Wine Flaws and Why You Should Embrace Them
 

Asking for perfection in wine is like asking for perfection in humans — unrealistic
 

Illustration by Irina Perju

Poor wine. Every day, it wakes up and checks itself out in the mirror, then presents itself to us drinkers with no ambition other than to bring pleasure and relaxation, perhaps a little bit of intellectual intrigue, into our lives. 

And in return, what do we say to our wine?

You’d be so much nicer if you didn’t have any flaws.

Perfection is unreal     
                                                                                                             
A wine flaw is a deviation from the expected, which comes from the winemaking process. Brettanomyces, for example, is an ambient yeast that produces aromas that brewers love in a beer, but conventional winemakers hate when it appears in wine. Volatile acidity is caused by bacteria that produce acetic acid, which gives vinegar its characteristic smell. It’s also found in top Italian wine. Mousiness is microbiological spoilage coming from a whole bunch of compounds that can make the final wine smell like caged mice.

Why is it that we demand our wine be totally free of flaws, when nothing in nature is without imperfections? Lately, when I hear people obsess over flaws like Brettanomyces, volatile acidity, ethyl acetate, or mouse taint, I picture myself as a 14-year-old, alone in my bedroom, paging through a glossy magazine and wondering why I couldn’t look more like the actresses whose dieting regimes were published alongside photos of their bony thighs. 

As a natural wine drinker and maker, I am calling for a new way of thinking about flaws. Any winemaker at the start of their career is terrified of putting out a bottling that might have flaws. From the moment grapes are harvested, every possible thing is done to avoid the appearance of flaws: constantly sniffing the fermenting grapes to detect any trace of volatile acidity or ethyl acetate and its scent of rotten apples; punch downs are performed daily on the cap that forms atop fermenting grapes to ensure that neither of these two nasty compounds appears. The pressed juice is generally protected from oxygen to prevent oxidized flavors. But sometimes, these measures are not enough. And other times, the winemaker does everything right, and the wine gets mouse taint anyway. 

Maybe you’re thinking, why should I spend my hard-earned money on a flawed wine? But imagine a young winemaker on her first vintage. She’s borrowing equipment, harvesting grapes for her wine at the break of dawn, before going to her part-time job managing a restaurant. One of her ferments goes slightly awry during vintage, and suddenly begins smelling of nail polish remover — ethyl acetate has crept in. 

Petrified of releasing a flawed wine on the market, this novice winemaker adds sulfites in desperation, hoping that it might correct the situation. It won’t, but she’s trying anything she can. Maybe she adds other things: some citric acid to give the impression of brightness, or perhaps some tannin product to balance out fruitiness or hide unwelcome flavors. A bit of Botox, to fix things up. Maybe there were no flaws at all, but the winemaker has heard that it’s safer to add sulfites and a bit of this-and-that just to be sure the wine will turn out OK. The end result is a doctored beverage that might taste relatively all right — and looks perfect in that airbrushed way models often do — but which is lacking in originality and singularity. As well, the result is a winemaker who lacks the confidence to experiment or to let a wine run its course without interfering.

For young, emerging winemakers, the reality is living in fear. Many winemakers starting out would be interested in pursuing a hands-off, natural approach, but if they mess up and release a so-called flawed wine, it could damage their reputation for years to come. The stakes are high, too, given the cost of grapes, bottles, and shipping. I’ve heard of winemakers chucking barrels down the hillside when a ferment didn’t turn out well. That’s a huge financial loss, especially for someone just starting out. 

Could we be more forgiving, so as to encourage young and emerging winemakers to put their heart and soul into their first few vintages, without trying to make perfect wine? 

Flawed hypocrisy

For all the demands for perfection, some flaws are accepted or even celebrated in certain cases — notably, when Brett appears in top Rhône wine. Same thing with oxidation — a flaw in regular wine, but the main attraction in Sherry, where it is intentional and controlled. Other so-called flaws, such as volatile acidity, are beloved in other products — would any kitchen be complete without vinegar? It’s not that our palates resoundingly reject these flavors. It’s that we are taught, through books or mentors or sommeliers wearing their Court pins, that wine should be perfect, not unlike the way that young women learn from magazines that their thighs should have gaps. 

