of many micro-oxers and wood chippers turn out to be different from my own.

I can imagine a universe where micro-ox was used to reasonable effect. Wood chips are just another flavor additive.

But it mostly turns out that the folks who do it aren't making wines I enjoy.

Smith thinks the most important use of it is early on in the life of the wine, to build the right tannic structure.

Anyhow, as with so much 'manipulation,' you could imagine how it might be OK in the abstract, but it turns out that the intention of the people who use it winds up typically being opposed to what I want to drink.

It's also worth remembering that the wines that I care about are in most cases an insignificant part of the market, and the debates about how they should be made will never change the major part of the market.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):


I'm puzzled by many natural wine fans' objection to micro-ox or oak chips per se.
Click to expand...

Speaking only for myself, I think the aesthetic goals of many micro-oxers and wood chippers turn out to be different from my own.

I can imagine a universe where micro-ox was used to reasonable effect. Wood chips are just another flavor additive.

But it mostly turns out that the folks who do it aren't making wines I enjoy.
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At least one, and I'm sure more, famous name in Burgundy whose wines you probably have enjoyed in the past has used wood chips, even though it was illegal.

My experience, which is not great in these areas as I seek out people who eschew those practices, is that micro-ox is more invasive than wood chips, but even for micro-ox, I'm sure that I've had wines that I've not disliked, primarily Madiran and Irrouléguy, as Brézème points out (although not necessarily the same producers he names). Hell, even for RO, about which I may be the world's fiercest opponent because of what it does to the wines (as opposed to theoretical grounds, which I don't even get to), I know of a few (but not more) wines that I've liked that have been submitted to the process.* There are always exceptions to the rule.

*Speaking here of removing water; I don't have any experience comparing wines that have and haven't gone through RO for removal of other elements, and so I can't comment on how RO affects those wines.
 
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