The Two Contentious T’s – Technology Versus Tradition

Many serious wine lovers, and some winemakers, will tell you that the old fashioned ways or traditional methods make the best wines, but do they? On the other side of this coin, some modern winemakers, and even wine lovers, will tell you that modern technology is the way to go, so where does the truth lie?

Let's start at the beginning, in the vineyard. Sometime during winter the vines must be pruned. Essentially there are two methods; machine pruning and hand pruning. Traditionalists will tell you hand pruning is best because the person doing the pruning has complete control. Using manual labour is far more expensive than machine pruning; machine pruning has the decided advantages of being a lot faster and a lot less expensive.

Many of the Vineyards in Coonawarra, a classic example was Wynns, were virtually exclusively pruned by machine for many years. By Southcorp's own admission, the method and regime of machine pruning, over a protracted period of time, was largely responsible for the loss of quality of many of their wines. Using that example, on the surface, it looks like machine pruning is not a good idea.

Across the road from Wynns is Majella. “Prof” Brian Lynne is no Johnny-come-lately and has been growing grapes in Coonawarra for decades and is a great advocate of machine pruning. Anyone who has tried his wines will know that he is doing a lot right; he makes beautiful wines, so how can machine pruning be wrong? The answer is very easy; when it's done badly!

When machine pruning is done correctly it is a totally effective method, but part of doing it correctly requires some tidying up of the vines by hand; this is mandatory for it to work successfully.

There are other factors to consider. One is the size of the block. If it is a small block, say five or ten acres and is a family owned operation, frequently the vines are hand-pruned by the proprietors to save money. So in this case, hand pruning is actually more cost-effective (if you don’t cost the family labour). The second is the age of the vines. If the vines are very old, or bush vines, hand pruning may be the only option.

So when the winemaker is extolling the virtues of their hand-pruned vines, it does not necessarily mean hand pruning has resulted in a better wine, or that quality was the motivation for hand pruning. My mate The Pie King is a classic example. He and Sue hand prune as it only costs them their own time, not dollars.

Whilst we are still in the vineyard, the next question; hand picking versus machine picking. Machine picking is fast, less expensive, and can be carried out in the cool of the night, which is an advantage for white wine, but there are some downsides. Firstly, the machinery has to be available when the grapes reach optimum ripeness. Secondly, if the grower is picking the whole block at once, they have to pick all the grapes at once, but this provides no flexibility. In comparison, whilst hand picking is a significantly more expensive on a large scale, pickers can go through and make multiple passes over multiple days, to ensure that every bunch is perfectly ripe.

Here the winner is clear cut, especially if you are trying to make premium wine. Hand-picking provides better control and more consistent ripeness. Undesirable bunches can also be discarded.

Once the grapes get to the winery, the next question is: to basket press or not? The traditionalists will tell you that basket press is best whilst many of the modernists are quite happy to use an electric bladder or membrane press. Winemakers will extol the virtues of basket presses, with many claiming they can get a better result by using them, but not all basket presses are the same. When many wine lovers think of basket presses, they think of the old manual presses that are frequently found in the grounds of wineries. Whilst some wineries still use manual presses, many wineries that use basket presses are using electrical/hydraulically operated, computer-controlled, basket presses. So much for the romance!

Once again, if you speak to somebody like The Prof from Majella, or even the irrepressible Tony DeLisio (ex-classic McLaren/La Testa), they will both tell you that they can get just as much control, and just as good a result using a membrane press. To the best of my knowledge, there is been no scientific testing to prove which is the best pressing method.

The next debatable question is a hoary old chestnut, whether to use added acid or not.

If you ask the French, they will tell you it is absolutely sacrilegious to add acid. Merde! If you ask Australian wine makers if it's okay to add acid, most of them will probably say yes. Yet, when you go into a winery, you will frequently hear winemakers extolling the virtues of their wine because they have not added acid.

Most wine drinkers don't care if acid is added or not, but to some wine lovers this is a hot topic. There are those that think adding acid is a bad thing, and some even get emotional over the subject, I can't understand why because the answer is extremely simple. If the wine needs it, acid should be added. If the wine doesn't need it, it would be foolish to do so, and no sane winemaker would want to ruin their wine with the addition of unneeded acid.

