True or false: The substance that makes microwave popcorn buttery is the same as the one that makes Chardonnay buttery.

What do  you think? Too strange to be true? So strange that it has to be true?

Find out in our Wine Trivia Challenge!  Cheers!

Wine Trivia du Jour is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

More videos

Aging the Wine “Sur Lie” is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Did you know that the pressure inside a bottle of Traditional Method sparkling wine has been compared to the tire pressure on a double-decker bus?? Typically about 5-6 atmospheres or 60-90 pounds per square inch. Open that bottle with care!

Dying to know more about sparkling wine? Check out Sparkling Wine 101! Read or Listen

More Fun Facts

All of us at Goosecross wish you a happy and healthy 2010!

What Puts the Sparkle in Sparkling Wine? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

More videos

Goosecross: Pressing Cabernet Franc is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

More videos

Goosecross: What is Fermentation? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Spring

The vines came out of their winter sleep just about on time, in the third week of March, and we were off to a beautiful start. The weather was gorgeous – late March and early April brought us daytime temperatures in the 70s with lows in the 40s at night. The word frost was barely part of our vocabulary last spring, which was a delightful contrast to the spring of 2008. These mild conditions seemed to set the tone for the whole season – it was very comfortable for both the vines and the people!

By April, Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, began the usual shoot thinning, essentially correcting the pruning work he did in the winter. The winter pruning is an attempt to determine the number of shoots and clusters that will appear in the spring but, as Geoff says, the vines don’t read the textbook and some thinning is inevitable to prevent crowding and over-cropping. See our video of springtime shoot thinning

That initial thinning was just the beginning. The vines seemed to thrive on the mild growing conditions and between the beautiful weather and a good soaking of rain in early May they grew like gangbusters. Geoff couldn’t remember a season when he’s done so much shoot thinning.

It’s important to keep the vines balanced – carrying the right number of shoots and potential crop for the site and spacing – and also to keep the ratio of leafy growth to clusters in line. Otherwise we risk vegetal characteristics in the wine. The thinning also increases ventilation which helps keep mildew in check.

The vines flowered around middle of May, right on time again, and the weather continued to cooperate nicely. Too much heat can burn the flowers and heavy rain may knock them off, resulting in crop loss, or “shatter”. We lucked out and Geoff saw fairly uniform fruit set and nicely formed clusters.

When pollination is complete, it’s time to make cluster counts and this was the first indication that we’d have a nice, average-sized crop. Geoff did a little cluster thinning at that point to ensure good flavor intensity down the road – quantity and quality don’t necessarily go together in the world of wine.

Exceptionally mild weather continued through June and July, punctuated by a couple of heat waves. By the time the grapes here at the winery began to change color, the third week of July, many of the local growers reported being significantly behind schedule, most likely due to the cool conditions. An early or late harvest is neither good nor bad – it depends upon what happens between fruit set and harvest. The grapes need enough time to develop flavor maturity, which is why you hear talk of “hangtime” on the early years. On the late years we worry about running into rain.

Summer

The color change, when the grapes turn from green to yellow-green or purple, is such a significant event there’s a name for it: veraison (see video). It signals that the shoots have stopped growing and the vine’s energy has shifted into fruit ripening. At this point, Geoff did more shoot and leaf thinning. If there’s too much leafy growth, aside from encouraging vegetal character the grapes may get sweet faster than the flavors mature.

Veraison is also a good time to re-evaluate the crop load. Geoff walks the vineyard repeatedly to see if the clusters are coloring up nicely. Dropping unripe fruit on the ground isn’t something he likes to do, but if some of the clusters are lagging behind, they’ll add green, unripe flavor to the wine. So – off they come – it’s called a “green harvest” (see video). He also needs to make sure that the vines aren’t carrying more fruit than they can ripen with a high degree of flavor intensity – sometimes thinning is the answer.

Once the fruit is nicely colored up, it’s time to begin field sampling (see video), which is gathering grape samples for tasting and analysis (see video). Geoff knows the end point he wants to reach in terms of numbers and, more importantly, flavors for each variety and site. The sugar level or brix, is important because it determines the alcohol. The acidity gives the wine freshness and makes it food friendly. The pH is related to the health and stability of the wine. Flavor is the over-riding consideration, so he samples with increasing frequency until he finally decides it’s time to harvest!

When the numbers fall nicely into place at the same time the flavors are at peak it’s called a good year! Most winemakers will tell you that the most important decision they make on an annual basis is when to pick each section of grapes because that’s their best chance to make beautifully balanced wine that’s packed with flavor.

Harvest

The sparkling wine producers began bringing in their Pinot Noir and Chardonnay the third week of August. A few Sauvignon Blanc vineyards came in about that time, too.

The Chenin Blanc was the first to arrive on our crush pad, over Labor Day weekend, nearly two weeks later than the start date for 2008 (see video of crushing). Surprisingly, the Estate Merlot was ready on the 7th. We think of Merlot as a mid-season variety. Perhaps it was because of the light crop in that part of the vineyard. The very sparse crop from Howell Mountain was next and we were off to the races!

September was the warmest month of the season, by far. If you check our harvest calendar, you’ll see that the fruit was coming in fast and furious at the end of September and the beginning of October. It meant very long hours for Geoff and his crew.

As local growers and winemakers began to talk about the vintage the most common themes were good flavor maturity at relatively low brix (sugar levels) – that’s no surprise given the cool weather – and very good news in terms of balance. Most winemakers seemed to agree that the reds had excellent color – a good indicator for flavor intensity. Opinions were all over the board regarding yields, so it appeared to be a question of location. The yields in our home vineyard, here in Yountville, were quite good while the crop up at Howell Mountain resembled that of 2008 – very sparse.

The upside of the rapid-fire pace is that Geoff and his fatigued crush crew could begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel. The advantage we didn’t anticipate was that almost all of our grapes were harvested in advance of a major, winter-style rainstorm on October 13th. We measured over three inches in 24 hours here in Yountville!

A little sprinkle doesn’t much matter but this kind of rain is a real worry – it brings down the sugar and can cause dilution and rot!

The good news for local growers was that Cabernet Sauvignon was the main grape still hanging. It’s fairly rot resistant, thanks to its thick skin and loose cluster formation. After rain we pray for wind to dry things out and with Cab, there’s a good chance it will all turn out fine. Many growers and winemakers thinned leaves to improve ventilation.

