There is a huge difference between determining what is ‘right and wrong’ and personal taste in consumables(among other things). Dictators of taste usually take issue with that position but I would say the vast majority of people don’t.
I agree with you it came across a lot like a super ripe Cali pinot. Not sure my review was all that glowing though… while it could turn out to be the legendary wine some are hoping for given enough time, I can’t say I enjoyed drinking it at this time. It is most definitely a fruit bomb, no doubt about that.
Of course not. All I am saying is there exist objective standards for “too much” and “not enough.” Lots of room between those two poles for stylistic and other personal preferences.
I left one fifth bottle in the fridge for a week, no sign of oxidation. This wine resisted oxidation as well if not better than the 00 Pavie. If resisting to oxidation is a good indicator of how a wine will age, this will be a 100 year wine!
I think it’s a good indicator in this case because some of the concerns about its longevity have to do with whether it’s been sulfured enough to resist oxidation, so if it’s lasting a week that’s a good sign. But I don’t subscribe to the general rule that the amount of time a wine lasts on the counter has any correlation with its longevity. It seems to me to have more to do with the type of wine than anything else. For example, Bordeaux is almost always inferior the next day for my tastes, while New World fruit bombs usually taste pretty much the same as they did on day one. My record is a bottle of Marquis Philips which I’d forgotten about open on the counter at room temperature for weeks and still tasted exactly the same (and just as lousy) as it did originally. But not oxidized! I think how something ages in the cellar is a very complex question that depends on a lot of things. How long it lasts after being opened is a simpler question and may depend on far fewer variables.
I had a friend who read this thread, one who is not a wine collector but one who drinks wine 5 days a week and he was curious as to why the debate. my favorite line of his was…
" to quote Peter Gabrial, I know what I like and I like what I know". I took this to mean that he likes what he drinks and accepts that most wines taste the same, because this is what he knows. I have been trying to get him to branch out to different wines, mainly old world, and he has been receptive and has enjoyed them very much. so then he asks, why cant people enjoy both types? Good question.
I looked at this debate from a different analogy. lets talk audio. I would guess that 70+ % of the board members listen to most if not all of their audio music in a digital format. CD’s, solid state amps and normal cone speakers. Now I do consider myself an audio snob (and have a useless degree in audio production to prove it). I in fact have three different complete audio set ups. two that are fully digital. one for cd audio and one for home theater. two amps, two sets of speakers and then a separate CD player for discs and a spereate Blu Ray player for DVD’s only. but then I have my old school (IE old world wine) analog audio set up (which new people who come over think is nuts until they actually hear it). an old school B&O record player (yes I still have my records. no digital music on this set up!), a late 70’s meridian pre amp, dual mono block late 60’s McIntosh tube amps, huge sized Magneplanar ribbon speakers (which anyone who knows anything about real sound will tell you is the only way to listen to music, ala low alchohol drinkers) and the only piece of modern equipment, two Atlantic technology 15 inch sub woofers. Ahhh, the pure sound of analog. I even enjoy the occasional snap crackle and pop in the records. makes me feel young again.
my point is that you can hear the same music played on different setups and still get the same enjoyment out of it. I feel this way about wine.
Ahhh, this is exactly what I was wondering about. Green seeds means one needs to be more careful with the length of maceration. How much of a problem is this? Does a shorter maceration lower quality? Or does it simply mean one can’t pursue a certain style? Presumably with less ripe fruit harder tannins will be extracted more quickly, hence post-fermentation maceration would need to be shorter to prevent over-extraction.
I’m just wondering how much is absolute necessity and how much is simply necessary to pursue a highly extracted style. If you want the mouthfeel of a wine where everything has been taken from the grape, then very ripe fruit seems necessary. If you make a medium bodied wine, though, perhaps you can work with less ripe fruit and manage extraction to avoid excessive astringency.
Greg,
I’m sure like most things grapegrowing/winemaking you’d get a spectrum of answers. I’m not from the Cali-Pinot wannabe school of Pinot winemaking, but I’m very concerned about ripeness - seeds or otherwise. Unripe seeds can do some unpleasant things, at least 2/3 of the way through primary fermentation (as alcohol becomes a significant solvent), regardless of your philosophy on extraction.
Tom
Perfectly stated
Complicating matters is that extraction is not a linear process. Different components are extracted during a cold soak, and during fermentation (different extractions as alcohol rises). Also, logistical and other winemaking issues affect this as well (cultured yeasts may start up more quickly than non-innoculated ferments – thus less time on the skins), temperature control will change time on the skins and extraction amounts, tank sizes and shapes, etc.
All of these factors complicate a less-ripe means less extraction (or more extraction) idea.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Interesting point on the alcohol. I’m aware cold soaks tend to be less harsh in extraction than post fermentation maceration due to the difference in alcohol. So would you say that high sugar fruit that is less phenolically ripe could be especially problematic due to both a high percentage of EtOH solvent and ‘green’ post-ferment?
