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Smoke Taint is an Expression of Terroir

17 Thursday Sep 2020

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California Wildfires-Wine CountryAlthough early reports from parts of California and Oregon are grim, it is still too early to determine how much the 2020 vintage will be affected by smoke taint. At this point, there really is no way to be sure about the extent of smoke damage. This  article on the Bay Area’s CBS affiliate’s website explains why:

And now the labs are overrun,” said Dr. Anita Oberholster, a UC Davis enology professor. “They have a 30-day backlog at this point in time so, not only do you need to pick a week from now but you can only get your number 30 days from now.”

Oberholster’s research shows the most accurate markers for smoke damage only show up after fermentation, which means fruit tested in the field may miss signs of exposure.

The is a real dilemma for winemakers trying to decide what to do with their grapes. Some are ready to give up on the 2020 vintage.

It’s a dilemma facing a lot of Bay Area grape growers right now: whether or not to harvest at all. Smoke damage, called “taint,” can affect the taste and aroma of wine and the industry doesn’t want to do anything to degrade the region’s reputation for quality.

“We will not be making — much less releasing — wines that have any type of impact from smoke, I can promise you that,” said Michael Haney, executive director of the Sonoma County Vintners Association.

That sounds a bit too categorical. Every situation is different. If you’re in the business of selling grapes, your customers will want to know what they’re getting. They won’t want to buy grapes they might not be able to use. But winemakers, especially winemakers who care about terroir, face a different question. Is smoke taint an element of terroir?

Wine is remarkable because it reflects the geographical characteristics of the region in which the grapes are grown, and those variations are the source of wines’ appeal for many wine lovers. It is obvious that wine regions in the Western U.S. will face the threat of wildfires every vintage going forward. Fire is as much a part of the ecosystem of wine grapes in these regions as temperature spikes at harvest. If you can taste fire in the wine, isn’t that like tasting the effects of morning fog or a spring frost?

It’s not as if smoky flavors are unusual or always a defect, as fans of the Northern Rhone will attest. If smoky flavors are acceptable when they result from the toast on oak barrels, why not when the cause is a naturally occurring, local phenomenon.

Of course, no one wants a mouthful of ash. If the smoke flavors are unbalanced that will be a problem. But winemakers have ways of controlling smoke taint, up to a point, through fining and filtering.

One complication is that the effects of smoke taint are unpredictable. As a wine ages, the smoke flavors may become more apparent. But that unpredictability is what makes terroir-driven wines interesting and is part of the allure of drinking aged wines.

I doubt that fans of Yellowtail want smoke aromas in their Syrah. They want this year’s vintage to taste like last year’s vintage. But the terroirists should make a virtue out of necessity.

As wine lovers, we should embrace the influence of smoke and reward those winemakers who learn to make the influence of smoke a virtue and a source of interesting variations.

A New Classification System for Wine?

13 Wednesday May 2020

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vineyardIn the U.S. we have no wine classification system that is really informative. Our appellation rules ensure the origin of the grapes to a degree but because there are few restrictive production rules, knowing the origin of the grapes tells you little about the wine in the bottle unless you know the producer. It would be helpful if there was some labeling that indicated something about the production process in addition to the origin. This is especially needed because terms that appear on labels such as “natural”, “artisanal”, “craft” or “handmade” are systematically abused and mean nothing.

Wine writer Meg Houston Maker has an interesting proposal based on the classification of French cheese.

The vineyard and field and cellar are elements Wineof terroir, but so, too, is the maker’s mind. This suggests that our new lexicon cannot be merely about locality, it must also be about intentionality, about how those local raw ingredients get made into food.

I absolutely agree. Here is her proposal for a new classification lexicon to supplement our current appellation indicators:

Farmstead — The wine is made on the winemaker’s own property using fruit grown on that land. No purchased fruit is allowed. The winemaker uses minimal inputs and interventions in the cellar and omits all additives that modulate the wine’s properties. Production is limited to the size of the estate and production facility.

Artisanal — The wine is likewise made on the winemaker’s property but using locally sourced fruit, possibly mixed with fruit grown on the property itself. Again, the winemaker uses minimal inputs and interventions in the cellar, omitting additives. Production is limited by the size and capacity of the production facility.

Cooperative — The wine is made using fruit pooled from a group of winegrowers, in a facility owned by one of them or by the collective. The grower-makers have stylistic as well as commercial sympathies. Production is limited by the size of the collective, the yield of each grower, and the capacity of the shared production facility.

Industrial — The wine is made using fruit grown anywhere allowed by appellation laws. Winemaking is industrial, and there are no restrictions on cellar manipulations beyond the legal requirements for wine production. Production is principally limited by commercial exigencies rather than raw material availability or capacity.

