Real Wine
The following techniques and guiding principles are what we believe is winemaking with integrity and respect for the traditions of the native region. This is fine winemaking at its purest, most fundamental level.
Wild Yeasts
All wines are made with the natural yeasts on the grapes, in the vineyards and in the cellars. Cultured yeasts to rush fermentation or add "enhancing" aromas and flavors are unacceptable. We look for wines that express their terroir.
Hand Harvesting
Growers harvest by hand, not machine. We want the ripest fruit to be brought into the winery- not a mix picked at random by machinery.
Low Yields
Our growers must seek low yields for greater concentration. We look for growers with holdings in old
vines.
Natural Viticulture
We encourage growers to plow their vineyards to keep the soil an active ecosystem, and to use natural methods in tending their vines.
No or Minimal Chaptalization
We do not want an artificially high degree of alcohol produced by adding sugar to the must. Non- or very slightly chaptalized wines are more enjoyable and healthier to drink.
Non-Filtration
Wines are either not filtered or minimally filtered.
Non-Interventionist Winemaking
We prefer a harmony, not an imposed style - wines should showcase their place of origin and varietal character. We are not looking for oak flavor, particular fruits or overly done aromatics. Minimal use of sulfur dioxide is encouraged.
Quality Control
We taste at our growers several times before and after bottling before shipping wines. Where possible, we work with the vigneron to make special blends representing the very best wines in their cellar.
The Alternative State of the Art or..
"Does it really come from grapes?"
Over-Manipulated
The over-handling of wine is one of the fundamental caveats in winemaking. Repeatedly pumping wine from one vat to another and moving wine or grape must by truck affects the freshness and flavors of the wine. Of course, chemical adjustments can be made to cover up any faults....and Velveeta is delicious!
Over-Flavored
In almost all parts of the world it's common practice to use cultured yeasts and extra grape sugars to enrich the flavors of the grape juice during fermentation. Not to mention the foolish winemaker that keeps a shelf of flavor extracts on a shelf directly above the vat...WHOOPS!
Over-Acidified
Did you know it was common practice in most areas of the world to do "acid adjustments" by adding citric acid, tartaric acid and, less frequently, malic acid to adjust the acidity levels of a wine?
Over-Harvested
Restricting the number of grape bunches on a vine is the simplest, most basic technique for achieving greater concentration and flavor. The majority of wine-grape growers harvest at levels high above the norm to increase the number of bottles that may be sold...the simplest, most basic formula for increasing profits.
Over-Filtered
Sterile filtration is a method of forcing wine through microscopic screens that basically strip the wine of particles which may include materials that give wine a unique flavor. It is commonly used throughout the winemaking world.
Over-Oaked
While oak can be a good and interesting thing, there are excesses. The overuse of new oak is a departure from traditional winemaking techniques that, apart from being prohibitively expensive and greatly accelerating the deforestation of France, has created a new consumer demand for oak-flavored wines. So much so, that some disreputable wineries in certain parts of the world go so far as to add oak chips and oak extract flavors to wine!
Over-Rated
Let's not kid ourselves, folks! The great majority of the wine press throughout the world, with notable exceptions, is wholly influenced by advertising and perceived glamour.
We've even found ourselves incredulous at some of the stellar ratings our own wines have received!
Over-the-Top
Any number of the above-mentioned factors and others (such as fancy bottles, postage stamp labels, etc) can put a wine over-the-top. There are also wines that burst out of the bottle due to added flavors and overextraction and are the "blockbusters wines" of the press and tastings, but inevitably can't hold up to aging or are completely incompatible with food.
©1999 Louis/Dressner Selections
For information on local availability of our wines, please E-mail: kmckenna@louisdressner.com.
You may expect a prompt response.
Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée
by Joe Dressner
There was one theme that came up at every vigneron I visited this past winter.
L'Agrément.
L' Agrément is literally the granting of the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée to a wine. Every year, in every region, there is a process by which the producers of each AOC judge the work of their peers and decide if it merits the name of the AOC. The origins of this system date back centuries in spirit, although legally it was formulated in the 1930s. The idea was that AOC system defends the consumer -- it guarantees that the wine bought by the consumer actually comes from the region, village or vineyard on the label. It also guarantees that the wine is not flawed and most importantly that the wine is typique.
Mouton-Cadet is a wine that year-in and year-out conforms to the norms of its appellation, as interpreted the by Institut National des Appellations Origines Contrôlées (INAO), and gets the right to call itself a Bordeaux AOC. Other winemakers are not so lucky.
Typique means literally that the wine is typical. Typical in the sense that the wine expresses a terroir and typical in the sense that it conforms to the norms of the appellation. What exactly defines normative is the gray area that is being discussed all over France. Because, essentially, the aromatic and taste norms are being defined all over France by the majority in each AOC.
