The Feiring Line

Paul Draper: Adventures in American Winemaking:

 I've realized I started a 'talk with the winemaker series.'  The point is to explore a winemakers take on the current natural argument, where they fit in, or not, and how they approach the grape.

I'm not sure how it will evolve but I'm liking this a great deal and let's see where they go. 

Paul Draper is one of America's iconic wine figures, and Ridge is an iconic American wine.  In researching Martin Ray, I  was reading Great Winemakers of California ( Capra Press 1977, published the year after I first tried a California zinfandel.). 

The young Paul Draper was included with 27 others in the book. Out of those winemakers, including Ray, David Bruce, Mike Grgich, Warren Winiarski, Andre Tchelistcheff...etc...he was the only one who believed in natural fermentations in both alcoholic and malolactic.  The book, by the way, if you can find it, holds a tremendous cache of early California wine technique from  ideas about submerged caps to barrels to sugar concentrate to centrifuges. There's great quotes from August Sebastiani, and true UC Davis grit from Mary Ann Graf of Simi. (We pump the reds through a heat exchanger.  About SO2 addition at the crusher---50-60 ppm 'which probably sounds low for a white wine."   Or this one, "We do judicious fining, just as we do judicious centrifuging.) In other words, pretty great historical stuff.)

This was when everyone in California was unselfconsciously transparent about their use of technology.

Other than the occasional older bottle that my friend Peter (The Young Collector) shared with me, I'm not as familiar with the Ridge wines as my colleagues, but I'll forever treasure one night in Geyserville, having a long and illuminating tete a tete with Paul over dinner and realized we viewed wine in a very similar way.

 I recently had been emailing him some questions, figuring I'd be able to use his perspective in my upcoming book, and when this landed, I knew it had to be shared. His last line reminds me of a line in The Battle, 'Often wine is made in the vineyard, then screwed up in the winery," His "remade" is more spot on.

 Thanks, Paul, for taking the time to share your thoughts. 

 

(After reading some strange comments in the ether about this posting, I want to add, that Paul's thoughts on the subject do not necessarily reflect my own. I respect the man and the wine and I wanted to hear his reflections. These posts aren't to wave any flag, but merely to open the conversation.) 

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Words on Natural and Fermentation from Paul Draper

Over my forty two years at Ridge, I’ve used natural to describe our primary yeast fermentations and secondary malolactic fermentations.  I’ve referred to the natural process by which grapes transform themselves into wine.  For years most California winemakers used the word “wild” to describe uninoculated fermentations,  I think that may be at the heart of the matter.  

Wild as in untamed, out of the control of man – in this case the winemaker.  

In all these years we have not had a natural fermentation go awry.  

I’ve not attended any winemaking courses, let alone received a degree in wine chemistry, but I believe you are basically taught to control the process by which the fruit is transformed into wine.  Control is what the Western world is about and modern technology provides even better control over any process. Because wine has been part of the culture of Europe and the Mediterranean for so many centuries, most European vintners understand that a natural transformation pre-dates today’s controlled transformation.  Even if they use modern technology to control the process they know what the natural process is all about and that it is a viable alternative to the industrial approach.  Prohibition cut us off from that tradition and from any real knowledge of the history of wine through the ages. Winemaking was re-invented in California in the 1930’s as a process controlled by the winemaker through the use of commercial yeast and other additives which have grown in number over the years as have the number of mechanical processes available through  modern technology. I would be surprised if most graduates of our enology schools know that the finest wines of the 19th and early 20th centuries from, for example, Bordeaux were made using the natural process and in any vintage with reasonably cooperative weather they were not wild or unpredictable in character or quality.  The best vintages were in fact great by any standards even surpassing the 1st growth Bordeaux of today.  This natural process that transforms grapes into wine extended back in time and predated the rise of western civilization. 

The term “natural wine” seems to mean quite different things to different people.  Personally  I fear it is not a useful term, and it’s unlikely there will ever be agreement on how to define it.  The other day a friend described how quickly the term natural lost all meaning once the meat industry got a hold of it.  He’s waiting for the large wine producers to render it meaningless in reference to wine.

