This post is in response to Bill’s comments to my post “Pinot for Everyone Else, Part II”, below:

• caveman Says:
  April 6th, 2006 at 6:45 pm e
• 
  

  “Annette,
  Nice to see some winemakers denoucing the use of Mega P. While i can understand the need for ‘tweaking’ wines for acidity or chapitalizing (ma nature doesn’t always co-operate like she should), but what is behind the mega P additive. It is simply cosmetic? Is is they don’t want the tannin and tehy don’t do the full press to extract the color. I have drunk many a burgundy that was as clear as Rosé but had as much if not more amplitude than most of this dark , foreboding Pinots. I have become a bit obssessed with the additive -manipulation question. Where do you stand on acidification, reverse osmosis and the like? Where do you draw the line?
  Bill”

  Hi Caveman Bill,
  Thanks for your comment.  First of all to make sure everyone understands this term, chapitalization (adding sugar to winegrapes before or during fermentation) is not done here in California, but is done in Burgundy depending upon the season.  As for tartaric acid:  I have to use tartaric acid (a natural acid found in high amounts almost exclusively in grapes) in California to make decent wine, and I don’t know of any winemaker in California who doesn’t.  It is just simply a necessary part of making wine here. 

  Over the years, in some of the wineries I have worked in, I have experimented with using oak tannins, grape tannins, oak chips, color extracting enzymes, blending varietals together to achieve a certain effect, etc.  Throughout all of this I have come to this point in my winemaking philosophy—keep it as simple as I can, but use some limited, modern winemaking tools when I think a certain lot of grapes require them.  So:  I add tartaric acid to grapes as a matter of course, depending upon the grapes and their acidity level. I use a minimal amount of commerically available enzymes (these are naturally occuring enzymes that help to break down the cell walls of the grapes) because I like the texture on the palate that I get from the use of these.  I use commercial yeast because I like the clean flavors and aromas that they produce.  I add nutrients at a very minimal level (these include vitamins, minerals and nitrogen components for yeast growth).  Sometimes, I use fining agents (egg white, gelatin, bentonite), most of the time I don’t.  I don’t blend different varietals together unless they are part of our “Hilltop Red” blend, and those blend components are stated on the label.  I use sulfur dioxide (“sulfites”) in wine.  A finished wine might have anywhere from 50-125ppm of sulfites depending upon the wine and how long it was barrel aged (in my opinion at this point in our evolution, it is amost impossible to make palatable wine without the use of sulfites).

  It is interesting that you mention reverse osmosis (this is a technology that can be used to remove volatile acidity or alcohol from a wine) because I had to struggle in 2004 with a decision regarding whether to use it or not.  2004 presented us with heat spikes and as a result was that we had to deal with being short on hands to pick the grapes because everyone was picking at once.  We somehow managed to escape overripe flavors, but did not escape high alcohols.  So, I thought we would have to use reverse osmosis to make a balanced Pinot, and I even went so far as to get a distilled spirits permits so that we could do the “RO” here.  But, at some point along the way, I decided to let the Pinots be however they are and not to mess with them and the comment we hear most often is that the wines are very balanced.  So:  I have decided never to use RO in my wines because in the end I want to manipulate them as little as possible.

  Every winemaker has hundreds of decisions to make for every wine in the cellar year after year.  Some of these decisions are:  How do I get my wines to ferment without any problems? (stuck fermentations are not fun and can often lead to wine with off flavors and aromas or worse)  How do I make a wine that will sell in the current marketplace?  What is my own winemaking philosophy?  How do I make a wine that is microbiologically sound and stable as well as being palatable and enjoyable?  How do I get the most aromas/flavors/texture and the best balance from these grapes?

  Technology presents us with a host of answers to these questions and every winemaker has to constantly reassess their own philosophy as new products are developed.  Also, the simple fact that we are making and selling wine in the United States creates a certain winemaking mindset.  The “Marketplace”, whether a winemaker is concious of it or not, deeply influences winemaking these days in the US.  Simply put, a winemaker has to make wines that people will, at the very least, buy, and more hopefully, will hold in high esteem.  So if a winemaker is not making wines that are successful, then in the end they probably won’t have a job (winemakers get fired all the time if they don’t get 90 points in the Spectator).  So, why not use Mega-whatever or do this or that if it helps to get a better score?......

   There are many facets to the issue beyond just wine color.  What it comes down to is this: if you were a winemaker, what would you do?  Where would you draw the line?  On the other side of it, as wine drinkers, where should we draw the line?

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