Ok, it’s obvious what concentrated means. But, for me, it always raises an eyebrow of skepticism about the winemaking. Did they use artificial means to concentrate the wine? And, even that is controversial about where you draw the line - extreme fruit selection all the way to the spinning cones.
Frankly, I don’t know why it bothers me. If the wine tastes great, why should I care how it got there? The only caveat is if it’s a wine I hope to age, will it go the distance? But, I know of no evidence that states that artificially concentrated wines age poorly.
Anyone else feel a cringe every time the read the word concentrated?
(FWIW, I tend to like a lot of “concentrated” wines. But, I like many others that are not also.)
Hi Chris,
I react differently to that descriptor depending on who the critic is. If its Parker, I think of a massive, thick wine, unless other verbage calls me off that conclusion. If it is Allen Meadows, I think it is a much more positive thing, with concentration creating palate intensity and length, which I want, but without thickness or weight, unless other parts of the note lead me there. I often use the term for lighter, ethereal wines that have admirable intensity. So it is a good thing, most of the time, from my favorite critics.
To me, concentration is quite different from extraction. I tend to dislike heavily extracted wines as they tend to lack grace and harmony, IMO. As for artificial concentration gained by spinning cones or reverse osmosis, if I think that is what is going on, I run the other way. Concentration should be grown in the vineyard, and in the winery, less is always more IMO.
Like Lewis said concentration and extraction are different things to me though I’ve heard many who trying to contrast against a Parkerized wine confusing the two. Concentration to me has to do with the amount of apparent fruit that ends up in the final juice. It’s something I look for in a wine that you might want to age. Therefore I kind of consider it part of structure though I know most disagree.
I don’t disagree. And I think the initial poster’s concern about aging is misplaced. Why worry about aging if the wine is “concentrated”? In fact, if you have a thin, weedy wine to start, it’s not going to turn into something good down the road. You want a young wine to have all the elements it needs to develop into an interesting wine later. The fruit will be more apparent in a young wine, but ten, twenty years later, it will mellow out into something different. Or so you hope!
For me, concentration is a good thing. However, if that’s the whole point of the TN, that’s weird too. So something like “inky purple, super-concentrated, thick and packed with fruit, 96 points” is telling me as much about the taster’s preferences as about the wine.
Concentration, to me, refers to the density of fruit in the wine. If a wine has “nice concentration,” there is a balanced amount of fruit. “Lacks concentration” suggests the wine is lean on fruit, and possibly more acid driven. “Very concentrated” suggests the wine is dense, and that there is a significant amount of fruit. “Super concentrated” suggests to me that I’m going to get jam in a bottle, and that the wine will have a glycerin-laden mouthfeel. “Ultra Concentrated” makes me think fruit so dense I need a spoon to drink my wine.
Concentration in and of itself doesn’t bother me, nor do some of the traditional methods used to achieve it in the wine – e.g., green harvests, picking a little later, adding press wine.
I think that reverse osmosis, when used for concentration (as opposed to removing alcohol), tends to muddy the flavors of the wine, so RO gives me pause. But in places like Bordeaux where RO has been used so heavily, it’s hard to separate that process from malolactic in barrel and other techniques that tend to be practiced by the same people.
Of course, when you see the term in the WA, you may understandably suspect that the wine is a brute, which may not be good, depending on your palate.
To clear up a couple of things, I wasn’t talking about concentrated wine, but rather wine critics using the word concentrated. Like I said, I like concentrated wines, but when I read a critic (mainly RP) gush over the concentration, I start to wonder about how that was achieved.
The points about extraction vs. concentration are good ones but I often wonder if critics aren’t fooled by the two. Maybe I’m still reeling from all the Aussie reviews 10 years ago?
+1. “Concentrated,” as I use it, is a very positive descriptor. Whereas “extracted” is usually negative – when it seems as if the winemaker created something that wasn’t in the grapes in the first place.
Concentrated means the intensity of the fruit, regardless of the weight of the wine.
My first concern when a review gushes over concentration is about ripeness levels rather than spinning cones. Concentration is certainly achievable in the vineyard simply by letting the grapes hang until they are superripe. I think your concerns about ageability are pretty well founded in this scenario. The chances of very ripe grapes also turning out over-extracted wines are pretty good since the skins are more easily degraded and there is more alcohol to degrade them during fermentation.