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The Elephant in the Cellar

Rod Smith

The Elephant in the Cellar

          I’ve enjoyed the Syrah discussion, and am pleased to be asked back for another round. This time, I want to see what the nation’s foremost wine geeks think about an issue that I think is vitally important but never seems to be addressed much beyond eye-rolling shrugs and head shaking.
          This elephant in the room—or, if you will, the wine cellar—is viticultural and winemaking practices that subvertly change the nature of wines being marketed as honest expressions of special vineyards.
          Here’s where I come from, as simply as I can state it. I started drinking wine for the obvious reasons, long before I got excited about it. What was it that finally engaged me to the point where I’ve now spent thirty-odd years thinking about—no, pondering wine on a daily basis? In a word, truth and beauty (okay, two words, but I’ve always thought they were synonymous).
          Most of you will recognize the script: young guy goes to Europe and discovers that each mystical, magical place has its own drinkable essence called wine. This local wine contains the landscape, architecture, culture, and everything else that gives a sense of place. Plus you get a buzz, especially helpful when you decide to, say, sit in a café across from Rouen Cathedral for an entire day to experience the changing light on that iconic façade as recorded by Claude Monet in his amazing 31-painting series.
          Honestly, I’ve long since forgotten what wines I drank that day, if I ever knew; they were mostly fresh, local quaffers served proudly in carafes. But I can still clearly remember what some of them tasted like. Ditto the anonymous riesling I drank after hiking along the Mosel near Trier, and the plump, juicy red in that Alentejo hill town. And couldn’t we all go on and on in that vein? (And isn’t it fun to open a few bottles and trade the actual stories?)
          My point is that it’s been at least 10 years since I’ve been confident that I was getting that kind of signal impression from wines of the New World, especially California. Truth be known, I’ve come to doubt the truth and beauty quotient of modern European wines, as well.
          I’ve put it in terms of confidence because it’s become very difficult to know for sure whether a given wine is telling a real story about a real place, or a fiction that may be based on actual events yet has been cleverly enhanced to be what the producer thinks I want to taste or would be willing to pay for. For example, a cult-stature Pinot Noir which I raved about to anyone who would listen before being told by an informant in a commercial lab that the producer had doctored the wine with Mega Purple, supposedly to make up for “deficiencies” in the fruit. I wasn’t just embarrassed. I felt betrayed.
          In fact, I’ve come to suspect that California, in particular, is increasingly a bottled lie. Marketing campaigns that represent wines as pure expressions of special sites are quite often overtly deceitful. I believe that many wines that are represented as pure expressions of exalted sites are concocted, that is, heavily engineered to hit a desired note. And it’s not that I think that every wine has to be from a single block of vines, produced without any technique whatsoever. I don’t doubt that a great winemaker is like the resourceful teacher who knows how to help a child reach her full potential. But plastic surgery? C’mon. Nor do I have a problem with a good appellation or AVA wine. I just want to know that I’m tasting the true essence of grapes grown in a particular place or places.
          Most of you are familiar with consulting outfits like Enologix, a firm that helps wineries engineer their wines to get high scores (and actually guarantees higher scores). And many of you either make wine yourselves or have made a point of getting hands-on experience in vineyards and wineries. So I’m not here to break any shocking news, nor to lecture or instruct. My point, rather, is to try to move the conversation toward an objective examination of what a fine is, what it should be, and how various viticultural and winemaking techniques may support or contradict a wine’s stature. And please note that I’m deliberately excluding mass-market table wines from the discussion, although I believe, ironically, that most of them are relatively non-manipulated for economic rather than ethical reasons. Let’s focus on wine that expensive because it’s ostensibly a remarkable manifestation of a given summer in a certain place.
          My position going in is that many of the currently accepted winemaking practices (particularly additions such as acid, water, enzymes, tannin, concentrate, etc.) compromise the integrity of the fruit itself, and therefore defeat the ideal of fine wine. They also effectively insult the producers who endeavor to embrace the ideal without cheating. The contrarian might say, “Hey, if Mega Purple is used correctly, not even the most experienced taster can spot it.” Well, maybe not. But is that the point? Hey, if Barry Bonds hits the ball out of the park, who can deny that the ball actually did leave the park? (Yes, yes, I’ve spent long evenings with my redneck wine-geek friends chewing on topics like HGH, Photo Shop, Dolby sound, computers in academics, you name it.)
          Other practices (such as mechanical de-alcoholization, reverse osmos, and various applications of oak essence) seem to me in poor taste, or contrary to the spirit of fine wine, without necessarily triggering my “foul!” alarm. Still others, including chapitalization, irrigation, temperature-controlled fermentation and sterile filtration, may be considered unacceptable manipulations by some yet are already established beyond the point of practical debate.
          And then there’s the whole yeast thing—yikes, where do we start with that?
          So: Truth and beauty versus (or enhanced by) Voodoo vinemaking. Any thoughts?
Parents
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous

