Rebuking the Oft Repeated Dogma of the Wine Industry
Synopsis
From the dust jacket:
Wine is a traditional product with traditional explanations. Oft-romanticized, Old World notions of how to create fine wine have been passed down through generations and continue to dominate popular discussions of wine quality. However, many of these beliefs predate science and remain isolated from advances in the understanding of how crops grow and fruit ripens. Allegiance to them has frequently impeded open-minded investigation into how grapevines interact with the environment, thus limiting innovation in winegrowing.
In Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing, Mark A. Matthews applies a scientist’s skepticism and scrutiny to examine widely held beliefs about viticulture. Is terroir primarily a marketing ploy that obscures understanding of which environments really produce the best wine? Is reducing yield an imperative for high quality grapes and wine? What does it mean to have vines that are balanced or grapes that are physiologically mature? Matthews explores and dissects these and other questions to debunk the myths of winegrowing that may be holding us back from achieving a higher wine quality.
My Thoughts
Mark Matthews certainly comes out of the gates swinging, addressing topics in winegrowing that have been considered settled science for as long as I’ve been reading about wine. From the idea that any increase in yield or berry size correlates to a decrease in wine quality to the idea that the type of soil a grapevine is grown in will transmit distinct flavors to the berry. His approach is not to turn these ideas on their ear so much as it’s to assess if there is any scientific backing to support the dogmatic following of the practices they necessitate.
Maintaining tradition without thought or investigation precludes any potential progress. With thought and reflection, however, traditional explanations might be affirmed, or a path might be opened for migration toward something better.
Chapter one dives head first into the notion that any increase in yield will have a direct negative impact on the quality of wine. Matthews refers to this idea of high yield low quality as HYLQ. The HYLQ idea has been permeated throughout every facet of the wine industry for multiple decades with surprisingly, at least to me, very little in the way of empirical evidence to support it. Just pick up a bottle of any cult Cabernet Sauvignon and you’ll see some variation of “Yields were reduced to insure quality” or “Low yields resulted in higher concentration of fruit.”
It is important to note that the HYLQ myth tells us that whether yield is reduced by winter pruning to lower shoots per vine, summer pruning (or cluster thinning), or poor fruit set, each action is said to have the same positive impact on flavor intensity...If great wine growing is as simple as [reducing the amount of fruit], then it is hardly a challenge worth appreciating.
Matthews does an excellent job of tracing the origin of this myth back to a single line from the poet Virgil; Bacchus amat colles which using the ol' Google Translate translates into “Bacchus loves the (open) hills.” This one line has been interpreted by multiple wine writers to imply that Virgil had some intimate knowledge regarding the planting of the grapevine in a manner that will reduce yields thereby producing grapes of higher quality. Now it seems many wine writers simply eschew any facts when including the HYLQ narrative in their writings. Matthews, however, cites multiple studies proving that an increase in yields will have little to no effect on scores. Now I’m not sure if this disproves the HYLQ myth entirely but it at least opens the door for discussion.
Matthews also tackles the notion of balanced vines, that there is an ideal ratio of fruit to vegetative growth and if a vine grower can just achieve that golden ratio, then perfect wine will follow. The problem with this notion being it is extremely difficult to quantify exactly what that ratio would be. Multiple experiments show very little correlation between what Matthews refers to as yield to pruning weight (Y:PW) and high scores. At best, one could draw a line between Y:PW and sugar levels in the berry. But that would be a loose correlation considering there is more than just sugar levels to consider when determining when to harvest.
An important problem for the vine balance concept (among others in winegrowing) is that it is foremost an issue of faith, a priori reasoning that there is a balance of leaves and clusters that will result in wine attributes matching the current human model of what a wine should taste like.
While Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing contains a heaping spoonful of useful information and insight into the origins and misconceptions of some of the more dogmatic aspects to winemaking, it is not a book I would recommend for the novice or casual wine reader. A firm foundation of wine knowledge is necessary to fully understand the content as well as the implications of Matthews work. That said, if you are a wine professional or an amateur with some background in winemaking, this book is an incredibly interesting, albeit amazingly dry, read.
Comments