Alan,
Part of the complexity of the problem is the number and timing of the S. cerevisiae that participate in an uninoculated ferment. In Goddard’s study he estimated that 160 genotypes were present and the “dominant” strain only comprised <20%. Also, these populations vary a great deal throughout the ferment cycle. In other words some are more prominent in the beginning or end of the fermentation. In short, it is nearly impossible to duplicate or simulate the effects of a native fermentation. In addition to Saccharomyces, there are many non-S. cerevisiae bacteria and yeast (many of which are likely indigenous to the vineyard) that ferment 10-20% of the sugar before the S. cerevisiae take over.
Um…You can create a starter from nothing more than flour and water. Let it gather yeast from the environment, feed and care for it and voila, you have a starter. This is like a native wine ferment, just using an intermediate step to bring the yeast to a high enough population to be effective.
Could have sworn I responded earlier…
Good point… but those yeasts won’t have come from the grain field. By analogy, that’s the equivalent of whatever yeast is dominant in the winery, not in the vineyard. The only point I keep trying to make here is that the “natural” wine crowd wants to distinguish their product from others by claiming there is something better about not inoculating. Soon as they stop trying to imply that other producers wine is inferior (by the simple use of the term “natural”), I’ll stop returning to this theme.
There’s an awful lot of handwaving on this topic, with very little conclusive scientific evidence (which in this case, unlike so many others, would be easy to obtain).
Oops, you sure did 
I think you and I are mostly in agreement. My point is really that I consider the whole topic to have started with a group of producers who want to distinguish their wine from others by putting up an artificial barrier, which denigrates those producers who choose to use methods they don’t. My belief is that the main reason they do this is for commercial gain, otherwise they would just live and let live. If a producer wants to write about what they do, why they do it, and why they think it makes “better” wine, that’s fine. But defining a term like “natural,” then putting up exclusions to other producers who don’t do exactly as they do - that’s nothing more than marketing, which by definition is attempting to prove one produce superior over another. That’, to me, is unseemly, particularly when many of their claims are dubious at best.
Cheers,
Alan
Can’t agree that marketing is unseemly at all. That’s the job of anyone with P&L responsibilities - to make the case to as many prospective customers as possible about why those customers should buy your product. If your product competes with another you need to make the case in either price or performance terms. If price is similar… the differentiation is done on performance.
My objection to the ‘natural’ wine movement is partially what you outline, but more its inaccuracy. In other threads on this I’ve posed questions about style - you can use a lot of oak and it’s still ‘natural’ in that oak is a naturally occurring substance. However, the replies were that such a wine, even if all else was within bounds, would not be a natural wine. The term’s thus not just about how a wine is produced, but about a stylistic aesthetic. It’s one I agree with more than not, but still. My objection to the term is more that there’s no good, non-pejorative description for wines that the movement excludes. “Unnatural”? Artificial? Industrial? None of those really cover it.
Rick, I think you and I are in total agreement. Of course marketing is necessary, and there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s marketing of the type I see in this case, where (as you point out) one group of producers is attempting to promote itself over another group by claiming superiority due to aspects of winemaking that aren’t clearly superior.
In this case, we do largely agree with each other. Though, I don’t think that everyone attempting to distinguish themselves in this manner is doing it just for marketing. They may be doing it just to clarify something that they may think is better, even if they can’t truly define why that is. Generally speaking however, I think the label (even if one would define it with set terms ) will always give room for someone to abuse it. As an example, someone could be ‘natural’ in the set of terms which have been agreed on (not going to happen anyhow) yet they could be making other additions or doing other action/procedures which while not being defined, could make a substantial change in the wine (or how it is perceived).
At any rate, I like the thought of the processes which I include, and prefer to not do those that are too far off from what I am shooting for. Could my wine be better if I changed something? Who knows? Is my wine better because of the things that I do and don’t do? Who knows? I’d prefer to just do what I think is interesting to me.
Cheers
Ray,
In your winemaking time there have you yet had to do something you didn’t want to do? I’m talking about something in a vintage leading you to do something that you’d prefer not to do – but you think it would make better wine?
I think it is always interesting to hear how people react to such unforseen circumstances — and I learn a lot about myself when I have encountered them.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Hey Adam, Sorry to ramble later on in my post,(just re-read your question), so the simple answer is no. And I would certainly hope to be prepared when the situation of a tough decision is presented.
