2006 Harvest Oddities

Another odd year.  It seems like they all are.  After the intense early September heat of 2004 and the extreme cold of 2005, we’ve seen our share of recent physiological peculiarities in California fruit.  But Nature continues to find new motifs with which to toy with us and test our mettle.

 

To be sure, vintage variation in California occurs within a much narrower range than the wild fluctuations typical of France and Germany.  We do not follow the Eurocentric philosophy of planting varieties at the northern extreme of ripening potential, nor are we much subject to the dilution and rot associated with autumnal rainfall.

 

On the other hand, we do irrigate.   Our European friends warn us that this keeps roots near enough to ground level that vines appear to be more subject to climate proclivities.  Here and there, California vineyardists have eschewed irrigation.  Besides all those old vine zinfandels, we see more contemporary successes (Christian Moueix forbids it at Dominus, for example), but by and large the yields from irrigated vines barely permit Napa growers to pay their mortgages on ridiculously overpriced real estate.  In Europe, more often the place is already paid for.

 

So in July of 2006, California got hit with merciless heat — in excess of 100^oF for three solid weeks.  This was actually the best possible time in terms of fruit condition, well after berry set and well before veraison.  Foliage was sufficiently developed to shade these nascent clusters, and little sunburn is apparent.  Most vineyards seemed outwardly to have dodged the bullet.

 

But now we are seeing some odd manifestations as the fruit begins to mature.  Some are quite variable across the State – in some Lodi vineyards, brix seems alarmingly retarded, perhaps because a portion of the fruit, falling prey to the stress of July, stopped maturing altogether.  In other Lodi cabernet vineyards we see 26 brix while acid remains high and flavors undeveloped.  In one North Coast Viognier picked in late August we saw such low acid that the pH was 4.5 – almost impossibly high.

 

These variations are probably explained by the differences in timing of the hot spell vis a vis the maturity status and water availability in various plots.  But there are three bizarre effects which are repeated by everyone I talk to: 

            1.  Low tannin

            2.  Low vegetal flavors

            3.  Bland

 

The third is probably an artifact of the first two – fruit aromas do not develop until nearer to harvest.  Tannins do not increase during maturity, and are critical for color extraction, so smart winemakers will be getting out their bag of tricks, each with a different strategy:  “seigné,” (bleeding off juice), co-fermenting with tannic varietals like Carignane or even the skins of tannic whites like Chenin Blanc, various oak products in the fermenter, and above all, trying to solve the riddle of proper hang time.

Good Structure as the Key to Soulfulness

In a recent interview, the question came up “I know you’ve talked about how the German theory of wine doesn’t really apply to red wine, but I’m curious to know a bit more of the why behind that. What about red wine makes cold stabilization and sterile filtration undesirable, and why isn’t white wine affected in the same way? I assume it’s connected to the larger, more complicated molecules in red wine, but I’m curious about the mechanics.” I thought it was a good question which others might be interested in hearing about, as it probes the true nature of wine.First I’ll mention that the line isn’t really between red and white, but between structured and unstructured wines. Many whites (such as Faux Chablis, or method champenoise champagnes) have a lot of colloidally suspended material.But we know the idea of macromolecular structure must be correct for all red wine, because the anthocyanins which give red wine its color are not very soluble in a 13% alcohol: 87% water solution. The maximum you can get to dissolve results in a light pink solution. This puzzled enologists for many years since Ribereau-Gayon first pointed it out in the ’60’s.

We now know that the color molecules aren’t dissolved at all — they’re contained in tiny pieces of goodge we call colloids, which are sometimes almost as big as a bacterial cell. If we disrupt these particles with sterile filtration or drag them down to the tank bottom during cold stabilization, we lose texture but also we lose the aromatic integration properties they impart to wine. I believe this integrative phenomenon is central to wine’s ability to provide a soulful, visceral experience.

In a simple solution, these problems don’t exist. The precipitation of bitartrate or the filtration of bacteria doesn’t effect the concentration or aromatic expression of, say, the terpenes which give riesling its fruity, flowery flavors. But neither do these wines prompt the same mysterious soulfulness. Their focused fruit can be lip-smackin’ delicious, but people who say a wine’s first duty is to be red are looking for something more substantial than focused fruitiness. This is the same reason bisque is generally preferred over consommé.