I posted this within a thread a couple of years ago, but thought I would give it its own thread. This is my favorite wine/winemaking/wine-personality video of all time, for the following reasons…
It makes you want to make wine
It makes you want to hunt down his wines
It covers a lot of ground.
He talks about the influences of the person vs. the terroir, the influence of art and books on his life -view, and what a good wine vs. a bad wine is, the role of TNs, and the role of science vs.taste. Look at that low-tech equipment! I like his multiple uses of duct tape.
Check out how rarely he adds SO2, at 3:26. Looks like about once every 5-7 months!
And check out the video at 15:48. Check out that brix level he picked at! I’ve never found his wines hot or out of balance.
Enjoy! A great 16 minutes to watch at halftime of a football game this weekend.
A very interesting video. Clearly he sees the wine maker as the most important ingredient, to the extent that his name goes right on the front label, and that p.o.v. carries through the entire video.
The point on letting grapes ‘rest’ after harvest was interesting. I hadn’t heard this before. How many wine makers practice this and how long is the rest period?
I had the pleasure of tagging along with a friend for a visit at Sean Thackrey’s home/winery many years ago (mid-90s?). We spent a delightful afternoon tasting wines, visiting his storage “facility,” and sitting in his house drinking and talking. He’s intelligent, well read, and thoroughly engaging – needless to say, it was a wonderful way to spend an afternoon. And perhaps the best California syrah I’ve ever had was his 1989 Orion (Rossi Vineyard) in June 2005. It was exhilarating.
I have noticed, by force, that letting grapes sit overnight did make a little difference. One year I was forced to split my crush of one of my lots because the destemmer broke. So half my grapes sat in bin for 24 hours at about 70F in the winery while the other half was crushed and began cold soaking within 2 hours of being picked. The next day I crushed the second half, and even though they were the same lot, the juice from the second half beat the juice from the prior day once it was in barrel. I never gave it a thought again until I saw this video the other year. I have not tried the experiment again.
I wonder if maybe the acid drops when you let them sit? No idea. But I have to figure that a thousand years ago they might have picked at lower brix/higher acid and perhaps something happened to the acid when you let it sit?
I had the 08 Orion Rossi last night among very strong company and it was my favorite wine of the night. It was like chocolate covered cherries and blueberries in the mouth, very sexy and hedonistic and with a texture that brought back memories of the 1998 Domaine de la Mordorée Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée de la Reine des Bois, with its dense, sexy nature and truffle’ish nose. Such a nice wine. Will be hunting down more of that bottling. Gave it 94-95 points. For $85, a steal.
