The biggest challenge facing wine growers is finding the right vineyard location with the right climate that will allow grapes to reach a desirable sugar content and flavor maturity at exactly the same time (if that sounds like a mouthful, I’ll explain more below).
At Capozzi we think we’ve found just such a sweet spot in the Russian River Valley for Pinot Noir, and wine critics like Linda Murphy of the Chronicle seem to agree. Last week she wrote that the “Russian River Valley is a Pinot paradise.” The reason for such praise is our area’s ability to ripen Pinot so that a grape’s color, aroma, and tannins are mature without sugar levels getting so high that a balanced wine can’t be made. It is a delicate balance and, for Pinot especially, picking when the berries are truly ripe is the only way to make truly great wine.
Still, as an industry we’re relatively inexperienced when it comes to determining where cultivars are best suited to be grown. Given our imperfect knowledge, a reasonable question to ask is, “What about the vineyards planted to grape varieties that aren’t perfectly located? How do they manage their grapes and make fine wines?”
One answer is that increasingly wineries are turning to Reverse Osmosis ( or “spinning cone”) technology to fine tune their wines. What RO can provide to a winery is the ability to either remove alcohol from a fermented juice that is “too hot” or remove water from must (unfermented juice) that has been diluted by rain.
Problem 1: High Alcohol
High alcohol is an issue in very warm areas because the hot weather causes grapes grown there to “sugar up” well before they’re physiologically mature. Picking grapes in this condition is bad form, kind of like your shady Uncle Forthington marrying some 18 year old strumpet. Consequently, when grapes are left to ripen to maturity, sugar levels are often too high to make a balanced wine.
Problem 2: Rain Water Dilution
On the other end of the spectrum, rain is mainly an issue in cooler areas where, in an attempt to achieve physiological ripeness, growers let the grapes hang well into the beginning of the rainy season. If there is enough rain it can dilute the wine and ruin the vintage.
Both problems can lead to bad wine and, in the extreme, financial ruin if not addressed. RO solves both these problems fairly effectively. As an added benefit, it appears that there are a number of alcohol levels where a given wine tastes best. By adjusting the alcohol via RO, blending it back at increments of .1% and then performing sensory evaluations on each, RO practitioners claim they can find 3 to 4 sweet spots that evaluators consistently prefer.
With the economic incentive being what it is, it isn’t hard to see why, according to Clark Smith of Vinnovation, that perhaps half of all California wineries use RO, mostly on the high-end.
Controversy and Quotes
Plenty of controversy surrounds the use of RO however, and few winemakers admit to using the technology. Non-interventionist winemakers and many critics tend to loathe RO because it is such a manipulative technique. RO also seems to destroy the characteristics that gives a wine a sense of place. Those who believe that the only thing separating wine from Pepsi is the notion of terroir believe that technologies like RO are a very real threat to the industry. The fear is that wine will become homogenized, lose its soul and become just another commodity.
Clark Smith, the controversial advocate and co-owner of the company that services most of the wineries that use RO, has written quite a bit about RO and high alcohol wines, and when and why it should be used. Below are a couple of clips.
First from his well written and very interesting blog:
All wines require fine-tuning just as all other cooking requires the chef, just at the end, to “adjust seasoning.” There are hundreds of ways to do this. Even in a single vineyard, single varietal situation, a good winemaker will divide the harvest into sub-lots which are treated differently — different maturities, different yeasts, different oak — just to provide blending options later on. Alcohol adjustment is just another example.
Scientific enologists often don’t take this approach, preferring to adhere to their theoretical notions of purity of varietal character, minimum manipulation and so forth rather than to roll up sleeves and apply technique to an harmonious and focused product. This inattention is evident at the preponderance today of technically unflawed but utterly uninteresting wines on the market.
And from his open letter on winecrimes.com
Shouldn’t we only grow grapes where alcohol adjustment isn’t necessary?…There really is no such thing as an ideal location, any more than there is a perfect “10″ human body type. I love the Bordeaux communes’ recognizable personalities, and it’s OK with me if the winemaker applies a technique like reverse osmosis to accentuating them. No vineyard is always balanced.
