The Vintners Voice

This morning I read Matt Kramer’s column, Manifesto 2010, in the March 2010 issue of The Wine Spectator.  I have to say that it is a rare occasion that I agree with Mr. Kramer but this morning was just one of those instances.

 The column, essentially, demands that producers “Tell us the truth”.   Mr. Kramer first calls into question a wine labels ability to deliver accurate information about what is in a bottle of wine.  He provides a brief explanation of labeling laws as they relate to alcohol levels.  In short; for wines over 14%, stated alcohol levels must be within 1% of actual levels and for wines under 14% this interval increases to 1.5%.  He goes on to say “If NASA used these standards for the moon shot, they would have called it a success if the rocket merely sailed past its intended target, never mind actually landing on it.”

He then goes on to say “…alcohol levels” are “merely symptomatic” and that “The real issue is how ripe the grapes are before the wine is made.”  He then goes about listing all the things that winemakers have to do as a result of picking grapes that are too ripe.  The take home story is that we winemakers go on to lie about how we make our wine, that we are somehow “ashamed” of the things we do, that we’re “fiddling with their wines precisely to make them appear to be something they’re not”.  He then goes on to demand that producers “Tell us the truth”.

Like many other so called wine “journalists” Mr. Kramer fails to provide any definition of ripeness and resorts to using the analogy of high brix.  What Mr Kramer fails to realize, as do so many others, is that most of us winemakers have gotten away from picking grapes at a specific brix.  Most of us have gotten away from the recipe approach to winemaking, we rely less and less on laboratory tests to tell us when we should pick and rely more and more on how the grapes taste.  There is a lot more to a balanced wine than alcohol levels and these are the variables we winemakers must consider, not one but many.  I am tired of people in offices tasting finished wines going on about what ripeness is.  Mr Kramer is not in the business of understanding ripeness, he is in the business of tasting and commenting on finished wine.  I AM in the business of ripeness, I walk countless miles through vineyards putting grapes into my mouth, tasting them, chewing on the skins and seeds, trying to get my head around when is it time to pick.  Mr Kramer, I wish it were as easy as picking grapes at a specific brix. 

I also disagree with Mr Kramer when he says we are “fiddling with their wines precisely to make them appear to be something they’re not”.  When I and I think most of my peers would agree, “fiddle” with a wine I am doing so so that it can be all that it can be.  I don’t like 15% alcohol Pinot’s nor do I like overly green characters, so what am I to do?  I have to look at the grape and ask myself; which of the factors involved with balance can I control?   The truth of the matter is that I can increase or decrease alcohol and acidity with relative ease.  Flavors and tannin quality are things that I am far less capable of altering, so why not pick based on the things I have the least control over?   The simple truth is that when a winemaker makes a manipulation he does so with the consumer’s best interest in mind, not in an attempt to pull something over on them.

The impression that I get is that Mr Kramer thinks winemakers should rely on the numbers of laboratory tests instead of our instincts in making picking decisions and that we should apply NASA like precision in using those numbers.  The truth is that there are already large ‘wine factories’ doing just that and they are producing wines by the millions of cases.  To paraphrase one of my favorite musicians, David Lowery of Cracker, “there are a lot more professional wineries out there.  And they’re all fucking boring”.   I for one want the human element in my wine.  I want a product made by people who reflect on what they produce.  I want a wine that is the result of someone practicing a craft and not a chemist.  Based on other things Mr Kramer has written I was under the impression that he did too. It appears as if Mr Kramer wants to both eat and have his cake.

Where I DO AGREE with Mr Kramer is that WE SHOULD TELL THE TRUTH.  Winemakers should be more open about what they do to wines and more importantly why.  What Mr Kramer doesn’t realize is that until writers like himself, and the consumers he claims to serve,  view our craft with an open mind we will continue to be selective with the truth.  Until writers and consumers realize that the ideology they expect us live by is based on the lies we supposedly tell, producers aren’t likely to come clean anytime soon.  I think the first step in becoming a more open and honest wine culture is for consumers and writers to leave the winemaking to the winemakers.  Instead of telling us how you think wine should be made, try listening to how and why we do the things we do.  The second step will be the dissolution of the ego of wine writers and their understanding that the craft of winemaking cannot be learned in a book sitting in an office; it is learned in the cellar and vineyard.

The rain that was promised, and normally delivered this time of year, has not materialized.  Unless of course you count the barely perceptible drops that hardly kept the dust down.  Just as predicted with the arrival of October, things have cooled considerably.  Again the dry and cool weather are making for a very interesting harvest.  Early on it looked as if everything would be picked within days but as things have slowed (ripening that is) the blocks have began to show their fierce independence and refused to cave to peer pressure.

