God, Science and Sweat: The Three Ways to Make Wine

While most people are fixated on one of them, there are really three ways to make wine.  One can

rely on God, science or sweat.

God

Let’s focus on the easiest first. God (or nature if you prefer).  For some combination of reasons, wine grown in certain places on earth is just better than others.  Many theories have been advanced. Weather, drainage, soil composition.  I’m not wading into that end of the pool in this piece but suffice it to say that a decent winemaker can make pretty good wine in Grand Cru vineyards in Burgundy.  A great winemaker makes wines that are the stuff of legend.  I could change this section to Soldi (Italian for money) because all the winemaker has to do it buy the fruits of God’s labor (or inherit it and pay the taxes).

Science

Science is the second easiest.  You can change wine with science.  Hire a consultant, buy some spinning cones, reverse osmosis machines and presto, a thin wine becomes a blockbuster.  Of course, I would argue that maintaining fleeting concepts of “soul,” balance and character become difficult to attain, but wines can certainly be changed by technology.  As to whether this is a good thing, I will leave to others to judge at present.

Sweat

Ah sweat.  Sweat is, obviously, the hardest of the three.  With all of the talk of natural wine, one conjures up images of winemakers sitting on their decks, sipping Mai Tais, waiting for nature to take its course and deliver them stunning wine.

Alas, nothing could be further from the truth for great producers.

The truth is that just as God can create terroir that optimizes the amount of sun and water that each grape receives, so can man, through expenditure of copious amounts of sweat, achieve similar results.  

I’m not a winemaker but I’ve listened to enough of them than I know about the various techniques. I know that the best growers live in their vineyards.  I taste their results.  There is a reason that producers like Roulot make Bourgogne Blancs that taste like village wines and Premier crus that taste like the top Grand crus.  There is a reason why certain producers in places like St. Aubin, Mercurey and Monthelie make wines that are as good as the producers in Chassagne and Puligny Montrachet.

And the reason is sweat.

Just look at canopy management, for example. In good (hot) years, the winemakers leave the leaves relatively alone so that the grapes get less sunlight and do not get overripe.  In bad (cold) years, they trim the canopy to ripen the grapes more quickly than the harvest would dictate.  In short, the limitations on the vintage placed on them by God, they overcome with sweat.

I have friends that have pictures on their iphones of members of the opposite sex  that they have dated.  Not my best producers.  I have producers that have pictures of every vine that they have pruned in the bitter, hard, cold and wet months when vineyards look like death and the critical work to ensure the greatness of the next harvest begins.  

I have producers who reduce yields so that grapes grown in unheralded terroir produces wines with the concentration and depth of vineyards far more exalted.  They rip off bunches of grapes to increase the concentration of the surviving bunches.  Ultimately, terroir has certain effects on grapes as they grow.  And with terrific effort, man can often create a similar result in the vineyards.

I have producers who sweat and toil and live in the never ending, hot hell of steep and stony vineyards in the burning summer months.  Preparing their beloved crop for its ultimate goal.  Step by step.  Vine by vine.

Yes, God hath given us terroir.  And it is great.  But God also made men and women and some of them make wine.  And the great winemakers can surpass their terroir and make stunning, stunning wine.  Even from the most humble of appellations.  Doth God smile upon their efforts? Methinks that he does.