But others see more devious uses for the technique. Tom Hill had this to say about RO being used to remove rainwater over at wineloverspage.com:
The technology is widely used in Bordeaux (where high alcohols are seldom a problem), where they are called concentrators, to remove water from the must afore fermentation, and increase the intensity and concentration in their wines in order to garner high scores from certain Monktown attourneys, insuring high prices for their wines. Certain Monktown attourneys do not seem to be decrying the practice with the same fervor with which they attack filtration of wines. The use of RO&SC seems to also be spreading to Burgundy and even Piemonte.
As usual Randall Grahm has something to say on the subject, and I tend to agree with his assessment. He advocates for transparency and authenticity, both of which are ethos that are near and dear to my heart.
If a producer makes a vin d’appellation then there is an implicit contract that he or she enters into, effectively promising to produce a wine of some degree of typicite, which I suppose would also include the characteristics of the vintage. If that producer utilizes certain techniques to wipe out vintage characteristics, even though he or she is perhaps producing a wine that most punters would prefer, I believe that winemaker is acting in bad faith.” - Quoted in The Science of Wine
Will We Use RO?
I think that Pinotfiles don’t need to worry too much about their favorite wine undergoing RO. Pinot is just too delicate. RO, though perhaps not as rough on wine as some might tend to believe, is still far from gentle and Pinot is a variety that “bruises” easily. We also are blessed with a vineyard that ripens our fruit to near perfection, so we don’t have a pressing need for RO technology to make our wine. Finally, RO does tend to strike me as a bit shady, at least when it is used and the fact is covered up. I believe that we should be open and honest and let our wine stand on its own merits.
Ultimately however, for reasons of quality more than any other, the answer is no, RO isn’t something that we’ll be using at Capozzi.
I found this article on the whole fair and balanced. Each winemaker will need to decide whether RO, when used properly, improves terroir expression by balancing alcohol to a “sweet spot,” or not. And he is also entitled to decide against it on philosophical grounds — I think much more so than the critic with no experience of the process. A large and growing number of pinot noir producers have seen the benefits and use the technique on occasions which merit. Philosophically, they are surely on more solid ground than the standard practice of beet sugar addition in top Burgundies and first growth Bordeaux.
Completing Randall’s thought from Jamie’s book, it is in the Old World that the winemaker may be acting in bad faith by employing new methods in vin d’appellation areas where allowable techniques are legally restricted. In the New World, where experimentation is encouraged and expected, the prime directive is to make the best wine.
Pinot Noir is certainly the most challenging wine for any treatment, including simple filtration. For RO, which is much gentler, it’s important how tight the membrane chosen is, and how much of a change is undertaken. When RO is used to reduce volatile acidity, we often require ten times the process time for a significant reduction. For alcohol adjustment, the amount of processing is ususally so miniscule that the benefits (focus and balance) outweigh other considerations.
Clark,
Thanks for the comment and the added information on RO and Pinot. The conversation is fantastic.
I think you are absolutely correct that RO is simply a tool like any other that can be used well or poorly. It’s interesting that I have no knee jerk aversion to RO, or any technology for that matter. After all, I’m using a blog, the latest in communication tech, to spread the word about our winery startup so I’m sure that has something to do with it. But I also think I’m not alone. Millennials have much the same comfort level with technology, and if and when the use of RO is cheerfully disclosed it will most likely become a non-issue at most price points.
However, I also firmly believe that if full disclosure does occur, those producers who are able to craft a wine without using RO etc. and adhere to “natural” winemaking procedures will be able to command higher prices in the marketplace. People will pay a premium for tradition, and frankly we need that premium to survive.
The problem currently is that the market doesn’t have access to all the information. The story consumers tell themselves about what they buy is of the utmost importance. And the RO story just isn’t as fuzzy and romantic as the traditional one.
This is a really interesting topic — one which I believe presents a kind of line in the sand. Which side of the line you choose is a personal decision. However, there’s little equity in the middle, IMO. Cheers to Capozzi for choosing one side of the line.