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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?

  • Hello All

    I have enjoyed all your great commentary and thoughts on this issue.  In the end, someone is buying these wines and for the most part paying significant premiums while doing it.  And as long as they're doing that winemakers will continue to use every potion Merlin concocts in search of the Holy Grail.  The Grail appears to be ratings which translate to dollars.

    So, if we really want to cast the moneychangers out of the temple what do we do?  Who are the main facilitators of the current ratings system?  Retailers and Restaurateurs who use them as buying guides and advertising platforms.  I really miss going to the shop or dining room and having a discussion, and perhaps a glass, with someone who acturally tasted the wine before recommending it.

  • chestnut tannins, bean tannins, etc:

    www.vinquiry.com/.../ENOLOGICAL%20TANNINS%20Article.pdf

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous

    Great topic, Rod, and one I'm sure will never be uncovered.  Unless, Michael Moore becomes a wino and films an expose!

    A few thoughts that I conjured while reading your piece and then subsequent replies.  

    First, and foremost, vintners are farmers.  Or, at least they should be.  I don't even care if they are socialite farmers, but be a farmer.  Master Spellman illustrates what a farmer of the grape should be.  Vine training, clipping, manure as fertilizer, falconry, the list goes on; are decisions a farmer must make.  But, they are the manipulations unique to working with the Earth.  Once, you have decided to harvest, you look over your crop, see what the seasons have given you, then you "should" bottle what is represented of that given years trials and tribulations.

    House style, be damned!

    If a winery produces a "certain house style we want our consumer base to be familiar with year in and year out" then they should not be allowed to vintage date the wine.  Radical, I know.

    I harken back to an excerpt written in Kermit Lynch's "Adventures on the Wine Route" written nearly 25 years ago.  Jean Goutreau, of Chx. Sociando Mallet, is explaining to Kermit how secretive the Bordelais is about chaptilization.  Yes, Burgundy had been doing it for years and the Bordelais looked down on Burg producers for it.  Goutreau, even believes chaptilization was used in 1982, the vintage of the decade (arguably).  

    Yes, Rod, we see that elephant in the room, we just can't find a way to kick him out the door!

  • Matt: chestnut tannin? Really? Can you tell us more about that?

  • Excellent observations, all.

    Joe, let me reiterate that it’s not about whether we can spot the manipulation. I’m sure that if any one of us thinks we detect some funny stuff we’ll discount the wine. But what about when it’s done so well we can’t spot it? Is it a case of what we don’t know won’t hurt us? Or does it matter? I believe we do, in fact, taste jacked wines next to honest wines every day, and I’m afraid we all unknowingly praise some that are juiced on steroids. That matters to me.

    Some quick analogies: Is a “white lie” really a lie, after all? If only an expert jeweller can distinguish between a diamond and a high-quality fake, why pay more for a real diamond? If an android can pass for human, who cares if it’s really just a replicant?

    Well, I’d hate to unwittingly marry an android (and no, I’m not going to bite on my own straightline—are you reading this, Honey? Heh-heh). And I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that this discussion is attempting to focus on the same fundamental question vis a vis wine. Why are we so passionate about it? Is it because it’s a beverage that happens to come in an amazing array of subtly different flavors? Or is there some greater value, some truth or integrity, some connection with nature and the cosmos that manufactured beverages don’t have?

    And if it’s the latter, then would it or would it not matter if this object of such fascination and passion were, in fact, manufactured?

    Heady stuff, but well worth discussing IMO.

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