What’s in a Wine Anyway
I recently went to Boston Wine School and had a lively discussion on wine prices and the cause. Well…let’s not beat a dead horse here. There are many causes. Hype, quality, raw materials / additives, marketing, good ratings (can you say Robert Parker?), vintage / climate, or just pure nonsense. I guarantee I left some out. Regardless, many of these are directly related and I am going to focus on two that resulted in somewhat of a debate.
Additives and quality. Here was the argument by the winemaker – what does and what could potentially make wine prices so high are the “additives” winemakers use to enhance the wine. Without getting too technical on you (and myself for that matter), for winemakers to get the right chemical balance of acidity, sugar, sulfites, etc., they oftentimes have to add yeast, yeast food, enzymes, sugar, sulfites, tartaric acid, other vineyards’ juice, oak chips and other substances.
Some winemakers claim they don’t use “additives” but might use color-extracting “enzymes” or corrective measures to perfect a tannin imbalance. All of these adjustments/modifications allow the winemaker to do whatever he or she can to make the wine as saleable as possible. If winemakers don’t make adjustments (for example add the right type and amount of yeast pre-fermentation), they may have hundreds of gallons of rotten eggs instead of wine on their hands. So, adjustments are important and should not be viewed as negative, but rather the science aspect of making sure wine has the right levels before bottling.
Getting back to the winemaker’s argument, one can see that the more adjustments made, the more raw materials used in the wine making process. Economics tells us this makes prices go up. Right, got it. … wait a second…
So this is where I entered the debated. What if a harvest or wine is crap, for lack of a better term. So a winemaker keeps adjusting and modifying pre-fermentation to get the levels right to compensate for poor soil and other factors. Then maybe again post-fermentation through blending with other vineyards’ juice and by adding oak chips, etc. Again, who pays? Well, we do in the end. Personally, I don’t like this idea one bit. I would much rather pay a premium for a wine that comes from the ground (terroir), using the wild/natural yeast on the grape for fermentation… and STRAIGHT to the bottle. Now how often does that happen? I’m no expert, certainly no winemaker. I imagine very rarely. But, in my opinion I think the industry should charge MORE for less modified wines (assuming they have the Brix, pH, tartaric acid levels within range). If a wine isn’t naturally rich in color, I’d prefer winemakers not add a commercial enzyme to extract that color. Enzymes along with other additives mask and affect the smell and taste of what is truly going on in the vineyard. It’s almost impossible to know how “modified” a wine is – it certainly doesn’t say on the bottle, but you can start to smell and taste for it. For example, overly oaked wine might be masking a flaw in the wine…I personally look for wine that tastes like dirt. Like soil, like earth worms crawling in the ground. Yeah, I said it.
Terroir. Of course I love to see a deep, rich color in a red wine, but don’t judge a wine by its color…eh, unless of course it’s brown. You still want all the other good flavors and those depend on the varietal, region, etc. But I encourage and challenge you to see if you can taste some of the vineyard itself in the wine. Do a little homework or leave a comment of which vineyard you’re drinking from and I’ll help with the characteristics. Is it Alexander Valley? Mendoza? Oklahoma? Here’s to you, health and happiness…
