July 2002
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Muddy Waters Would you drink a wine that had been :
Well the chances are that you have and do regularly. Although these techniques sound barbaric they are in fact in everyday use by even the most up-market estates and wineries. The thing is that nobody advertises that their wine is treated as such. Imagine a marketing campaign based on the slogan "a wine fashioned by the latest reverse osmosis technique" or "balance achieved by ConeTech technology". The fact is that these techniques are not used to re-mediate wine in a poor vintage but to achieve, through intervention, a consistent product year after year. It cuts out the uncertainty of the vintage. The first technique, reverse osmosis, is used either to reduce alcohol content or alternatively to concentrate the wine. Pass wine under pressure across a semi permeable membrane and the alcohol and water will pass through the membrane. This is collected, the alcohol boiled off to an exact level and then the whole lot is mixed back together. This is very useful in hot climates when the grapes reach high sugar concentrations at phenolic ripeness. The grapes can be allowed to ripen fully without worrying what high volume of alcohol the resulting wine will have, because you can control that. It is used in cold climates to concentrate the wine. If it rains heavily throughout the harvest then the grapes will be full of water and low in sugar concentration. Instead of adding sugar (chaptalisation) which doesn't cure the dilution of "flavour" then you simply remove some of the water until the desired concentration is achieved. Reverse osmosis is used extensively in California to produce consistent results even in the most highbrow estates, and in some of the best estates in Bordeaux use it to tackle low concentration. Through putting the wine in a centrifuge you can accurately separate out the various volatile elements which you add back in after removing some of the alcohol. This is used extensively in California. The third technique is called vacuum distillation and is used extensively in Europe to remove excess "rainwater" from the vintage. But with critics awarding 5 gold stars to super concentrated wines then the temptation is to remove far more than just excess rainwater. The above techniques are not readily admitted to by the estates that use them, but the fourth called micro-oxygenation is openly used. In fact so accepted is it that it has a French name, mirobullage, to give it credibility. One of the reasons red wine is matured in expensive oak barrels is that very slowly, gradually and passively it is exposed to oxygen through the wood. This takes many months and adds to the cost of the wine. Wine stored in large stainless steel tanks is not exposed to oxygen, as steel is non permeable. By bubbling oxygen into it, in a similar way that you keep fish alive in a glass tank, you achieve oxygenation in a controlled way. This allows wine to be brought to market much sooner as all the nasty green tannins and vegetal characteristics have miraculously disappeared. Rosemount branded reds have been extremely successful and they are in the shop in the same year as they are produced. Rosemount argue that adding oxygen during "elevage" speeds the whole thing up and means cheaper wine is of a higher quality. The other odd thing is that the amount of oxygen actually used is many times as high as would ever be seen by wine matured in barrels so it is far from "micro" oxygenation. In the end it all comes down to whether as a producer you are deceiving your client. If you set yourself high on the pedestal of non intervention, barrel maturation, etc then you can legitimately ask your client to pay more for your product in a good vintage and you will get less in a bad one. If the client wants a wine that is produced with minimum intervention he may be prepared to pay more. That is an equitable state of affairs. Where the producer of non-vintage, non regional vin-de-table or a non vintage "branded" wine admits to being interventionist and applying the latest techniques to getting a decent bottle of wine on the shelf whatever the weather at the best possible price for his client then that is also fair. The client may take him up on it despite the way it is produced. But is it acceptable for the estate that sets itself up as a high quality producer of a named vintage from a specific region or appelation to eradicate all characteristics of that vintage or region by processing the