[P.S. Beginning with the 2012 vintage, France has made some updates to their AOC system. Vin de Pays is now called Indication Geographique Protégée or IGP and AOC is now Appellation d’Origine Protégée or AOP. Many other countries are making updates as well so don’t be alarmed if you see some new words on the wines you love.]
In the last post entitled Fake Wine we talked about the creation of the AOC system in France and how that impacted the wine laws in all of Europe. The primary wine producing countries of Europe all have their own versions of the AOC system and the below map has more detail about each one. Roll your mouse over each country label to learn about that country's wine laws. [P.S. Beginning with the 2012 vintage, France has made some updates to their AOC system. Vin de Pays is now called Indication Geographique Protégée or IGP and AOC is now Appellation d’Origine Protégée or AOP. Many other countries are making updates as well so don’t be alarmed if you see some new words on the wines you love.]
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In a world where counterfeiting is rampant and fake wines are as common as knock-off Louis Vuitton bags… I hope you all read that in your best Don LaFontaine movie trailer voice, because that statement would only be true in a fictional movie about wine. There have, however, been a number of true stories on the topic of counterfeit wines in the past couple of months. Just recently Italian police discovered thirty thousand bottles of counterfeit wine claiming to be Brunello di Montalcino and Chianti, according to ABC News. And perhaps more famously, in December 2013, Wine Spectator reported that Rudy Kurniawan, a well-known trader in the wine world, was convicted of selling more than $20 million in fake wine. His story is so perfect for the big screen that just one month after his conviction decanter.com announced a documentary titled Sour Grapes was already being filmed. He was just recently sentenced to 10 years in prison and almost $30 million in restitution. Despite how it may seem, however, wine counterfeiting is nothing new. I remember first reading about the counterfeit wine scene in a 2009 issue of Wine Spectator where the cover story featured billionaire wine collector Bill Koch. As of the writing of the article, Koch was involved in no less than five lawsuits against auction companies and individual sellers. [Watch a recent ABC News story about Bill Koch’s vendetta against wine fraud here.] In 2008 there were twenty or so Italian producers accused of producing counterfeit wine. And in 1985, several Austrian wine producers were found guilty of adding diethylene glycol--a sweet organic compound that is actually poisonous in large amounts--to their wines to make them sweeter and more full-bodied. This brings us to why we’re talking about wine fraud. After all, most of us aren’t billionaire wine collectors who are worried about being swindled out of thousands, if not millions, of dollars. However, there is a place where wine fraud meets the everyday world. Ever since Roman times, the wine world has been fighting against fraud. My favorite punishment for a vintner who was found selling fraudulent wine occurred in the Middle Ages when a convicted winemaker was forced to drink all the fraudulent wine he made (Oxford Companion to Wine article on “Adulteration and Wine Fraud”). It wasn’t until 1937, though, that much was done about it. In that year, the town of Châteauneuf-du-Pâpe and its surrounding vineyards were officially protected by French law becoming the first Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée. The Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée, or AOC, system (translated as Controlled Designations of Origin, but we tend to just say “appellation”) is run by the French government and controls all manner of French products from wine to cheese to honey. The system regulates all sorts of things from production area to growing techniques to production quantities. There are over 300 French wine AOCs that regulate wine production. Each AOC is slightly different, but they all control at the very least: where wine can be made, how much wine can be made, how much alcohol is in the finished wine, what can be used to make the wine, and most importantly, what type of wine can be made. The AOC system is actually broken down into two main categories: AOC and Vin de Pays, or Country Wine. Both have regulations, but AOC is much stricter and, though there are certainly exceptions, is considered by most to be much better quality. The European Union liked the AOC system so much that they adopted it as well. This means that any wine-producing country in Europe must use some version of the AOC system. In Italy it’s DOCG, in Germany QmP, but each country has their version. Following the Austrian Wine Scandal in 1985, Austria adopted its version of the AOC system called DAC (Districtus Austriae Controllatus). We'll go into more detail about each country's laws governing wine production in Part 2 of Fake Wine. A good