This posting will be solely devoted to promote my favorite grape variety - Pinot Noir.
No grape other than Pinot Noir posed such a challenge in achieving greatness outside their holyland, Burgundy. Pinot Noir is often regarded as the ultimate challenge to test the skill of a winemaker. Despite all the trouble for the upbringing, many “ambitious” producers in the world have tirelessly attempted in striving to grow these outside Burgundy. In the following paragraphs, we shall analyze how one could possibly master this fickle grape and look at the new-world challenges today. In addition, we shall also be updating you with the new developments in Burgundy, looking at the changes and new emerging young producers. Look out the next issue too.
The Grape
Pinot Noir is one of the most demanding wines to make both in term of vine-grower and winemaking.
In the vineyard - This low-tannin, low-pigment grape is very sensitive to weather, which often prefers cooler growing conditions. The relatively thin skin grape is highly susceptible to diseases such as mildew, rot and if the grape is not picked promptly at maturity, the tender berries shrivel and dry-out rapidly, resulting in raisiny quality. The early bud-break of Pinot Noir also makes it prone to spring frost and coulure (poor fruit set). Pinot Noir is also one of the most heavily mutated and degenerated grapes. A total of 46 clones were recognized from this variety compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, which has only 12 clones identified. This explains the huge variation in quality and performance for this grape. Today, clonal selection plays a major role in determining the quality of Pinot Noir in the New World. Pommard clone is perhaps the most widely planted and accepted in the New World, but occasionally you could find some diehard, burgundy-inspired New World winemakers using Dijon clone such as 115 and 114, which are more commonly used in Burgundy. Recently, particularly in California, there is a move to use sélection massale, or mass selection from their own vine population to lower the risk of genetic alteration. Other factors that directly or in-directly in influence the quality of the Pinot Noir lies with the weather and soil. Some New World producers in attempting to follow the Burgundian searched for limestone soil in their region, others simply look for cooler area near the coast where the maritime influenced climate with substantial day/night temperature variation will help to preserve the acidity in Pinot Noir.
In the cellar – Pinot Noir is also one of the most difficult wines to ferment. The high amino acid in Pinot Noir often ferments violently resulting in boiling must that spills out of the container and speeding the process, out of control. The relatively thin skins and low-pigment of this variety is also proned to acetification, making the wine lose freshness and varietal personality.
Terroir
The French must be the best branding people in the World. They owned today some exclusive terminology in wine that can only to be use by French and their land. For instant, Château, Champagne, Burgundy, Chablis, Pouilly Fumé were some of the names given to the wines and their origins, which today, governed by the French’s law that forbade others to use these names outside France. Previously they have banned the Australians from using Burgundy and Chablis on their wine labels, California from using Champagne on their sparkling wines and stopping Robert Mondavi from labeling Fumé Blanc on their reserve, oak aged Sauvignon Blanc. Those moves were to protect their trademarks and secure their unique market position. Recently, they also stopped all the sparkling wine producers in the world to used term such as Méthod Champenoise, which they claimed that Champenoise can only be use in Champagne, as they referred to the people of Champagne. Today, all sparkling wines made outside Champagne despite using the same traditional, bottle-ferment Champagne method can only be labeled as Method Tradition.
In the wine world today, what separates old and new world wines have everything to do with “terroir”, and “terroir” seemingly is to be the exclusive word associated with French vineyard, or precisely, Burgundy. Will this term eventually fall into the same faith and to be owned exclusively by the French, since they is no singular English word that can well replace or define “terroir”? So, what is terroir? Terroir refers to a product that is capable of producing its unique quality and origin. Does terroir truly exist and can it only be found in France? We intend to discuss this topic at length in the following paragraphs.
When one discusses about terrior, Pinot Noir, or burgundy came immediately to mind. The fickle Pinot Noir seems to reflect more of “gout de terroir”, or flavor of soil than any other grape types. Unlike Bordeaux, which grape blend could consist of up to five different varieties, in Burgundy, Pinot Noir is the sole permitted red grape to be grown, which makes it the perfect platform to fully express the potential of “terroir” and its grape.
