The Inestimable Value of the Opinions of the “Casual” Wine Drinker
My wife Jennifer and I share a bottle of wine every night with our dinners. I often bring home my new acquisitions so that I can scrawl some tasting notes that I will later turn into the more polished reviews that appear on The Wine Library web site. And while Jen does not TASTE nearly as many wines as I do in the course of my work day, she absolutely DOES DRINK as many wines as I do. In most cases, she really enjoys the bottles I select (please ignore the relentless aesthetic browbeating behind the curtain… 
But, there are always a few instances that she doesn’t really dig what’s in her glass, and in many of these cases, I do recognize that this or that particular wine is indeed a very challenging or controversial bottling – a wine that will always produce wildly contrasting opinions, but these reactions are somewhat predictable in their unpredictability – these are not the instances to which I’m referring.
The concept that I’m citing is what I’ll call the “Is it good”? factor. Sometimes - maybe too many times - if ANALYZING wine is your business (and your passion), when digging for the subtleties and minutiae in a wine, one can sometimes miss what is SO OBVIOUS to a person that has no interest in wine criticism, and just likes, kinda likes, or absolutely doesn’t like this or that wine. Regular analysis can produce, over time, a certain oenological myopia – not seeing the vineyard for the vines if you will…
And this is precisely how Jen keeps me grounded. We still sometimes disagree about a given wine, but that is perfectly normal. No, what she is invaluable in doing is helping me to pull my nose out of the glass (and the experience that I’ve gained in having done this sort of thing for a while), step out from behind the “test bench”, and just put on a tee shirt or a pair of wedge-heeled strappy sandals – uh, well, you know what I mean – and just ask myself “Is it good”? Sometimes the answer is “no” but what is ALWAYS good is having a Jennifer to keep this “Is it good” factor in the front of one’s perhaps overly analytical mind. But clearly what’s FAR more important than having the critical grounding is just having a Jennifer to share the time (and the Bourgeuil and the pork chops with prunes too!) with. Jen is not for sale or rent in case you were going to inquire…
TOM CIOCCO
How Important is a Winemaker’s Palate?
Recently I was having a little wine-oriented fat chewing session with my colleague Jaime Traba, and he brought up a little tidbit that he had read on a wine message board. The gist of the exchange in the thread was centered on “super-tasters” or those folks that are deemed to have extraordinarily sensitive palates – those that can quickly, articulately, accurately and consistently assess a wine’s grape variety, production methods, strengths, weaknesses, etc. And just to be clear, we both agreed that these ‘super-tasters’ need not be wine professionals or critics but also experienced amateurs as well.
And then “The Winemaker” got thrown into the de-stemmer and the idea immediately intrigued us and led us to a couple of provocative questions that we thought might make a great Terroir topic piece. So here are the question(s): “Are all winemakers ‘super tasters’”? And the concomitant question: “Does being a GREAT winemaker REQUIRE a ‘super palate’? Now the facile answer to these questions would be a ringing “YES!” with the perfunctory accompanying eye roll, but what was interesting is that within this message board thread, a highly celebrated winemaker who happened to be participating in the dialogue was very clear about the fact that he unequivocally did NOT think that he possessed ‘super-palate’!
So what gives? Do you reject the premise? Is the very concept of the ‘super-palate’ in some way flawed or just too arbitrary to really mean much of anything? Is one person’s ‘super palate’ another’s ‘stupor palate’? How much of a role does experience and training play in the existence of the ‘super palate’? Is a great winemaker born or made, and if the answer is “both” can we identify just how much is nature and how much nurture? Let’s hear it!
TOM CIOCCO
“Reduction”? - Augment your understanding…
Grapes and wines are the heirs to a bevy of diseases, pests, and flaws. The identification of “corkiness” for example has become quite easy to for many wine drinkers, but other flaws in wine are a bit more difficult to identify in the glass, and perhaps even less well understood on the “theoretical” side. Here’s a look at one of these “classic” flaws in wine: reduction.
In order to not get sucked into too much technical language, the simplified definition of reduction is a wine that has been deprived of oxygen at the wrong time, and reduction can also be said to be the opposite of oxidation. Things that are “reduced” (in this case, wine) have gained the electrons from the things that have been oxidized within the same closed system. One reaction cannot happen with the same amount of the other happening on the other side of the “equation”.
