from Jancis Robinson http://www.jancisrobinson.com/jr404.htm

wine news 2002

I wonder why wine drinkers are so wary of acid?


A wine merchant of my acquaintance loves acidity in wine. German wine?
Yes please, he says. And give me a sinewy 1993 white burgundy rather
than one of those fat 1992s any day. Tingling reds from the Loire and
Beaujolais? Just my cup of tea.

Alas that cup doth not run over. This wine merchant has extremely
discerning tastes but a palate distinctly at odds with the mainstream
wine market. He is currently floundering.

When he started out in wine 20 years ago, things were fine for him
because both consumer tastes and the wines themselves were very
different. Average acidity levels in wines such as red bordeaux and
white burgundy were much higher and - a not unrelated fact, this -
alcohol levels were much lower.

Why have wine drinkers suddenly become so wary of a component as
refreshing as acidity? It cannot simply be that man instinctively and
unthinkingly finds its opposite - sweetness, or ripeness - more
attractive. If this were true, it should have been true 20 years ago.

Or is it just that wine drinkers of the world, who were once limited to
a diet of wine made in relatively cool regions such as Bordeaux,
Burgundy, Champagne and Germany which naturally produced wines high in
acidity, have now been exposed to stronger wines from much warmer
climates such as those of California and Australia and their palates
have been re-tuned?

I suspect this change in consumer taste has come about mainly because of
our late 20th century desire for instant gratification. We have lost the
habit of waiting for anything (I admit my own impatience when my pc
takes all of a minute to re-boot). Rather than waiting for a wine to
mature, we want it to be delicious from the moment it makes its first
appearance outside the cellar - and in today's crazy futures market
(especially for bordeaux) that means during the spring following the
harvest.

This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
were.

In many ways this new precociousness is a good thing. It certainly makes
tasting young wines much more fun, and it means that consumers no longer
have to tie up vast amounts of capital in order to enjoy fine wine.

But there is a price to pay. The most obvious is the observed, although
not widely reported, increase in the incidence of that nasty yeast
strain Brettanomyces, or 'Brett' as it is chummily known in the US.
Acidity is not just refreshing, it is great at warding off harmful
bacteria and winemaking disaster. In fact the conditions that favour the
development of the unpleasant mousey-smelling aromas associated with too
much Brett (a little can be fine; a lot is offputting) are very ripe
grapes, low acidity, concentrated musts and prolonged oak ageing - all
of these typical characteristics of modern wine.

The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
acidity may well be that they do not age as well. In white wines it is
perfectly clear that wines with a high level of acidity and extract will
age much longer than those with lower acid and lots of alcohol. (I call
as witness armies of Rieslings versus battalions of Chardonnays wherever
they are made, including Burgundy.)

With red wines however it is still too early to tell whether the new,
super-ripe style that is now so popular (the result, some French
observers claim, of a 'banalisation of taste') will be capable of ageing
anything like as long as the wines of yesteryear that were initially
more austere. I could well be wrong but it instinctively seems unlikely
that they will.

Many wine drinkers will think this is no big deal. Pull the cork and get
it down you with as obvious a hit a possible. Seventeen per cent Zin?
Lovely. Shiraz to light a bonfire with? Yessss! Who cares if draining
the second glass is a bit of a hazy struggle?

But as one who has been lucky enough to taste the extraordinary subtlety
and sheer gut-wrenching magnificence of great wine at 40, 50 or 60 years
old, I see the acceleration of the ageing process in fine wine (it can
certainly be very useful for everyday wine) as robbing it of one of its
unique attributes.

You will have worked out by now that I am a fan of acidity in wine. I
think that the average level of acidity worldwide has fallen to a
dangerously low level, with far too many wines being simply big rather
than appetising. And it is not just red wines which seem less crisp
today: think of Alsace.

Not that I am advocating picking grapes so early that, while natural
acidity may be high, there is hardly any fruit or flavour. I would just
like to remind the wine drinkers of the world that 1) the best vintages
are not necessarily those with the higest alcohol levels and 2) there is
a host of wines made relatively far from the equator in places such as
Germany and the Loire where acid levels are naturally high and there is
not a thing wrong with that - so long as the wines are well-balanced.
New Zealand wines somehow manage to appeal to modern palates while
having relatively high natural acidity, perhaps because so many of the
whites anyway have a bit of residual sugar while, unlike unfashionable
German wines, being sold ostensibly as dry wines.

If I want a wine to drink, rather than taste and admire while being
obliterated by it, then I want something that keeps teasing me, keeps my
gastric juices flowing, something that is dry enough to taste great with
food - and that inevitably means a liquid with appetising crispness
rather then one with a heavy charge of alcohol.

"jcoulter" > wrote in message
...
> Why have wine drinkers suddenly become so wary of a component as
> refreshing as acidity? It cannot simply be that man instinctively and
> unthinkingly finds its opposite - sweetness, or ripeness - more
> attractive. If this were true, it should have been true 20 years ago.
>
> Or is it just that wine drinkers of the world, who were once limited to
> a diet of wine made in relatively cool regions such as Bordeaux,
> Burgundy, Champagne and Germany which naturally produced wines high in
> acidity, have now been exposed to stronger wines from much warmer
> climates such as those of California and Australia and their palates
> have been re-tuned?

