A Sense of Place – Bodega Chacra, Pinot Noir & Rio Negro, Argentina

Argentine Malbec from Mendoza.  Perhaps no other grape has recently been paired with a region so successfully than the Bordeaux export.  Countless examples fill shelves and wine lists – many of them quite good, exuding not only typicity and sense of place but also embracing an emerging winemaking tradition in Argentina.  However, Malbec from Mendoza did not interest me over the weekend – Pinot Noir from Rio Negro is what captured my attention.

Rio Negro is the southernmost winemaking area within Argentina.  Home to more apple crops than vineyards, the region is still off of the radar for most wine drinkers.  Though it’s quite some distance away from the equator, the region is not in fact overly cool for its latitude (after reading up on the Rio Negro, I must correct a statement I recently made on Twitter – the region is in fact not a cool climate region – it’s fairly warm with a long growing season).  With a climate more dry than rainy and more dessert than lush, the vineyards of the Rio Negro Valley are often irrigated with melt from Andean snow, though some winemakers in the area dry farm.  And compared to other Argentine wine regions, the Rio Negro is situated at a fairly low altitude with the best vineyards planted at around 750 feet above sea level.  Some of the vineyards up north can be located at up to 3,000 feet.

Though it’s a fairly arid region, the Rio Negro does experience large diurnal temperature changes as the temperature at night can drop 25-40 degrees from daytime highs.  And as the folks as Bodega Chacra note on their website, there are consistent and clearly defined seasons in the Rio Negro.  This reliability on the weather patterns to remain true enables winemakers to produce wines that realize their potential in capturing a sense of place.

Like many winemakers in Argentina and Chile, Piero Incisa della Rochetta, is a transplant from Europe.  You might recognize his family’s Tuscan label – Tenuta San Guido.  Now at home in Rio Negro, della Rochetta sources grapes from vineyards that are up to 80 years in age – with the oldest vines still planted on their own rootstock.  The wine I alluded to above was the 2009 Pinot Noir bottled under the Barda label.  As is the practice with winemakers across the globe, della Rochetta uses the Barda as a second label which is bottled with grapes not used in their higher end, more precise cuvees.  An incredibly aromatic and weighty wine, the ’09 Barda was not too richly textured or dark in color.  It had an abundant amount of acidity and had the weight of a Pinot that can be best described as Pommard-esque.  Too fruit forward to be confused with Burgundy it certainly had a flavor and textural profile that confused me a bit – not New Zealand, not California but with a couple of toes in a warmer vintage from the Cote d’Or.  For me, it’s a wonderful gateway wine to the rest of the lineup produced at Chacra and I hope the single vineyard cuvees soon find their way onto my dinner table.

Label Photo Courtesy of Bodega Chacra

A Sense of Time and Place – Early Purity and Elegance

Flowers in bloom are tough to come by in New Jersey this time of year.  Though it has been a mild winter, most of the shoots and growth we see thus far will not be producing flowers for another few weeks at the earliest.  However, as we inch closer with anticipation to warmer and longer days, there are a few harbingers of Spring hidden below our feet.  Both snow drops and crocuses are in full bloom – tucked away beneath the trees and last season’s leaves.  At no other time of year, at least in New Jersey, do these flowers appear.  And their vibrance, purity and simplicity preserve a sense of a time that comes only once a year – the time when we eagerly await the return of birds, bloom and perhaps a glass of something delicious with the windows open – if only for a few hours.

Snow Drops - Photo Credits: Teroldego & Tomatoes

Crocuses - Photo Credits: Teroldego & Tomatoes

And during this time of year, it’s not quite warm enough to abandon the reds in your cellar.  But as we look forward to rosé season, less brooding styles seem appropriate.  Last night we cracked open a couple of value bottles from two of my favorite California producers – Qupe and Tablas Creek.  The Central Coast Syrah from Qupe is a prime example that large appellation wines can still taste of a specific place as the wine was clean, elegant and pure.  The Patelin de Tablas from Tablas Creek is a delicious California equivalent to a Cotes du Rhone with concentrated and focused Paso Robles primary fruit.

Rhone Alive and Well in California

What’s in Your Wine? Andrew Jefford Weighs In

The week before last, I wrote about the shortfalls with ingredient labeling for wine.  Since there aren’t labeling requirements for wine (besides the vague ‘contains sulfites’) in the United States, it’s up to wine makers to decide whether it is in the best interest of their customers to know what they are drinking.  However, nearly all of the wine makers in the US aren’t listing ingredients on their labels.  I wish they did.  But I am certain that unless they are forced to do so, most will continue to choose to not list additives used in the vineyard and winery.   In his column on new European Regulations for organic labeling, Andrew Jefford, journalist for Decanter (and many other publications), hit upon ingredient labeling this past Monday:

“I’m not saying, of course, that full disclosure of additions would result in better wine. It’s not the presence or absence of an intervention, an addition or an adjustment which matters, but the quality of judgment which lies behind that presence or that absence. Full disclosure would, though, make all winemakers at least stop and think about why they are making an addition – and might spare us some of the wine caricatures which undisclosed, heavy-handed additions create.”