Grapevine was cultivated in 17th century by the Abbey of Cîteaux in Burgundy. Through trail and error, the monks discovered it to be the ideal grape that was suitable for those golden slopes (Côte d’Or). Chardonnay was chosen to be the white variety planted in the soils that was rich in limestone and Pinot Noir on the other hand seem to strive best at calcareous soil (chalk), which provided excellent drainage and heat retentive that helped to ripen the grape. Since the monks treated all vineyards equally with identical grapes, over time the uniqueness and superiority of certain sites or slops were unveiled through the expression of grapes. Thus, the classification of individual plot vineyard or cru was formed and terroir truly existed then! The Burgundy region remains till today, the touchstone of terroir.
Terroir vs. Winemaker
I recently read an article on terroir written by Bill Nesto, MW, who is one of my favorite writers on Italian wine. His article published in the Beverage Business (www.beveragebusiness.com) has an interesting discussion on the concept of terroir. Here are some of the quotes, “the old world producing countries have built their industries on a system that gave great importance to the place of origin, the new world did not. More specifically, the old world gave credence to the empirical piece of land produced a wine with a unique taste (referring terroir), while new world producers relied on scientifically assessed cultivation and vinification methods (referred man-made, or human interaction).” Nesto further quoted the famous Australian wine writer/producer, James Halliday’s previous article on Climate and Soil in Australia, where he wrote, “the seemingly precise and logical correlation between grape variety and terroir in France has come about as the consequence of many centuries of experience which no amount of money could buy and no amount of research duplicate.” Here we are debating, “does natural environment matter more than man?” or simply, the French has over glorified the significance of terroir. Quoted from the same article, C. Van Leeuwen in 1996 in his “occasional paper” to Bordeaux University, faculty of oenology stated that, ‘terroir is a complex notion which integrates several factors of the natural environment (soil, climate, topography), biological (grape variety, rootstock), and human (of wine, wine-making and history).
My Conclusion - I believed in the existence of terroir, but I also like to acknowledge that it is in the hand of the skills and responsive winemaker that “terroir” can truly be unveiled. One of the most respected winemaker in Chianti Classico, Paolo de Marchi of Isole e Olena recently told me, “winemakers were merely the servants of the vineyard. The expression of wine should reflect the vineyard itself not the winemaker. I will never use one of those flying wine consultant, which has little understanding and respect of the vineyard!” That summed up the whole prospective. Despite having the ideal site, soil and grape, it is the winemaker that ultimately decides the “faith” of terroir. I have previously mentioned that the current trend of making highly expressive, extracted, ultra-ripe, humongous-size wines that are adored by some very influential American critics. Many new emerging winemakers aiming to make an early statement themselves were encouraged to produce such designer wines. Those internationalization wines not only come across as being identical to each other, these are wines that have shown well in the tastings (I referred them as show-wine) but rarely enjoy well with food. In addition, they have little respect to the terroir and the finer details and unique personalities are often buried by the excessive alcohol and oak.
I believe, a terrior-oriented winemaker is capable of releasing the uniqueness and individualistic vineyard that have no country boundary. The famous California Vintner, David Ramey previously told me, “There are grand cru vineyards that exist in all wine producing countries” Regardless old or new world, I have witnessed both vinos de altra expresión (high expression wine) winemakers and terrior-driven producers. Anyone who has tasted Californian pinot noir specialist such as Radio-Coteau, Au Bon Climat, Rochioli, William-Selyem, and from Australia, producers such as Bannockburn, Bass Philips, Giaconda, Kooyong, Moondarra will be surprised to learn that, all their wines are highly individual and with their attitude of continuing strive for quality and excellence. Burgundy, the home of Pinot Noir will be facing tougher challenges ahead of them (especially competing during the young age). In my recent tastings on 2001 Burgundy grand crus and among all are high profile wines such as Armand Rousseau’s Le Chambertin, Comte de Vogüe’s Bonnes-Mares, Claude Dugat’s Charmes Chambertin, Dugat-Py’s Charmes Chambertin, Robert Groffier’s Bonnes-Mares, Meo-Camuzet’s Vosne-Romanee Aux Brulees. All wines were served in semi-blind and I have quietly inserted a bottle of 2002 Radio-Coteau Hellental Pinot Noir from Sonoma Coast. None of all the 10 burgundy-fanatics on that night guessed it correctly (including me) and in fact, it was mistaken for a Chambertin! The dark cherry in a high-pitch, mineral-scented and structured frame could easily fool the most experienced taster for a burgundy from the Nuits sector.
