Growing Wine Grapes in the Vineyard
Odd as it may sound, many winemakers have only relatively recently come to recognize how important the vines themselves are to wine quality.
What did they think was important before? In the 1970s and 1980s, as the New World emerged, and the Old World metamorphosed in its wake, those who made wine, whether or not they also grew the grapes, believed that the most influential elements were the equipment in the wineries and their own skills as winemakers. “Give us grapes and brand-new facilities and we’ll give you good wine,” or so the thinking went in this brave, new, high-tech wine world.
There was a lot in it: wine did become far better and more reliable. But it became apparent – and it sounds so obvious with hindsight – that no amount of clever or inspired winemaking could produce a good wine out of mediocre grapes, or a great wine out of merely good grapes: a case of silk purses and sows’ ears. Suddenly, winemakers who had only ever moved between fermentation tanks, maturation cellars, and the occasional quality-control lab were getting into their boots and pacing the vineyards. The new mantra became “wine is made in the vineyard.” Californians started talking about “farming for flavors.” Viticulturalists (vine horticulturalists) became as important as winemakers.
New world vineyards
It was a different way of thinking. The pioneers in the New World had embarked on their winemaking ventures certain that, given warm, sunny climates, and water for irrigation where necessary, they could plant whichever grape varieties suited their own aspirations. Soil was dirt and didn’t matter. It was of no concern to them that they lacked the limestone of Burgundy, the chalk of Champagne, the Kimmeridgian marl of Chablis, the gravel of the Medoc and Graves, the granite of the Douro, or any other terrain. They planted Bordeaux’s great red grape, cabernet sauvignon, alongside Burgundy’s great white grape, chardonnay, and they planted both alongside sauvignon blanc, the grape of Sancerre. And their vines flourished. Unlike so many European vines, growing on soils too poor to sustain most other crops, they didn’t have to struggle for water and nutrients; they didn’t have to push their roots yards down through layers of subsoil and resistant rock.
But neither did their vines produce wines with complex flavors that reflected the particular places from which they had come. Their wines reflected the grape varieties and the choices the winemaker had made during the fermentation and matur|ttion processes. They tended to be strong on fruit flavors and alcohol (because the grapes ripened to high sugar levels in the warm climates), and equally strong on flavors that come from the winemakers armory – the buttery taste of white wines in which a malolactic fermentation has taken place, and the sweetness and flavor of new oak in red and in white wines.
Vineyard character
This didn’t mean that they weren’t good wines. On the contrary, some were so good they beat the finest French wines in competitions predominantly judged by French tasters. The everyday wines were more consistent in quality than almost anything produced in Europe at the time. But, unlike the great European wines, they didn’t express the character of a vineyard. (As if to reinforce this, they were labeled primarily by grape variety and producer or brand, rather than geographically.)
The French call this spirit of place, or “somewhereness” as an American commentator has referred to it, terroir. It means the complete package of growing conditions that are specific to a vineyard or site and which, in combination, influence the style and quality of the wine that can be produced there. Terroir encompasses topography (altitude, slope, and orientation), climate (temperature, sunshine, and rainfall), soil, subsoil, and bedrock. For the French, terroir is an article of faith, and their appellation controlee system is based on it.