To make things personal: Just as I began writing this essay, I opened a bottle of my 2020 Cabernet Franc, a wine I made with my own hands. It was ever so slightly mousy — likely due to having gone through a lactic re-fermentation a year after bottling. Mouse is a flavor I truly do not like. Whenever I discover that a wine is mousy, I make sure to let the server or retailer know so that, ideally, they can set the wine aside for a few months to see if it sorts itself out, which can happen with mouse — it just disappears with time. That’s not an easy thing for a retailer to do financially, but if you’re going to support a producer, isn’t it the right thing to do to embrace their struggles and mistakes along with their crowd-pleasers?

Flaws can make a wine less enjoyable, I admit. But it’s also unrealistic to expect winemakers to turn out perfect bottlings, all the time, every year, unless we accept that they might very well manipulate the wine to make it look perfect. I was disappointed that my wine is mousy, but I cannot ask my wine to be perfect, any more than I can expect myself to be.

When you sip a wine and say, “It’s Bretty,” is that so different from observing a person and immediately commenting that their abs are flabby or their hair isn’t as straight as you’d prefer? Instead of remarking that a wine has some volatile acidity, maybe we could emphasize that the wine is unique, and vibrant. We could share that it was the maker’s first vintage or marvel that it was made in a difficult year marked by forest fires. 

Instead of focusing on flaws, let’s see wine as something as real as we ourselves are, a product of time and place, a mixture of nature and nurture, a drink that when allowed to show its true colors, is absolutely spectacular. I’ll have my wine flawed and imperfect, rather than altered to meet consumer expectations, any day of the week. 
 

 

These photographs show the wine world in a new light

Contributed by Lucy Shaw
 

 

A new perspective on old vines from photographer Juan Miguel Ortuño Martinez

The Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year 2023 shortlist has dropped, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the mysterious mechanics of vineyards and wineries all over the world. Showcasing the daily toil of grape growers and winemakers from fresh and unexpected perspectives, this year’s entries span everywhere from Stellenbosch in South Africa to Vila Nova de Gaia in Porto.

The images fizz with life and vitality, from the gnarly hands and wild white locks of ‘Dave the grape picker’, captured in striking monochrome by British snapper Chris Elfes, to the blueberry-colored bunches twisting in the grape crusher, shot by Spanish photographer Juan Miguel Ortuño Martinez.

The shortlist also includes stunning vineyard vistas, including a pristine patchwork quilt of vines in Switzerland, a misty morning at Denbies in Surrey, and an aerial view of Antonio Aldini vineyard at harvest time in Emilia-Romagna.
 
The Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year 2023 forms part of the annual Pink Lady Food Photographer of the Year Awards, which shines a light on thought-provoking images from amateurs and professionals from around the globe. Candidates submitted their photographs into three sub-categories: People, Places, and Produce.

The images were judged by a panel chaired by celebrated food photographer David Loftus, who was joined by, among others, wine writers Joanna Simon and Sophia Longhi, Taittinger’s president Vitalie Taittinger, and Errazuriz ambassador Magui Chadwick.

The winner will be revealed in an awards film that will be privately screened at BAFTA in London and live-streamed on YouTube on Tuesday 16 May. An exhibition of all the finalist images will be on show at The Royal Photographic Society in Bristol from 20 May until 11 June, forming part of Bristol’s World Photography in Focus initiative.

Scroll on for a selection of our favorite shortlisted entries for the Errazuriz Wine Photographer of the Year 2023 award.
 

People
 

Places
 

Process
 

 

How the Wente Clone Came to Define California Chardonnay
 

Despite its lower yields, the Wente clone’s fruit-laden concentration has made it the king of California Chardonnay—with some help from key winemaking figures.
 

Wente selection Chardonnay grapes on the vine. Photo courtesy of Wente Vineyards.

In California, Wente Chardonnay is everywhere, from famed Napa vineyards owned by Stony Hill and Robert Mondavi to Russian River Valley sites like Dutton Ranch, plus plant nurseries and research institutions like UC Davis. These famed Chardonnay clones, known officially as Wente selections, cover the majority of the roughly 90,000 acres of Chardonnay plantings in California as of 2021. 

Yet Chardonnay’s prominence in California is relatively new. In fact, the California Department of Food and Agriculture relegated Chardonnay to the miscellaneous section of its annual reports until 1968. But by then the Wente craze was already underway, slowly shaping American Chardonnay as we know it. 

The rise of most grapes can be tied to simple economic factors, like how easily, efficiently, and reliably certain varieties and their clones can be grown and sold. The story of Wente Chardonnay, however, is not about economics: The story of these clones—and classic California Chardonnay—is the story of two men in Livermore, California, and good old American politics.
 

