My friend Jeremy Weintraub, winemaker at Seavey Vineyard, just started 2 very interesting threads over at that other place. I tried to get him to post here, but he said he could not find an appropriate forum. Hmmm…
At any rate, I think the posts are well worth reading. One http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=232871 is on manipulation in winemaking, and includes such gems as
"When was the last time you heard someone complain that a restaurant manipulates its food? I know several chefs, and not one has been asked whether he adds water to his sauces. Believe me, he does. Does he add yeast to his bread? Probably. And he also adds acid, and salt and pepper and butter and all kinds of things with one goal: To make the food taste more delicious. "
The other http://dat.erobertparker.com/bboard/showthread.php?t=232867 is on the current dustup over alcohol levels in wine, and how other factors (such as actual ripeness at picking, RS, etc.) might be more important to the overall character and quality of the wine.
Perhaps if we get enough discussion going over here we can lure Jeremy over here to join in.
Even if we accept the cooking/wine-making analogy, chefs do sometimes get criticized for overly manipulating the food. Isn’t this one of the big criticisms of molecular gastronomy – too much liquid nitrogen/foams/etc. makes the food about the chef and not about the ingredients? Most top chefs these days seem to emphasize not so much showy technique but “letting the ingredients speak for themselves”, which sounds suspiciously like “terroirism”; just replace “ingredients” with “sites”.
And anyway, the analogy between wine and food is just not that good. Some people like less ripe/lower alcohol/non-manipulated (whatever that means) wines for ideological and intellectual reasons about terroir expression, but lots of people just think wines taste better when made that way. It may be that making the best-tasting wine requires minimal intervention, while making the best-tasting food requires significant intervention. There’s no logical reason why the two should have to be the same.
I can’t read the thread and would like to get the context of what he means in total. If his point is simply justification of over oaking and parkerizing wine by making an analogy to cooking, I’d call that a big stretch. Read Brad Kane’s thread where Christina mentions changing dessert ideas on the fly due to a cake not rising properly… She added some seasonal ingredients and “manipulated” the dish from her original idea, I don’t see how the same would apply to winemaking in a positive way.
As far as molecular gastronomy, I guess it can be cute, but in every meal I’ve ever eaten, I have never, not once thought “this sure would be better if had been treated with liquid nitrogen”.
Again, not asking you to get in trouble with squirrel nuts by doing a full copy/paste, but more complete context might help a better discussion.
We were in Portland last weekend and had two dinners at pretty different ends of the spectrum. First night - 4 course menu at Castagna - big time molecular gastronomy, dehydration techniques, etc. Second night - Le Pigeon - comparatively simpler, more rustic food, but totally loaded with flavor. We definitely preferred Le Pigeon, but you know i’d probably go back to Castagna eventually, the food was interesting.
Not sure how to map that experience to wine. Both meals certainly manipulated the ingredients. Was Castagna extracted and overoaked? Was Le Pigeon just a subtle acid addition? Seems like we are talking apples and toasters here, maybe there is something that provides more clarity in the thread none of us can read.