Yields, alcohol, hang time, and secondary characters..

OK…I’m going to address a topic I know a lot of us are thinking about or at least have discussed with growers.
As many consumers are preferring wines lower in alc., with more secondary characters, does it make sense to:
a) go back to more sprawl type of training, increasing shading on fruit which lessons the threat of sunburn, and increases potential secondary characters(rotundone in Syrah for instance)
b) increase yield to slow down ripening in this ever changing climate with more frequent heat spikes late in the year. Higher yields are much less prone to rapidly escalating sugars, making it possible to get better hang time, better favor development at lower potential alcohol levels, and obviously makes grape growing more financially viable for growers.

While I know there are varieties like Pinot Noir that really suffer from higher yields and issues with pyrazines being offensive to the vast majority of Cabernet consumers, is this something that will be considered in the future?
What say ye?

I wouldn’t do anything. It’s a passing fad just like all that has went before it. Make the wine you want for yourself, the rest will follow.

I do think I like a little heavier crop on the pinot than I had initially thought would be optimal. I think '13 was both my heaviest and my best vintage. I liked the bigger crop (almost 3 TPA) both during the season for keeping canopy growth in check and at ripening because it was slower and steadier. I don’t feel like concentration suffered at all – really, the opposite. Of course, I don’t expect to be able to dial up a crop-load like that every year, but I’m now more comfortable at that level when the opportunity to hang more presents itself.
I haven’t tried sprawl, but I did abandon leaf pulling as soon as I got a decent air-blast sprayer. I’ve also noted that my most heavily shaded clone (37/Mt. Eden) is also the spiciest. Food for thought there. The last several years haven’t been bad for heat spikes, but I have used spray-on shade (white kaolin clay-- Surround) ahead of heat spikes in some previous years. This seemed like decent fall-back position in years like '10 where I wouldn’t have wanted sprawl during most of a very cool year but could dial up some insta-shade when a late season heat spike hit.

I have to concur with Stu on the heavier cropping the past couple of years. I didn’t see any problems with concentration. We’ve gone down the road of site selection that (to us)trumps all. Elevation, structure and early ripening gives us a wider window of fresh fruit flavor generally at lower alcohol. My only concerns have been with the Dijons and the heat spikes(speaking pinot of course). I do like Todd’s response though. When I start something I usually geek out and get as much book knowledge as I can and it was the same with winemaking. Back in the mid 90s I bought all the back issues of PW&V, Winemaker etc. It was educational to see the sine wave of winemaking practices over time. “Not enough oak-too much oak-not enough oak…”

A passing fad? It seems like a trend heading back toward the direction of consumer preferences of decades past. Maybe the higher alcohol and ripeness is a passing fad. Who can really say? Making what you want is great, but there are plenty of wineries which have gone out of business doing just that. Of course, there were other factors at play, but what’s wrong with giving the consumer what they want if it fits with your own ideals? Do you think every Napa producer that’s been around for 30+ years would still be there if they were making wine just like they did back then? I think the answer is no. From what I know of John’s wines, it sounds like what he is talking about is exactly fitting with making the wines he wants to make. Maybe it’s fortunate that with the current trend, it might be easier for some winemakers to convince growers to come along in that direction. How could anything be wrong with that?

I grow and produce what I like to drink, too hard to understand fads and change quickly enough. However, my preference is wine with at least moderate alcohol and those secondary flavors. We have focused on site selection, growing Rhones in the Russian River Valley. We can ripen Grenache, Syrah, Petite Sirah, and most of the time, Mourvedre without much concern for over-ripening. We also grow/produce Zinfandel with goals of zero dehydrated fruit and alcohol in the vicinity of 14%. This wine is probably more counter to current style than any of the others. We are typically harvesting in early October with plenty of hang time and no dehydration of berries or flavor. Our 2013 is even below 14%, not exactly low but not many Zinfandel fall in that range. Its still fruit driven, no mistaking it for Zin, but we get great black pepper and dark fruit that I don’t find in riper/higher alc wines. Very few customers seem to focus on alcohol levels despite all the press on the subject, most seem to just be looking for good wine. The only downside I see is that with the current popularity of Pinot and the prices for fruit, I’m knowingly growing fruit that is worth considerably less than the most popular varietal for the RRV.

John,
a) depends on the variety. Syrah, in my opinion, would be the wrong variety to go sprawl on. Some things like Grenache down here benefit from increased shading.
b) all depends on balance. A lot of the issue with the VSP, fruit thinning etc. that characterized the 00’s farming is that they were trying to force fairly rich soiled, young vined vineyards into being top quality sites, and in the process creating a lot of ‘excess’ ripening energy.

I had the advantage of coming up in the Santa Cruz Mountains, mentored by many long-time winemakers pretty jaded to the various winemaking fads. I remember asking Jeff Emery very earnestly in 2004 why he didn’t make richer, higher alcohol wines – because that’s what sells… he smiled and told me that would change soon enough. As, likely, will the current trends.