Issue link: http://winesandvines.uberflip.com/i/59998
WINEMAKING get thinned down to targets based more on California metrics than Oregon's con- ditions. "Crop thinning early or heavy," she says, "doesn't increase the rate of rip- ening. The sugars don't necessarily go into the reduced crop of fruit, they can go into storage or canopy growth." The state's re- ported average yield is 2 tons per acre, but it could likely be a good bit higher and still yield good fruit, depending on the year. At Cornell, researcher Gavin Sacks says people in New York talk a lot about yield targets, even if it isn't clear how much sense that makes. His experience is that it's possible to make good Riesling in the Finger Lakes at anywhere from half a ton to 8 tons per acre, but formulaic yield limits still get set. Sacks' colleague, Anna Katherine Mans- field, says that grape decision-making is "pretty much the same old, same old. De- pending on where you are, people may just buy by weight. We'd like people to assess quality, think of grapes block by block, not just tonnage." Much of the industry, it seems, is still stuck in the bad old days when it comes to assessing grape quality. Can't we do better than that? Finding better criteria The quest for more sophisticated criteria, alas, isn't that easy. Growers and wine- makers may have quite different ideas of what makes grape quality, and translating back and forth between the two different dialects can be frustrating. Academic re- searchers may have superior knowledge of the biochemical details, but they don't call the shots. Joerg Bohlmann, a research bot- anist at the University of British Colum- bia, says he is "wary of telling winemakers what to do, what they should or should not do." Winemakers themselves have to identify what they want, and researchers can them help find tools to get there. Some elements of fruit composition are FRENCH OAK DOMINOS Caroline Hoogenboom Napa - Sonoma Cell. (707) 364-6334 caroline@ermitageusa.com Amy Lee Oregon - Washington Central coast of California Cell. (509) 995-2771 amy@ermitageusa.com Vincent Garry, Sales Director Cell. (707) 225-2105 vincent@ermitageusa.com much harder to measure or control than others. In most of my phone interviews, I posed an extreme hypothetical question: If a winery was willing to pay a premium, could it entice a grower to produce grapes with more blueberry notes? After my in- formants all stopped laughing, several pointed out that even if the blueberry com- pound got maxed out, the flavor chemistry matrix is so complicated that the net re- sult might be something else entirely. It's rarely possible to reduce a wine quality descriptor to a compound, or even sev- eral of them. To make matters worse, the most appropriate set of measurements and metrics will likely vary by growing region, by grape variety and by the intended price point of the wine. Some aspects of grape composition that could be modified by viticultural inter- vention are cheaper and simpler to fix in the winery. A good example here is grape nutrient status. In many cases, vines that regularly produce grapes deficient in as- similable nitrogen can get on track through some combination of cover cropping and/ or foliar sprays, yielding fruit with a bet- ter nutrient profile and thus lowering the risk of stuck or sluggish fermentations. But solving nutrient problems in the cellar with a bag of DAP is quicker and cheaper than retrofitting vineyard practices. If a winery's goal is more natural, terroir-driv- en wines, taking the trouble to produce grapes full of natural amino acids may be a better solution than packaged ammonia, but that's unlikely to become an industry grapegrowing standard. Office: Tel: (707) 224-2377 Fax: (707) 224-2390 433 Soscol Avenue Suite B151 Napa, California 94559 - USA 52 Wines & Vines MARCH 2012 Phenolic profiles Despite all these complications, some ad- vances are being made in quantifying and specifying grape quality. The leading edge is probably in the measurement of red grape and wine phenolics, where relatively Parc d'act i v i tés des Ber t ranges - 58400 La Char i té- sur -Loi re - France Tel . + 33 3 86 69 43 79 | FAX + 33 3 86 69 67 47 | www. tonnel ler ie-ermi tage.com