Understanding Grape Clones

In viticulture, a clone is a grape variety cultivar selected for specific traits. Usually, clones are propagated at research institutions and developed for positive attributes like high yields, disease resistance, or drought tolerance. To clone a grapevine, growers or scientists take a cutting from a living vine, known as budwood, and plant or graft it. In the process, they create a new, genetically identical grapevine with the same valuable traits as its parent. 

For most of history, grapevines were propagated via the massal selection method, with growers expanding their vineyards using budwood from their most successful vines. This resulted in thousands of clones, each well-adapted to the local environment. As modern technology emerged, this process began to fall out of favor. Growers instead began opting for certified virus-free grapevine clones from nurseries, which gave them greater control within each vineyard. With time, new clones developed with preferred genetic traits, without the pesky viruses and disease often unwittingly expanded via massal selection.
 

From left to right: Ernest Wente, a key figure in the development of Wente selection Chardonnay clones; A bottle of 1936 Pinot Chardonnay, the first-ever varietally labeled Chardonnay in the U.S. Photos courtesy of Wente Vineyards.

“Clonal selection is primarily driven by production concerns because the wine grape business is a volume business,” explains Dr. Sahap Kurtural, a viticulture specialist at UC Davis. “Most clones are trialed and then selected mainly for yields, and then based on disease tolerance. For most farmers, if you can grow an abundant crop easily, it’s a win.”

The Origins of the Wente Clone

From San Francisco International airport, it takes about 45 minutes traveling east to reach the Livermore Valley AVA, the home of Wente Chardonnay. Now a blend of Bay Area sprawl and hillsides dedicated to vineyards, this small valley is the historic heartland of California wine country.

In the 1850s, Livermore’s proximity to San Francisco—and hordes of thirsty new settlers—made it an ideal region for viticulture. Over time, it became obvious that the terroir was as valuable as the valley’s city-adjacent location. Situated east-west, the valley is unique in northern California for its ability to funnel cool Pacific breezes directly inland. Most of Livermore Valley’s vineyards lie far enough from the coast to experience warm days, yet still enjoy the ocean’s moderating influence, creating an ideal Mediterranean climate for viticulture. 

During this era, Livermore was also home to Wente clone champions Charles Wetmore and Ernest Wente. 

Throughout the 1880s, Wetmore held a range of positions including president and CEO of the California Board of State Viticultural Commissioners—the early organization designed to promote and enhance California’s burgeoning wine industry. He was likewise a passionate advocate for California vintners who spent time lobbying in Washington, D.C., translating and distributing French viticulture textbooks, and traveling to France to bring cuttings of noble varieties back to California. From Meursault, he returned to Livermore with Chardonnay budwood and distributed it to local vineyards, including Livermore’s Theodore Gier Vineyard.  

At the same time, C.H. Wente was establishing Wente Vineyards. Though Wente declined Wetmore’s initial offer of Chardonnay—opting for Sauvignon Blanc instead—his son Ernest was an eager student of Chardonnay. After convincing his father to plant four acres using budwood from Wetmore’s Meursault adventure, propagated at the Gier site, Ernest added vines from Montpellier, France, to his experimental block in 1912. According to the Wente family, these two sources, which mutated over time as Ernest propagated the vines, now form the genetic basis for over 75 percent of California Chardonnay.

A student at UC Davis, Ernest built relationships with the state’s leading viticulturists who encouraged his clonal selection experiments. Over time, his cooperation with these experts and the state grapevine nursery system accelerated the spread of the Wente selections. 

The Evolution of the Wente Selections

Ernest set the stage for California Chardonnays defined by their plentitude of ripe fruit flavors, thanks to his obsession with vines that produced intensely concentrated, abundantly fruity berries. Ernest’s selections were then replicated for flavor characteristics rather than yields.  

“Ernest could have picked the vines that had the biggest clusters or the highest yield, but that wouldn’t have been the highest quality,” says Niki Wente, the current director of vineyards at Wente Vineyards and Ernest’s great-great-granddaughter. “So he really focused on what mattered to him, and that was the quality and flavor of the finished wines.” 

Politics played a role, too. Though Chardonnay had been steadily growing in popularity in the 1920s, Prohibition destroyed the majority of California’s Chardonnay plantings, because the thin-skinned grapes couldn’t withstand shipping to home winemakers across the country.

