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TE CHNOL OG Y Can small wineries use new technologies? M any new technologies available to winemakers are expen- sive, and winemaking consultant rick Jones acknowledg- es that it can be difficult for small wineries to use them. Take flash détente. The unit at Monterey Wine Co. in King City, Calif., cost an estimated $2 million, including the neces- sary infrastructure. But wineries can take their fruit to facilities that offer the service. and Jones says that when a new unit is installed in Sonoma, Calif., this year, it will be more convenient for north Coast wineries to try flash extraction. "We hope to be able to make a small pilot-scale flash unit commercially avail- able in the next couple of years," he adds. for services like electrodialysis and smoke-taint removal, Jones says small wineries can use mobile providers like Winesecrets. eventually, he says, even a lot of cutting-edge technology be- comes more widely available. "The big guys adapt it," he says, "then it filters back down to the small guys." Still, Jones says, "If you're only crushing 50 or 100 tons, you're probably better off doing it traditionally." L.D. But winemaking consultant Barry Gnekow was the indispens- able person. I showed him the original samples, and his mind closed immediately on the possibilities in the technique. He took the idea to his clients, who were essential in getting the first units installed at Lodi and King City. Without Barry, we'd probably still be talking about flash instead of actually doing it. W&V: What sort of future do you think flash technology has in the U.S. wine industry? Jones: Well, flash is used one way or another in just about every other winegrowing region in the world, so I'm pretty sure that it has some role to play here. Beyond that, it's really a mat- ter of how a technique and the underlying wine culture interact. We are much more sensitive to pyrazines here than in Europe, for example, so that's been a driving force in the adoption here. Carneros Vintners and Della Toffola are placing a 20-ton flash unit in Sonoma this year, so North Coast winemakers are going to have easier access now, and it's going to be fun to see what they do with it. Beyond the basics of better color, structure and lower veg, I think co-fermenting flash and traditional grapes has a lot of promise. This is done quite a bit in South America, for example. They identify the weaker vineyards, flash those grapes and com- bine them in the fermentors with better grapes that are crushed traditionally. This offers a number of benefits—for example, easier pressing, and the flashed grapes contribute to better color and structure and lift the traditional fruit character by the amylic aspects of the flashed fruit. You can use flash to barrel-ferment reds, too, which makes a unique type of wine. Flashed fruit is pressed immediately, clarified by centrifugation and then racked into barrels for fermentation. It gives a rich, fruity and softly structured wine that's really delicious. We're also entering into a period where we need every grape, and using flash to make solid wines out of challenged or discard- ed fruit just makes a lot of sense, business and otherwise. I dealt with this both at Vinovation and Oenodev. Some peo- ple think it's cheating to correct a less-than-desirable aspect of a wine—a flaw, if you will. We have an almost Calvinist view, that somehow we should suffer if we make less-than-perfect wine, that the winemaker should pay for his sin of coming up short of the ideal. It's really adolescent. Winemakers know that you do everything you can and hope for the best, much like being a parent. Now, all that said, would I use flash on "perfect" grapes? Put- ting aside the question of what is "perfection," probably not. But even the most expensive wines have some lots that can use im- provement in terms of greater color and structure and lower veg character. Remember, flash is an adjunct to traditional winemak- ing, not a replacement for it. W&V: What would you say to clients and non-client winery owners who are wary of some of the technology that's become more widely used in recent years? Jones: I prefer the term technique rather than technology, which has certain unfair connotations. The context of your question suggests that technique on the one hand, and quality, profundity and tradition on the other, are somehow opposed to each other. That somehow the old ways are the best ways, and I reject the dichotomy. I'd point out that we are a largely derivative wine culture. Perhaps in a few hundred years, things will be different, but for now, we can never really achieve the depth of vinous tradition that Europe takes for granted. 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