| With all our love for Italy we handpicked some of the finest wine
producing estates and developed a close working relationship with these
passionate people. Every year we are looking forward to presenting you
only the best of Italy’s viticultural elite and their masterly wines. Living Wine! The discussion of the necessary gases in winemaking took a sorry bent
once Michel Roland?s ?micro-oxing? instructions were bellowed out in
Mondovino. The old timers and romantics were already making a come back
with their ?earthy wines? and airy winemaking theories. And many took
Mondovino for the final judgment on how wine theory and ethics were to
reshape the style of the new honest wine on the market.
However,
wine theory helps the vintner very little when working in his vineyard
or cellar and having to confront himself with nature, the offerings in
his garden and defining the next step in agriculture. Trying to make
sense of the immediate approach with one?s own produce, be it wine or
food, very quickly leads the intelligent grower to disband all
theories, listening only to the first hand message of nature,
manifested somewhere between the sum of all sensory organs and the
brain. This act of confronting the palate with an inner, location
specific database, passed on by generations enables the vintner to gain
security in his choices. This is to show that wine theory is not for
those who are making wine, but for those who are trying to understand
its nature from a distance. Winemaking instead is of an immediate and
more intuitive nature, resulting often in surprisingly simple
conclusions.
But where did the urge for theory originate, at a
time when most everything was known already about the winemaking
process? Tired of the dominance of technical winemaking terms, the
presence of the barrique, the machinery, the yeasts and enzymes and all
the other more or less legal ingredients that are finding their way
into today?s wine, skepticism about the new science of wine has evolved
into a counter fashion driven by strong values and vague theories. But
is it possible to destroy the excess of industry with abstract
perceptions?
I am afraid not. Taking the ?bad? example and
turning it around by 180° does not necessarily result in a ?genuine?
winemaking process. Its simply doesn?t make any sense to go back to a
pre- Émile Peynaud stage in winemaking, mixing a bit of Roman Empire
romanticism, bare feet crushing grapes and a healthy dose of
bio-dynamics into a pot for good winemaking. While there is a chance
that good ideas are hiding among the fashionable words, this counter
fashion fails to recognize the immediacy of grape growing and
winemaking, and its most important aspects, the intuitive and artistic
precision with which great wines are made.
Here I would like to
elaborate on one of these fascinating, though simple aspects of
winemaking: Wine is a living being. Wine is breathing and aging just
like us!
I am not claiming discovery for this simple
observation, but would like to recognize Marco Parusso for the
important conclusions he has come to on this subject.
Whereas in
most wineries today oxygen is treated as the enemy of wine, the enemy
of freshness, and oxidation is perceived as the immediate result of air
having come in contact with the precious juice, Marco has made some
surprising observations: small amounts of air measured correctly, at a
?digestible? and ?healthy? temperature and environment helps wine in
many ways: color, aroma and even texture. Hasty winemaking with the
exclusion of air diminishes these three qualities. And this not only
after fermentation has taken place, as shown in Mondovino with the
?micro-oxying? trick, but at all stages, from fruit collection to
fermentation to bottle aging. All gases exchange elements with liquids,
and the stabilizing effects of oxygen on wine and grape juice can be
seen, felt and tasted at any stage of winemaking. This is real
winemaking and not a theory! Wine that had the chance to acquire oxygen
over the entire time while maturing in the cellar, will actually age
better and possibly longer, taste creamier and resist larger amounts of
air more successfully, once it is poured into a wine glass, releasing
pleasing aromas of floral and fruity components true to its origin.
Air
is life as much to wine as it is to us. Without air we suffocate,
without air everything on earth would wilt, decay and turn to dust. Air
helps in the process of maturing and aging not only for us living
beings, but it is an important factor in all things of aroma and
texture, is key in aging cheeses and maturing meats, and according to
Marco?s findings is the prominent definition of wine as well. In wine
making oxygen helps relax the berry skins, stabilizes color, encourages
natural development of enzymes in the juice which in return help
release the aromatic components of wine in the making. Examining wine
made without sufficient amounts of air, reveals a weak example of its
kind, falling apart quickly, and deprived of life recalling attributes
of decay: earthy, moist underbrush, cold, leather, coffee?? .
But how exactly does oxygen relate to the grape juice?
Lets
look at the grape first. The central part of the berries? pulp,
consists primarily of water, acids and sugars, three rather
undistinguishing elements, accounting simply for levels of alcohol and
freshness. It is the berry skins instead which carry the nobler and
distinguishing elements. Woven into its netting the skin withholds from
the evaporating waters key elements from soil and wood of the grape
vine itself. The lymphatic juices nurtured by low reaching roots carry
mineral elements dissolved in the lower layers of the moist soil and on
its long journey to the berry pick up tannins and coloring material
imprinting the grape of its varietals character. These substances are
later known as lees in the winemaking process, and shall be treated as
the noblest part of our wine. Oxygen is key food to the survival of
these lees, or natural bacteria, keeping them alive and enhancing the
naturally present characteristics of our grapes. Lees hold the key to
the character of wine in the making. As living elements they rely on
oxygen for a full evolution of their sensory qualities. As long as we
keep feeding the lees with oxygen they will stabilize, defend and
complete the appearance of our wine.
Ways to achieve this are
manifold, and eventually a stylistic choice of the winemaker, but what
matters here is that these observations lead to a new approach in
winemaking. No longer do we speak here of reductive winemaking, which
is so in vogue, but instead should call this process integrational
winemaking, for its ability to integrate the correct amount of gases to
stabilize the wine. |
