A quote from Max Allen's fine The future makers

Brian Croser: one of Australia's greatest winemakers and a longtime believer in the importance of terroir and site. Certainly relevant in terms of the Loire in view of the controversy over cryoextraction/cryoselection:

'I think there's a reaction building to all the manipulation going on in the industry now,' says Tapanappa winemaker Brian Croser. 'I see this reaction particularly among producers of what I call fine wine. You see, fine wine is – should be – a natural product. The concept of naturalness is an integral part of fine wine. Making fine wine doesn't mean using reverse osmosis, acid addition, tannin addition. It certainly doesn't mean using GMOs. The aim should be to do absolutely nothing to alter the composition of the wine. Naturalness is as important as hedonic quality in fine wine. The consumer needs to believe that the winemaker hasn't mucked around with it.'

New approach to ice wine@small vineyard by the Orangerie of Schoenbrunn: cryoextraction or cryosélection?

Couple of photos of things that caught by eye today:

 Anker: beware of graffitti artists

Delighted to learn that cryoextraction is not allowed in the making of sweet Austria wine. Sadly a number of people at the EWBC still insist on calling it dessert wine!

Quarts de Chaume: part of the vineyard looking towards the Layon

It is undeniable that Baumard’s Quarts de Chaume has won numerous awards over the years as well as receiving plaudits from a many critics – myself included. Some of these wines, at least, will have benefited from the use of cryoextraction or cryosélection as the Baumards call it. The process tending produce wines with more lifted acidity, so a lighter, fresher finish than some other Quarts de Chaume wines. Picking the grapes at a lower potential alcohol and a higher level of acidity may well also be a factor here.   

The Baumard wines please both critics and consumers, so shouldn’t the taste be the ultimate arbiter? What does it matter that some of their plots in the appellation appear to be over-cropped? What counts is the finished wine in the bottle and glass. Or is it?

This raises the question of what role there is for intervention in the winery, post picking. The level of intervention will vary from wine-maker to wine-maker and the style and price of wine they are making. The level of intervention that is considered acceptable for an entry-level mass brand may well not be considered appropriate for an ‘ultra premium’ wine with price tag to match.

To return to top quality sweet wine, there are several ways to make these wines. In France most are made on the vine with growers taking the risk of inclement weather to leave picking the grapes until well into the autumn with concentration occurring either through noble rot or passerilage or a combination of the two. Alternatively the grapes can be picked early and then dried. In France there are a few examples of vin de paille but this method is much more common in Italy.

Sweet wine can also be produced by freezing – either by naturally low temperatures in vineyards in places like Germany, Slovenia and Canada, especially – or by a cryoextraction as in Randall Grahm’s vin de Glacière. Cryoextraction has also been used, as we have seen, in conjunction with late picking both in the Loire and in Sauternes.   

On 27^th September 2010 the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume decided by a big majority that cryoextraction has no place in the Quarts de Chaume. I think they were absolutely right. The implication being that if you are selling your wine as a vin de terroir and benefiting from the appellation’s high reputation then it should fully reflect that particular terroir without the need for and changes to the finished wine that cryoextraction may bring.

Improved viticulture linked to the natural advantages of the best sites in the Layon now means that it is possible to make sweet wine here every year. Naturally not all vintages will be of the quality of 2007, for instance, but even in a difficult year like 2008 attractive, although lighter, less complex wines were made.

I assume that any Quarts de Chaume producers who wish to continue to use cryoextraction after it has been phased out will be free to do so – they will just have to label their wines: Vin de France, vin moelleux de qualité.   

 The Syndicat rejected this

 I'm delighted that the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume threw out so decisively on Monday night the demand from two of its producers to allow the use of cryoextraction in the appellation. This and other decisions that the Syndicat has taken should enhance the credibility of the Quarts de Chaume.

At the meeting they also decided to limit the weight of grapes harvested from each vine to 1.4 kilos with a maximum tolerance of 1.7 kilos. Adjusted for the vignes larges it was agreed that this would equate to 2.5 kilos. The Syndicat previously agreed that grapes for Quarts de Chaume have to reach an average potential alcohol of 18% with 17.5% at the lowest.    

To have accepted the use of cryoextraction would have signalled a return to the bad old days of the  late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s when much of the sweet wine produced in the Layon was of poor quality, although the technique of cryoextraction was developed during the 1980s. It would have threatened the impressive progress made over the last 20-25 years with the reintroduction of selective picking, reduction in yield, etc. It is quite likely that other Quarts de Chaume producers would have decided that why take the risk making sweet wine naturally when cryoextraction allows you to pick the grapes when they are less ripe. From the photos I took on Sunday and yesterday (see below) it is also clear that it allows yields to be pushed up well beyond the limit possible for naturally sweet Quarts de Chaume. The permitted maximum yield for Quarts de Chaume is 25 hl/ha. To make top quality, naturally sweet wine you have to go well below this – much closer to 10hl/ha than 25. Cryoextraction allows you to harvest at 25hl/ha and probably much higher in some parcels as these photos show:

Taken yesterday in a terraced parcel in the Quarts de Chaume – 20+ bunches

Doubtless accountants would find such arguments compelling. 

