Wes, that’s useful information. But it also contradicts virtually every “conventional wisdom” argument used by both the “naturalists” who want to believe their native ferments originate in the vineyard itself, and even the more practical winemakers who seem to accept that there may be local winery strains that are independent of the vineyard. What you seem to be saying is that it’s a total crap shoot, that whatever yeasts happen to vector in that year or that day, from whomever or whatever is in the winery, or picks/handles the fruit, will be the strain(s) that year. If true, the native ferment crowd should probably stop crowing about how much better their wines are. Sounds like “wild” fermentation should be renamed “random” fermentation 
Cheers
Not to mention stomping grapes with their feet! Who knew that the point might be to inoculate the must!
Well, in the vineyard and on the grape skins are two different things. There certainly is a lot of evidence of localized strains of S. cerevisiae coming to dominate fermentations. The ‘_what_s’ are established, it’s the ‘_how_s’ that are the questions.
It takes a while for the S. cerevisiae population in an uninoculated ferment to propagate to the point where they’re dominating. They start at virtually zero. You can’t just write off the multitude of what’s active in the early ferment just because something else takes over and finishes. For a lot of the “wild” yeasts, exactly what they are doing in the ferment and what properties they impart to a wine are knowns. Think of the ferment as a transition, and think of it as active chemical warfare. The beasties are competing in various ways with various advantages and disadvantages. The main advantages of S. cerevisiae are higher tolerances to alcohol and SO2 - toxins - which they also produce (*not all strains produce SO2). Also think of a fermentation working within certain parameters, order out of chaos. As long as it’s healthy (ie. clean equipment and grapes that aren’t nutritionally deficient) things don’t seem to get out of control. What that means is added complexity to the wine, with some degree of variance year-to-year, but also some degree of typicity should be expected most years.
See, to me that’s just handwaving assumption, wishful thinking, maybe has some truth, maybe does not. What I’d love to see is one winemaker make wine from the same vineyard, in two different facilities, with both wild and inoculated fermentations. Maybe after a few years of doing that and comparing the results you might be able to draw some conclusions. Not before.
I had to laugh at that.
You’re drawing the conclusion it doesn’t though.
Rick, I’m making no assumptions. I’m simply showing skepticism towards what I perceive as accepted “conventional wisdom” on one side of the discussion, where there seems to be no evidence for drawing conclusions either way.
As much as I like the idea of “wild” fermentations somehow adding an extra something to a wine (and I have no particular bias either way), I’m continually frustrated by the claims many want to make that XYZ practice makes a better wine, when there is plainly no statistically meaningful evidence in support of the claim. If someone wants to do the study I suggested, over a number of years, with enough trials to start to create some statistics, maybe that will change. But given the nature of wine, the near impossibility of controlling for fermentation, barrel, even bottle variation - not to mention taste variations - I frankly consider this an impossible task to prove or disprove. So we’ll limp along with the meaningless, handwaving claims of winemakers everywhere, trying to position one particular method as better than another to help promote and sell their wine, all the while wine consumers being drawn in to believing these impossible to substantiate claims.
But it sure is fun to talk about!
Cheers
Totally agree!
Alan, have you ever read Leonard Mlodinow’s “The Drunkard’s Walk” ? If not, you really should.
I like randomness instead of illusion of control.
Random fermentations RULE!
E
Which is the reason why we do not add anything to the ferment, since we have no idea of what is really going on in there nor we could ever offer any meaningful statistacal evidence that adding stuff would make a “better” wine.
E
Where’s the assumption?
It is a fact that various non S. cerevisiae impart different specific known qualities to a wine. The same with various S. cerevisiae.
The only assumption I see is from someone who thinks a wine produced with 160 or so yeasts isn’t likely going to be any more complex than a wine made with one yeast.
I’m not saying more complex necessarily equals better. Or that complexity derived from yeasts won’t be dwarfed by other factors. I’m also not saying that there isn’t plenty of BS being spewed on the marketing side.
I guess I need to see scientific evidence of this, which I don’t think I’ve seen. Here’s an interesting tidbit from Scott Labs, a producer of fermentation and filtration products. Maybe they’re handwaving just as much on the other side, who knows?
Q: To enhance wine complexity, should I put different yeast strains in the same tank, at the same time?
This is not recommended. The introduction of two yeast strains into the same tank creates a competitive atmosphere. Like Ali and Frazier, these strains will duke it out competing for nutrients and sugars. Competition leads to weaker yeast populations and an increased chance of stuck or sluggish fermentations. Also, yeast strains that display a competitive factor will knock out sensitive strains so fast, you will think the fight was promoted by Don King.
So how can you do a dual fermentation? Fill two tanks with the same juice/must. Then inoculate each tank with a different yeast strain. Blend the tanks after alcoholic fermentation to achieve your goal of complexity without putting your fermentation’s success at risk.
Now I think you’re reaching Alan. People have been fermenting wine and beer for thousands of years but Scott, a biochem company, wants us to believe this doesn’t work well? Gee, could they have a vested interest??
And you cannot cite that, which clearly argues that different yeast strains do different things, and then argue that they don’t.