Now the word “reduction” used in the sense of “reductive winemaking” is the current modern standard for making wines, and most contemporary quality-minded winemakers take full advantage of it. In employing this technique, towards the end of alcoholic fermentation on into the aging process, reduction is a most desireable state to cultivate. The presence of reduction in these stages of winemaking protects and preserves the acidity and fruit flavors that modern drinkers consider to be a baseline requirement in well made wines. Reduction protects wines from oxidation. Wines that have oxidized (unintentionally or intentionally - many old-styled wines are purposely made in an “oxidative” style - Sherry and Madeira for example are highly oxidized wines) often lack primary fruit flavors, and are often said to be “flat” in the mouth.
So why is reduction sometimes good and sometimes bad? Well, like so many things, its all a matter of degrees. Reduction is a good thing until there’s too much of it, and then it’s bad. Simple, right? Fundamentally what happens is the wine’s tannins become polymerized (small molecules combining to produce large strings or clumps of molecules) and when this transformation has occured, the conditions favorable for the formation of sulfer compounds like mercaptans (the smelly compounds added to natural gas by the way) and hydrogen sulfide gain ascendance. So essentially, too much reduction creates the conditions for the formation of these stinky compounds. The reduction reaction itself, especially at lower levels, is harmless and olfactorily undetectable.
So enough with the organic chemistry lessons. Let’s cut to the chase - What does the product of reduction smell like, and what can I do about it if I meet it in a dark alley? The descriptors utilized for the resulting smells vary quite widely, but the biggest “basket” into which most fall could be said to be “funky”. Specific aromas like rotting vegetation, a just-struck match, hardboiled eggs, sewage, and burnt rubber are the most commonly cited in specifically describing what the effects of reduction smell like in the glass. So what can be done about this? In some cases, absolutely nothing. In certain instances the level of polymerization is so high that the process cannot be reveresed with anything less than a BIG chemistry set. But in many less grave cases, all that is required is AIR - remember the relationship outlined above - when one compound is reduced, another is oxidized. The stinkiness that results in a wine is the product of the wrong things being reduced and oxidized, and your job to to set things right again. In many cases, reductive smells dissipate naturally over time as the bottle remains opened. If you’ve ever heard people talking about funky smells “blowing off”, the reduction of reduction is almost surely to what they were referring. If leaving a bottle open for 15 or 20 minutes doesn’t do the trick, take the next step - decant! The more air one can introduce into the wine, the better chance one has of de-smellifying the wine in question. But, if after an hour or two, there’s no perceptible change in the smell of the wine, until you can get back to the shop where you bought it for a refund, the prescription is opening another bottle.
PS - In my experience there are certain grapes whose wines tend to reduce more frequently, the two most common being the Italian varieties of Dolcetto and especially Montepulciano d’Abruzzo. Exactly why this is so, I’m not sure, but it does indeed seem to occur more with these two than many others that I’ve encountered. Give wines made from these varieties the benfit of the doubt if you do come accross some “off” smells when the cork is first pulled…
TOM CIOCCO
Tannins - We’ve all heard the word, here’s what they are…
“Wow, this wine is tannic”!
“…lush plummy fruit supported by a fine tannic structure…”
We’ve all heard the sentence and the phrase just above, and as the title says, the word is thrown around like a Nerf football in a college stadium parking lot, but perhaps for that very reason, my instincts tell me that many wine drinkers, if really pressed for an answer, couldn’t define the term with any real precision. Let’s have a look…
Here’s a first surprising fact about tannins: tannins have no actual TASTE (and therefore no smell) at all. What we “taste” when we come into contact with tannins is these substances reacting with the proteins from which your mouth is made, and the sensation is purely textural. And indeed this is mostly what tannins bring to the table: “mouth feel”.
We know where tannins wind up, but what is their source? The answer is an easy one. Tannins are found in the skins, seeds, and stems of grape vines (as well as in tree bark, tea leaves, etc.). And because skins must be used to produce red wines, and because skins almost never wind up in the production of white wines, red wines are tannic and white wines are not. Tannins in fact are bound up with the substances called anthocyanins (the compounds that make red wine red) which are also found in the skins. And as this bundle (most properly called proanthocyanidins) comes into contact with the acids in the juice, the acids chemically split the tannins from the anthocyanins, allowing these coloring substances as well as the tannins themselves to completely pervade the wine.