The one problem I see with these categories is that I run into small producers rather often who experiment with additives, enzymes, various oak products, or micro-oxidation, etc. Their wines are not industrial. They are made by hand using local grapes, and each barrel gets the kind of attention typical of artisanal wines. But they are more welcoming toward products that are technologically innovative and probably wouldn’t qualify as “minimal inputs”. It isn’t obvious to me how “minimal inputs” could be defined precisely without enormous controversy. Are cultured yeasts allowed? What about stabilizers, oak chips, or acidification?

I think we need an additional category–perhaps “post-artisanal” would accurately describe it since such producers clearly have a foot in artisanal wine making while aspiring to move beyond those limitations.

Unfortunately, the chances of this happening via industry wide regulations are slim because it means industrial producers would have to stop lying about their product.

Yes, huge brands will bridle at having their wine referred to as “industrial,” but that term, at least, is an accurate reflection of the origins and process by which that wine was made. Valorizing farmstead and artisanal production is a way to honor both place and people, and to help secure the future of terroir-driven American wine.

They will do more than “bridle”. They will flatly oppose it and with their political influence would likely prevail.

Are Wine Marketers Contributing to Climate Change?

16 Thursday Jan 2020

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terroirMaster of Wine and all-around intellectual John Atkinson has a thoughtful and forceful challenge to the wine industry’s contribution to climate change. His premises are unassailable; his conclusion, debatable.

After pointing out that the planet is retaliating for our profligate ways through climate disruptions, he lays part of the blame at the feet of marketing:

The technological advance from horse-drawn plough to tractor follows an established logic of incremental improvement, but it’s harder to find a precedent coming out of the past for products that, when launched, so precisely conjugate desire with satisfaction in the way, say, the iPhone 5 did for iPhone 4 users. Marketing’s aesthetic and affective lessening of the barriers to repeat purchase (the law of diminishing returns) gives brand owners an alternative strategy for profit and proliferation; one that avoids costly R&D.

Bottled water, gin,  and the latest I-phone iteration are good examples of “pimped up versions of past inventory”, encouraging the over-production that now threatens life on earth. Then he asks the big question:

At a time when we have client presidents and prime ministers, can marketers handle a brief that reins back on occasionality and the incessant multiplication of products and lines? Can they recoil from stimulating and directing our emotions, or is the human psyche destined to darken into a collective death-drive?

My short answer would be “no”, they can’t handle that brief anymore than capitalism can figure out how to profit while reigning in growth.

Then he turns to the wine world where he argues that marketing and consumerism have us in that death spiral. He argues that the marketing of wine scores and maximum peak experiences encourages winner-take-all markets that benefit Petrus but not Puglia. Wine marketing has shown little ability to improve the prospects of lesser-known regions.

But he saves his big rhetorical guns for the virtue-signaling that now accompanies the marketing of  “organic”, biodynamic” and “terroir”.

Terroir is a useful concept to have available when we’re sensitizing ourselves to the fine differences within and between regions; but its more ardent proponents have now added climatic resilience to its burgeoning powers. This move strikes me as either wishful thinking or Canuteism. Most vineyards are already struggling with their new burden of heat, and I just can’t see how ploughing between rows or spraying with horn silica is any better than the sticking plasters of mulching and shorter maceration. [Nota Bene: King Canute was an 11th Century Danish warrior king who conquered much of Northern Europe and Scandinavia.]

It’s hard to argue with the premises here. It’s nice to be nice to your little plot of land (and benefits to farm workers, wildlife, and downstream/downwind farms by avoiding chemicals are nothing to sneeze at). But buying or cultivating “wines of terroir” will do nothing for climate change. It is just a way to sell more (hopefully) good wine. It’s that overproduction problem again.

But I find his conclusion less than persuasive.

Rather than argue the toss about countries and industries, the responsibility for behavioural change is switching more and more towards us. The argument that the wine industry is better than the fashion industry is really no argument at all. We need to face the fact that our industry is too big, too sprawling and too wasteful, even if everything is shipped round the globe in bladders and containers.

There is a logic problem here. If lovingly cultivating your vineyard and promoting your wines will not halt climate change, neither will cutting back on wine purchases or plane flights. The problem of climate change is a collective action problem. Our individual actions make no difference unless everyone else is doing the same. Thus far, the only mechanism we have for solving collective action problems is government. That is its purpose. There is of course nothing wrong with being on the side of the angels. If virtue is where you plant your flag, do so proudly. But it won’t solve the problem.

Now, granted, changing social norms can be powerful. But individuals don’t spontaneously decide to start cooperating; that usually requires some coercion. Since the threat of eternal damnation has gone bust, I don’t see a mechanism for manufacturing moral seriousness and so far the threat of extinction hasn’t worked. The only way out of this mess is a massive, green infrastructure build out and the technologies of carbon capture. That will require government and lots of it.