Where do I come down on the issue of “natural wine”?

What fascinates me most about wine and is at the heart of my love of wine is first, that it is or should I say has been until relatively recently solely the result of a natural transformation in which man’s role is not that of maker or creator, but rather parent, teacher or guide. In this role he or she,  based on experience, keeps the wine on the straight and narrow much as one would a child, attempting to keep her off drugs and through college. Secondly and equally important to me is that certain sites planted to an ideally suited varietal or varietals may consistently express a distinct and individual character and quality in every vintage in which the weather is reasonably cooperative.  That is, the concept of terroir, which to me is as surprising and marvelous as the natural transformation of grapes into wine.

The difference of opinion over natural wine often occurs over the use of SO2.  Of course we have the problem that EU regulations allow an addition of 10ppm and US regulations allow 0ppm addition for “organic” wine.  That problem is really beside the point as an addition of 10ppm in virtually every case is insufficient to keep the natural process on the proverbial straight and narrow in order that the wine will consistently express the distinct character and quality of its site. Of course that presupposes that the site is sufficiently good terroir to provide that character and quality in the first place.  My experience of growing fine wine and of tasting wines made with 0ppm to 10ppm is that unless the minimum effective level of SO2 is used the wines will not consistently express terroir.  Given that, that expression or the attempt at that expression is essential to what I love about wine, we carefully analyze the wine to determine that effective minimum level. 

At Ridge the yeasts naturally occurring on the grapes and the naturally occurring malolactic bacteria carry out the transformation.  We use no additives either those as common as enzymes or those as potentially dangerous to handle as velcorin.    We do not use mechanical processing whether micro oxygenation or reverse osmosis.  We typically but not always filter just before bottling but not to the level of membrane sterile filtration except for our one wine that is a blend from multiple vineyards.  We do on occasion, if needed, fine a red wine with fresh egg whites or a white wine with a minimal amount of isinglass.  We never add any concentrate whether 2000 to 1, Mega Purple or any other.  We do on occasion add a small amount of the natural wine acid, tartaric, derived from the precipitate scrapped out of wine tanks.  This has only been needed in a few zinfandels, never Geyserville and never the Bordeaux varietals or chardonnay.  We have, on occasion, added small amounts of water to a fermentor of zinfandel when a heat spike has pushed up sugars in a parcel before we were able to harvest it given the number of other parcels that have ripened at the same moment.   It is a problem that zinfandel can over ripen virtually overnight when temperatures rise precipitously. Water additions to rehydrate the grapes that have had water pulled out of them by the plant under heat stress must be done with the same light touch that is required for correct chaptalization in Europe.  Careful water additions like careful chaptalization, does not destroy the character of place in the wine which can be destroyed by reverse osmosis and other mechanical processes.

We sample continuously, some would say fanatically, to insure that the fruit flavors in a parcel or part of a parcel are ripe but not over ripe.  Over the last 50 years alcohol levels in our Monte Bello has averaged 13.2% and in zinfandels 14.6%.  As you may know unless a zinfandel vineyard is over 60 years of age the fruit flavors that define the varietal will typically only develop if  ripeness is in the 14% to 14.9% alcohol range.  If a wine from young or middle-age vines is labeled as having an alcohol in the 12% or 13% range it has been processed to remove alcohol or had considerable water added. 

What is most important to me is the issue of how the grapes are handled once they reach the winery.  If you grow grapes organically as we do in our estate vineyards, Monte Bello, Lytton Springs and Geyserville – you can, if you choose, label the wine as organically grown.  That however says nothing about what happens to the grapes in the winery.  They may be blended with organically grown grapes from other vineyards eliminating any sense of place or they could have any of the hundreds of yeast and chemical products added that are available including concentrates and velcorin.  Likewise the wines could have been processed in any of a number of ways from reverse osmosis to spinning cone.  They can still say “organically grown.”

Within the past year, Matt Kramer published two articles ― he titled them Manifestos ― calling for winemakers to state on their labels or elsewhere what they add to or do to the wines they produce.  He detailed what he meant.  

