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GRAPE GRO WING Extreme Wines on the Vine about thirty miles northeast of Cape Town, Solms has dedicated his energies for much of the past decade to artfully separating grape clusters from their nutrient source. When Solms resettled in his native South Africa after more than a decade in England, and decided to revive the family's wine farm, he studied up on viticulture and discovered that the ancient Greeks spoke of twisting the rachis, or stem, to strangle the grape cluster while on the vine. In concept, the desiccated berries would lose their water content, gain intense concentra- tion in flavor and aromatics, and deliver the essence of their varietal character without succumbing to cloying over-ripeness. A s a renowned neuroscientist, Dr. Mark Solms has spent much of his professional life attempting to con- nect thoughts, feelings and memories with the ana- tomical structure of the brain. Ironically, as a wine producer in the scenic vineyards of Solms-Delta Wine Estate in Franschhoek, South Africa, a splendid valley South African winery desiccates grapes by squeezing rachises By Stephen Yafa Highlights • A South African wine estate revives an ancient tradition by making table wines and fortified wines from grapes dried on the vine. • mark Solms makes a portion of his wine from Rhone winegrapes that lose 40% of their water while retaining acidity and sugar. • Unusual flavor profiles develop with Sherry-like qualities, inten- sity and denseness, but without cloying sweetness. By comparison, Amarone producers in Northeastern Italy today achieve similar results by drying the picked, ripe Corvina and Rondinella grapes in a chamber or on straw mats for three months. Like many noble abstract ideas, Solms' strangulation method made perfect sense in theory and created a recipe for disaster when first implemented. "We first desiccated both Pinotage, a cross between Pinot Noir and Cinsault, in 2004—as well as Shiraz. We did it by crushing the stems with a regular pliers, then a long-nosed pliers about a week or so before picking. But Pinotage ripens earlier than Shiraz, and by the time we started to choke off the Shiraz stems, the Pinotage had developed volatile acidity. It was a nightmare; we had to get rid of the whole vintage." There were some blatant conceptual miscalculations to over- come. As many destitute late-harvest and ice wine producers have learned, desiccation evaporates dollars (or South African rands) as rapidly as water molecules, for those dried clusters 104 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2012 Two hard squeezes applied to each rachis. During a period of about four weeks, up to 40% of the water content evaporates. produce only about half as much juice while demanding at least twice as much labor to pick and process. "We were daunted to put it mildly," Solms recalls. Colonial mentality Solms-Delta makes "normal" wines from non-dried grapes, too, but by experimenting with new techniques, Solms explains, he was upsetting the natural order of things. "The South African industry has long suffered from a colonial mentality, which is: 'We want to do it like they do it in the real countries,' which