Wine Bazar

I’m an odd combination of early adopter and time starved executive. This means that I tend to know about and explore most Internet technologies as they hit the streets (and sometimes before) but I can’t be bothered to really dive into them until I see a compelling reason to justify the time and effort of doing so, and more importantly until I know I have the bandwidth to use them effectively. Add to that the healthy skepticism gained from using the Internet since 1988 and living and working through the epicenter of the dot.com bust of 2000 and I′m quite cautious about where I invest my time online.

All of which explains why I’m not a member of any one of the various wine social networks, why my posts on various wine bulletin boards are still in the single digits, and why I’m only just now starting to use Twitter.

But after watching from the sidelines for a while, I have decided that Twitter is interesting enough, has critical mass, and offers me an opportunity that complements what I’m doing here on Vinography.

I’ll be using it a little bit like most people use it, to post notes about what I’m up to, but they will be confined to the wine and food aspects of my life (no updates about changing the 11th diaper of the day — you can see that on Facebook if you want). But more importantly, I’m going to use it to both broadcast my posts here on Vinography and write small snippets of stuff that wouldn’t merit an individual post, but might be of interest to wired wine lovers like yourselves.

So believe me, I completely understand if the last thing you want to do is start consuming tweets, but if you’re already doing so, here’s one more for you to try.

Check out Vinography on Twitter.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

Why do I feel like the wine media watchdog these days? Maybe the holiday spirit brings out the misinformation campaigns like no other time of the year. Or perhaps journalists are getting lazy and are scrounging for material that they can recycle out of press releases they have stuffed in the bottom drawers of their desks.

So what’s the rant about? Today’s piece of crap in the Telegraph, entitled “Screw Cap Wine Bottles Threaten Rare Species.” The occasion for repeating this completely asinine claim that somehow if we don’t stop using screwcaps all those delicate ecosystems of the cork forests will disappear appears to be an upcoming BBC documentary series that repeats the same idiotic logic.

I have no basis for alleging that this whole thing is yet another arm of the multi-pronged marketing strategy cooked up by the struggling cork manufacturers to save their asses in the face of falling demand for their product, but I will say that it is any commercial agricultural company’s wet dream of a PR campaign. Let’s get the environmentalists to indirectly endorse our products by suggesting that if we go out of business, the little creatures that happen to live in our fields will be in danger.

Maybe the cork companies just got lucky, but even if they had nothing to do with this story, it still stinks to high heaven.

Let’s start with what a cork oak forest looks like:

Photo by Ryan Opaz of Catavino.

Not exactly pristine natural habitat, is it? Looks more like a farm, which is exactly what it is. I wonder what the place looked like before humans got the idea to start stripping the bark off the trees? I could be wrong, but I’d be willing to bet that there were a lot more wild animals in the forest before we started farming it.

But let’s for a moment take at face value the claim that these cork forests are indeed valuable habitat for a number of creatures. It’s not much of a stretch to believe such a thing, even if it were a particular species of dung beetle, let alone a beautiful creature like the Iberian Lynx. But the notion that because some animals might live in these forests, then somehow any competitive threat to the cork industry is tantamount to environmental destruction and species endangerment is utterly and completely laughable.

Here’s an analogy: You have a farm, and I have a farm. I grow barley, which everyone has eaten for years. You grow wheat, which is a newfangled grain that people are just getting excited about. And I’m a bit of a sloppy farmer, so that the barley I bring to market is rotten about 6% of the time. After a few years, people are tired of getting rotten barley, they’re starting to like the taste of wheat, and I’m losing money, and can’t afford to till all of my fields. Did I mention that I have long haired rabbits that live in my fields? How excited would I be if an environmentalist came along and wrote an paper saying that people need to stop eating wheat because it is endangering the long haired rabbits?

This so called “species endangerment argument” against screwcaps completely ignores basic principles of economics and the fact that the whole reason that screwcaps were ever put on wine bottles in the first place was because the cork industry were supplying many people with an inferior product that ruined countless bottles of wine.

