Winemaking - Scourge or Saviour (Part 2)

- The final rounds -

In this issue we continue our look at winemaking and the application of technology in the winery, further examining the contrasting notions of 'natural' 'non-interventionist' winemaking vs 'modern' winemaking via an old fashioned death match - Old World vs New World, Man vs Machine, Tradition vs Science in a battle for supremacy. (To understand more about this contest, read the first instalment)

In these final rounds we will see the two opposing sides battle it out on the issues of maturation vessels, filtration & closures, with the 'natural' approach fighting against the big guns of technology.

Round 4 of this fight is all about maturation and the rise of the now ubiquitous stainless steel tank

Traditionally, all wine was matured in oak - white, red, rose everything, all would see the inside of an oak barrel at one time or another, if only for a short period, as this was the main way to store & mature wine. In traditional winemaking, these barrels where usually old as to impart minimal oak flavour on the finished wine and allow the terroir to shine. The barrels themselves also allow a small amount of oxygen to permeate through the staves, with the resultant low level oxidation serving to soften the wine, with the oak barrels also giving structure. The problem is that oak maturation & aromatic intense don't always go hand in hand, with the light, delicate fragrance of wines like Riesling or Gewurtztraminer not benefiting from any oak influence.

In a modern winery, the same maturation can take place in a sterile stainless steel tank - a sealed vessel that has only a very limited ingress of oxygen and can be cleaned to the point of food grade sterility. The wines that are produced in stainless steel tank end up with much more pronounced 'crisper' flavours, no 'off' aromas and often show more 'fresh fruit' characters than those produced using oak barrels, but can conversely lack the complexity & inherent structure.

The introduction of stainless steel as a fermentation, maturation & storage vessel has been a boon for the producers of crisp dry white styles, particularly those who are looking for heightened aromatics and maximum freshness. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, Clare Valley Riesling & Hunter Valley Semillon may not have scaled the heights of popularity without stainless steel tanks. Stainless steel tanks have also helped preserve the freshness of Unwooded Chardonnay & revitalised Rose, not to mention brighten up many early drinking red wines.

Round 4 Results - Score the win to technology here. Any winery that wants fresh whites, roses or light reds needs a stainless tank simply to compete. Red wine producers need not apply.
Winner: Technology

Round 5 and its smackdown time for technology, with some highly controversial aces up the sleeve to take this round. But the traditions of 'natural' winemaking make a comeback in this round, and the main proponents aren't who you would expect....

We could roughly call this round 'filtration' as these techniques fall under the banner of serving to remove certain elements from a solution, but it goes a little deeper than that.

Traditionally winemakers used (amongst other things) cheese cloth to filter their wines - allowing for the removal of seeds, stems and other residue. Filtration, even in this basic form, has been part of the winemaking process for a considerable time, mainly attempting to remove solids from the final product.

In a modern winery however, filtration has taken on a whole different form, with the wine industry now having to conform to the strictly controlled hygiene & sanity standards found in the food industry, with the expectation of quality product that is implied by these standards. Filtration in a modern winery serves two purposes then - clarification & microbial stabilization. In clarification, larger particles are removed to enhance the appearance of the wine, whilst microbial stabilisation serves to remove yeast & bacterial organisms which, if left in the wine, could lead to spoilage or, at the very worst, re-fermentation (and the odd exploding bottle!)

Clarification is de-reguer for white wines & openly embraced by many more 'traditional' winemakers, allowing for any cloudiness to be effectively removed, often with the use of very natural products (like egg whites or Isinglass - A derivative of fish swim bladders) however it must be noted that most young wines, if left for long enough, may reach the same levels of clarity naturally.

Microbial stabilization though is particularly intensive (and invasive), as it requires a filtration of at least 0.65 micrometers to be effective. The trade off is that at this size, there is considerable chance that colour, tannin & flavour can be removed in the process. Thus modern wineries invest considerable amounts into filtration devices in an attempt to create stable wines that haven't been stripped of their goodies in the process.

Interestingly the main push against filtration of this nature has actually come from a very unlikely source - the beating heart of the new world wine industry: Super premium red winemakers of the Napa Valley in California & the Barossa Valley in Australia. It is these cutting edge 'cult' producers who have picked up on the sentiment that filtration can strip flavours and colours & whom now label their wines as 'unfiltered'. This perhaps serves to instil some 'natural' winemaking credibility to some wines which are very 'modern' in their winemaking approaches (lavish new oak, considerable winemaking influence etc..).

