Wine Drinkers Thirsty for Change
Watching the intelligent, in so many ways perfectly capable culture of wine grow and evolve is an exercise in (im)patient frustration, akin to watching a fat, grinning baby try to pick up a Cheerio and successfully put it in their gabbering mouth for the first time.
It seems so simple. The steps seem so obvious. And yet.
While winemakers, members of the wine media, retailers and sommeliers hold conferences, conduct surveys and issue edicts designed to decipher the mystery of Gen Z – and, to a lesser degree, Millennials’ studied lack of interest in wine – the answer seems as old as time.
To be fair, the consternation has merit. Wine culture has managed to grow sales for roughly 8000 years unencumbered by youth’s disdain, and inevitably luring the youngsters down to the cellar. But that steady onward march has hit a wobble. And while the reams of research that instruct wineries and their adjacent industries and gatekeepers to embrace sustainability, diversity, alternative containers, rare grapes, and more make excellent points, there’s also, increasingly undeniable desire for something new.
Like the British Invasion of the 1960s, or the explosion of hiphop in the 1990s, something radically different – but ultimately recognizable – is finally emerging in the wine space.
Vintners who are making wine in truly unusual or new ways, without falling into the trendy tropes that have come to define progressive, young-gun winemaking, are finding new audiences among new and experienced wine lovers. But also without doing weird things just to be weird.
“We don’t want to experiment just to be esoteric,” says Matt Dees, of the experiments he and his colleagues do at The Hilt Estate and JONATA in California’s Sta. Rita Hills, often for in-house consumption. “Our purpose is always to explore different ways of thinking about flavor and authenticity, and of thinking about the ways climate change is impacting how grapes grow, and what is possible and appropriate for our climate here now and 10 years from now.”
Rethinking vintage
When considering the quality, ageability and potential collectibility of a wine, the first question a buyer likely asks: is it a good year, or a bad year? Wine collectors and casual geeks love to hold forth on vintage ratings across the globe, believing earnestly that vintage determines long-term quality, even in the best terroirs, with the most valuable grapes, crafted by the most skilled hands.
But winemakers, in recent years, have pushed back on that truism, and say their results mixing vintages are often more compelling, and ultimately enjoyable, than the established norm, in subtle and sometimes more overt ways.
Early Mountain winemaker Maya Hood has found that creating a “perpetual lees” system at her Madison, Virginia winery, in the spirit of solera systems in Sherry or reserve wines in NV Champagne, adds aromatic depth, autolytic flavor and new layers of complexity.
“I kept an ambient fermented barrel of Petit Manseng from the 2017 vintage, removed the 2017 wine off the lees, while keeping them in barrel, and put the 2018 juice directly on the 2017 lees,” Hood explains, adding that the initial experiment demonstrated “very different kinetics and displayed such dynamic aromatic and textual attributes”, they increased the program in size, including subsequent vintages in the blend.
Hood says not every grape would be suitable for this kind of treatment. Because Petit Manseng is high in acid and sugar, and has a low pH, it naturally exhibits greater microbial stability than other grapes.
At the organic and biodynamic producer Alois Lageder in Alto Adige, pushing limits is not new. Well before high-elevation farming was an accepted solution to climate change, they began planting vineyards ever higher (up to 3000 feet), and cultivating hot climate grape varieties unheard of previously in cool northern Italy, like Roussanne, Marsanne, Viognier and Assyrtiko. Determined to go beyond even considerations of farming feasibility and regional grape conventions, the team conceived of an entire line dedicated to innovation and experimentation. Dubbed Comets, the line is produced with a eye toward experimentation, hoping that by using novel blending and fermentation techniques, indigenous and lesser-known grapes, and reconsidering approaches to climate change mitigation in the cellar, the team will learn something and produce a wine that engages new and established wine enthusiasts.
“Clemens [Lageder] created Comets as a way to experiment and innovate, and explore the limits of winemaking so we can learn how far we can push them,” explains chief enologist Jo Pfisterer. “Since launching the line in 2015, it has become a classic, and now it sells out because it makes wine lovers curious, and it helps them connect with our wines on an emotional level.”
One release, dubbed Tik, is comprised of two “opposite” vintages of Assyrtiko.