We feel that you can’t list what you didn’t do on the label so possibly all you can do is explain what you do and don’t do in your literature and on your website and count on your customers to understand how important the approach in the winery is, not just the approach in the vineyard.In California for at least the last ten or fifteen years we have heard that the wines are now made in the vineyard.  What is not mentioned is that in most cases they are then re-made in the winery.

Adventures in American Winemaking: Cathy Corison

That mess about the San Francisco Natural wine week, and a constant use of the "Natty" word made me think about Cathy Corison, keeper of the faith,  working towards making terroir driven wines for over three decades. So I asked the Napa winemaker about her thoughts and about her wine. I've asked her whether I could replay her email here. She sweetly said yes, and I'm not even sure she knows that one of the tenets of le monde de la vin au naturel  is transparency. 

This post has stirred some interest, probably because it is rare that a wine maker in this country talks so openly about their practice.  I'm not sure why this has also provoked some thoughts on the 'risks' of no sulfur. This is not for the wine writer or critic to critique but the wine maker and the winemaker alone to decide. Obviously the Corison wines speak for themselves, they are extremely highly regarded by, actually, a wide range of palates.  

There is some extra reading--a round table on the use of sulfur @ WineBuisness. Lots of good stuff! 

 

Hi Alice,

All is well here. I'm expecting a terrific vintage with all this cool weather. Thank you so much for the Portland connection. I've come to love the serendipity of Twitter.

I've been observing the maelstrom of the 'natural' wine discussions from the corner of the room. Like most everything, the truth often sits in the gray area between black and white. (And the truth is different for each person.)

In a day when I am shocked by the manipulation I see in winemaking everywhere, I wonder what happened to growing grapes well in a great vineyard, crushing the grapes and letting Mom Nature do the rest. Our roll should be one of shepherding; we don't want our charges to go over the edge of a cliff.

For me the less manipulation the better. I think of a winemaker's bag of tricks like a doctor's black bag. You hope you don't ever need to use them, and you seldom do, but you're glad they're there. Sadly the tricks have become a routine part of much winemaking.

I don't think anything precludes me from being considered a 'natural' winemaker.

As to specifics, I have not acidulated a Cabernet for nearly 30 years. Fresh out of UCD, over 30 years ago (!), I had been taught that no sound wine could have a pH higher than 3.3. I quickly learned that that was rubbish. That said, I believe that good acidity is one of the most important components of a great wine, both from a winemaking standpoint and wine enjoyment. There are far fewer technical pitfalls in making a wine with a healthy pH. For me, it boils down to growing the grapes well on a great site and picking properly. If I need to wait for flavors to come arounduntil 25°+ Brix and the natural acidity has plummeted, I've failed in the vineyard (or I'm growing the wrong thing in the wrong place).

SO2 seems to be the other bugaboo. First of all, every cell in most people's body produces SO2 as a byproduct of metabolism, so most of us have enzymes in place to deal with it. It is also produced by yeast during fermentation. Some yeast strains produce more than others- a possible tool for winemakers. There IS widespread over- and misuse of SO2 all over the world. One of the things I took away from my academic background in enology is an understanding of how it works. People always say it's added as a preservative. That's true sometimes, but such high levels are sometimes necessary to inhibit microbial activity that the wine is ruined. Making wine from sound grapes and monitoring the health of the wine at all stages allows very minimal SO2 use. For me, the most important reason for SO2 use is to bind up aldehydes that are a byproduct of fermentation (and can occur during cellaring if practices are sloppy, mostly lax topping regimes). High aldehyde levels in wine mask fruit.

Personally, I do something that results in very low total SO2 in the bottle but is frankly very risky. I don't use ANY SO2 at all until after the malolactic fermentation is complete. SO2 added to must to inhibit wild yeasts, gets bound up by acetaldehyde as it is produced during primary fermentation, resulting in a new wine with a basement of significant total SO2 but no free SO2. It is free SO2 that protects the wine in the barrel from spoilage organisms, notably Brettanomyces. This is very risky because of the possibility of a "ferocious" Lactobacillus spoilage (by species related related to the benign ML bacteria) that can produce so much VA during alcoholic fermentation that the wine is spoiled before it goes dry. Again, my best defense is picking sound grapes that don't come into the winery already spoiling. That said, someday I will likely encounter aLactobacacillus spoilage and need that bag of tricks I mentioned. (Though maybe not- I've been doing this for over 30 years.)