But though skins and seeds and stems are the main source of tannins in most wines, tannins can also be introduced into a wine via…OAK! Tannins are present in wood as well, though these are not chemically the same sort of tannins that one finds in grapes skins, they are tannins nonetheless. What’s more, the tannins that leach into wines as they rest in oak barrels (new ones especially) are often “finer-grained” than those present in unaged wine. Interestingly, when red wine is aged in wood barrels, there is actually a tannin EXCHANGE between the barrel and the wine with the barrel giving up it’s finer wood tannins and then absorbing the coarser grape tannins back into its grain.
So tannins give red wines their texture, but they serve an equally if not even more important function. Tannins naturally retard oxidation, and what that means in the long and the short is that tannins allow wines to AGE. So at least theoretically, the more tannic a wine is, the longer it will hold, and/or the more gracefully it will age. But to be clear, not all tannins are created equal. The family of compounds to which tannins belong are very numerous and complex, so for example, tannins that ripen slowly as the berries come to maturity are chemically different than those that have been built via a one week heat wave. Additionally, we know that both Cabernet Sauvignon and Nebbiolo are tannic varieties, but those that have drunk a few examples of both know that the CHARACTER of the tannins in these two varieties are quite different.
Another way we can encounter tannins in wine is via what are chemically called tartrates. Tartrates are those little crystals that one sometimes finds clinging to the business end of a cork, or alternately, as the sediment that one might find in the bottom of a bottle of older wine. Now strictly speaking, tartrates are NOT tannins. Tartrates are actually a potassium salt of tartaric acid, but bound up with these salts, are often a certain percentage of tannins. Therefore, the more tartrates one finds in wine the further “evolved” a wine is, which reads as less tannic. Also for the sake of clarity (pardon the pun), not all sediments are either tartrates or percipitated tannins. In wines that are unfiltered, much of what is to be found in the bottom of a bottle of wine is quite literally tiny grape skin/pulp particles. These are easily distinguished from tartrates by their color. Grape sediment is purple and opaque, while tartrates are quite clearly colored CRYSTALS. And let’s just briefly take the opportunity to make it clear to everyone that ALL of these substances are NATURAL and HARMLESS. One should still avoid ingesting them because they are at least a distraction and sometimes can be quite bitter, but they are not in any way toxic. I cannot tell you how many times people have come back into the shop claiming that a bottle was bad, and the problem to which they were referring was normal sediment…this is when these folks get the abridged version of this piece, as well as a word or two about decanting…
The final view of tannins that we’re going to take was alluded to just above, and that process is called FINING. Fining is a sort of alternate mechanical filtration process that is NOT filtering. Filtering in wine is just what it is in any other pursuit - using a sort of screen to not permit particles larger than X to pass through. Fining is done via a neutral, flavorless substance that is added to a wine that is later racked off or filtered out. The most common substances used in fining are eggs whites (no, this is not a technical term - actual egg whites) or a subtance called bentonite which a dry powdered clay that expands when mixed with water. These substances are very effective at pulling down colloidal substances like tannins, pigmented tannins, and stray proteins that winemakers may want to eliminate.
So that’s the primer on tannins in wine. There is SO much more to the chemistry of these complex compounds, but that’s well beyond this layman, but suffice it to say that tannins are absolutely inseparable from a wine’s character as well as it’s drinking future. Without tannins, wine is not “wine”.
TOM CIOCCO
Grenache, or whatever you call it, flourishes and pleases worldwide
Grenache. Garnacha. Garnatxa. Granaccia. Cannonau. No matter the precise ordering of letters one uses to identify this red grape variety, the message is the same: the WORLD loves it! Though just recently overtaken by Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon, throughout most of the 20th century, Grenache was the world’s most heavily planted red grape variety - let’s see if we can’t guess why…
Perhaps not surprising for a grape as widely planted as Grenache, as alluded to above, the names for the variety are many. Though most widely known by its francofied handle (Grenache), by most accounts Garnacha (the variety’s Spanish language name) has its origins in the Aragon region of northeastern Spain. The one challenge to this claim comes from the Italian island region of Sardinia. Now there can be no denying that the Kingdom of Aragon controlled Sardinia from 1297 until 1713, but the Sardi claim that the Aragonese appropriated THEIR grape, and brought it back to Aragon from whence it spread to Castile, Provence, the Italian mainland, etc. The complete research into the variety’s precise origins have never been done, but the lion’s share of the vine scholars tend to support the vine’s Aragonese origins, despite what the Sardi say, though with all of the genetic testing on vines these days, it seems safe to say that we’ll know sooner than later where Grenache was born. What does seem clear is that both Aragon and Sardinia were growing Grenache LONG before Rioja (another specific region that can make fair use of the variety) adopted it around the turn of the century for its heartiness and resistence to disease.
