[wine] Tony Soter on Cabernet

(The following op-ed piece recently appeared on Steve Tanzer's web site. Thought it would be of general interest.) Tony Soter on Cabernet. April 2007 By Tony Soter, Soter Vineyards and Etude Wines Napa is blessed with an abundance and diversity of well-drained volcanic and alluvial soils and (until recently) an ideal climate that is warm enough to consistently ripen Cabernet but cool enough to stretch into October so that ripening is more often than not complete (not just sweet) and redolent with complex layers of nuance. But lately things are getting weird. When I say weird, I mean the convergence of global warming, numb palates seduced by alcoholic slipperiness, and too many new, insecure winery owners wanting to outgun the next guy by offering bigger-is-better wines. Add to the mix more than a few "mercenary" winemakers/consultants who can dial-in the excess to produce so-called "winning wines." Then, they are followed like lemmings by lesser talents who can at least imitate. Did you know that many of the wines receiving the high scores of late are not just over 14%, they are way past 15% right on up to the top-scorers: 16%? This reduces winemaking to picking raisins and getting one's fermentation technology honed to eke out a semblance of dryness at these extraordinary alcohols. But who cares if they are not totally dry anyway; it always worked for Chardonnay. There are also some unintended consequences viticulturally (replanting Napa to vertical trellising without regard to row orientation, for example) that combine to make it more difficult to protect the fruit from its most likely flaw. . .sunburn and shrivel. But this seems to be only a challenge for those of us that detest the new-wave excesses. Sunburn and shrivel are just what too many winemakers are waiting for today.though they will tell you it is physiological ripeness.they likely couldn't recognize it if they had to and wouldn't like it if they did. Essential to graceful, ageworthy cabernet that will smell more interesting with time is a whole range of aromatics or aromatic precursors that are "baked out" of grapes grown in too warm a climate or allowed to get over the top in so-called 'ripeness.' Forget the alcohol imbalance for a moment [those who like tinkering can get a machine involved to fix it]. What if that impressively ripe young wine has no future?.as the fruit fades nothing takes its place.its best moment is shortly after its release.is it coincidental that this is when they are judged? Credit Jim Laube's retrospectives looking back a decade or more for evidence that the wines have more than early flash. But I predict that many of the recent phenoms won't age worth a damn. To say nothing of the fact that they are hardly drinkable even now. But that may be a personal preference. After all, some of these wines are fairly interesting oenological curiosities. Freak show characters make for good entertainment, but take one home for dinner and you'll regret it, big-time. Not only do they not compliment a meal of nearly any sort, you get dizzy before you've had your third small glass and a headache the next morning if you do manage to finish the bottle.this is fun? What style do I aim for and has that changed over the years? I like power and ripeness, but more important are layers of complexity and finesse of structure (balance) and ultimately an irreducible quality of density, sap, or substance. This is a core of grape essence that is true richness. It can be masked by coarse, heavy-handed extraction that leaves the wine with too much tannin to be balanced. This was common decades ago but today we have learned to manage tannins. (I now fear that the marketplace is so tannin-phobic that they equate any tannin as a flaw) This substance or sap can also be imitated by very high alcohol and very low acidity. Most people call these wines round, full bodied, fleshy etc. but to me they are akin to excess makeup and augmentation: you can tell it isn't the real thing. How do I measure maturity and when to pick? I walk in the vineyard often, taste the fruit, consult the weather, be intimate with the vine, commune with nature, even consider praying. Being the "decider" is lonely work. It is the first in a series of irreversible directives. the consequences one has to live with. Fruit for winemaking improves with long hangtime, but there comes a point when it is not improving any longer, or when it incurs damage and begins to deteriorate because the vine can no longer sustain itself, let alone the fruit. Push it to the edge, but capture it before it goes over. Ripeness alone will make for hollow, slippery wines .those shallow wines that don't have any lingering impression and fail to leave a character stamp. Therefore, great sites and rigorous farming are essential elements of success, in my view. Low crops, low vigor, and stingy irrigation regimes (if the vines are not dry-farmed) are keys. Organic farming, sustainable farming, and biodynamics are all good approaches and in some form essential. They are all part of the solution vs. conventional farming and we should not spend too much effort discriminating between them in some false search for who is "holier than thou." Interestingly, I do not believe these techniques are strictly speaking quality contributions to the wine. Sustainable farming is a quality enhancement for the environment and a guarantee of purity for the customer that should be a responsibility of every winegrower. Do we use clones or mass selection? We use clones in a way that gives us a mass-selection-like result. That is to say we select numerous sites and clones and blend for the desired diversity. In the case of Etude Cabernet, the wine comes from some 8 vineyards representing a range from Calistoga to Napa and this includes 9 different clones of Cabernet. Soter Vineyards has a new wine in barrel made from a co-fermented blend of Cabernet Franc and several heritage or 'heirloom' Cabernet Sauvignon clones that were painstakingly selected and propagated in a new vineyard. This project originated 6-7 years ago and we are looking forward to bringing it to market in a couple years. This is a Napa Valley project that will be seen under a new label made and sold by Soter Vineyards.