The only variety we had yet to harvest, at that point, was the Carneros Syrah – fortunately another tough-skinned grape. Geoff gave it a few days hoping things would dry out and, with some trepidation, went down to check things out. Much to his relief, it looked clean and the sugar was on a par with 2008. With more rain predicted in another few days he went ahead and brought it in the next day at 24% sugar – just about perfect – and the color was remarkably deep! It turned out to be a good call because we got another good soaking the next day. And, so ended the Goosecross harvest on October 18th.

For the Napa Valley as a whole, a number of growers had grapes out until the end of October but, with more rain predicted for the first week of November, there was a rush to finish harvesting by Halloween. There was some warm, windy weather along the way, which is ideal for drying things out and bringing up the sugar. But, the linchpin for any review of the 2009 harvest will center on what was harvest before, vs. after, the rainstorm.

Our first releases from the 2009 vintage will be the fruity whites: Sauvignon Blanc, Viognier and Chenin Blanc. They’re best when they’re young and we’ll bottle them in December, anticipating a springtime release.

After a beautiful growing season of mild, sunny days and cool, foggy nights, we were reminded not to count our chickens before they’re hatched! Geoff is grateful to have escaped the rain-related challenges, for the most part, and pleased with the flavor concentration and excellent balance of the 2009 vintage as he moves into getting the new wines barrelled up and blended. Now, on to 2010!

Goosecross: 2009 Vintage Recap is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

We continue with winemaking at Goosecross Cellars in the Napa Valley, two minutes at at time. The “cap” has risen, we’ve added the yeast, and now it’s time to begin “pump overs”. The cap refers to the layer of skins that rise to the top during red-wine fermentation. Enjoy!

More videos

Goosecross: Pumping Over the Cap is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Goosecross: Starting the Fermentation is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

There are so many ways to look at blending wine – blending the varieties, different vineyards, locations, and barrel lots – it goes on and on. In this episode, Winemakers Geoff Gorsuch and Jeff Booth talk about the endless possibilities with Nancy Hawks Miller, our Director of Education.

NVWR® 92 – Wine Blending: When and Why? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Why do wines have sulfites in them?

The simple answer is that they’re a naturally occurring by-product of the fermentation. But that’s not the whole answer. World wide, most wineries add sulfur dioxide (SO2) during winemaking as a preservative, as has been done for centuries. It’s an anti-oxidant and anti-bacterial agent. It keeps the color bright, fruit flavors fresh and prevents spoilage. The best wineries add very small amounts. There are stronger preservatives we may legally add, such as potassium sorbate, but most producers find that they interfere with aroma and flavor.

Wines bottled with no added sulfites are often quite attractive at the time of release, but tend to have a short shelf-life because the amount of active SO2 produced during fermentation may not be adequate to protect the wine, plus the active sulfur diminishes with time. Most often, as a result, the flavors fade and the wine loses its freshness and begins to brown. This means the wine is less reliably good, and aging it will more likely lead to spoilage than added complexity.

Are sulfites harmful?

Sulfites from any source, food or wine, are harmful to about .25% of the population. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which keeps track of reported sulfite reactions in the U.S., listed just 1,097 such cases between 1985 and 1995. However, those reactions can be extremely serious and sulfite-sensitive individuals know that they must avoid wine, fruit juice, sausages and many processed foods.

Although the threat is small, since 1987 the FDA has required that all wines containing more than 10 parts per million of sulfites must bear a warning label. Since wine fermentation naturally produces between 5 and 20 parts per million, the 10 parts per million threshold is exceeded in virtually every wine produced in the USA and abroad. Wines made in the U.S. are permitted to contain as much as 350 parts per million, a level unlikely to occur, as it would be offensive. Some processed foods, in contrast, contain over 1,000 parts per million, because food laws are more lenient.

Only American wineries use sulfites, right?

There’s a common perception that sulfur additions are a modern American technique. Actually, the use of sulfites to preserve wine dates back more than 2,000 years, to when the Romans used sulfur as a method of sealing their barrels and jugs. 15th century German wine laws decreed that sulfur candles be burned inside barrels before filling them with wine, and by the 18th century sulfur candles were regularly used to sterilize barrels in Bordeaux. The sulfur dioxide left on the container would dissolve into the wine, becoming the preservative we call sulfites. Even then, they were clever enough to realize that the sulfur addition improved wine quality. Sulfites have been used to preserve food since the 17th century in Europe and in the U.S. since the early 1800’s.

Why can’t you make good wine without them?

We’re trying, but so far, we’re just not technically sophisticated enough. Due to increased sanitation in modern winemaking, the average sulfite levels in wine are much lower than in the past, and current, more restrictive laws reflect that. Typically Goosecross wines measure about 30 parts per million at bottling time, extremely low levels, so unless you’re one of the .25% of the population, enjoy our wine in good health.

Sulfites and Wine is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

The real fun and art of winemaking lies in the endless variables that come up along the way. Where and how to plant? When to harvest? How to handle the grapes at the winery? What kind of yeast to add? What kind of fermentation vessel should we use? Which barrels to buy? It goes on and on.

We’re going to focus on the choices that Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, makes along the way to produce Goosecross Chardonnay every year.

Planting A Vineyard

Geoff will tell you that the wine can only be as good as the grapes that make it. There is no way to make a wonderful wine out of mediocre grapes, no matter how skilled the producer. Geoff’s goal is to get his hands on the best possible fruit and then to conserve the beauty of the fruit through attentive, but not intrusive, winemaking.

In our case, as a small, family winery, the winemaker is also the vineyard manager. Geoff is hands-on from the planting of the vines, every step of the way, until the wine is bottled.

You’ve heard the old real estate saw: “location, location, location.” Well, it truly applies in growing grapes for wine. Getting the right variety in the right location is 90% of the battle. We grow our Estate Chardonnay in the coolest region of Napa Valley, known as the Carneros Region. This is an ideal location for Chardonnay, where the grapes ripen slowly in the persistent morning fog, and cool evening breezes. The resulting prolonged “hangtime,” literally means that the Chardonnay has enough time on the vine to develop completely mature flavors and to delight us with a little tropical character. The soil is typical of Carneros, in that there is clay, but it is interspersed with some gravel and sand, improving drainage.

Before planting a vineyard like this, we bring in experts to take soil samples from various parts of the property, and also to measure the specific mesoclimate¹ throughout the vineyard. With this information, we can make good decisions about selecting the optimal clone² and root-stock hybrid³ for the site, and also set up the best spacing and row orientation for eventual wine quality.

For this site, we selected the low-vigor, SO4 rootstock in order to keep the yields down and flavors concentrated. A vertical trellis system⁴ in this location, running east-west, allows for plenty of light exposure to heighten fruitiness with very little risk of sunburn.

