Author Archives: Rebecca

Extract: Biodynamic Wine by Monty Waldin

26 January 2022 by Rebecca in Classic Wine Library, Extracts, Wine and spirits

The origins of biodynamics
Biodynamics dates from 1924 and is the oldest alternative agriculture movement. Biodynamics pre-dated the global organic agriculture movement whose founding organization, the UK’s Soil Association, dates from 1946. In fact the very word ‘organic’ was derived from the biodynamic ideal that each farm or smallholding should always work towards becoming a self-sustaining organism in its own right.

The particular feature of biodynamics – and where biodynamics differs from organics and indeed all other forms of alternative agriculture – is the use of nine so-called ‘biodynamic preparations’. These are made from cow manure, the mineral quartz (also called silica), and seven medicinal plants: yarrow, chamomile, stinging nettle, oak bark, dandelion, valerian and Equisetum arvense or common horsetail. These nine preparations are applied to the land or crops either by being first incorporated into a compost pile or by being diluted in water as liquid sprays.

Biodynamic preparations are used in homeopathic quantities, meaning they can produce an effect in extremely diluted amounts, but they are not homeopathic treatments per se. Their purpose is to make the farm and farmer, its crops, animals and wild habitat, self-sufficient, self-sustaining and socially, economically and spiritually robust. These concepts may seem woolly in our world of smartphones and space exploration, but would have seemed less so to 1920s Europeans coping with the ravages of both the First World War and then its even deadlier successor, an influenza pandemic.

The methods used to make some of the preparations may seem strange initially but are neither high tech, expensive, costly to the environment nor potentially harmful. Anyone, from children to grandparents, can (and do) make these preparations. The biodynamic preparations are not patented so they can never realistically be made purely for profit, and they seem to get good results for farms and vineyards.

Sceptics, however, claim the biodynamic preparations produce no measurable changes to either farm health or crop quality; thus there is no ‘biodynamic effect’. Such sceptics argue that biodynamic winegrowers owe the high quality of their wine either to having a top-quality vineyard terroir in the first place, or that vineyards which improved after ‘going biodynamic’ did so because the winegrower learnt to become extra attentive in the vineyard by following a biodynamic ‘prevention rather than cure’ mindset (e.g. better pruning, recalibrating spray machinery so sprays are more effective), and not because the vines were treated with biodynamic sprays or composts. Nevertheless, increasing numbers of winegrowers are using these preparations which are essential to biodynamic agriculture. Their regular use is the fundamental requirement of Demeter, the non-profit organization which has overseen and certified biodynamic agriculture worldwide since 1928.

The biodynamic preparations were created by an Austrian called Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925) shortly before he died. His motivation was to remedy what he sensed was the arrested spiritual development of his contemporaries. Steiner believed the forces people needed to kickstart their spiritual development would come from digesting food imbued with these desirable and necessary forces, and that getting these forces into food required a new way of growing food: biodynamic agriculture. For this Steiner developed nine biodynamic preparations to moderate and regulate biological processes in nature. This is the ‘bio’ part of biodynamics. The ‘dynamic’ part comes by understanding the preparations’ role in enhancing and strengthening forces that form or shape material substance, both on the farm and within both the farmer and the crops. These forces are referred to in biodynamics as ‘etheric formative forces’. Like gravity, they are unseen but have a tangible effect on both soil and on crop plants as well as on the animals or humans who digest those plants. Steiner’s nine biodynamic preparations can therefore be thought of as spiritual remedies for the human being which are administered indirectly through the healing process of the Earth. Biodynamic farmers accept that there is no substance or matter without spirit, and equally no spirit without matter. So the point of growing biodynamic food and drink is not only to provide the substances (vitamins, carbohydrates, protein, fats, minerals) to nourish the human body but also to provide the forces needed to form and nourish the human spirit.

The spiritual side of biodynamics is the one most open to misinterpretation, misrepresentation and ridicule. One common misconception is that apart from encouraging you to start wearing sandals and paying less attention to personal hygiene, growing or eating biodynamic food will also turn you into a religious fruitcake. I discovered biodynamics in 1993 but had struggled to find many redeeming features in organized religion from the age of seven (1974) onwards. I am not a fan of sects. I do consider myself spiritual in the pantheistic sense of feeling my spirit lift palpably when I feel a connection with the natural world. This can happen when standing euphorically on the top of a mountain or, more mundanely, when looking at pigeons fluttering around under the eaves of the railway station my train is about to depart from.

In my experience winegrowers – be they biodynamic or conventional – who come across as fundamentalist proselytizers tend not to make the best wines, often because they are inflexible and unwilling to compromise. This may be fine when churning out widgets on a production line but is not adapted to a product like wine, dependent on the vagaries of nature. Fortunately, the fundamentalist proselytizers tend to be in the minority.