If we cannot get rid of clowns like Trump and Bojo we will not solve this problem. And we will need all the wine we can get.

Has the Debate Between Terroir vs. Varietal Been Settled?

11 Monday Nov 2019

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clos de vougeotIn going through some notes for a book on the philosophy of wine I’m writing, I came across an old debate that once defined the difference between new world and old world wines—the relative importance of terroir vs. varietal in explaining the character of a wine.

For much of wine’s history in Europe, especially in France, Italy and Spain, wines were labeled with the region and sometimes the vineyard from which the grapes were harvested. A varietal was never mentioned (except in Alsace) and many of the wines were blends of many varietals. But that presented marketing problems for European wines in the U.S. where Europe’s geography was not well known and the names were hard to remember. As the U.S. began to make its own quality wine in the mid-20th Century, wineries began listing the varietal on the label along with the region, and the rest of the new world followed that practice. The consumer might not know much about geography but at least she knew she was buying Cabernet or Chardonnay. Today even Europe is labeling their wines with the varietal at least for their less expensive bottlings.

Thus, a debate ensued about which was more important—varietal or region? Has the debate been settled? In a word, Yes! Both varietal and region are equally important.

Everyone knows a Pinot Noir from Michigan will taste differently from a Pinot Noir from the Santa Lucia Highlands. Even Pinot Noir from Santa Cruz will be quite different from SLH even though it’s just down the freeway. Famously, different blocks within Burgundy’s Clos de Vougeot Vineyard make quite different wines. All the evidence suggests that site matters. However, if Chablis were to plant Riesling instead of Chardonnay it wouldn’t taste like Chablis (as we know it). Plant Syrah in Napa and you might get a nice wine but it won’t taste like Cabernet. Most varietals have distinctive characteristics that when properly grown and vinified show their character even when subject to different interpretations.

Of course things are not quite this simple. Production and viticultural decisions from crop load to aging regimen matter as well. You can erase the signature of terroir and with enough effort erase the varietal character as well. Thankfully most artisan winemakers think it’s important to preserve both.

The old world practice of labeling by place rather than varietal was sufficient to sell wine because regulations (when they were followed) guaranteed only certain varietals could be used in specific regions. The consumer didn’t need to be informed that a red wine from Chambertin was Pinot Noir because it had to be by law. That method of marketing would not work in the new world where such regulations are non-existent. But these peculiarities of labeling and regulation tell us little about the relative importance of terroir and varietal. The fact that France, the standard-setter for fine wine for centuries, ignored varietal labeling doesn’t make it a superior practice—it was fine for the French context but inappropriate elsewhere.

As with most things in wine, everything matters at least potentially.

More Insight on Spirits and Terroir

24 Thursday Oct 2019

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ryeLast week I wrote about whether the concept of terroir could be applied to bourbon. Bourbon is made with at least 51% corn in the mashbill. My hypothesis was that where the corn and other grains in the mashbill  were grown doesn’t matter much as long as the grain is healthy. What matters in bourbon production is where and how the whiskey is stored and aged. The aging process is significantly influenced by the temperature of the surrounding environment, and so place matters at least in that sense. (The use of local yeasts might also be a differentiating factor)

Kara Newman in Wine Enthusiast adds another dimension to the concept of terroir in whiskey production. Reporting on some experiments with rye whiskey she writes:

The study found that whiskey produced from Pennsylvania rye had considerably higher levels of acetaldehyde, isobutanol and isoamyl alcohol than the samples from Minnesota and Canada.

“[These compounds] contribute fruity, apple-like flavor in the Pennsylvania rye whiskeys,” says Michael Foglia, director of new product development and innovation for Wigle. “There was a quantifiable flavor difference in the whiskey made with [Pennsylvania] rye compared with whiskeys with rye from other regions.”

Even Vodka made from rye showed flavor differences despite the fact that vodka is produced through multiple distillations making it an almost neutral tasting spirit.

Most bourbon has a significant amount of rye in the mashbill to add spice so, if these experiments with rye receive more confirmation, it may be that terroir will emerge as an important concept in bourbon production.

Among all the grains used in whiskey production, rye is the most intensely flavored. It remains to be seen whether corn, barley and wheat show similar regional differences.

The Influence of “Terroir” in Bourbon Production

17 Thursday Oct 2019

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bourbon barrelsI’ve been doing some research on bourbon recently for a writing project I was hired to do. One question I wanted to answer was whether the idea of terroir (or some similar concept related to the “taste” of a place) plays a role in quality differences. My conclusion is that location does play an important role although it differs significantly from the role terroir plays in wine.

