20160131 Ice Cream Sundae #18 Do you wonder what's in your wine?

Hey , I hope you had a great week! I mentioned last Sundae I was thinking of writing something about procrastination. I'll do that next week - or the following. This weekend I’m pouring sample glasses of my sister’s wine to professionals visiting from around the world to taste the best of French and international (e.g. Italy, Spain, Austria, Germany, Serbia) organic and naturally produced wines. I’d already written a draft in the past few days, and now I’m adding the final touches after a long day working and a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with all the other winemakers. I tasted several absolutely exceptional wines; it’s both a treat and an honour to be here. If you know me, you probably already know my sister owns a small vineyard in the South of France, in the Roussillon region. I’ve written about the experience of spending more time with her in my blog, if you haven’t checked it out yet I recommend reading it. My sister Saskia and her wine domain Les Arabesques have been invited to one of the largest and most prestigious organic wine trade shows. Given she is pregnant and close to term, she’s asked me to represent her and her wines at the show. That’s how I’m working at Renaissance des Appellations (Return to Terroir) over the weekend. It takes places in Angers, in the Loire Valley. It’s the second year she is invited to participate (and yes, one has to be invited). I’ve spent the day meeting importers, sommeliers, winemakers, journalists, restaurant and wine cellar owners to introduce them to Les Arabesques. Another treat thanks to a friend is that I got to meet Richard Leroy on Friday and taste several of his delicious wines. He’s particularly known for featuring in an exceptional reporting documentary style graphic novel I can only highly recommend if you’d like to learn more about wine after finishing this read. It’s called Les Ignorants (The Initiates) and it is also translated in English. One of my favourite graphic novels, it’s fabulous. Given the occasion and in case you ever wondered, I thought I’d use this Sundae to write about how wine is made and what these organic sounding labels and names actually mean. Let’s try to simplify and demystify this whole thing. Many people think wine is complicated and some people in the know may well disagree with me when I say it’s not. The categorisation is pretty simple. Unless you’ve been introduced to other kinds, I’ll categorise the vast majority of wine you drink and probably ever drank as the mass-produced industrial kind. What does this mean? I’ve asked around in the past couple of days; I don’t have an exact date but it seems to be since after the Second World War that wine consumption has grown enormously around the world. Increasingly large businesses have grown around it, and it has also become branded. Just like McDonald’s a large branded producer of wine wants to make sure anyone tasting their wine can recognise it to be the same anytime, anywhere. Avoiding risk is one of the driving principles. If you want to produce a lot of wine, you want to make sure you’re going to get as big a harvest of grapes as you can, as well as alleviate any risks presented by growing stuff in something as natural looking as a vineyard. They started adding increasing amounts of chemical pesticides in vineyards to get rid of competing weeds, bugs and animals. They also began pouring chemical fertilisers for the grapes to grow bigger and faster. Demand was growing so more vines were planted in places that weren’t ideal, like the flood plains of large rivers for example. This isn’t much different from most modern agriculture. If you happen to walk around vineyards one of these days, look around. Is the soil around the vines dry, moon-like and devoid of most other plant life? If yes, like the majority of vines out there, this plot’s soil is mostly dead, soaked in pesticides. Fertilisers and other kinds of plant uppers are the main reason anything is growing. This isn’t a rule, just a hint worth taking note of. Before moving to the next step, let’s consider grape varietals. You know how now many people say they prefer the flavour of this or that grape varietal?“I like Chardonnay but not Sauvignon Blanc†or “I prefer Malbec to Merlot.†In the vas majority of cases those opinions don’t make sense or carry any weight. Traditionally certain soils and climates are better suited to certain grape varietals that have evolved there and thrive under these circumstances. Under natural circumstances if you grow the same grape varietals in different places they won’t taste the same. Different varietals also adapt to the soil and as such don’t taste the same. I had the chance of tasting two pretty uncommon red wines made of 100% Cabernet Franc this evening; one from Bordeaux and another from the Loire Valley near Angers. They were absolutely not similar in flavour. I’d have dared you to recognise the grape varietal. The idea of a grape varietal having a standardised flavour is both recent and plain silly. Of course, it’s still the same family. You might recognise similar physical aspects of siblings, but you wouldn’t mistake one for the other. The Cabernet France from Bordeaux tasted like the one from the Loire as much as I look like my sister. Which is to say not so much, even though we carry the same genetic stuff. Grapes are harvested and then made into wine, which of course is fermented juice. As a side note, someone recently told me about alcohol-free wine. If you’re interested in that and think it might be healthy in any way, check how they extract the alcohol. If you don’t want to drink booze that’s obviously cool, just have grape juice or water, trust me. Back to the process, yeast allows for the fermentation to happen and gives distinct flavours. In order to both ensure a smooth and relatively risk-free fermentation, mass production of wine add pharmaceutical lab yeast. This has the added benefit of homogenising the flavour of the wine and eliminating naturally occurring yeasts. Then at various stages of the wine making process they add a whole host of chemical agents to stabilise and enhance the flavour of the wine. Sulphur dioxide (SO2) kills all and any microorganisms, stabilises the wine and protects it from oxydation.  