How does one make a great wine?

WINE TALK
1

I have followed and participated in a separate thread which was augmented with discussion related to the process of making wine. Theme of the wine making discussion was, more or less, how to make “correct” wine. Contributions varied from strict recipes to a notion of artful touch. Theories, ideas and best guesses advanced in that thread served as the grease on the gears in of my mind eventually prompting me to ask the question, “How does one make great wine?”. I don’t know, I’ve never made wine let alone a great one. But that doesn’t stop me from being curious!

Great is intended to mean exemplary; an example by which all others are benchmarked. Consistency is considered a prerequisite.

Focus is intended to be on the winemaker / vigneron and their decisions thereby precluding “No great wines, just great bottles”.

2

Should be a great thread. I am not a winemaker but can only think (obvious of course) that great winemaking like anything done great needs 1)passion, 2)education, on the job and technical, and 3)passion. Anything done well should be heralded in this world of common mediocrity.

There is a place in the Bronx, called aptly, Arthur Avenue. It is a group of blocks actually where passion for all things Italian food has reached a glorious level of pretty great. The key component in any of the people doing this work is passion. The live sleep and eat their vocations. It is refreshing to experience first hand especially as a long time consumer of Italian food stuffs (as my mom before me, taught me well) I am the better for these people’s creation, although my BMI may say different. :slight_smile:

Passion is always key—and infectious.


Cheers!

3

carefully.

4

You have to have a hard driven passion … Endless energy, thick skin, a great nose, palate , endless money to fund your dream …

I could say this … Winemakers really don’t make great wine or any wine… All great wine I have ever made the [gold metal wines ] over 90 points etc… the resounding truth is all the greats wine starts from perfect fruit… equality and greatness is expressed by the yeast who make the wine… Winemakers are yeast wranglers … Bacteria managers, and janitors … We observe what our yeast produce and we guide them in their quest to eat sugar and fart wine out…


Best wines are the ones I hardly touch… Less is more in the wine business…


So vineyard site is key … My neighbor Paul Hobbs knows this …he took three years to find the perfect land in the FLX region … Without perfect vineyard selection you will never be a great winemaker…


As a conductor guides his orchestra , so to does a winemaker guid his fruit … In the end together we make music… As a conductor of a plethora of variables inc the cycles of the moon, earth ,…

Wine is 85 % water… Influenced by celestial forces, inc the attitude of the winemaker… Esoteric forces abound to make a great wine…

Great thread…

Cheers !!!

5

John, excellent insights. Thanks.

I’m a consumer, not a producer (not in the business other than on the buy side!). My ideas below are observations from various visits and lots (and lots) of bottles.

Top five - In order of importance

Timing
Hands ON
Maternal / Native / Arterial
Use of Oak (not the avoidance…the deliberate adoption of it)
Quality of Fruit

Timing is evidently crucial. Timing of harvest through timing of bottling seem to have a critical impact on the final product. When to pick, when to start fermentation, when to pump over, when to punch down, when to rack into barrel, when to rack off the lees, when to rack into tank…etc. Small differences have major impacts. Playing music isn’t simply learning to make a note with an instrument, it is knowing exactly when to change notes and how to make that transition which shapes the emotion of a song.

“Hands off” winemaking is good PR but apparently little to do with reality. This resonates with “Timing” but speaks directly to the choices made (rather than “when” it deals with “if”). Hands on in the vineyard and in the cuverie (and cave too). Making a sauce isn’t simply combining ingredients, it is being able to look at / taste / smell the sauce and know exactly what small addition it needs.

Most people’s “top 10” lists are dominated by wineries / domaines / chateaux managed (maybe not owned but certainly run) by people who grew up around the business. Fluency isn’t simply learning to speak a language, it is being able to read the look on a person’s face and know what she is thinking and feeling. This isn’t targeted at Yanks / Brits making wine in France…it is more granular than that…it is aimed at Bordelais making wine in Bourgogne or Tuscans in Piemont.

Understanding and mastery of oak is the key to winning many palates (even palates on this board). I think a lot of aficianados enjoy oak influence more than they admit or even realize. They enjoy the highly skilful use of the ingredient. Not all oak is created equal and the most coveted / praised wineries use a lot of it (if not new very close to new…1 and 2 wine barrels are capable of introducting a lot of new wood characters).

Quality of fruit isn’t where the story ends. Thomas Keller can pan fry the same scallop better than nearly every living cook would manage with the same raw material. There exists plenty of high quality fruit in the various regions of focus but few exemplary wines. Hands On care to keep the fruit clean between harvest and cuverie seems critical.

Two subjects which could be further analysed: Hands on (stems, extraction, etc) and Oak (certain areas might be at odds with this statement…but there is a debate to be made in favor of the heuristic that all great wines rely on oak to make them great).

6

Just off the top of my head: I think many people would argue that Gianfranco Soldera’s wines are the ultimate expression of Brunello di Montalcino or that Elisabetta Fagiuoli’s wines are the ultimate expression of Vernaccia di San Gimignano. Yet, neither of the two are natives of Montalcino, San Gimignano, or indeed of Tuscany.
I don’t have the answer either, but, more often than not, my impression is that it is more about a very special and rare kind of almost monastic focus and single-minded commitment than it is about something necessarily “congenital” or, as you put it, “maternal, native, arterial”.

7

I just lost a much longer response but in short, quality of fruit is most important by a wide margin. It is cliche by now but the saying that one can make bad wine from great grapes but not great wine from bad grapes is still true.