I wouldn't say that "strength" per se is the issue; rather it is a matter
of deciding that grapes picked closer to maturity make better tasting wines.

> I suspect this change in consumer taste has come about mainly because of
> our late 20th century desire for instant gratification. We have lost the
> habit of waiting for anything (I admit my own impatience when my pc
> takes all of a minute to re-boot). Rather than waiting for a wine to
> mature, we want it to be delicious from the moment it makes its first
> appearance outside the cellar

Why do you make that sound like a bad thing?

> This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
> a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
> possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
> even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
> were.

Again, what's the harm in improving the process?

> In many ways this new precociousness is a good thing. It certainly makes
> tasting young wines much more fun, and it means that consumers no longer
> have to tie up vast amounts of capital in order to enjoy fine wine.

We are still in agreement.

> But there is a price to pay. The most obvious is the observed, although
> not widely reported, increase in the incidence of that nasty yeast
> strain Brettanomyces, or 'Brett' as it is chummily known in the US.
> Acidity is not just refreshing, it is great at warding off harmful
> bacteria and winemaking disaster. In fact the conditions that favour the
> development of the unpleasant mousey-smelling aromas associated with too
> much Brett (a little can be fine; a lot is offputting) are very ripe
> grapes, low acidity, concentrated musts and prolonged oak ageing - all
> of these typical characteristics of modern wine.

There's a germ of truth in that, but the fact is that Bordeaux pretty much
put Brett on the map _prior_ to the changes in winemaking style you've
alluded to. IOW, the presence of Brett in wine is mostly due to sloppy
winemaking practice.

True, the higher pH of riper grapes tends to be more Brett friendly, as is
badly tended barrel aging practice. Still, a good winemaker keeps his
sulfite levels where they need to be to inhibit spoilage organisms and
maintains his barreled wines topped up and bunged tightly. Under these
conditions Brett does not have any room to survive.

> The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
> acidity may well be that they do not age as well.

Probably true, but so what? Wineries produce a new vintage every year!
What difference does it make if their current vintage only lasts 5 years?
It'll likely be gone by then anyway, and there are several later vintages
still available.

> With red wines however it is still too early to tell whether the new,
> super-ripe style that is now so popular (the result, some French
> observers claim, of a 'banalisation of taste') will be capable of ageing
> anything like as long as the wines of yesteryear that were initially
> more austere. I could well be wrong but it instinctively seems unlikely
> that they will.

Red wines have inherently longer ageworthiness. I've seen some of those
"soft" California wines go on for decades - and a few of them were whites.
Check out the recent thread on the 1974 California Cabernets.

> You will have worked out by now that I am a fan of acidity in wine. Not
that I am advocating picking grapes so early that, while natural
> acidity may be high, there is hardly any fruit or flavour.

That's *exactly* what happened here in California in the late 1970s. Our
fine wine industry couldn't just let itself continue to be successful doing
what it had been doing, which was making perfectly ripe grapes into
magnificent wines. They made the mistake of listening to the wine
_critics_, who panned those great wines of the early-mid 70s as "overblown".
They then proceeded to dial back things a bit in a futile attempt to emulate
the style of European (French) wines: harvesting early, at higher acidity
and lower pH, making what they called "food wines".

BAH! That stuff was DRECK!! It was, perhaps, the main reason I began to
make my own wines. I wanted something I could stand to _drink_, and I knew
I could do better than that plonk! We have the best fruit in the world
here, but the local wineries were _ruining_ it, turning it into austere,
fruitless battery acid. They've since retreated from that idiotic position
to making decent wine again, but have not gone far enough IMO. Meanwhile, I
continue on my quest for the Ultimate Chardonnay...

Tom S

Nice article (and nice comments Tom). Plenty to ponder. I am surprised to hear
her talk of an increase in brett, it seems to be less prevalent to me (though
I, as I've said, am not always unhappy with a touch).

I personally have nothing against some wines being made in a fatter earlier
drinking style. I just (like Jancis) don't like the trend towards a vast
majority being made like that, because I find (a) acidity helps with food & (b)
there's truly nothing like a well-aged mature wine.
Dale

Dale Williams
Drop "damnspam" to reply

Good read.

Tom S wrote:


>>This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
>>a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
>>possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
>>even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
>>were.
>
>
> Again, what's the harm in improving the process?

Why does that practice necessarily equate with improvement? It seems to
me that more oak and later harvest neither inherently improve or hurt a
wine.


> True, the higher pH of riper grapes tends to be more Brett friendly, as is
> badly tended barrel aging practice. Still, a good winemaker keeps his
> sulfite levels where they need to be to inhibit spoilage organisms and
> maintains his barreled wines topped up and bunged tightly. Under these
> conditions Brett does not have any room to survive.