With these choices made, we lay out the posts, stakes and wires for the trellis. We dug the holes, planted and trained the vines and attached the trellis wires by hand. A drip irrigation system completes the installation.

From planting the rootstock or benchgrafts⁵, it is 3-4 years to the first small crop. We think of the vineyard as mature when it is 6 or 7 years old, and hope that it will be with us for decades.

A Year In The Vineyard

Once the vineyard is established, keeping the vines healthy is a year-round project. Surprisingly, the weather experienced in winter can have an influence on the timing, quantity and quality of the harvest to follow.

Winter

Grapevines are like roses in many respects. They drop all of their leaves and go dormant in the winter. This rest is very important to vineyard health and performance in the following season. Like roses, the vines require severe winter pruning to determine how many shoots and clusters will appear in the spring. Almost all of the growth from the previous season is pruned off, so that the vines will bear a small, intensely flavored crop.

If we have a long, cold winter, the vines “sleep in”, and come out of dormancy late. If the winter is mild, they’re likely to wake up (we call it “bud break”) early. Bud break is usually in the middle of March, but we’d much rather that it be late than early. Early bud break means the increased risk of frost damage. A beautiful, clear day in the late winter/early spring can turn into a freezing, cold night. The newly exposed, tender buds will be damaged if the temperature drops below 32° F. The risk lasts through mid-May. This can lead to many nights of poor sleep for growers all over the valley. Geoff and Rosario, his assistant, may have to get up in the middle of the night several times during these months, to protect the vines from frost using wind machines⁶ and smudge pots⁷. The upside of early bud-break is that it can translate into an early harvest and reduces our risk of rain damage on the other end. It all depends on the weather that follows.

Spring

Early spring is a period we call “great growth” in the vineyard, because the new shoots grow like gang-busters. We sometimes imagine we can see them grow! This great growth creates a lot of work, including weed cultivation, suckering⁸ and thinning. The suckering is done by hand, and is like a post-pruning. We dormant-prune with the idea that we’ll get certain results, but inevitably, the vines do as they please, and require more of our attention. Once the shoots are a few inches long, Geoff can begin walking the vine rows to make sure they’re developing well, and also to look for signs of disease or nutrient deficiencies. This continues throughout the growing season.

The buds flower and form clusters around mid-May. We are fortunate that the flowers are self-pollinating, so we don’t have to worry about bees or wind. We only worry about the weather. Too much rain or excess heat can impair pollination and lead to crop loss (also called “shatter”). Again, we are fortunate because, normally, we don’t see rain for several months after the end of April. The weather is blessedly boring and predictable most years, and generally leads to good “fruit set.”⁹ Once the crop is set, we count the clusters. Of course, there’s nothing we can do about too few, but if we count more clusters than we anticipate the vines can ripen well, we drop the excess on the ground right then and there.

Summer

When the grapes first form, regardless of the variety, they look like tiny green beads. They’re not recommended for tasting at that point because they’re highly acidic. They plump and develop amazingly quickly. Usually, by mid-July, they’re full size, and the dark varieties begin to soften and change color (we call this veraison). White varieties like Chardonnay go through a much more subtle color change, going from a bright, spring green to more of a yellow-green as they soften.

During this time, Geoff continues to walk the vineyard to make sure it’s healthy, and he monitors the leaf canopy and clusters to see if we need to do further shoot, leaf or crop thinning.

Irrigation may be necessary a few times during the long, dry season, but Geoff prefers to keep it to the minimum. Too much irrigation or fertilization may take away from flavor intensity. He can test the vines in different parts of the vineyard to see if they’re becoming water-stressed and respond accordingly.

Late Summer and Harvest

Veraison is the signal that the grapes are beginning to get sweet, and the acid is decreasing. It means it’s time to begin “field sampling.” Geoff and Rosario take samples from all over the vineyard to monitor the sugar, acid and pH. Repeated monitoring of these numbers over the weeks gives them a ballpark idea of when the vineyard will be ready for harvest. Geoff makes the final decision to harvest by tasting. The most important thing is for the flavors to be fully developed. He bites right into the seed to make sure it’s crunchy and mature. If the seeds are still green, they can impart some very bitter tannins to the wine. He takes a good look at the vineyard. Vineyards have a certain look when they’re finished for the season. If the shoots are still growing vigorously, it’s not a good sign. The wine may have some “green” character that we don’t find attractive if the vineyard’s not ready to wind down for the year. That greenness and general lack of character and body are the risks of picking too soon.

Once the vineyard is ready, we’ve got to be quick! The sugar changes a little every day, and if the weather’s hot, it goes up frighteningly quickly. If we wait too long we risk high-alcohol wine with raisiny or pruney character.

We pick everything by hand. Our goal is to deliver grapes as perfectly ripe as nature allows, free of leaves, raisins or mold. This is a lot to ask, so each year we hire the same well-trained men who are paid above the industry standard to be selective. Again, the wine can’t be any better than the grapes that make it! The crew begins as soon as it’s light enough to see, and finishes around lunch-time, getting themselves and the grapes in, before it gets too hot.

Unfortunately, fresh grapes don’t improve with age, and it’s important to get them to the winery as quickly as possible once they’re picked. The commute from the vineyard to the winery is about 20 minutes.

The Crush

You’d think that Geoff has enough to do just taking care of the vineyards, but he also has to get the winery ready before the first box of grapes arrives. He and Rosario sanitize all of the equipment, and make sure it’s in good working order. They re-sanitize long empty fermentation tanks and barrels to be sure they are immaculately clean. “Dirty wineries make funky wine!” (un-attributed quote).

When the grapes arrive, they feed them into the Crusher/Stemmer. As the name implies, the grapes are separated from their stems and broken open. The term “crushing” can be misleading, because it sounds violent. In fact, the grapes are broken open by very soft, rubber rollers. Rough handling in the beginning will be repaid with bitter flavors later! The crushed and de-stemmed grapes (called “must”), are transferred to the press. We have named our press Lucy, affectionately, for Lucille Ball. She was pressing the old fashioned way in that hilarious episode! The press is like a large strainer. After the must is placed in the press, gentle pressure is applied and the juice flows off, leaving the skins and seeds behind, trapped by a screen.

Fermentation

About half of the juice goes into temperature controlled, stainless steel tanks, and the other half into 60 gallon French oak barrels. It isn’t necessary to do this in two parts, but we find the resulting style very appealing. The juice in the stainless steel tank ferments at low temperatures, and makes Chardonnay that is highly aromatic, and intensely fruity. The juice that ferments in the barrel produces wine that’s a little richer and fuller. Later, Geoff blends the tank and barrel fermented wines together for a beautiful balance of freshness and richness in the finished wine.

