5 Fun Questions To Ask a Winemaker: Part 2

Terroir Tuesday again, and we’re back to talk about issues that wine consumers should know about.

Bud Break has come to Walla Walla

In part 1 of this series, we talked about sulfites.  Let’s recap: they aren’t fun to work with, excessive levels can smell pungent/sulfury, and if you are asthmatic, there is a small chance that you might have a reaction to sulfites in wine.  Sulfites are an ingredient that comes from a chemical company, however, sulfites are also a naturally occuring chemical and are actually produced by the wine yeast.  They are tremendously useful in preventing spoilage microbes including…trumpet sounds…Brettanomyces.

Which segues perfectly into question #2 to ask a winemaker or vigneron: Do you filter your wine?  If not?  Do you use velcorin?

Alright.  This is an important topic, so let’s start with some background.  Brettanomyces is a very slow growing yeast that lives in oak barrels, in wood attachments for presses, and other warm and fuzzy places.  It can survive 8mm deep inside a wood stave (the walls of the barrel) off of cellobiose.  Once wine is introduced, its great at converting certain types of phenolic compounds (from the skins) into 4-ethylphenol and 4-ethylguaiacol.

Q: So what?

Good question.  So what…at low levels, these compounds can add a smoky, spicy, maybe a medicinal character.  At higher levels, a wine can be left smelling like a band-aid or a pile of poo.  What kind of poo?  Reminds me most of cow poo.  Feel free to chime in with personal feelings on this.

Also, Brettanomyces has esterases that break down the nice fruity aromas in wine.  So what is to be done?  Off with his HEAD!

No, no.  Just chill.  We have a couple of options, and I, a winemaker, would like you, the consumer, to know that every winemaker makes a decision here.

Option 1) Filter your wine.  When we filter wine, we run it through porous sheets of diatomaceous earth, a chalk-like substance, and all the yeast and bacterial cells bind to it while all the flavors and aromas and alcohols pass right through.  Brett may have been living before, but now he has been effectively removed.

Option 2) Don’t filter, and live with it.  Brettanomyces has a tough time living below 3.5 pH, so if the wine was picked earlier with more acids, it will probably be just fine.  Maybe more complex and better because of it.  If it’s an American-style, full-bodied, jammy, 96 point Rober Parker Syrah, it will probably smell like poop and band-aids within a few months or years.   Why? Because these wines tend to be higher pH, picked later, and are more prone to microbial life.

Option 3) But I want both!  I want my cake and I want to eat it too.  I don’t want to filter because I am a minimalist, and I want to pick late and make a jammy, full-bodied wine that will score 96 points.

Well, I’ve got the pill just for you!  Originally patented by Bayer Pharmaceuticals, dimethyl dicarbonate is your kiss goodbye to Bretty wines.  This chemical is currently allowed in wines from New Zealand, Germany, and the USA.  It works by…killing everything.

Here’s the MSDS link: http://www.scottlab.com/info-center/documents/VelcorinMSDS6-07.pdf

Not fun to work with, in the powder form it causes severe breathing problems for the worker including pulmonary edema.  The good part?  After killing everything in the wine, it turns into methanol and carbon dioxide.  No problem.  The maximum allowed dose will give about 95 ppm, or 95 mg methanol/ liter of wine.  Wikipedia claims that the minimal dose for causing blindness is 10 mL, and 3o mL can be enough to cause death.

Oops, did I just scare you?  In a full 750mL bottle of Velcorinized wine there could be a maximum of .09 mL.  You’d have to drink 111 bottles of it to go blind.  However, the treatment for methanol poisoning is to pump you full of ethanol…so you’re all good!  Just hope that the guy working the dosing machine was in good shape during bottling.

So go ahead, ask…  start a lively conversation.  Because you, the consumer, need to know about stuff.

Michael Penn

The Terroirists show: Grenache the Magnificent

Corliss Estates: I’ve got a Golden Ticket.

Long have I driven by Corliss Estates winery in downtown Walla Walla and equated it to Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory; you never see anyone go in or come out. Today I and my fellow Terroirists and wine students got a tour of the Area-51-like winery, and I must say it was what one might expect from a place surrounded by such mystery. The insides are somewhat cramped and for me it seems like moving barrels around would be a lot like that parking lot game. All of that aside the winery is incredibly beautiful and I was honored with the chance to finally see inside. The winery use to be a bakery a long time ago, but you won’t find any traces of yeasty bread-like aromas left.

We got to try a few of their wines from tank. One of them was a syrah that had real jammy aromas, this wine will be a hit when its released. Another wine (technically a Tranche wine) was a blended wine named “Slice of Pape” which is a homage to the famous Chateauneuf-du-Pape wines of France. This wine interested me, and I am very eager to try it when it is released — it had a sharp taste with crisp acids. I found the attack very pleasing but the mid palate a little jumbled, only to be brought together in the end almost like a Guy Ritchie movie. All of of the Corliss Estates wines are fermented in oak. They do, however, have one of those crazy concrete “egg” fermenters that they plan to use for chardonnay in the future. The wines are not hurried to be released; they sit in the library in the basement until they are ready to go. Because of this they have a special section of their bottling line that is just for cleaning the bottles before they are labeled to remove any dust that has caked itself over the extended bottle aging period. It was pretty much a rocking time.