product so heavily? If it was a hot / wet vintage in 1996 in Stellenbosch then if you put "1996" on your bottle and also put "Wine of Origin Stellenbosch" then the client is entitled to a wine that reflects the characteristics of the vintage and the region. The reason that some vintages cost more is because they were better. The client should have a choice, to save up and buy a great bottle from a great producer in a great vintage or pay less for a bottle from a lesser producer in the same vintage or a great producer in a less good vintage. If wine is manufactured scientifically to order in exact proportion of its constituent parts, then the year and geographical origin of the wine are redundant. Is it deception to still have them on the label when the wine has been processed so much, or should wine produced in such a way only be marketed as non-vintage? Another great debate getting an airing in the wine press at the moment is the issue of bottle closures. It is well known that 5% of bottles are spoilt by 2,4,6 TriChloroAnisole or TCA which is a result of corks that grow mould on them. Corks are difficult to sterilize but is that an excuse for a whole industry to produce such a faulty product, the national disgrace of Portugal? Many established vineyards are turning to screw caps and there is a lot of merit in doing that. Mostly they have done it with white wine and on bottles that are expected to be drunk in the short to medium term. Hardly any have done it with red. This is a pity because these early attempts at shifting public opinion away from the belief that a top quality wine always has a cork in it make lasting impressions. It is an uphill battle as we discovered by doing a straw poll among twenty or so of our friends that would hopefully be our clients. When asked "Would you drink wine with a screw cap?" the answer was a resounding NO among 90% and the others were under the impression that screw caps were only good for white wine because with red the wine needs to breathe through the cork. It is amazing how many people who drink a great deal of expensive wine think that is why a wine bottle has a cork. One American friend said quite rightly that wine has only recently become an accepted beverage in many US households. The first piece of wine knowledge that most Americans wine novices pick up on is that cheap wine comes in large screw top flagons and quality comes with a cork. If you really want to impress your "date" bring out a bottle with a cork and open it with a flourish using a cork screw. To now try and disabuse these guys of this notion would turn them off the product before they have started. He went on to tell me that most Americans would be very impressed if you gave them a bottle of wine from France, that they are used to the idea of wine from California but try telling them that wine can be produced in South Africa and they'll think you are pulling their plonkers. He thinks we are doomed to fail if we try to sell a South African wine in a screw cap, because they would expect it to be priced at less than the cost of the gasoline they fill their SUV's up with. Although we are really all for the notion of screw caps for red wine it may be just one battle we don't need to fight. Maybe we will produce some of the vintage with screw caps for our own consumption, for laying down or to sell to those who prefer it that way. That said Tesco the UK supermarket chain has launched a range of 30 wines with screw caps and they are selling well. What the screw cap movement really needs is for a prestige name like Cheval Blanc or Haut Brion to move over to screw caps for their whole production, but don't hold your breath as those guys are not leaders but upholders of tradition who wouldn't do anything to endanger the carefully constructed aura that surrounds their names. The carefully constructed aura surrounding TMV was being washed away in a deluge of rain and freezing cold weather. Manie was convinced that by moving the mountain of saturated earth from where it was piled up next to the cellar onto the farm track was a good idea. He imagined by raising the level of the track surface the huge puddles would drain away. All he needed was a few dry days to get the earth compacted and hey presto. Unfortunately those days never came and the slurry grew deeper. Every visitor not driving an amphibious vehicle had to be towed in and out with a tractor. In coming to the aid of helpless motorists Michael the tractor driver had never had so much fun in a single day's work.