friend who has been avidly following my writing from the beginning recently commented to me that at times my entries can get a little complicated. I admit, at times I get a little carried away with the topic at hand and start waxing poetically about fermentation vats or ageability or lees stirring. I’ve always been a bit of a nerd, so it’s hard for me to keep it simple at times. For this reason, I am grateful for friends. It’s always important to have someone there to shut you up when you start to trail off into geek land. With that in mind, What is Wine is about getting back to basics. We started last month with Vintage. And while I may get a little geeky, I do my best to try and make the essentials of wine as easy to understand as I can. So let’s start at the beginning. In the beginning…well ok, maybe not quite the beginning, but a pretty long time ago, there was wine. In fact, just recently, archaeologists discovered a palace in modern day Israel that apparently housed the oldest wine cellar ever found. The wine cellar is believed to date to 1700 B.C. An archaeological dig in modern day Iran claims to have unearthed vessels from 5000 B.C. that scientists believe once held wine. And both the Christian Bible and the Jewish Tanakh tell the story of Noah who after the flood “proceeded to plant a vineyard” and “drank some of its wine.” In all that time, wine hasn’t changed all that much. At the most basic level, wine is a drink made by fermenting the juice of grapes (this is the technical dictionary definition). For me, wine is a drink that makes life better. Now many people may interpret that statement to mean that when wine is drunk in quantities that alter your state of mind life appears better. While that can be true, that is not what I mean. It’s my belief that from the first sip, wine begins to enhance experiences, not from a chemical perspective, but from a sensorial perspective. What I mean is this: when wine is added to an experience--whether it be a meal, an outing, a gathering--it brightens the mood, it lightens the spirit, it connects us to one another. And so life does not merely appear better, it actually is better. This to me, is actually the best argument for not overdrinking. By using wine to enhance life and not alter it, you actually end up with a better experience. I have found that there is a uniqueness to wine, in particular quality wine, that is hard to find in any other experience. And thus, while wine is basically a very common beverage, there is something entirely uncommon about what it can be. Back to a bit of history… Oftentimes, wine in the ancient world was also spiced with various ingredients. Recipes have been found in ancient texts and residue recovered from clay vessels that lead us to believe ancient winemakers spiced their wines with ingredients such as honey. Often the wines were also resinated. (Wine used to be stored in clay amphorae or pots that were sealed or coated with pine resin to keep them watertight. The wine would pick up resin flavor from this sealant much in the same way wine takes on an oak character from being stored in oak barrels today. You can still find retsina--the modern name for this style of wine--in wine stores today. Kourtaki is a common producer.) Over the centuries, the addition of spices has faded, but wine is still made essentially the same way. Take a bunch of grapes, press them to get the juice out, let it ferment and sometimes age, bottle and drink. Let’s talk about some of the details. Since wine is made from grapes, we’ll start there. Grapes are the fruit produced from grapevines. There are numerous types of grapevines in the world, but ninety-nine percent of wine is only made from one type: vitis vinifera. The other types of grapevines are used for products like raisins or grape juice or for just plain eating. These are the types of grapes you see in the grocery or what’s used in Welch’s. While you can make wine from these grapes--and people certainly have--I wouldn’t recommend it. Wines made from these table grapes tend to be bland, uninteresting and sometimes astringent. The type that table grapes come from, most commonly vitis labrusca (concord grapes are a variety of vitis labrusca), end up having a very musky or “foxy” flavor when they are made into wine. I find it quite unpleasant. Vitis vinifera originally comes from Europe, but can now be found all over the world. There is, however, a sweet spot for production. Almost all grapevines grown for making wine are located between the 30th and 50th parallels latitude in both the northern and southern hemispheres. It takes about three years for a grapevine to start producing grapes that can be made into wine. This is why replanting vines for a winemaker is a significant investment. Not only is she paying for the new vines and all the time and labor it takes to plant them, but then she must wait three years to see a return on her investment. Grapes are harvested in the Fall (August - November) in the northern hemisphere and in the Spring (March - May) in the southern