IDK Here in the village you have lots of choices in wine. You can have the local wine that is as natural as it gets, no sulfatizing, no temperature control fermentation a blend of whatever grapes the farmer has on hand and with the sun we get here, it has an ending alcohol level of around 16%. We refer to it as Mazut (diesel in Arabic). You can ask for a wine from LaMancha, Rioja or Ribera or you can have local monovarietal such as ours. Don’t think you’ll find a name of any winery in Rioja or Ribera that you know because the bar owner has bought the bottle for around 1 euro a bottle. As far as manipulation I have tasted the unmanipulated and I will invite any one coming to the winery for a glass of Mazut on me. Afterwards we’ll try some wines that have been fermented under much more optimal conditions.
Despite the fact that wine vs. food can be a bit strained as a total analogy, this thread does highlight something for me.
I love to eat fine sushi. Otoro, simply prepared, is a delight. I also love fish and chips, and when it is made with impeccably fresh fish (think halibut fresh off the boat in Seward, Alaska) it is also a delight for the palate. Some might consider the batter and deep frying to be spoof, but it makes a new flavor, and one that I find very enjoyable.
So let’s turn that towards wine. I love to drink German Riesling. Taking the example of a dry Riesling with no rs, no oak, no malo, etc. (ok - there’s some sulfur) it is a pure expression of the grape and the place where it was grown. To me it is not unlike the Otoro. I also love many wines that use oak (Burgundy, yes Burgundy uses oak (even new oak…gasp!) for those purists who seem to conveniently overlook that fact), some Bordeaux, and otehr wines as well.
It’s fun in a way to come up with classifications and fanciful terms (e.g. spoofed, spoofulated) for wines we don’t personally like, but that really just draws battle lines that are not really there. Just because a small group of geeks decry a wine or wine style as spoofed does not eliminate the people who are passionate fans of the very same wine.
To me the debate is more akin to the political (sometimes becomign as heated and impolite as the political arena), and less about a food analogy. I actually find that quite sad, as it is just wine - a beverage that has brought many of us together. I consider myself essentially a wine libertarian, and hope that a moderate approach/middle ground can be found.
First off, welcome to the board. This may have been discussed before, but I’m a little new here and this topic is very interesting to me.
At the California Wine Fair that took place this week in Toronto, I was educated by some exhibitors and winemakers on how it’s an open secret that some wineries will deliberately oak their wines in a way to cover the flaws in the product while others are honestly attempting to improve and add depth and complexity to their wines (though those who do the former probably believe they are doing the latter). So if you think about it, in a way all winemakers already do molecular gastronomical manipulation of their wine. They just happen to be using an ancient and accepted method of doing so. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
In regards to overall manipulation, I believe we’re talking about three things here – applying new technology to the winemaking methods, adding ingredients to the wine, and removing them from the wine.
First up, I am 100% for applying new technology to wines. A great recent example of this is iced wines, where the fruit is picked ripe and frozen in commercial freezers and then pressed and fermented like icewine. Icewine traditionalists cringe at the process because it’s not “natural,” but I’m all for it as long as it is clearly understood that this was how the wine was made. As long as there is full disclosure on how wine is made, I’m totally for it.
Second, adding ingredients. While there will always be a necessity in most winemaking for some additions like sulphites, I am generally against adding things to the wine that were not there naturally to begin with, especially if its the addition of a processed ingredient. If you have to add sugar to enhance the flavor or water to dilute the alcohol, I think something went wrong to begin with. I’m particularly livid with the idea of adding sugar and acids to wine. How badly did the winemaking get screwed up if you had to add sugar back in? And adding acids? I want to drink wine, not salad dressing. ![[smileyvault-ban.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/4/426cc97ad8dd530c8304b0918ca75ff841d4d950.gif "[smileyvault-ban.gif]")
BUT… as long as the winemaker is honest and gives full disclosure about the addition of ingredients such as sulphites, I’m cool with it because I’ve made an informed decision about whether or not I want to purchase this wine or an organic version of it. Interestingly, I had an organic Chardonnay right next to a regular one at the California Wine fair and found the organic one cleaner and fresher tasting but the regular one a lot more intense in flavor. I wonder how much doctoring went into that one.