A little can be fine, but industrial wines have loads. Many kinds of chemical components like enzymes are also used to enhance aspects like flavour, colour and body. The grapes they pick might not have the colour of the wine’s brand or its flavour, so it’s engineered instead. Other flavour agents both chemical and natural are also added, like oak chips to give wine a vanilla tones that are generally popular. Most wines copy what has been stated to be popular, going to the closest and lowest common denominator to try and resemble another wine, or one judged by prestigious guides like Robert Parker’s. By no means are they an expression of the grapes or the soil. At the risk of sounding cynical or coming across like a snob, the question of whether any of these industrial wines you find at the supermarket and chain wine shops are good is moot. None of them are good. They range from mediocre to worse. At best they’re drinkable. I only add this because they’re the vast majority of wines and so they are drank. If you like it, drink it and enjoy. I mostly avoid it, though I still  drink mass-produced wine on occasion. It’s cheap and readily available. Most of it is easy to drink, by design. I might enjoy a McDonald’s meal from time to time. I know it’s not good though. We all know it isn’t. It’s the same thing with most wine, only watch out for the bad hangover the following morning. Let’s move on to organic labels. I’m sure you’ve seen wines with organic labels. What this typically means (certainly in France and Europe) is that the grape growers have adhered to a chart limiting the amount of fertilisers and pesticides used to cultivate the land. That’s what you get when you choose an organic label. It’s a good thing for the soil, though not a gauge of wine quality on its own. The meaning is solely tied to agriculture. This means once the grapes are harvested, winemakers are free to add as much or as little extra stuff as they want, the kind explained above. If you’re interested in wine or agriculture, you might have also heard the term “biodynamicâ€. This kind of organic agriculture borrows ideas from Rudolph Steiner, a late nineteenth century philosopher, social reformer and esotiricist.  Biodynamic agriculture treats soil fertility and plant growth as ecologically interrelated as well as linked with stellar movements. It emphasises the use of compost and manures and excludes the use of artificial chemicals on soil and plants. It uses a lunar calendar to schedule tasks, such as homeopathic-like herbal or mineral based treatments of plants. For a short overview, this 14 minute video about Nicolas Joly on Vice is worth checking out. I’ve tasted his wine once; it’s awesome. He founded the organisation of this weekend’s trade show. Biodynamic agriculture is arguably the other end of the spectrum compared with industrial wines. I’ve tasted some amazing biodynamic wines, as you can hear the “Wine Magician†in the video say something like: “I don’t know how it works, but if you taste it there is a difference, and that’s good enough for me.†Of course not all biodynamic wines are good. That said you might like them, and that’s what counts. Because they are naturally made, with naturally occurring yeasts, the wine is still very much alive. This can make for wonderful wine, but sometimes unstable. It doesn’t necessarily travel as well. It’s more expensive and time consuming to produce. Some organic winemakers respect the old ways and work in a traditionally natural fashion without the more serious philosophical or astrological aspects of biodynamic agriculture. Meanwhile many also argue about what constitutes biodynamic agriculture altogether. That said, even the most pragmatic that don’t believe in astrology whatsoever still pay attention to the winemakers who follow a lunar calendar to spray homeopathic herbal remedies on their vines, because some of their wines are just out of this world amazing. Something in whatever they’re doing has to be right. You might have heard other words describing wines like “reasoned agricultureâ€, “vin natureâ€, or “traditional wineâ€. Those aren’t official labels and there are no official rules, every winemaker can be different in their approach. It’s pretty tough to navigate, though once again actually pretty simple at the same time. If by now you’re interested in tasting these kinds of wines, you might wonder how you can find or recognise a good one. There is no sure way to identify it from the bottle. The best way is to find a local wine cellar with a trustworthy wine specialist. My favourite are people who work with small organic producers. In large cities there are great addresses to taste and purchase natural organic wines in specialised wine bars and cellars. I have excellent addresses in London, Paris, New York and elsewhere I’d be glad to share. Are those wines typically more expensive? Well yes, on the whole they are. All this stuff is made by hand! I can tell you from experience it’s tough work. It costs a lot of money to make good wine! There’s a reason why cheap wine is cheap. To keep the same analogy as earlier mentioned; a steak of a rare breed of beef isn’t the same price as a Big Mac. Try it out, and tell me how it was. Drop me a line if you’re looking for a recommendation. To finish on a different note, if you’re looking for something to listen to I’ve just published a new episode the podcast. I went behind the scenes of a tabletop roleplaying game crowdfunding project with Ed Jowett to talk about his science-fiction game Era: The Consortium. I haven’t written much by way of blog posts these past few weeks, I’ll get back on it soon. Thank you for reading; it’s always a pleasure to keep in touch with you. If you’ve enjoyed and know a friend who might enjoy reading too, please forward the email to them. Till next week! CheersWillem

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I'm a marketing & communication strategy consultant. If you're looking for new ideas for your business, marketing, strategy, branding, training, a speaker for an event, or have any questions, please get in touch: [email protected].