Admittedly, cork has issues. There’s a nasty bacteria which is occasionally present in cork which can produce off flavors in a wine. It’s a subject of much debate just how often this bacteria ‘taints’ a bottle of wine. To confuse matters further, the off-flavors associated with ‘TCA’ are perceptible to different people at different levels (measured in ‘parts per million’). There’s not a serious wine consumer alive who hasn’t been disappointed by an obviously corked wine. Those who are particularly sensitive to the smell and taste of TCA are disappointed more regularly.

For wines like Trivium, however, I’m a strong advocate of (quality) cork. Aging issues aside, wine is a beverage of tradition and hand crafted red wines top the list. Somehow, pulling a wine out of the cellar or consuming it for a special occasion demands more than a screw-cap. And to me a plastic cork for a quality red is like a Rolls Royce with vinyl seat covers! There’s something that just doesn’t fit. I’ll take my chances on the statistically rare instance of cork taint, while enjoying all the traditional trappings which make wine such a thoroughly distinctive beverage.

Chronicle wine writer Jon Bonné reported that Dunn is attempting to “reverse the upward spiral of alcohol in Cabernet, a trend that he sees as not only destroying the style of wine on which Napa has made its reputation but also neutralizing any sense of place.” We couldn’t agree more.

Alcohol is indeed a culprit in the sameness of clumsy wines, but it’s not the only one. High alcohol is just a symptom of the core source of the problem:  overripe grapes.  When winemakers learned that you could diminish the pyrazines (natural compounds in grape juice) that cause vegetal or herbaceous character in Cabernet by picking at higher Brix, they starting leaving the fruit out there so long that the berries became dehydrated, wrinkled and soft.  That led to rich, concentrated, powerful wines, but at the extreme they tasted like prune juice, were often noticeably sweet, and didn’t develop complexity in the bottle.  Unfortunately for some of us old diehards, many in the press and trade took a liking to that style.  

Juice brought in over 25.5 or 26 Brix will not reliably ferment to dryness, even with all the yeasts and nutrients that are now available.  So winemakers have to add water, which dilutes the sugar but also dilutes other components as well.  And if you bring the grapes in at 28 to 29, as some folks do, even watering back and adding yeast nutrients won’t get the fermenter completely dry.  Nothing will get rid of the cooked, raisiny character of the resulting wine.  Forget about it tasting anything like actual Cabernet Sauvignon, the most exquisite flavor in the wine universe.

Removing alcohol can help with that burning sensation at the back of your palate, but it won’t make raisins taste like properly ripened fruit. De-alking is often called “controversial” and “secretive,” but it really isn’t surreptitious or hush-hush in the industry.  Like filtration, micro-oxygenation, maturation tannin additions, VA removal, and other modern techniques, it can be useful and is widely used.  True, marketing departments don’t broadcast it, but any responsible winemaker would consider using safe and legal means to deliver a better product to his customers.

As for Randy’s and Ellena King’s study and proposal to segregate tasting wines by alcohol levels, it’s helpful, but it doesn’t completely address the issue of organoleptic interactions among wines in professional tastings.  A very alcoholic wine will make the wine that follows it seem thin, but so will a slightly sweet wine.  Sometimes even tasting a darker wine before a lighter one can have a similar effect.  Very tart wines can make the next wine seem flabby or sweet, and vice versa.  Highly tannic wines make it nearly impossible to evaluate the flavor and mouthfeel of other wines, often for the rest of the tasting.  

Since segregating wines according to alcohol content won’t control for interactions involving residual sugar, acidity, color or tannin, perhaps the approach ought to be to repeat tastings of the same wines in a different randomized order each time and combine results.  Is this practical?  Probably not, but any effective technique to reduce interactions is going to require more time than the kind of structured tastings we’re all used to.  Frankly, I’d like to see more judging done in the context of how wine is typically enjoyed: at the table, with food and friendship.

Call us to arrange a tailgate tasting in the olive grove next to Les Ivrettes, and see for yourself.

–Jack Stuart, Winemaker & Partner

There’s still a lot of celebration today about the Supreme Court victory which forced states to open up their doors to direct wine shipments. Philosophically, the victory has been savored by all of us in our over-regulated industry. Realistically, however, we may have… “Won the battle, and lost the war”. This is particularly true of small producers like Stanfield and Stuart Wine Company and artisan labels like Trivium.

The fact is that for many of us, the Supreme Court ruling has made life a lot more difficult. There used to a dozen or so states for which there were few restrictions, no filing requirements, and minimum fees. Those states are gone now, in the wake of the Supreme Court decision. In those and other states, there are now cumbersome filing requirements and expensive regulatory fees. For large wineries, with revenues and a staff that cover those expenses, it’s more of an administrative and financial nuisance. For artisan producers, desperately needing the direct-to-consumer revenue, the effect is much more devastating. Because of our size, small producers can’t keep up with the paperwork and can’t keep track of the new taxes. Not to mention the fact that there are still a dozen or so states whose laws effectively block direct shipments.

We appreciate the efforts of those who fought hard to overturn the discriminatory practices of states in regards to direct wine shipments. We’re delighted to have won that battle. However, we’re still losing the war of truly gaining access to consumers in states outside California.

Stu Harrison, Partner

All things to all people:

Trivium is one of a growing number of labels in the Napa Valley which reflect an encouraging trend in California wine… the increasing importance of the single wine winery.