The evolution of filtration though has taken an entirely different tact, with some of the latest technology in the winery rewriting the rules. In this case, it is reverse osmosis and spinning cone column processes: Two very exotic gadgets that use specialise membranes or high tech 'spinners' to separate wine into its various components - water, alcohol, juice etc.., then remove what they don't want before putting the wine back together again.
Some of the ways these technologies have been used is to concentrate grape juices (by removing water) and make more intense wines; to remove excess alcohol (if the grapes got too ripe) or even to remove the flavour and aromas of 'smoke taint' (as experienced in a few bushfire prone Victorian regions over recent vintages).

This ability - to break wine down to a molecular component level is arguably a phenomenal scientific advance, as is argued by the modern winemaker, or is conversely a horrible Frankenstein-like attempt to fiddle with nature, as argued by the 'natural', 'non interventionist' winemaker.

The argument for and against intensive filtration is muddy and complicated - on one hand, there is the desire to produce clean, rich, full flavoured stable wines, on the other there is a desire to produce a wine that is as its maker intends it. What's more is that a small amount of filtration goes a long way... and even the most 'natural' winemaker uses a little.

Round 5 Results - This is a draw, the arguments for both sides are strong and both sides have been known to 'dabble' with the application (or lack of) filtration technology.
Winner: Draw!

Round 6 This final round has been done to death by all and sundry, but we can't have a modern vs traditional winemaking death match without exploring the issue of closures.
A wine closure serves two purposes - as both a containment (keep the wine in) and preservation (keep everything else out) device.

Traditionally, wine bottles were sealed exclusively with cork. sourced solely from Portugal. The cork used in the production of wine corks is actually a product from the bark of the cork tree, with the production of wine corks a rather lengthy process - the tree itself must be a minimum of 25 yrs old for cork production, with the harvested cork requiring 8-12 months of seasoning before it is even considered for use. Cork was used as a closure as it naturally expands to form an air tight closure that both preserves and contains the wine in the bottle.

There are however a few problems with cork. Firstly, the big one: TCA or 2,4,6 - Trichloranisole, a compound that is produced by a reaction between the chlorine used to sterilise natural cork & a mould found in wood products. TCA affects a wine by giving it a mouldy, wet hessian type aroma and flattening the flavours on the palate. This cork taint is generally thought to affect somewhere between 2-5% of all wines sealed with cork seals, although that figure varies wildly according to which source you are quoting.
Another, less recognised problem is what is known as random oxidation - where the cork fails in its job as a preserver, letting oxygen into the wine and prematurely ageing the contents. When you add these two faults together (Random oxidation is estimated to run at between 1-3%) we have a significant problem with cork closures.

The modern winery (and plenty of traditional producers are taking the plunge now too) have comprehensibly embraced alternative closures. The most predominant of these is the screwcap - a screw on, metal cap that is already used in many other adaptations - from Tomato sauce to Vodka bottles. The advantage of a screwcap is that it is a manufactured, consistent preserver and containment device, with none of the possible taints associated with cork.
Another seal that has arisen as a potential premium closure is the glass stopper, which has already been adopted by some German producers as it seems a quite natural addition to 'glass' wine bottles (looks good too).

Perhaps the only major drawback to screwcaps is that they don't 'pop' like corks do, removing some of the romance associated with the popping of corks. But with even some of the top Bordeaux Château's (producing expensive 'old world' wines) confirming that they are trialling screwcaps, it looks like the days of cork are numbered. The only real retort from the cork loving, 'natural' winemakers has been that screwcaps are such an efficient seal, that wine cannot mature in the bottle like cork sealed examples, as there is no natural, minute oxygen ingress (as experienced with corks).

This writer can attest to the redundant nature of this theory, with a recent tasting of two 1998 Richmond Grove Clare Valley Rieslings confirming that wine will mature as steadily under 'screw' as it does under its cork sealed brothers (the screwcapped wine was much 'fresher' too).

Round 6 Results - Consider this: If 3-5% of our milk went off because of a dodgy lid, and there was a more effective lid that was almost a dollar cheaper and worked every time, what would the logical move be?
Winner: Technology
Andrew Graham

For another perspective on this debate, read this excellent article by Ric Einstein
(The Other Red Bigot)

Modern Winemaking - Scourge or Saviour

Following on the heals of our look at the complexities of terroir, in the next two issues we will take a closer look at winemaking & the application of technology in the winery - An area where Australia leads the world, yet also a highly contentious & contradictory issue within the global wine industry, with two very different viewpoints played out on different sides of the world – Traditional (old world European) vs Modern (new world – everywhere else).

