I am on the hot seat this week for Pamela Heiligenthal’s forum called Vino Exchange at Enobytes.com.

It will be a free form, multi-topic discussion where I take questions on any subject. I’ll field questions on wine technology from my usual shy perspective. I’ll also discuss my recent decision to license out the Vinovation service business and devote myself to characterizing and chronicling for Appellation America all 307 U.S. and Canadian appellations. Thus we will be able to discuss what regional diversity I’m encountering and the factors that cause wines to express themselves differently in different regions.

Readers should feel free to log on and observe or contribute. Come help make it interesting!

Now that I have sold off the high tech service business, I get to have true fun tasting through and characterizing the AVAs of North America for AppellationAmerica.com, my new day job. I recently worked closely with the folks at PS I Love You and in particular with Petite Sirah guru Robert Brittan to tease out the true nature of this awesome New World varietal. I recommend my two articles, one characterizing the varietal's diversity, and the other speculating on its sources. Please check them out.

I apologize to those of you bored backwards out of your underpants with the previous technical discussion. Lest you imagine I spend all of my time on such technical matters, please check out my recent posts at Appellation America concerning Petite Sirah. There are two articles -- one popular, outlining the regional diversity we encountered in our tastings, and one more theoretical which speculates on the sources of regional diversity in the grape, and I believe offers useful framing of that discussion for other varietals.

Clark,

I recently attended a seminar by UC Davis professor Dr. Andrew Waterhouse who was giving updates of various research projects at the university. Are you aware of the Tannin Assay that has been recently developed? I had posed a question to him about the assay that wasn't answered to my satisfaction so I thought I would direct it to you. (Let me preface by stating that I am just a lowly MW student, so my understanding of the subject is surely more limited than that of a trained winemaker)

I had asked him if the assay, which is protein based, would quantify the total tannins or just the astringency of tannins. He said there was no distinction between the two, tannins = astringency. Based on much of what I've read about bookending tannins, micro-ox, etc. this seemed hard for me to believe.

To add to the debate, just this morning on Jancis Robinson's member forum I was reading an account that Dr. Boulton was lecturing in Spain and made the statement that there is not such a thing as “ripe or green tannin”; research shows that what we call ripe or unripe tannin is just amount of tannins.

Can you weigh in from your perspective?

Dear Adam:

Well, I certainly disagree with both of these learned men. Jeez, don't get me started.

Continue reading "The confusion at UC Davis concerning tannins" »

An announcement from the normally level-headed Australian Wine Research Institute regarding research into the selection of yeast strains which could less efficiently convert sugar to ethanol, thus allowing fuller grape maturity with less oppressive alcohol. A nice idea, but I'm afraid not practical.

As I mentioned in Some Like It Hot, yeast strains can’t change the conversion ratio of sugar to alcohol, at least not very much. The six carbon atoms in a sugar molecule have to go somewhere. Two atoms end up as carbon dioxide. The other four go to ethyl alcohol plus miniscule amounts of other flavors like glycerol and to the growth of the yeasts themselves. To change alcohol by 1 percent would mean 10 grams per liter of some other carbon material – an enormous amount which would render the wine undrinkable.

Here's a winemaking brainteaser question I get asked a lot this time of year:

Hey Clark,
Could you check my math on making some port?
I have 4.63 tons of Petite Sirah, ~810 gals

It came in at 28.5 Brix
Hi-Proof = 84.5% Alc

Target Port Alc = 18.50 - 18.75
Target Residual Sugar 8 - 10%

Add ______ gals of Hi-Proof at ______ Brix

Preliminary calcs gave me 114 gals at 13.5 brix ??

Dan

Continue reading "Port Calculations" »

Clark:
I am one of the owners of a winery in Paso Robles, and we are planning a wine and live music pairing at our tasting room in October. We are family run and many of the members of our family have been in the music business in one way or another for many years (I am a composer myself). Our tasting room is centered around music, with lots of memorabilia, and a built in stage for live performances by jazz acts as well as the "Family Band" - a 6 piece group made up entirely of our family members.

We have a lot of fun at our tasting room and thought it would be great to do a wine and music pairing on a big festival weekend in town. We will have people sit and we will pour each of our wines one by one, and the family band will perform a different live piece of music to pair with the wine (they will also get some paired appetizers as well). Because we have no scientific basis on the choice of our songs we will be approaching the event with an air of fun and experimentation as opposed to doctrine, but we'd love to learn more about the topic.

Continue reading "Live Wine & Music Pairing" »

My assistant winemaker Petar Kirilov, a Bulgarian oenologist who I've had the pleasure to work with for two years now, has just put up vinoenology.com, a terrific site which facilitates, among other things, winemaking calculations vital to do swiftly and accurately during crush. This was a lot of work for Petar to set up, and I consider him a real hero to make this available to the winemaking world. Wines and Vines just published a great article concerning the site.