Sugars are trending towards higher levels but my commitment to flavors has got me hanging fruit out longer than even I had expected.  We have harvested about 20% of our fruit so far.  Only one fermentation has taken off thus far so my impressions of the harvest are still buried in the haze filling my head, the result of a 23 hour work day followed by the usual 14 hour-a-day monotony.  I suspect any day now I will wake up to either find that everything is in barrel or that it was all a dream and my fruit is still hanging on the vines.

Talk around the valley centers on high brix, botrytis, and desiccation.  Though I have seen each of these none have been extreme or beyond our ability to deal with.  I mentioned in earlier posts that this entire season has had me baffled, and though my confusion continues I am now just to the point of trusting the vineyard.   Sometimes a wine grower just has to believe that the vines themselves want to make good wine and that they should be given the chance to do so.

As a follow up to my “Vintners Dilemma” post I thought I would give everyone a Willamette Valley vintage update.

As far as crop load goes I decided to go with my gut and assume that the vintage would turn cool and potentially wet.  I thinned most of the vineyard to a single cluster per shoot.  In some blocks this is still more than 2.5 tons to the acre.

Low and behold weather has cooled and the last three days have seen showers.  Let me emphasize SHOWERS.  Not down pours, not three days of consistent rain but a typical, slow Oregon drizzle that lasts 15 minutes and are followed by wind and sun.  I have to be clear about the nature of rainfall here or all of the wine writers, which never really visit here during vintage, will misconstrue the events and hastily damn the vintage before grapes are even picked.

Nights have cooled considerably as have days and it is really the diurnal variation that makes Oregon, in general, and Patton Valley Vineyard, specifically, such an interesting place to work with.  As the temperature extremes widen from day to night, ripening slows down.  It is my belief that it is this slow ripening that produces Pinot Noir with the finest structure, complexity, concentration and intensity of fruit.

It is still to early to, at this point, make any declarations about the vintage (or else I run the risk of being like those wine writers).  However, from my point of view I would say optimism is growing with each cool and relatively dry day.

    All too often I think the Community of Wine is perceived as being, and sometimes is, stuffy and serious.  I also think that most attempts by members of the Community of Wine to be funny tend to fall a bit flat.  They tend to take the form of someone with a Southern Hemisphere accent doing something silly, spoofing news and events, geeky and esoteric references or, my favorite, a liberal dose of good old fashion European nudity.  When it comes to comedy, what I tend to find funny is people simply saying what must be said in the most direct way possible.  

    Programs such as The Simpsons and The Family Guy, among others, have demonstrated that the Cartoon can elevate simple observations and commentary, brutally clear language, to hilarious heights.  Something about animation allows it to soften a truth or at least dull its edge.  Wine related humor often lacks the tickling sarcasm that cartoons effectively deliver.  Until Now.  A friend forwarded this link to a U-tube cartoon that I think is exactly the sort of thing the wine biz needs right now; something to laugh at and an opportunity to hear something true that it might not want said.

I had a conversation yesterday with one of my winemaker friends that helped put this upcoming vintage into perspective. He had called to ask how I was balancing crop load on the vines to deal with the vintage. He specifically wanted to know what I thought about leaving, on average, less than one cluster per shoot.

This spring we had ideal weather during bloom, too ideal perhaps. It seems every flower set a berry resulting is very dense, closed clusters that are simply HUGE. If I were growing tomatoes, corn, wheat etc, I would appreciate the large crop that nature has given us. I have no problem with dropping fruit and have already done one ‘green harvest’ to reduce crop load.

Typically I would never drop below one cluster per shoot, it intuitively seems to me, that doing so brings the vine out of balance . This year however, with these enormous clusters, I am projecting unreasonably large yields even with just one cluster per shoot. I am finding myself on challenging ground intellectually; do I follow my one cluster per shoot inclination or do I respect tons per acre?

Further complicating things has been the extreme heat we have been experiencing here in the Willamette Valley. We have been through one record breaking heat spell and are now entering another. The peril this presents is this: If I carry too low of a crop and the vintage stays hot my sugars will develop faster than my flavors; the wines will be high in alcohol and potentially hollow and uninteresting. If I carry the currently heavy crop load and the weather turns cool, always a possibility here in Oregon, then I will have huge amounts of under ripe, poor quality fruit. I want my crop load to be like the bed and porridge of the baby bear, Just Right.

And “Just Right” is the tricky part. To get things Just Right I have to be able to see into the crystal ball and know what the weather is going to do a month from now. Really now, if I could do that I wouldn’t be here doing this! To be honest, like my friend, I don’t know what to do. All I can do is guess and hedge my bets and try to balance the extremes of risk. Despite what most people think about winemaking and winegrowing; there are rarely clear answers as to how to proceed. There is no class at Davis, no website or book or consultant that can tell you what the right thing to do is. When it comes down to it, more so in extremely hot or cool years , all a vintner has is that feeling in their gut. In my opinion the Best are those that follow it.