On one stereotypical side of this argument you have the ultra traditional, 'non interventionist' style purists who rely on what could be classed as 'archaic' winemaking practises that are absolutely time honoured & 'natural' yet prone to very inconsistent results. Indeed some of the worlds most expensive wines are produced via this method, but also some of the most expensive flops!

The other extreme then is the scientific winemaker who utilises science and technology to produce the wine they want, effectively controlling the chemical & physiological processes involved in wine production to get a much more consistent, if overly homogeneous & 'industrial' result, lacking the soul of the traditional winemaking process, yet making much more consistent wines.

The reality is that most wineries sit somewhere in the middle of this battle, utilising the best of the old and the new world in the quest for vinous glory. What’s more, many old world producers have wholly embraced modern winemaking (just look at the raft of Aussie winemakers plying their trade in Southern France every Aussie winter) and plenty of New World producers who make their wines in a very traditional manner (Like McLaren Vale producer D’Arenberg who foot tread grapes and use century old basket presses).

In many ways, this argument pits man against machine in a grudge match that is the symbolism of our modern era – Art vs Science, Tradition vs Technology. Which way produces the finest wine? We've decided to test this out with an old fashioned ruckus:

Round 1 of this traditional vs modern winemaking fight is set in the vineyard. We will ignore the viticultural (grape growing) side, as this is a whole separate dilemma (see biodynamic & organic wines) and may well influence the result (after all, great wine is made in the vineyard - or is that the winery?)

Traditionally, grapes are picked by hand in whole bunches and remain this way until they get to the winery. This preserves the integrity of the grapes themselves, can enhance the freshness and allow for only top quality, ripe grapes to be picked. Hand picking is though limited by the human element - requiring a large, costly workforce and is largely limited to daylight hours (or whenever pickers can be found). Hand picking is essential when whole bunch fermentation is required (such as in the production of Pinot Noir & fine bottle fermented sparklings).

Conversely, the modern option is machine harvesting - machine harvesting is efficient and effective at harvesting large tracts of vineyards in a very short space of time, day or night. The problem with machine harvesting though is that it is very hard on both the grapes and the vine - with the vine literally beaten of its grapes, increasing the chance of berry splitting (which can lead to oxidation - the enemy of fresh aromatic whites). Machines are also indiscriminate - they will take all the grapes, regardless of their condition and include plenty of nefarious material with it. This can be combated by sorting in the winery, but considering the logistics of machine harvesting are not all that condusive to hand sorting, it rarely happens (especially with large volumes).

Round 1 Result: Handpicking wins for quality, but not efficiency. Machine Harvesting wins for convenience. Handpicking is essential for some varieties, but when it starts to really rain at harvest time, the machine harvesters can be the only way to get your fruit off in a hurry. Many winemakers in Coonawarra still use machine harvesting but they are the exception, as most premium wines are made by hand picking. Winner: Tradition

After an exchange of body blows, we move onto Round 2 & it is fermentation time – Time to convert grape juice into wine:

The traditional fermentation method is largely to let the wine begin fermenting on its own accord – with the naturally occurring yeasts found on grape skins, in the atmosphere or in the vats serving to start fermentation of grape sugars into alcohol 'naturally'. Natural yeast fermentation is thought to give more complexity to finished wines, with yeasts performing unpredictably & hence producing ‘wilder’ more pronounced flavours and less obvious alcohol (as wild yeasts are less efficient at turning sugar into alcohol). It is this unpredictability though which is the major downside of wild yeast fermentation – just one of the ambient yeasts floating around a winery can be working against the winemaker, producing off aromas or not working at all, resulting in a fermentation that dozen’t quite work like it should, leaving a stinky, semi sweet final wine that is largely undrinkable.
Some wineries have naturally occurring yeast strains that are consistent enough to allow them to naturally ferment every year (or their makers know exactly what tricks to use to make them consistent) but it is still regarded as a somewhat risky process.

Contrast this to the modern winemaking method, which involves the use of a cultured yeast in the fermentation process. Cultured yeasts are still all natural products, yet are cultured in a controlled label. They then can be ordered in bulk and added when appropriate (there are even yeast catalogues!). Wineries even cultivate their very own strain of yeast to be used in their wines – leading to similar characters in all the wines of a single maker (good for ‘house style’). The main advantage of cultured yeasts is their consistent results, producing ‘safe’ ferments that are clean and efficient, with nary a off aroma in sight. Cultured yeasts are particularly useful in the production of aromatic white wines – Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling etc.. The main disadvantage is, again, the homogeneity – cultured yeasts provide safe wines that may lack the complexity of their ‘natural’ brothers.