Like Dale, I found that statement contrary to my own experience: I don't
notice any increase in Brett in the wines that I drink.

>
>
>>The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
>>acidity may well be that they do not age as well.
>
>
> Probably true, but so what? Wineries produce a new vintage every year!
> What difference does it make if their current vintage only lasts 5 years?
> It'll likely be gone by then anyway, and there are several later vintages
> still available.

Tom,
That's a *highly* disingenuous comment. An aged wine is not the
same as a young wine, pure and simple. The fact that there's a constant
supply of young wines is irrelevant to the issue of whether they're
ageworthy. While you may decide that you're not a fan of older wines,
surely you can understand the attitude of those for whom an older wine
offers pleasures simply not found in young wines.

>
>
>>With red wines however it is still too early to tell whether the new,
>>super-ripe style that is now so popular (the result, some French
>>observers claim, of a 'banalisation of taste') will be capable of ageing
>>anything like as long as the wines of yesteryear that were initially
>>more austere. I could well be wrong but it instinctively seems unlikely
>>that they will.
>
>
> Red wines have inherently longer ageworthiness. I've seen some of those
> "soft" California wines go on for decades - and a few of them were whites.
> Check out the recent thread on the 1974 California Cabernets.

Again, not the issue. More to the point, virtually everyone I know
agrees that Bordeaux will probably never again have a year like 1975.
Now, whether that's a good or bad thing is another topic altogether...


> That's *exactly* what happened here in California in the late 1970s. Our
> fine wine industry couldn't just let itself continue to be successful doing
> what it had been doing, which was making perfectly ripe grapes into
> magnificent wines. They made the mistake of listening to the wine
> _critics_, who panned those great wines of the early-mid 70s as "overblown".
> They then proceeded to dial back things a bit in a futile attempt to emulate
> the style of European (French) wines: harvesting early, at higher acidity
> and lower pH, making what they called "food wines".

Like you, Tom, I found those so-called "food wines" dull and lifeless.
However, we can agree that the major problem was CA winemakers trying to
make French wines, if you will. Now we see the opposite problem:
French winemakers emulating CA's (and Oz's) style. Is it any less of a
problem than the "food wine" era in CA was?

Mark Lipton

First of all thank you and bravo for posting such a well written thought
provoking message. It's posts like this that keep me coming back to AFW!

>I wonder why wine drinkers are so wary of acid?

I think that there might be a differentation between the wine drinkers in
different regions of the wine drinking world. While bracing acidity isn't a
stranger to the palates of Europe, New World (particularly USA markets) tend to
go for riper, softer fruit driven wines. IMO, we post-WWII Americans were
raised on Coca-Cola, Moon Pies, and Wonder Bread and we like soft and sweet.
I'm speaking in the "collective we" BTW. While Europeans view wine as a food
group and part of a meal, Americans tend to drink it as a beverage and they
want smooth, soft and rich.
>
>A wine merchant of my acquaintance loves acidity in wine. German wine?
>Yes please, he says. And give me a sinewy 1993 white burgundy rather
>than one of those fat 1992s any day. Tingling reds from the Loire and
>Beaujolais? Just my cup of tea.
>

Me too!

>Alas that cup doth not run over. This wine merchant has extremely
>discerning tastes but a palate distinctly at odds with the mainstream
>wine market. He is currently floundering.
>

I assume he's in the USA. It sounds like he made the fundamental mistake of
missing the market by being rue to his own tastes rather than that of the
masses.

>When he started out in wine 20 years ago, things were fine for him
>because both consumer tastes and the wines themselves were very
>different. Average acidity levels in wines such as red bordeaux and
>white burgundy were much higher and - a not unrelated fact, this -
>alcohol levels were much lower.
>
>Why have wine drinkers suddenly become so wary of a component as
>refreshing as acidity? It cannot simply be that man instinctively and
>unthinkingly finds its opposite - sweetness, or ripeness - more
>attractive. If this were true, it should have been true 20 years ago.
>

Parker, Parker, Parker, WS, WS, WS. The US market is often driven by ratings
and scores and when in the early 90's Parker and the WS began touting high
alcohol, Oaky, soft tannin, fruit driven, low acid wines, the scores for those
wines were high and buyers bought in droves by the numbers. Remember that wine
sales have risen dramatically in the US in the last decade but wine is still a
secondary or even tertiary beverage here so we Americans are fairly
inexperienced as a whole and Parker ratings and WS reviews were/are the market
drivers as is price.

>Or is it just that wine drinkers of the world, who were once limited to
>a diet of wine made in relatively cool regions such as Bordeaux,
>Burgundy, Champagne and Germany which naturally produced wines high in
>acidity, have now been exposed to stronger wines from much warmer
>climates such as those of California and Australia and their palates
>have been re-tuned?

Very much so.