Yet somehow a bunch of scientists and reporters manage to concoct a drama that pits the screwcap wine closure industry against the poor Iberian Lynx.

And about that Iberian Lynx….It’s the most endangered feline species on the planet, and the most threatened carnivore in Europe. It’s so critically endangered that there were only about 100 of them left in 2005, and every single piece of the cat’s current habitat, the majority of which is not even in the country of Portugal, let alone it’s cork forests, is protected by law. The biggest cause of death for the Iberian Lynx at the moment? Automobile collisions.

The cork industry, cork farmers, and the cork forests of the world are subject to the same laws of economics as the rest of the world. If wine drinkers no longer want their wines closed with tree bark (unlikely to happen anytime soon) then the cork industry will most certainly suffer. Farmers who now grow cork oaks will most certainly rip them out and plant other things that they can actually use to feed their families, as well they should, in the absence of any other way to do so, or any incentive from the government to encourage conservation.

It may be that, indeed, cork forests deserved to be preserved for any number of reasons, whether cultural, environmental, or even simply for civic enjoyment. This would presumably involve people and governments who care about such things deciding to spend the money to do so.

It also may be factually true that cork closures are literally better for the environment than screwcaps, from the standpoint of their total carbon footprint, amount of chemical pollutants, et cetera, but I have yet to see a definitive study on the subject. The scientific jury is still out on whether they are indeed the best closures for wines that will age a long time, though many believe this to be true (myself included).

Regardless, we should not tolerate lousy journalism and crappy environmental science that suggests to consumers that their choice of wine bottle is threatening endangered species, and that winemakers should suffer having portion of their product ruined every year… for the kitties.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Alyssa Nair)

If I had some extra cash laying around right now, in addition to plowing it into the stock market, I′d likely be out there buying investment grade wine, as well as wine from my favorite expensive producers.

If you’re a consumer of news about the wine industry, then you understand what is going on in the wine retailing and wine auction world at the moment. On the chance that Vinography might be one of your sole sources of contact with the wine world, let me bring you up to speed: the wine market is doing what the Dow Jones Industrial Average just did for the last three months.

While the wine industry has trailed the general market malaise and the dive has not been as precipitous, things are tough right now in the world of wine. And the more expensive the wine, the tougher things are.

Champagne sales had already dropped by 25% in September and according to some sources, holiday sales are are expected to be half of what they were last year. Retail sales of high end wines are plummeting, and the wine auctions where collectors unload (and snap up) some of the world’s finest wines are seeing record numbers of lots go unsold or sell for far below their estimates.

In short, just like the stock market right now. It is a serious buyer’s market. I don’t know a single wine retailer worth their salt that isn’t in serious sale mode at the moment — with heavy discounting going on from the bottom of their inventory to the top. In hard economic times where it’s sensible to have a good cushion of cash in the bank, the last thing anyone wants to do is have too much capital tied up in inventory.

Just by way of a single example, a friend of mine forwarded me a newsletter from a New York wine store that showed the 1997 Harlan Estate Proprietary Red wine (a 100 pointer from one of CA’s most stellar vintages) being offered at a discount of nearly $800. While not half-off, that’s getting pretty close, and a remarkable steal for a wine that could easily be held for two years and sold for well over the pre-discount price.

And the final bonus: the strengthening dollar. Which means that apart from the sales, the cost of most imported wine has fallen considerably from the heights it was at merely 6 months ago. Direct imports are selling for a 20 to 30 percent discount off of those highs.

So if I had $10,000 laying around, I’d be likely plowing it into top Burgundies, Bordeaux First Growths, Barolos, and Napa cult Cabernets with the idea that I’d drink some in 5 or 10 years, and in 18, the rest would pay for my daughter’s first year of college.

NOTE: It’s a sad, sad thing that I even have to think about it, but I must make clear that the article above doesn’t constitute investment advice in any way, shape, or form. I’m not a professional, and if you buy wine based on what I say and lose your hard earned savings, then you should just open the damn bottles and drown your sorrows because it won’t be my fault.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Alyssa Nair)

I read a lot of wine writing. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. And when I say read, I mean, well, I scan all the headlines, and I read a good portion of it. Magazines, newspapers, hundreds of blogs. It’s overwhelming at times, and damned hard work. But I enjoy it.