Do a few extra degrees of ABV noticeably affect extraction in your opinion? Let’s say 12%-13% vs. 15%-16%. Would you be more concerned about the post fermentation maceration with the high alcohol lot, all things being roughly equal?
I think that higher sugard fruit that is less ripe is potentially more problematic only because of the additional time on the skins necessary to get it dry. But a more concentrated wine provides some coverage of this underripe character, at least early on, and that is a positive.
I think the issue is attributing any of these characteristics solely to alcohol/sugar —and not necessarily to how long it took to get to those levels, what tannin development was like during that time, etc.
One of the things that Paul mentioned earlier about us specifically that I don’t tend to fully agree with is that we are trying to tone down ETOH. In fact, that is a bit of simplification. We are trying to work with each vineyard in each year to get to a point where the wine is best. In some cases and some vineyards that has led to lower alcohols, but to higher alcohols in others. (and dare I point out that in the last couple of years tastings Paul has prefered, almost to a t, the highest alcohol wine). What we are also hoping to do is avoid (thru later pruning, etc),overly rapid accumulation of sugar, not necessarily the total accumulation of sugar.
Adam Lee
Siduri Wines
Very interesting thread. For my tastes, I find that some winemakers are better art making lower alcohol wines and some are better at making high alcohol wines. They seem to have a better (intuitive?) handle on it. of course, varietal, vineyard location, etc. all play a role. You can’t just look at the alcohol percentage and place some arbitrary cutoff without doing a disservice to your customers (in the case of a restaurant or store).
People are always looking for a one size fits all method. For a while, it was phenolic ripeness, then the color of the seeds. Heck at one time, it pretty much came down to the calendar. Unfortunately, our understanding of winemaking, consumers tastes and a myriad of factors is not that simple.
Oh wow, it must be cool to magically know what everyone else’s preferences should be. I hope to reach that state of omniscience some day.
Look, do I think there are a lot of bad wines given high praise? Yes; I sure as hell don’t understand the love for Marcassin, Martinelli, Alban, SQN. But obviously a lot of people do, and disagree with me - violently at that. What other explanation is there than that it comes down completely to taste preferences? A SQN fan is no more right or wrong than I am as an Arnot Roberts or Copain fan. There is nothing “modern” about that, it’s simply human nature. Although if it were up to me, I would ban rap music as an epidemic health hazard 
Let me be crystal clear (one more time).
I’ve drunk and enjoyed many balanced high octane CA pinots (As long as they are not hot).
My objection to them is the aftereffects.
It is my belief (based on a TON of tasting over the years), that high alcohol wines produce a lot of secondary alcohols that cause headaches.
Plus I imagine some of the “additives” some winemakers utilize may have a deleterious effect also.
Now that I’ve gone back primarily to Red Burgs, I find that many of the CA pinots are a bit much for my taste now.
I don’t regard Adam as a purveyor of Fruit Bombs and usually find his wines, regardless of alcohol content, to be balanced and not hot.
TTT
I think the vineyard location, rootstock and clones used play the major part on what is possible on producing a successful low octane wine.
TTT
A very interesting thought. Can anyone shed further light on secondary alcohol production in higher alcohol wines?
No, I think Paul should probably stick to engineering Hangover symptoms are pretty much directly related to how much alcohol you drink, not the delivery vehicle. The two main effects are the metabolism of ethanol to the more “toxic” acetaldehyde, and dehydration due to the indirect diuretic effect of ethanol.
I’m pretty confident that if Paul drinks 50% more of a wine that has 2/3 the ABV of a higher alcohol wine, he’ll feel the same effects the next morning
I have my suspicions, too. Methyl alcohol and fusel alcohols can be produced by yeasts, and I’d hazard to hypothesize stressed yeasts probably produce more of these alcohols. Apparently these are more volatile than ethyl alcohol, hence they blow off first in a distillation column. It wouldn’t surprise me if these are associated with heat in wine more so than ethyl alcohol, though I have no empirical evidence to prove this. I think that the burn and hangovers from cheap hard liquor as opposed to more cleanly distilled liquor is probably related to this, though.
Another thing to think about is “many” (hard to quantify since I doubt those who use it will admit to adding a toxic substance to their terroir expressive, naturally hand-made wine) vintners these days like to use Velcorin to sterilize wines with unfathomably high pHs that can’t be stabilized by sulfites. One of the byproducts is methyl alcohol. Supposedly the concentration is low enough to not be toxic, but I’m sure that’s the case with cheap liquor as well and that stuff is harsh.
What about fusel alcohols and methanol? I am not convinced these are metabolized identically to EtOH, especially since methanol is implicated in making moonshiners go blind.