After transferring the juice to the tank or barrel, Geoff adds a proprietary yeast strain. The yeast consumes the sugar in the juice, converting it to heat, CO2 and alcohol. This is a completely natural process that has been going on since the beginning of time. When all of the sugar is used up, we say the wine is dry, and the fermentation is over. This may take around 3 weeks.

Aging

When the fermentation is complete, the wine that was fermented in tanks is transferred to aging barrels. The wine that was fermented in barrels, stays there to age “sur lie,” which means aging it on the yeast and grape solids that have settled. The sur lie aging will give the Chardonnay a greater richness and a fuller mouth feel. Geoff stirs the lees up into the aging wine in each barrel at least weekly to accentuate the effect.

Our signature style for Chardonnay here at Goosecross Cellars is always very fruit-forward, with bright acidity. To accomplish this, aside from the two fermentation techniques described above, Geoff prevents the Chardonnay from undergoing malo-lactic fermentation¹⁰, and the wine stays in the barrels for about four-to-six months. He tastes the wine as it ages in the barrel looking for maturation and integration. He wants these qualities to come through without picking up too much oak flavor along the way. The oak should complement the grape flavors and not mask the beautiful fruit character he worked so hard for out in the vineyard. Geoff always says he likes the grapes to “brag about themselves” in the bottle.

When he has decided that the Chardonnay has had the right amount of barrel time, Geoff begins blending the different barrel lots together and returns the wine to stainless steel tanks for final clarification and bottling.

Finishing The Wine

The wine self-clarifies to a degree as it ages, but it’s rarely clear enough to bottle at the end of barrel aging. In the process of removing the wine from barrels, Geoff is careful to see that the cloudy solids that have settled to the bottom of the barrel are left behind. This is called racking. He racks the wine a few more times before it’s finally filtered and bottled.

Bottling is a nerve racking event that takes place only a few times a year here at Goosecross. The act of moving the wine from a large container to a small bottle affords many opportunities to expose the wine to air. If the wine picks up too much oxygen during bottling, it can undo all of the hard work that’s been done, leaving us with a wine that has a short shelf-life, and perhaps less character. The bottles are filled with inert nitrogen gas before and after filling with wine, to displace the oxygen. Periodic random samples are pulled from the bottling line for analysis, to be sure that healthy wine reaches your hands.

The newly bottled wine looks very tempting, but several weeks must be allowed for it to recover from “bottle shock,” a period of dullness or even off-character that follows bottling. Geoff usually decides to allow more time for it to benefit from some additional bottle aging before we can finally release it to you.

The joy of wine making is in working with nature, and relying on our instincts and experience to create “Bottled Poetry.”¹¹ It’s a long road, but after all of the thought, work and care that went in to taking it from the vine to the bottle, the ultimate reward is knowing that the fruit of our efforts is being enjoyed by you, with your family and friends.

Footnotes:

1. Mesoclimate: The climate of a vineyard site, hillside or valley. The term “microclimate” is used in its place extremely often. Microclimate correctly refers to the climate immediately surrounding the individual vine canopy (or green growth) and clusters. Vineyard and canopy management will strongly influence the microclimate, but not the mesoclimate. The mesoclimate belongs to Mother Nature.
2. Clone: A clone is a sub-variety within a grape variety, such as Chardonnay, that has been replicated because of specific attributes such as flavor, productivity and adaptability to growing conditions
3. Rootstock hybrid: Vines of European origin, called vitis vinifera, cannot be grown on their own roots, due to lack of resistance to certain soil pests. They are grafted onto various rootstock hybrids that are resistant to the pests. Additionally, the hybrids are chosen for other beneficial traits, such as low or high vigor, drought resistance, etc.
4. Vertical trellis system (also called vertical shoot positioning): The vines are trained in such a way that the shoots grow vertically. As they grow longer, the shoots are tucked into trellis wires above them to maintain the vertical direction, providing maximum light exposure to the leaf surface.
5. Bench-grafts: Purchased grafts of the varietal and rootstock hybrid that are grafted by a professional nursery. The alternative is to graft in the field, called “field-budding.” Planting bench-grafts often gets a vineyard into production sooner than field-budding by hand.
6. Wind machines: Wind machines are powerful fans placed in the vineyard for frost protection. They mix warmer air above, with the colder air settling on the vineyard to prevent damage.
7. Smudge pots: Also called “vineyard heaters,” smudge pots look like stove pipes surrounding the vineyard and burn diesel fuel or oil to warm the vines.
8. Suckering: Removing unwanted young shoots to keep the vine and crop in balance.
9. Fruit set (also called cluster set): The overall formation of the grape cluster following flowering. Normal clusters will be fully formed, with very few “shot berries” (missing grapes) and uniform grape size, depending on the variety or clone.
10. Malo-lactic fermentation: Malo-lactic fermentation converts tart malic acid to soft lactic acid, effectively lowering the total acidity of the wine. Virtually all red wines under-go this “secondary fermentation.” For Chardonnay, the diacetyl produced by the Malo-lactic fermentation, makes the wine smell buttery, and gives it a little more weight.
11. Bottled Poetry: Robert Louis Stevenson described the wines of Napa Valley as “bottled poetry” back in the late 1800s, when he lived here briefly.

How We Make Our Estate Chardonnay is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Wine in Ancient Times

Like most good things in life, we’re pretty sure that wine was discovered by mistake. Wine residue has been found in containers that date back over 7,000 years, so that’s the official beginning. But, since yeast is everywhere like bacteria, no doubt someone at some very ancient time set aside a little grape juice as a treat for later and soon found they had something much more interesting all together!

The species that makes the world’s wine today, vitis vinifera, is thought to be native to the area south of the Black Sea, in what is now Georgia and Armenia, and eventually traveled west. There’s evidence that vitis vinifera was not only growing, but actively cultivated, in Tuscany before the Romans overtook the Etruscans in the 4th century BC and had been growing wild for centuries prior! Imagine what the wine must have tasted like then! Apparently, it was common to add herbs and spices to make it more palatable. Of course, Europe takes the credit for making these varieties famous. But, things really didn’t start to happen in Europe until the ancient Romans began classifying grape varieties and studying their characteristics in order to increase yields and improve quality.