Basically there are five factors that influence the flavor of bourbon: water, the grain recipe, fermentation, distillation, and maturation in oak.

By law bourbon must be made from at least 51% corn and typically includes some rye, barley or wheat as well. The precise ratio of grains (called the mashbill) matters a great deal but I doubt it matters where the grain was grown as long as the plants were healthy. This is the main difference between wine and whiskey with regard to terroir. For bourbon, the main ingredient could be grown anywhere.

Water however is often mentioned in Bourbon lore. Kentucky distillers insist water resting on the limestone soils of Eastern Kentucky are ideal for making Bourbon. But as far as I can tell, they are inflating its importance. What matters is that the water used to make the mash be mineral rich, alkaline (i.e. high PH) and low in iron. There are countless places around the world that would satisfy those criteria. In any case you could add calcium carbonate to the water to elevate the PH. Water is important but I doubt it is water from a specific location that matters. Famed Kentucky producer Brown-Foreman uses treated municipal water for their celebrated Old Forester bourbon.

The strain of yeast used influences the flavor of bourbon. Although many producers use commercial yeast, some cultivate their own strains and take great pains to make sure it is consistent from year to year. But that is not quite the same as using whatever ambient yeast happens to be around in the environment as  some natural winemakers do. As it is with wine, this is an under-explored dimension of terroir. But again it isn’t obvious that location is the variable here.

The distillation process differs from distillery to distillery and differences in equipment can make a substantial difference. But this has nothing to do with location.

That brings us to the most important dimension of bourbon-making—the aging process. Depending on who you ask, 50-80 percent of the flavor of Bourbon comes from the barrel. By law, Bourbon must be aged in 100% charred, new oak barrels. The minimum aging requirement is two years for a spirit to be called straight bourbon.  In addition to the degree of char, the type and quality of the wood matters a great deal and bourbon producers are careful about where they source their wood. Thus, I suppose you could argue the terroir of the wood is a factor in bourbon quality.

But the source of the wood is not the most important factor in the aging process. The most important differentiator among styles of Bourbon has to do with the location of the warehouse as well as the location of the barrels inside the warehouse. Bourbon is almost always aged in warehouses without much temperature control. Thus, the ambient temperature influences how the bourbon ages. Barrels subject to more heat will have more oak character because heat advances the chemical reactions going on in the barrel. Whiskey aged in cooler areas will age more slowly and can be aged for a longer time. Hot, dry conditions will increase evaporation thus increasing the proof of the alcohol, cool or humid conditions will inhibit evaporation keeping the alcohol levels more moderate. This applies not only to the region of the country where the aging takes place but the location in the warehouse as well. The top floors are typically warmer than the bottom floors. Many producers have a “favorite floor” where they expect to get their best whiskeys. Of course, most bourbons are blends of many barrels, a process that would diminish the influence of warehouse location. (Perhaps that is an argument for more single barrel bottlings.)

This is a clear case where location matters, not because of soil characteristics but because of ambient temperatures during aging.

A More Subtle Anti-Terroirism

02 Wednesday Jan 2019

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vineyard soilGeologist Alex Maltman’s recent article on Decanter’s website, entitled “Busting Wine Terroir Myths: The science of soil and wine taste”, contains much useful information, but several of his claims strike me as misleading. Maltman is a leading authority in the field, and author of the highly regarded  Vineyards, Rocks, and Soil: The Wine Lover’s Guide to Geology. As I am not a soil scientist, I have no basis for challenging the scientific claims he makes. My worries have more to do with the sweeping skeptical conclusions he draws and the central role of a straw man argument that does too much work in the article.

The main thrust of his argument is that climate, weather, and land topology play a much larger role in shaping the final product than does soil type. This may well be true and the evidence Maltman provides suggests as much. But for most people who believe terroir is central to wine quality, that would not be an utter surprise, and it would not diminish the argument for the importance of terroir. There are many definitions of terroir floating around and some people may mean “soil type” when using the term. But most wine writers and wine professionals include climate, weather, and land topology as central components in the concept of terroir. Maltman agrees with that broad definition but the rhetoric of his article suggests a broader assault on the concept than is warranted. There is a subset of “terroirists” who do focus specifically on soil type as a central input, but the idea of the importance of place conceptually doesn’t require it. If it turns out that weather is the main input, the sense of place would nevertheless be secure.

But my main worry is that giant straw figure perched in the middle of the text. Many years ago, wine writers often waxed poetic about mineral flavors in wine by suggesting they were directly transferred from the soil to the wine. As Maltman points out, this idea has been shown to be false. Most of the minerals taken up by the vines have no flavor and in any case there is no mechanism for such a transfer to take place. Some wines do exhibit flavors reminiscent of gravel, flint, wet stone, salinity, etc. But they are not a copy or representation of minerals in the soil. In other words, you’re not literally tasting soil when you sip on your Riesling.

