more on Bosker ....

originally posted by mark e:
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:
originally posted by MLipton:
Now Eric Asimov weighs in just in case you hadn't already seen it.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the link. I realize now that Bosker is not merely an idiot nor merely a shill: she is saying "they were sour, anyway" for all the milennials who cannot afford/will never have a great, well-aged Grand Cru experience (on their phone).
Click to expand...

Did she actually use the word "sour"? I can't imagine anyone with even the slightest amount of wine knowlege - which she claims - using the word.
Click to expand...

Nah, that's just a case of sour grapes.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Well, I love to be a devil's advocate, so I will just say that I started out on overoaked Aussie wines and then I hit the less manipulated stuff, so there is a little bit of anecdotal evidence to Bosker's claim (as reported by Asimov--I haven't read her book).
Click to expand...

At the risk of being the Devil's Advocate to the Devil's Advocate, I'll state that overoaked Aussie wines of the era you're likely referring to don't necessarily qualify as the sort of homogenized wine "products" that are the point of Asimov's critique of what I presume was Bosker's thesis. While oak barrels are certainly one of the oldest forms of manipulation (resin-sealed amphorae get that distinction), they don't ipso facto produce wines to meet a particular specification dictated by market research. That's certainly true of the various vin de gardes of the Old World and arguably was true for Aussie wines of the '70s and '80s, which gets back to mark e's point.

Mark Lipton
 
Since a couple of people have asked for some more details about my claim: First of all, if it's relevant, I'm just short of 67. In graduate school in the 70s, I could occasionally buy cru bourgeois bordeaux on my TA stipend, but my wine discrimination was mostly manifest in being able to distinguish and prefer some jug wines that were drier and less soda pop like than Gallo Hearty Burgundy. When I started out as an asst. professor (on 80s asst. prof. salaries), I was able to get even higher quality jug wine (I can still remember an Italian wine called da Vinci that cost maybe $3 for a liter and a half that seemed to me much higher quality than other wines in that budget category). By the mid 80s, after a 3 week trip to France, I developed a more distinct taste for French wine (and for CdP in particular) that I could just start to cultivate. Nevertheless the first wine I bought a case of was Lindeman Chardonnay Bin 65 (which used oak chips if you please)for something like $4 a bottle and I drank it with great pleasure. There was also a VA chardonnay called Linden, which, at the time, was full force oak and malolactic fermentation and tasted like buttered popcorn and I thought it was the cat's whiskers (the owner and winemaker of Linden, Jim Law, is quite knowledgeable and his Chardonnays have not tasted like that in some time). So, in a real way, I started around where Bosker was discussing. I am surely not the only one here who didn't always hate oak but lost the taste for it after experiencing well made wine that tasted like wine and not like buttered popcorn. And I really don't think the progress in taste she describes is either unlikely or unusual.
 
Before you, Jonathan, I started with Mateus, Vinho Verde, and maybe Lancers.

However, I progressed more rapidly than you did toward Bordeaux and Cabernet Sauvignon then got educated on the merits of Petit Sirahs/Durifs, Zins, Rhones, and Burgundies (Pinot Noirs came slower for some reason).

No pigmentally challenged wines to speak of early on!

. . . . . Pete
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Since a couple of people have asked for some more details about my claim: First of all, if it's relevant, I'm just short of 67. In graduate school in the 70s, I could occasionally buy cru bourgeois bordeaux on my TA stipend, but my wine discrimination was mostly manifest in being able to distinguish and prefer some jug wines that were drier and less soda pop like than Gallo Hearty Burgundy. When I started out as an asst. professor (on 80s asst. prof. salaries), I was able to get even higher quality jug wine (I can still remember an Italian wine called da Vinci that cost maybe $3 for a liter and a half that seemed to me much higher quality than other wines in that budget category). By the mid 80s, after a 3 week trip to France, I developed a more distinct taste for French wine (and for CdP in particular) that I could just start to cultivate. Nevertheless the first wine I bought a case of was Lindeman Chardonnay Bin 65 (which used oak chips if you please)for something like $4 a bottle and I drank it with great pleasure. There was also a VA chardonnay called Linden, which, at the time, was full force oak and malolactic fermentation and tasted like buttered popcorn and I thought it was the cat's whiskers (the owner and winemaker of Linden, Jim Law, is quite knowledgeable and his Chardonnays have not tasted like that in some time). So, in a real way, I started around where Bosker was discussing. I am surely not the only one here who didn't always hate oak but lost the taste for it after experiencing well made wine that tasted like wine and not like buttered popcorn. And I really don't think the progress in taste she describes is either unlikely or unusual.
Click to expand...

Surprised to see a put down of malolactic fermentation. Huh?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Since a couple of people have asked for some more details about my claim: First of all, if it's relevant, I'm just short of 67. In graduate school in the 70s, I could occasionally buy cru bourgeois bordeaux on my TA stipend, but my wine discrimination was mostly manifest in being able to distinguish and prefer some jug wines that were drier and less soda pop like than Gallo Hearty Burgundy. When I started out as an asst. professor (on 80s asst. prof. salaries), I was able to get even higher quality jug wine (I can still remember an Italian wine called da Vinci that cost maybe $3 for a liter and a half that seemed to me much higher quality than other wines in that budget category). By the mid 80s, after a 3 week trip to France, I developed a more distinct taste for French wine (and for CdP in particular) that I could just start to cultivate. Nevertheless the first wine I bought a case of was Lindeman Chardonnay Bin 65 (which used oak chips if you please)for something like $4 a bottle and I drank it with great pleasure. There was also a VA chardonnay called Linden, which, at the time, was full force oak and malolactic fermentation and tasted like buttered popcorn and I thought it was the cat's whiskers (the owner and winemaker of Linden, Jim Law, is quite knowledgeable and his Chardonnays have not tasted like that in some time). So, in a real way, I started around where Bosker was discussing. I am surely not the only one here who didn't always hate oak but lost the taste for it after experiencing well made wine that tasted like wine and not like buttered popcorn. And I really don't think the progress in taste she describes is either unlikely or unusual.
Click to expand...