Except for two particular times of year. The first is mid-summer, when everyone seems to be writing the exact same article about “Summer Sippers,” white and pink wines that are as refreshing as they are delicious.

But ever so much more evil and mind-numbing than mid-summer fluff, are the wine columns that rain down like so many large flightless birds in the weeks preceding Thanksgiving. Around this time of year, if I see one more “What wine to drink with your turkey and stuffing″ article, I think I’m going to puke.

Yes, I’m being dramatic. I certainly can’t find fault with these wine writers all across the nation who churn out their well meaning lists year after year. Those who might not be inclined to write such boring articles are most certainly forced to do so by their editors, and if they are not, they are as likely to be entreated to do so by their readers.

The problem with crappy wine recommendation articles for Thanksgiving is not the wine writers, it’s the wine drinkers who actually read them.

So listen up America. I’m proud of you — those of you who have decided you want to drink wine with your Thanksgiving dinner. There’s nothing better than enjoying wine amidst a celebration of food, family, and friends — or whatever you choose to celebrate during this holiday. But you need to chill out about finding the right wine.

Why? Because there is no such thing.

Don’t fall for all these wine writers who tell you that there is an art to pairing wine with Thanksgiving dinner. Don’t believe all this talk about how difficult a meal it is to match with wine. It’s all bullshit. Especially at Thanksgiving.

Most people’s Thanksgiving meals, even the most modest of them, are a vast cornucopia of flavors so diverse, contrary, and strong, and people eat them in such different combinations at different times that the idea of finding “a” wine to match with the meal is a ridiculous proposition.

Yet it’s amazing how people seem to believe that they need help picking a wine. Or at least that’s what the tsunami of Thanksgiving wine recommendations would have you believe.

So I’m here to tell you that there are two simple choices when it comes to drinking wine at Thanksgiving. You can take one, or both approaches, and I guarantee that you will be just as happy as if you spent the time, energy, and money searching for “the perfect wines to pair with America’s most diverse meal” or whatever all those articles suggest you need.

ONE: If you’re having a bunch of people over, buy a few different whites, and a few different reds. Open them all, and let people choose which ones they want. Make sure one of the wines is something that YOU like to drink.

TWO: If you′re going to be celebrating with people that you know and love, use the occasion to drink a really nice bottle of something that you′ve been saving for a “special occasion.” The best pairing for wine is good company, and who cares if no one notices, or if Aunt Bertha insists on putting ice cubes in it? So what if cousin Andy takes a bite of candied yams, then a bite of collard greens, and polishes it off with a swig of Cabernet? And if the folks you′re eating with have the knowledge or the palates to appreciate it, then so much the better.

That’s it. Open a bunch of stuff, or drink something special or both. Life is too short to stress about drinking the right wine with the right food. There are no rules when it comes to food and wine pairing, no matter what anyone tells you. There are no perfect pairings for everyone, only perfect pairings for you.

So relax, experiment, but above all, enjoy your Thanksgiving and make sure it includes lots of wine.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do on the weekends was to go to garage sales. I liked looking at all the stuff that other people had (which I didn’t) but perhaps more importantly, I loved that I could buy it for a nickel. Or something like that. I’m sure my mother did, too, since we couldn’t exactly afford shopping sprees at ToysRUs.

I don’t know when was the last garage sale I visited, but I′m pretty sure there wasn’t anything there for a nickel. It’s easy to get nostalgic about what amazing things we used to be able to buy for ridiculously little money. Perhaps for this reason I still really enjoy an occasional flip through reproductions of the old Sears Roebuck catalog where you could get an entire bureau of drawers for a bit more than a dollar.