I'm not saying that Quarts de Chaume made by cryoextraction are bad wines. After all cryoextraction assisted Quarts de Chaume have won numerous awards. However, they are not I think true terroir wines. Indeed they could be made more economically on flat ground, machine harvested and then concentrated. The Quarts de Chaume is classified as one of the three crus of Anjou because of its terroir or special site: its proximity to the Layon, its soils, its microclimate, etc. which all go to making these vineyards particularly favourable to the development of noble rot. Cryoextraction and the quantity of grapes on these vines makes this special terroir irrelevant, except that the finished wines benefit from the reputation of the Quarts de Chaume.

The Syndicat's decision to require in 2011 a minimum of 18% potential at the time of picking and a limit on the amount of what can harvested from each plant will surely force changes to the way the vines on these terraces are managed. Under the current way they are managed I would be very surprised if they can reach 18% potential and if the fruit on each vine weighs just 2.5 kilos – between 4 and 5 kilos per vine looks much more likely.

I note on the InterLoire site which details the requirements for Quarts de Chaume that:

'Contraintes techniques : Vendanges manuelles avec tries successives de raisins arrivés à surmaturité et présentant une concentration par l’action ou non de la pourriture noble. Contrôle « à la parcelle » des conditions de production.'

I have to wonder whether the above parcel meets the 'conditions de production'. If they do, then it would appear that the 'conditions' are actually pretty lax!

Lower part of the Quarts de Chaume looking down towards the Layon

Very good news!

At their meeting last night the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume voted decisively against the use of cryoextraction (also called cryosélection) by 15 votes to 2. Domaine Baumard, who have been allowed to use this technique until now, will be given time to adapt to the ban.

From 2011 the average potential alcohol of the grapes for Quarts de Chaume at the time of picking must be 18° min with 17.5° as the absolute minimum permitted, which I suspect will make cryoextraction both less attractive and largely unnecessary.

More details later.

Really suitable for Quarts de Chaume! (above and below)

CRM and I took a stroll in the Quarts de Chaume and Chaume this afternoon to look again at the difference between the two appellations and to see how the grapes were coming along; although it will obviously be some time before picking starts here.

In much of the Quarts de Chaume bunches are well spaced out, a low yield as one would expect and the grapes have turned golden with a few early signs of noble rot. One parcel we saw was dramatically  different - a terraced vineyard in the lower south west part of the Quarts de Chaume.It had a very high, luxuriant foliage and a staggering number of large bunches of very green grapes on each vine - up to 18  bunches on some vines!

Difficult to see how grapes on these vines could ever ripen sufficiently to make sweet wine of the standard associated with Quarts de Chaume without the help of a concentrator. Assuming that these vines are not used for Anjou Blanc (bag-in-box) or vin de pays, the need for the owner of these vines to use cryoextraction  to make Quarts de Chaume becomes crystal and shockingly clear. Truly a machine to turn a sow's ear into a silk purse!

If cryoextraction turns such unpromising material into sweet wine one can well understand why Jean Baumard believes la cryosélection `m'apparaît être une des découvertes oenologiques majeures de la fin du XXème siècle`.  

In such overcrowded conditions it is hardly surprising that the wrong type of rot (grey) is likely to develop.

 It is instructive to see how different the vines, foliage and grapes are in much of the rest of the Quarts de Chaume.

Better ventilated, much lower yield and smaller bunches

Noble rot developing in a parcel of Bellerive's vines

Looking at the vines in the Quarts de Chaume today only reinforces my belief that cryoextraction should have no place in the Quarts de Chaume. It should be an appellation for naturally sweet wines not for wines born in a concentrator.

 Will the producers vote for this?

The Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume meets tomorrow to decide whether to permit the use of cryoextraction to concentrate the grapes/must. Two producers – Baumard and Laffourcade – have requested that cryoextraction should be allowed.

Along with Bonnezeaux, the Quarts de Chaume is the Loire top sweet wine appellation. There should be no place for cryoextraction here. I hope and trust that the Syndicat will reject this demand. 

For more details please see here, here and here.

or this?

Claude Papin (Château Pierre-Bise) is the president of the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume. I am sure he would welcome your views on the use of cryoextraction in the Quarts de Chaume. His email address is chateaupb@hotmail.com 

 Giving an exceptional terroir a helping hand ...!!

(From my Tuesday's post on Les 5 du Vin)

 Later this month the Syndicat des Quarts de Chaume will meet to decide whether to allow cryoextraction to concentrate musts destined for Quarts de Chaume. I gather that two of the producers have asked the Syndicat to permit its use. 

 

A quite extraordinary turn of events I think as there have already been two successful court cases to defend the high reputation of Quarts de Chaume against the apparently overweening ambitions of the Chaume producers.

Read the rest here.