Postmodern Winemaking. Clark Ashton Smith

      UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS

      Berkeley•Los Angeles•London

      University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.

      University of California Press

      Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

      University of California Press, Ltd.

      London, England

      © 2013, 2014 by Clark Smith

      ISBN 978-0-520-28259-9 (cloth : alk. paper)

      ISBN 978-0-520-95854-8 (e)

      The Library of Congress has cataloged an earlier edition of this book as follows:

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Smith, Clark, 1951–.

      Postmodern winemaking : rethinking the modern science of an ancient craft / Clark Smith.

      pagescm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-520-27519-5 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-520-95526-4 (e)

      1. Wine and wine making.I. Title.

      TP548.S68742013

      663’.2—dc23

      2012045797

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      In keeping with a commitment to support environmentally responsible and sustainable printing practices, UC Press has printed this book on Natures Natural, a fiber that contains 30% post-consumer waste and meets the minimum requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (R 1997) (Permanence of Paper).

      À Susie

      Contents

      Preface

      Acknowledgments

      Introduction

      PART ONE. PRINCIPLES

      1The Solution Problem

      2Creating the Conditions for Graceful Aging

      3Building Structure: The Basic Tool Kit

      4The Seven Functions of Oak

      5Vineyard Enology: The Power of Showing Up

      6The Vicinal Diphenol Cascade: Red Wine’s Defining Reaction

      7Redox Redux: Measuring Wine’s Oxygen Uptake Capacity

      8Speculations on Minerality

      9Winemaking at High pH

      10Integrated Brettanomyces Management

      11Harmony and Astringency: Nice and Rough

      PART TWO. PRACTICES

      12Winemaking’s Lunatic Heroes

      13Gideon Beinstock’s Mountain Magic: Handling Extreme Terroir

      14Randall Grahm: California Dreamer in Search of the Miraculous

      15Bob Wample: Thinking Like a Grape

      PART THREE. TECHNOLOGY

      16Pressing Matters: A Postmodern Tale

      17Some Like It Hot

      18The New Filtrations: Winemaking’s Power Tools

      19Flash Détente: Winemaking Game Changer

      PART FOUR. PHILOSOPHY

      20Spoofulated or Artisanal?

      21Science and Biodynamics: The Limits of Rationalism

      22Natural Wine Nonsense

      23Yeast Inoculation: Threat or Menace?

      24New World Identity and Judging Reform

      25Liquid Music: Resonance in Wine

      Appendix 1. Winemaking Basics

      Appendix 2. Navigating the Postmodern Calendar

      Notes

      Glossary of Postmodern Terminology

      Index

      About the Author

      Preface

      The heresy of one age becomes the orthodoxy of the next.

      —Helen Keller, “Optimism” (1903)

      I have been making and selling California wine since 1972. When first I drove into the Napa Valley, I encountered a billboard that quoted Robert Louis Stevenson: “. . . and the wine is bottled poetry.” For me, that was a little over the top. I thought, “Sure, I like wine, but ‘bottled poetry’? Give me a break.”

      I have since come to believe that this statement sprang from more than the flowery prose customary in his era; that the wines of Stevenson’s time were actually altogether different from ours. The modernization of winemaking in its every aspect has left us with clean, solid wines of greater consistency than ever. But they are missing something.

      I hope not to bore you, my reader, while I briefly recount the professional journey that led me to this conclusion.

      In 1971, I dropped out of MIT and came to California. After six years selling wines at a well-stocked East Bay retailer, I spent the next thirteen making wine in the modern way. I started off dragging hoses for three years at Veedercrest Vineyards, and in 1980 enrolled at the University of California, Davis, where I learned the principles of modern scientific enology. In 1983 I began applying those principles at the R.H. Phillips Vineyard, where the Giguiere family and I took the fledgling winery from 3,000 to about 250,000 cases in seven years.

      At Phillips, I set up an extensive small-lot vinification and sensory lab and, with a series of hardworking UC Davis interns, began delving into quality enhancement in the nascent Dunnigan Hills region, presenting at the American Society for Enology and Viticulture a series of seven papers on vineyard variables affecting wine quality, based on the reductionist methodology I had learned at Davis.

      A simple example. We were making White Zinfandel that had more of a canned tomato soup aroma than the fresh strawberry notes I was seeking. Accordingly, I conducted a series of small-lot duplicate trials to test a variety of vineyard variables and winemaking procedures, presenting the resulting samples to a trained panel in a double-blind setting, asking the panel to rate the samples for the aromas they found as defined by the two standards I supplied: fresh strawberries and Campbell’s tomato soup. Compiling the scores and running ANOVA (analysis of variance) statistical analysis, we determined significant differences due to both greater grape maturity and four hours of skin contact, which led to substantial improvement in the following years.

      But toward the end my stint at Phillips, I began to hit a wall. I considered that I had learned how to make very good white wines, but my reds were, well, pathetic. Even when I sourced excellent syrah fruit from Estrella River and old-vine mourvèdre from Oakley, the wines