Lastly, I’m totally cool with removing ingredients from the wine. That is how we make my cherished icewine, after all – removing the water component from the grapes. Again, however, as long as the process of removal is natural and not chemical and there is full disclosure, I’m totally okay with it.
As a foodie myself, I understand the whole “adding sugar to tomato sauce” metaphor and how, as a previous poster said, it makes their Italian friend consider it a true abomination. There’s one important aspect to this I want to add: I am only paying about $0.99 to $2.49 at most for that can of tomatoes. I don’t have any problem adding sugar or acids such as lemon juice and vinegar to my sauce if its needed and while I would understand the Italian’s point of view, I wouldn’t freak out and consider it an abomination as long as the sauce was good.
But since I usually pay $30 to $60 for a sweet wine, I would freak out if I knew the winemaker was actually “improving” their wine with sugar and acids. At that price point, I expect to be paying for a certain standard of quality and product that is far above a $2.49 can of tomatoes. If I wanted that kind of an “improved” wine, I would buy a $10-20 bottle of off-dry Vidal wine, and sweeten it myself with sugar. It might even actually taste good – but I’d be disgusted at the thought of paying $30 to $60 for it and I certainly wouldn’t call it icewine.
Again, full disclosure is the key here. I think we all know that most winemakers don’t tell anyone about the chemical additions they put in even as they brag about their technological innovations. Thanks for the thread, it was fun reading everyone’s thoughts on the matter.
I think the main reason we don’t get full disclosure on wine labels is that a lot of wine buyers are hypocrites (probably mostly not people who post on this board, but who knows?). They’ll say they want all-natural/bio/organic/no additions/etc., but then they’ll buy the manipulated stuff that tastes good to them. There’s a reason winemakers continue to manipulate the product, and it’s not because they’re experimenting in the name of scientific progress. It’s because the stuff sells. So if this is your target market, you do all kinds of stuff to make your wine taste a certain way, then put a pretty label on it with some pastoral name/imagery so that your consumers have the illusion they’re drinking some natural agricultural product.
And I don’t blame the winemakers for doing this. It’s a business. The fault here lies with consumers who want wine to taste a certain way while maintaining the illusion of their own superiority.
I guess that sounds a little harsh.
The real issue is that we have (again) a small group of wine geeks who think that with hope, rainbows and unicorns, all condition can be absolutely perfect to create their desired, unmanipulated (whatever the hell that means) wine. In the real world that rarely happens. They choose not to accept that. Some producers have deep enough pockets to suffer a vintage where their “non-interventioninst” methods mean that they have severely reduced output or even no output for some wines. Other producers/domaines/etc. cannot handle that financial strain.
Welcome aboard.
I have never read anyone reasonable state that technology/innovation/whateveryouwanttocallit is per se “wrong,” so most of your argument is a straw man.
What we tend to hear is that technology is misused/abused and the results aren’t good – which is of course largely subjective and hence why this issue keeps coming up.
further, by asking why wine should be treated differently than cooking frames the debate in a way that is at odds with how the greatest wines tend to be made – or “not” made.
i am a bit surprised that with all the food technology we have, that no one has been able to manufacture a wine that tastes like Romanee-Conti and sells for $9 and is available in every supermarket. and i’m a big believer that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. but it hasn’t happened yet…
Who are these people? I’ve never heard that argument before. At most, the argument is that when conditions allow for an unmanipulated wine, the results are better than when conditions require (or tempt) a producer to use a lot of tricks. And since there are thousands upon thousands of wines to choose from, we can focus our purchases on the former group if we so choose. Nobody is saying a prodcer shouldn’t use those tricks if he wants to – but nobody can force us to buy his wines, either. There is also the additional argument that many producers use those tricks to reach a result that would be just as undesirable if it had been reached naturally.
Only for some people. Just recall that many people like wines that are akin to high priced Yellow Tail.
