-- In which:  Wes continues to watch the pinot noir ripen, does some slightly frightening math, orders a bunch of hardware to prepare for harvest, and explains how wine scores may do more harm than good.

 
WineMaker Magazine and Wes Hagen Present:

Year in the Vineyard, Week 15 (7.9.09)

By Wes Hagen, Vineyard Manager/Winemaker Clos Pepe

Flags Flapping in the Cool, Summer Wind.  Lower flag is the crest of the Ducs de Bourgogne--the greatest promoters of Pinot Noir in history.

 
The vineyard:  

Weather:  While the rest of the country bakes in Summer heat, it’s cool enough here at the Clos (and in the Santa Rita Hills) that Chanda’s wearing her knee-length parka at her desk right now and just asked for a cup of hot tea to warm her up.  She may lack a significant fat layer to keep her warm—because the weather station at the bottom of the property is reading 72 degrees at 12:30 pm, Thursday, July 9^th—which isn’t exactly a frigid chill.  But it does make a strong point for the Santa Rita Hills being perfectly suited for cool-climate winegrape production.  Because of our close proximity to the Pacific Ocean, a mere 17 miles down Highway 246, and our unique geology that has provided these east-west valleys straight to the beach, we stay as cool as any wine producing region in the world during the Summer.  Our warmest month is not July, not August, but September.  The winds calm in September, and we normally get a few Santa Ana conditions—when a high pressure ridge blows wind from the northeast instead of the west.  The cool Summers ripen our grapes very slowly and very methodically, but it is old Santa Ana that punctuates the vintage and stirs the sugars in the berries to adequate ripeness.  Without a few high pressure ridges in September and October it would be questionable whether pinot noir could be produced in the Santa Rita Hills (in any other form besides rose’ and sparkling wine, which requires significantly less ripeness than the darkly colored stuff).

Rosa shaking off the afternoon nappies.

Vines and fruit:  The clusters have closed and are preparing to change color and soften in the next few weeks.  The clusters are basically full sized at this point…tiny berries with thick skins, which will give the Clos Pepe wines their characteristic flavor and verve.  But more importantly, the weather patterns as described above help the vines retain a great deal of acidity when the flavors and sugars are ready for harvest.  Having strong acidity in ripe fruit helps us make wines that exhibit mineral character, match with food, and cellar for up to ten years or more.  We’re big believers in wines of structure, and the Santa Rita Hills allows those beliefs to be integrated into the crafting of our wines. 

Two clusters from the same vine, Week #12 on the left and Week #15 on the right!   They grow up so fast....

Two of the most important climatic influences on our wines are fog and wind.  Fog gives the vines a bit of moisture almost every night, and moderates the morning temperatures.  Instead of the sun warming us up in the morning hours, it has to get through the fog first, keeping the vines cool and comfortable in the morning. When the sun does break through the fog, there’s only a few hours of warming until the cool winds start to blow off the Pacific.  By 2:00 pm the winds are usually howling—which keeps the July and August temperatures in the mid to high 70’s on average.

Our vines are slowing down their growing cycle, which you may have noticed in the pictures of the same rows in the last 3 weeks’ blogs.  For the first few months the growth was noticeable week by week, but now the vines are using their energy and nutrient reserves for a different purpose—turning sunshine into fruit sugar.  And then, of course, it’s my job to turn the sugar into alcohol—so the vineyard in Summer is like a solar farm for making booze.  And that’s pretty damn cool.

The crew is finishing their last vital canopy-management pass through the vineyard this year, and we’ll reduce the crew from 5 down to 3 next week.  With every shoot tucked into positioning wires, and most of the leaves on the east side of the trellising removed to promote air flow and sun flecking—the vineyard is in perfect shape to ripen the nearly 1,000,000 clusters that are hanging out there.  The crew will be working on new tasks next week: tending to the replanted baby grapevines, hedging some vines that are growing a little higher than the rest, and then when we see the first sign of purple appear, we’ll start applying nets to every row of vines to protect them against the approaching swarms of starlings that love pinot noir as much as we do.  Then we prepare last year’s wines for bottling, empty the barrels, get the winery prepared for new fruit coming in and get ready for the busiest time of year—where hands will turn purple, sleep will be lost, muscles will be tested, and a million clusters will be clipped, crushed and introduced to hungry yeast.

 Vintage variation: Holy Moly!  As many of you know, Clos Pepe was destroyed by persistent frosts and freezes in 2008. Yield was reduced to about 20 total tons off of 29 acres—a yield that is not in any way sustainable.  In contrast, 2009 yields are expected, from early yield estimates, to be closer to 90 tons of fruit this year.  The vines didn’t have to do much last year, and stored a great deal of their nutrients for this year.  Crop loads are marvelously balanced and (I’ve never said this) maybe a little bit heavy.  We’ll drop a few tons on the ground at veraison to keep all clusters ripening consistently. We have a pretty hefty waiting list for fruit, and a few winemakers yet to be named, may be offered some Clos Pepe fruit off contract this year.  When I crunched the numbers today, I was amazed to see that we end up with over 50 barrels of pinot noir in the winery this year and up to 25 barrels of Chardonnay. We have taken over more Chardonnay and Pinot Noir acreage from lapsed contracts, but last year we produced just 12 barrels of pinot and 3 barrels of Chardonnay.  So I called to order a truckload of barrel racks today and am looking for some more nice French oak barrels to get ready.  We’ll also need extra yeast, yeast nutrient—and good thing my intern this year, Jackson Brooke, is a marathon runner.  We may be working 15-18 hour days in harvest to get everything crushed and happy in barrel.  I’m getting sore just thinking about all the work—but it all ends up in a bottle, which ends up on a table, which makes the world a more beautiful place.