So it probably comes as no surprise that I′m fascinated by the 1909 inventory list from UK wine merchant Berry Brothers and Rudd that Jamie Goode just posted on his blog. It’s quite a treat to look through this little catalog it and see what was available before the first World War in England, and how things were priced. Jamie points out one of the most interesting facts — that German Riesling was either popular enough or hard enough to get that it was priced comparable to many of the top Bordeaux wines of the time.

It’s pleasantly comforting to see familiar names on this wine list, and mouthwatering to contemplate buying a case of Domaine Romanee Conti for less than $150. In these tough economic times, when many wine lovers, myself included, have cut back on wine expenditures, this list is almost cruel.

I was particularly intrigued by the category in one of the margins labeled as “Sparkling White Medoc.” Did Bordeaux make sparkling white wines as recently as the turn of the century? That was news to me.

In any case, the list is an interesting little diversion if you care to take a few minutes to check it out.

Thanks to Jack at Fork & Bottle for the tip.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

The average wine consumer has no idea what it means for a wine to be organic. And when it comes to Biodynamic wines, most wine drinkers have never even heard of them. But that doesn’t matter, because an increasing number of the most sought-after, expensive wines in the world are biodynamically produced, which means that biodynamics is one of the most significant modern trends in global winemaking.

The only problem (for those who care) is that biodynamic winemaking involves a maddening, paradoxical mixture of scientifically sound farming practices and utterly ridiculous new-age mysticism. If you want to know just how kooky it can get, you might be interested in a recent feature on biodynamic wine in SF Weekly, which dives into detail on the cow skulls stuffed with oak bark left in a hole; the red deer bladders filled with yarrow flowers buried in compost piles the proscriptions to burn insects in the vineyards only during certain proper planetary alignment; and the claims that the moon should determine when you put your wine into new barrels.

Of course, if you actually believe in biodynamics, you now hate my guts along with Joe Eskenazi, the author of the aforementioned article which is entitled Voodoo on the Vine.

Joe’s angle on biodynamic winemaking will draw criticism for focusing only on the strangest parts of an elaborate farming and winemaking methodology. His (and my) detractors would be justified in complaining at the sensationalism of a few practices, and a few predilections of the methods inventor, while many, even most biodynamic winemaking principles are the same as good old organic farming.

But that is precisely the problem. Most biodynamic farming principles make sense because they are the same as scientifically grounded organic farming (e.g. don’t use pesticides; let the sheep take care of the weeds and fertilize the soil etc.). But then the whole system is undermined by the use of, and rationalization for, special preparations and actions that are not only bizarre in their conception, but explained by the worst kind of pseudo-scientific quasi-religious gobbledygook that you could possible imagine.

You can’t imagine how angry this makes me. You see, I love biodynamic wine. Some of my favorite wines in the world; some of the best wines I have ever tasted in my life; some of the wineries that seem to consistently make some of the highest quality wines I have ever experienced are produced biodynamically, and I don’t believe this is a coincidence.

This is what Joe Eskenazi did not include in his article, perhaps because he’s not fully immersed in the world of wine. While he rightfully points out, with the appropriate level of cynicism, the fact that some wine producers are moving to make biodynamic wine because they think it will sell better, there are many more producers who have been making wine biodynamically for years, even decades without ever telling anyone about it, least of all the people who buy their wine. These winemakers are some of the smartest, most talented folks in the wine industry. The only reason they would possibly be producing wine biodynamically (which Eskenazi’s article points out is much more labor, time, and cost intensive than any other farming method) must be that they believe they make better wine that way.

There are two types of people in the world. Those who believe that while science is not perfect, it is the most powerful interpretation that we have found of the world around us, and those who believe that there are better explanations for what we observe in the natural world than science can provide. I am very much a member of the first group. There’s a lot we don’t know about the world yet, and there are a lot of really interesting interpretations about how things work, but the scientific method produces the most reliable interpretations of what is real and what is true that I know of. I (and pretty much everyone in a first world nation, whether they know it or not) trust my life to that fact nearly every moment of every single day.