My problem is that no serious wine educator or writer with a modicum of experience has made such a claim in many years. Soil scientists were routinely pointing out this fallacy 10-15 years ago, the wine press dutifully reported it, and the wine community has largely accepted the point. This is no longer part of the conversation. Maltman quotes someone without attribution making such claims:

We read, for example, that ‘the vine transmits its nutrients all the way from the stony soils to the final wine’ and ‘the vines sip on a cocktail of minerals in the vineyard soil, for us to taste in our wineglass’.

Read where? For controversial claims that support sweeping generalizations it would be nice to have a source attribution.

Professor Maltman makes several interesting claims that are worth attending to:

  • Warm rocks radiating heat into the vineyard on cool nights are unlikely to have much effect on the grapes.
  • Whatever mineral uptake there is by the vines, the rootstock rather than the cultivar would matter more.
  • Organic material, including the microbiome, in the soils may play an essential role in explaining properties of the wine.
  • Irrigation can overcome deficiencies in the water retention properties of the soil

These are all useful points, although that last claim is one that I have seldom heard discussed and seems to contradict the widely held belief that water retention properties of the soil are crucial.

But it seems to me Professor Maltman misses the forest while focused on the trees. He dismisses as mere anecdote testimony from winemakers and growers that soil type produces differences in wines. But the alleged connection between soil and wine properties is more than an occasional stray story. For centuries, winemakers and viticulturists throughout the world  have observed the connection between soils and what they taste in the wine. These are not mere anecdotes but a massive data set of correlations that must be explained. There clearly is something going on despite the fact that we don’t quite know how to explain it. Maltman writes that

Certain vine cultivars are often said to suit particular rocks: Chardonnay and limestone, Syrah and granite, for example. But much of this derives from the geology that happened to be where a cultivar first flourished; Syrah and Chardonnay thrive today in many soil types.

But the issue isn’t whether cultivars can grow well in various soils. The issue is whether various soils create different flavor and texture profiles when planted with suitable grapes. The claim that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay have interesting organaleptic properties when grown in limestone is not a casual, unreflective claim but an idea that has been widely accepted by thoughtful, attentive experts making  careful observations. Of course, these observations of a correlation by themselves don’t prove a causal connection between soil and wine properties. But they are more than just anecdotes. That well established correlation must be explained or explained away. Perhaps it is all about the weather. But if so that entails rather substantial, widespread, independent errors on the part of competent observers.

In summary, Professor Maltman seems to conflate the claim that perhaps terroir functions differently than we thought with the claim that terroir matters less than we thought.

It’s worth mentioning another assumption that informs Professor Maltman’s article. He seems to assume that if soil type is important to wine quality, the influence of the soil must be a direct causal influence. But nothing in the concept of terroir requires that assumption. It is conceivable, again without knowing the science,  that The influence may be indirect yet nevertheless substantial.

For example, Maltman writes:

All organisms require nutrients in particular proportions, but whereas animals like ourselves ingest them in bulk and have internal mechanisms (liver, kidneys etc) to sort and expel the excess as waste, plants such as vines regulate them on the way in.

How? Put simply, the vine has an armory of sophisticated mechanisms aimed at selecting and balancing its nutrient uptake as required, even varying it as the growing season progresses.

It would be interesting to know if variations in these sophisticated mechanisms that balance nutrient uptake are chemical reactions to variations in soil type. If so, might these chemical changes in the vine influence flavor? That would be an indirect influence of the sort I have in mind.

There is much about this topic we don’t know, but the fact that we haven’t discovered the mechanism is not by itself sufficient to warrant the conclusion that a correlation is spurious.

Do We Want Nice Wines, True Wines or Different Wines?

09 Wednesday May 2018

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weird winesJamie Goode’s recent post “We don’t want our wines to taste nicer, but truer” marks an important distinction, although, as usual, I will want to quibble about it.

He argues that most wine consumers prefer wines that are soft and fruity because they taste “nicer”. They prefer these wines for the perfectly good reason that they lack the understanding and experience to profitably taste more challenging wines.  But he rightly argues that for wine lovers with more experience, we should want wines that reflect their origins. He uses cheese lovers as an example:

But let’s make a comparison with cheese. I don’t want someone to take my cheese and make it taste nicer. I want Comte that really tastes of Comte; I want Cheddar with a strong spicy tang; I want goats cheese that’s even a bit alarming at first for its goatiness.

