Alice, Clark is a charming guy and writes passionately about his technology - and he's a bit of a carny, too. He's traveled down this road and he's sticking to it no matter what.
Joly's comment struck me as odd at first, but then I remembered that he also said he always wants some mildew in his vineyard, just to keep the resistance of his vines up. Yin and yang, right?

I had a conversation with a scent expert recently. Really opened my eyes, when he said the world of perfumes uses both natural and synthetic scents, without a lot of fussing about whether they were natural or not. They are smells, either way, period. No big deal in his opinion. Reminded me of the Bucky Fuller quote, "Anything that Nature lets you do is natural."

I think we get too dogmatic in the wine biz, sometimes.

This reminds me a LOT of the whole "conventional" versus "organic" tag with food. It's a total farce. "Organic" WAS conventional, in that it was just-the-way-things-were-done, up until about a half century ago when chemical companies began calling on farmers (I interviewed one of the patriarchs of California agriculture recently, and he was the one who turned on that lightbulb for me . . . so it's not just me being falsely nostalgic). It makes me bristle every time I have to use the word "conventional" to mean non-organic, because it's really a misnomer.

So . . . where was I . . . wine? Yes, I've had a couple of glasses tonight ;-).

Alfonso, When the wine industry gets to be as big as the perfume industry with as much marketing clout and spin (it's almost there), they'll be able to squelch the validity of 'natural' wine making the way the perfume industry has done with natural scents. But anyway, it's very difficult to put these two in the same category. As yet (except in a few regions) there is only one shot a year for wine, in perfume if you run out you can whip up another batch.

In my life time, I believe, the Goutal line was all natural scent before Annick died, after (and after the sale to ...LVMH?)the scents went synthetic and so (as far as my nose is concerned) did the quality.

With the advent of new wine drinkers has come the set that believe if you spend a lot of money it must be better! People invest a huge amounnt of money in the "best" lastest equipment and build this multi million dollar facillity to use as an excuse for charging an outrageous price for the wine they produce! Every few years they are required to buy the biggest and newest equipment to justify the continuation of this theory.

My point is it has been many years that wine has been made and only recently have these methods changes. Like modern farming practices anything that is new has the advantage of being unproven. This is, the just because it is new it must be better theory, which has often been proven in historical prespective to be not as good as the older more proven method that preceded it. Case in point bladder presses versus older vertical presses, vertical presses are more forgiving making it more difficult to extract undesirable flavors, as the skins cushion the juice from overpressing.
Basically, it is impossible to make good wine with bad fruit no matter how new and expensive the equipment used!
Caring for the vine and the soil it is planted in is the first step to good wine...

I am not trying to be a contrarians here but, Please tell me when all is said and done are we just not looking for the best experience out of the glass that we can get. Certainly you are not arguing that a poorly made wine that is crafted in a "natural" style (as defined by ??) is better than a crafted wine that has been altered with modern technology? If this is the premise I have been miss led to this site. While I can agree that I am able to taste many additives, I never would classify these wines a well crafted. Yet I am troubled with the notion that only the “pure” or “natural” wines are deserving of attention.

Alcie, I very much enjoyed Clark's read - he really is a clever fellow...I agreed with him almost entirely, especially regarding the marketplace: the big standard brands and then the small guy marketing "unique", though in the end selling more because of personal relations than what's really "in the glass" (abeit the small guy must still "tell the truth"). And then his concept that the wine geek should either put up (money that is) or shut up...absolutely true, and a good frank rebutal to the interogation (by the wine geek) as to why certain wines are being made.

I don't agree with him however that making wine is a most diffuclt proposition. To make good wine, all you need is a good terrior, attentive work in the vineyard, harvest of healthy grapes that are balanced in tannin, sugar, and acidity, simple vinification and elevage adding (as desired) a little bit of sulfite and (perhaps) a little bit of wood tannin, just the right amount of oxidation to follow a balanced oxidative/reductive path, and bottling when the wine is sufficiently clarified and microbologically stable. This is a simple list of "dos" for making exicting wine, a rebut to Clark's comment on the "negative" list of wine-making "donts".

Just finished reading Ruth Reichle's experience at the NYTimes, is Asimov still as sexy now as he was in the 90's? All the girls want to know!

