Don’t be so coy W, the process described is not meaningfully different from cyro-extraction, regardless of what Baumard calls it.
Spin? Misleading? Misdirection? Lie? Inadvertent miscommunication?
Thanks for the link to the Wine Doctor’s blog, Z. I love his writing. He did a well-written and very objective job on that blog post. Respect.
Interesting that Mr. Baumard points out as I mentioned in my initial post that of course many other producers are using cryo-methodology but are not as honest and open about it. I also like his point that freezing is a more natural process than say, reverse osmosis.
What is not clear to me from either the blog or the original articles is whether the final wine is made by skillfully blending late harvested, botrytised and cryo-extracted juice. To me personally, that would actually require a great deal of winemaking skill in my view on a par with making a Bordeaux red blend.
Hopefully one day I will get to try one of the famous Baumard wines and be able to compare for myself. Regardless of which side of the argument you fall in, the fact that his information is out there for all of us to consider to me can only be considered a good thing in the wine world.
^^^ Glad you enjoyed Chris’ blog entry, Tran. I should add one more part of the dialog Chris had with Florent. It came after the initial interview in the form of an email. The section quoted (from the Baumard profile) above reflects changes based on the content of that email; some of which appears to be omitted for the sake of clarity. Here is that email from Florent:
The process that Chris Kissack describes is fundamentally cryo-extraction. You freeze the grapes, press them, and because the water is frozen, the resulting must is more concentrated because it possesses higher potential alcohol than would otherwise occur. This is fundamentally the same principal as ice wine, except that ice wine uses grapes that are overripe (as they have hung until January typically).
Your wrote,
Cane sugar is widely used as a tool for must enrichment, which is illegal.
You are mistaken about this.
Rosé de saignée is regularly made in Burgundy from wine that will then be bottled as village level or above, which is illegal.
Don’t know much about Burgundy, and wonder about your use of the word “regularly”.
In Champagne, red wine is added to white to make AOC rosé, which I believe is technically forbidden (EU regulation), but accepted.
It is fully authorized.
QSome Gamay finds its was into some Sancerre Rouge, which I am told is happening at several domaines and is illegal.
Some of your statements seem like hearsay to me…
I don’t want to start a polemic with you, just think that it is good to stick to the facts.
The French aren’t all angels, but their rules are damned strict. Any cases to the contrary are a drop in the bucket compared to the millions of hectolitres produced.
Best regards,
Alex
Edit: are you saying the use of cane sugar is allowed? Anyway, I guess it doesn’t matter. That you would dispute the idea that illegal practices are occurring seems silly. And I am curious, though I’m not disputing this, where does it say that the practice in Champagne is authorized? I’ve never been able to find it.
http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/488501/bordeaux-chief-rejects-15-per-cent-of-wine
Decanter.com consultant editor Steven Spurrier approves the move. ‘Any controls that lead to improving the quality of basic Bordeaux are extremely welcome,’ he says. He adds that it is common for unscrupulous growers to illegally increase their yields and produce inferior wine as a result.
http://www.decanter.com/news/wine-news/488606/burgundy-arrests-welcomed-by-honest-majority
Plus the recent Labouré-Roi fraud case, the Cruse fraud in 1973, and on and on. Again, it seems silly to say illegal practices aren’t happening quite a bit in the French wine industry.
This is all just hearsay, though…
There are some obvious differences between making true ice wine and wine that utilizes some form of cryoextraction in the production process. Consistency and purity would seem to favor cryoextraction. Grapes left to freeze on the vine until Christmas and beyond experience temperature swings and varied exposure to sunglight. As best I understand it, ice wine is also harvested in one pass. Picking grapes with multiple passes and holding grapes under more controlled conditions would seem to offer more precision in the selection process. No doubt, these two styles of wine are similar in several respects, but there are differences that nonetheless remain.
I don’t feel that one process is necessarily better than the other - just different expressions of what nature has offered the vigneron. I think truth in labeling is important. Much has been done to help protect and preserve the uniqueness of the ice wine production method through regulatory requirements, but such distinctions are not made nearly as clear when it come to labeling requirements for wine made by using cryoextraction. Obviously Baumard has been nothing but transparent about utilizing the technique, but most other French vignerons have been far more coy about its use.