Back in the 60’s and 70’s, the notion of a California producer specializing in just one product (or variety) was almost unheard of. In fact, just the opposite was true. Producers, from the ordinary to the extraordinary, rarely produced anything less than a dozen different wines, often from a score of different varieties. In the 70’s Almaden Vineyards (which incidentally was one of the pioneers of California’s varietal movement in the 50’s!) was a good example of the early mindset. At the time, they offered no less than 50 different wines. They produced every variety ‘under the sun’, literally.

The reason was simple. Back in those days, the more wines you produced, the more presence you could command on a retail shelf or a wine list. Even the top producers in the 70’s adopted that shotgun mentality. Both consumers and producers were new enough that the underlying tendency for wineries was to be all things to all people. It wasn’t important back then to be known for something in particular. The priority was simply to be known.

Today, as our industry has matured, quality producers are learning the importance of specialization and focus. Product lines are shrinking, and many new producers like Trivium (and Opus, Dominus, Continuum, etc) are narrowly defining to the consumer who and what they are. Geographic areas are more specific, product lines are smaller and vineyard designations are increasingly important.

Sometimes, if you want to hit the mark, a shotgun is not always your best weapon.

I have a slightly different opinion of ‘scores’ than many of my colleagues. My feeling is that ‘scores’ offer a large potential benefit to individual producers and very little downside. This stems from my belief that the primary influence of ‘scores’ is their ability to mobilize consumers in a positive direction. A wine which receives a “95” from one of the major critics has been given a remarkably powerful endorsement, one that is certain to boost image and fuel demand. A mediocre score has nowhere near the same downward impact. I’ve yet to see a consumer walk into a wine shop with a list of wines that they are not going to buy. The only real effect of a score of “85”, therefore, is its ego deflating capacity. We take the same offense when a teacher delivers a sub-par evaluation regarding one of our children. It’s human nature to be taken aback.

At the end of the day, scores are like medicine. Some are hard to swallow. Some don’t agree with you. Others can make a world of difference.

Overlooked in the alcohol debates is the amount of manipulation that is required to make high-alcohol table wines. Any must over 25° or 26° Brix needs help to ferment to dryness. With some winemakers aiming at 28° Brix, grapes sometimes arrive in the cellar with Brixes of 30° or more. These musts need to be diluted with water by as much as 15 percent to be able to ferment completely, and they require additions of various nutrients, such as diammonium phosphate, yeast hulls, and thiamin, as many as two or three times during fermentation.

Troublesome fermenters may stick (stop fermenting) anyway, allowing opportunistic bacteria, such as acetobacter and pediococcus, which produce distinctive off odors and flavors, to grow and compete for nutrients. In such cases, complex apparatuses must be brought in to remove acetic acid or alcohol, which inhibit continued fermentation. Sometimes filtration is required to remove viable bacteria. Then the whole mess has to be reinoculated with alcohol-tolerant yeast and more nutrients. At the end, you may still wind up with a beat-up sweet wine.

Now, it’s true that new rootstocks, new spacing, new clones and new canopy management have changed things in the vineyard since the good old days of AXR-1 and 8-by-12 spacing. It may be that we really do have to pick at slightly higher sugars to get the ripeness we desire without losing the character of the variety. It’s also true that lots of Cabernet and other cultivars are being planted in marginal areas that are not suitable, forcing winemakers to leave fruit on the vine longer to diminish the underripe characters that persist on bad sites. One way to tell whether a site is a good match for a particular variety is that you can achieve fruit ripeness at relatively lower Brix levels.

Even so, it may be that 14.5 is the new 13.2. Good wines at that alcohol level can be enjoyed, but go much higher and you start to get into trouble. Such wines are harsh, they make you tired, you can’t enjoy them throughout a meal, and they overwhelm the food.

—Jack Stuart, Winemaker & Partner

The resulting wines were thick, dark and strong, and often sweet from incomplete fermentation. Worse, they had alcohol levels approaching that of Port. They didn’t taste like classic Cabernet, two glasses made you too drunk to drive, and the wines tended to fall apart in just a few years. Many consumers were seduced by their power alone. Publications which had once preferred graceful, ageworthy wines, encouraged the trend by consistently giving blockbuster wines high scores. Marquee winemakers built their reputations on such scores and carried the techniques everywhere they went. Some members of the trade went along, selling wines on the basis of scores alone.

Overlooked in the alcohol debates is the amount of manipulation that is required to make high-alcohol table wines. Any must over 25° or 26° Brix needs help to ferment to dryness. Musts sometimes arrive in the cellar with Brixes of 28° or 30° or more. The resulting wines are anything but “natural.” Read the details of wines made in the lab, not the vineyard, in our next post.

—Jack Stuart, Winemaker & Partner

Interestingly enough, decanting can be an equally valuable exercise for young wines. Our 2006 Trivium drinks nicely when poured directly from the bottle, but it also benefits greatly from a ‘splash’ decanting. A wine doesn’t have to be in the decanter long (particularly important if your guests are thirsty!), as the time it sits in the decanter is not as important as the gentle aeration it receives going in. There’s even a gismo or two available today to bolster the benefits of the decanting process, such as aerating funnels, shallow decanters (more surface area), and dripless pourers. It’s all part of the unique tradition that surrounds wine, at the same time improving its taste and enjoyment.

–Stu Harrison