I think the site might be interesting to anyone who wants to take a peek at the real live winemaking process as opposed to papparazzi fairytales.

This being harvest season, I thought I'd share a typical consulting conversation. I taught for 24 years a class at the UC Davis Extension called "Fundamentals of Wine Chemistry," and this is a former student's question which encapsulates many nuances of must correction principles which may be of interest to commercial winemakers and home enthusiasts, and may offer for general readership a glimpse into real life winemaking.

Continue reading "Pre-Fermentation Acid Addition -- Unusual Case" »

A friend asked me to summarize what's meant by this term. Since winelovers are a lot more familiar with oxidation, I could simply say that to chemists, reduction is its opposite. Reductive strength is just a synonym for anti-oxidative power.

But this didn't register much. So I said that when you buy roses at the florist, if you're five years old you buy the most open, beautiful ones, but if you are older and wiser, you buy them when they've just begun to open or even totally closed, if you want them to last the longest. You weigh the joy of the initial presentation against the shelf life.

Continue reading "What is Reduction?" »

Readers may discount today's blog as self-promoting filthy commerce. So shoot me. The point of posting it here is to illuminate the way the market for artisanal wines has become seriously screwed up at all price levels.

Dear Clark: I really enjoyed your CheapSkate 2003 Cabernet Franc, but I can’t get my local retailer to re-order it. I know I can buy it off your website, but doesn’t shipping cost defeat the whole idea of CheapSkate? – Tom from Santa Rosa

Dear Tom: You would think so. But in today’s crazy wine world, the net is actually hands down the best place to find rare wines and for bargains. Don’t get me wrong. You can’t beat the benefits of a personal relationship with a knowledgeable local retailer who can recommend products tailored to your personal taste and budget. But if you’re looking for a specific wine, your chance of finding it on the local shelves is less than 1%.

Continue reading "Why Buying Wine on the Internet Makes Sense" »

I just finished a typical blending exercise in which a disturbing question came up yet again. Sell the sizzle or the steak? We were looking at two blends for WineSmith Cabernet Franc, a flagship wine for which we are well known. Although we have always made it from 100% Alexander Valley fruit, I have insisted we label it as California. The reason is that escalating real estate prices are driving grape prices for Sonoma County fruit through the ceiling, and I have feared that one fine day we'll need to look elsewhere for affordable fruit. Sure enough, in 2007 we started working with a Lake County grower, Diamond Ridge, which grows spectacular Cab Franc for half the price of our priciest Sonoma grower.

So here’s the ridiculous conversation that went on, identical to what goes on in most every winery all the time. On the one hand, we could blend all our Sonoma and Lake County wines together, resulting in 400 cases of a spectacularly delicious blend that's 38.5% Lake County (thus entitled only to a California or North Coast appellation) at a price that would make it possible for restaurants to pour by the glass. OR we can blend away half our beautiful Lake County wine into some other program and end up with 325 cases of an inferior, more expensive wine with no prospect to be sold by the glass BUT at 24.9% Lake County we can use the holy Sonoma County appellation, thus making it much easier to sell.

Continue reading "Blending for Quality or Pandering?" »

The panel discussion at the Portland Indie Wine Festival panel discussion on Natural Wine in the Age of Technology held fascinating lessons for me in the disconnect between consumers and winemakers. Our hope was to arrive at a definition, perhaps even a Certification Mark, for Natural Wine. If a list of winemaking practices is commercially practical (unlike Organic Certification), many winery players will choose to participate. I argue in Natural Wine: Choosing Your Priorities that several consumer groups with different agendas are rallying under the Natural Wine flag. Careful thought is needed to determine the mountains everybody wants to die on.

Continue reading "Yeast Inoculation – Threat or Menace?" »

My posting at AppellationAmerca.com on Natural Wine: Choosing Your Priorities is resulting in new visitors to this site looking for additional information.

This blog consists of pieces on various wine technology topics. These are sorted into Categories: Postmodern Winemaking, Natural Winemaking, Terroir, Alcohol Adjustment, Social Responsibility, and so forth. The Search function will bring up titles discussing your keyword: sulfites, micro-oxygenation, chips, allergens, fining, and reverse osmosis are rich in content. I also recommend the GrapeCraft Glossary or the calendar wheel which ties all the concepts of postmodern winemaking together.

Last Friday I was privileged to participate in a tasting of Amador Zinfandels at Appellation America. It's a fascinating process, more geared at understanding the distinctiveness of what's happening in an appellation (both terroir and historical marketing influences) than just handing out medals (They do this, too.) This is one of the few tools wineries can use for longterm promotion rather than just moving the vintage on the shelves, and I hope AA will see submittals of the best regional wines, sold out or no.

Anywho, even I, who have been generally disdainful of appellation identity in California am forced to admit that if there is anywhere deserving of a local identity tantamount to, say, Roquefort cheese, it is Amador Zinfandel.

Continue reading "Appellation Distinctiveness = Market Suicide?" »