And here is where we get into a dangerous zone, the tyranny of the majority. If the bulk of Touraine's Sauvignons Blancs are overcropped, lean, acidic and bitter, then something richer and more interesting is automatically atypical and outside the norms of the AOC.
French vignerons tend to be a conservative bunch and intolerant of marginal characters. They also tend to be a close-knit and jealous lot. The Didier Dagueneaus who get four to five times the price of their neighbors by producing a wine that is perceived by the majority to be eccentric and made by eccentric viticultural and oenological practices quickly find that some of their wines are not accepted as typique and are declassified by the majority into Vins de Table. Same for Eloi Durbach, Jean Thévenet and so many more well-known vignerons.
Of course, these are the celebrities. Below them are a movement of vignerons who are working hard in their vineyards, who are harvesting by hand, producing low yields, working with wild yeasts, not concentrating, not enzyming and not spoofulating. They are simply making real wines, that in a better world would be the models for their terroir. Instead they have become pariahs.
Their wines are often eliminated from the AOC, or grudgingly accepted after several appeals, because, in the current context of mediocrity, they are aberrant.
Unfortunately for these vignerons, those who do not have the reputations of a Durbach or Dagueneau, a declassification into Table Wine or Vin de Pays can often have disastrous financial results. When Jean-Paul Brun is told that his beautiful Beaujolais Rouges are atypique and have to be declassified into table wine -- without vintage, without the name of the grape variety, without the name of the estate (restrictions that are obligatory for Table Wine) -- which of his customers are going to buy the wine?
The French vineyards have grown exponentially since the war and various AOCs have doubled, tripled or quadrupled in size. Many of them use high-producing clonal selections and mechanical agricultural work that, by definition, make a different product than the "mavericks" who are still making real wine based on the raw materials that defined that terroir in the first place. As sales go bad all over France, the tendency is for the majority to get even more intolerant and to apply more pressure to the marginals.
Perhaps the best thing would be to go the route of Italian wines and start declaring wines as Table Wines as an alternative to the AOC system. Because it is apparent that it is the producer and not the AOC that makes the difference. A Vouvray from B&G and a Vouvray from Domaine Huet are both from the same AOC but the regional indicator tells us nothing about the actual quality in the bottle.
Mark Angeli (below), winemaker in the
Coteaux du Layon in Anjou, Loire Valley,
was denied the AOC for his naturally sweet rosé
Each AOC in France has a range of acceptable prices that goes with the range of acceptable flavors and aromatics. Whether it be Gevrey-Chambertin Village or Cairanne. Occasionally, there is the Dagueneau and other wine celebrities who can transcend the built-in barriers. Sometimes, a rave review from Robert Parker or The Wine Spectator can also aid a producer to transcend their regional limits. But, on the whole, the wine trade and wine public are delighted to see normative price restraints hold sway. Even though the real estate mogul in California can get $50.00 a bottle for his first effort.
This sounds like a good system. Everybody is supposed to like lower prices and lower prices are to the advantage of the consumer. The problem is that costs are not equal -- the maverick vigneron who works at low yields and takes every expense to ensure the best possible grapes come into his cuverie and the best possible wine goes into the bottle has another level of expense than the neighbor who machine harvests and uses industrial winemaking techniques. There are no migrant laborers in France and labor is extremely expensive. Somewhere along the line, there has to be a financial incentive for vignerons to work harder and better.
In the current market, the vigneron who works well is harassed by his peers in the AOC and then forced to sell his wine at about the same prices as his neighbors who sell average, mediocre or horrible wine. Isn't it time that we in the wine trade try to motivate the public and motivate our customers to understand that there is a relationship between what the consumer pays and what the consumer gets in the bottle?
In touring around America, I notice that many of the younger people in the trade respect a meritocracy and not an appellation hierarchy. People new to the trade have been trained in California wine, not in French wines, and judge the producer, not the region. If a Côtes-du-Rhône is delicious, then it doesn't matter that it is not going to cost $14.99 retail. Hopefully, this trend will continue.
In France, they are still a long way off. The French drinking public still views their wines through the prism of the AOC and expects a certain fourchette of prices, often beginning at rock bottom. Enormous supermarket chains, selling at low mark-ups, dominate the French wine trade and encourage this tendency.
Let's be reasonable. We have a three tier system here. A wine that costs $9.99 retail usually leaves the vigneron's cellar at $3.00 to $3.50. A producer wants to make $5.00 and everyone in the American trade considers him a thief! So the inclination in the trade is to buy from the cheapest sourcing out there to keep the prices low in the market and to turnover inventory. OK, wine distribution is not a non-profit business and we are looking to make money. But isn't part of our responsibility to explain to our customers and to the public why it is worth paying something extra for good and great wine?
Hopefully, the time will come when the buying public buys a wine for the quality of the wine and not for the perceived reputation of the AOC. Until that time, the abuse of the majority will dominate the vineyards of France and restrict what we are able to get into the hands of consumers. Let's work together to try to turn this situation around.