"Michael Nielsen" wrote ......................

> My FIL allowed me to open one of his special bottled to serve with when I
> made him his favourite osso buco. Crociani Vino Nobile di Montepulciano
> Riserva. He explained that it was special because it was hand made
> without the use of powders that people sadly use to adjust the flavours
> nowadays to make bad wine drinkable.
>
> I would have thought it was only "4 buck chuck" wines that were made that
> way and that anything that is natively 10$+ is "special" according to his
> definition (by natively I mean the winery reference price, not a crazy
> import-taxed price).
>
> I checked his special bottle and it is pretty cheap; 17euro in current
> vintages 2009.
>
> Anyone have insight how common it is to use "powders" to adjust bad taste?

Michael, let me preface this commentary by saying, firstly I am NOT a
winemaker, oenologist nor viticulturist - and my interest nowadays in purely
in (a great reduced) consumption.

Secondly, I do not know of this producer (I am familiar, however, with the
wines and practices of this region).

Having been raised on a small dairy farm, the subject(s) of growing
practices, biodynamic and organic, have been of interest to me for some
time.

However, vineyard practices have little or nothing to do with additives used
during the winemaking process.

Without wanting to start an argument (but in the interests of informed
discussion) there is no such thing as "biodynamic wine" or "organic wine" -
more correctly, these wines could be titled "wines made from grapes grown
biodynamically" or "organically".

Many producers are making, marketing and promoting as 'natural wines".

These wines must:

* be made from organically grown grapes;
* be hand harvested;
* be rushed to the winery without the use of metabisulfite during
harvesting;
* be fermented on wild yeasts;
* may not re-use pomace
* and must contain very low levels of sulfite (or none at all).

"Conventional" winemaking may use: mechanical harvesting; innoculation with
commercial yeasts; re-use of pomace (think wines made with the "ripasso
method"); reverse osmosis; use of ion exchange resins, acacia gum, oak chips
and fining agents and addition of sulfites, acid and sugars (as permitted in
some countries), tannins and other agents to correct colour, acid, PH levels
and winemaking faults.

I have perused the website of Crociani - they make no claims as to
viticultural methods, although I do know that others in the Montepulciano
area are "converting" to biodynamic and organic growing (Avignonesi).

In her "Oxford Companion to Wine" my friend Jancis Robinson sates "€œIt would
be impossible to produce an entirely sulfur-free wine since a small amount
of sulfur dioxide is one of the by-products of the metabolic reaction of
yeast during fermentation.€�

Even if Crociani was already (they make no claims to being so), or were in
the process of becoming an organic winery, applying biodynamics in the
vineyard, while they would be committed to using as little sulfites in their
wines as possible. European regulations do permit its use.

According to their web-site, they do hand-harvest. I am making the
assumption that they macerate the grapes to stimulate the wild yeasts
present, but I would be very surprised if, like many winemakers, they did
not from time to time innoculate with other selected yeasts?" (Note: these
are "powdered, freeze dried products which would be accompanied by powdered
nutrients).

Every winemaker, at some time or another, has had to deal with grapes with
less than the ideal PH or acid levels. The use of various salts or chalk is
frequently used to correct these imbalances.

In less than ideal vintages, I would be surprised indeed if their winemaker
did not use every trick in his winemaking arsenal to turn grapes into $$$$
(or Euros) by the addition or use of any permitted material, powdered or
otherwise.

On the subject as you have raised " the use of powders ...... to adjust the
flavours ... to make bad wine drinkable", again, from experience, I have
been there when winemakers used a variety of "permitted materials" (copper
sulphate being one) to correct faults in wine - not so much to make
"bad wine drinkable" but to remedy faults in the process so that grapes
from a very poor harvest were able to made into "something marketable"
out of commercial necessity.

I have never experienced a smaller "artisan or boutique" type producer
resort to these techniques to attempt to pass off an inferior wine as a
premium product.