Hi Daniel,

How did you get to my site and am curious where you are in Italy?

Also am curious about what you mean by agreeing with Clark on this: "the wine geek should either put up (money that is) or shut up..."

I was mystified by his statement and I don't understand it. It seems to me that the 'wine geek' is very happy to spend money for wine and spends lots on it....but not on wines that have nothing to say.

And I actually don't know what Ruth said about Eric in her book. Tell us! We're eager to know!

Alice,

Yes, and no.

You can whip another batch, if you have the ingredients. But if those ingredients grow on the hills of Olivetta S. Michele or in Noto, and if there are only so much to go around, well, then there you have it. Still derived from a crop. Synthetics, it is true, can be whipped up a bit more quickly.

As to (s)quelching the validity of 'natural' wine making - all one has to do is take a look at one of the many Nielson reports that run across my screen, on a regular basis, to know that day has come and gone, for the masses. It's mystifying, what sells in the supermarket channel. And lots of it.

To try and ferret out the natural wine in the sea of industrial swill, for most people, it would be easier trying to find fly sh*t in pepper.

But keep the home fires burning, amica...my heart's in the Highlands.

I've known Clark since boarding school. He was smart as a whip and more than a little eccentric back then -- Clark and I got ourselves kicked out of Physics class for a semester for being a pair of wise asses, then aced the damned final exam anyway, much to the instructor's chagrin. Things haven't changed much since then.

Coincidentally, a friend pointed me to Clark's article the day before I stumbled on Alice's comments in response. Alice, I'm with you much of the way, but you have to understand that Clark is a provocateur, and you've risen to the bait just as he expected.

I'm sure Clark would be the first to agree that wine is largely made in the vineyard, or should be. The problem -- and it's a problem that has made Clark a comfortable living and given him something challenging, fun and provocative to do -- is that a lot of junk comes out of a lot of vineyards and fermenting tanks. Sometimes that is the result of poor practice in the field, sometimes its just an effort to grow the wrong grapes in the wrong place, or a lousy growing season, or stupid mistakes in the cellar. I'm not talking about wine that simply expresses vagaries of wind and weather and soil and the natural variability in the cellar that is inherent in any process that relies on little bugs to convert juice into wine. I'm talking real caca. Stuck fermentations, volatile acidity, WAAY too much alcohol, WAAY too much tannin, whatever. Clark is able to do some of his MIT whiz bang magic on that junk and turn it into palatable wine. I'm not sure I see any harm in that. Otherwise, this junk would get drunk like it is -- surely not a good thing -- or be tossed out, or distilled, or who knows what. Sold as Two Buck Chuck perhaps, or fortified and sold to winos.

There surely is lots of harm in using these techniques to turn what could be good, honest wine with a sense of time and place into a tarted up hyperwine to please the palates of the Speculator, Parker and the rest. While I'm sure Clark would be more than willing to sell his wares to folks who want to do that sort of thing, I don't think he'd be very interested in drinking the wine they make by using his tools for that wrongheaded purpose. And I don't think Clark is recommending that good sound wine be manipulated to turn it into SUPERWINE for the marketplace.

Based on many hours of talking and tasting with Clark over the years, I think he has a reasonable appreciation for artisanal wine and a palate that is attuned to wines that have something to say about where they come from, what they're made of and the people who made them.

But let's face it. There is an ocean of terrible wine out there. Some of it is that way through Acts of God or incompetence during the viticultural and vinification process, some of it is that way because the people who make it have weird palates and actually WANT it that way. Some of it is terrible because the folks who make it cynically believe that an audience that grew up on Kool Aid and Coca Cola and Mickey D and Chocolate Coated Sugar Bombs wants wine that is soft, a bit sweet and doesn't have any character or vinosity. It's bad on purpose.

If Clark has tools that can be used to tone down or gussy up some of that garbage to render it more like real wine, more drinkable, then I say more power to him.