>I suspect this change in consumer taste has come about mainly because of
>our late 20th century desire for instant gratification. We have lost the
>habit of waiting for anything (I admit my own impatience when my pc
>takes all of a minute to re-boot). Rather than waiting for a wine to
>mature, we want it to be delicious from the moment it makes its first
>appearance outside the cellar - and in today's crazy futures market
>(especially for bordeaux) that means during the spring following the
>harvest.
>

Yes, we live very fast these days! :-)
I admit that I enjoy a glass of big, fruit driven wine from time to time but iI
find it tiring on the palate after a glass and it's very hard on food pairings.

>This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
>a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
>possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
>even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
>were.

I call this the Parkerization of the wine industry. Even the Italians have
altered their offerings to be more (and I hate this word) "International" in
style.

>In many ways this new precociousness is a good thing. It certainly makes
>tasting young wines much more fun, and it means that consumers no longer
>have to tie up vast amounts of capital in order to enjoy fine wine.
>

Indeed if they drink them young but I've noticed that many of my Calkifornia
Cabernets from the highly touted '97 vintage have become a bit flabby and
unfocused and I fear that many will lose their fruit without ever developing
those wonderful secondary complexities that many of us look for in well aged
wines.

>But there is a price to pay. The most obvious is the observed, although
>not widely reported, increase in the incidence of that nasty yeast
>strain Brettanomyces, or 'Brett' as it is chummily known in the US.
>Acidity is not just refreshing, it is great at warding off harmful
>bacteria and winemaking disaster. In fact the conditions that favour the
>development of the unpleasant mousey-smelling aromas associated with too
>much Brett (a little can be fine; a lot is offputting) are very ripe
>grapes, low acidity, concentrated musts and prolonged oak ageing - all
>of these typical characteristics of modern wine.
>
I haven't noticed a large increase in Brett in general in the newer wines and
in some cases I actually detect less in many of the Chateaux of Bordeaux that
were known for their Brett accents. Lynch Bages comes to mind.

>The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
>acidity may well be that they do not age as well. In white wines it is
>perfectly clear that wines with a high level of acidity and extract will
>age much longer than those with lower acid and lots of alcohol. (I call
>as witness armies of Rieslings versus battalions of Chardonnays wherever
>they are made, including Burgundy.)
>
I've noticed a shift in California Chardonnay towards a bit more acid and a bit
less ML and oak. I think this is a good thing and will allow for better aging.
This trend seems to be moving down the chain to even the more value priced
wines. Tom S may be able to give a little insight into this.

>With red wines however it is still too early to tell whether the new,
>super-ripe style that is now so popular (the result, some French
>observers claim, of a 'banalisation of taste') will be capable of ageing
>anything like as long as the wines of yesteryear that were initially
>more austere. I could well be wrong but it instinctively seems unlikely
>that they will.

Agreed. A recent tasting of 1998 and 1999 Bordeaux showed me a fairly
accelerated aging curve. Is it the vintages or the stylistic change?
>
>Many wine drinkers will think this is no big deal. Pull the cork and get
>it down you with as obvious a hit a possible. Seventeen per cent Zin?
>Lovely. Shiraz to light a bonfire with? Yessss! Who cares if draining
>the second glass is a bit of a hazy struggle?
>
Totally accurate. I recently opened a D'Arenberg Dead Arm Shiraz 2000 and a
Turley Hayne Vineyard Zin 2000 and at the end of the evening each was only half
gone and niether was very pretty the next day.

>But as one who has been lucky enough to taste the extraordinary subtlety
>and sheer gut-wrenching magnificence of great wine at 40, 50 or 60 years
>old, I see the acceleration of the ageing process in fine wine (it can
>certainly be very useful for everyday wine) as robbing it of one of its
>unique attributes.
>
I'm opening a group of 1982 Bordeaux....Mouton, Cheval Blanc, Ducru, Leoville
Las Cases and Poyferre,Talbot, Gloria and Palmer.... to celebrate my son's
graduation from Duke University in a few weeks (he was born in 1982) and I'm
sure that they will range from wonderful to magnificent.

>You will have worked out by now that I am a fan of acidity in wine. I
>think that the average level of acidity worldwide has fallen to a
>dangerously low level, with far too many wines being simply big rather
>than appetising. And it is not just red wines which seem less crisp
>today: think of Alsace.
>
Yes, nobody is immune to the pressure in the market.

>Not that I am advocating picking grapes so early that, while natural
>acidity may be high, there is hardly any fruit or flavour. I would just
>like to remind the wine drinkers of the world that 1) the best vintages
>are not necessarily those with the higest alcohol levels and 2) there is
>a host of wines made relatively far from the equator in places such as
>Germany and the Loire where acid levels are naturally high and there is
>not a thing wrong with that - so long as the wines are well-balanced.
>New Zealand wines somehow manage to appeal to modern palates while
>having relatively high natural acidity, perhaps because so many of the
>whites anyway have a bit of residual sugar while, unlike unfashionable
>German wines, being sold ostensibly as dry wines.
>
Agreed!