“2021 was a cool year with late ripening and low pH value, and 2022 was a warm year with low acidity,” he says.
The finished wine was, he explains, an exciting tapestry of opposite years, providing a full picture of the grape’s potential in the region.
Dees and others in California are also finding that painting a full portrait of a grape, or a region, can often be done with more nuance across multiple vintages.
“We are passionate about classic Port, and we realized that we grow magnificent grapes like Petite Sirah and Syrah that were capable of creating a Port-style expression of our region here,” Dees says. “We started our Port project in 2018, and we have a solera system too. The results have been magnificent, and we plan on releasing some of these bottles in the next year or so.”
At Lichen Estate in the Anderson Valley, winegrower Douglas Stewart is finding that the solera multi-vintage technique adds elements of “age and mystery” to Pinot Noir.
“We put three-quarters of the new vintage on top of our prior blend, which we started in 2012,” Stewart says. “People loved it so much, we did it again.”
On its 12th multi-vintage, this 150-cases Pinot sells out on futures before it’s even released.
Expanding terroir
When considering a wine’s potential quality at a glance, terroir is almost as important as vintage. Or so says centuries of carefully guarded tradition. But the team at Pangaea is flipping that notion on its head.
“Pangaea was inspired by curiosity and the desire to create something new in the wine world and challenge convention,” says founder Travis Braithwaite. “It was also to challenge myself and to follow my passion and what I believe to be a new chapter for winemaking without borders.”
In a nod to the Bordeaux-style blend, with a global twist, Braithwaite set out to find grapes from around the world that have best adapted to their terroirs, and see what a blend tastes like.
Braithwaite works with master blender and winemaking legend Michel Rolland to create a Bordeaux-style blend from five countries on four continents, with consulting winemakers in each region. Depending on the vintage, the blend varies.
While Cabernet Sauvignon sourced from Napa generally dominates, in 2018 the conditions in Mendoza were such that Malbec featured prominently in the final blend that year. Other grapes and terroirs include Merlot from Bordeaux, Cabernet Franc from Helderberg in South Africa and Petit Verdot from Vino de Pago in Spain.
Perhaps surprisingly considering its unconventionality in an industry so rooted in tradition, Braithwaite says that collectors are especially eager to get their hands on bottles, especially after Lisa Perotti-Brown, MW, gave it 100 points in the Wine Independent. The response has been enthusiastic enough to allow them to scale up from 3000 to 8000 bottles between 2015 and today.
Bringing in the ocean
A wine region’s terroir is often defined by its distance from the ocean. Some winemakers are taking that influence to the next level.
Australia’s Margaret River is the traditional land of the First Nations Wadandi people, which translates to “saltwater people”, explains Nicolas Peterkin, winemaker at L.A.S. Vino. The Indian Ocean surrounds the wine region, with ocean breezes regulating the temperature during the growing season, and contributing mightily to the evolution of the soil.
The presence of salinity is often acknowledged when critics taste wines from the region, and Peterkin hoped to double down on that by using ocean water to produce a Vermentino, which in and of itself is a grape variety often associated with salinity.
“We constantly have to challenge the status quo if we want to move the industry forward,” he says, acknowledging that soaking grapes in ocean water isn’t the first thing one might consider, but that pushing boundaries in a variety of ways is necessary to progress and keep wine lovers engaged. “The aim is further knowledge. So if it works or doesn’t, it’s still worth doing.”
Peterkin says that he was also compelled to explore the potential that salt and salt water have in the preservation of food and drinks, both as an antioxidant and an antimicrobial agent, and wondered if saltwater could preserve the wine enough to preclude the need for sulfur additions, which certain groups of people have adverse reactions to (or for often misguided reasons, avoid.)
Peterkin’s method of doubling down on the ocean’s influence without actually adding it to the wine went like this: two tons of Vermentino bunches were chilled for five hours in four 1-ton bins in March of 2022. Two bins were taken to Gracetown beach at sunset and filled with ocean water. All four bins were chilled for 48 hours; after 41 hours, the ocean water was drained from the Vermentino. Each bin was measured: the Vermentino soaked in ocean water was 1 percent heavier.