Most winegrowers newly adopting biodynamics start by seeing it as I did initially: as a sensible, doable, interesting, inexpensive tool to produce tastier grapes to nourish the human palate – and if they also provide the formative forces to nourish the human spirit, so be it. Biodynamic ultras argue that this purely ‘substance rather than forces’ way of looking at biodynamics means missing the real reason we should be biodynamic. I would argue that materialistic and only vaguely spiritual people like me – meaning exactly the kind of people Steiner developed his biodynamic preparations for – first have to understand and accept how the biodynamic tool works, and only then can we perhaps appreciate that our spiritual development may have lacked something to begin with after all.

Extract from Biodynamic Wine © Monty Waldin (Infinite Ideas, 2016)
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Extract: The wines of South Africa by Jim Clarke

21 January 2022 by Rebecca in Classic Wine Library, Extracts, Wine and spirits

Wine styles in the Western Cape
Sparkling wines
South Africa is the first New World country to develop a designation for its traditional method sparkling wines that does not ride the coattails of Champagne. Today, Methode Cap Classique, or, more informally, MCC, is the fastest growing wine category in the country, doubling every five years. Not only is quality very high, especially in relation to price; bubbly is also more profitable for the country’s struggling wine growers. They can typically pick grapes for these wines earlier, pulling the maximum output from the vineyard when waiting longer might cost up to 10 percent in crop volume due to dehydration.

The history of sparkling wine production in South Africa is not a long one. The first example came from Frans Malan at Simonsig in 1971 (there are occasional mentions of “Champagne” earlier, and there were definitely sparkling wines of some sort, but there’s no evidence these were methode champenoise wines). In 1935 the so-called Crayfish Agreement with the French had forbidden the use of French wine terms on labels. Consequently, Simonsig called the wine “Kaapse Vonkel” – “Cape bubbles” in Afrikaans, expecting that this would become the accepted name for the category.

Simonsig and other estate producers were largely unconcerned with the export market at the time, so an Afrikaans name seemed reasonably marketable. Simonsig became more serious about bubbly production in 1978; Villiera and Boschendal followed, using the term methode champenoise, which they considered a description of the technique and not a geographical reference. By the time the French protested, more than a dozen producers were using the term. Export markets were just beginning to open when, in 1992, the Cap Classique Producers Association formed. South Africa’s bubblies gained a more marketable, romantic, and French name that also avoided the use of any protected French wine words.

There are over 200 producers making Methode Cap Classique wines, although many do so only in small amounts for wine club members, tasting room sales, and so forth. Pieter Ferreira of Graham Beck estimates total production to be approximately 7.7 million bottles. As of 2021 using the designation requires 12 months of lees aging; association members are already adhering to that minimum, but changing the actual regulations has dragged on, so for now the legal requirement on the books is only nine months. Beyond that, prerequisites are fairly bare-bones: wines must contain at least three bars of pressure, and must go to market in the same bottle that the second fermentation occurred in. The association recommends the traditional Champagne varieties Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Meunier, but other varieties are permitted. Several producers are making Chenin Blanc-based examples, and Pinotage makes an appearance in some examples such as Simonsig’s Brut Rosé.

Growth has presented challenges for the Cap Classique category. With many producers making bubbly but not specializing in it, some are concerned about consistency within the category. The Cap Classique Producers Association is working hard to encourage best practices in-cluding extended lees aging, hand-harvesting, and whole bunch pressing. There is also move-ment toward some sort of reserve designation. As imagined at the time of writing, this would prescribe a minimum 36 months on the lees and limit wines to the three traditional Cham-pagne varieties and possibly Chenin Blanc and Pinotage.

The success and quality of Cap Classique wines often surprises people who associate the style with Champagne’s cooler growing conditions. Ferreira says growing grapes for sparkling wine in warmer areas calls for carefully shading the grapes through row direction and canopy management. Robertson has become a key source for Cap Classique wine grapes, Chardonnay especially, thanks to its limestone soils and a good diurnal temperature shift. Franschhoek is also a leading source. Most of the more successful producers pull from those two districts and perhaps elsewhere. Charles Fox, which uses estate fruit from their farm in Elgin, would be a rare exception.