Californian – The Contender
According to a L.A. based wine columnist, www.princeofpinot.com the first vintner that planted Pinot Noir in California is believed to be Paul Masson, who was originally from France, Burgundy. During his migration to California, he brought along the cuttings of Pinot Noir that were believed to be from his friend, Louis Latour and planted these in his vineyard at Santa Cruz. Today, there are 30,000 acres of Pinot Noir planted in North America, which represents 6 percent of the total red grapes planted here. Some of the early pinot noir specialist includes Josh Jensen, where his first Pinot Noir was planted in 1975 with St.-George rootstock at Mount Harlan in Hollister. Other pioneers of Pinot Noir include David Bynum, De Loach, Rodney Strong, Joe Rochioli…etc.
My early experiences of Pinot Noir from California were mostly light in color, with obvious acid-adjust and musty, cooked berries, earth, and excessive alcohol. These were far from those delicate, refined and silky burgundy from the fine vintages. Many Pinot Noir vineyards then were planted on the wrong sites, produced from over-crop vineyards with heavily manipulated winemaking and little understanding of this grape. Over the years, Californian winemakers have improved their awareness of this variety and slowly refining their skills in handling this mystique grape.
Californian vintners have taken a big step in improving their Pinot Noir qualities in the mid-80s. Vintners such as Paul Hobbs, Steve Kistlet (Kistler Vyd.), Jim Clendenen (Au Bon Climate) after visiting burgundy brought back new techniques and ideas in approaching this variety. Better clonal featured low-yield was introduced, progressively shifting the vineyards to the more idea cool sites such as Carneros, Russian River, Sonoma Coast. In the cellar, gentle skin extraction such as cap punch-down as opposed to pumping over, cold maceration and whole berry maceration were carried out to prevent the fragile pinot noir skins from breaking and better preservation of fruits freshness. Native yeast instead of previous cultivated yeast were used for primary and secondary fermentation to add complexity. Other Burgundian techniques such as barrel-ferment, and less aging were subsequently introduced to further strengthen the width and depth of Californian Pinot Noir.
Today, despite these methods, there are still many Californian Pinot Noirs that tasted distinctly different from Burgundy, where the fruit come across riper, more obvious alcohol and wood handling. However, new emerging producers such as Radio-Coteau, Peavy, Scherrer with their unique vineyard sites and meticulous cellar techniques have come close to emulating their more glamorous counterparts. The same can be said for the previous burgundy-inspired producers such as William-Selyem, Rochioli, Au Bon Climate and Saintsbury who have continued to strive to further improve and refine their already fabulous Pinot Noirs.
The Grape
Pinot Noir is one of the most demanding wines to make both in term of vine-grower and winemaking.
In the vineyard - This low-tannin, low-pigment grape is very sensitive to weather, which often prefers cooler growing conditions. The relatively thin skin grape is highly susceptible to diseases such as mildew, rot and if the grape is not picked promptly at maturity, the tender berries shrivel and dry-out rapidly, resulting in raisiny quality. The early bud-break of Pinot Noir also makes it prone to spring frost and coulure (poor fruit set). Pinot Noir is also one of the most heavily mutated and degenerated grapes. A total of 46 clones were recognized from this variety compared to Cabernet Sauvignon, which has only 12 clones identified. This explains the huge variation in quality and performance for this grape. Today, clonal selection plays a major role in determining the quality of Pinot Noir in the New World. Pommard clone is perhaps the most widely planted and accepted in the New World, but occasionally you could find some diehard, burgundy-inspired New World winemakers using Dijon clone such as 115 and 114, which are more commonly used in Burgundy. Recently, particularly in California, there is a move to use sélection massale, or mass selection from their own vine population to lower the risk of genetic alteration. Other factors that directly or in-directly in influence the quality of the Pinot Noir lies with the weather and soil. Some New World producers in attempting to follow the Burgundian searched for limestone soil in their region, others simply look for cooler area near the coast where the maritime influenced climate with substantial day/night temperature variation will help to preserve the acidity in Pinot Noir.
In the cellar – Pinot Noir is also one of the most difficult wines to ferment. The high amino acid in Pinot Noir often ferments violently resulting in boiling must that spills out of the container and speeding the process, out of control. The relatively thin skins and low-pigment of this variety is also proned to acetification, making the wine lose freshness and varietal personality.