Tran opined that “ice wine doesn’t age very well and freezer wine is the worst for this”. This points to a valid concern for full disclosure from all; though I am finding (from limited searching) that it appears the ice wine lovers are divided in their agreement with this view. With regard to cryoextraction and Baumard QdC: there is the fact that Baumard had been cold pressing for more than twenty years now. Having tasted various vintages of their QdC over a fairly broad arc of time, I would add that my tasting experiences, have shown these wines do impove with additional cellaring. Others have reported similarly in tasting notes on CT.
In poking around further for information on the subject, I noticed Florent has recently released another document to help explain what he refers to as the “pressurage à froid” (cold pressing) process. This expands on what he discussed with Chris Kissack and is a fair bit clearer than the email quoted above. Below is the text from that document:
PDF original can be found here: http://www.baumard.fr/Docs/3-ColdPressingRelease.pdf
“If you can’t dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.”
We are in complete agreement about this, I think you misunderstood my other post. It is NOT an extra trie even if Florent wants to call it that or call it “Cyro-selection.”
W, I didn’t misunderstand. In fact, I’m fully onboard with you comments. I’m just saying don’t be coy. → What Baumard is doing is cryo-extraction, regardless of whatever number of bullshit adjectives and metaphors he heaps on top of the description. His explanation of “cryo-selection” seems precisely worded as an attempt to spin/evade the rules that require the harvested grapes to meet the potential alcohol minimums.
Zacsan, no one is arguing that it IS ice wine, merely that it uses what is essentially the same process, absent the longer hang time, additional ripening that occurs, etc. In both cases, one of the primary aims is for the low temps to freeze the grapes and reduce the amount of water that is pressed from the grapes. The end result is a more concentrated end product, with the difference being that cryo-extraction does this artificially. Baumard’s approach seems to be overcrop the hell out of the grapes and then concentrate with cryo-extraction, so arguing that Baumard’s approach is all about quality is a bit disingenuous when considered in that light.
As for transparency, while Baumard may have been transparent about his approach of using cryo-extraction, he has used quite a bit of spin IMO in his description of the process (“cryo-selection” IS “cryo-extraction”). More importantly, Baumard hasn’t been willing to address questions about the average potential alcohol of the grapes picked during the 1st and 2nd Trie, questions about the volume picked, nor questions about whether he was able to achieve the minimum requirements without “cold pressing” the grapes. It seems like if he’s within the letter of the law, these would be pretty simple questions to answer…
From what I am gathering, the main point Monsieur Baumard appears to be stressing over and over again is that he is not pressing fully frozen grapes and in fact discarding completely the ones that are. In fairness to him, this process is used in Niagara as well in the making of late harvest wines which can often reach icewine levels of sweetness themselves but are still distinctly identifiable as different. Only difference is that obviously our cold weather is natural.
Poor guy seems to be fighting a constant uphill battle explaining this and justifying the technique. All said, final product in the bottle overrules all else. Now I really want the SAQ and LCBO to bring some in so I can compare against the bottles of Huet, Chateau Soucherie, Chateau Pierre-Bise Domaine de Terrebrune, and Domaine du Petit Metris I have! The ultimate comparison for me personally would to be also be able to compare it to Moulin Touchais!
OK, yes, I know I just threw in several Coteaux du Layon, Chaumes and Quarts de Chaumes altogether in there. As long as it’s all Chenin Blanc, from the Loire, and sweet they make me very happy. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
You also threw in some Vouvray. 
Frankly, I wonder how these other winemakers even stay in business, having failed to use cryo-extraction to ensure the quality and purity of their wines! Lord knows how Baumard will be able to sustain his business after 2019! 
I’m not an oenologist, but I think the point of cryo-extraction is exactly about pressing only partly frozen grapes… the higher water content portions freeze, while the portions with more sugar don’t, so you reduce the water released upon pressing.
I’m not an oenologist either, but I am a careful enough reader to have caught the part in the Cold Pressing letter where Florent explains that the fully ripened grapes used for pressing are NOT frozen – “partly” or otherwise. Perhaps this is why they refer to their process as ‘cold pressing’ and not ‘frozen pressing’?
