Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/59998
WINEMAKING may lie behind the perception of green- ness will themselves be radically trans- formed in the process of winemaking. Finally, the belief that low yields always translate into better grapes and wine prob- ably originated from observing that some of the world's great wines come from low- yielding vines, and that massive overcrop- ping surely produces insipid stuff. That bit of intelligence, however, has been trans- formed into something between a religion and a rural legend, resulting in wholly ar- bitrary yield targets and outbursts of fruit- dropping grapeocide. The fallacy of fixating on tons per acre is easily exposed by the following thought experiment, courtesy of Doug Fletcher at Chimney Rock. Farmer Jones is widely known for growing the crappiest Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley—thin in fla- vor, short on color, underripe at any sugar level and green all over. The reason seems obvious: Farmer Jones brings in 10 tons of grapes per acre. Yielding to all the criti- cism, he rips out every other row of vines in his vineyard, and now grows 5 tons per acre of the crappiest Cabernet Sauvignon in the Napa Valley. Grape quality can't be reduced to tons per acre. It is a matter of balanced individual vines yielding the amount of fruit they can successfully ripen in a given locality, and not much more or less. Yield, even at the highest quality level, will vary enormously from situation to situation. Applying some magic number—3 tons per acre seems to be a popular upper limit for worthy fruit— across multiple growing regions and mul- tiple grape varieties is, well, goofy. These three criteria—Brix, field tast- ing and yield restriction—still dominate the industry, including its upper reaches. Markus Keller, viticultural researcher and author from Washington State University in Prosser, recounted the dilemma wine- makers faced when cool weather in the fall of 2011 kept red grape Brix stuck at 21º far later than usual. Winemakers who insist they pick on taste found that the greenies were gone, but they still couldn't bring themselves to pick until the sugar got up to 24º or 25º Brix. "Deep down," he says, "they're still hooked on Brix." He also wonders about winemakers whose version of "picking on taste" is chewing three berries and asking for a 30% crop reduction. At Oregon State, extension viticulturist Patty Skinkis finds that many vineyards of Pinot Noir, already a low-yielding variety, Dropping fruit isn't a sure-fire way to improve winegrape quality. Wines & Vines MARCH 2012 51