Terroir
The French must be the best branding people in the World. They owned today some exclusive terminology in wine that can only to be use by French and their land. For instant, Château, Champagne, Burgundy, Chablis, Pouilly Fumé were some of the names given to the wines and their origins, which today, governed by the French’s law that forbade others to use these names outside France. Previously they have banned the Australians from using Burgundy and Chablis on their wine labels, California from using Champagne on their sparkling wines and stopping Robert Mondavi from labeling Fumé Blanc on their reserve, oak aged Sauvignon Blanc. Those moves were to protect their trademarks and secure their unique market position. Recently, they also stopped all the sparkling wine producers in the world to used term such as Méthod Champenoise, which they claimed that Champenoise can only be use in Champagne, as they referred to the people of Champagne. Today, all sparkling wines made outside Champagne despite using the same traditional, bottle-ferment Champagne method can only be labeled as Method Tradition.
In the wine world today, what separates old and new world wines have everything to do with “terroir”, and “terroir” seemingly is to be the exclusive word associated with French vineyard, or precisely, Burgundy. Will this term eventually fall into the same faith and to be owned exclusively by the French, since they is no singular English word that can well replace or define “terroir”? So, what is terroir? Terroir refers to a product that is capable of producing its unique quality and origin. Does terroir truly exist and can it only be found in France? We intend to discuss this topic at length in the following paragraphs.
When one discusses about terrior, Pinot Noir, or burgundy came immediately to mind. The fickle Pinot Noir seems to reflect more of “gout de terroir”, or flavor of soil than any other grape types. Unlike Bordeaux, which grape blend could consist of up to five different varieties, in Burgundy, Pinot Noir is the sole permitted red grape to be grown, which makes it the perfect platform to fully express the potential of “terroir” and its grape.
Grapevine was cultivated in 17th century by the Abbey of Cîteaux in Burgundy. Through trail and error, the monks discovered it to be the ideal grape that was suitable for those golden slopes (Côte d’Or). Chardonnay was chosen to be the white variety planted in the soils that was rich in limestone and Pinot Noir on the other hand seem to strive best at calcareous soil (chalk), which provided excellent drainage and heat retentive that helped to ripen the grape. Since the monks treated all vineyards equally with identical grapes, over time the uniqueness and superiority of certain sites or slops were unveiled through the expression of grapes. Thus, the classification of individual plot vineyard or cru was formed and terroir truly existed then! The Burgundy region remains till today, the touchstone of terroir.
Terroir vs. Winemaker
I recently read an article on terroir written by Bill Nesto, MW, who is one of my favorite writers on Italian wine. His article published in the Beverage Business (www.beveragebusiness.com) has an interesting discussion on the concept of terroir. Here are some of the quotes, “the old world producing countries have built their industries on a system that gave great importance to the place of origin, the new world did not. More specifically, the old world gave credence to the empirical piece of land produced a wine with a unique taste (referring terroir), while new world producers relied on scientifically assessed cultivation and vinification methods (referred man-made, or human interaction).” Nesto further quoted the famous Australian wine writer/producer, James Halliday’s previous article on Climate and Soil in Australia, where he wrote, “the seemingly precise and logical correlation between grape variety and terroir in France has come about as the consequence of many centuries of experience which no amount of money could buy and no amount of research duplicate.” Here we are debating, “does natural environment matter more than man?” or simply, the French has over glorified the significance of terroir. Quoted from the same article, C. Van Leeuwen in 1996 in his “occasional paper” to Bordeaux University, faculty of oenology stated that, ‘terroir is a complex notion which integrates several factors of the natural environment (soil, climate, topography), biological (grape variety, rootstock), and human (of wine, wine-making and history).
My Conclusion - I believed in the existence of terroir, but I also like to acknowledge that it is in the hand of the skills and responsive winemaker that “terroir” can truly be unveiled. One of the most respected winemaker in Chianti Classico, Paolo de Marchi of Isole e Olena recently told me, “winemakers were merely the servants of the vineyard. The expression of wine should reflect the vineyard itself not the winemaker. I will never use one of those flying wine consultant, which has little understanding and respect of the vineyard!” That summed up the whole prospective. Despite having the ideal site, soil and grape, it is the winemaker that ultimately decides the “faith” of terroir. I have previously mentioned that the current trend of making highly expressive, extracted, ultra-ripe, humongous-size wines that are adored by some very influential American critics. Many new emerging winemakers aiming to make an early statement themselves were encouraged to produce such designer wines. Those internationalization wines not only come across as being identical to each other, these are wines that have shown well in the tastings (I referred them as show-wine) but rarely enjoy well with food. In addition, they have little respect to the terroir and the finer details and unique personalities are often buried by the excessive alcohol and oak.