Yes, I read it. But I’m not buying.
What happens is that all the grapes are tossed into a press, and then pressed. So while it’s completely possible that frozen grapes may remain as such, it seems equally obvious that the partly and relatively unfrozen grapes are pressed. Due to the freezing, the juice extracted will be somewhat higher in sugars and lower in water than those untreated. Hence, this is consistent with the practice known as cryo-extraction.
The only way that Baumard’s story works is if someone hand-sorts the refrigerated grapes, tossing out any that are fully or partly frozen, prior to pressing. Then he might actually have a credible argument that he truly “cryo-selects”.
But that’s not what he does.
The 2002 Baumard QDC is a wonderful wine. Ridiculously complex, I don’t care if they added cow piss to it.
Is that cowo pissation? Illegal
The cow doesn’t “piss” in the wine. It gently evacuates its bladder, ensuring only the purest expression of bovine waste.
This is a really fascinating thread, and having been quoted so frequently I feel compelled to comment, even though deep down I feel no desire to further stoke the fire on this. I find the events as they unfold fascinating, and I consider this a very important story for the Loire, but it is Jim’s work not mine.
First up, to be clear, I know Jim personally, having met him numerous times at tastings, and having spent time with him in the Loire, especially during the Salon des Vins de Loire. I have also met Florent Baumard a number of times, and have spoken with him directly about the 2012 harvest.
I have to say I find having chunks of my Baumard profile cut and pasted a little disconcerting. I have no problem with the text being taken and picked over, but I sense it is used as a defence for the technique of cryo-extraction. I believe (I need to go back to my profile) that further down the page I cast my own personal doubts on the “renaming” of the method as cryo-selection. I would agree with previous posters that you can’t change what you are doing just by changing the name. I don’t feel that this comes across when you cut and paste chunks away, but I see some have gone and read the whole profile, thanks for that, and thanks for the comments on its factual and objective nature. That was my intent, to present what is done, rather than to judge, and let the reader conclude for him/herself. The disadvantage of this, of course, is that readers might conclude according to their pre-existing prejudices.
Having made some indication of my misgiving as per the technique Baumard is using, I would not say I am against cryo-extraction per se. Its use has unwittingly been perfectly acceptable to me as I know I have tasted many wines and enjoyed them, long before I had realised they had been made with a little help from cryo. In particular I am thinking of Doisy-Védrines, the proprietor of which Olivier Castéja is very open about his use of cryo-extraction to improve a little his harvest. My view of how Olivier uses it, however, is that he takes hard-won botrytised fruit, true to what Sauternes is, and removes a little water. How much I don’t know, as I’ve never asked him, but if I see him at the primeurs in a few weeks I will certainly do so. As for what Baumard does, this is a little more difficult to define, as information is not forthcoming. Nevertheless, Florent told me last year that he has, in at least one vintage, removed more than 80% of the volume using cryo-extraction. When I wrote that up I emailed him to clarify as I found the figure so unbelievable. 80%! Yes, I am sure many vintages are less than this, but I do not have the data to say what the figures are for other vintages, not for want of asking I should add. Even accepting data is limited, the technique does not seem here to be fine-tuning, but is the major process by which the wine is made, in at least some vintages.
But here is the rub. Cutting through all the obfuscation (because this debate has been all over Twitter as well as on this forum and the willingness to confuse and obscure the real issue seems full of intent at times), the debate isn’t about the rights and wrongs of cryo-extraction or cryo-selection or whatever you want to call it. It is about how a wine is represented to consumers, the Baumards at present have declared (this is second-hand information from Jim’s blog) a significant volume of Quarts de Chaume in the 2012 vintage, a wine which will be highly priced (for the Loire, for a sweet Layon wine), and in order to do be sold as Quarts de Chaume the wine must meet certain criteria. To my understanding these are:
(a) each tri that is picked must achieve 298 g/l sugar (I believe this is 18.5º alcoholic potential but happy to be corrected by winemakers with proper knowledge!) to qualify as Quarts de Chaume
(b) a tri may be subjected to ‘freezing treatments’ to a temperature of -5ºC but only if they have first registered more than 298 g/l. This is true until the 2020 harvest, when the technique will be outlawed whatever the sugar content at harvest.
