Nouveau Winemaking: Condemn or Commend?

The various laws regarding wine production in the state of California as well as the other various New World wine regions are arguably pretty lax. You can grow what you want, where you want. There is no tasting panel that must say “Yes, this wine meets typical requirements for this region.” While you cannot necessarily chaptalize (add sugar) you do not have a specific date that your fruit must be picked as other regions around the world. This would allow one to pick all or some of their grapes dramatically over-ripe in order to elevate the concentration and alcoholic strength of your wine. You can add acid to the wine to balance the fruity sweetness or flabby qualities. Tartaric acid is the most common, but you will find winemakers using citric and malic acids as well. To improve structure and color one can add commercially prepared tannins, known as enological tannins. Not to mention kosher food additives such as Mega Purple, Mega Cherry, Mega Red, Mega White and so on.

So, good, bad, or indifferent……

In a sense, on a world perspective, this hurts the image of some of our most famous wine regions. Old World regions, such as France and Italy, have to follow what are in some cases extremely constringent laws. For example, there is a practice in Chateauneuf du Pape, a commune in France, called Le Rape. Le Rape mandates that a minimum of 5% of your fruit must be declassified to the lesser region name of Cotes de Rhone. This is in addition to the already oppressively low yields (368 gallons per acre) that must be upheld, which represents about half of the yield of most Bordeaux estates. The idea here is truly one of a sense of place. The laws of the Old World shoot to provide consistency, stability, and quality assurance. Sometimes it works pretty well, but ultimately knowing your producers is the only way to truly get what you expect. You can count on the fact that Le Montrachet (French vineyard) is some of the highest quality Chardonnay in the world and that Chianti Classico (Italian region) is always Sangiovese and always tasted by a panel for quality and accuracy.

Grow what you want, where you want, and how you want…. This is the model for most New World regions and although there are some things that have grown to classic status, Napa Cabernet, Russian River Valley Pinot Noir, etc. New World producers still have all sorts of wine-grapes growing in their vineyards regardless of region. This is good for the winemakers because it allows for diversification without having to hold various plots of land all over the state. They can grow Cabernet, Syrah, and Chardonnay on slopes right next to one another. In turn this gives way to a greater variety and market share if they do it well. That is a good thing, we want a strong wine-market. The only real problem with this is that we cannot really pin down a sense of place through taste to all of these wines aside from a blanket California designation. Sometimes producers give you a whole line from a couple of vineyards and each one represents a good wine, other times producers opt to go for Classic status and buy grapes from specific regions or vineyards to make-up their varied line-up. In my opinion the latter is the most fun, not to pigeon-hole our regions, but I think that Russian River makes better Pinot Noir and Chardonnay than Syrah. Stick to what is great from your spot and you will always be happier.

Additives…. Such a nasty word in our language today. I don’t really oppose additives, there are some positives that come from this that must be recognized. A wine that is produced in the Central Valley of California is going to be a very ripe wine. This can lead to a lack of balance and as such cause the wine to need acidification or tannin additions or both. In other cases, and all around the world for this one, winemakers are letting their wines go over-ripe and perform incredibly long cold soaks to hide defects and flaws in the final product. This helps California to produce some of your favorite every-day drinkers that fall in the $10 to $20 range, but these practices can find their way into some very expensive bottles. There can also be instances in which you need a color correction in order to improve the marketability of your wine, you look to Mega Purple or Mega Cherry to bolster your color. This practice is maybe a little more questionable because you are likely to have been able to control this during production as opposed to an after thought, but I don’t want you to lose your entire business due to a tough vintage, so we will overlook it. Although I will point out that a large percentage of this, Mega product can be added to your wine during production. Mega Purple is approximately 68% sugar, and wine-grapes are typically 15-25% sugar, and we don’t Chaptalize (add sugar). The math isn’t hard there.

In the U.S. only 75% of the wine in your bottle must be the varietal stated on the label. This means that your bottle Pinot Noir can have 10% Syrah floating around in it pushing it away from its proper varietal character. Only 85% of the juice must be from the stated region, and 5% of it can be from prior vintages. All of these practices can cause a loss of vintage character, varietal character, and the sense of place. This is where I grow concerned that particular wines risk losing distinction, which for the geek in me is unacceptable.

While there are undoubtedly some negatives; loss of place, loss of varietal character, ridiculously over-the-top wines, and the Old World looking down its nose at us. Nouveau Winemaking is without question here, and not all bad; price, quantity, and consistency are without question some bonuses that we experience as consumers. I do believe that there should be some further regulation that goes into the production of wines from the New World. For percentages; at least 90% varietal, 95% regional juice, 100% single vineyard (I think that one is just obvious) and nothing from a prior vintage, let it speak for itself, this is how we get great years as opposed to a bunch of average years with some poor. Additives; I think that there should be information available to the consumer that states what chemicals, and additives went into their bottle. I would rather an individual stop buying some California wines due to an adverse chemical reaction (headache or histamine reactions), then to think that all California wines will cause that same reaction. Even the addition of water or centrifuge to adjust the wines should be talked about somewhere, just to separate those who are able to achieve quality from their special little plot of land, and their particular skill set under completely natural circumstances from those who are not. The true talent in winemaking around the world, regardless of where you are, is the final blend, knowing when to put the juice into the bottle, and knowing how it will taste when it is ready. Everything else is the vineyard, the place and chemistry.