Ordinary cheese consumers are like ordinary wine consumers. A block of mild, creamy, supermarket cheddar is adequate. Too much “goatiness” in a goat cheese would be off-putting.

That there is such segmentation in the market is fine. Not everyone is going to be an oenophile or cheese expert, although he warns wine producers that chasing the price-sensitive low end of the market doesn’t always produce long-term success.

In the end its the differences produced by local terroir that matters.

Generally speaking, though, as with cheese, I don’t want my wines to taste nicer: I want them to taste truer. Where there are wines of terroir – expressing a local flavour – I really want to buy one of these wines that tastes of where its from. That’s what makes wine interesting. Of course, this local flavour is partly derived from the site, which is the conventional understanding of terroir. But terroir as expressed in a wine is an interpretive act. It’s the combination of site, plus the variety (ies), and the choices of the winegrower. Local cultural practices can contribute to the local flavour. Some places have more local flavour than others. That’s just how it is. With wine, if you have a local flavour, no one can copy you.

The implication here, which I think some will find controversial, is that appreciating origins is more important than a purely hedonic response. Wines that express their origins may be less enjoyable than some commercial wines. Appreciation of “terroir wines”  is a more intellectual satisfaction, an appreciation of the meaningfulness of the connection between the flavors and textures in the glass and the land and people who make the wine. But it is more than just that connection. It’s about distinctiveness and individuality. As he says “if you have a local flavour, no one can copy you”.

That last sentence is important. The essence of wine appreciation is the recognition of meaningful difference, appreciating wines as particulars, unique individuals.

But here is the problem. To require that a wine express its “local flavor” is to require that a wine exhibit typicity, that it be typical of the region or vineyard in which the grapes are grown. But if differentiation and individuality are the standard, shouldn’t we also admire the atypical, the wine that seeks its own path, that refuses to conform to local expectations?

There is tension between the criterion of typicity and the criterion of individuality. Wine producers that are comfortable with their wines’ expressing typicity are a bit like aging rock stars pounding out their hits at a casino, a parody of their once creative artistry.

I, for one, while appreciative of true wines want different wines. The search for terroir is indeed an interpretative act but one that seeks continual self-overcoming.

Terroir and the One True Way to Make Wine

09 Monday Apr 2018

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clos de vougeotMaster of Wine John Atkinson has one of the most insightful discussions of terroir I’ve read in a long while. And that is not only because he manages to reference Thomas Kuhn, Friedrich Nietzche, and Gilles Deleuze, all philosophers who have been important to me at various times in my career.

As Atkinson points out, the different regions of the wine world employ quite different production methods most of which have long histories. Making wine in Bordeaux is much different from making wine in Jerez and has been for centuries. That fact, then, launches his probe:

So my opening question is, how does a bunch of grapes suggest this process? Does Palomino – or, for that matter, the Andalusian landscape –  suggest a solera? Is there something specific to Touriga Nacional that suggests foot-treading and arrested fermentation?

In other words, someone had to decide to employ the distinctive techniques exhibited in each region. You can’t separate winemaking from culture, a point which doesn’t sit well with the reigning ideology that wine should express terroir, the geography and geology of the vineyard, not the decisions of winemakers.

Atkinson’s main point of reference is Burgundy, which he calls the “poster-boy” for the notion that “wine makes itself”.  But this celebration of passivity in the face of nature is also something that has a history, one he traces to the medieval world in Burgundy (and much of Europe) where God’s creation ruled every moment of one’s life.

God’s omnipotence was invoked at every opportunity. Curiosity was a sin, measurement discouraged, and interest couldn’t be levied on loans, as it was a charge on time, and time was only God’s to give. France, like the rest of Europe, was becalmed for centuries.

In a world that was so completely given and ordained, opportunities for human expression were limited, or when they did occur, weren’t recognized as such.

We are just spectators of God’s creation. The vignerons had little to do with the final product; it was all God’s work.

Contrary to popular perception, that legacy of passivity was not entirely swept away by the Enlightenment; it became secularized in the form of a recognition of human weakness and limitation-a form of asceticism as Nietzche pointed out. What was left over, as the dominance of Christianity eroded in the modern world, were the systems of power and hierarchies perpetuated by the social and economic system. In the wine trade:

…there’s all the history, the habituation to vocabularies, ways of doing and thinking, tight communities of sensing, rootstocks, clones, barrels and, of course, regulations. Control and power is dispersed over different agencies and through different actors. Terroir, we might argue, is institutionalized, but not theorized…

Terroir becomes what Deleuze calls a code, a system of imperatives kept in place by people who benefit from it.

Viticulture and enology only appear as the enemy if they’re threatening to undermine a hierarchy from which you profit. Irrigation would certainly improve the fortunes of most of Burgundy’s vineyards, just as it would benefit plantings of similarly anisohydric merlot in Bordeaux, but in so doing it would smooth out some of the differences between crus.

