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Thank you La Clarine Farm!

Thank you La Clarine Farm!

Just had to share this website I found because the philosophy behind Hank and the La Clarine Farm seems to be exactly the philosophy I feel is so important  not only in wine making, site but in things not wine as well.

Please follow this link to see their Random Wine Thoughts about natural farming and natural wine making. Then browse the rest of their great website.  I could not have expressed my beliefs any better, salve so I will let them do it for me:

Random Wine Thoughts

The wine world is littered with scores:

Bressan Schioppettino 2006 – 91 points… “Wines For You Magazine”

Dr. Bürklin-Wolf Wachenheimer Riesling 2008 – ★★★★★… ” Wines For Me Magazine”

91  Points here,  5 Stars there.

But what exactly do all these numbers and stars really mean to you and me? Is the critic confusing the quality of the wine with his or her own personal taste? Is that wine receiving  91 points because the person judging it loves the wine or for some other reason? Or because the wine is truly well made independent from personal opinion?  To me it means absolutely nothing and in fact I usually ignore the score and try to stick to the facts at hands by observing the tasting notes to gather the information that I feel is more valuable.

Often one man’s 91 point wine is another man’s 75 point wine.  One man’s 2 Stars is another’s 5 Stars.  In my opinion these scores aren’t objective and unless you know the particular critic’s taste and scoring history, the points mean very little.  I feel that very often a wine is scored 91 points because the critic who is tasting it loves the wine and this can be confusing.  I feel that too many critics confuse judging a wine’s quality with  their own personal taste. These should be two different components of wine tasting and the subsequent scoring.  A wine shouldn’t receive 91 points just because they like the wine.

When I taste, analyze and  judge a wine, I don’t like to give scores. I taste the wine, get to know it then usually state weather or not I feel that the wine is well made.  I stick to the facts and write about what I am tasting and experiencing.  Then I go on and state weather or not I personally like the wine. The first part of my analysis is based on my tasting experience and I try to be as objective as I can possibly be.  When I state weather I like the wine or not, it’s totally personal and not everyone will agree with me. This being said, it’s true that I often write about wines that I love and that’s because they inspire me to do so. But, I still keep the scores away.

But, if I had to come up with some sort of a “scoring” system, I suppose then that my system might look something like:

“Not well made”

“Well made”

“Very well made”

“Extremely well made”

A wine can be “extremely well made” but I don’t have to like it. I taste wines every day that are well made and have what I consider to be good structure and balance, but perhaps there’s too much oak influence for my palate.  People would eventually learn my personal taste and make decisions based on this. I try to be as specific as possible with my tasting notes so that anyone reading my notes should get the sense that they are actually tasting the wine themselves.

These “objective” scoring systems are not only happening in the wine world.  We see examples of this when it comes to movies, music and of course restaurants. I wish more people would give detailed, objective facts and let us decide how good it really is…

There is a lot of talk, and words written, about natural wine these days and it seems to be all the rage.  I’m no exception to this as I have tasted quite a few natural wines, then written about them here.  I therefore felt compelled to write a few words about my thoughts on natural wines, including my definition of natural wine based on my experience and my beliefs.

Having visited Vini Veri, “Vino Vino Vino” in Verona earlier this year, I saw this trend in full swing.  Lots and lots of “natural” wines, many of which were not in my opinion well-made. Others didn’t fit my definition of natural.

I will begin with my definition of a natural wine:

A natural wine should be made first and foremost by a winemaker who has the right attitude and philosophy. It matters little to me whether or not the winemaker is certified organic or recognized by Demeter as biodynamic. I am not excluding these winemakers here, merely stating that getting certified or recognized by Demeter is sometimes not possible  due to vineyard treatments by neighbors or is sought out for the wrong reasons, like marketing rights or government subsidies.  Therefore, I feel that it is more important that the winemaker understands natural wine making and has the correct philosophy. The wine-maker wants to do the right thing.  It’s not important to me that the label states that the wine is biodynamic or organic.

Second, natural winemakers should never use pesticides in the vineyards. They should work as naturally as possible in the vineyards which can include green harvesting and canopy management.  It can include other measures to insure healthy plants which should in turn produce healthy grapes. They should even limit natural fertilizers whenever possible.  Biodiversity should be encouraged, not destroyed.