>If I want a wine to drink, rather than taste and admire while being
>obliterated by it, then I want something that keeps teasing me, keeps my
>gastric juices flowing, something that is dry enough to taste great with
>food - and that inevitably means a liquid with appetising crispness
>rather then one with a heavy charge of alcohol.

Amen and thanks again!

Bi!!

"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
> Tom S wrote:
>
>
> >>This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
> >>a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
> >>possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
> >>even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
> >>were.
> >
> >
> > Again, what's the harm in improving the process?
>
> Why does that practice necessarily equate with improvement? It seems to
> me that more oak and later harvest neither inherently improve or hurt a
> wine.

I dont understand why that comment means the wine is hurried?

>
> I think that there might be a differentation between the wine drinkers in
> different regions of the wine drinking world. While bracing acidity isn't
a
> stranger to the palates of Europe, New World (particularly USA markets)
tend to
> go for riper, softer fruit driven wines. IMO, we post-WWII Americans were
> raised on Coca-Cola, Moon Pies, and Wonder Bread and we like soft and
sweet.
> I'm speaking in the "collective we" BTW. While Europeans view wine as a
food
> group and part of a meal, Americans tend to drink it as a beverage and
they
> want smooth, soft and rich.

I wouldnt say that we like less acidity because of Coca-Cola and Moon Pies.
It is probably more because we have become accustomed to CA wines that have
a nearly perfect growing season and grapes (as I have been taught) tend to
rippen further than the European wines you were discussing. These are less
acidic so this is what the American wine culture and taste is accustomed to.
Relating our culture to moon pies is kinda insulting. Our climate grows
"smooth, soft and rich" wines and that is what we have grown accustomed to
enjoy.

> >
> >A wine merchant of my acquaintance loves acidity in wine. German wine?
> >Yes please, he says. And give me a sinewy 1993 white burgundy rather
> >than one of those fat 1992s any day. Tingling reds from the Loire and
> >Beaujolais? Just my cup of tea.
> >
>
> Me too!

What do you think of Eastern US wines? They are high in acid.

"Vincent Vega" > wrote in
:



>> Me too!
>
> What do you think of Eastern US wines? They are high in acid.
>
Can't say about Eastern UDS wines but I can state that I am a huge fan of
Sancerre and Vouvray.

Though please note that the majority of the post to which you refer is a
copy of an article by Jancis Robinson

I basically agree with the article, except the part about Brett. I don't
think it's more prevalent-like others here, I think there's less. I think it
is unfiltered wines with low SO2 (and everyone is trying to cut SO2, due to
squeemishness on the part of consumers) which really have the potential for
exhibiting Brett. But the bottom line is that unlike most consumers, I
enjoy a well structured wine more, and I know this adds to the ageability of
the wine. That probably means little to someone buying wine to drink off
the shelf or a couple of weeks down the pike, but someone purchasing cases
of expensive wine will likely desire to have it remain in condition for a
few years, or quite-a-few-years if one has a large cellar. Why buy a case
or 3 of delicious wine if you'll lose a few or more bottles to perfection by
the time you finish the case or 3? Why run the risk of losing track of the
aging? There's a time to enjoy early-drinking wines-- early.

I also agree that the market doesn't really like well structured wines, on
the average, since the average drinker is not into cellaring his stock.