Wine Comes to the Americas

Wine production spread throughout Europe, surviving many physical and political upheavals over the centuries, thanks mainly to the church. Finally, around 1500, wine made its way to Mexico and Argentina for the first time. Hernando Cortez was the first to successfully establish European wine grapes in what is now Mexico. There was little confidence that his venture would succeed because earlier attempts to grow them along the Gulf Coast of North America had been disastrous – a foreshadowing of our phylloxera problems. But, the vines did so well in Mexico, where there was no phylloxera, that by 1595 the King of Spain decreed that new plantings and re-plantings were strictly forbidden, for fear of competition to his export market. The restriction was enforced for 150 years, putting any potential for commercial production on hiatus.

As in Europe, thanks to the church, some of the wine plantings survived and the California wine industry was concentrated in southern California, known as Alta California, in the early days. It gradually made its way north as more and more missions dotted their way up our coastline. It seems that the padres always brought the vines along with them. Father Junipero Serra was responsible for planting the first California vineyard in San Diego in 1769. Many think of him as the first true father of California wine.

Apparently, his planting was limited to what we know as the Mission grape, presumably brought over from Spain, a bland variety that’s fallen out of use. From what little is written, it made very poor dry table wine and passable brandy. Its best incarnation seemed to be as a fortified wine, somewhat like Madeira, which they called Angelica. European immigrants began bringing in better varieties in the 1800s and so Mission began to fade away except for the brandy and Angelica.

The Industry Moves North

When Mexico gained independence from Spain in the early 1800s it began secularizing the mission system and it set off a huge land grab. The lands were supposed to go to the Indians but in reality ended up going to friends, military associates, blood relatives and in-laws of the future General, Mariano Vallejo. He was the military commandant for Alta California, in charge of the distribution and managed to keep the huge Rancho Petaluma for himself. One of his associates was George C. Yount, a very important figure in Napa Valley’s history. Yount came out here from North Carolina in 1831 and assisted General Vallejo in a number of ways. His reward was a grant of 12,000 acres called the Caymus Rancho here in the Napa Valley. Amazingly, it covered the area starting just south of what is now the town of Yountville and went all the way up to about a mile south of St. Helena, about 18 square miles. Yount was essentially the first non-native settler in the Napa Valley and planted the first vineyard here around 1838.

It took the US annexation of Alta California in 1847 and, even more importantly, the gold rush to shift the California wine epicenter from the south to the north. Jancis Robinson contends that the fact that the immigrants and 49ers were all men explains the increased demand for alcohol!

While all this was going on, a Hungarian man named Agoston Haraszthy arrived in California and bought a vineyard in Sonoma. He founded the Buena Vista winery in 1856, which still exists today. He was a very colorful character, who has also been called the father of California wine. His name seems to be the one we think of first when it comes to California wine history, but his importance tends to be exaggerated. He was credited as being the first to bring better varieties to the area and the first to introduce Zinfandel, neither of which is true. But, he did make a couple of very significant contributions. In 1861, he returned to Europe and sent back thousands of vine cuttings in an effort to advance quality. He was acting as a member of the state commission on viticulture and his treatise, Grape Culture, Wines, and Wine-Making brought the first national attention to California as a wine producing state.

California was vigorously approaching its first wine boom at about the same time phylloxera began devastating vines in Europe, around 1870, which actually helped to fuel the industry here. As vines died all over Europe new vineyards and wineries grew like topsy all over the north coast, Livermore and Santa Clara. At its peak for the century, California had about 800 wineries. Fine wines were made mainly in the northern coastal areas and most of the large-scale production took place, as it does today, in the massive San Joaquin Valley.

The state of California encouraged this because wine was viewed as one of our more distinctive products and, as the gold rush seemed to be giving way to a vine rush, they even granted a four-year tax exemption for all new vineyards plantings. There were over 300 wine varieties here by then and, with the exception of Zinfandel which was the most planted wine variety in the state, the grapes that ruled the day are almost unknown now: Chasselas, Burger and Mission. The crowning glory came in the form of 36 medals and 4 honorable mentions for American wines, the great majority coming from California, at the 1900 Paris Exposition.

Prohibition

As the song says, apparently things were “too hot, not to cool down”. The industry took 2 huge blows around 1890. One was over-planting, which drove prices down below costs, and the other was our first brush with phylloxera, the devastating vine louse. Because we were able to benefit from the European’s experience with it, replanting and recovery came about relatively quickly. By the turn of the century prosperity returned, but didn’t last long, as states began to go dry, one-by-one, in anticipation of prohibition. The 18th amendment, called the Volstead Act, took effect in January of 1920.

We can thank the very busy and enterprising bootleggers and home winemakers of those prohibition years for the survival of many of the vineyards. In fact, most of the credit goes to the home winemakers because the bootleggers were primarily focused on stronger stuff. The law allowed us to produce 200 gallons of wine per household each year, adding up to about 3 bottles a day, which just might do! Of course most of the wine grapes were replaced by other crops but, according wine-historian Charles Sullivan, Americans legally drank at least 4 billion bottles of homemade wine during those 13 years. Quantities of California grapes were shipped all over the nation to these diligent home winemakers. In addition, an astounding quantity of wine seemed to be needed for medicinal and sacramental purposes. Some wineries managed to survive by obtaining the permits necessary to make those wines but, even so, production dropped 94% from 1919 to 1925. By 1933 the industry was in ruins and the best varieties had been grafted over to varieties that traveled better, but made mediocre wine.

Of course, repeal was accompanied by the great depression, which didn’t bode well for a quick recovery. And though it was considered a national repeal, it really went state-by-state, much as our current labyrinth of wine-shipping laws does today. Three states, Kansas, Oklahoma and Mississippi, remained dry for quite some time and 17 others established their own monopolies by operating state stores. These state operators didn’t appear to be interested in making a sale with their limited selection and poor merchandising. To this day you can still find dry counties in some states.

A Slow Recovery

The proliferation of inferior varieties did nothing to help jumpstart the industry. In 1933 less than 100 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon, and virtually no Chardonnay were planted in California. Plus production, for the most part, was shoddy and quick, in fact, some wineries sold the wine that had been sitting in their warehouses all those prohibition years. Tasty stuff, no doubt! At that time, in most cases wine was shipped in bulk and bottled at big bottling plants back east or at the individual shops and restaurants.

The expression “wino” was coined during those early days after repeal because fortified dessert wines, such as port or sherry, were taxed at the wine rate, which was a fraction of the distilled spirits tax. So, at 20% alcohol, these wines provided a very cheap drunk. That, and the fact that the table wines didn’t taste good, added to a lingering sense that drinking wasn’t quite proper, meant most households stayed away from wine completely. In 1919, table wine accounted for three of every four gallons shipped. After repeal, these cheap dessert wines took their place. It wasn’t until the beginning of the second wine boom, around 1970, that table wines finally regained their status as the most popular wine category.

