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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?

  • This point may have been made by several posters already, but I think this conversation cuts to the heart of what we as a wine-drinking public will allow as "natural" manipulation.  We have reached the point where we can alter things in wine on a more fundamental/molecular level, but as Joe Spellman indicated, this is really just a continuing progression of the same manipulations that have been building for hundreds of years (fortification, bubbly, chaptalization, etc.).  

    Whether or not modern manipulations have crossed that unseen line into the "unnatural" simply because we are able to look at wine now as a sum of component chemical parts is I think still up for debate.  I would like to think there is a clear line at non-grape additions (such as chestnut tannin), but then again I might not think twice about beet sugar.

    This being said, for me wines that are made in a sustainable fashion without much polish are usually going to give me a more pleasurable experience, and part of that experience is the peace of mind that is associated with similarly value-laden things: buying local, not shopping at wal mart, eating organic produce, etc.  I would like to think that an adoption of new label language could clearly differentiate these wines from the more souped-up manipulations, but then again anyone who thinks that most "free range chicken" lives an idyllic life on the pasture has another thing coming.

    In the end, as several posters said, it does come down to education.  If we as a community can successfully correlate sustainably-made wines with less manipulation in winemaking to a more sustainable lifestyle ethic in general, I think that the differences in the wines will become more clear, and the subtlety of site and place will become more valued.

  • Anonymous
    Anonymous

    Completely agree Rick and Brian.  Our jobs as Somm's is to guide and educate, not so much judge, unless invited to do so as a professional.

    I was in Oregon this past weekend for a wedding and was able to get to a couple of wineries.  

    I was also able to taste some homemade Willamette Valley Pinot the bride's father had made.  He was serving it at the wedding and was excited for me to comment on it. (This always makes me somewhat uncomfortable, putting me on the spot when the wine may be less than good)  

    It was clean, honest, and pure.  It was representative of the vintage (07).  I had quite a few glasses, and it never became cloying, or unpleasant.  It  was good juice.  

    It was also not the stuff of legends as from the elite wineries I went to.  No "polish".  This discussion leads to the question:  Is it really just the quality of fruit from this location that makes this much difference in the bottle?  

    Probably not.  Maybe justly or not justly so.  Especially given the price difference.  But I'm with Rick on the $9. bottle every day of the week with our meals (the homemade Pinot) vs. the 2 pricey bottles once or twice a week.  And that is where I want to take the mindset of our guests, rather than to the special occasion blockbuster once in a blue moon.  

    That will benefit all of us.

  • Rod, this is all very much worth discussing. Thank you for your thoughts. I have been asking about these matters for several years now, although not as an unbiased journalist. My point is that we need to see a list and explanation of  these commonly practiced deceits before we condemn them, and wines that use them, with generalities. Of course there's plenty of romance in wine, but there has always been technique; they are irreversibly intertwined. Which techniques are permissable, and which not? Where are lines drawn? Here's a simple example. Just recently there has been an uproar over the EU permitting rose wines to be blended, and a huge pushback from "traditionalist" skin-contact only producers in France. Who's right? Who's more honest? Who's more traditional? Wine practice when delimited can easily become ossified.

    And unless some examples are identified and shared, how can anyone really sort out the differences between a pseudo-natural wine and a hyper-manipulated one? I want to taste a Mega Purple/Purple Haze/Purple Rain/Deep Purple/Purple Feet (whatever) wine next to one from the same region and other key stats that eschews the steroidal juice. Then I can learn something.

    Or is it like porn: it can't be defined, but as the Justice had it, "I know it when I see it!"

  • Rick - You are onto something here.  

    It is less about changing the wine in the market. Or ratings, or winemaking in the new world.

    What we need to do is evolve as wine consumers in the US.  We don't have a winemaking problem, we have a marketing problem.

    Rod touched it too.  The great unwashed are a heardable beast.  As Sommeliers our challenge and duty is to heard them.  Our clients look to us for advice and see the guy/gal with the pin as the keeper of the magic keys.  

    If we can find a way to promote the image of the Steakhouse Status-Wine Buyer as an uneducated douche while at the same time inspiring wonder and passion, then the ship will slowly start to turn.

    I am absolutely against any more regulation of wine in the US.  New label laws will only be good for the lawyers.

    Let's start turning the ship.  The challenge is to keep the passengers on board.

    Peace out!

  • Clearly there are commercial wines and artisinal wines (which are less manipulated and only locals get).  

    Few wines are worth more than $50 a bottle, after all you pee it out in 3 hours and there are people starving all over the world.    

    Most Americans don't get the concept that wine should be consumed with dinner (& sometimes lunch) 7 days a week for better digestion, better tasting food, better conversation and better quality of living.  

    Serves them right for getting manipulated plonk at top dollar - after all they rave about these wines and clamor for them - they think they taste good or a writer said they tasted good.

    Wine is not supposed to be two $35 bottles a week.  It is supposed to be seven $9 bottles a week on the table like the bread & butter/olive oil.

    Since this spring, I've had some killer home made wine and the cost to produce them ranged from $2 to $6.50 a bottle, and they came with minimal unatural processing.

    There are a lot of jaded palates out there. But to paraphrase Duke Ellington, "If it tastes good, it is good." and it won't matter in a hundred years ...

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