My knowledge of the 2012 growing season leads me to conclude that it was not a vintage that favoured the production of a Quarts de Chaume. This is a sweet wine where the concentration comes from botrytis, just like Sauternes. Therefore you need the same conditions, moisture (from mists, here from the Layon) or showers of rain, and drying conditions (romantically, sunny afternoons after misty mornings, but winds and breezes probably more/just as important). Too much rain or humidity and you get grey rot. Bad weather as the grapes succumb to botrytis, in October and November, and you lose the harvest. And October 2012 was very, very, very wet. Claiming that data from a weather station 20 km away is not valid holds no water with me I am afraid; the rain hit all Muscadet, Anjou and Touraine; all weather stations recorded it. And having spoken to owners of vines on the Quarts de Chaume, including Claude Papin (Pierre Bise) and Jo Pithon & Wendy Paillé (Pithon Paillé) the conditions here were dreadful. Pithon Paillé saw the alcoholic potential fall from 13º to 9º during the October rains, something Jo had never seen before, as the vines and grapes sucked up the water. The berries ruptured and grey rot set in.
Later on, if the fruit could survive this, some harvested fruit close to or above the 18.5º potential, but this was much later in the season. Nobody has huge quantities though, except for Florent Baumard who picked in October (I think the accepted dates are 16th and 17th, but I’m not sure where this info comes from) right in the middle of the rains. The implication is that, for his wine to be Quarts de Chaume, the harvested fruit must have been over 18.5º alcoholic potential. It would of course, be illegal to achieve that only after cryo-extraction; just to be clear, I am not for one second alleging that this is what has happened. Nevertheless, it seems fair to ask for some data on the harvested fruit. Jim has done this very publicly and got nowhere it seems, only a wordy response on the ‘attack’ on Florent’s website.
I have asked Florent the same questions, and these are the responses received:
(a) I asked Florent face-to-face at the Salon des Vins de Loire in early February, but he was not able to recall picking dates, or sugar at harvest, or alcoholic potential. He said he did not like to carry such information around in his head. He invited me to ask again at a later date, indicating he would furnish me with the information.
(b) I asked in the midst of a debate on Twitter, prompted by Baumard supporters (and I’m afraid I do sense there are ‘factions’ in this debate), giving Florent a chance to declare the picking dates and concentration/alcoholic potential of his fruit, and therefore put to bed any rumours that the grapes picked from the Quarts de Chaume vineyard, and surely intended for sale as Quarts de Chaume, did not meet the criteria for that to be so. Florent did not respond on Twitter.
(c) About five days later I received an email from Florent, thanking me for my questions, but ultimately not providing any data as he says he finds such numbers “meaningless”.
It seems to me very sad, and also unusual, that Florent should not want to make public the sugar concentration at harvest. This is basic data for a winemaker, not top secret confidential information! It would have quashed any stories, based on pictures prior to harvest, and on data concerning harvest dates and the weather at the time, that the fruit harvested by Baumard had not achieved the sugar concentration required. In the face of continued non-disclosure of this information, I am certain that this debate will rumble on, until definitive information is revealed. That will then put an end to it one way or the other.
This answer doesn’t respond to every post above that deserves merit (“the proof is what’s in the glass” from Jamie Goode deserves a response - really Jamie, in this debate?..and I also don’t think Jim’s credibility as an investigative journalist is up for debate, he has a long track record of incovering dodgy dealings in wine investment and other wine-related stories), nevertheless I hope it is useful. I would like to think it helps to bring the issue at hand into focus, which is not the rights and wrongs of cryo-extraction and what we call it, but its use in the 2012 Baumard harvest, and whether a wine made with it can legally (and the appellation law is quite specific) be called Quarts de Chaume. That, simply, depends on sugar concentration at harvest, information which has been asked for many times, and not given.
(edited to change ‘or’ to ‘for’ which was important for the meaning of the sentence)
Bingo!
Thanks for blowing the smoke of obfuscation away Chris.