Distinguishing concentration from (over-)extraction

WINE TALK
1

A very interesting topic has come up on the current Pape Clement 05 thread, namely the difficulty when tasting of distinguishing concentration achieved through high quality vineyard work from extraction achieve through controversial cellar techniques. I decided to start a new thread since I think it deserves it and so as not to cause too much drift. But a couple of very experienced tasters (John Gilman and Kevin Shin) have posted some thoughts over there that I will reproduce here to get a discussion going.

Gilman:
I have found that one of the most useful tools for discerning a wine’s depth of fruit is to try and differentiate between concentration of fruit (or what I like to call intensity of flavor) and extraction- for one comes from good husbandry in the vineyards, and the other comes from various winemaking approaches in the cellar. IME, the former is very important for handicapping a wine’s potential ability to age gracefully, while the latter is a bit of winemaking mis-direction and is really completely immaterial to extrapolating how the wine will age. I have had so many examples of heavily extracted wines that have simply fallen apart with bottle age that today I generally assume that if the wine is heavily extracted (or derives its perception of depth of fruit from other winemaking practices like late harvesting, higher alcohol, malo in new oak, residual sugar, specific cultured yeasts or extraction enzymes), then it will not age well, despite its appearance early on in its evolution (assuming of course that there is no relevant track record of aging of older vintages already available with the wine). One of the most difficult things to differentiate between is depth of fruit caused by high quality viticulture and extraction caused by cellar parlor tricks.
…
Now to get back to the 2005 Pape Clement, what I worry about is both the disequilibrium that the wine currently shows (with the new wood not fully covered on the backend and its tannins rather astringent at the present time) and the copious levels of fruit on display, that do not have a historical link with the previous great old Pape Clements of yesteryear. Consequently, rightly or wrongly, I infer that this perception of depth of fruit has most likely been brought about by cellar technique, rather than high quality vineyard husbandry (though of course this could have been arrived at with both good work in the vineyard and cellar tricks), and my experience leads me to strongly suspect that it will not last sufficiently long enough and prove to be deep enough to eventually carry all its new wood.



Shin:
When I taste young wines, I completely agree that the balance is the key and that is what I look for. However, I think it is extremely difficult to differentiate whether the fruit concentration is coming from good husbandry in the vineyards or comes from various winemaking approaches in the cellar when you have to evaluate. In order to do this, you have to spend three or four days observing how the wine reacts with air and the core fruit expression.

So there are a couple of things I can glean from this discussion. First, that extraction, while it can lead to big fruit impression, may not be able to buffer oak influence and tannins on the back end of a wine. Second, that air time can be beneficial in understanding the quality of a wine’s fruit.

The rest, seems to me, to be based on knowledge about a particular Domaine’s/Chateau’s viticultural regime, rather than based on specific impressions gained through tasting. I would like to invite both John and Kevin and everyone else to expand on what one looks for in tasting in order to discern the difference. What, for instance, does one see with additional air time in wines that have been grown to achieve good concentration versus wines that have been made to seem concentrated?

Sorry I can’t add too much myself, but I’m just not sure I have the depth of experience to make much of a valuable contribution.

2

I once asked for a mere definition of “extraction” [and “over-extraction”], and couldn’t get any agreement from the winemakers as to what the term meant.

3

…probably different things to different people - though I could also see using them interchangeably. To me, concentration means good palate coverage, nice even weight throughout, and no signs of being watery or underfilled. Extraction, to me, is a part of the winemaking process that benefits the final concentration of a wine.

4

Jamie,
I’m just guessing here, but I bet if you asked John your question, the answer would come out as a variation of, “I know it when I taste it.”
In other words, delineating between the two is very difficult and more a matter of personal preference and experience.
For me, it all comes down to balance. An extractive wine might be course of texture or possible grainy. But I have had some hugely extracted wines that have beautiful textures.
Maybe the deal is that you don’t know until the wine starts to break down (assuming John’s theory is correct).

But, for me, if a wine is balanced - and I mean more than just chemically (although that’s part of it) - but also that it feels and tastes balanced, from first sip to last impression - then I don’t much care how it got that way. If I like it, I like it; if I don’t, I don’t - it stands on its own and each taster gets to make their own decision whether or not it is pleasing and whether or not it will age well.

