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WINEMAKING rise of Howell Mountain alcohols and the rush to the cool end of Napa. But studies at the Scripps Institute suggest the contrary: Southern Napa is actually cooling as interior valleys warm, due to the influence of fog from the Pacific.1 In reality, Tulocay wines are improving because of clonal research. As experimental plantings at Napa Valley College revealed, Clone 337 Cabernet loves the cold, ripening readily and delivering huge tannins and great color. Are the new super-yeasts to blame? Yes and no. Yeast strains can't change the conversion ratio of sugar to alcohol—at least not very much. The six carbon atoms in a sugar molecule have to go somewhere. Two atoms end up as carbon dioxide. The other four go to ethyl alcohol plus miniscule amounts of other flavors like glycerol and to the growth of the yeasts themselves. To change al- cohol by 1% would mean 17 grams per liter of sugar were divert- ed to other byproducts—an enormous amount. And super yeasts make more cell mass, not less, thus lowering alcohol. However, these ultra-vigorous yeasts do permit us to ferment to dryness musts that in the old days would have stuck sweet. So the new strains have indeed opened up the door for harvesting grapes with very high sugar content. But why would we wish to do that? Some say today's vines are grown so artificially that they fail to achieve the natural balance required to get ripe flavors at normal alcohols, and that our wines won't reflect balance until we embrace organics. In his article "The Science of Sustainable Viticulture,"2 John Williams of Frog's Leap reports that balancing soil fertility and abandoning irrigation now gives him flavors at 23.5° Brix that he previously didn't see until 28° Brix. I have no doubt that John is exactly right, but the unsustainable practices John decries were even more rampant in the '70s than they are today. I'm afraid that at its root, ripeness craziness is more a mental disease than a reaction to some physical disorder. Like alcohol dependency itself, it's a good thing pushed too far. Silicone injections become the rage By the end of the 1980s, the genius of Jed Steele had established Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve as the state's benchmark Char- donnay through brilliant vineyard selection, consummate blending skill and shamelessly pumping up the wines with oak, malolactic butteriness and residual sugar. His stormy divorce with his em- ployer left his replacement, John Hawley, with big shoes to fill. The secret weapon John presented Jess Jackson to add still more richness was—you guessed it—extended hang time. Richness through hang time was an appealing formula for a corporate don trying to build an industrial machine independent of any temperamental artistic genius. It had the added advantage, since grapes are sold by the ton, that the shrinkage that bestowed extra richness came out of the grower's pocket. Ripeness craziness is more a mental disease than a reaction to some physical disorder. The ripeness enigma In chasing the classics, you can't just do what the French do. Emulating Bordeaux in sunnier climes has always been a brainy endeavor. It's tricky to distill the right lesson out of their ex- perience. When we fail to connect the dots properly, it's often highly comic. • Calibration-free Temperature Control • Fermentation Status From Anywhere • Brix/Temp/Pump-over Tracking • Alarms via E-mail or Text • Production Software Interfaces • Cellar Temperature, Humidity & CO2 • Flexible Energy Management Tools 707 938-1300 WWW.ACROLON.COM INNOVATION 12th 48 Wines & Vines DeCeMBeR 2011 ® RELIABILITY