I would tell you to visit them at some point, but as I said before this is pretty much an off-limits winery; they don’t have tasting room hours, and as far as I know are limited when it comes to hosting special events. If, however, for some reason you have the opportunity to tour the facility and try their wines, drop everything and do it!

For more on Corliss Estates one might read Steve’s article A Dinner Which Did Not Suck

Terroirists at Tero

The Windrow On the Hill

Steven Washuta

Were it not for the dozens of tasting rooms scattered around town, much of Walla Walla hardly looks like wine country. A drive south of the border to the area known as “the rocks,”  instantly transforms the scenery into that of vineyards young and old, but mostly young. The 220 acres of Seven Hills Vineyard looms on a hill above the area, and just a stone’s throw to the west lies Tero Estates at Windrow Vineyard.

View up Dry Creek

Part of the vineyard is actually the original Seven Hills, planted in 1980. The story of what is now Seven Hills is more complicated than some second order differential equations. Regardless, Doug and Jan Roskelley now own Windrow Vineyard – a medium-sized estate (small by California standards), with some of the oldest vines in the Walla Walla Valley and some of the youngest — including recent plantings of Charbono and Petite Sirah. They’ve built a towering winery on premise which provides a commanding view of the surrounding hills and vineyards.

After checking out the view,  Ashley Trout poured us her 2006 Flying Trout Deep River Red, a blend of Sangiovese and Malbec from Stillwater Creek and Phinny Hill vineyards, respectively. Ashley is now producing the 500 or so cases of Flying Trout at Tero in a deal which seems to be working out very well on both ends. I’ve yet to be sold on both Sangiovese and Malbec being grown in Washington, but this wine is spot-on. The nose is a very attractive blend of fruit and flowers, and the wine is much more in balance than many found in the great state of Washington.

More than a feeling

Eric Noreen

I feel the need to chime in on this one as well. The trip to Tero Estates did wonders for me. It felt as though everything that made me fall in love with wine were all together in one place: beautiful vineyards, great wine and good people. The wine from Tero Estates was evolution in bottled liquid form, every time I took a sip I was able to find something completely different. Flavor profiles running the gambit of nutty cheese’s to cherry flavored pipe tobacco. I believe this wine may be one of the finest Walla Walla wines I have had here in my close to two years. It may be a bit of a task to get there, but then again when are the best things in life easy.

Responsible Viticulture

Michael Penn

The line between organic viticulture, and making the most sustainable decision in the vineyard can be a fuzzy line at times, and Windrow Vineyards walks it thoughtfully and carefully.  For example, organic vineyards are heavily reliant on sulfur to control mildew.

Windrow Vineyards chooses to use mild synthetic fungicides for three reasons.  They require less sprays per year and this mean less consumed fuel.  In sulfur dependent vineyards, the sulfur can accumulate in the soil, and on the grape skin, and are thus available for microbes to eat and turn into flavor compounds.  And finally, sulfur can kill beneficial insects which are the marker of a healthy vineyard ecosystem.

The wines from Tero Estates are terroir driven because they reflect a beautiful and responsibly managed vineyard.  In the 2007 Windrow Blend that we tried, the entire wine was harvested in a single day.  This wine reflects a unique time and place, its unique profile could be found in no other wine, and the Terroirists highly recommend that you get in contact with Tero Estates on your next visit to Walla Walla.   Call ahead, they are by appointment only.  And please, don’t be scared by the appointment only.  If you have read this blog, then you will be welcome.

The Precursor to the Precursor

There comes a point where where being a wine blogger in the heart of a wine country can be tricky. All was well in Walla Walla today – it’s Mike’s birthday and we feasted upon great salmon and locally slaughtered asparagus. It became trickier when Mike unleashed a brown-bagged wine for us to rate.

2007 Walla Walla Vintners Pepper Bridge Vineyard Malbec

We had just arrived at the HQ from a great tour at Tero Estates (review to be posted soon), and the cooking process had begun while NHL playoffs resonated throughout the living room. Mike poured a wine into the house decanter and we took a gander. We mostly agreed on one thing: the wine is good, solid, but simple. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the wine and there are a few things which are very enjoyable. The nose smelled of fruit (cherries or cranberries maybe), some oak, maybe a bit of a skunk (in a good way), and as Eric says: mayonnaise. Pepper Bridge Vineyard is one of Walla Walla’s biggest and best, but in this wine I wish it could have delivered more tannins. This Malbec would actually probably be quite popular; it’s smooth, supple, and delicious. A case against wine critics has been made tonight, but the Terroirists live on.

Mike’s score: 90 (unblind)
Eric’s score: 87
Nathaniel’s score: 86
Steven’s score: 84

Council of Variable Members score: 87

87 points isn’t anything to be ashamed of, but I think we all expected more out of this wine than it delivered. At least we had hockey to entertain us.