    I would argue that there are to factors that are in play here that need to be focused on.  The first is that in this forum we as a group are fundamentally aware of the manipulation of wine in order to create a product that the market "demands", the general public is either not aware or chooses to remain  oblivious.  Second, the business of making wine and being profitable at it in turn directs many producers to pay heed to the market versus the terroir.

    I was approached recently at a dinner party by the host and they asked me to be honest about their choice of wine.  The host, knowing my profession said, "I sorry about the wine, I just do not know which ones are good."  My response was, "  There are no bad wines, there are just wines that are made differently."  While at one  point I was attempting to be diplomatic I think the the comment had poignancy when it comes to the fact that as a whole most people are unaware of the practices involved. I for one think that listing the ingredients on the label may seem the only way to introduce the practice to the public at large, but I think that it would be detrimental to the image of wine and the ability to charge a premium for wines.  Even though the practice exists does a large portion of the customer base care?  I would argue no.

    A call from my sister last thanksgiving gives a little glimmer as to the power of the market.  She was in the wine aisle of the supermarket and had already selected her wines. She wanted to know if the wines that she had chosen we "good" (again this notion of good or bad wines).  Before she could mention what she had purchased I said to her,  "you have a chardonnay and a red wine and they have cute animal on the label."  Her response, "yes, how did you.."  I interrupted, "Then sis you have the right wine for you."  The power of the market at play.    Producers need to stay in business and if that means using the cute cuddly critter marketing and producing wine that is adulterated to meet market tastes than that is what they will do.

    I think that for right now keeping the elephant in the closet is best.  I feel it is our job as sommeliers to take these "market tastes" and lead the customer away from their comfort zone.  

    Now should a wine that is manipulated falsely claim that it is expression of terroir.  Perhaps labeling could be the answer, but not the ingredients. We have "Estate" on labels why not something similar for those that choose not to manipulate?

Comment
  • Anonymous
    Anonymous

    I would argue that there are to factors that are in play here that need to be focused on.  The first is that in this forum we as a group are fundamentally aware of the manipulation of wine in order to create a product that the market "demands", the general public is either not aware or chooses to remain  oblivious.  Second, the business of making wine and being profitable at it in turn directs many producers to pay heed to the market versus the terroir.

    I was approached recently at a dinner party by the host and they asked me to be honest about their choice of wine.  The host, knowing my profession said, "I sorry about the wine, I just do not know which ones are good."  My response was, "  There are no bad wines, there are just wines that are made differently."  While at one  point I was attempting to be diplomatic I think the the comment had poignancy when it comes to the fact that as a whole most people are unaware of the practices involved. I for one think that listing the ingredients on the label may seem the only way to introduce the practice to the public at large, but I think that it would be detrimental to the image of wine and the ability to charge a premium for wines.  Even though the practice exists does a large portion of the customer base care?  I would argue no.

    A call from my sister last thanksgiving gives a little glimmer as to the power of the market.  She was in the wine aisle of the supermarket and had already selected her wines. She wanted to know if the wines that she had chosen we "good" (again this notion of good or bad wines).  Before she could mention what she had purchased I said to her,  "you have a chardonnay and a red wine and they have cute animal on the label."  Her response, "yes, how did you.."  I interrupted, "Then sis you have the right wine for you."  The power of the market at play.    Producers need to stay in business and if that means using the cute cuddly critter marketing and producing wine that is adulterated to meet market tastes than that is what they will do.

    I think that for right now keeping the elephant in the closet is best.  I feel it is our job as sommeliers to take these "market tastes" and lead the customer away from their comfort zone.  

    Now should a wine that is manipulated falsely claim that it is expression of terroir.  Perhaps labeling could be the answer, but not the ingredients. We have "Estate" on labels why not something similar for those that choose not to manipulate?

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