A short rant on the 100 point wine scale: (Warning: this rant only received 78 points from a famous, yet unnamed, wine critic for its lack of concentration and its hints of herbaceousness).  Last week I had a revelation in the shower.  I have no idea why hot water and nakedness usually figure into my better ideas, but I’m guessing it has something to do with synaptic patterns and a lack of constraining underwear.  But anyways… That day I was thinking about the 100-point wine scale and how it impacts wine consumers.  Here’s a few statistics that I was considering:

·        85% of the wine purchased in the US is consumed within 48 hours

·        The amount of expensive, fine wine sold in the US is insignificant compared to the amount of ‘cheap’, ‘fighting varietal’ wines that are sold.

·        Less than 10% of wine drinkers buy nearly all of the expensive wine in this country.

·        Wine drinkers consistently buy more expensive wine as their palates mature.  Keeping a steady influx of new wine drinkers excited about the industry is vital to keeping all levels of wines viable in the market.

·        Most publications that use the 100 point scale like to believe that numerical scores ‘help consumers wade through a sea of mediocre wine’ and come to purchase better wines using points.

Well, I will agree that points matter.  But not in the way you might think. 

Here’s the biggest problem with wine scores from my perspective, and I don’t remember anyone putting forth this argument (although I may be wrong):

·        Giving wine a point score (generally 75-100) implies that there is a consistent, objective and measurable manner in which wine can be tasted and evaluated.

·        No one would argue that the ‘kingmaker’ critics have stylistic preference, and that preference changes peoples’ tastes and how the market responds to varying wine styles. (I personally believe that the most famous wine critics have an amazing ability to be true to their own taste preferences, but are unwilling to admit these preferences in their notes).

·        Point scores mislead drinkers of ‘consumer’ brands of wine (let’s say $10 and under per bottle), convincing them that they don’t belong in the world of fine wine because their wines don’t measure up to those that earn high point scores. 

·        Point scores appeal to Americans because we are a culture confused by our Puritan ancestors, and by a consumer culture where everything is rated for our enjoyment: movies, restaurants, video games, refrigerators.  We like to be told what to consume so we aren’t responsible for our own choices.

·        Wine Scores establish a caste system in the world of US wine that discourages drinkers to take up wine as a hobby, because they believe their palate is not up to the task of recognizing the differences between an 82 point wine and a 93 point wine. If a 93 point wine is too intense and alcoholic for me, does that mean my palate is broken?

·        Now if a consumer sees that a wine is given 91 points, buys the wine, takes it home and finds it is not to their liking, what has happened?  They are betrayed by a simple number—the wine press has made their palate disposable because it can’t understand the density of a Screaming Eagle or the pedigree of a First Growth Bordeaux.

·        To me, wine is NOT about big wines, expensive wines or who can bring the bottle with the highest score rating.  I find Ratings Whores and Bounty Hunters to be uninteresting dinner guests—much more compelling is a person who loves food and brings a Koshu from Japan or a Tannat from Uruguay to teach me something via a bottle I’ve never seen. 

·        High Point score wines are like carrying a Chanel Purse.  It’s cool because someone who’s cooler than me told someone else that it was cool, and the coolness built until it’s worth $500 to carry around a symbol of who thinks Chanel purses are cool.  It’s the lazy way to enlightenment—mescaline one afternoon instead of a lifetime of zazen meditation.  Maybe I’m being unfair to mescaline in this comparison.

Conclusion:  

To be fair; being upset about the power of wine scores is like being mad at McDonalds for fat people.  Wine publications that use wine scores have done an excellent job building and supporting the fine wine market in the U.S.  To an extent their popularity and success makes them a target.  If wine scores weren't so compelling I wouldn't be writing this blog.

Anything we do to simplify the enjoyment of wine will increase US consumption, and I believe anything we do to further complicate the enjoyment of wine will confound potential wine drinkers.  The final summation of the utility of point scores should come down to this:  do points bring more consumers to wine, or scare more away?  From my research, wine ‘geeks’ are pretty damn rare, and most do an amazing job of making wine seem unapproachable  and elitist.  Walking through the supermarket wine aisle should not be the torture that it is for so many.  It should be like looking at travel brochures: a chance to travel the world in a wine glass every night. 

No tool is evil unto itself.  A pistol needs a finger, a bomb needs a bombardier.  Rating and discussing fine wines will persist, even though the advent of the internet has allowed a level playing field for bloggers and young critics to develop an audience for their wine journeys.  And that’s what wine is: a journey.  And when I take a journey I find that the less money I have, the more I am able to integrate into the common culture, food and kindness of a people.  Fancy hotels and restaurants have a tendency to shield us from the true flavor and hospitality of the common folk.  And in my favorite countries, those common folk are drinking wine—not because it received a good rating, but because a table without wine, food, family and friends just doesn’t seem right.

Consider this can of worms open.