Of course, throughout this time, there were a few wineries that were focused on quality, and Eleanor Roosevelt began serving the finest of the American wines in the White House immediately upon the death of the 18th amendment.

We can’t talk about the success of California, or American wine without mentioning Frank Schoonmaker, perhaps America’s first wine writer. He began a wine importing business just after repeal and added the best California wines to his inventory as early as 1939. One thing he couldn’t agree with, as a broker, was using European regional names like Burgundy, Rhine wine and Chablis for American wine. They’d been used before prohibition and he became the catalyst for naming wines by the variety in America. He was so influential that it didn’t take long for the varietal label to be equated with quality and high prices, even though those generic names persisted for decades in common use and are still around a little even today.

Post World War II Years

But, it took World War Two to really start turning things around. For one thing, there were fewer tank cars available to ship the wine in bulk, so bottling at the winery became very common, increasing quality. Plus, there was incentive for more producers to shift to higher quality because there was virtually no competition from France, Spain or Italy during those years. Those few households in the US who enjoyed fine wine began to look for a quality domestic product. The producers who responded to the demand found that they could raise the price along with the quality. The post-war years seemed to be full of promise but, to see that promise made good, had to wait until about 1960. Even then California still had only about 600 acres of Cabernet Sauvignon.

The renewed availability of European wines and statewide overproduction caused grape prices to collapse in 1947. During those seemingly dormant years there was a great deal of research being done at university level. In fact, according to Leon Adams, the knowledge of grape and wine chemistry advanced more in the decades following World War Two than it had in the past 2000 years. The University of California at Davis became a magnet to aspiring winemakers from all over the world as the leading institution of viticultural and enological research. The American Society of Enologists and Viticulturists was established in 1950 and continues to attract international membership with its annual technical conferences and quarterly journal.

Thanks to the war and to the increased ease of travel, changes were taking place in American taste. Many young people returned home from the war with a taste for wine and, as more Americans visited Europe, the demand for good quality, dry table wine finally began to outstrip that of the fortified wines. By the mid-50s American per capita wine consumption had risen from almost zero at repeal to just under a gallon. By 1972, it was up to 1.5 gallons, three times the rate before prohibition.

The Second Wine Boom

As more high-quality wines started coming out of California, they were put to the test in competitions. The most important one, by far, was the one they call the Judgment of Paris in 1976. Two wines from the Napa Valley, the Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet and the Chateau Montelena Chardonnay, bested their French equivalents in a blind tasting among top professionals by ranking first. It was a humiliating moment for the French producers and there were cries of foul play. But, it was a revelation to many and cemented Napa Valley wines as world class in the minds of even more consumers, which was beneficial to all of California. Incidentally, a re-match was held in the summer of 2006 and California came out even better by taking all of the top five spots. In the original tasting California took two of the top 5 rankings.

The 70s up to about the mid-80s was a time of great growth, our second boom, especially in Napa and Sonoma. As Americans traveled more, their tastes in food and wine became more sophisticated which helped support the astounding number of new wineries that were established during those years. As the land in Napa and Sonoma became more sought after, it also became more expensive which helped to spread the growth southward to Monterey, Santa Barbara and more.

Somewhat of a damper came down in the mid-80s in the form of what’s been called a neo-prohibitionist movement. It succeeded in increasing wine taxes and requiring health warnings on labels and in establishments that serve alcoholic beverages, among other things. Plus, we had a re-visitation of phylloxera. This second epidemic was a huge financial hit to the industry, as over 60% of the vines in Napa and Sonoma had to be replanted, but in its way also helped to move quality forward at a quickened pace. So much about viticulture had been learned in a very short time and the necessary replanting forced us to put what we’d learned into practice sooner than we would have otherwise.

Recovery came quickly, thanks in no small part to the dot-com boom of the 90s and, as the coastal regions became more expensive, the Sierra Foothills began to come on strong, allocating generous amounts of their resources to research. The wealth of the time allowed for ongoing private and public research to increase throughout the state most importantly in viticulture, but also in enology. As we gradually gain an understanding of our own terroir there has been a steady movement in fine wine toward identifying the wine with a specific place, with sub-regional appellations and vineyard designates.

Some interesting benchmarks, courtesy of Jancis Robinson:

Cabernet acreage:
1933: about 100 acres of Cabernet in the state of California.
1960: The Cabernet acreage had grown to about 600 acres.
1991: 30,000 acres of Cabernet planted
2000: over 75,000 acres of Cabernet planted in California.

Sales:
1990: ¾ of our wine sales came from wines priced at under $3.00 a bottle.
2007: Wines under $3.00/bottle make up less than 13% of sales.
2007: 2 of every 3 bottles of wine sold in the US are from California

The New Millennium

Today, there are somewhere between 1800 and 2400 wineries in the state, depending upon how you measure it. Our ever-expanding export statistics will continue to grow, providing we do our marketing homework as competition from other states, and of course other parts of the world, grows.

In the new century, one of the most compelling topics has been direct shipping. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to support interstate wine shipments directly from wineries to consumers. But, it’s not as simple or clear-cut as it sounds. It’s a beginning in easing shipping regulations and, as we speak, virtually every winery in the country is trying to figure out what they have to do to start selling a greater percentage of their production directly to you.

Another hot topic has been bottle closures, which have everyone confused because plastic corks, screw caps and other closures became main stream, seemingly, overnight. It’s anyone’s guess as to how it will all turn out in the end. For more information on closures, click here.

The term globalization takes on multiple meanings as, beyond the obvious issue of competition, the ease of travel and rapid communication has led to what some call global flavors at the cost of individuality and terroir. Stay tuned on that subject.

So, there’s a lot to look forward to. We still think of ourselves as a young wine producing region, which is encouraging when it comes to quality. The greater our understanding of our soil and climate united with winemaking research can only make our wines, as good as they are today, better and better as we look toward the future.

California Wine History is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Reply: Hi, Karen! Thanks for writing!

Here’s a brief reply from our winemaker, Geoff Gorsuch: Depending on all the parameters, yeast, temperature, nutrients, and how the crush and pre-fermentation treatment is handled you should end up around 9-12% alcohol if fermentation is finished.” By finished, he means if you let the wine ferment dry rather than stopping it in order to retain some sweetness.

The most common conversion rate of sugar to alcohol is 50-60% and Geoff allowed for a little more than that. The choice of yeast is one of the biggest factors and late-model, “cleaned up” yeasts are playing a role in the whole “hang-time” discussion regarding the alcohol in the finished wine.

