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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?

  • Well, have visited Leroy and Jamet have a strong impression that both cellars are pretty transparent. So those are good examples. But again, don’t we want to know what’s going on behind the scenes? Weren’t we all redeemed by Toto when he pulled back the curtain to reveal the little man behind the Wizard?

    Appropos Champagne, I feel that there is a strong transmission of terroir through many cuvees, partucularly from grower-producers (I would cite Pierre Peters, Selosse, and Milan among quite a few others). And Salon—magic stuff, indeed.

  • Ah...indeed, Champagne is probably not the greatest example given the inherent winemaker role.  Though that is another topic altogether, argued on the pages of Thiese Selections and The New France very well already.  So, let's substitute Leroy Musigny or Jamet Cote-Rotie.  Point the same.

    And no...I will never turn away from Salon.  For, if it is "over manipulated," then I might have to accept it and continue to melt every time I get the chance to taste Mesnil-sur-Oger's Juice From Beyond.

  • Joe, you’re right on that overripeness is the main culprit right now. It’s purely fasion—just in the last scant decade—but there’s some doubt in my mind as to whether it will pass like most fashions or stick around like, for example, the “new” taste for dry wines that took hold in the 19th century. But I strongly disagree with your contention that great wines are accidents of nature, and that all other wine begs manipulation. Given a suitable climate, the right match of variety and location, and a little luck with the weather, a savvy winemaker anywhere ought to be able to make an excellent wine without excessive manipulations and additives.

    And Shayn, I think we’re basically on the same page, but I do think knowing is very important. When I became convinced Bonds was juiced, I felt betrayed, and ashamed of the way I celebrated when he broke Ruth’s record—fraudulently, I believe. In fact, I’ve turned away from baseball because of steroids and hormones. But turn away from Salon? With Champagne, manipulation is pretty much the point w/Champagne, no? There’s a whole school of thought there, especially in the negociant houses, that’s pretty anti-terroir.

    Thoughts?

  • "I would make me cringe to think that the 82 Salon I beyond is manipulated to the point of construction to recall what I tasted as a creamsicle without the sugar and not just that way because of their vineyards.  It might not taste as good"

    Wow..let's try that one again.  (That's what ya get for typing while teaching a Level One for the Court!)

    It would make me cringe to think that the 82 Salon I beyond enjoy was manipulated to the point of construction to taste (to me) like a creamsicle without sugar...and not just that way because of their vineyards.  It might not taste as good.

  • In an effort to teach a group of international students in wine marketing for the OIV a week ago, I was asked about how I can define any area (Washington state in this case) as having "the t-word" or "there thereness" if it irrigates.  Not surprisingly, the questioner was from the Old World - historically a large frowner upon the practice.  And my answer was thus: unless the grape grows on its own in the middle of nowhere without any contact with human beings, then falls into a hole in the ground from a height needed to burst the skin and ferments from native yeast wafting on the wind, IT HAS BEEN MANIPULATED.  A given.

    The question, then, is what is acceptable to us?  How is color different from sugar?  If  you utilize cultured yeast made specifically to work on certain levels of sugars with specific end product in mind, why can't  you spin some alcohol out?  At what point do we harm the initial essence of what nature gave us at the expense of what we think our customers want?  And did nature really give it to us if we trained canes in ways that would happen naturally oh, 1 in a million times?  Then did the many other things in the vineyard already mentioned?  

    It seems to me that the call for exactly what happens and exactly what the effect is would be great - but not on any label.  Who, among even us, would really read it?  I like the idea to ask yourself...if there are practices that go overboard, make your stand personally and professionally and move on.  The market will then define itself.

    Goofy thought on defining the line ofwhat manipulation goes too far so as to completely undo calling a bottle a "wine of place": that would be a cool study by some vit and eno program somewhere by simply taking the same wine grown the same way and put through the various winery manipulations listed above.  Taste them blind.  If they sense a turn in flavor profile which takes them away from what seems to be a "theme" or "terroir" or "thereness" in the wine overall, then, fine - call that "not in keeping with placeness-ness."  And boycott unless they put on the label "from a place, but you wouldn't recognize it or like it, so we changed it to something else."

    Point: what if we do get the information?  What do we do then?  I am with Rod - I am sick to my stomach over Manny and Papi winning the 04 World Series for my long suffering Sox "manipulated."  But would I trade the feeling of beating the Yanks in The House That Ruth Built in Game 7 knowing what I know now?  More importantly, would I have felt the same if I had known back then?  I would make me cringe to think that the 82 Salon I beyond is manipulated to the point of construction to recall what I tasted as a creamsicle without the sugar and not just that way because of their vineyards.  It might not taste as good.

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