Craig Winchell
GAN EDEN Wines

"jcoulter" > wrote in message
...
> from Jancis Robinson http://www.jancisrobinson.com/jr404.htm
>
> wine news 2002
>
> I wonder why wine drinkers are so wary of acid?
>
>
> A wine merchant of my acquaintance loves acidity in wine. German wine?
> Yes please, he says. And give me a sinewy 1993 white burgundy rather
> than one of those fat 1992s any day. Tingling reds from the Loire and
> Beaujolais? Just my cup of tea.
>
> Alas that cup doth not run over. This wine merchant has extremely
> discerning tastes but a palate distinctly at odds with the mainstream
> wine market. He is currently floundering.
>
> When he started out in wine 20 years ago, things were fine for him
> because both consumer tastes and the wines themselves were very
> different. Average acidity levels in wines such as red bordeaux and
> white burgundy were much higher and - a not unrelated fact, this -
> alcohol levels were much lower.
>
> Why have wine drinkers suddenly become so wary of a component as
> refreshing as acidity? It cannot simply be that man instinctively and
> unthinkingly finds its opposite - sweetness, or ripeness - more
> attractive. If this were true, it should have been true 20 years ago.
>
> Or is it just that wine drinkers of the world, who were once limited to
> a diet of wine made in relatively cool regions such as Bordeaux,
> Burgundy, Champagne and Germany which naturally produced wines high in
> acidity, have now been exposed to stronger wines from much warmer
> climates such as those of California and Australia and their palates
> have been re-tuned?
>
> I suspect this change in consumer taste has come about mainly because of
> our late 20th century desire for instant gratification. We have lost the
> habit of waiting for anything (I admit my own impatience when my pc
> takes all of a minute to re-boot). Rather than waiting for a wine to
> mature, we want it to be delicious from the moment it makes its first
> appearance outside the cellar - and in today's crazy futures market
> (especially for bordeaux) that means during the spring following the
> harvest.
>
> This means that wines, even very fine wines, have to be made in more of
> a hurry than in the old days. They are put into oak as early as
> possible, increasingly before malolactic fermentation has even started,
> even though grapes are deliberately picked much, much later than they
> were.
>
> In many ways this new precociousness is a good thing. It certainly makes
> tasting young wines much more fun, and it means that consumers no longer
> have to tie up vast amounts of capital in order to enjoy fine wine.
>
> But there is a price to pay. The most obvious is the observed, although
> not widely reported, increase in the incidence of that nasty yeast
> strain Brettanomyces, or 'Brett' as it is chummily known in the US.
> Acidity is not just refreshing, it is great at warding off harmful
> bacteria and winemaking disaster. In fact the conditions that favour the
> development of the unpleasant mousey-smelling aromas associated with too
> much Brett (a little can be fine; a lot is offputting) are very ripe
> grapes, low acidity, concentrated musts and prolonged oak ageing - all
> of these typical characteristics of modern wine.
>
> The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
> acidity may well be that they do not age as well. In white wines it is
> perfectly clear that wines with a high level of acidity and extract will
> age much longer than those with lower acid and lots of alcohol. (I call
> as witness armies of Rieslings versus battalions of Chardonnays wherever
> they are made, including Burgundy.)
>
> With red wines however it is still too early to tell whether the new,
> super-ripe style that is now so popular (the result, some French
> observers claim, of a 'banalisation of taste') will be capable of ageing
> anything like as long as the wines of yesteryear that were initially
> more austere. I could well be wrong but it instinctively seems unlikely
> that they will.
>
> Many wine drinkers will think this is no big deal. Pull the cork and get
> it down you with as obvious a hit a possible. Seventeen per cent Zin?
> Lovely. Shiraz to light a bonfire with? Yessss! Who cares if draining
> the second glass is a bit of a hazy struggle?
>
> But as one who has been lucky enough to taste the extraordinary subtlety
> and sheer gut-wrenching magnificence of great wine at 40, 50 or 60 years
> old, I see the acceleration of the ageing process in fine wine (it can
> certainly be very useful for everyday wine) as robbing it of one of its
> unique attributes.
>
> You will have worked out by now that I am a fan of acidity in wine. I
> think that the average level of acidity worldwide has fallen to a
> dangerously low level, with far too many wines being simply big rather
> than appetising. And it is not just red wines which seem less crisp
> today: think of Alsace.
>
> Not that I am advocating picking grapes so early that, while natural
> acidity may be high, there is hardly any fruit or flavour. I would just
> like to remind the wine drinkers of the world that 1) the best vintages
> are not necessarily those with the higest alcohol levels and 2) there is
> a host of wines made relatively far from the equator in places such as
> Germany and the Loire where acid levels are naturally high and there is
> not a thing wrong with that - so long as the wines are well-balanced.
> New Zealand wines somehow manage to appeal to modern palates while
> having relatively high natural acidity, perhaps because so many of the
> whites anyway have a bit of residual sugar while, unlike unfashionable
> German wines, being sold ostensibly as dry wines.
>
> If I want a wine to drink, rather than taste and admire while being
> obliterated by it, then I want something that keeps teasing me, keeps my
> gastric juices flowing, something that is dry enough to taste great with
> food - and that inevitably means a liquid with appetising crispness
> rather then one with a heavy charge of alcohol.

"Mark Lipton" > wrote in message
...
> >>The other consequence of the marked reduction in modern wine's average
> >>acidity may well be that they do not age as well.
> >
> >
> > Probably true, but so what? Wineries produce a new vintage every year!
> > What difference does it make if their current vintage only lasts 5
years?
> > It'll likely be gone by then anyway, and there are several later
vintages
> > still available.
>
> Tom,
> That's a *highly* disingenuous comment. An aged wine is not the
> same as a young wine, pure and simple. The fact that there's a constant
> supply of young wines is irrelevant to the issue of whether they're
> ageworthy. While you may decide that you're not a fan of older wines,
> surely you can understand the attitude of those for whom an older wine
> offers pleasures simply not found in young wines.

OK, OK. Maybe I was being a little hyperbolic (again). I, too, enjoy well
aged wines for the bottle aged flavors and aromas, but if it's possible to
get there in ten years instead of thirty, I'm all for that.

Consider this:
If fine wine requires an investment of several decades to reach perfection,
one will either have to spend the money when young and lay the wine away, or
spend a lot _more_ money to acquire well aged wines when one is older.
Young people usually don't have enough disposable income or patience to
cellar fine wines for decades, and most senior citizens live on fixed
incomes and can't easily afford to buy well aged wines. IOW, fine _old_
wine appreciation is mainly for the wealthy.

OTOH, if the time to reach plateau can be shortened to say ten years, the
accessability to it within the mainstream population becomes considerably
broadened. Can that be so bad?