Wild boar footprints in the Roagna vineyards suggesting biodiversity - photo by Vinosseur

Third, the  grapes should be harvested by hand and not machine.  Hand selection of fully ripe and healthy grapes is an important step in producing a great wine.

Fourth, the grapes should then be crushed and left to macerate on the skins for an extended period of time before pressing to help stabilize the wine and preserve the wine once bottled.  This statement is not from personal wine-making experience but from my reading and talking to respected wine-makers.  Most of the natural wines I have tasted have had extended skin contact for the above mentioned reasons.

Fifth, the grapes should ferment with indigenous (wild) yeasts, not added (selected) yeasts.  Healthy grapes will have these indigenous yeasts on their skins.  I do feel however, that it’s ok to add a natural/neutral yeast to start the fermentation process if it does not commence on its own.  Natural wine makers whom I respect, have the right philosophy and work as naturally as possible have had to do this on occasion.

Six, the fermentation should take place without any artificial temperature control. Of course  the wine-maker may chose an ideal place to ferment the wine. If you are doing this in the cellar where the average temperature is quite constant, this is a sort of “temperature control”, and is ok in my opinion.

Grapes macerating in Amphorae. Photo courtesy of Doug Wregg of Les Caves de Pyrene

Seven, “oak” (barriques) should not be used.  When I speak of oak, I am referring to barrels smaller than 600 liters. Of course, it also depends on the age of the barrel. If the barrel is only 200 liters but is 100 years old, I suppose that there will be no influence on the wine except for the exchange of oxygen, and this is ok.  Oak, especially new, adds unwanted elements (flavors) to the wine and also softens tannins,  for these reasons I don’t think a wine is natural if it’s been fermented or stored in oak.  I want to clarify one thing here to those who might be reading this and thinking “this guy obviously hates oak”.  The point of this rule is that I am against the use of oak in natural wine because although oak comes from trees and in and of itself is a natural product, the oak is then toasted. Once the wine comes into contact with this finished barrel, the wine changes. I personally feel that this is completely unnatural. So, for my definition of natural wine, I feel that other fermentation/storage mediums should be used, like cement, amphorae, steel etc.

Eight, a natural wine should be neither fined nor filtered before bottling.  This in my opinion is an important rule. Why take anything from the wine?

Nine, a natural wine should not have any added sulfur. This is probably the most controversial point.  Many producers are adding only 10 or 12 mg of sulfur (10-12 ppm) at bottling, and I am grateful that less and less sulfur is being added to wine, but adding sulfur is not natural and therefore for me to consider a wine completely natural, there can be no added sulfur. This being said, even a wine with no added sulfur will still contain sulfur since it is a by-product of fermentation.  I also feel it important to mention that although in my definition of natural wine there can be no added sulfur, there are many great wine makers who add a few milligrams of sulfur at bottling and I enjoy these wines on a daily basis.

That’s  my definition of natural wine.  Therefore, with regards to this website,  I will never categorize a wine I taste as “natural” unless it adheres to the guidelines I have laid out above.  Many of the wines that I do not categorize as natural, may to others be regarded as natural.  I have to add that I do not and have not ever made wine, so I realize that my definition might seem rather simplified to some.

As with any trend, there are leaders, followers and imitators.  I feel the clear outspoken leader in the natural wine world is Frank Cornelissen from Mount Etna in Sicily. I have written about him and his wines more than once here on my website.  Another leader in my opinion is the Domaine Le Mazel in the Southern Rhone who have been making wines without the addition of Sulfur since 1998.  Although less well known than Cornelissen, their Cuvée Raoul is one of the greatest wines I have ever tasted.  I will do a thorough profile and tasting note on this wine on this site in the very near future.

There are the followers.  These are the great winemakers who are more recently involved in natural wine making and in my opinion are doing a great job and making huge strides towards excellence.  These wine makers also adhere to the above mentioned rules I feel should be followed.