It also likely kept the Wente selections from falling out of favor due to their lower yields and characteristic small clusters: Unlike most wineries, Wente Vineyards was authorized to produce sacramental and medicinal wine throughout Prohibition, so Ernest continued cultivating his Chardonnay vines. According to UC Davis research, Wente Vineyards was one of only two commercially viable Chardonnay vineyards in all of California at the close of Prohibition in 1933. The family’s vines also led to the first varietally labeled Chardonnay in American history in 1936.  

The flavor and winemaking potential of Wente selections—known for small bunches, high concentration, and ripe tropical and citrus fruit flavors—soon captured the attention of UC Davis and other nearby grape growers, who then began using Wente budwood in new plantings and experiments. 
 

Steve Dutton, the owner of Dutton Ranch. Photo courtesy of Dutton Ranch.

In the 1960s, viticulturist Dr. Harold Olmo and plant pathologist Dr. Austin Goheen began selecting and testing promising Chardonnay clones, proving the delicate grape could produce reliably excellent grapes if it wasn’t infected by grape viruses. Eventually this budwood from Wente and others who had propagated their own sites with Wente budwood—like the teams at Louis M. Martini, Stony Hill, and Hanzell—formed the basis for almost all of the Chardonnay clones available in California nurseries. Accelerated by the 1976 Judgement of Paris, the rapid planting of Chardonnay lasted into the 1990s when it became California’s most planted grape variety. 

Creating California’s Chardonnay Style

“In the 1960s, if you wanted Chardonnay, Wente was what you got,” says Dutton Ranch owner and grape grower Steve Dutton. “I don’t think anybody was talking about clones when we were getting started, but I think that there’s a definite style of California Chardonnay whose underlying tones probably come from the Wente clone.”  

According to Dutton, who has dedicated over 200 of his 425 acres of vineyards to Wente Chardonnay selections, these clones are never high-yielding, but provide incredible grape material for premium winemaking.

“The clone is important because it’s going to give some flavors and concentration,” he says. “Wente is what we see a lot of high-end and ultra-premium wineries looking for, and even mid-range wineries because these clones have a concentration that comes through in the wines.” 

The sustained desire for Chardonnay with these characteristics has likely created the style of Chardonnay now globally recognized as Californian: Bold, full-flavored, and fruit-driven. The intensely concentrated juice from Wente selection Chardonnay grapes is also better suited to the new oak regimen historically preferred by California vintners. But regardless of individual choices like oak usage and acid-lowering malolactic fermentations, today’s full-bodied, ripe, “California-style” Chardonnays could arguably be called “Wente-style.”

“The Wente selection really steered us in a direction toward fruit-forward wines in California,” says Niki Wente. “A lot of the different clones on the market today actually can be traced all the way back to Wente.” 

Research by Nancy Sweet, the staff historian at UC Davis’ Foundation Plant Services concurs. “The Wetmore budwood provided an integral component of the well-known ‘Wente clone’ plant material,” she says. “The term ‘Wente clone’ is pervasive in the Chardonnay story because many growers, as well as Dr. Olmo, obtained budwood either directly or indirectly from the Wente vineyard in Livermore.”

For now, the Wente Chardonnay legacy shows no signs of stopping. Dutton plans to meet wineries’ demands for Wente selections by expanding his plantings of the clones. At the Wente property in Livermore, the team has no plans to reduce theirs. Yet as climate change accelerates and consumer taste preferences evolve, only time—and maybe politics—will tell what the future holds for California’s most prolific Chardonnay.  

 

The 18th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America, enforced by the Volstead Act, made illegal the sale, production, transportation, and consumption of "intoxicating liquors." Yep, the government once banned booze. The era known as Prohibition, which lasted for 13 years from 1920 to 1933, has been immortalized in countless films and documentaries. It gave rise to one of the most notorious criminals in American history (Al Capone) and over time proved to be one of the most ineffective government regulations of all time.

Still, while it was the law of the land, rules needed to be enforced. While some of the most iconic brew houses in America, like Budweiser, came up with creative ways of using up their malts and barley for other products, the wineries of California were in trouble. As wine grapes are grown for the specific purpose of producing wine, California vineyards couldn't exactly use their abundant resources in any way other than what it was intended for.

Government crackdowns made it all but impossible for the Golden State's burgeoning wine industry to stay afloat — that is, until a loophole appeared that made this form of alcohol legal. It came in the shape of the Roman Catholic Church. Their sacramental wine was, it would seem, immune from Prohibition.