Rick, it was the customer question in their FAQ that postulated using different yeasts would add complexity, the company had no comment on that question. I assume that customer is just following the conventional wisdom that it does. Again, I don’t have a dog in this hunt, I would just like to see more real evidence that wild ferments are “better”, instead of what I perceive as a lot of winemakers doing it simply because they assume it is. The vitamin industry is a multi-billion dollar market, even though there are pretty good scientific studies that conclude they don’t do much for you if you already eat a decent, balanced diet. That doesn’t stop millions of people from buying and taking vitamins - they just assume it is good for them (not to even bring up the unregulated supplement industry, which is an even better example).
Alan:
Shouldn’t it be the other way around?
Wouldn’t you want to see “more real evidence that inoculated ferments are “better”” before you modify the process?
E
Emilio,
Either way you want to look at it is fine with me
Why do you want wild or commercial yeasts to make better or worse wines???
The result is totally DIFFERENT. Not better nor worse but DIFFERENT. You don’t need science to see that, only to pay attention to what you are drinking or tasting.
A gamay from beaujolais made with the famed aromatic yeast 71B is a totally different wine than the one fermented with wild yeasts. Even a scotch or bourbon drinker can taste this…
Then if you like bananas, tropical fruits and ananas, you’ll find the innoculated wine much better than the tart red fruit, beetroot aromas of the wild yeast one.
So, a winemaker can adopt an aesthetic attitude regarding yeasts. She or he can believe that wild yeast are part of the expression of terroir - note that I said it is an hypothesis, but at this stage no one have proved the opposite - or think that commercial yeasts are much safer and better or like Adam Lee, think that he should let wild yeasts do their job or not. I have to admit that I didn’t get what pushes him to inoculate or not though.
Some winemakers pay attention to the way they do things, regardless of the result. Some are result oriented. Some are in between.
Is it better or worse for the wines? I deeply think it is a totally useless question and that the infinite diversity in wine expression is what make it so exiting.
Eric Texier
Vigneron à Brézème
Just to add a bit extra to what Emilio was saying, I know that grapes have a long history of fermenting without the aid of purchased yeasts. I know that it is possible for it to work on its on without a problem. What advantage would I seek in adding something that may be unnecessary? Imo, this is quite similar to adding salt before you taste your food.
Eric Texier just mentioned:
Some winemakers pay attention to the way they do things, regardless of the result. Some are result oriented. Some are in between.
Is it better or worse for the wines? I deeply think it is a totally useless question and that the infinite diversity in wine expression is what make it so exiting.
Couldn’t agree more. I can’t understand why we all need to make wine in the same way or to have a divine answer on what is right/wrong/better and worse…
[quote=“Ray Walker”]Just to add a bit extra to what Emilio was saying, I know that grapes have a long history of fermenting without the aid of purchased yeasts. I know that it is possible for it to work on its on without a problem. What advantage would I seek in adding something that may be unnecessary? Imo, this is quite similar to adding salt before you taste your food.
[quote]
Ray & Eric & Emilio,
Do you each destem? It is possible for it to work, on its own without a problem, without destemming. Lots of people choose not to destem. What advantage would you seek in doing something that may be unnecessary?
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Hey Adam,
you asked me a question earlier and I answered. Had you noticed it?
You posed the above question, here is my short response:
Yes, I de-stem. You asked if ‘it’ still worked without doing this.
Quick question, what do you mean by ‘it’ in this question?
In this example you provide (hopefully tongue in cheek), I do not seek an ‘advantage’ when making wine. I don’t claim an advantage from not adding yeast either. It is simply my preference of what I personally am interested in (See earlier post on my reasoning in the processes which I do or do not include).
If I were to use your similar logic in the question you posed I might be silly enough to ask, ‘why we don’t simply throw the cordons in the cuve as well?’
That said, I really do enjoy the way that you think and your humor. I wouldn’t ever wish this to be suppressed. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Fwiw, if you ever make it over here, please stop by. I am sure you will walk away from seeing things here that there is less emotion about best and worst and more so a focus on really doing the best with what I we are given.
Ray,
I did notice – and I appreciated it. Just been running a lot lately (SLH on Tuesday, Oregon today) and also have 3 kids all seemingly getting in trouble at school at the same time. They’ll be my joy in my old age but will get me there much quicker.
Also, if I come across as emotional about it, I promise I am not. Perhaps shouldn’t post during harvest. I simply find that debating things back and forth is an incredibly useful way for me to learn.
My response on the use of whole clusters is in response to you asking “what advantage would you hope to gain in adding something that is unnecessary?” and comparing it to adding salt without trying. I was asking the corollary, what advantage would you hope to gain in taking away something that you don’t have to take away? – Using the cordon isn’t realistic as there aren’t (at least to my knowledge) any other people that do that — but there are a number of very high quality producers in the region that you (and Eric and Emilio) operate that do use 100% whole cluster. – And, fwiw, I would hope that (at least in your mind) there is a perceived advantage to doing what you do – otherwise why do it.
I guess I ultimately don’t personally adopt the belief system that just because you don’t have to do something (because it works fine without doing it) – doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do something. Sometimes adding yeast might make a better wine from a particular vineyard, or in a particular vintage. Sometimes not. Sometimes using whole clusters might produce a more complex wine - sometimes not. – I personally like to make these decisions on a case by case basis - based upon my experience with a vineyard and my cumulative experience making wine.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines