Most people still think of wine as something natural, made from grapes using simple winemaking equipment. The truth is of course very different, but most of the “magic” happens behind carefully closed doors.
Most of the wine on the shelves today is a product based on modern agriculture, which has its roots in the so-called Green Revolution that I wrote about in my previous post. It is about producing as much as possible at the lowest possible cost. According to Lydia and Claude Bourguignon (leading agronomists and experts in farmland soil research), this approach has brought more yield or yield per farmer, not per square metre, to agriculture. In fact, sustainable farming is much more efficient than modern farming in terms of yield per square metre of arable land. But of course, it requires more hard-working hands, which is cost-prohibitive for the big producers, so they have “optimised” – mainly by using synthetic fertilisers and chemical preparations, and by using farm machinery extensively.
Grapes from lowland vineyards are hardly touched by human hands. Pruning, spraying and all other operations, including harvesting, are carried out by machine, immediately after which the grapes are “protected” with sulphites (in effect, killed), followed by a production process involving many mechanical and even more chemical or biochemical interventions, in effect a kind of resuscitation of the dead grapes. In Europe, more than 70 product groups are allowed in conventional winemaking; either additives or chemical preparations for the treatment of must and later wine. From the simple, such as water, sugars and tartaric acid, to the more complex, such as aromatic yeasts, to the almost unbelievable, such as powdered tannins, phosphates, plant proteins, aluminium silicates, ferrous sulphate, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP), dimethyl dicarbonate …
All this is necessary, of course, to ensure that the winemaker or oenologist achieves the desired result – the aroma, the smell, the taste that the market wants at that moment – in the shortest possible time and at the minimum possible cost, and that the product is on the shelves as quickly as possible. The intensity of the interventions usually corresponds to the scale of the wine production, i.e. the size of the winery or – better said – the wine corporation.
Božidar Zorjan (left) and Srečko Šumenjak (right) prove year after year what wine potential Styria Slovenia has.
Magic behind closed doors
Most people still think of wine as something natural, made from grapes using simple winemaking equipment. The truth is of course very different, but most of the “magic” mentioned above happens behind carefully closed doors. Wine is an exception in terms of labelling and the information required on the label. On virtually every food product you will read information about the processes used, and additives, but on a wine label, the alcohol content and the words “contains sulphites” are all that is indicated, but without any indication of the quantity. Everything else is covered, which is why even wine multinationals find it easy to perpetuate the myth of wine as a natural product.
The myth therefore lies not in the natural wine bush, but in the systems that produce tens, often hundreds of millions of litres of an alcoholic beverage that can legally be called wine. This approach has been used in viticulture and winemaking for the last five decades. Sadly, it is also used by too many famous estates or wineries. We are no longer talking about mass production, but about boutique wines from famous names and brands, bottles of which fetch staggering prices.
Sustainably produced wines, on the other hand, come from vineyards that require a lot more manual labour and a lot more know-how. The risk of partial or sometimes even total crop loss is much higher. The yield per vine is geared to maximising quality, not quantity. Harvesting is done by hand. Grapes are usually carefully selected in the vineyard. This is because the winemaker needs a perfectly healthy “raw material”, as modern oenological interventions or corrections are almost non-existent. Fermentation takes place spontaneously. Healthy, pure grapes contain an abundance of yeast strains which, in addition to the variety itself and the elements that the vines have absorbed from the substrate, will give the wine aromas, scents and flavours that are not made in the laboratory but derive from the micro-location and express the corresponding character and greater or lesser complexity. It is a technique that man has been using in viticulture and vinification, slowly developing, improving and passing on to future generations for several millennia.
Can we still pour a glass of pure wine?
Natural wine is full of life
Sustainably produced wines need time to settle, round out and mature after vinification. We often talk about the three years and more before a wine is ready for sale, but when the time is right, what we get in the glass is the true richness of nature and man working together; full of energy and sparkle, because microfiltration or even sterilisation has not stripped the wine of its solid microparticles, which act as a natural protection. At the same time, they contribute to a multiplicity of flavours, and sometimes minerality, expressed as saltiness, flint or something else. Natural wine is full of life, literally, as it contains micro-organisms that will take care of ageing and the appearance of tertiary aromas in the years or even decades to come. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there are bacteria and other micro-organisms in wine, and there is nothing wrong with that, quite the contrary. Of course, there are also micro-organisms that we don’t want in our wine, such as acetic acid bacteria, which turn wine vinegary, or brettanomyces yeasts, which give wine an unpleasant smell, most like that of barnyard wine. But this can be avoided without microfiltration, excessive addition of sulphites and similar interventions.
The big players in the wine business have no interest whatsoever in the consumer being aware of the above facts, so they use every means to marginalise natural wines. They are described as a fad or a trend. Given that these wines are based on thousands of years of experience, it is clearly a fad or trend that is immortal.
Today, the percentage of sustainably produced wines is still small, marginal you could say, but their influence in the world of wine is much greater and more important every year. This is thanks to the many of us who are trying to bring authentic flavours back to the world of wine and food. Writers, sommeliers, aficionados and, increasingly, top chefs. Take a look at the wine lists of the restaurants on the San Pellegrino list and you’ll see what I mean.