This is turning into a tome and I'm out of time. Natural wine is a big subject. After harvest I should have more leisure to elaborate if you want.

 

 

 

 

 

Cheers,

Cathy Corison

Frank Cornelissen: "Naturalness is the road, not its end."

On the second weekend in September, Twitter was out of control with all Frank Cornelissen all the time. I had to contemplate the out of control 'coolness' about these wines (not just Frank's but the 'genre')  and admit to having a moment of annoyance when writers who wouldn't have tolerated these wild wines just a year ago, gushed about them now. 

Can one's palate change so dramatically just because something is 'in.'  Anyway, Frank, who works in Sicily, is definitely in. His wines might be bacterially sound, but they have gone viral.

 The Belgian winemaker from Mt Etna, often referred to as a hard-core natural winemaker, was making the rounds with his importer, Zev Rovine and taking New York City by storm in an incredible three day coming out party. Our meeting had been four (or is it five?) years in the making. 

Finally! I walked into Ten Bells @ 10:30 expecting to get my first sips of Magma #7 and to reacquaint myself with Contadina and  but instead bumped into Lyle Fass heading out, muttering something about acid and having just come back from Germany. Turns out the tasting started @ 8:30 and ended, not started at my witching hour. I did find a little bit of Magma #7-- deeply peonied and exciting. Really exciting. After my sip was gone, I headed home, or tried. That's when, leaving,  I smacked right into  Pierre Breton and posse. We all went in search of scotch and twenty minutes later he reprimanded me about my book over a Laphroaig. 

Pulling myself away from what was sure to be a dawn welcomer, I got myself into bed before 2am. I wanted to be in shape for so I could be fresh for my face time with Frank over at Marlow and Sons.

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Frank--intense in mind. Intense in body (seems built for competitive biking). Even in lycra he wouldn't show a wrinkle of fat. Frank doesn't seem to like the interview. Slow to warm up, that's okay, I recognize my own quality there.

He also would rather talk about someone else's philosophy then his own. In other words, things looked up when we started to talk Fukuoka. 'm not a farmer

but I do often reread The One Straw Revolution-- never ceases to inspire me. The book is poetry.

We connected even more when we talked about Fukuoka vs. Biodynamics.  

 'There may be no better way than Biodynamics for healing the earth," Frank said, "but once the land has reached its balance, why do the same practice and treatments every year in exactly the same way? At that pont the land should be set free." 

He prefers the   Fukuoka no-till approach for his old vineyards on his basalt soils. Except in youthful vineyards, he does not compost.  He prefers grains to clover, because he doesn't want to add more nitrogen to the land. However we debated clover's ability to open up the soil, so it accepts water with ease.

 There are questions. 

Answers will come.

 He's been doing this since 2001 and needs to make some children so he can be in it for longer than his lifetime to figure it out. 

 Contrary to what is out there in print (or rather on the web)  his wines do not ferment in amphora, they have their élevage in amphora. Big difference.

 The first few vintages were fermented in the epoxy-lined urns as Frank did not yet have tanks. (and he doesn't like beeswax, a common liner as the glaze gives a taste.) 

 Since he does his fermenting in tank (not stainless) his wines seem more focused. They seem to show their life and flavors better.  Is that a function of the container or a function or of Frank's growing experience? 

Contrary to what is written, Frank does not use 'the method.' Echoing my observation about most wines using  cold semi-carbonic fermentation, "Everything tastes the same," he said. "I don't like it. All of these vin de soifs. They're all very "fermentary."

And while he is a fairly hardcore sans souffristinista, he says, "I have the advantage of being free of prejudice," he said to me. "Naturalness is the road, not its end." 