What is sacramental wine?

Sacramental wine, also known as altar or communion wine, is an extremely important component of Catholic Mass. As we see in "Matthew" 26: 27-28, while at the Last Supper, Jesus took a cup of wine and said: "'Drink from it, all of you, for this is the blood of my covenant, which will be shed on behalf of many for the forgiveness of sins.'" Thus Jesus shared the first communion among the disciples. The practice has continued in Catholic Mass ever since.

The sacramental wine, representing the blood, and the bread, representing the body, are the keystones of Holy Communion, in which Catholics receive Christ through the consumption of the wine and bread. Canon Law in the Catholic Church mandates that all communion wine must be of the purest quality. It must be completely natural, made from grapes, and not corrupted (i.e. spoiled and turned to vinegar). Any other drink is completely unacceptable.

For American churches, Prohibition proved a predicament for this rule. Catholic tradition dictated wine be served for Communion, and the new laws of the United States forbade it entirely. What was to be done? As it turns out, one of Prohibition's strictest enforcers had a soft spot for the Church.

And how did it save California's wine industry?

The California wine industry of the early 20th century was not the powerhouse it would become by centuries end. Grapes and wine had been grown and produced in California since the 18th century, and by 1919 the state was number one in the country in terms of wine production and dedicated acreage. Then, of course, Prohibition was enacted and the fledgling industry was plunged into a maelstrom of uncertainty. However, luck was on their side.

David Blair, the strict commissioner of internal revenue throughout most of Prohibition, had eased up on the ban on sacramental wine, allowing priests to store and use it for religious purposes. What prompted Blair's adherence to religious freedom is unclear, but the decision would prove to have major implications for California's wine industry.

Almost immediately after the ban was lifted, California vineyards began applying for permits that would allow them to make the special wine. Production during Prohibition increased an astonishing 700%. Several million gallons of sacramental wine were procured by churches across the country. Within two years of the easement, California had a booming sacramental wine industry. Whether all these permits were legitimate is impossible to know. But, what is clear is that without this loophole for a religious exemption, California's wine industry would likely have died during Prohibition. To make sacramental wine was to survive. And as we can all see for ourselves today, survive the California wine industry did.

THE PROHIBITION WINE TO CHECK OUT  – Biale 2021 “Black Chicken” Zinfandel Napa Valley

 

 

Liquid Asset? Champagne’s ROI Is Outpacing Burgundy, Gold, and the S&P 500
 

You may want to reconsider popping that bottle of bubbly.

In recent years, Champagne has become one of the best investments, Bloomberg reported this week, with the alcohol performing better than more classic wine investments like Bordeaux First Growths and Burgundy. And even outside the industry, Champagne has been giving the S&P 500 and gold a run for their money.

That’s all according to the Liv-Ex, or the London International Vintners Exchange. Its Champagne 50 index tracks the price performance of vintages from a dozen top brands. In November 2022, Champagne became the third-most-traded region behind Bordeaux and Burgundy, at 18.7 percent (up from just 2 percent a decade ago). And certain vintages have even seen their prices more than triple: A case of the 2012 Salon Le Mesnil went up from $4,670 to $15,485 between January and September 2022—a whopping 232 percent increase.

Liv-Ex’s Robbie Stevens told Bloomberg that people began investing more in Champagne once they realized how undervalued certain types of bubbly were. “One catalyst was the release of the extraordinary 2008 vintage,” he said, “and then the slew of great vintages that have followed—2012, 2013 and 2014.” Climate change may also be contributing to the continued investment, with buyers worried about how global warming will affect the quality and style of future vintages.

Some prices started dropping around November of last year, but industry insiders say not to worry. Tom Gearing, the CEO of the fine-wine investment company Cult Wines, said to Bloomberg that the Champagne market will thrive in 2023 thanks to high demand and strong brand positioning. On top of that, production dwindled in 2021 and 2022, with some Champagne houses running out of supply in the fall. If you can get your hands on those bottles, their rarity and exclusivity make them a good bet.

And at auction, Champagne is doing better than ever. Jamie Ritchie, the worldwide chairman of wine and spirits at Sotheby’s, noted that the amount of Champagne lots in their auctions has been following an upward trajectory. One Hong Kong auction happening in a couple of days will feature 82 lots of rare Krug vintages and 60 of Dom Pérignon, for example.

Given Champagne’s promising outlook, you might want to consider placing a bid.