Other differences post-pressing: the juice from grapes in ocean water was vibrant and green, whereas the other was brown and oxidized. The ocean-juice was also notably brinier in taste. After further tests, the team determined that the ocean water did not affect primary or secondary fermentation, but did result in more salinic wines. In the final blend, 30% was from sea-water immersed Vermentino.
The biggest surprise for Peterkin was in the reception it received.
“I thought it was a very risky idea and didn’t actually think that people would purchase it,” he recalls. “But we sold out within a week. For about a year it was the number one Vermentino produced in Australia.”
Unexpected additions
Wine is just supposed to be grapes, yeast, sulfites.
And while there are thousands of industrial-style producers sprinkling in any number of (legal) “materials for clarifying, stabilizing, preserving, fermenting and correcting wine” they definitely aren’t going to brag about on Instagram, there are a handful of others excitedly manipulating their fermented grape juice with unexpected, but not alarming materials and results.
At New Zealand’s Loveblock Wine, winemaker Erica Crawford began using green tea tannin in place of sulfites in Loveblock Sauvignon Blanc Tee. Crawford says that while she opted to add green tea tannin to produce a sulfite-free wine for the growing audience of consumers interested in sulfite-free products, in the end, she was inspired by her curiosity about how it would affect the texture and flavor.
“We are only interested in flavor and textural expression, and we wanted to see what happened to the wine in the absence of added S02,” Crawford says, adding that they decided to experiment with Sauvignon Blanc because they know it so intimately and can spot minute changes as it moves from harvest to bottle.
Green tea tannin is indicated for use with botrytized grapes, because it blocks the laccase from being activated which prevents oxidation. Crawford rolled the dice, figuring it would have the same effect throughout the winemaking process, so any time the wine was exposed to oxygen, it received a dose of green tea tannin. She toyed with a few other natural tannins, including rooibos, honeybush, fermented honeybush teas and grape tannins, but determined that the tannin extracted from green tea performed better in terms of flavor and texture, and had the extra benefit of not adding color.
While she says that consumers “love” the wine, and it has flown out the door, the bureaucratic challenges have been daunting.
“The EU/UK, NZ/AUS and IFOAM [international network of organic stakeholders] countries cleared it immediately, as tannin is an approved wine additive,” Crawford says. “The US TTB took a bit longer with a lot of to-ing and fro-ing, but after six months it got cleared. Ontario was a nightmare.”
Amber Ochata, co-founder of Ochata Barrels, says that she introduced unexpected elements to reflect the spirit of the winery and her family for one release dubbed Botanicals of the Basket Range.
“I grew up in the Adelaide Hills with parents who love to garden and who created a gorgeous 27-acre property in the hills,” Ochata says. “I learned so much from them and a huge appreciation of flowers from my mum, which happily my children now share.”
She and her partner Taras Ochata spent years planting herbs and flower gardens, vegetables and fruit trees. In tribute to her heritage and the terroir they’ve immersed themselves in, they blend grapes (this year, it was Gewürztraminer, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Gamay), and submerge a handpicked blend of their garden-grown herbs, flowers, fruits and leaves into the blend via a tea bag-style cloth as the grapes ferment.
“The children and I collect herbs, flowers and citrus peels from gardens which surround our house and winery,” Ochata says. “We smell, taste and chat as we harvest. Usually the cats, ducks, chickens, dog and sometimes the alpacas are with us. The gardens are ever-evolving so every year the harvest is different. More florals one year, more citrus or wooded herbs the next.”
Ochata tastes the botanical-infused wine until it’s where she wants it to be, barrel it up and bottle it five months later.
The wine, first released in 2014, has acquired a cult following from high-end restaurants and casual enthusiasts who, Ochata says, “buy it in packs” upon release.
Dees, who makes a cornucopia of experimental wines just for in-house consumption – including an in-house cider, an in-house beer, and a mango and Sauvignon Blanc co-ferment crafted to settle an argument over whether or not their Sauvy B truly tasted like mango – believes the market is primed for nuance.
“The world is opening up to less rigid styles,” Dees says. “People’s tastes are always changing, and while there will always be a market for classic expressions, it never hurts to have a different dialect with which to communicate with the consumer.”
Source: https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2024/12/wine-drinkers-thirsty-for-change