His winemaking seems to have reached a delicious maturity. All are marked by texture. Conventional drinkers should be ready for an experience that could change their perspective on what a wine is.

Magma #7, (2008) was gorgeous as above, very rosy and peony. All nerello  (if quite 'spensive)

Munjabel Rosso #6, 100% nerello (a blend of '09 & '08) has low aromatics, and zingy acidity, angles, raspberries and edge.

Munjabel Bianco #6 (2009). a blend of carricante, grecanico dorato and coda di volpe, subtle, floral with orange juice. Plenty of tannin. It was pressed off before New Year, after two months on the skins.

Contadino #7 (2009) Cloudy, perfumed. Borscht, celery and grit. Mostly nerello. 

SF Natural Wine Week

 Here's what's on my mind. 

Last  year we saw the start of secular Natural Wine Weeks.

The first one was in SF 2009. 

While I thought it was organized by the Dressner folk, I am now corrected and find out that the motivating force was by Ian Becker (bravo), and the seminar supported by LDM, thanks to the help of the lovely Shawn Mead. 

 There was another in the Spring in Los Angeles, mostly spurred on by Lou Amdur (Lou on Vine) and full disclosure--I was there for the wrap up panel. 

This year the second edition of SFNWW was championed by a collective effort and taken up by restaurants and wine stores around the city. Some wines this week showcased are Arianna Occhipinti from Sicily, Laureano Serres from Spain, Arnot-Roberts and NPA (Kevin Kelley). There's Puzelat and even at RN74, they're pouring some interesting juice.

Most  venues are featuring people who live and die by natural and living their principles. This is something  worth celebrating. Passion is worth celebrating. Principles coupled with sensuality (meaning principles coupled with sound wine)  are worth celebrating. It's worth ones liver for sure, especially,  when the wines are not just ideological but delicious and give so much pleasure. 

Yet the line up up at the restaurant A 16 gave me some pause.

 Below is the blurb from the calendar of events. 

... expect to find the regular by-the-glass list to lean heavily on Italian natural wines. That focus is complemented by Palmina (Monday, 8/23); Robert Sinskey (Tuesday, 8/24); Bonny Doon (Wednesday, 8/25); Unti Vineyards (Thursday, 8/26); Whetstone Wine Cellars (Friday, 8/27); Peay Vineyards (Saturday, 8/28); and Brown Estate (Sunday, 8/29). Each producer will be able to talk at length on the various natural, organic or biodynamic practices they employ, and what it means to work with these methods in California.

I was trying to figure out: did it mean they we're having natural Italiano's and if you want to see more conventional wines and compare the difference? Do they mean compliment or do they mean contrast? I'm actually not sure why some of those names on this list are included in a Natural Wine Week.

Here's where this is disturbing. The category of natural wine is a somewhat slippery slope except predicated by the tenets of nothing added nothing taken away, a touch of sulfur as needed if needed. Basic to the cause is no inoculations and please, no acidifications. There is a transparency in the wines that excite out of control affection for certain drinkers predisposed to the wine roller coaster.  

If the week had been called 'Natural and Sustainable" well, what the hell. I could rock with the A16 list. At any other time, for any other wine promotion, sure.   But here some 'conventional' winemakers included in this line up will be getting a free ride from a different association. No 100% commitment needed. In other words, why buy the cow when the milk is free?  

Obviously I'm having a little fun with the analogy and I'm sure there was no intent to confuse here, but just some confusion. I imagine this comes from confusing organic or biodynamic and commitment to the soil as resulting in a classically natural wine. While all of the wines on the list might be good, I would guess not all of the wines on the list could claim that they don't inoculate or acidify or water back or....well...whatever.  That is an essential difference between those who are natural and those who work more naturally. And while having a Natural Wine week where great and natty wines are poured all over town, getting people to drink them, it seems like not such a great idea to muddy the waters of perception unless there's a conversation around it. But most of the consumers won't know the questions to ask.

 Never the less, it seems as if SF is filled with some terrific events and venues this week, including A16, Some  will party like the 1970's. Check out the blog for the full run down.