Vintage Methode Cape Classique is not necessarily a higher-tier product than non-vintage. Given that vintages are not as variable in South Africa as they are in Champagne, many pro-ducers don’t feel the need to blend vintages and choose to produce vintage-labeled wines as their mainstay. Some, however, such as Colmant, consider multi-vintage blending to be fun-damental to creating complex, consistent, high-quality bubblies; the reserve wine is not a tool to compensate for variation, but a flavor and textural component. Blancs de blancs of 100 percent Chardonnay are fairly common; blancs de noirs less so. In fact, the designation blanc de noirs under SAWIS regulations indicates a white wine of any sort made from red grapes, not just sparkling wines. On a related note, Boschendal introduced a still white/pale rosé Chardonnay–Pinot Noir blend, essentially a non-sparkling Cap Classique blend, in the early 1980s, and several other producers have also adopted the style.

Methode Cap Classique sweetness designations conform to E.U. standards; most are bruts. Outside of the Cap Classique category there are a large number of Charmat or force-carbonated wines, generally in more budget price ranges.

Sweet and fortified wines
South Africa’s most famous sweet wine, Constantia, has been resurrected by the producers in the ward of the same name. Klein Constantia introduced their recreation, the Vin de Con-stance, starting from the 1986 vintage. Groot Constantia followed with the Grand Constance from 2003. Despite its prominence, there is no regulated definition for the ward’s dessert wines. Both Klein and Groot Constantia use late harvest grapes, free from botrytis, but Groot Constantia uses red Muscat de Frontignan in its blend rather than just white, creating a clear contrast in color and aroma. Neither is fortified.

Today South Africa designates unfortified dessert wines (known as “natural sweet”) into a few categories. Aside from the late harvest wines exemplified by Constantia’s wines, botrytized, noble late harvest wines play an interesting historical role as well. Regulations dating from 1957 prohibited naturally sweet wines with more than 30 grams per liter of sugar, but Günter Brözel, the cellarmaster at Nederburg, was dead-set on making a botrytized wine akin to those he knew from his birthplace, Germany. Given the generally warm, dry conditions, botrytis is not a common occurrence in the Cape. Brözel proceeded anyhow, producing South Africa’s first botrytis wine in 1969. Named Edelkeur, it brought home more than a dozen gold medals in international competitions but could not be sold locally. The next vintage of the wine was 1972. Nederburg took sales into its own hands by founding the Nederburg Auction in 1975, sidestepping regulations and the regular retail market by using the auction to sell and highlight the wine. Much to Brözel’s dismay, the Edelkeur Noble Late Harvest sold for the same price as Lieberstein, the massive SFW off-dry Chenin blend, but soon the wine’s reputation took off. The wine has consistently been one of the most expensive items in the auction ever since. The auction itself, renamed in 2019 as the Cape Fine & Rare Wine Auction, remains a stage for featuring some of the Cape’s most exclusive, high-end wines from Nederburg and the other producers invited to take part.
Today, a number of producers also make Noble Late Harvest wines, from several different grape varieties. Paul Cluver, in Elgin, makes a Riesling; Ken Forrester’s “T”, named for his wife Teresa, is a Chenin Blanc. South Africa’s final expression of natural sweet wines would be those made from grapes dried either on straw beds after picking, or desiccated on the vine by crimping the stems and leaving the bunches to hang. De Trafford’s Chenin Blanc Vin de Paille is a notable example.

Historically, fortified wines played a much bigger role in the industry than they do today, and made up the bulk of production until 1953, when natural (i.e. unfortified) wines caught up with them. The latter had begun to grow as early as the 1880s, aided by a burgeoning temper-ance movement that favored them. The Western Cape was the main consumer of the “newer” style of wine, suggesting that fortification was important at least in helping the wines travel well. Today, annual production of fortified wine hovers at just above one million liters per year, compared to over 500 million liters of still wine. Nonetheless, the history shines through in the quality established by long tradition.

Many of these fortified wines were long known by Iberian names – Port, Sherry, etc. – but in 2000 South Africa signed agreements with the E.U. to respect such terms; both “Port” and “Sherry” disappeared from South African exports in 2002, and from the domestic market a decade later. Today, the word “Cape” has, in essence, taken the place of “Port” on labels: a Cape Vintage is a vintage fortified wine, Cape Tawny has the maderized nutty taste one would expect, and so forth. Sherry-style wines bear the stylistic indicator – Amontillado, for example – without the geographically-specific word “Sherry”.

Fortified wines made from the various sorts of Muscat live their own lives, free from Europe-an naming controversies. They are labeled “Muscadel” if they are made from white or red Muscat de Frontignan, or “Hanepoot” if from Muscat d’Alexandrie. Jerepigo (or jerepiko) is unfermented but fortified grape juice, most commonly made from Muscat; it is typically very sweet and decidedly grapey.