And that belief I hold is precisely the source of my unending frustration with biodynamic wine. I think it’s good stuff. But I know it’s not good for the reasons that the people who make it, and the people who tell them how to make it, say it is. The claims of the philosophy that underlies biodynamic wine growing, and the specific explanations for various prescriptions of the farming and winemaking process are just plain wrong. They can be proved wrong, in some cases simply with a calculator, but in all cases by rigorous scientific enquiry.

Which is why I keep hoping that someone will come up with Biodynamics Lite™: a kinder, gentler form of biodynamic winemaking that throws out all the bullshit, and sticks to the things that science tells us will actually work.

I plan on continuing to drink more and more biodynamic wine, and encourage everyone who loves wine to do so as well. I just hope there is a day when I don′t have to roll my eyes a little every time I see the word on a wine label, or bite my fist as a winemaker proudly tells me that the reason I love his wine is due to the fact that he completely avoided the dueling vortices when he mixed his preparation of ground up quartz crystals.

Read the full article in SF Weekly.

My friend Jack at Fork & Bottle has the most complete list of biodynamic wine producers that I know of.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

Looks like a piece of news slipped by me a couple of months ago. Every year I look forward to a report, which more than any other single piece of news, speaks the truth about the state of wine in America. Restaurant Wine magazine commissions and publishes a report every year on the top 100 wines and top 100 wine brands sold in restaurants around the country, from family diners to fine dining restaurants.

Based on the simple measure of how many cases of each wine were sold at these restaurants, we get a picture of the most important person in America when it comes to wine: the average American wine consumer.

And why is this person so important? Because they are the bread and butter of the wine industry. They are the fuel for the wine engine. They are the bottom 95%, so to speak, whose spending habits make (or break) the market and who make up the pool of wine drinkers from which true wine lovers slowly graduate to more expensive wines and esoteric habits like…reading wine blogs.

I like knowing what the rest of America drinks when it comes to wine. Here at Vinography, here in San Francisco, here in my group of friends, I live in a bubble of unreality when it comes to wine. In this bubble, $40 bottles of really good wine are a steal and most everyone I hang out with knows how to pronounce Viognier (”vee-own-yay″). But that doesn’t represent wine drinking America any more than San Francisco represents the political tenor of the rest of the country.

This is what wine drinkers in America drink:

1 Kendall-Jackson Vintner’s Reserve Chardonnay USA
2 Beringer Vineyards White Zinfandel USA
3 Cavit Pinot Grigio Italy
4 Sutter Home White Zinfandel USA
5 Inglenook Chablis USA
6 Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio Italy
7 Yellow Tail Chardonnay Australia
8 Copperidge Chardonnay USA
9 Yellow Tail Shiraz Australia
10 Franzia Winetaps Vintner Select White Zinfandel USA

Those are the top 10 wines consumed by Americans (by volume) in 2007.

And here are the top 10 wine brands sold in American restaurants in 2007:

1 Beringer Vineyards, Foster’s Wine Estates Americas
2 Kendall-Jackson, USA, Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates
3 Franzia Winetaps, USA, The Wine Group
4 Yellow Tail, Australia, W.J. Deutsch & Sons, Ltd.
5 Sutter Home, USA, Trinchero Family Estates
6 Inglenook, USA, The Wine Group
7 Copperidge, USA, E. & J. Gallo Winery
8 Cavit, Italy, Palm Bay Imports
9 Woodbridge, USA, VineOne (Constellation)
10 Foxhorn Vineyards, USA, The Wine Group

For me and for the wine lovers that I hang out with (and no doubt the folks that read this blog) these are somewhat sobering lists, if only because for most of us, these are wines we generally don′t, and wouldn′t, consume given the choice. The average retail price of these wines is well below $8 per bottle, and the last time I asked you readers what you spend on average per bottle it was somewhere around $20.

And some of you probably didn′t think that you were all that sophisticated when it came to wine, did you? Notice how the top 10 wines only includes a single red wine? If you’re a Cabernet drinker you’re a member of the wine elite. And I′m only partially kidding.