It reminded Tom G-W of his days as a tank troop leader in Germany on exercise when a very important 3 star General came to visit the Squadron. One troop spent the whole morning churning up the access area with their Chieftain tanks until a 4 ft deep mud pond the size of a football pitch and the consistency of chocolate mousse was achieved. The last tank to be brought under cover reversed in with the driver skillfully deploying his floating dozer blade to smooth the area out. After a couple of hours the sun had baked a deceptively solid looking crust on top and the Squadron dismounted to await the arrival of the VIP. Even though his staff car was moving fast, in the self important way that drivers of Generals like to, once it left the tarmac it traveled less than 20 paces before it sank up to the window ledges and stalled. Of course no one on parade twitched. The recovery vehicle was deployed and eventually heaved the car back to the tarmac and gave the General a lift across the mud. Without batting an eyelid he inspected the Squadron as if nothing had happened and left the same way, for to show that he had been caught out would have hurt him badly. What effect would all this wet cold weather have on the vintage? We do not know yet but we will promise our prospective clients that our 2003 vintage will reflect the way our vines reacted to the environment they experienced from the moment they went into dormancy to the day the grapes were harvested. J-C, our wine grower, was busy and after just 2 weeks on the job reported that the farm was really looking good (which is probably the right thing to say to the owners!). After tons of rain and cold it all looked as it should - green (except the vines) and serene. We just had to hope the rain wasn't going continue too long into spring and summer. Over those two weeks he had been getting stuck into the vineyards, and by the end of the month was almost a quarter of the way through pruning the 2 year old vines. Bob and Michael, our most loyal staff, seemed to have got the idea (J-C got them to criticize each other's work after the first row, and that seemed to get them really concentrating from there on). These guys had been with us (apart from the occasional short break to go walk about) almost since we bought the place and had seen us turn a stock farm into a farm of stokkies, all the time having to learn new skills. They were doing well and we realized a lot of our success would be dependant on them and their co-workers getting it right. J-C and Manie could not oversee every movement of the pruning shears.
J-C also managed to rope a class mate in for the week, so we had one unpaid worker on the farm - he was not all that fast, but we couldn't really threaten him with anything so he went along at his own diligent pace. J-C was being pretty aggressive with the spacing of the bearers (aiming for about 12-15cm). The thought being, especially with the Syrah, that we really want to get the grapes to express the African sun and also having an open canopy will help a lot in disease prevention in our organic system. We should still get about 6-8 tons/ha, which is optimal in terms of what we want to achieve in concentration at the end of the day. J-C had to go back to class for a week (yes, we had put our faith in an unqualified student!!) but felt Bob and Michael could carry on with the pruning, and do a good job under Manie's watchful eyes. The pruning on the bottom Cab block was a bit harder as the vines seemed to be a bit more vigorous, which made for aching hands in the cold early mornings. Often they we were standing in frost until the sun showed it's face over the mountains just before 10.00am.
In order to cope with the vineyard intensive care program we brought in a new team of live out staff. They started with weeding, which was a constant theme, then replaced the few dead vines. The plan for pruning the new blocks was to cut the new cabernet back to two buds, the two big shiraz blocks and the Mourvedre will be cut back to kirrie (just the stem) and the Syrah block above the top dam will also be cut to two buds. J-C still found time to get out to Elgin with a friend who works there in the apple industry. There are quite a few interesting vineyards going up in the region at the moment he got a good insight into what's being planted where. It's mostly Sauvignon Blanc, and some Chardonnay and Pinot at the moment, but some guys are going with Cab, Merlot and even Syrah. The cellar was looking awesome too. The floors were all laid, so from now on it is pretty much just the finishing touches and tanks to do. J-C talked to the builder about the drains pointing out that they were going to be way too small, so he widened them. Lucky he noticed or he would have been cursing every night of every harvest! Blocked, or even slow drains are a total nuisance. Another issue was the doors of the tanks. They really should be fitted when the tanks are built so that the integrity of the tanks can maintained so it was decided that we should postpone the tank brickwork until the doors are fabricated and delivered.
We spent a while discussing presses and in the end felt that a fair sized basket press would be adequate for the cellar. It'll mean a bit more work during harvest, but have a beneficial effect on the quality of the wine (they have a nice soft action), and they cost much less than a balloon press. Even if it means hiring an extra hand to help with pressing, we felt it was be the best option. A basket press will suit the ambiance of the cellar too. Another feature of the cellar which had been finessed was the views. The views from the loos. We challenge anyone to find better. The gents was perfectly positioned under a window facing North East at the mountains. Of course if you sat down you wouldn't see anything, so the ladies was positioned side on and slightly back from another NE facing window so the fairer sex would have the same viewing opportunities. TMV ...nothing if not an equal opportunity venture.
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