Atkinson reports on several tasting contexts in which what appeared to be environmentally-influenced properties of the wines they were tasting turned out to be a product of  culturally-induced, “nomadic”, expertise. The demand that differences be attributable to geography rather than expertise distorts our ability to understand wine regions:

When divergent styles emerge from the same origin – two phenotypes sharing the same genotype, to use our analogy, we feel pressured into a choice. If we want to hold onto the immanence, exchangeability and proximity of the Environment ⇌ Sensation relation absolutely, we have to nominate one wine as the phenotype and the other as an imposter, or, in the Australian example, as ersatz Burgundy.

His example is Aussie Chardonnay, rich and buttery in the 1990’s, leaner and more “Burgundian” today:

Faced with making a decision between the two opposing wine styles, our Master of Wine deferred to his belief (as we did when setting the exam) that the richer, less-reductive style of Australian Chardonnay is more authentic rendition of its environment – because he believes the actions and decisions of the winemakers are compelled by their surroundings. In other words, today’s winemakers should be coerced by the environment just as the Cistercians, in their time, erroneously believed they were coerced by God

Medieval passivity is restored.

At this point, Atkinson seems to come down on the side of terroir as a prophylactic marketing device:

Other people will have their own theories about this, but I suspect that what we’re seeing is a reaction to the war of words between the New World – conspicuously, Australia – and France in the 1990s. With its market share under threat, France claimed terroir was a point of difference setting it apart from, and above, the New world’s offering. Australia retaliated, and claimed terroir was just marketing. The whole debacle brought terroir to the consciousness of consumers and producers, but given the looseness of the definition – its lack of rigour – soon everybody was claiming it.

He goes through several current definitions of terroir pointing out that, if all one has to do to exhibit terroir is plant vines, then everyone has terroir and the concept is too vacuous to be meaningful. The opposing alternative is to suggest only some very special locations can exhibit terroir, a view which he he also rejects:

…not only are we being told what the model of terroir should be, we’re also being told what wine ought to be. The past has done its job with Burgundy, now we just need to correct the errant ways of fallen appellations.

He champions the idea that human beings, soil and environment all play a role in the finished product with the specific contribution differing by region, subregion and ultimately the producer:

I think we underestimate the isolation of wine regions historically, even within the same country. Champagne, Jerez, and Bordeaux just went about things in different ways, they formed distinct networks of production; there’s no sense in which they expediently departed the true path to authenticity and purity taken by the Côte de Nuits’ vignerons.

In other words, even an appeal to tradition will not reveal a single, authentic way of making wine. As for Burgundy:

Burgundy’s inordinately long two thousand-year timeline helped capture some of these differences empirically and structurally. Walls surrounded Chambertin as early as the 7thCentury, and the sustained patronage of dukes, princes and the church provided the region with the stability and resources to flourish. What was bad for peasants was good for wine. There was no opportunity cost attached to centuries spent comparing climats.

Geology and geography matters but even for regions steeped in tradition, the effects of nature are passed through human cultures where they are shaped by contingent, historical factors.Shared and rudimentary vinicultural methods and techniques brought consistency and aesthetic visibility to, what was, God’s creation. For two millennia the effects of geology trickled down through Burgundy’s human strata, recurring tropes and intensities augmenting the vineyards in which they worked.

Referencing the famed Clos Vougeot vineyard he writes:

Clos Vougeot is notoriously divergent…the territory could be sub-divided in alternative ways to yield different but equally interesting variations on a Burgundian theme. Difference precedes identity, if you like.

Accidents of who owned what, the size of the plots and the locations in which walls were built determined the Burgundian system of climates (vineyard plots)—not some magical features of the soil. Only in recent decades when “the rewards for selling in small volumes began to exceed those derived from selling to negociants” , did growers begin to emphasize the distinctiveness of their vineyards. The current fascination with terroir has its origin in the move toward Domaine bottling, a relatively recent phenomenon.

If I read him correctly, Atkinson is not denying the existence of terroir. Everyone knows geography and geology matters. What he denies is that terroir is the whole story. Culture matters.

Coche and Lafon both see themselves as revealing the phenotype of Meursault Genevrières, though the two wines are very different, the expression of house style trumping vineyard designation as a source of similarities and differences. To stretch the genetic analogy, what we have now, with the generation of new possibilities and mutations, looks far more like a form of sexual reproduction that cloning.