Today Calitzdorp, in the Klein Karoo, is home to several producers who continue to offer Port-style wines that can compete with Iberia’s best; Boplaas, Bayly, and Axe Hill are all top examples. The Swartland is home to a few like-minded producers as well. The Muscat-based fortified wines are a specialty of many of the higher-yielding areas, including the Northern Cape. For many co-ops and large operations such as Badsberg or Orange River Cellars their perennial prize winner is a Hanepoot, Jerepigo, or Muscadel.

Sommeliers studying for their exams seem to obsess over the term “Boberg”, a W.O. once used to designate a fortified wine from Paarl, Franschhoek, Wellington, or Tulbagh. There have been preciously few of these since the 1970s, and the term was officially repealed in February 2019.

Extract from The wines of South Africa © Jim Clarke (Infinite Ideas, 2020)
To read more, buy your copy direct from the Classic Wine Library shop.

Extract: The wines of Southwest U.S.A. by Jessica Dupuy

20 January 2022 by Rebecca in Classic Wine Library, Extracts, Wine and spirits

The advent of winemaking in the Southwest
While most American history is first associated with British colonization along the east coast of the country at the beginning of the seventeenth century, New Mexico was first colonized by the Spanish. Second to Florida, New Mexico is one of the oldest state names in the country. It was proclaimed Nuevo Méjico in 1565 by Spanish explorer Francisco de Ibarra in his expeditions north of Mexico.

New Mexico also has the distinction of having the longest history of wine production in the United States. As early as 1629, vineyard plantings were recorded among the Franciscan friars who established missionary settlements northward along the Rio Grande. The missions were the result of Spanish exploration by Don Juan de Oñate, the son of a wealthy silver baron in Zacatecas, Mexico in the late sixteenth century, who charted a new route up through the Chihuahuan Desert which later became known as the El Camino Real, or Royal Road, and would become the major trading route from Mexico to the New World. His initial quest was in search of gold for the Spanish monarchy, but he was also charged with establishing a settlement for the Christian colonization of the native Puebloan tribes of the region. Along with him, he brought colonists, Franciscan monks, soldiers, and cattle to establish a foothold in the area. In 1598, he established the settlement of San Juan de los Cabelleros, taking over the existing Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo, which was located 30 miles (48 kilometers) north of present-day Santa Fe. Although the area did provide excellent land for livestock grazing and relatively fertile soils for crop farming, because of the lack of gold or any other precious metals the endeavor ended up costing the Spanish crown more than it cared to continue investing. In 1608, with the settlement in danger of abandonment, Friar Lázaro Ximénez traveled to Mexico as an ambassador for Oñate to plead for the continuation of the establishment.

The missions achieved some success in their quest to convert native inhabitants of the region—primarily Pueblo, Apache, and Navajo—but had a major obstacle in the presentation of sacramental wine. Vineyard establishment in the New World had begun as early as 1521, in Mexico’s Valle de Parras, when noted Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés required that on the land they were granted, each Spanish settler plant 1,000 vines for every 100 natives in service to them. The effort was geared to producing sufficient wine for everyday life within the settlement. More than seven decades later, Spain’s King Philip II noticed a steep cut in the exportation of Spanish wine to the New World. At the time, grape production accounted for nearly a quarter of Spain’s foreign revenue. In an attempt to control revenues from the sale of wine and protect the Spanish agricultural industry at all costs, Spain passed a law in 1595 that prohibited grapevine growing in the New World. Instead, the missions were required to await shipments of wine from Spain via Mexico. This could entail a wait of as much as three years, assuming shipments weren’t fated to sink to the bottom of the ocean, due to frequent shipwrecks in the Gulf of Mexico. What little wine did make it to the outpost at New Mexico was often maderized and spoiled from the long, oppressively hot transport through the Chihuahuan Desert.

As a result, and in defiance of the Spanish order, Jesuit priests of Parras, Mexico began planting grapevines at the turn of the sixteenth century and making wine for sacramental use. The idea—and most likely a handful of vine cuttings—made its way to the Piro Pueblo of Senecú, near what is now the city of Socorro, where Franciscan monk Fray Garcia de Zúniga and Capuchín monk Antonio de Arteaga also planted grapes at the mission church, and through the churches of the Rio Grande in 1629. But these vineyards were not long-lived. Throughout the seventeenth century, a combination of harsh winters, massive flooding along the Rio Grande, and frequent skirmishes between the Spanish settlers and the warring native Apache tribe all but destroyed most of the vineyards as well as the entirety of the Senecú Pueblo.