I guess I don’t understand how a trellis, pruning shears, a fermentation vat, an oak barrel, and a bottling line that sparges bottles aren’t “technology.” And if wine “resists technology,” why do winemakers run lab tests on grapes from the vine and wine in barrels…?
It all strikes me as more than a little bit of a false dichotomy. Wine isn’t a sacred cow. It’s a beverage.
Bruce
Bruce,
Wine is a sacred cow, and it’s a beverage. Just about anything can be considered a technological advance, of course, including a trellis, a barrel, and a lab test. Having just come in from cutting with a pair of pruning shears the rubber bands around the scion/rootstock union on some new petit verdot plants, I can assure you that the term technology is relative. Just listen to the pronouncements from most wineries about their so-called traditional ways for confirmation that wineries want to protect an image; and that image is intended to bolster the statement “wine is made in the vineyard” with “minimal intervention,” for example. The technologies that I referred to in the original post, including RO, are not touted as a step forward on the evolutionary path of wine. Today’s luminaries in the cooking world, including Achatz, Adria, Dufresne, etc., have challenged the notion of traditional cooking. Such cannot be said of any particular winemaker for the reasons outlined in my post.
Sorry, but this looks like a troll. Even the most minimalist winemakers do things analogous to a skilled chef, though the best of them follow the Alice Waters model and put a disproportionate amount of energy into making sure the raw materials are the best they can be. If you want to make a food/wine analogy, the types of wines that warrant criticism for being overly manufactured are more analogous to a New Jersey flavor lab.
It’s a floor wax; it’s a dessert topping!
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/shimmer-floor-wax/1056743/
Anywho…I think the vast majority of wine consumers (as opposed to wine geeks) think of wine as a beverage.
As for the cooking analogy, sometimes I like a simple piece of raw fish as sashimi. Other times I like a complex fish stew. Liking one doesn’t negate the possibility of liking the other.
Bruce
Bonneville?
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Re: Wine As Sacred Cow
Post Number:#32 Postby James Sanders » Thu Apr 07, 2011 9:16 pm
Sorry, but this looks like a troll. Even the most minimalist winemakers do things analogous to a skilled chef, though the best of them follow the Alice Waters model and put a disproportionate amount of energy into making sure the raw materials are the best they can be. If you want to make a food/wine analogy, the types of wines that warrant criticism for being overly manufactured are more analogous to a New Jersey flavor lab.
James Sanders
James, I’m not hip to the lingo of this board yet but I’ll assume troll is not a compliment. I have made a wine and food analogy but it is not a criticism of wines or food being over or under-manufactured. I believe–as someone who loves to drink wine and eat food, sometimes together, sometimes not–that the two are comparable and that one is judged by different standards.
Hi Jeremy,
By “troll” I meant that your post was intended to be provocative.
Have you read any of Michael Pollan’s books? I wouldn’t agree that food is held to a different standard.
Best,
James
Who cares? We’re talking about best practice here.
The key is getting as best an expression as possible from terroir to bottle with the intelligence and flexibility to retain the integrity of the product while not taking it in a direction it otherwise wouldn’t go.
If you don’t think terroir is important, none of this matters.
I think terroir is important, but the percentage of the wine drinking world that cares is minuscule.
Overall I just find the fascination with what is or isn’t geek acceptable (whether it be vineyard practices, wine making methods, etc) laughable. Maybe it’s a brush with death, but I can’t get worked up over how pure is pure anymore.
But people alway bring up what the general wine buying public drinks or what they feel about wine and their opinions are irrelevant to us just as the fact that many people are fine with $200 stereo receivers is to an audiophile forum or discussions of the best cheap point and shoot camera is on a camera geek’s board. That doesn’t mean everyone here deeply cares about terroir, but I think the assumed basis of discussion is that we’re all serious about the wine we drink vs just wanting something that hits the ‘hey, this tastes pretty good’ bar.
AS for the OP… I don’t agree with the premises as stated, others have covered the reasons above (Corey M most eloquently from my point of view) so… no other comments from me.
BTW, I didn’t know about the brush with death thing. Glad to hear you brushed him off.