Here are some additional interesting facts about this year’s list:

- White Zinfandel sales are down 15%
- Chardonnay was more popular than Pinot Grigio for the first time
- Pinot Noir sales were up (again) by 89%
- Merlot sales were down (again) by 9%
- Sauvignon Blanc and Sangiovese wines appeared for the first time on the top 100 list (bravo!)

So what to make of all this? I take a number of things away from this list every year. The first is appreciation for how lucky I am to be able to drink the quality of wine that I do regularly. The second is humility — a reminder that while I may not choose to drink them, these wines, the companies that make them, and the people that drink them are what really make the wine world go ‘round. And finally, I always finish my perusal of these numbers with hope. The amount of wine America drinks continues to go up, and slowly, but surely, the diversity of that wine continues to expand.

And that means that we’re making progress.

Read more details on the annual Restaurant Wine report.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

Perhaps I’m just getting too old, but I can’t for the life of me really understand what San Francisco Wine Week is all about.

Here we are living in one of the greatest wine and food cities of the world. We’re spoiled rotten when it comes to our wine and food. We expect, and regularly receive great local ingredients in our food, an incredible selection of wines from California and around the world, and completely take for granted the fact that we can bring a bottle of our favorite wine to any restaurant we like.

If there was ever a large city in America that might have a week long celebration of wine, San Francisco would certainly be at the top of the list. And here we are beginning just that sort of celebration, except….

It seems completely, and utterly lame.

As far as I can tell, San Francisco Wine Week is simply six nights of open bars in various venues around the city where you can taste as much wine as you want, no doubt to the soundtrack of thumping electronica.

Come on people. That was the best you could come up with?

Granted, this event is supposedly aimed at the young, urban, hip crowd of Millenials that make up the largest wine drinking population that America has ever seen. But I’ve got to believe that there’s a better way to celebrate what the promoters rightly identified as one of the Bay Area’s most defining cultures.

And just to make sure I’ve exercised my complete curmudgeonly rights, let me just say that the web site and all the marketing material I’ve seen are horribly unhelpful at getting any sense of what these nightly events will be like. For instance, Wednesday night is the “Sommelier Party” hosted by sommelier Mark Bright.

OK. So what does that mean? If you wanted to find out, say, the difference between that night and Tuesday night, which is the “Import Party” you would be shit out of luck, as they say. Nothing on the web site provides any indication of what is actually going on that night, or any other night, for that matter, other than “wine tastings.” Hell, it’s not even clear whether there will even be food at these things, except for “San Francisco restauratuers” being mentioned somewhere as some of the sponsors.

And if you want to know what’s going to be happening at the ultimate end of week party, the Red Gala, you’ll find yourself similarly screwed, except, of course for the dress code, which is supremely, unhelpfully described as “red attire encouraged but not required.” So would that be red t-shirts or red ball gowns?

It’s quite a shame that a city so steeped in wine and so populated with smart, talented hospitality folks couldn’t come up with something better for the first Wine Week than this. As far as I can tell, we′ve got nothing educational, nothing uniquely Californian, and nothing really fun, except, perhaps if you’re a young guy who knows a thing or two about wine and wants to go meet chicks that will be impressed with your knowledge. Sounds more like “party with alcoholics” than it does “celebrate wine culture.”

Of course, that may just be the target audience for this whole debacle. The saving grace of which may be that the entire week’s events cost a mere $75 bucks. Which means, no matter how bad the event ends up being, a motivated barfly will at least be able to drink their money’s worth if they go every night. With only 44 wineries participating, you might also be able to get through every single one over the course of the week. In fairness, it must be noted that some of the wineries pouring at the event are quite good.