Long answer below:
as you know, my experience is Very limited. I have had some things that I wanted to do that I simply couldn’t do. But, this is more due to the limitations of being a one man band for my first vintage made things a struggle between wants and needs. I learned a lot about myself having 100% of a harvest placed on my shoulders. The vintage in general was really generous in allowing me to do nearly everything I wanted to do. 2010 has just come of course, but things were much easier to do exactly how I wanted, with having help from my wife and a new friend. The vintage again made things easy on me.
Looking forward, I really can’t say what will be thrown at me next. But, it is important for me to just take things as they come and to not worry about boxing myself in. My earlier statement is a theoretical one in that I haven’t had many years of experience, this includes not having experienced difficult years. My preference is to not worry about labels being attached to what is done or not done. Along with this thought, I’d prefer to have the option to work in the way that mosts interest me. Being an imperfect field, I understand that conditions can and will change. That said, there are of course strong guidelines as to what is permitted here. So, I will just continue to do the best I can, great vintage, good vintage, tough vintage, poor vintage…I can’t see any reason why my response would change.
FWIW think Paul Draper would be a great wine guest.
Don’t be so quick to dismiss indigenous yeasts in bread. That’s the secret to San Francisco sour dough, which is arguably the most flavorful bread on earth. The natural Bay Area yeasts don’t survive well in other environments. (Boudin’s bakery had to fly starter in regularly when it began baking in other cities in the early 90s.)
A friend who bakes bread (well) told me years ago that the standard commercial Fleischmann’s yeast is too strong and acts too fast to produce good flavors.
Alan – That’s not the case. In the right locales (e.g., the Bay Area), you can make sour dough by simply mixing flour and water and leaving it in a cloth-covered jar. The indigenous yeast will take over and it will start foaming in a couple of days.
A sour dough starter or commercial yeast is more reliable and predictable, but it’s not strictly necessary.
Someone posted the Draper article on eBob, and Manfred Krankl wrote a very detailed and concise accounting of what he thinks of Draper’s position…apparently while watching fermentations at SQN…it’s a really great piece if you have access.
Tierra Amarilla. Really outside the town half way to Ensanada is the ranch.
Done some biking up there in that area, but don’t recall going thru Ensenada ever. Kinda out in the
sticks of Northern NM.
Tom
Also, the make up of what yeasts, and in what percentages, are on the grapes changes continuously. Like in a ferment, they are competing/fighting on the grapes, and like in a ferment, the changing conditions provide different advantages and disadvantages. So, pick a week later and yeast make up can be quite different for the the exact same grapes. Differing conditions of a nearby block would almost guarantee a different make up. Year-to-year, who knows.
Of course what’s competitive on the skins and what’s competitive in the ferment are different things.
I want to know why Manfred Krankl isn’t damning Paul Draper with faint praise over here the way that he is over on the Squires board! Krankl has become quite the Charlie McCarthy to Parker’s Edgar Bergen…
I see an awful lot of handwaving on this topic, and very little scientific study (in an area, unlike the impact of soil chemistry, that’s relatively easy to study). It’s pretty easy to take samples of various bins, from different vineyards, from the time they come into the winery, then at different stages during fermentation, and panel the yeasts present. Just takes money. That answers half the question of what yeasts are present and where they’re from (vineyard or winery). But that’s only half the story, and the other half is much harder to answer: what end products are produced in different scenarios, and how is the final wine affected. Frankly, that’s a very, very difficult question.
I don’t have a dog in this hunt, frankly don’t really care so much if a wine is wild or inoculated. I see a lot of conventional wisdom in the answers to the question of how wine is different for those two paths, but almost no persuasive evidence. But then that’s not much different than the way so many other winemaking questions are answered, so no big surprise 
Alan, I took a UC Davis Wine Production class this past winter and can tell you there is extensive study on what’s on the grapes and what’s going on in an uninoculated fermentation. AJEV papers, texts such as “Handbook of Enology Vol 1: The Microbiology of Wine and Vinifications” and “The Principles and Practices of Winemaking”, and more.
The only questions concern S. cerevisiae. It is well established that they do not enjoy grape skins, and are so negligible on grapeskins (that their presence seems incidental and) the are not in sufficient number to propagate to a significant level. The existing in the winery thing seems to be a bit of a myth. Studies cited above show environments they thrive in in nature. It is well established that saccharomyces thrive on humans, but other than a few allusions to this in papers and texts, I haven’t seen any specific studies in relation to wine. It seems obvious to me that we are primary vectors. We’re touching the grapes and must. It is established that some bacterial and fungal flaws can be introduced this way. Indigenous people around the world make their alcohol by chewing on plant matter, then spitting that into a vessel. It is established that this process is introducing yeast from the mouth to the material they are macerating. (Should be easy enough to Google what strains of yeast.)