Clark and I and our esposed ones sat down for dinner one evening a year or two back, at a good little restaurant here on Bainbridge Island, with some reasonably young bottles from my cellar. I vaguely recall we popped 1996 Pol Roger, 2000 Raveneau Montee de Tonnerre, 1996 Roulot Tessons and 1993 Mugnier C-M Les Fuees. He yanked a brown bagged bottle out of his trench coat just after we opened the Raveneau and asked me to partake, comment and identify. After the usual floundering around that accompanies this sort of exercise, I pegged it as a reasonable quality Petit Chablis or Chablis AC, perhaps from the Chablisienne cooperative? Voila, it was Clark's Faux Chablis, a wine I had no idea even existed. An under $10 bottle of wine, it would do service as a quaffer just as well as the sea of relatively anonymous Petit Chablis does. I'd sure rather drink Faux Chablis than 95% of the soft spineless sugary oak chipped too-alcoholic muck that sells as California Chardonnay, often for ridiculous prices.

I'm not sure what the point of all of this is, other than to say "lighten up." Clark has fun putting on his little horns and waving a pitchfork and playing El Diablo so folks like you and I can get our hackles up and engage him in a rollicking, rip roaring argument. He's a smart guy and that kind of intellectual jousting is his idea of a very good time (and mine too). But at the end of the day, the guy really does know good wine from bad, interesting wine from boring mass market "product," genuine from fake. Perhaps he is on the wrong side of the "versus" on some issues near and dear to our hearts, but one thing Clark isn't -- he is not a fellow who has tried to force the world to march in lock step with a personal prediliction for wines that are the vinous equivalent of a Hollywood plastic surgeon's silicone implanted, liposuctioned, collagen lipped, airbrushed wet dream in Victoria's Secret underwire; or a black Hummer with rhino catcher bumpers and big chromed wheels. You're aiming your guns at the wrong devil. Point your cannons at The Emperor Who Has No Nose and his growing school of copycats and wannabes and disciples. Yup, Dat is De Debbil.

The lawyer who decided to start giving LSAT scores to wine -- he's your Beelzebub.

I didn't rise the bait THAT much, did I? You should see what I cut out of the post.

Clark has lots of friends out there. He is a very crackin' smart guy. Much smarter than I am. But I think you've got it wrong.He's not my Beezebub, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm his.

I have no problem with these techniques, by the way. I just can't imagine drinking any wines that utilize them. I've always maintained that you need to fix something so you don't lose your vintage? Go for it. Like anti-biotics, it's great to have them available.

Nice post chambolle. If I could distill your argument down a bit - basically the problem is not Clarke himself, but rather those who would take and use his technology to make "perfect" wines, without any flaws, character or interest. Kind of third-reichian.
Well, whatever the market will bear, I suppose. As for me, I like wines with character, sometimes with a "flaw" or two, wines that are not ashamed of themselves and what they are.
And yes, the lawyer is ALWAYS the problem!

Actually, Alice, I thought your response to Clark was a bit more restrained than usual. Make another shot or two of espresso and let 'er really rip.

My feeling about wine techno gizmos is kind of like this. I have a number of quite lovely French pocket knives, some small, some a bit larger, some with precious wood handles, some with horn. I use them to slice an apple, cut up a baguette and hack away at a nice piece of cheese or two. Along with a glass or two of good wine, it makes for a nourishing meal and a very nice ritual. But someone else might use the same knives to go on a rampage and stab his neighbors.

In that case, I would not lay blame with the knives, or the folks who made the knives, or the very nice people who sold them to me. Nor would I embark on a "Ban the Laguioles" campaign. I would certainly counsel the use of knives for their intended and appropriate purposes, and truly sympathize with the victims of their misuse.

Ay, but there's the rub, isn't it? It's a bit more difficult to define what the appropriate and inappropriate use of this wine gizmo or that might be. This I do know, or think I know anyway: it is not always inappropriate to resort to technology. Generally speaking, when a wine is really "sick," it should be cured. And when it is merely "distinctive," it should not be squeezed into conformity with some artificial standard of mediocrity, or tarted up to some caricature of "greatness."

Now we're getting into pretty hazy territory. It's a bit like trying to draw a line between madness and genius. When is a wine "crazy" enough to require therapy; and when is it just "eccentric" or even "inspired and prophetic" and to be left as it is?

Clark likes squeaky clean wine. He makes tools that helps winemakers get there. Good luck to him. May he live a long and prosperous life.