The practice of labeling ingredients will almost always result in customers getting an honest look into what’s in the bottle they are about to purchase – and customers have the right to know what, besides fermented grapes, is in the bottle.  And most importantly, the customer can choose to support or not support those who add what they deem is more than necessary to the finished wine.

Organically Grown Grapes and What Else?

This entry is not intended to be an attack on the vineyard or winery practices of a particular winery, but instead an open question into the short-comings associated with listing ingredients of wine on the label.  I support putting wine ingredients on the label.  In my opinion, consumers should be able to know when acid, sugar, oak chips, coloring, fining and filtering agents have been used in the production of their wine.  As of this morning, the only ingredient that wineries are obligated to list on their label is sulfites.  No matter the amount of sulfites added to a wine, wineries must print “contains sulfites” on the label.

While walking through a retail store earlier this week, I came across this label from a fairly well known Napa, California winemaker.  I’ve blacked out the name of the winery not because I am afraid of offending them, but I wish not to pick on them in particular – listing only grapes as the ingredient on the back label of a bottle is a fairly common practice.

The winery produces a number of wines – all of them sound and proper examples of Bordeaux blends coming from California.  Their label alludes to their use of organically grown grapes.  And the winery’s website goes further and proudly explains that their organic practices are certified.  I applaud both their efforts – more wineries should follow suit.

Organically Grown Grapes and...?

Plenty is added and taken away during the wine making process – even when a wine is produced in an organic and/or biodynamic manner.  However, when a winery (and I am sure this winery isn’t the only winery who does this) lists organically grown grapes as the only ingredient, is this effort more self serving than an attempt to be honest with the consumer?

Listed below are a few processes that add ingredients to wine as it is finished in the winery.

Acidification

Chaptalization

Use of oak chips or oak staves

Fining and/or filtering agents such as bentonite, egg whites, etc…

Addition of sulfur (listed, but how much?)

Yeast (especially certain types of cultured yeasts used to add or guide flavor enhancement)

I didn’t make the wine above, but chances are there is more than organically grown grapes and sulfites in the bottle.

What Some Will Never Understand About Expressive Wine

Though technically true, wine has never been nor will ever be as simple as grapes + yeast = alcohol and carbon dioxide.  All finished wines are manipulated at some level.  One can go as far to say that there isn’t such a category as “natural wine.”   Perhaps the term best coined for wines that best represents a sense of place is “authentic wine” – offered by Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop in the their aptly named work that should be at the top of any wine geek’s wish list.  Unfortunately, even the term “authentic wine” falls short in helping wine drinkers properly understand exactly what it means for a wine to be natural.  For me, the less interference from rootstock to labeling translates into a more natural example of wine – flaws and delectable nuances alike included.

So, if wine is as simple as the above equation, what is complicating the picture?  Many winemakers manipulate the hell out of their wines in an effort to produce a wine that they believe is more universally palatable (and worthy of higher critical claim from highly paid professional tasters).  In the fairly free society that we live in, who can blame winemakers for adjusting their wines as they see fit?  Not me, I just choose not to drink it.  However, what bothers me most is not the intellectual divide between heavy handed manipulators and those who use a similar amount of, but quite different (see below)  guidance in the winery.  You see, winemakers who wish not to use tannin powder, sugar, acid, spinning cones, reverse osmosis, grape concentrate, Syrah or other flagrant manipulative tools also interfere in the wine making process.  They are just as hands on as the manipulators, except their goal is to keep the bullshit out of the wine.

Expressive winemakers wish to allow fruit to express itself without being coaxed into appearing as a fruit cake.  Those who don’t adjust acid want it to be in balance, providing a nervy backbone to the wine.  Tannin and residual sugar are also left to their own devices in an attempt to achieve a harmony of sorts. And for those looking for the most interesting expression of their vineyard site allow naturally occurring yeast to do all the work – no banana, bubble gum or boysenberry surprise here.  And while they allow their wines to grow up to become expressive examples of terroir and sense of place, most do so in a manner that adheres to a strict hygienic code which prohibits unwanted influences from spoiling their efforts.  And as for preserving the wine – those looking to preserve what they deem as expressive wines use sulfur.  And some use more than others.

Why let the wine find its own way?  Because conventional process, for all its profits and glamor, often misses the mark on what is so incredibly special and delicious about expressive wine’s inherent sense of place.  Without a sense of place that is guided not by a chemistry set and glossy magazine covers, but by the intent of the soil, climate and vines guided by the gentle hand of a winemaker, wine is nothing more than a prepackaged process.  And don’t we have enough of that in our daily lives already?

I’ve written about the topic of natural wine enough times to know I am getting tired of writing about it.  But I can’t help but shake my head and pick up my pen when baseless vitriol is heaved at those who believe their work represents what’s wholesome and redeemable about wine. These self-serving dinosaurs who tout their greatness of their wines, even as they are produced more through science than substance, would rather trample the efforts of those whose aim is simple – taking something from the natural earth and guiding it into the glasses held by wine drinkers who are seeking to replace monotony with expression and creativity.  As far as I am concerned, if winemakers and critics don’t understand or accept that basic premise as to the appeal of more natural and authentic wine, they’ll never get it.  And that’s ok with me.