The grape mission
It is unclear exactly which grape variety was planted by the Franciscan monks in 1629, since there are no remains of the original vineyard plantings. However, many believe that it was the Mission grape. According to research from the Centro Nacional de Biotecnologica in Madrid, it was the earliest Vitis vinifera grown in the western hemisphere. It is also believed to be the first grape variety planted in the Valle de Parres, Mexico, which is likely where cuttings for the early New Mexico planting originated. Of course, it wasn’t known in Spain as the Mission grape. In its native country, it was Listan Negro, or Listan Prieto, a native Spanish grape that was known for its thick skin and sturdy, hardy trunks. It proved resilient in transfer to the New World as well as productive in the dry, mineral-rich soils of New Mexico. The variety has been genetically linked to Listan Blanco, or Palomino Blanco, the primary grape in Sherry production.

Mission grapes form large, loose clusters that allow air to move through the grapes, greatly reducing the risk of rot and mold. The result is a cluster that can take more time to ripen on the vine. Depending on growing conditions, the vines can easily produce more than 10 tons per acre (22.42 metric tons per hectare) if yields are not managed. They were probably allowed to push for the higher quantities for the Spanish mission sacramental wines in the New World.

In terms of wine production, there’s a reason Mission isn’t topping the list of the wine world’s most planted grapes. Though it has rather thick skins, the fruit rarely develops much concentration either in color or phenolic content. Wines tend to lack structure, depth, and acidity. Though it served its purpose for sacramental wine, it generally falls short in expectation compared to the international varieties that are planted throughout the western hemisphere today.

Today, Listan Negro is rarely seen in Spain, aside from some plantings on the Canary Islands. But it seems to have found a home in the Americas. In South America, in particular, it is grown for bulk wine production and in recent years for serious table wines. Argentina grows it under the name of Criolla, Peru calls it Negra Criolla, in Bolivia it is Missionara, and in Chile, it’s País. While not widely planted in the United States, you can find it in California’s Santa Barbara regions as well as further north near Sacramento.

You can also find it at Tularosa Vineyards Winery in the small town of Tularosa in Southern New Mexico, just east of the Rio Grande. With elevations ranging between 4,500 and 6,800 feet (1,372 and 2,072 meters), the Tularosa Basin, where the town is situated, first saw vineyards in the 1860s from Mission vine cuttings brought by Spanish settlers.

An article in the Alamogordo News in September 1932, describes the town of Tularosa in 1870:

Grapes were planted, and wine was made to supply the local requirements. The principal product was a native sour wine locally known as “cerque” and was freely used by many residents. The usual method of manufacture was very primitive and crude, and in present times would be condemned as unsanitary and unfit for human consumption. The grapes were emptied into rawhide containers; sack like affairs (tinas) suspended on forked posts, which in turn carried square frames of poles to which the rims of the tramping sacks were lashed. Men in their bare feet tramped them to a pulpy mass, sinking to their knees in the process. The “pummies” were then skimmed from the surface as they rose to the top of the fermenting wine. After 10 days without disturbing, the sediment collected in the bottom, and cool fermentation was allowed to complete. The wines were deemed ready 30 days from the second draining. Some wines produced were a well-flavored stimulating beverage, while others made a vinegar-like product that intoxicated and sickened with a nauseating flavor. The most palatable was, of course, in greater demand and brought a better price, but the inferior stuff was still consumed at a profit to the producers.

A century later, Tularosa Vineyards Winery was founded in the late 1980s by New Yorker David Wickham and his wife, Teresita. Following a tour of duty in the U.S. Air Force, the Wickhams settled in the quaint New Mexico small town in the late 1970s and stumbled into the hobby of grape growing and winemaking. This endeavor would later lead to the planting of 10 acres (4 hectares) of vineyard in 1985 and the opening of their winery in 1989. In 1989, Wickham planted a small vineyard of Mission grapes from the cuttings of a vine he found in the backyard of a man named Ben Chavez in La Luz, New Mexico. The vine was estimated to be a little more than 100 years old. With a trunk diameter of approximately 30 inches (76 centimeters), the single vine is said to have yielded more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms) of grapes in different years. To preserve the historical relevance of the grape within New Mexico, Wickham has cultivated an acre of Mission vines from which he produces in an off-dry style.

In the following decades, Wickham served as a mentor to other pioneering farmers who were interested in trying their hand at grape growing, buying their yields for his expanding wine production. In 1995 his son took on the role of winemaker, adding Tularosa Vineyards Winery to the growing list of multi-generational family wineries in New Mexico. Today, the winery still operates at a small capacity but produces more than 3,500 cases annually.

Extract from The wines of Southwest U.S.A. © Jessica Dupuy (Infinite Ideas, 2020)
To read more, buy your copy direct from the Classic Wine Library shop.