Then there are the imitators which I saw plenty of at Vini Veri and continue to see on a daily basis.  For one, some of these wine makers insist on fermenting and storing their wines in oak (barriques). At times even using new oak.  How is this natural?  Now, I find it important to state again that I am not against the use of  oak.  I am simply against the use of oak in natural wine making.  I also want to state that I am not accusing these wines as being “bad”.   I have tasted many excellent wines which are almost natural and have been aged in oak.  And second, some of these natural wines are just poorly made.

Finally, I feel that some people just don’t understand natural wine.  I am happy that natural wines are becoming trendy, but as with any trend, there are many  bad copies.  Not all natural wines are good.  I may offend some people by these statements and this isn’t my intent at all. I am simply stating my opinion.  I welcome comments and an open dialogue with anyone who feels otherwise.

To sum up, natural wine should be fermented grape juice.  Nothing taken, nothing added.

Date tasted:  June 2nd, 2009 15:00(3pm)

Frank Cornelissen owns about 12 ha on Mt. Etna in Sicily. He’s a non-interventionist who says “Consequently this has taken us to avoiding all possible interventions on the land we cultivate, including any treatments, whether chemical, organic, or biodynamic, as these are all a mere reflection of the inability of man to accept nature as she is and will be.”

Frank & Alberto at the top of 'Rampante', the pre-phylloxera vineyard at 1010m altitude located above Solicchiata on Mt Etna after the devasting forest fire of 3 full days & nights.

On a postcard I recently received, he goes on to say  “To produce a bottle of genuine, natural wine, the recipe is simple:  take large quantities of dedication, determination, intuition and coherence.  To these ingredients throw in a strong dose of masochism in order to physically and emotionally survive the difficulties and downsides of this ‘Art of Wine’.  Finally, enjoy a glass (or more) of this wine, before sending the rest around the world to good homes.”

Of all the “natural” wines I have tasted, Frank’s are always the most interesting.  I am not saying that his wines are the most well-made of the natural wines I have tasted, but his are always the most engergetic.  And, definitely the most natural tasting compared to his counterparts.  From the very rustic labeling, to the almost opaque  wines that are very obviously not filtered nor fined.

This “orange” wine is no exception.  Made from the local (white grapes) Grecanico Dorato, Coda di Volpe, Carricante and Cattaratto grapes, this orange wine is barely see through.  This cloudy wine is so packed full of sediment that I swore I could see chunks of grapes floating towards the bottom of the bottle.  Of course this is a “slight” exaggeration, but it sure made me happy knowing that this wine was made from something (grapes) that was growing wild in the vineyards, and nothing else.   His wines are the most natural of the natural wines I have tasted, and this wine was no exception.  His wines have a certain “energy” about them which is hard to put in words, but they make you feel good.

The grapes for this wine come from various vineyards on Mount Etna owned and cared for by Frank.  Frank harvests the approximate 13ha/hl of grapes totally by hand.  The bunches of grapes are put into a destemmer and crushed, not pressed at this time.  This machine is more of a crusher than a destemmer as it hardly removes any of the stems at all.

The must is then placed into plastic containers in his backyard (no temperature control here) which are then covered with a tent-like plastic material to keep the rain out.  Of course only indigenous yeast here.  The wine is left to spontaneously ferment and macerate with the skins for about 4 months giving the wine it’s apricot-hued glow.  The wine is then pressed into Amphorae with the help of gravity and then bottled.  Absolutely nothing else is added to this wine. Nothing.  Not even SO2 (Sulfur Dioxide).  The wine is not fined nor filtered before being bottled and this is evident.  Since Frank bottle’s his wine without filtration, the last wines bottled have more sediment than the first ones.

First tasting 1500 (3pm):

Appearance: A very cloudy, unfiltered appearance.  Loads of sediment which are very visible to the naked eye.  In the glass, the wine has an apricot juice hue with a medium intensity.  It is hard to analyze intensity with an unfiltered wine of this type (wine with high intensity glows can indicate a high level of intensity and vice versa).

Nose: Apricots with hints of minerals and loads of farmyard (those of you familiar with red Burgundy know what I am talking about).  The distinctive (for me) Cornelissen pickle juice.  Dry hay and flowers.