I believe, a terrior-oriented winemaker is capable of releasing the uniqueness and individualistic vineyard that have no country boundary. The famous California Vintner, David Ramey previously told me, “There are grand cru vineyards that exist in all wine producing countries” Regardless old or new world, I have witnessed both vinos de altra expresión (high expression wine) winemakers and terrior-driven producers. Anyone who has tasted Californian pinot noir specialist such as Radio-Coteau, Au Bon Climat, Rochioli, William-Selyem, and from Australia, producers such as Bannockburn, Bass Philips, Giaconda, Kooyong, Moondarra will be surprised to learn that, all their wines are highly individual and with their attitude of continuing strive for quality and excellence. Burgundy, the home of Pinot Noir will be facing tougher challenges ahead of them (especially competing during the young age). In my recent tastings on 2001 Burgundy grand crus and among all are high profile wines such as Armand Rousseau’s Le Chambertin, Comte de Vogüe’s Bonnes-Mares, Claude Dugat’s Charmes Chambertin, Dugat-Py’s Charmes Chambertin, Robert Groffier’s Bonnes-Mares, Meo-Camuzet’s Vosne-Romanee Aux Brulees. All wines were served in semi-blind and I have quietly inserted a bottle of 2002 Radio-Coteau Hellental Pinot Noir from Sonoma Coast. None of all the 10 burgundy-fanatics on that night guessed it correctly (including me) and in fact, it was mistaken for a Chambertin! The dark cherry in a high-pitch, mineral-scented and structured frame could easily fool the most experienced taster for a burgundy from the Nuits sector.
Californian – The Contender
According to a L.A. based wine columnist, www.princeofpinot.com the first vintner that planted Pinot Noir in California is believed to be Paul Masson, who was originally from France, Burgundy. During his migration to California, he brought along the cuttings of Pinot Noir that were believed to be from his friend, Louis Latour and planted these in his vineyard at Santa Cruz. Today, there are 30,000 acres of Pinot Noir planted in North America, which represents 6 percent of the total red grapes planted here. Some of the early pinot noir specialist includes Josh Jensen, where his first Pinot Noir was planted in 1975 with St.-George rootstock at Mount Harlan in Hollister. Other pioneers of Pinot Noir include David Bynum, De Loach, Rodney Strong, Joe Rochioli…etc.
My early experiences of Pinot Noir from California were mostly light in color, with obvious acid-adjust and musty, cooked berries, earth, and excessive alcohol. These were far from those delicate, refined and silky burgundy from the fine vintages. Many Pinot Noir vineyards then were planted on the wrong sites, produced from over-crop vineyards with heavily manipulated winemaking and little understanding of this grape. Over the years, Californian winemakers have improved their awareness of this variety and slowly refining their skills in handling this mystique grape.
Californian vintners have taken a big step in improving their Pinot Noir qualities in the mid-80s. Vintners such as Paul Hobbs, Steve Kistlet (Kistler Vyd.), Jim Clendenen (Au Bon Climate) after visiting burgundy brought back new techniques and ideas in approaching this variety. Better clonal featured low-yield was introduced, progressively shifting the vineyards to the more idea cool sites such as Carneros, Russian River, Sonoma Coast. In the cellar, gentle skin extraction such as cap punch-down as opposed to pumping over, cold maceration and whole berry maceration were carried out to prevent the fragile pinot noir skins from breaking and better preservation of fruits freshness. Native yeast instead of previous cultivated yeast were used for primary and secondary fermentation to add complexity. Other Burgundian techniques such as barrel-ferment, and less aging were subsequently introduced to further strengthen the width and depth of Californian Pinot Noir.
Today, despite these methods, there are still many Californian Pinot Noirs that tasted distinctly different from Burgundy, where the fruit come across riper, more obvious alcohol and wood handling. However, new emerging producers such as Radio-Coteau, Peavy, Scherrer with their unique vineyard sites and meticulous cellar techniques have come close to emulating their more glamorous counterparts. The same can be said for the previous burgundy-inspired producers such as William-Selyem, Rochioli, Au Bon Climate and Saintsbury who have continued to strive to further improve and refine their already fabulous Pinot Noirs.
No comments:
Post a Comment