hemisphere. So when you start seeing 2014 New Zealand sauvignon blanc on the shelves this October, don’t be alarmed, the grapes were harvested this past spring and so the wine had several months to be made. Ok, so some of you may be asking at this point, why do I care about the grapes? Well, in wine, we use grapes as a reference to talk about the wine. When you start talking about how much you hate merlot or that you like the fruitiness of riesling, you’re really talking about the grapes. Merlot and riesling are two examples of vitis vinifera grape types. Some of the other common grapes you may be familiar with are: sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio/gris, chardonnay, sangiovese, pinot noir, syrah/shiraz, cabernet sauvignon, zinfandel. These are all technically different vitis vinifera grape names that we’ve used to describe the wine made from those grapes. It may sound confusing, but I think of it kind of like cuts of meat. There’s not just beef, there’s chuck, sirloin, round, rib, etc. They’re all beef, just different types. This is De Long's Wine Grape Varietal Table. It lists just a few of the thousands of grape varieties that exist along with their most common characteristics. Once the grapes are harvested, they get brought to a wine press. I know it’s romantic (or gross depending on who you are) to think of nona and nono stomping out all that grape juice with their barefeet, but that’s not so much how it happens any more. For centuries this was accomplished with a wooden press that looks almost like a wine barrel with a corkscrew on top. When you tighten the corkscrew a solid piece of wood lowers onto the grapes and starts squeezing the juice out.
One of the most popular topics when talking about wine is the discussion of vintage. Vintages are rated by virtually every wine critic and consumers commit to them as much as they do producers it seems. It’s actually a little surprising to me how attached people are to a particular vintage of a wine they like. They seem to think that vintage is an integral part of what makes up the wine, the way grapes do. So the question is: are they right? vin·tage More specifically, it is the year in which the grapes are harvested. Vintage is certainly a very influential factor in the way a wine is made. Along with things like soil and location, climate is an important part of what the French call terroir. Perhaps you’ve heard of this term, which has no direct English translation, but is roughly understood to be a “sense of place”; something that makes that specific spot unique. Where climate describes the overarching weather patterns of a particular place, vintage speaks directly to the weather for that specific year. For example, in years to come when people talk about the 2014 vintage in Burgundy, they will most likely refer to the hailstorms that just terrorized the region. While many wine-producing regions contend with either too much sun or too little, some regions, like Burgundy, face larger problems in the form of hail. In fact, this is the third straight year that Burgundy has had trouble with hail. Bordeaux and Piedmont are two other regions that often face this same issue [note: Bordeaux also had trouble with hail this year and just recently the Languedoc Roussillon region did as well. 2014 is turning out to be a rough year for producers in France]. I got a chance to see firsthand what hail can do during my visit to Bordeaux in 2009. One of the things that stands out most about hail, is how localized it can be. As you can see, one vineyard may be entirely unaffected while another just across the river can be almost completely destroyed. There are, of course, other devastating things that can happen to vineyards; be it fire or torrential rain, strong winds or drought, each year brings new possibilities for what might happen in the vineyard. While we can’t predict the weather completely for any given vintage, technology and advancements in winemaking techniques have made it much easier to cope with changing weather conditions. In a really dry year, we can irrigate, in a cool year where the grapes may not ripen fully, we can add sugar (to increase the final alcohol), when there’s danger of frost, we can turn on heaters; winemakers have all sorts of tricks they can use to account for vintage variation. While there are certain financial limitations they must consider (their wine is their livelihood after all), many winemakers chose to let vintage be something that makes a wine unique. Rather than doing what they can to make each vintage taste the same no matter what, they celebrate the variety that comes from their terroir. Not all wine critics think about vintage as something to be lauded or criticized. Author and wine educator Karen MacNeil shares a great video about how she thinks about vintage. For me, vintage should be viewed as a characteristic of the wine. Much in the same way we search for oaked or unoaked chardonnay, big cabernet or juicy merlot, we could just as easily be asking for wine from a cool or hot vintage. I