Surprised to see a put down of malolactic fermentation. Huh?
Click to expand...

In Chardonnay? Really??

Mark Lipton
 
Oswaldo, have you not had Chardonnay that tastes like buttered popcorn? Where do you think that buttery flavor comes from? But maybe you like the style.
 
I generally dislike lactic flavors in any color of wine, but it's not about that. Malolactic fermentation is a natural phenomenon which tends to happen spontaneously most of the time, unless there's little malic acid on the grapes or the cellar is way cold. If one has a natural approach, one should not block it, regardless of how one feels about popcorn. To say that a Chardonnay went through malolactic as if that were a bad thing suggests that one or two professors would have preferred it blocked, with SO2 or sterile filtration. Shame on ye unnatural dons!
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I generally dislike lactic flavors in any color of wine, but it's not about that. Malolactic fermentation is a natural phenomenon which tends to happen spontaneously most of the time, unless there's little malic acid on the grapes or the cellar is way cold. If one has a natural approach, one should not block it, regardless of how one feels about popcorn. To say that a Chardonnay went through malolactic as if that were a bad thing suggests that one or two professors would have preferred it blocked, with SO2 or sterile filtration. Shame on ye unnatural dons!
Click to expand...

O, the Chardonnay in Chablis is non-ML for the most part, and even in the Cote D'Or many of the Chardonnays do not undergo full ML. The style of which my academic confrere speaks involves not only full ML but also one run at higher temperature (compared to those cold European cellars) that produces diacetyl, a byproduct of ML fermentation that coincidentally is used to flavor "buttered" popcorn.

Mark Lipton
 
I leave to theologians the question of whether making white wine without malolactic fermentation is spoof. But if it is, there are an awful lot of Rieslings and Chenin Blancs, not to mention the white Burgundies my companion Professor L has mentioned, that would have to be classed as spoofed since few of those wines, at least those made in Germany and the Loire undergo malolactic fermentation.
 
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo happens spontaneously.
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo doesn't happen spontaneously.
To me it's obviously spoof if malo is blocked (and Chablis doesn't get a free pass).
To me it's obviously spoof if diacetyl is purposely enhanced by raising the temperature at which malo happens (thanks, Mark, for pointing out the culprit).
So it makes no sense to me to demonize malolactic fermentation per se; the target should be those who mess with the process to achieve a specific goal.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo happens spontaneously.
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo doesn't happen spontaneously.
To me it's obviously spoof if malo is blocked (and Chablis doesn't get a free pass).
To me it's obviously spoof if diacetyl is purposely enhanced by raising the temperature at which malo happens (thanks, Mark, for pointing out the culprit).
So it makes no sense to me to demonize malolactic fermentation per se; the target should be those who mess with the process to achieve a specific goal.
Click to expand...
Perhaps I read the temperature of the mob wrongly but I think that is what people have said. What they have also said is, spoofy or not spoofy, they don't like the taste of malo.
 
Malo is "blocked" for the most part, as I understand it, by keeping vinification at cool temperatures. Since you don't get it in Rieslings, Chenin Blancs, etc. they are vinifying so it does not happen. When one wants to make sure it happens, other than using additives, one raises the temperature of vinification to induce the requisite yeasts to be more active. This, at any rate, is how it has been explained to me. You can tell me which process is spoofing and which isn't. My original post demonized a style of Chardonnay that results from enhancing malolactic fermentation, but I think it's barking up the wrong tree to make rules about it except in term of one's tastes (I expect that in addition to what Mark says about higher temperatures, that style of Chardonnay depended on externally enhanced malolactic fermentation). If you don't like big, oily whites, you probably don't like it as a result of the way malolactic is encouraged to occur.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
Malo is "blocked" for the most part, as I understand it, by keeping vinification at cool temperatures. Since you don't get it in Rieslings, Chenin Blancs, etc. they are vinifying so it does not happen. When one wants to make sure it happens, other than using additives, one raises the temperature of vinification to induce the requisite yeasts to be more active.
Click to expand...

No, actually that is not quite right. Without getting into a long-winded explanation, primary fermentation is done by yeasts, ML by bacteria. And the issue of fermentation temperature is more complex; suffice to say it is difficult for ML to happen in a very cold cellar, which is somewhat different than a temperature-controlled primary fermentation.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo happens spontaneously.
To me it's obviously not spoof if malo doesn't happen spontaneously.
To me it's obviously spoof if malo is blocked (and Chablis doesn't get a free pass).
To me it's obviously spoof if diacetyl is purposely enhanced by raising the temperature at which malo happens (thanks, Mark, for pointing out the culprit).
So it makes no sense to me to demonize malolactic fermentation per se; the target should be those who mess with the process to achieve a specific goal.
Click to expand...
I'm afraid you are at risk of becoming the absurd straw man the spoof crowd invents when they say, "There's no such thing as natural wine because grapes don't pick themselves!!" If you reduce spoof to anything that doesn't happen spontaneously you are on very shaky ground.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top