Palate: Wild just like the other Cornelissen wines.  Typical.  A little tingle at the front of the tongue initially from the slight residual CO2, which quickly burns off with a little swirling of the glass.  Medium minus tannins.  High acidity, but not harsh, just mouth watering and mature.  Pickles and smoke.  Kumquats.  Essence of apricots and peaches, but not sweet.    Bone dry with around 2g/liter of residual sugar according to my palate.

Second tasting 1809 (609pm):

Nose: Much more pickles and farmyard.  Less distinct apricots.  The apricot aromas I do get are of unripe apricots.

Palate: Medium minus tannins.  Rosemary, sweet yellow fruit at the back end, apricots.  Finish is long and persistent with mild tannins, great acid and smokey flavors.  The wine sits and sits.

Interesting to note that although the wine was dry, it paired well with sweeter dishes.  It worked well with my honey and lemon marinated chicken.  It was also working surprising well with my Mexican Cactus Fruit.. Strange….

I’m always fascinated with the fact that the few bottles of natural wine that I manage to keep open a few days seem to only improve.

Please check out my video wine tasting of Frank Cornelissen’s Rosso del Contadino! Click below and forgive the quality:

Wine Tasting with Vinosseur – 2007 Frank Cornelissen Rosso del Contadino 5 from vinosseur on Vimeo.

Up to now there have been 5 taste sensations clearly identified:

• Sweet
• Salty
• Sour
• Bitter
• Umami

Sweet (or fruitiness), is usually perceived towards the front of the tongue.  Saltiness towards the center of the tongue.  Sourness (or acidity), is perceived towards the sides of the tongue.  Bitterness, which is sensed predominantly at the back of the tongue and throat. Umami or “savory”,  is a relatively new taste descriptor which is what you might expect to find in soy sauce, certain mushrooms and dishes that are rich in flavor and don’t really fit into the four basic taste sensations of sweet, sour, salty and bitter.

In my opinion, we are missing one more taste sensation, one that people in the wine world have been discussing, debating and arguing about for some years now. What I’m talking about of course is the topic, or the new taste sensation of  “minerality”.  Many of us wine nerds (no offense intended) have been describing certain wines as “minerally” for years now.

We have been discussing it for years when describing certain white wines such as Riesling’s, Sauvignon Blanc’s, Chablis’, Etna’s Carricante’s, etc. We’ve even become comfortable describing certain red wines using the term “mineratlity”.  Barolo’s, Burgundies and so on. We use this term in a positive manner when describing wines considered to be of high quality.  Another thing to think about regarding minerality – we tend to find it in wines made of grapes grown on vines that grow on chalky or volcanic soil (which is full of sulfur).

We have been debating it as well. What is “minerality”? Is it something that the grape has absorbed through the soil? Probably not, but many minerally wines are made from grapes grown on sulfurous volcanic soil.   Can it be a characteristic of certain grapes?  Perhaps.  Or, is it merely the effect of volatile or reduced
sulfur compounds,  more commonly referred to as reduction?  Who knows??

We have been arguing over it as well. Does “minerality” exist?  Many people firmly argue that “yes” it does, and continue to describe a wine’s characteristics as “minerally”.  In fact, it has been used to denote a positive attribute in a wine.  Wine’s that are “minerally” are often sought out and considered to be well made.  Some argue that it can help a wine age gracefully.  Other people argue that “minerality” doesn’t exist and what we are describing is simply “reduction” or volatile sulfur compounds. Reduction, which may bode well for certain Rieslings, Sauvignon Blancs, and Burgundies is none the less,  considered by many to be a fault.

Whichever the case, it’s here for now and I feel that it can be described as a taste sensation.

Since the sensation of “minerality” can’t be described as sweet, sour, salty, bitter nor umami, how should we describe it?  The sensation of “minerality” isn’t perceived  on any particular area of the  tongue. It doesn’t show at the front, the sides or at the back. It isn’t a richness that we would find in Umami. In fact, the sensation  of minerality seems to give the wine depth and concentration that the other taste sensations can’t accomplish on their own.  It seems to fill up the entire mouth, and for this reason I can’t see how it fits into the other flavor sensations already defined.

Whatever it is that creates this “minerality” in certain wines, we may not be sure of for some time.  Many of us will continue to use the term when describing wines, and we will also be the same people to consider it a good quality.  So for now, I will consider it the 6th taste sensation. What do you think?