I had writen more about how my best batch was my first as that was my best fruit I ever had to work with even tho it was over 20 years ago and I know a whole lot more now than I did then. I also think that the abillity to take risk to achieve greatness is not always appreciated. Sometimes one has to risk losing a wine by working too close to the edge to really experience greatness. This can be intentional or stem from a lack of knowledge of what one should or shouldn’t due based on accepted practices.

8

Two great points I picked up from the last two posts…

“very special and rare kind of almost monastic focus”

“One can make bad wine from great grapes but not great wine from bad grapes.”

Both interesting. I put fruit quality down the list specifically because plenty of “good” wine is made from “great” grapes. I felt the truly exemplary wines had more than great fruit. In other words, two winemakers started with the same fruit, one makes exemplary wine and the other made good wine. The difference between the two was how the fruit was managed in the cuverie.

Soldera is a compelling contradiction.

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It all starts in the vineyard. If you make wine, you know this. The next step or steps is obviously the jumping-off point for this thread.

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Get great fruit. Don’t screw it up.

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plant a vineyard and pray

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Location, location, location.

13

Risk providing reward in any practice is an indication that luck has a hand in the outcome. That is one point rarely seen in notes. “He waited to pick, the rain never arrived and the fruit is riper than any other example from the vintage”. It’s not unusual to read that but the statement never fully discloses that “and he’s a lucky SOB that it didn’t rain because his fruit would have been full of rot”.

It’s interesting that plenty of people are willing to assert that a “new” vigneron is relatively unproven and,therefore, their wines will not be considered exemplary until revisited and approved in “30 years”. Louis-Michel Liger-Belair is one name which comes to mind. The “grandness” of his wines has been questioned simply because none are old enough to be deemed great.

The bit I find fascinating is that people raise questions about wines from Liger-Belair along with other young guns with little to no qualification of their arguments apart from the fact Louis-Michel is young.

It’s perplexing that so many participants on this board can confidently identify the best wine at a tasting but can’t seem to explain why it’s the best wine. Further, no one can seem to explain why a young guy like Louis-Michel making wine can’t be admitted to the Rousseau club before his 30th vintage. Everyone is happy to claim the 2010 they tasted will “last for years” but no one can step up to say “it will last for years and be a great wine because…”.

Maybe the speculation of “why” it will be a great wine is moot. It’s easier to buy Rousseau and ignore the Liger-Belairs.

The only risk is missing the next Soldera.

Lots of people work with good fruit from good locations. Why is Roumier making better wine than anyone else in CM? Do you believe that, given the exact same fruit, Roier would make a wine indistinguishable from every other vigneron in CM?

14

Paul,

Not sure if you have looked at the Ray Walker thread but this post by Eric Texier talks directly to your question http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=1353735#p1353735

There is a difference between good fruit from good locations and the exact same fruit. My own small vineyard is only 350 vines spaced 3ft x 3ft. Its broken into 3 sections with another dozen vines planted in a fourth. The two sections that are the farthest apart have no more than 200 feet between them. Each section performs different. One section breaks bud a full week earlier than the others. Even within the seperate sections there are difference that can be seen and tasted on vines that are next to each other that stem from difference in soil, exposure to sunlight, and slope. I would argue that with commercial sized vineyards, especially those in Burgundy where different people tend different portions that it is impossible to have two winemakers with the exact same fruit.

However, for the purpose of discussion, if it were possible to give two winemakers the exact same fruit I don’t know exactly how much difference one would taste in the final product. Decisions such as cold soak, fermentation temperature, new oak, etc. all do make a difference. I just don’t know how much of a difference they make in the final product if it were actually possible to start with the exact same fruit and probably more important if those differences would still be apparent two years, five years, or ten years later. Some swear by native yeast fermentations while others believe that the yeast influence differnces on the finish product is not apparent after about 18 months. I read a recent article on fermenation temperatures recently and talked to a local wine maker about the topic after my Petit Verdot hit 92F for about six hours. It was enlightening to me to understand that many respected wine makers who have vastly different opinions as to if that is a good or bad thing and how as well as when I will be able to smell/taste the impact of those hours of fermentation above 90F.

Then of course there is the question of if a wine is better than another of if it is better to you. When I worked the tasting room of a winery, I was often asked what was our best wine. I always answered the one that you like the most. Based upon sales, our best wine was the muscat with 2%RS. My favorite while I was there was the 1985 Rutherford Cab but based on sales I have no idea what is good.

15

A Race Horse analogy that might be helpful:

Champions are not make, they are ruined.

Meaning, when you have a horse who was born to be a champion, it is your job to not screw it up and ruin him/her.

And another one:

Rainy days and drunken grooms make great race horses.

Meaning again, that days off, and drunken grooms who do less, not more, is the formula for not ruining a born champion. [winner.gif]

16

I’ve often been struck by how modest most of the great winemakers I’ve met are – modest about what they know, about the complexity of nature and winemaking. They observe and their thinking evolves and they see the uniqueness in each vintage and site.

A complete separate thought on this topic: Paul Draper at Ridge adamantly believes that you can’t create great wine by blending from different vineyards; that the best wines come from single sites.

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Apparently it takes 22 steps…

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Read really old books…

19

The left out “Wait for cork to taint wine.”

20

I wish I could make wine that has the texture of Roumier’s… silk!