(In going back a reading over what I just wrote, I can’t help but notice that so many of these discussions about subjective analysis of wine seem to wind-up in tautologies; perhaps, that is the lesson. That, and the fact that I don’t know it when I taste it.)

Best, Jim

5

For me, over-extraction manifests itself as a loss of balance and harmony between the various components of a wine. In particular over-extracted wines often have out of place bitterness especially on the finish. Sometimes it is possible to temporarily hide the bitterness with excess oak, but with age the lack of balance will become apparent.

6

Sadly, this isn’t simply related to words like concentration and extraction.
I have gone from one winery to the next where something the last guy said was contradicted by something the next guy said.

Interesting discussion, curious to see where this goes. [popcorn.gif]

7

Thanks Jamie for posting this on its own. I think that this is really one of the most difficult things to ascertain when tasting young wines, and I do not think that there is any cut and dry line in differentiating between extraction or concentration of flavor. We are talking primarily about red wines here. As Eric pointed out, extraction is generally a winemaking process of removing the flavor and aromatic components from the must during the fermentation (as well as structural elements), and one of the key decisions a winemaker has to make is when a satisfactory equilibrium has been reached between what he or she wants to extract out of the must (color, aromas, flavors, tannins etc) and what he or she does not want to extract out of the must (astingency or volatility) from allowing the extraction to go too far. How this decision is reached as to where to draw the line is (I would assume) personal to each winemaker or winery owner, and to a certain degree it is dependent both on their perception of the quallities of the raw materials they are working with to start with and what their intended cellar regimen for the wine will be during the aging process.

Certainly, a wine that is destined to spend much of its elevage in a high percentage of new oak (which will impart its own tannins to the wine in additon to what is extracted from the grapeskins, seeds and stems during fermentation) will ideally want to be less extracted during the fermentation, so as to not give the wine too much tannin from the combination of heavy extraction and a large percentage of new oak. The problem here is that in addition to perceived depth of fruit, one of the other character traits that young red wines are judged to be impressive in many circles is in their depth of color, which can be problematical if one is already determined to use a lot of new oak, as one cannot go for the darker color through more extraction without running the risk of too much tannin in the finished wine. Hence, from this conundrum we run into a few of the modern approaches in the cellar and vineyard to try and address these two issues- such as aiming for physiologically ripe tannins (from long hang times) in the grape skins, to help offset what will be the addition of wood tannin to the wine during its elevage in new oak- or micro-oxygenation to help polymerize the tannins during elevage and lessen their perceptible astingency by smoothing out their molecular chains. One also sees a lot less whole cluster fermentation of wines destined to be aged in high percentages of new oak, for again, the additon of stems will add tannins to the finished wine as well.

Of course, once these practices are undertaken, they have addtional consequences for the wine- long hang times to produce physiologically riper tannins also tends to produce higher sugar levels (with attendant higher alcohol in the finished wine, unless adjusted down by the addition of water in the cellars- a suprisingly common practice these days- or by removing alcohol later by intervention during the elevage); de-stemming prior to fermentation does not always lead to the most efficient fermentations (as the stems are useful as extraction agents during the fermentation), so that extraction enzymes often are utilized for fruit that is completely destemmed; and who really knows how micro-oxygenation affects the wines’ long-term ability to age gracefully (I certainly don’t) or retain a unique aromatic and flavor profile. High sugar levels often also lead to either the retention of unfermented grape sugars in the finished wines or the use of high-powered cultured yeasts that can carry out the fermentation process at higher alcohol levels that would normally kill off indigenous yeasts. And as long as we are going to have to use commercial yeasts to handle the higher alcohol levels, we might as well use one that has also been engineered to produce a specific panoply of aromatics and flavors that have been deemed attractive in certain circles- even wonder why so many syrah-based wines these days smell of the same boysenberry and blueberry syrup?

