Michael Nielsen > wrote in
:

> 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?
>
>

A wine priced at 17 euro is a premium wine by all standards. The idea of
a wine been made with the help of powders is confusing. Does it mean
that the wine was made with some powders to which water is added (a la
"Tang")? I do not think this is possible.

Now, wine is a product of human intervention. From the vineyard to the
bottle, there is a lot of human intervention or wine is not possible.
Vines have to be managed, pruned, kept free from diseases (mildiu,
oidium...), canopy has to be managed and sometimes that implies de-
leafing. Production quantities have to be managed too in order to get a
balance between alcoholic and physiological ripeness at the day of
harvest.

Some of these interventions require "powders" and some of them are even
considered acceptable by organic and biodinamic certification agencies.
After all, when you make a tisane with camomile you are using some sort
of "powder". Same when you use copper sulphate (as said by sthelier).

And, in the winery, there are many other ways to the intervention, from
the use of fermentation starters, to cultures of yeasts (that actually
can impart a flavor profile) to the use of oak barrels to impart some
flavor and structure to the wines.

There are some wineries aiming to lower-end wines still in the premium
category (which is every wine above 3-5 euro / bottle) that use
"powders" like citric or tartaric acid to balance an over-ripe wine,
liquid tanin to save some money in barrels, or oak chips. Even oak
sawdust which impart the oak flavor very quickly at a very low cost.
Some wineries even chaptalize their wines when they do not get enough
ripeness (and use sugar, another powder) or as part of their production
process (eg Champagne).

The only wine category in which I think that there are no-powders is the
natural wine category, which is quite fashionable nowadays in some
circles. You know what they say about those wines (I am tongue in cheek
here): "Natural wines, red or white, all of them a variety of orange".

Good wineries prefer to make the best possible work at the vineyard,
substituting treatments with pesticides or herbicides by work at the
vineyard, getting a good balance of alcoholic/physiological ripeness in
the fruit so that no corrections are needed, employing the native yeasts
naturally present in the grape skins and therefore not using
fermentation starters or cultured yeasts, and for sure not correcting
acidity or chaptalizing. Oak barrels will be the choice over chips or
sawdust to impart structure. But most of them will employ a bit of
sulphur at bottling time or wine would oxidize very quickly.

If this concept interests you, I suggest that you look for wines made
within the certification standards of Organic / Ecologic / Biodynamic.
There are also many wineries doing these type of wines without
certifications but you should get to know the winery, visit it, walk the
vineyards and learn about them.