I’ll leave it to the most adventurous of you readers to go check it out and look forward to happily being proved wrong. But I don’t expect to be. San Francisco, you can do better than this.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Levi Reiss)

If you’ve read many wine labels, especially those of wines that cost more than $25, you’ve almost certainly seen on that contains the phrase “fermented with wild yeasts” or “native yeast fermentation.” This indication that the winemaker has not used a so-called “commercial” yeast is often a telltale clue as to the overall philosophy of the winemaker. Making wine without commercial yeasts can be more difficult, more unpredictable, and more risky than some are willing to accept. Those who do eschew commercial yeasts often do so because they are committed to making what they believe is a more natural wine, both for its lack of “intervention” by the winemaker, as well as because the yeasts that do end up driving the fermentation are believed to be from the vineyard and part of its ecology.

Without a doubt, making wine without commercial yeasts represents a more traditional method of making wine, but apparently the more we learn about yeasts and winemaking the less it seems that there actually is any such thing as a wild yeast fermentation.

A recent thread on the Mark Squires bulletin board addressed this very topic, and I highly encourage anyone who is interested in the subject to check it out. The discussion ranges across a number of different issues regarding yeasts, often getting quite technical, but the gist of it can be boiled down to a simple set of arguments.

First, it is clear that there are yeasts on the skins of the grapes out in the vineyards, and that when no commercial yeasts are added (and sometimes even when they are) some these yeasts can also be found working away in fermenting grapes in the winery.

However, it is also true that most of the time the yeasts that do the most work in fermenting the grapes in the winery are very different yeasts than are found in the vineyard. Which begs the question where, exactly, did they come from?

The answer, according to a lot of winemakers and researchers, is from within the winery itself. No matter how well a winery is sanitized, it tends to harbor all sorts of biological elements, including complex “cultures” of yeast that breed, mutate, and even evolve in the little ecosystem that is the winery.

If the winery ever has used commercial yeasts, this local culture will most certainly include some of these commercial yeasts. And if it hasn’t it will likely include yeasts that were brought into the facility on humans, pets, equipment, insects, and more.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying that the decision to not use commercial yeasts to ferment the wine doesn’t really mean that what you’re getting instead is some natural cocktail of yeasts that are specific to a vineyard. A native fermentation it may be, but the yeasts that are chowing down on the grapes are much more likely to be native to the winery building than they are the vineyard, and in many cases they may include commercial yeasts as well.

I’m certainly guilty of romanticizing native yeast fermentations as a writer. Along with the decision not to fine or filter the wine, this decision generally says something to me about the quality of the wine. The fact that winemaking yeasts aren’t entirely wild doesn’t necessarily undermine that meaning, but it certainly does call into question just how much justification there might be for prejudice against commercial yeasts as somehow “unnatural.” Biodynamic winemaking, for instance, clearly proscribes use of commercial yeasts as yet another unnatural intervention in winemaking.

The process by which grapes ferment involves sometimes 80 or more different kinds of yeasts, the actions of which are affected by pH, temperature, sugar levels, and thousands of compounds in the grapes, not to mention anything we humans might do. We’re still trying to figure out just exactly how it all comes together.

As intrigued and excited as I am about the degree to which science is gradually deepening its understanding of what wine is and how it comes to be, I also love the fact that it’s so complex that we′ve still got a long way to go.

Mystery is a good thing. It means we need to keep drinking.

Read the yeast discussion on the Mark Squires board.

Thanks to Jack at Fork &amp Bottle for pointing me to the discussion.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Barry Fairbridge)

I’ve always privately believed that if everyone just drank a bit more wine, the world would be a better place. Who knows if that’s really true, but apparently it’s quite likely that if everyone drank more wine, the world would be more democratic.

According to analysis by Jon Bonn&eacute, Wine Editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, Obama was elected by The Wine Vote.

What’s that, you ask? Wine drinking liberal elitists? Guilty as charged. But get this little statistic:

Amount of wine produced in states that McCain won: 4.3 Million Gallons
Amount of wine produced in states that Obama won: 773 Million Gallons
Percentage of wine produced in America that comes from states that Obama carried: 98.6

Harper’s Index eat your heart out. The whole thing makes me giggle. And while Obama is a big beer lover, it’s clear that the White House wine cellar will get a lot more attention starting in January than it has for the last eight years.

Check out Jon’s blog post.

Original post by default@goarticles.com (Unknown)