THE CELLAR: PROCESSING & ADDITIVES
“So many poisons are employed to force wine to suit our taste–and we are surprised that it is not wholesome!”
(PLINY THE ELDER, NATURAL HISTORY, BOOK XIV, 130)
Most people regard wine as an artisan product that is made from grapes using simple equipment such as a press, a pump, oak barrels or vats, and a bottling facility. What many people don’t realize is that it is often a lot more complicated than that. In fact, apart from sulfites, eggs, and milk, most additives, processing aids, and equipment are used behind closed doors because of shortcomings in wine-bottle-labeling laws. “In the US, you can even use anti-foaming agents,” says Californian natural wine producer Tony Coturri. “Like that when you fill up your tank, there’s no waiting for the foam to drop. If it were chickens or any other food that anti-foaming agent was being added to, they’d say, ‘Hang on, what are you doing?!’ The FDA [Food and Drug Administration] would close you down.”
It is perhaps because of this that winemakers are often reluctant to discuss exactly what is used when, even if what they are doing is completely legal. The result is that the industry as a whole is mostly cloaked in secrecy. You’d be amazed how often I find myself tasting with wine reps who know surprisingly little about the wines they’re selling, beyond which grapes were used, whether the wine saw any oak, and for how long it was matured.
High-tech gadgetry exists that can, for example, adjust the alcohol content or perhaps micro-oxygenate or sterile-filter the grape juice. Cryoextraction, for example, is used to freeze grapes, solidifying their water content so that it stays behind during pressing. This is commonly used to mimic the naturally concentrating effect of noble rot—or Botrytis cinerea, a form of gray mold—in classic, sweet-wine-making regions such as Sauternes. Other invasive equipment includes the reverse osmosis machine, which is capable of separating out wine components and removing them if desired. You can, for instance, zap out water (if it has rained a lot) or alcohol, remove the taint of bushfire smoke, or eliminate yeast strains that produce “unfavorable” flavors like Brettanomyces (see page 78).
As far as additives and processing aids go, the number and specifics vary according to the country—over 50 groups of products, including the likes of haemoglobin, are allowed in Mercosur (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruquay), for example, while over 70 groups are permissible in Australia, Japan, the European Union, and the United States. These range from simple things like water, sugar, and tartaric acid to more obscure powdered tannins, gelatin, phosphates, polyvinylpolypyrrolidone (PVPP), dimethyl dicarbonate, acetaldehyde, and hydrogen peroxide. Animal derivatives are also prevalent, including albumen and lysozyme (from eggs), casein (from milk), trypsin (extracted from the pancreas of pigs or cattle), and isinglass (an extract from the dried swim bladders of fish).
Sorting tables, used to check the quality of the grapes, at Donkey & Goat in California.
Such manipulations—be they heavy processing, additives, or aids—are usually intended to save time and increase the producer’s control over the winemaking process, especially if the winery’s operations are on a large scale. Commercial realities, such as the need to release wine within a few months of harvest for cash-flow purposes, mean these interventions are sometimes confusingly referred to as “necessary.” Wine is one of those rare drinks made from a primary material—grapes—that naturally contains everything the wine needs to exist. This means that anything else should be regarded as an extra. As Gilles Vergé, a natural grower in Burgundy, France, who keeps his wines in barrel for four to five years before bottling, told me in the fall (autumn) of 2013, “Look at what’s on sale now, most people are selling their 2012s. Before, people waited two to three years minimum before selling bottles. They waited for wine to clarify itself naturally, but now they accelerate the process. Soon Beaujolais Nouveau from 2013 will be released, whereas my 2013s still look like mud! It’s not possible to do that naturally.”
This is one of the factors that sets natural wine producers apart. They are not creating a product simply to supply a demand. They think of their wines as children rather than commodities and are, in general, not looking for the easiest solution, but one that is most enriching for themselves, their plants, and their land. They produce wines of terroir—uncompromisingly and come what may. They eschew gadgets, processing aids, and additives, as these make the wine less “true.” As Anselme Selosse, a cult Champagne producer, says, “The vine is where it all happens, where everything is captured. It’s here that you reach 100 percent of your potential. You can’t then add to this during vinification. You can destroy or hide elements, but you can’t get extra credit in the cellar.”
NATURAL WINE PRODUCERS THINK OF THEIR WINES AS CHILDREN RATHER THAN COMMODITIES AND ARE, IN GENERAL, NOT LOOKING FOR THE EASIEST SOLUTION...
Foot treading is the most traditional way of crushing grapes. It is extremely gentle on the berries and is a technique still in use today.