agree with Ms. MacNeil that there aren’t really good or bad vintages, but instead, each vintage serves a different purpose. A good winemaker will know how to react to changing weather in order to make the best wine possible with what she is given. So next time you are looking for a wine, instead of considering weather 2010 was a good or a bad year, think instead about the type of wine you are looking for. If you want a big, bold over-the-top wine, look for wine from a region that had a very hot, dry year. If you’re looking for something more understated, look for wine from a cooler, rainier year (which will quite possibly be less expensive) . As with everything in wine, it does take some time to learn which years were which, but the more you experiment, the easier it will become. Found this podcast from Freakonomics radio recently and was pretty surprised by what they discovered. The basic premise? If marijuana and alcohol didn't exist and both were discovered on the same day, which would be outlawed first. It's a pretty interesting thought experiment. Listen and then tell me what you think. What's more dangerous: alcohol or marijuana? It's raining again today in New Jersey. This is the fifth day in a row that it's been raining. I'm anxious to get out in my yard and do some work on it, so I'm getting tired of the rain. Out in California, though, it's a different story. The State of California is in the middle of one of the most severe droughts they've ever seen. They started the year already in a deficit from 2013--one of the driest years on record--and this year, they are projected to have shortages upwards of six million acre-feet, or enough water for 1.5 million households. This is a big problem for California whose agriculture industry is massive. To successfully irrigate just all the wine grapes they grow, the state needs more than 148 billion gallons of water each year. My brother is an architect. Now, I’ll be honest, I've never quite understood everything he does. And for much of my life, his interest in architecture frustrated me because it meant taking side trips on family vacations to famous buildings I didn't care about (thought probably should have) or sitting around bored while he took 240 pictures of the St. Louis Arch. I think most people think of architects as people who design buildings. And sure, that’s part of it. But the more I learn about what my brother--and architects like him--does, the more I realize that my brother isn't just an architect; he’s a cool architect. It turns out that some architecture is not just about designing buildings, even really cool (or weird depending on your personal opinion) buildings, it’s about designing systems. What I mean is this: an architect can be someone who simply designs a building, or he can be someone who designs a building and figures out how that building fits into the space around it. He can design a building or a park and he can design a way for that building or park to enhance the environment where it is located, not detract from it. The firm my brother works for, SWA, is committed to this type of architecture. Their website states that they “have a deep appreciation for nature and natural systems” and they “have a strong commitment to design that synthesizes aesthetics and sustainability.” They recently held an internal contest for their associates that dealt with the issue of the recent droughts in California. The challenge? Imagine a way to help mitigate the effects of the continuing drought. The initial contest announcement asked that instead of turning to the traditional solutions of shutting off sprinklers and taking shorter showers, how can “Landscape Architects and Stewards of the Environment design our way out of this? Make no mistake about it, this drought is serious for the entire Southwest including Texas and California and it will affect the entire US economy in 2014/15.” Entrants were to submit a one minute video outlining their idea for an innovative solution to the drought. Interestingly enough, both winners had solutions relating to the beer and wine industry. Take a look at the winning videos and let me know what you think. I, for one, wish there more architects like this; that is, more architects like my brother. I woke up this morning and went through my normal routine: shower, brush teeth, get dressed, put on coat and walk out door. Only this morning when I walked outside I thought maybe my house had decided to relocate itself to the tundra while I slept. The temperature gauge on my car read 2º. Soon the radio was telling me that with the wind chill it was -20º! Ask any winemaker about how to grow healthy grapevines and they will tell you that the best grapes come from vines that struggle. I have even witnessed this myself. In general, I have found that wine is better when it comes from vines that had a rough life. Much like people, grapevines mature best when they are exposed to suffering. But can there be too much suffering? And, is it okay to sacrifice quality in order to be able to produce grapes