TN: Home Front

originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Since it acts as natural preservative, the most important utility of leaving, in the wine, some of the CO2 resulting from fermentation, is to allow the use of less SO2 at bottling. Unlike the latter, the former can be boogied loose if the drinker is averse.
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This is a stated reason from at least a few producers. Can the chemists opine on whether it has any scientific basis?
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Or temperature control.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Since it acts as natural preservative, the most important utility of leaving, in the wine, some of the CO2 resulting from fermentation, is to allow the use of less SO2 at bottling. Unlike the latter, the former can be boogied loose if the drinker is averse.
Click to expand...
This is a stated reason from at least a few producers. Can the chemists opine on whether it has any scientific basis?
Click to expand...

Not a chemist, but does CO2 bind with aldehydes or have antimicrobial properties like SO2? Haven't heard that. Or maybe there is some other pathway to its preservative qualities.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Oak = unnatural, steel = natural?
 
Also, this business about "additives" is arbitrary dogmatism. Yes, SO2 can be "added" in the course of winemaking. Its purpose is to prevent bacterial flaws from being introduced. You could just as easily call the malignant bacteria the additive and SO2 the natural protector. Another additive is oxygen. You could try making your wine in a hermetically sealed environment but I wouldn't recommend it.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Since it acts as natural preservative, the most important utility of leaving, in the wine, some of the CO2 resulting from fermentation, is to allow the use of less SO2 at bottling. Unlike the latter, the former can be boogied loose if the drinker is averse.
Click to expand...
This is a stated reason from at least a few producers. Can the chemists opine on whether it has any scientific basis?
Click to expand...

Not a chemist, but does CO2 bind with aldehydes or have antimicrobial properties like SO2? Haven't heard that. Or maybe there is some other pathway to its preservative qualities.
Click to expand...

Nope, no antimicrobial or chemical reactivity. What it does is displace oxygen from solution and headspace and so reduce oxidation.

Mark Lipton
 
dissolved co2 also creates a positive pressure in the bottle. if the cork seal is less than perfect, any gas passing the cork will be the co2 in the bottle leaking out rather than air leaking in from outside the bottle.
 
originally posted by robert ames:
dissolved co2 also creates a positive pressure in the bottle. if the cork seal is less than perfect, any gas passing the cork will be the co2 in the bottle leaking out rather than air leaking in from outside the bottle.
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I don't need to be a chemist to know that THAT part is clearly wrong. If the seal is less than perfect O2 is coming in no matter how much CO2 comes out. Plus, the pressure in the bottle *makes* the cork seal less than perfect. Did you get any of those 2010 Hudelot-Noellat leakers? The stuff coming out includes not just carbon dioxide but your wine.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Oak = unnatural, steel = natural?
Click to expand...

Neutral = natural; non-neutral = unnatural. You are using natural as in natural v. artificial, when that is not the sense of natural in natural wine. Otherwise all manner of natural poisons could be added and it would remain a natural wine.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Also, this business about "additives" is arbitrary dogmatism. Yes, SO2 can be "added" in the course of winemaking. Its purpose is to prevent bacterial flaws from being introduced. You could just as easily call the malignant bacteria the additive and SO2 the natural protector. Another additive is oxygen. You could try making your wine in a hermetically sealed environment but I wouldn't recommend it.
Click to expand...

Ditto, as long as you continue using natural in a sense different from that of by natural wine advocates, you will remain at loggerheads with the concept (never mind the practice).

I don't find the position "nothing added, nothing subtracted" to be arbitrary at all, it is like "I eat no animal meat"; but I agree that it is a dogma.
 
Empirically-speaking, and fwiw, I find the percentage of premoxed Champagne to be stratospherically lower (bordering on zero) than the percentage of premoxed white wine.
 
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Or temperature control.
Click to expand...

Temperature control is an interesting one, because it passes the "nothing added, nothing subtracted" definition, and happens naturally in underground caves. One would have to say "artificial temperature control," and even then it should generate some controversy.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Or temperature control.
Click to expand...

Temperature control is an interesting one, because it passes the "nothing added, nothing subtracted" definition, and happens naturally in underground caves. One would have to say "artificial temperature control," and even then it should generate some controversy.
Click to expand...

So, by extension, if you keep your wine in a temperature controlled cellar, that makes it no longer natural wine?

Athough I doubt I'm as laissez-faire as Keith since I detest oak, I do agree that the rules are becoming one of those Borgesian taxonomies Foucault was so fond of.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Or temperature control.
Click to expand...

Temperature control is an interesting one, because it passes the "nothing added, nothing subtracted" definition, and happens naturally in underground caves. One would have to say "artificial temperature control," and even then it should generate some controversy.
Click to expand...

So, by extension, if you keep your wine in a temperature controlled cellar, that makes it no longer natural wine?

Athough I doubt I'm as laissez-faire as Keith since I detest oak, I do agree that the rules are becoming one of those Borgesian taxonomies Foucault was so fond of.
Click to expand...

Is it so difficult to understand that we are talking about winemaking?
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Christian Miller (CMM):
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Or temperature control.
Click to expand...

Temperature control is an interesting one, because it passes the "nothing added, nothing subtracted" definition, and happens naturally in underground caves. One would have to say "artificial temperature control," and even then it should generate some controversy.
Click to expand...

So, by extension, if you keep your wine in a temperature controlled cellar, that makes it no longer natural wine?

Athough I doubt I'm as laissez-faire as Keith since I detest oak, I do agree that the rules are becoming one of those Borgesian taxonomies Foucault was so fond of.
Click to expand...

Is it so difficult to understand that we are talking about winemaking?
Click to expand...

Yes, and what I said applies to your rules about winemaking and the taxonomies one would have to construct of them.

Just to be clear his the passage in which Foucault quotes from Borges:

This passage quotes a ‘certain Chinese encyclopaedia’ in which it is written that ‘animals are divided into: (a) belonging to the Emperor, (b) embalmed, (c) tame, (d) suckling pigs, (e) sirens, (f) fabulous, (g) stray dogs, (h) included in the present classification, (i) frenzied, (j) innumerable, (k) drawn with a very fine camelhair brush, (l) et cetera, (m) having just broken the water pitcher, (n) that from a long way off look like flies’.

In the Borges story, this taxonomy is being compared to a fictive linguistic one. Whether the extension to your proposed rules is fair or not, it should be easy enough to make.
 
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
originally posted by Keith Levenberg:
Still puzzled why CO2 counts as natural but SO2 doesn't...
Click to expand...

Both CO2 and SO2 are byproducts of grape fermentation and nobody in his right mind would find naturally-occurring amounts of these to be unnatural. What the natural supporters find unnatural is any amount that is added, though smidgens of SO2 are considered acceptable by any but the die-hards. So it's not the thing itself, but its addition, or its addition beyond a smidgen.

For something entirely unnatural in wine you'd have to turn to oak.
Click to expand...
Oak = unnatural, steel = natural?
Click to expand...

I've been trying to get rid of wood in my grand piano, to get a more pure, natural sound.
 
We are in the rabbit hole.

My only comment is how unfortunate the term “natural” is when (as often is the case) it is used both to reflect individual or group stylistic preferences only somewhat loosely connected to historical notions of “natural” and invoked as a weapon by said individuals and groups at almost a moral and judgmental level specifically to invoke the historical notions of natural, as a belief system that purports to appeal to purity of thought and superiority, rather than as a matter of taste or preference. It strikes me that the extreme example of this in history is a certain political machine in the 1930s-40s, led by a person whose name along with Parker was typically banned on disorderly wine boreds back in the day. .
 
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