Now how does one differntiate the perception of “depth of fruit” that might (by happenstance or course) be a byproduct of all of these aforementioned techniques from “depth of fruit” generated by growing good fruit in the first place. And of course, the term “good fruit in the first place” is highly subjective, as again, the fruit has to be grown to dovetail with the anticipated cellar regimen for the wine. It is not easy. For me, I guess what I look for is a number of elements, depending on the varietal or blend being tasted, which serve as signposts for whether or not the concentration of fruit that I am tasting in the young wine is “organic” (for lack of a better term) to the wine, having been primarily generated by work in the vineyard, or “systemic” because it has been primarily generated by work in the cellar.

For example, with cabernet sauvignon-based wines, one of the telltale things that I look for is a bit of green-ness in the aromatics and flavors in the young, finished wine, as the variety is fairly high in pyrazine, and very often will naturally be a bit green or “bell peppery” when it is young, unless this character has been engineered out of the wine. If I find a bit of this character in the young wine coupled to good concentration, I hope that the concentration may have been primarily generated in the vineyard. If this characteristic is not evident, then I try and see what other elements might be present to give this impression of concentration. One can be residual sugar, which can give a nice “plumpness” to the perception of fruit in a young red wine, or higher alcohol, which can also be perceived as showing more concentration in the wine or more sweetness to the fruit (as alcohol is sweet). I also look for acidity in the cabernet-based wine (hopefully natural), as this can also be a sign that the grapes were not harvested late to attain physiologically ripe tannins and higher sugars. But of course, the acidity can be added artificially (and in most warm climate grape-growing regions this is done routinely), and if it is done early enough in the fermentation, it is hard to discern between natural and added acidity. But these are a few things that I try to look for- none of which is necessarily accurate if one does not have any aging track record with the wine in question.

For other varietals I use different criteria, but you get the point with the cabernet discussion. Modern winemaking has a pretty rich palette to work with these days, so there are a great many ways to attain the perception of concentration of fruit in the finished wine. And the hardest one to arrive at is by doing diligent work in the vineyard all year (which is not of course necessarily available to any winemaker who is dependent on working with purchased fruit in the first place), and I would assume that it is tempting to take the more interventionist approach in the cellars, as the tools are already there these days and not a whole lot of people comment on the different routes that winemakers take to arrive at the point of perceived concentration. Most commentary focuses on the “black-purple color, explosive fruit and gobs and gobs of hedonism on the finish that is so long that my watch battery died before the finish…” and then goes on to the next wine waiting to be told its proper place in the bazaar.

Best,

John

8

Thanks to everyone who’s commented so far, and especially to John for taking the time to write such a detailed post. Very helpful.

When talking about red wines meant for extended aging, clearly one wants to see if a young wine’s components are balanced. But it seems to me part of the problem is that many tasters don’t agree on what constitutes balance. There’s a camp that insists that wine ages on its fruit and thus the more fruit the longer it’s going to age. I suspect that this viewpoint comes from tasters who want aged wines to show plush fruit textures, so they want to be sure there’s plenty there for the wine’s structure to “soak up” and leave some over. I don’t know if this is a realistic expectation for aged red wines, and it appears that many wines made in this ideology have begun to crack up before their tenth birthdays. Whether that’s related to overemphasis of fruit per se, or to the concomitant structural problems (elevated alcohol, lack of acidity) is up for debate. But it does at least seem that judging on big fruit can lead one to ignore other things that are masked in youth by the overwhelming fruit. Which leads me to think the supposed depth of fruit in these wines was looked for more in the front palate and in their viscous textures. When I’m tasting (and I don’t taste many full-bodied young reds at all, more young Burgundy), I try to pay attention to the fruit impression on the finish, whether it makes a harmonious appearance on the center of the palate or whether it doesn’t seem to “play nice” with the structural components there. Some wines that are more reflective of a modern style tend, to my palate, to be showy with their fruit on the front, but end up feeling a little hollow on the back. This, to me, points towards a difference between quantity of fruit and depth of fruit: one does not the other make. I’m certainly not claiming this is the (or even a) correct method for distinguishing quality vineyard work and ageability from impressiveness conferred by cellar technique. But I am curious if it conforms to others’ experience as they see young wines age to maturity.