The vineyards:

Rheingau, Germany

Pfalz, Germany

The grapes:

healthy grapes

healthy grapes

Botrytis Cinerea - noble rot

Botrytis Cinerea - noble rot

The glorious wine:

Dr. Bürklin-Wolf, Pfalz

Georg Breuer, Rheingau

Leitz, Rheingau

Geltz Zilliken, Mosel-Saar-Ruwer

…and the winner is (in case you didn’t guess):

Riesling.

From bone dry to sweet.

When well made, is always a treat.

Should a wine be tasted and judged on its own or with food?
I was out with a friend last night. A friend who happens to also be a wine importer of mainly US wines into Norway.
He had given me a bottle of wine to taste a few days earlier. A wine which some critics, outside Norway, give high marks to. I tasted it, and didn’t like it.  My feedback to him was that it smelled too much of yeast (as if the wine had too much stirring of the lees) and lacked that freshness I came to expect from the varietal in question.

On the palate, I also found the wine to be too thin and lacking acidity. Overall, a boring wine which I could not force myself to consume the entire bottle of.

His goal was to figure out what it was about the wine that i didn’t like.  He went on to say that I was supposed to enjoy the wine with Scallops. This got me thinking.
I am a firm believer that wine should be enjoyed with food. This being said, is it wrong to judge a wine solely on its own merits?
Personally, I feel that wine is best judged on its own, then paired with the proper food. Any good quality wine will work with food if the right dish is chosen. But a wine which I find to be of inferior quality, or that I just don’t like, that happens to work well with lets say scallops, isn’t a wine for me- even if the critics don’t always agree.

Colares DOC – An Ungrafted Sandy Oasis

I had the opportunity to taste a very unusual and interesting wine recently, a wine made from ungrafted, pre-phylloxera vines. Something that I have had the opportunity to taste only a handful of times in my life.

thewinedoctor.com

My colleague, on a recent trip to Portugal, brought back a 50cl bottle of wine from the Colares DOC. The Colares DOC sits along the Southwestern Atlantic Coast, Northwest of Lisbon.  The vineyards are situated on a sandy plateau where the vines must be planted deep into the clay subsoil below. Because of the sandy soil, the vines are free of Phylloxera and, therefore, have never been grafted to a different (American) rootstock. Colares is best known for its red wines, which are made primarily from the Ramisco grape (who’s vineyards are reduced to a measly 10 ha, or 100,000 square meters). The wines are generally tannic and full-bodied with spice like aromas that require considerable aging. (Information on the Colares DOC borrowed from epicurious.com’s Wine Dictionary)

The wine I had the opportunity to taste was produced by the Adega Regional  De Colares, and was 100% Ramisco. At first glance, the wine showed its almost 10 year old age, light in color with slight browning on the edges, reminding me somewhat of  an aged Nebbiolo. On the nose, it reminded me of the wines I have tasted from the Bairrada region made with the Baga grape. Scents of roses, (sour) cherries and some tar. The nose promised something special was awaiting my lips. On the palate, the wine’s fruit was “showing” significant age (or was it?) and was overpowered by its earthy tones and aggressive tannins (something I love by the way). Some oxidative notes were also there.  The finish was around 20-30 seconds. Interesting…

Vintage: 1999

My initial thoughts were that this wine was on the decline and the fruit faded. However, I paused and began to think. Maybe this is exactly what the wine is supposed to be like. Is this the way wines tasted in Europe before the devastating effects of the Phylloxera louse more than a century ago? Very rustic, earthy and tannic? Where was the “fresh” fruit we look for in today’s wines that help create balance? Is this the way this wine should be? Or, had it seen better days? I am afraid I don’t know the answer to this. From my research these wines need extensive ageing, so assuming this bottle was stored correctly (should I assume this?), then maybe this is the way wines used to be.  Maybe some of you out there have tasted a Colares DOC wine?

