In this day and age of marketing and spin, it is difficult to know what is real and what is contrived or exaggeration.  These days, the proliferation of wine labels is daunting as well.  This has occurred not only because many new wineries have been created over the years, but also because large corporate wineries have offered new “small” labels of their own to take advantage of the consumer’s desire to purchase “artisan” wines. 

Now, I have nothing against large wineries or, for that matter, large production wines. Afterall, wineries such as Gallo and Kendall-Jackson have all introduced a lot of people to wine, and that is great for the industry.  These wines are most often affordable and I think drinking wine in general is good for people’s health no matter where it comes from or how much it costs.  But what I don’t like is the smoke and mirrors, romance and roses method of marketing and selling a possibly inauthentic “artisan” wine to unsuspecting winedrinkers who are looking for a unique, handmade product.

The poor word “artisan” has taken such a beating in my view—the term is now used so loosely (for instance:  I just heard Carl’s Jr. is using “artisan” breads in new sandwich items??).  I have toured many, many wineries of various shapes and sizes over the years and have worked in a variety of wineries in differing capacities as well.  I’ve also talked with lots of winemakers.  So, without being specific about certain wineries (I wouldn’t want it to seem as though I am unfairly criticizing any winery here because that is not my intent), I would like to elucidate what artisan probably means in a large winery and what artisan means to me and many other small winery winemakers.

Large winery:  These facilities can be huge.  Hundreds or even thousands of truckloads of grapes are processed every year(each truck can hold about 20-22 tons grapes at a time), and during harvest at a large winery one will often see trucks parked in long lines in the hot sun waiting to dump their loads.  Much of this fruit is harvested by machine, and machine harvested fruit means that not only the fruit, but everything else in or around the vine is harvested as well:  snakes, mice, birds and bird’s nests, sprinkler heads, irrigation pipe, tomato worms, etc., etc.  (I could go on and on and mention unmentionables that I’ve either seen or heard about, but you get the picture).  This fruit is then processed, moved around by powerful pumps or screw conveyors, and sent to holding or fermentation tanks that can be 10,000, 20,000 or even 50,000 or 100,000 gallons in capacity.  All in all, these wineries are built to move extremely large volumes of grapes, juice and wine through the system.  Oh, and to be fair, I should mention that although all of that MOG (Material Other than Grapes) I mentioned earlier tends to come in with those grape shipments, wines at these facilities are usually sterile filtered in the end, so don’t worry about getting mouse hair or bird feathers in your wine bottle…....

The “artisan” wines made in large facilities may or may not be made differently from the “less-special”, large-volume wines.  These wines might be made from grapes of a certain part of a vineyard, they might be wines in barrel identified as interesting or unique, or they might not be a whole lot different from other wines the winery produces, they just have a different label.

Winemakers in these facilities tend to be what I call “administrative” winemakers (I say this with much respect—I have many friends who work in these positions, by the way— and also out of experience because at one time I was one of them).  These winemakers tend to sit at their desks and write work orders.  The lab does the analysis for them and gets samples they need.  Sometimes these winemakers go out into vineyards, other times they rely on the vineyard managers to tell them when to harvest.  Grape contracts are made by grape buyers in the company or are grown by the winery, so winemakers make wine with what grapes are given to them.  They may or may not use barrels to age the wine (much wine is “microoxgenated” in stainless steel tanks with “barrel alternatives”, for instance).  The culture of a large facility may even look down upon a winemaker who wants to be physically involved in the wine production process.  Afterall, a winemaker who is driving a forklift or doing a pumpover might be taking someone else’s job duties in the overall hierarchy of the company.

So, a “small” production or “artisan” wine that comes from a large facility may or may not have experienced any “hands-on” treatment, as these words connotate.

Small Winery: 

To give you an idea of what I mean by small, I will use tons of grapes as a measurement.  Last year, for instance, Cima Collina processed 60 tons of hand-picked wine grapes.  Other small wineries are bigger than this or smaller, but we aren’t talking thousands of tons here.  Most small wineries sort fruit by hand and eye (so, pulling out anything rotted, unripe, any leaves, the occasional plastic vine tie), move grapes, juice, or wine around as gently and as little as possible with equipment designed specifically for gently, small winery use.  They might also use small tanks or bins (bins can be 1/2-ton, 3/4-ton, maybe tanks are 1-5 tons in capacity).  In the spirit of being straightforward, yes, some bugs do come in with the grapes—earwigs and yellowjackets mostly. We try to get them out as best we can, but some do go into the tanks with the grapes. 

As for the winemaking, I have folks who are in the cellar doing the work, but I pull my weight and do the wine work just as much.  White wines, for instance, I do myself.  I load the presses, I press the juice, I barrel the juice down, inoculate it, etc. etc.  For reds, I sort grapes, do punchdowns, drain tanks, shovel skins.  I get my own samples and do my own lab analysis, but what I have discovered is that the lab analysis I do now is very minimal compared to other jobs I have worked.  I attribute this to working so closely with the wines and can understand more often than not what is going on with a wine without needing a number to tell me.

I could go on and on and bore you with the details, but you get the idea.  Suffice it to say that small wineries pay more attention to detail because they can, they were made to do just that, and very often the winemaker is in the middle of it making sure nothing falls through the cracks.  That is what artisan means to me and other small winemakers and wineries around the world.

Where does “artisan” rate on your scale of authenticity?

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