It's about taste not about argument. It's just that Clark, I feel, wants our approval, and no. I won't do that. I prefer the taste of wines that don't use his tools of manipulation (or etc.etc.). But then I can only drink Californian wines under duress with RARE exception.So, already he and I are talking in different languages from different parameters. I've yet to have a moxed or osmosed (concentrated) wine that I felt was exciting and alive. Perhaps that will change but right now, in a blind tasting I most probably won't choose those to drink.

Clark makes squeaky clean wine for a living. That doesn't mean Clark likes squeaky clean wine when he sits down to eat and drink. Maybe that's what he tells you, but I think I know better. That, or I've wasted a lot of do re mi pouring plenty of Chave Hermitage, Domaine Tempier Cabassaou, Mugnier Amoureuses, Roulot Charmes and so on down his gullet over the years. He sure seemed to like the stuff at the time, and it sure as shootin wasn't "squeaky clean wine."

He's a good man, just a very bad Wizard.

You're right about one thing: you and I are not likely to buy or drink the sorts of wine that are going under the knife for Clark's surgical procedures. I think that was sort of the point of my prior posts. But that's a GOOD thing. I don't worry about all the moxing or osmosing or concentrating or whatever so long as it's done with wines that don't have much to say to you and I in the first place and doesn't put pressure on those who make distinctive and more "natural" wines to stop doing so. We're talking mass market manufactured product, not some grower's 500 case production of Volnay 1er cru or old vine Muscadet or whatever. Last time I checked, there weren't any manipulations going on over at Benjamin Leroux's little shop in Pommard, and I don't think it's happening in my lifetime.

I do think it is a shame that the Parkerization of the wine world has induced some folks who ought to know better, and who have very good material to work with, to manipulate in order to please the Parkerized International Palate Profile. That's what I'm talking about when I refer to "superwine." Can you say "Michel Rolland"? I can say it, but it makes my jaw lock up when I do.

Incidentally, Clark may have a home base in California, but his itinerant magic show goes way beyond that -- France's southern climes, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand, South America, anywhere that out of whack wines are likely to be made in huge batches, there you will find Mr. Fixit hard at work, polishing those raw tannins, pumping up the acidity, taking the alcohol down from 17% to a more palatable 13%, and all the rest of that malarkey.

I try to drink California wine at least once a year, whether I need to or not. Typically, this reminds me why I don't drink it more often, although a good old bottle of Ridge Monte Bello cabernet can adjust that attitude a bit, even for this dyed in the wool Burgundophiliac.

Does Mr. Smith do any work in Spain, perchance? If not, let him know he could be making a killing.

Best,

LL

Alice,
Read Jim White's Napaman.com interview with the principals of Dominus the same people that own Petrus. I think you may get some reaffirmation from the people that get $3500 a bottle for their futures. They are all about the vineyard and fruit being the primary focus of making a good wine!

Fruit being the primary focus of making a good wine? That's shocking, no? What a revolutionary idea.
Actually, I was quite surprised to find out that Dominus and their Napanook really aren't so bad.

All this talk is making me thirsty. Unfortunately I have been dining out lately (job related peril) and have been really thrust back into the real world of wine lists for the masses. my gripe, right now, is that you have to hunt for, can I say, a "normal" wine that doesnt insult or shock what I have grown used to opening at home. Take a look at most wine lists (not the one I sent you from Catalan) and it is just a sorry sea of sad little schist-less crap.

Bourbon is starting to look better everyday. (Did I say that?)

Maybe this is an example of the benefits of natural wine making or maybe it's a mistake:

My friend and I are making wine from a tiny backyard vineyard in the hills east of San Diego. We have been drinking wine from all over the world and thinking about it for many years. And we were surprised to find that our first vintage, grenache/mourvedre, is delicious and very old-world, like a simple côtes du Rhone. Nothing terribly impressive but tasty with distinctive grenache nose and flavor, not overripe, not hot. The slightly austere fruit was partly a mistake; we didn't cluster thin enough, so the fruit ripened slowly (and much of it not at all). Eager to get it in, we harvested at 21-22.5 brix.

Our winery equipment and supplies consisted of nothing but plastic buckets, sulfite, yeast, a small basket press, a siphon, and glass carboys. The wine seems to have made itself. Beginners' luck?