If the grapes are grown in a cool climate, the chances are added acid will not be required. Likewise, if they are grown in a warmer climate, if the weather and viticultural conditions are right, they may not need to add acid either. If they are grown in a reasonably hot environment, in many cases added acid will be mandatory for red wines. If the correct amount of acid is added at the time of ferment, there should be no way the wine drinkers should be able to tell the acid has been added. If it is added badly, then it will stick out.

If you ask Australian wine makers what they think about adding sugar to the ferment, they will tell you that only a Richard Cranium would be stupid enough to do it, yet French winemakers do it all the time. In Australia we add acid, in France they add sugar, and in each case, it is done for one reason and one reason alone. It’s needed to make up for deficiencies in the grapes caused by climatic and vintage conditions.

From here we get into technology and oak questions. Those questions include the decision to use oak barrels or oak chips; do you use micro-oxygenation or a more old-fashioned process; and what about reverse osmosis? Books have been written on this subject, but looking at these questions briefly we can examine a few examples that will illustrate the points.

If you intend making a high-quality wine, barrel ageing is great. Over time, microscopic amounts of air seep into the barrels very slowly, and this helps to soften the wine. d'Arenberg is a highly respected producer. For its less expensive red wines, they put a percentage of the blend into gigantic old wooden barrels which mimics the barrel ageing process, but in a much faster timeframe. No one sees anything wrong with that process and the results speak for themselves.

Last year when I was in Margaret River, I visited one winery whose wines have never done much for me. Some of the samples were as expected, but some of the unfinished wines were way better than I would have thought this winery capable of producing. The reason was micro-oxygenation. This producer was using micro-oxygenation with great effect to make their wines significantly better by reducing some hard/green characters found in earlier vintages.

Once you get into some of the very large wineries, micro-oxygenation is par for the course in many of their cheaper labels. Are these wines drinkable? Absolutely, and in many cases the use of this technology has made these wines much more approachable and enjoyable in their youth than their predecessors.

The type of oak being used is also an interesting question. It is not as straightforward as oak barrels versus oak chips. Some wineries use barrels that have been shaved, some use new oak planks in old barrels, and some use oak chips. This time the answer is more clear-cut. The higher the quality of the oak, provided it is used judiciously, the better the wine quality. However, not all producers are trying to make $50 a bottle wine, and those producing a $10 quaffer can only afford to use oak chips. Also, in low cost wines, the oak influence tends to be less.

Probably the most contentious piece of technology used is reverse osmosis. This is one process that you will not hear wineries talk about, because in most instances, it is used to try and fix real problems. As a backlash against higher alcohol wines is appearing in some markets, reverse osmosis is starting to be used to reduce the alcohol levels on some wines that would otherwise come in at 15+% and attract higher duties as well as possible buyer resistance. I doubt you'll ever find a truly great Australian wine where reverse osmosis has been employed.

In many instances, the use of supposedly more natural winemaking methods, as outlined above, are being used because of necessity, and lets face it, they make for an excellent marketing spiel.

You could also look at this whole picture the other way round. Does wine cost $50 because of the labour intensive method in which it is made, rather than costing $30 if there was less labour involved; and would the wine taste just as good? Make no mistake; winemaking is an interventionalist process from start to finish. It’s a bit like being pregnant, you either are or you aren't, and if you are, it's a matter of how much.

Whilst doing some research for this story, I happened to notice an excellent comment made by James Halliday who said, “Modern winemaking methods do no more than ensure an appropriate degree of consistency and predictability: the winemaker has been described by some as a quality control officer, whose job is essentially to do no more than preserve what nature has given him or her. This minimalist approach to grape growing and winemaking does full justice to neither viticulture nor winemaker, but it does help our understanding of the way wine is made."

Finally, the last time we were at Majella, the Prof’s son, Peter who was a chip off the old block; was not exactly backward in coming forward with his comments. He summed up the whole thing beautifully when he said, “Winemaking is all smoke and mirrors. What's important is what works.”
 

 

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