I'm only in my mid 50s, but I can see that the day is not that far off that
it will be pointless for me (having no children) to lay down young vintage
Port. I have a mixed case of 1994s, and I sure hope I live to taste _all_
of them at maturity! :^/

Tom S

> > Tom,
> > That's a *highly* disingenuous comment. An aged wine is not the
> > same as a young wine, pure and simple. The fact that there's a constant
> > supply of young wines is irrelevant to the issue of whether they're
> > ageworthy. While you may decide that you're not a fan of older wines,
> > surely you can understand the attitude of those for whom an older wine
> > offers pleasures simply not found in young wines.
>
> OK, OK. Maybe I was being a little hyperbolic (again). I, too, enjoy
well
> aged wines for the bottle aged flavors and aromas, but if it's possible to
> get there in ten years instead of thirty, I'm all for that.
>
> Consider this:
> If fine wine requires an investment of several decades to reach
perfection,
> one will either have to spend the money when young and lay the wine away,
or
> spend a lot _more_ money to acquire well aged wines when one is older.
> Young people usually don't have enough disposable income or patience to
> cellar fine wines for decades, and most senior citizens live on fixed
> incomes and can't easily afford to buy well aged wines. IOW, fine _old_
> wine appreciation is mainly for the wealthy.
>
> OTOH, if the time to reach plateau can be shortened to say ten years, the
> accessability to it within the mainstream population becomes considerably
> broadened. Can that be so bad?
>
> I'm only in my mid 50s, but I can see that the day is not that far off
that
> it will be pointless for me (having no children) to lay down young vintage
> Port. I have a mixed case of 1994s, and I sure hope I live to taste _all_
> of them at maturity! :^/
>
> Tom S

I agree,, A 20 or 30 year old bottle of wine costs big $, no matter how you
look at it.
The days are over when only wealthy elitist can enjoy fine wines.
This is a good thing,, unless you are a wealthy elitist.

"Vincent Vega" > wrote in message
...
>
> > > Tom,
> > > That's a *highly* disingenuous comment. An aged wine is not the
> > > same as a young wine, pure and simple. The fact that there's a
constant
> > > supply of young wines is irrelevant to the issue of whether they're
> > > ageworthy. While you may decide that you're not a fan of older wines,
> > > surely you can understand the attitude of those for whom an older wine
> > > offers pleasures simply not found in young wines.
> >
> > OK, OK. Maybe I was being a little hyperbolic (again). I, too, enjoy
> well
> > aged wines for the bottle aged flavors and aromas, but if it's possible
to
> > get there in ten years instead of thirty, I'm all for that.
> >
> > Consider this:
> > If fine wine requires an investment of several decades to reach
> perfection,
> > one will either have to spend the money when young and lay the wine
away,
> or
> > spend a lot _more_ money to acquire well aged wines when one is older.
> > Young people usually don't have enough disposable income or patience to
> > cellar fine wines for decades, and most senior citizens live on fixed
> > incomes and can't easily afford to buy well aged wines. IOW, fine _old_
> > wine appreciation is mainly for the wealthy.
> >
> > OTOH, if the time to reach plateau can be shortened to say ten years,
the
> > accessability to it within the mainstream population becomes
considerably
> > broadened. Can that be so bad?
> >
> > I'm only in my mid 50s, but I can see that the day is not that far off
> that
> > it will be pointless for me (having no children) to lay down young
vintage
> > Port. I have a mixed case of 1994s, and I sure hope I live to taste
_all_
> > of them at maturity! :^/
> >
> > Tom S
>
> I agree,, A 20 or 30 year old bottle of wine costs big $, no matter how
you
> look at it.
> The days are over when only wealthy elitist can enjoy fine wines.
> This is a good thing,, unless you are a wealthy elitist.

You buy wine at release, then age it. You end up drinking a big-buck wine
that cost a negligible amount, comparatively, and pat yourself on the back
for having the good sense to put it away. What could be better? Great
wine, and thrift as well.

Craig Winchell
GAN EDEN Wines
>
>
>

>
> You buy wine at release, then age it. You end up drinking a big-buck wine
> that cost a negligible amount, comparatively, and pat yourself on the back
> for having the good sense to put it away. What could be better? Great
> wine, and thrift as well.
>
> Craig Winchell
> GAN EDEN Wines

Thrift? $20.00 wine X 5% interest X 20-30 years?
Im no accountant, but you do the math.
Im not sure how much money you have but the average wine drinker can not
afford that.

"Vincent Vega" in ...
>
>> [Gratuitously unattributed nested quotation follows -- MH]
>>
>> IMO, we post-WWII Americans were
>> raised on Coca-Cola, Moon Pies, and Wonder Bread and we
>> like soft and sweet. I'm speaking in the "collective we" BTW.
>> While Europeans view wine as a food group and part of a meal,
>> Americans tend to drink it as a beverage and they want smooth,
>> soft and rich.
>
> I wouldnt say that we like less acidity because of Coca-Cola and
> Moon Pies. It is probably more because we have become accustomed
> to CA wines that have a nearly perfect growing season and grapes (as
> I have been taught) tend to rippen further than the European wines
> you were discussing. These are less acidic so this is what the American
> wine culture and taste is accustomed to. Relating our culture to moon
> pies is kinda insulting. Our climate grows "smooth, soft and rich" wines
> and that is what we have grown accustomed to enjoy.