The reference in this quote to sexual reproduction is important. Sexual reproduction is imperfect; it creates mutations that send species in new directions. Those differences that subtle variations in winemaking and viticultural techniques introduce are continually redefining regional identities. Whatever terroir is, it’s a moving target as winemakers come up with innovative ways to solve problems and to differentiate their product. It’s the intersection of nature’s creativity and human creativity that creates the differentiations that wine lovers seek, not some essential properties buried in the soil. We should seek difference wherever we can find it.

Atkinson closes, however, on a rather un-Deleuzian note.

Identifying a phenomenon that is ‘Chambertin’ has arguably become harder in recent years as domaine have become more autonomous. Notwithstanding this, those making and those of us tasting Chambertin will continue our vane pursuit of its essence. Phenomena may elude us, but essence will continue to exert a siren force over us.

It seems the search for “the one true way”, another part of our Christian heritage, just won’t be put to rest. That would be a tragedy extending far beyond the world of wine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We Shouldn’t Sacrifice Creativity for Ideology

21 Wednesday Mar 2018

Posted by in Philosophy of Food and Wine, Wine Culture

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imaginationMeg Houston Maker at her website Terroir Review has an interesting proposal for how to classify wines, one that I think is in the right direction but has a serious flaw. She argues:

If we think of wine as principally an agricultural product — grown somewhere, made somewhere, and, to use Matt Kramer’s term, expressing “somewhereness” — we must consider not only where the grapes are grown but also how they become transformed into wine. Process matters.

This is absolutely correct. The production process as much as the climate and geology of the vineyard determines what ends up in the bottle. This is crucial information for the consumer to know and is sometimes more useful than knowing the AVA in which the grapes were grown, which may have so much diversity as to be meaningless.

Using the French system of classifying cheese as a model she suggests 4 classifications based on the production process:

Farmstead — The wine is made on the winemaker’s own property using fruit grown on that land. No purchased fruit is allowed. The winemaker uses minimal inputs and interventions in the cellar and omits all additives that modulate the wine’s properties. Production is limited to the size of the estate and production facility.

Artisanal — The wine is likewise made on the winemaker’s property but using locally sourced fruit, possibly mixed with fruit grown on the property itself. Again, the winemaker uses minimal inputs and interventions in the cellar, omitting additives. Production is limited by the size and capacity of the production facility.

Cooperative — The wine is made using fruit pooled from a group of winegrowers, in a facility owned by one of them or by the collective. The grower-makers have stylistic as well as commercial sympathies. Production is limited by the size of the collective, the yield of each grower, and the capacity of the shared production facility.

Industrial — The wine is made using fruit grown anywhere allowed by appellation laws. Winemaking is industrial, and there are no restrictions on cellar manipulations beyond the legal requirements for wine production. Production is principally limited by commercial exigencies rather than raw material availability or capacity.

I have no problem with these classifications but I think at least one more category is needed.

In my travels I come across some winemakers who source fruit locally from a single vineyard and emphasize the quality and distinctiveness of the fruit they use. These are small production, small lot operations that give every barrel the attention that artisanal winemakers give their lots. Yet they are not averse to using additives and processes that “modulate the wine’s properties”. With some lots they may use commercial yeast to help with a high alcohol fermentation, with others, enzymes to extract color to help modulate tannin development, or micro-oxidation to adjust mouthfeel, etc. With other lots they may not even use sulfur to protect the wine if they’re curious about what the results would be.

According to this classification they would be considered industrial wines because they go well beyond minimal cellar inputs. But these are utterly unlike industrial wines. Commercial exigencies play little role in their decisions. The cellar manipulations are used not to save money but to produce a wine according to their vision. Mad experimenters striving to produce distinctive wines, every vintage is an opportunity to push the envelope to make a more interesting wine than in previous vintages. They often hold wines back from release for several years until the wine shows sufficient development, a practice that is anything but financially beneficial. Rather than destroying terroir by striving for homogeneity and consistency, they’re seeking to discover the full range of expression of which the vineyard is capable.

I’m not sure what to call such wines. “Art Wines” comes to mind but I think even Farmstead and Artisanal wines can be works of art so that won’t do. I think I would just classify them as “Winemaker’s Wines” because their guiding star is the winemaker’s imagination.

I know this category  works against the prevailing ideology that only minimal intervention wines are worthy. But I think what wine culture should be striving for is more differentiation, more distinction, more ways for wine to be. Sometimes that distinctiveness will be a product of the vineyard. Terroir is real and a crucial element of wine aesthetics. But sometimes distinctiveness will be product of the winemaker’s imagination. Why should we be forced to choose between them; why not both?

And we certainly don’t want a classification system that forces wine to be less than what it can be. That’s the problem with the old French model of strictly limiting what winemakers can do.

At any rate, I’m on board with a classification system that takes production process into consideration. But we should make room for the full range of processes that produce distinctive wines.