Here’s how Wikipedia explains fermentation. Hope that helps! Cheers!

Q: Conversion rate for fermentation? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Reply: Hi, Susan! Thanks for writing! I think your friend must have meant sulfites rather than nitrites. I’m pretty confident that nitrites aren’t a significant part of the wine picture (although they’re found in water, so…). They’re used to preserve hot dogs and salami and stuff like that. The sulfite question comes up pretty frequently.

It’s hard to blame her for thinking that French wine doesn’t have sulfites because, up to quite recently, only the US and Australia required the sulfite warning on the label. If you vacationed in Paris and drank French wine, a few years back, you wouldn’t have seen the warning. But, now you would (unless it’s an old vintage) and this applies to all the wine-producing countries in the European Union.

The law is very similar to the American one and enologists have determined that a bottle of French or California wine is likely to have around 80 parts per million. Any variation is more from brand to brand than country to country. Goosecross wine usually leaves here at around 30-35 ppm.

Sulfites, or sulfur, have been used to preserve wine for centuries. Even in Roman times it was used to help create a seal for the container. Without a little sulfur the wine loses its fruit and has a short shelf life. Fortunately, if the wine spoils it’s not harmful, but it’s not much fun to drink, either, which is why sulfur is still in use. Sulfites turn up in a lot of foods, too, especially dried fruit.

At this very moment, enologists are working to try to eliminate the need for sulfur. The success, so far, is by way of reducing it. Today’s wine has much lower sulfur levels than wine did as recently as 50 or 60 years ago.

This isn’t to say that you can’t buy wine that doesn’t have added sulfites. The “Organic Wine” designation prohibits sulfur additions to wine, as opposed to “organically grown”, which only refers to the farming (and even there, elemental sulfur application to the vines is permitted to keep mildew under control). The reason you don’t see very many “organic wines” is that they usually don’t taste very good. I should add that organic wine may still contain sulfites because they’re a by-product of the fermentation. The level, in that case, is extremely low.

As to the headaches, chemists keep telling us that sulfites don’t cause headaches, but statements like that can set off a maelstrom of heated opposition from those who believe otherwise. Your friend might try eating some brightly colored dried fruit to see if that causes a headache. If not, something other than sulfur is the cause. California wine is quite often higher in alcohol than French wine, due to climatic differences, so that’s the more likely culprit.

I hope that puts your debate to rest! May you and your friends enjoy wine, whatever its nationality, in good health! Cheers! Nancy

Q: Sulfites/California Wine/Headaches is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Related Content:

• NVWR® 61 – Winemaking 101
• Winemaking 101 Article

Did you enjoy this? Here are more Fun Facts from Goosecross Cellars.

How Long Does It Take To Make Wine? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

The great thing about barrels is that they let the wine evaporate, which causes the evolution we treasure.

The bad thing about barrels is they let the wine evaporate, which imperils it. Depending on the humidity in the cellar, up to 5% of the wine can be lost to evaporation each year – read $$$$ evaporating, literally, in front of your eyes. Kind of the cellar equivalent of cluster thinning. The loss is called the “angel’s share”.

Any head space, at the top of the barrel, exposes the wine to bacteria, which can make it smell and taste like “Martha’s Sox” instead of “Martha’s Vineyard”. Soooo sad. And quite unneccessary.

What to do? Add more wine. In fact, let a little wine spill over the top to make sure the barrel is absolutely full. In many cases, one barrel is “cannibalized” to top up the rest. The left-over wine goes into a demi-john for next time (topped up with inert gas).

How often? A good, but controversial, question. Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, tops up each of our approximately 220 barrels at least once a month, depending on the time of year and the barrel. For instance, new barrels can be very thirsty, so they may require more frequent topping at first.

It’s a thankless job, kind of like unloading the dishwasher, but there you have it. Stay tuned for the next spell-binding cellar activity! Cheers!

In the cellar today – Topping Barrels is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Winemakers, Geoff Gorsuch, Jeff Booth, and Bob Pepi discuss vineyard practices & their influence on quality. Their discussion includes influence of yields, hillside vs. valley-floor vineyards and deficit irrigation, among other topics.

NVWR® 77 – Vineyard Practices and Influence on Quality is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

NVWR® 75 – Make wine at home with WinePod is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

NVWR® 74 – 2008 Harvest Recap is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Winemakers: Jeff Booth, Geoff Gorsuch, Bob Pepi

NVWR® 72 – Do Old Vines Make Better Wine? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

So – if you can’t make it to Goosecross for a tour, let Nancy bring it to you as a brief description of winemaking from harvesting the grapes right through bottling. Cheers!

NVWR® 61 – Winemaking 101 is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

But, before we can talk about batonnage, we’d better talk about aging the wine “sur lie”.

If you read a basic winemaking text, it will usually advise you to get the wine off the dead yeast cells and grape solids (lees) after fermentation is over or risk making a stink! But, if you do a good job of pre-fermentation settling and racking (moving the wine off of the sediment) and ferment pretty juice (relatively speaking), then leaving the wine on the lees can be a real plus. When you read a back label that brags about “sur lie aging” that’s what they’re communicating.

The upside of sur lie aging? Added depth and complexity which, of course, sounds a little abstract. What we mean is that it can give the wine a richer mouthfeel (decreases astringency and increases body), and adds a toasty character almost like toasted grains. Geoff Gorsuch, our Winemaker, describes it as a protein milkshake character that he absolutely loves. It’s a great complement to the crisp pear, citrus and pineapple character of our Chardonnay.

The downside? If you’re not careful, the risk of making that stink becomes real, perhaps in the form of a delightful aroma of rotten eggs; it encourages malolacitc fermentation (ML – the technique that makes Chardonnay smell buttery). Some might call that a plus, but Geoff feels the ML interferes with our signature crisp, fruit-driven style. So, he has to be ever vigilant that the wine doesn’t undergo ML spontaneously.

So, what’s batonnage? But, of course, eet eez French, for stirring the lees with an instrument they call a baton (stick). So, the winemaker opens the barrel (or whatever sort of container) and goes in to stir up the lees now and then. In our case, Geoff just waits until the cloudy sediment appears to have settled again, which usually takes about a week, and then stirs it again.

The upside? It increases all the lovely effects of sur lie aging; helps keep the hydrogen sulfide (rotten egg aromas) at bay; the lees themselves serve as a buffer between the wine and the wood so that less tannin and pigment are extracted into the wine – and stirring enhances that effect, too; the wine seems fresher longer and is more stable.

The downside? It’s a royal pain in the tuckus, meaning it’s labor intensive. Today, Geoff and Rosario stirred 32 barrels and they’ll get to do it again in a few days or a week.