I don't know whence this adamantly fatuous "We" comes, I have been hearing
it now for some years (thus "we" in the US didn't drink wine before 1983 and
"we" assume that a latterly faddish wine critic "speaks for the consumer" --
Stalin spoke, I remind you, for "the people" and was a great hero to many in
the US too [Note 1]; even, in a US TV-listings publication, an article on
"Beverly Hills 90210" extols "the episodes WE grew up with," God almighty
therefore help "us"). While acknowledging the first (here unattributed,
don't worry I looked it up for myself) poster's disclaimer I do disclaim
membership in the cheery involuntary collective endlessly presumed here. I
wish YOU people (the collective "YOU") might get a clue and speak simply for
YOUrselves.

(In unfashionable unglamorous actuality, some in the post-war US were
desperately preserving and preparing and writing about slow food, immigrant
and native food traditions, and flavor, while new ambitious pundits pimping
for convenience-food firms and back-stabbing honest knowledgeable voices
arose and now posthumously are celebrated by "us" as innovators of US
cooking. Stalin would be impressed. For documentation see the Hesses'
_Taste of America_ if YOU for some reason have managed to ignore it for the
last 29 years.

I thank YOU! (There, *I* feel better.)

--
Note 1: "Hence socialism is converted from a dream of a better future for
humanity into a science." -- J. V. Stalin, _Dialectical and Historical
Materialism,_ International Publishers, New York, 1940. (Not from online.
From the original. Dammit.)

"Vincent Vega" > wrote in message
...
>
> >
> > You buy wine at release, then age it. You end up drinking a big-buck
wine
> > that cost a negligible amount, comparatively, and pat yourself on the
back
> > for having the good sense to put it away. What could be better? Great
> > wine, and thrift as well.
> >
> > Craig Winchell
> > GAN EDEN Wines
>
> Thrift? $20.00 wine X 5% interest X 20-30 years?
> Im no accountant, but you do the math.
> Im not sure how much money you have but the average wine drinker can not
> afford that.
Let's see - according to my financial calculator (assuming 30 years), the
future value is $89.35. Looking at it from purely a collector and drinker's
viewpoint - a resonable investment. Looking at from purely a financial
speculator's viewpoint - more risky, but not as risky as many investments.
From a personal standpoint, I'm 62 now, so I'd be more likely to last for
the 20 year period. The future value for a 20 year period is $54.25. Let's
see - the stocks I bought in the past 3 years are currently worth about half
what I paid for them (even at a reduced buying price as an employee),
automobiles - they have depreciated, my home -- I paid $89,000 14 years ago,
current market value about $160,000. Looks like the home is the better
investment (besides, no home - no wine cellar). But - the wine isn't a BAD
investment. I was laid off in November, am building a new business that
hasn't started generating much now; even under those circumstances, my
little cellar has about 40 bottles, mostly for near time consumption, about
10 to be held over a longer time.
So, at this time, I cannot be one of the people who has a large cellar, full
of exquisite wines, I can't even afford to buy the top wines of the day. So
what - I can still enjoy what I can afford, and I still like to read on this
forum of the experiences of some that have been in the game a lot longer
than myself, and have devoted sizable resources to their collection.
Life is to be enjoyed here and now - we are not gauranteed the future. I'm
not about to be upset with what someone else is able to do. I didn't drink
wine at all until my doctor put me on a glass a day of red wine about a year
ago. It took several months, and some good advice, to get to the point where
I was enjoying the glass a day.
In a forum devoted to wine - one would think that there would be more people
who saw a glass half FULL rather than half empty!
Jim

"BallroomDancer" > wrote in
news:JuVdc.3590$4Y2.1692@lakeread04:

>
> "Vincent Vega" > wrote in message
> ...
>>
>> >
>> > You buy wine at release, then age it. You end up drinking a
>> > big-buck
> wine
>> > that cost a negligible amount, comparatively, and pat yourself on
>> > the
> back
>> > for having the good sense to put it away. What could be better?
>> > Great wine, and thrift as well.
>> >
>> > Craig Winchell
>> > GAN EDEN Wines
>>
>> Thrift? $20.00 wine X 5% interest X 20-30 years?
>> Im no accountant, but you do the math.
>> Im not sure how much money you have but the average wine drinker can
>> not afford that.
> Let's see - according to my financial calculator (assuming 30 years),
> the future value is $89.35. Looking at it from purely a collector and

The other part is that most people do not invest every penny anyway and
there is always a little room for disposable income. Take a little
disposable put it into your hobby and in a few years have a treasure. Not
bad