From an e-mail today from Flatiron Wines for Cameron Oregon pinots:
These are wines that express a sense of place, both terroir and their own cellar. During construction, the cellar walls were inoculated with spores so fungus would flourish and create the appropriate environment for fermentation and aging. This may well be the source of the classic quality that pervades nearly all the wines made there.
WTF?!
Did they inoculate for brettanomyces? Now, that would really be authentic terroir.
The Oregon crew can offer more than I but I do remember reading an article where John Paul said he sprayed beer all over the walls of his cellar to feed to yeast… Actually It was one of his video interviews.
Found it. And Yes the funk is noticeable in the Pinots but honestly I don’t get it in his Chardonnays.
Sean
There are a number of anthropological studies that correlate the movement of humans around the world with the spread of yeast around the world. Assuming that’s true, then ‘native’ yeast (aka ‘vineyard’ yeast) isn’t a part of terroir. Or is in the same category of terroir that the winemaker is (i.e. the greatly extended section of terroir). Assuming this makes any sense, then inoculating a winery is no more an ‘infraction’ than many other things are.
Eric - clearly you don’t understand wine making.
Grapes achieve perfect ripeness.
Then you pick them.
You don’t do anything except put them into big containers and then they ferment into wine. They already have all the necessary yeast that grew up with the wines and reflects the terroir of the grapes. Those grapes also have magically taken special minerals up out of the soil and that’s what gives them specific flavors and aromas.
You take that wine and put it into bottles and there you are.
If you put yeast into your walls you’re just a manipulator and interventionist and that’s bad.
I don’t have a problem with the inoculation. it’s the BS about everything being just what nature gave them:
Cameron Winery, under the direction of winemaker John Paul, takes sustainable farming to a new level: they strive to make their vineyards self-sustaining, > allowing only precipitation and sunlight to be outside inputs> .
Well, that and some imported yeast to create cellar “terroir.”
I have to say, though, that the picture of agronomic paradise is quite capitivating!
To do so, they rely on a menagerie of animals. There are chickens to eat insects and nourish the soil, goats to eat plant pests and eliminate the need for herbicides (whey from their milk is used to prevent powdery mildew!), and honey bees to pollinate cover crops. They have a flock of geese as well, just for fun.
As a founding member of the Deep Routes Coalition, Cameron is committed to preserving biodiversity and responsible water management (in fact, > they’re the first Salmon-Safe certified vineyard in Oregon> ). Their vines are not irrigated; instead they’re allowed to dig deep into the soils to find water and truly express the terroir of Oregon.
As a friend wrote in an e-mail, “No salmon died to make this wine!”
From Cameron’s website, writing about white wine vinification:
The wines are fermented with indigenous wild yeasts from the respective vineyards and finished with a French yeast to assure dryness.
I love the honesty here. There are plenty of wine makers I know that do Native fermentations but have cultured yeast and Pitch these yeast near the end of fermentation to ensure that it goes to dryness. The usually do not let folks know that they do this though.
My guess is that through trial-and-error, they have determined that there native yeast just are not strong enough to complete the fermentations. Good on them!
Thanks Sean for finding that video. I watched it earlier this year after tasting Cameron “funk” for the first time. He sounds like a fun guy.
Here’s my blind note from about 6 months ago on the 2011 Cameron Rouge Clos Electrique: Nose of brett? Tastes of deeper red fruit with black pepper and barnyard. 10+ years old? My guess was Chinon. Happy to get a chance to taste this wine for the first time after reading about it on the forum. I googled the wine to try to learn more about it. Cameron Winery - Pinot Noir and Chardonnay Clos Electrique Pretty interesting, and an excellent choice to blind people on. (Thanks Chris for sharing the wine).
Have heard this from winemakers as well. Natural sells so it pays producers to claim native yeasts, even if they may decide to inoculate in the end.