Undoubtedly, most people have become acquainted with Grenache as part of the charming wines of the Rhone valley, beginning with Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and moving through the “lesser” appellations of Gigondas, Vacqueyras, etc. but of late, Aragon, a region that tends to bottle Grenache as a varietal (only one grape type) wine, as well as Catalunya, that tends to blend Grenache with local (Carinyena, Monastrell) as well as International (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah) varieties, have been carving out their own spaces in the world’s palate for their own versions of the variety.
Outside of Spain, as was mentioned above, The Rhone is the most celebrated growing zone for the variety in all of France if not the whole world. But for all of its notoriety in southestern France, one could argue that The Rhone’s western neighbor, Languedoc, has a longer history cultivating the variety, and though yet largely unrealized, as great a potential for quality as the Rhone’s Grenache-based wines. As I also mentioned above, Italy has a fair number of acres under Grenache, with the vast majority to be found in Sardinia though there are also pockets of it in Campania where it is called Granaccia, and even in southern Tuscany where the vine goes by the name Alicante. Grenache is also among the most important cultivars in North African and Middle Eastern growing areas like Morocco, Algeria, Lebanon and Israel.
And similar to its now more numerous international compatriots Cabernet and Merlot, Grenache is becoming (or already WAS depending on who you talk to) a truly international variety. Grenache can be found quite easily in California and Australia, and to some extent even in South Africa. South America is the one place that Grenache has not ever really taken hold…
And as with any old and widely dispersed vine variety, Grenache has lots of permutations. Aside from the standard “Garnacha tinta” (a.k.a. Grenache noir) within which there are many sub-varieties like Lladoner Pelut which is Catalunya’s hairy-leafed version, Grenache gris, the pink-skinned mutation found in France and Spain that is the one grape show in most of Spain’s cheap and delicious dry rose wines (as well as France’s more muscular and decidedly less cheap pinks), and even Grenache blanc which plays a large role in both Rhone whites, as well as those from Languedoc and Catalunya.
So why is there so much Grenache floating around? First off, it just makes big, fun wines. When Grenache gets what it needs (more on that in a moment) it typically displays a cornucopia of juicy red fruits (especially strawberry) with a big mouthfeel, good alcoholic heft, and a crowd-pleasing acid/tannin balance that make it a sort of backslapper with a little extra class - like the guy who is maybe just a bit less polished than he could be and maybe drinks a little too much (Grenache tends to be high in alcohol, and therefore when not properly made, a bit “hot”), but these few pecadillos are more than made up for with a no-nonsense honesty and a great sense of humor. Grenache is just a lot of fun to be around. What’s more it ages fairly well, it’s easy to cultivate and high yielding, so growers love it, and it presents few insurmountable difficulties with most foods. And all of this is just in reference to DRY wines - Grenache is even capable of producing very fine sweet wines like Banyuls and Maury…
So with all of this goodness, why isn’t EVERYONE growing Grenache? Well, those who can, and are smart, do, and most of those who don’t, can’t. What I’m driving at here is like reptiles, and certain senior citizens, Grenache loves HEAT! Those of you who know something about the climates of Spain, Languedoc, Rhone, and Australia have already figured this out, and many of the folks in the hotter climes of California are discovering more and more (Hooray!). Essentially, Grenache buds early, so in any place in which winter lingers on a bit into spring, killing frosts can ruin a crop. In addition, Grenache ripens quite late (often as late as the end of October), so similarly, an early Autumn cooling can doom a plot of Grenache to making palish, “green” wines. And concomitantly, Grenache has a nearly unbelieveable resistence to near- or full drought conditions, and in fact, the more Grenache is stressed with water deprivation (within reason, of course) the better wine it makes, yielding wines with deeper color and better structure.
Chances are, you’ve drunk Grenache before, but with all of the far-flung regions in which Grenache can be found, you may not have explored them all. So to your next dinner event, invite a Grenache or two, and I think you’ll see why it has made friends wherever it has gone…
TOM CIOCCO