And, they’ll keep doing this until Geoff’s palate tells him he’s gained all the benefit he can from the technique, probably several months. Look for that Chardonnay to come out of barrels probably late next spring and, with any luck, we’ll be sipping away on the 2007 Chardonnay in a little over a year!

Let the Batonnage Begin! is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

I mention the bloggers because, like Jeff at Good Grape, I wonder how much influence blogs have. I took a quick look at the Winery Website Report to get an idea of how many wineries post a blog and, I must say, Goosecross is part of a very elite group. No doubt they’ve missed a few, but they reported that 51 wineries in their global database have a blog, a few in California, and the ones from Napa Valley can be counted on one hand with a finger or two missing. High profile, influential wineries are conspicuously absent from the list. If they don’t write them do they read them???

But I digress… Anyway, here’s a recap of the main gripes:

1. High alcohol wines are too overbearing and don’t go with food. I was lucky enough to ask Darrell Corti directly about his decision to stop carrying wines over 14.5% in a podcast interview (episode to be released 8/21) and he said he doesn’t consider them table wines. They’re too big for the food and they’re too tiring.

2. High alcohol wines all begin to taste the same and the sense of “terroir” is lost.

3. They’re too sweet.

And, here are the main reasons cited for the high alcohol (for a little background read previous post):

1. Longer hangtime: Winemakers are waiting longer to harvest in order to produce richer, rounder, extremely flavorful wines, AKA “fruitbombs”, and to avoid “green”, tannic character.

2. “Super yeasts”: Yeasts have been “cleaned up” over the last few decades and are more efficient converters of sugar to alcohol.

3. Healthier vines: The replanting during the phylloxera years has given us younger, healthier vines that are also more effective at converting sunlight to sugar.

4. Vertical shoot positioning (VSP): The above combined with the maximized sunlight exposure the vines get with VSP bumps up the sugar.

5. Powerful wine critics: This can’t really be separated from the first point. Winemakers go with extended hangtime because they’re more likely to be rewarded with high ratings by a handful of extremely influential wine critics.

Some blame global warming, but that seems a bit premature. See previous post for more on that.

So, with all of those factors conspiring together is a pendulum swing back toward lower alcohols a possibility, assuming that’s a good idea? Many see these factors as overwhelming, especially in a warm climate like Napa Valley, but Eric Asimov believes big, high-alcohol wines are a choice and I tend to agree. “…to suggest that it’s necessary in California rather than a stylistic decision on the part of the winemaker is plain wrong.”

I know I’ve cited this study ad nauseum (scroll down to get to the hangtime section), but it’s pertinent to this issue of the necessity of high sugars/alcohols to get full fruit maturity. In this study Ed Weber, the Napa County viticulture advisor for the University of California Cooperative Extension, noted that metabolized sugar increases seemed to stop at about 25-26 degrees brix and after that the sugar accumulation was due to simple dehydration. He also observed that a vineyard that tended to make vegetal wine at low sugars still made greenish wine at 26 degrees brix.

And, guess what? All those vines that we replanted in the 90s are getting older as we speak.

We don’t have to use “super yeasts”, or any yeast at all, if we decide it’s not smart.

VSP is great, but we can manage the vines in whatever manner we decide is the most advantageous – admittedly these changes would be slow, barring some kind of catastrophe. Bite your tongue!!! :-0

So how to predict the future? That’s the hard part. There’s this nebulous feeling that the pendulum just might be ready to swing back. Is it truly change that’s in the air? Or is it all just a bunch of hot air in the blogosphere?

“High alcohol wines have had their day.” says a grocery chain wine specialist. But, as Bob Pepi has said repeatedly, it’s possible to make balanced wine that’s 14.5% and I can’t argue with the countless delicious examples I’ve tasted to back his theory. But still… And what about those wines that are over 15%? Who knows? Hang on…

Whither Hangtime? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Reply: Hi, Caryll! Thanks for writing! I swiped this quote from The Winemaking Page: “Nothing about wine is more lasting – or astonishing – than fermentation.” Matt Kramer, Making Sense of Wine.

It’s true that most wild yeasts have a very low alcohol tolerance, often dying off at 5% or less. They say that if you collect grape samples from vines anywhere in the world and analyze the juice, you’d find numerous strains of yeast, some helpful, others not. That’s why we know wine was discovered by mistake.

It wasn’t until the 1800’s that we realized that yeast is responsible for fermentation and, since then, we’ve gotten better at isolating the helpful yeasts. These days most of the world’s wine and beer is fermented with a yeast species called saccharomyces cerevisiae. Quoting Jancis Robinson, it “evolved from ancestral yeast by a process of genome duplication, rearrangements and deletions, estimated to have occurred over the past 100 million years.” Within the species there are several hundred strains with differing characteristics. One of the species’ distinguishing characteristics is very good alcohol tolerance and, as you pointed out, that becomes important when the alcohols start to creep up as they have in recent years.

You can see on this page that, depending upon which yeast the winemaker purchases, there is more or less alcohol tolerance depending upon which yeast strain is selected. Some of these yeasts tolerate upwards of 15% alcohol as a matter of routine.

Winemakers select yeast first for practical considerations, such as lack of off-flavor, heat or cold tolerance, performing well in a barrel vs. a tank, settling nicely when the fermentation is over and, of course, alcohol tolerance. But the science has advanced to the point that certain yeasts are chosen for contributing to flavor or accentuating certain varietal characteristics.

“Wild” or “native” fermentation, in which no yeast is added, is usually a mix of yeasts that inevitably include saccharomyces cerevisiae if wine has been made on the site before. It works its way into the vineyard and becomes part of the winery and is, most likely, the yeast that ultimately gets the job done.

Your husband’s idea that the wine can’t be higher than 14.9% may have something to do with wine tax laws. We’re certainly allowed to produce high-alcohol wines, but when we go over 14% we are taxed as if we made a fortified wine, to which the alcohol is added, and our $1.07 per gallon federal tax goes up to $1.57.

I hope that helps settle your family debate. For everything and more that you might want to learn about yeast, grab a glass of wine and try going to this page.

Cheers! Nancy

Q: How High can the Alcohol Get? is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.

Especially for our listeners, we are pleased to offer a 10% discount on all Goosecross wines (with free shipping for case purchases). Please call us toll-free at (800) 276-9210 and mention code: PC 42 (that’s Papa, Charlie 42).

NVWR® 42 – Wine By-Products is a post from Goosecross Cellars. Copyright © 2010 Goosecross Cellars, All Rights Reserved.