I suppose I should try and get my hands on a few more bottles to make my assessment, but since very few bottles make it out of Portugal’s Colares region, I may have to wait until I take a trip to Portugal!
(Check out TIME’s Rare Earth article from April of 2008 for more on Colares DOC)

Vintage: 1999

As I was sitting on the bus today, unhealthy I started thinking about my upcoming wine trip to Piemonte in November. As I realized that this will be my second trip to Italy this year, cialis I began reflecting on my last trip at the end of July. That trip took me to an almost unknown wine region of Italy, Liguria, specifically to the Cinque Terre. So “insignificant” is Liguria in the Italian wine world, that it was barely mentioned in the two pages on “North Western Italy” in my 400+ page book “The World Atlas of Wine” by Hugh Johnson and Jancis Robinson.

I noticed that in the Cinque Terre, the vineyards were situated in the most inhospitable, seemingly impossible to get to sites, making the Mosel in Germany seem “flat” (well, almost) by comparison. Small vineyards perched high up on extremely steep hills. And this got me thinking about the similarities between vineyard stress and the human stress factor related to working and making wine from these vineyards. The point that I would like to make is that, just like the stressed grape vine will generally produce better quality grapes, the “stressed” human working those vineyards will produce a better wine!

Grape vines, (the very organisms that produce the grapes that give us glorious wine), are after all nothing more than living and growing things. The vine’s only goal in life is to flourish. If the vineyard site has plenty of water, loads of nutrients and is sitting comfortably in an seemingly “ideal” site, the vine will be “happy” where it is and will concentrate most of its energy on vegetative growth and less energy on reproductive (grape) growth. If on the other hand, water is in short supply (perhaps the roots have to dig deeper down) and the soil is a little less than fertile, the vine will concentrate its energy on reproductive growth rather than on vegetative growth – in other words, the grapes. These grapes contain reproductive seeds. These grapes, and thus the seeds, are eaten by birds and other animals, excreted out someplace else, and left to take root in hopefully a new vineyard site with “better” soil and a more convenient water supply.

The point here is that, the easier the vine has it on its planted location, the more water and nutrients available to it, the less the need to have to “search out” a better location for it to take root, and the more “the vine” will prosper. On the other hand, if the vine is stressed, maybe the soil is less than fertile or perhaps water is a little harder to come by and has to be “rooted deep for”, the more the vine will “want” to search out a more hospitable site; perhaps a site with a better water supply or more fertile soil. To do this, the vine will place most of its energy into producing the juiciest, most beautiful grapes in order to attract birds and animals that will in turn eat the grapes and spread the seeds. The healthier the grapes, the greater the chances of them being eaten and taking root someplace else. Therefore, a stressed vineyard will normally produce better grapes, therefore a potentially better wine. This is the first and most important step in producing a good wine.

I feel that this scenario can also be applied to the vineyard owner. Vineyard owners, like the ones in the Cinque Terre, whose vineyards are perched high up on nearly impossible to reach slopes, will have to work a bit harder to pick those grapes to make the wine. This vineyard owner will have to have an immense will power and passion to work these vines and make wine. No machines here, just pure, hard labor by hand, translating to a hand-crafted wine where a lot of sweat, soul and some blood was shed to create. On the other hand, most large cooperatives normally plant their sites on flat, easy to work vineyard sites (with plenty of water and nutrients) that they can easily maneuver with machines in order to quickly make tons of machine “crafted” wines without much hard work, soul or passion.

To sum up, (these) vineyards located perched atop these most inhospitable of sites were stressed and so were the vineyard owners having to work them and make wine from them. It is therefore no surprise to me that many of the wines I tasted in the Cinque Terre were made in limited quantities and were on the average, very good indeed! The wines generally had a very good mineral character and great concentration, length and a fresh acidic backbone. The wine in the photo is an example of what I am referring to. This was a white wine made in limited numbers in a very traditional way – handpicked, skin-macerated, limited and hand numbered production! It felt “hand-crafted”.

I am glad to see today that more and more care is going into “making” wine   in a more traditional way, by hand, with lots of hard work and lots of passion. Better vineyard management skills and less invasive wine making in my opinion make a better wine. (It is my opinion that great wine is truly made in the vineyards. However, “making” wine must also include careful handling of the grapes after harvest, with just enough “intervention” to create a wine representative of its origin.)

Limited production Cinqueterre wine