Round 2 Result: Small scale producers will go the natural ferment as they have much less to lose. On a larger scale, natural ferments are seen as an overtly risky 'unclean' proposition. Some large scale producers get around this by separating their wines into 'batches', allowing for individual parcels of grape juice to undergo natural fermentation (so if a batch goes astray there is little worry). Wild yeast ultimately wins for complexity though (and complex wines are uniformly the hgihest quality wines)
Winner: Tradition!
Andrew Graham

Next Issue: The Final Rounds - Winery Gadgets, Filtration & Closures

The Terroir Issue

Whilst Australia holds the claim for some of the oldest vines in the modern world, in the grand scheme of fermented grape juice we are only infants - Our wine history can only be traced back to the early 1820's cuttings of wine pioneer James Busby. In contrast, French wine production can trace its roots back over 2000 yrs to that of the ancient Roman societies, with wine having evolved alongside much of France's modern cultural history.

The result of these disparate histories is that the French have a richer appreciation of wine's complexity, in particular the different factors that can affect the way a wine tastes. The most important (and contentious) of these is known as Terroir (pronounced Tear-WAH) a French term that has no true English translation (which only adds to the aloofness) but is roughly translated as 'a sense of place'.

The premise of this notion is that the geography of a local environment can have an effect on the final product, giving rise to the applied term 'gout de terroir' or 'taste of the earth' - That is, we taste the region, the vineyard & the soil, the grapes (and hence, the wine) are then an expression of the environment in which they are grown.

The reason why this notion is contentious is that terroir is the backbone of French wine law. The Appellation d'origine Controlée (AOC) is the French Wine classification system that (theoretically) groups producers together by their geography, with strict defining laws about where grapes can be grown, when they can be picked, how much each vine can yield, how long the wine is matured for and even how much alcohol the final wine can have!

In this fashion, the principle terroir of each AOC area is preserved, leading to a vinous expression of the local environment, not what grape varieties are produced in that local environment. This is like the control tyre in Formula 1 - by having the drivers all drive on the same tyre, it is the drivers natural ability and driving style that becomes apparent, not what rubber they are driving on.

Theoretically this expression of 'place' is the ultimate goal in wine production. However, whether this actually produces the finest of wines is another point of contention, particularly when applied to the wine producers of the new world (Australia, NZ, America etc).

Penfolds Grange is the perfect example of this, as a blend of grapes (usually Shiraz with a small amount of Cabernet Sauvignon) sourced from vineyards all over South Australia, with the different vineyards and regions utilised changing every year to suit. The finished product is arguably the worlds finest Shiraz, yet terroir plays no part.

For a further example we move to the world epicentre of fine sparkling wine, Champagne, France & Moet's famous super premium Champagne - Dom Perignon: Drunk by James Bond & Jay-Z & purported to be the 'finest wine in the world', yet produced from a large spectrum of vineyards that similarly change every vintage according to demands. It remains as one of the finest Champagnes in the world and is priced accordingly, yet, again, consistency and 'house style' take precedence over individual vineyards or terroir (although it can be argued that the terroir is that of the Champagne region itself).

What can't be denied is that the same grape, grown in different regions will taste differently. (For an excellent investigation of this, check out this video from Campbell Mattinson, author of The Wine Front) Further, the same grape, in the same region, produced in exactly the same way, yet grown on different sides of the same valley can produce wines that tastes differently - A notion that is the very essence of terroir and is definitely not confined purely to the vineyards of France.

Australia may lack the archaic wine history, yet we have the old vines. Our major producers do eskew regional character in the quest for consistency, yet our small to medium sized, (often) family producers can proudly call themselves terroirists. Look at the magnificent Tyrrells single vineyard Semillon's as the perfect examples of celebrating 'a sense of place' - wines produced from vineyards that are bare kilometres apart, that look identical, produced in a near identical manner, yet taste distinctively different, thanks to their varied meso climates and soil profiles.

The key ingredient of terroir then is simple, and completely outside of man made control: That wines from a unique region, subregion or vineyard are incapable of being reproduced outside of that area. That despite all the edifices of modern winemaking, we will never be able to replicate the intricacies of Geography and its 'flavours'