Interesting comments and observations, all. Thanks for joining in.
However, the discussion is a little off the track I had in mind, and I’d like to see if we can reset it slightly—assuming anyone’s interested in continuing. If not, we can drop it. If so, allow me to restate a few things.
First off, several of you have assumed that the phrase elephant in the cellar refers to the kind of high-alc fruit bomb that embodies the current red wine paradigm. You could read it that way, but it’s not what I meant. I’m using the phrase elephant in the room (cellar) in the classic sense, as a metaphor for a significant issue that begs to be addressed and yet is ignored.
A number of you have eloquently made the point that winemaking is, by definition, the manipulation of raw fruit into an alcoholic beverage. Quite so, but there’s more to it than that. This particular alcoholic beverage has drawn a lot of really smart and discerning people (we can all agree on that, right?) into a nearly fanatical interest and devotion. Why is that?
I maintain that it’s primarily due to a mystical connection with the Cosmos and Mother Nature (and a nice buzz, of course). That’s implicit in all wines, and explicit in wines meant to represent appellations, estates, and vineyards—terroir-driven wines, if I may be excused a rare use of that loaded term.
Here in the first decade of the 21st century, many producers are practicing techniques and using additives that threaten to exceed the parameters of honesty, if not basic decency, of winemaking. How many producers? That’s hard to say because it’s all very secretive. The top manipulation consulting companies, Enologix and Vinovation, each claim thousands of customers, but they operate under strict non-disclosure rules. Commercial wine labs offer similar consultation and products (for example, check the url provided by Matt Stamp, above) but they, too, operate under the Cone of Silence. And it’s no secret that wine-altering substances like Mega Purple are very profitable products.
I’ve mentioned Mega Purple several times because it embodies the controversy. Derived from grapes, it’s technically a natural substance (a form of grape concentrate). And yet its effects are, to many observors, unnatural.
Now, I don’t have a problem with deepening the color, sweetening the palate, and smoothing the texture of a vin ordinaire. Wine is a commercial product, after all, and it’s incumbent on the producer to provide good value to the customer, often with fruit that leaves something to be desired. As Enologix president Leo McClosky remarked in the LA Times (see above), “When you can’t create value in the vineyard, you have no choice but to create it in the winery.” Fair enough, I say.
On the other hand, those effects change the basic must in ways that could be considered to cross the line between honest winemaking and fabrication. That might be okay for ordinary table wine, but what about for wines presented as natural expressions of geography—the kind of wines that presumably lured all of us to immerse ourselves in the wine world?
I would say that attempting to market a wine as terroir-driven creates a responsibility to limit manipulations in the cellar to those which do not alter the essential nature of the wine. And it doesn’t matter whether we can taste the manipulations or not—it’s a matter of principle.
Or not? Some of your comments sound like maybe you don’t care if it’s real Chablis or faux Chablis, as long as its in the sensory ballpark for Chablis.
Care to discuss this further, or move on to something more exciting?
By the way, have you tried diluting a California chardonnay with mineral water? It really does kind of taste like Chablis!