at all? Okay, so why am I talking about cold weather and suffering grapevines? My brother's recent trip to Inner Mongolia has prompted me to ask just that. My brother goes to China several times a year for work (architecture, not wine) and his most recent trip took him to Inner Mongolia, specifically the town of Wuhai. While the Chinese have for many years now been increasing their consumption of wine, I've only recently been hearing more and more about the increase of Chinese wine production. In fact, I just read an article about Domaines Barons de Rothschild (Lafites) buying vineyards in the Shandong province. They planted these vineyards in 2011 so the first vintage should be harvested in the next year or two. My brother was able to visit a few wineries and drove through many vineyards. In telling me about the vineyards, he described how vineyard managers bury the vines during the coldest months of the year to protect them from the extreme weather of the region. I've never heard of this myself, so my initial reaction was simply shock. I had trouble understanding what this meant so, naturally, I had to do a little more research, all the time wondering, how far should we go to produce wine in regions unsuitable to grape growing? Inner Mongolia has extremely long, extremely cold winters. This causes a bit of a problem for grapevines, which don’t like long periods of cold weather. The temperature in this region of China has reached record lows of -40º F and can remain below freezing for as much as five months of the year. Grapevines on the other hand, start to lose productivity around 9º F, according to Washington State University’s Viticulture and Enology department. This presented a problem for farmers in Inner Mongolia who wanted to grow grapes. It turns out they’re not the only ones with this problem. Researchers at Cornell University’s Enological school addressed this issue when New York’s wine regions lost a significant portion of their crop due to cold temperatures. They concluded that burying healthy grapevines can protect them from harsh winter freezes, albeit with some consequences. The study expresses that “buried buds are often weaker and less productive than buds left unburied when winters are mild” and “that in spring the buried buds will emerge later than ‘normal’ buds and may produce less fruit.” Further digging (no pun intended), brought me an instructional document published by Oregon State University called Protecting Grapevines from Winter Injury. This study describes several ways to protect against cold winter temperatures, including burying the vines. All this brings me to the question, to what lengths is it worth going in order to produce grapes in regions that really don’t seem hospitable to grapevines? And even if we find ways to produce grapes, can we really expect to make good wine from those grapes that have undergone such harsh conditions in order to survive? To be fair, my brother didn’t bring back any bottles with him, and I haven’t come across any wine from Wuhai in stores, so I’ve never tried any wine from Inner Mongolia. But if we have to go so far as to bury a grapevine and manipulate its natural growth in order to make it productive, what kind of end product should we expect? I came across a somewhat similar scenario when I visited the winegrowing regions of Washington State this past summer. Having never visited this region before, I was unaware of the climate of the Columbia Valley. I learned that while the area surrounding Seattle--that is, west of the Cascade Mountains--is considered a temperate rain forest with over sixty inches of average rainfall a year, once you cross over the mountains, its a veritable desert. And when I say desert, I’m not exaggerating. The Columbia Valley receives less than six inches of rainfall a year. Six! That’s actually less than the Gobi Desert (ironically located in Mongolia just steps away from Inner Mongolia). So, how do they produce so much wine in the Columbia Valley, you might ask. Irrigation. Everything in Washington State is irrigated. According to Washington State University’s Irrigation website, 1.8 million acres of agricultural land in Washington are irrigated, and 80% of the water that is used by humans in Washington is used for irrigation. That’s a lot of water. Now, I have had the experience of tasting many wines from Washington State and I can say that there are a number of good wines coming from this region. And I’m not the only one who thinks so. In 2009, Columbia Crest’s 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon received Wine Spectator’s Wine of the Year and just this year, Spring Valley Vineyards came in at number twenty seven on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines list with their 2010 Uriah. But I have to ask myself, is it worth it? It’s clearly possible to produce good wines from inhospitable regions, but at what point does it become artificial to grow grapevines in regions that clearly weren't meant for it? |
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