{"id":29858,"date":"2015-01-26T03:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T08:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=29858"},"modified":"2015-01-24T18:43:44","modified_gmt":"2015-01-24T23:43:44","slug":"balancing-the-art-and-the-science-in-winemaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2015\/01\/26\/balancing-the-art-and-the-science-in-winemaking\/","title":{"rendered":"Balancing the art and the science in winemaking"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Cosmos<\/em>, Andrew Masterson<\/a> investigates what is still an art and what has been codified as science:<\/p>\n

\u201cWith commercial yeast you get certainty \u2013 you can sleep at night,\u201d says Bicknell. \u201cBut how do you make wine more interesting? You exploit the metabolic processes of different yeast species.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bicknell\u2019s faith in wild yeasts adds stress at fermentation time, but the pay-off is multi-award-winning wines regularly acknowledged as some of the best in Australia. \u201cThe wines do taste different, even if there\u2019s no way you can show that statistically,\u201d Bicknell says. \u201cThe only way to really know is to taste.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exploiting the diverse and fluctuating populations of wild yeasts found on the plants, fruit and in the air of vineyards is \u201cthe new black\u201d (not to mention red and white) in oenology. The practice is becoming more commonplace among artisan winemakers. Even some of the giant commercial wine corporations are investing in the method.<\/p>\n

Wild fermentation, says Bicknell, represents the intersection of science, craft and philosophy. But it could also form the basis of a profound shift in the narrative of wine. The more we study winemaking\u2019s microbes, the more it appears they might explain one of the wine industry\u2019s most beloved, but vaguest, terms: terroir<\/em>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTerroir<\/em> is a wonderful marketing term,\u201d says David Mills, a microbiologist at UC Davis, who studies microbes in wine. \u201cBut it\u2019s not a science.\u201d<\/p>\n

The French word terroir<\/em> is difficult to translate. The closest translation is \u201csoil\u201d, but that is just one of its components. Terroir<\/em> connotes the unique sense of place \u2013 the soils, the topography and the microclimate. It\u2019s what makes the wines of Bordeaux or Australia\u2019s Coonawarra so distinctive, and so inimitable.<\/p>\n

Sommeliers like Ren Lim, former captain of the Oxford University Blind Tasting Society (and a PhD biophysics student) will tell you merely from swirling a mouthful of Cabernet Sauvignon which Australian winery produced it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ones from Margaret River often give off a more pronounced green pepper note, a note found commonly in Cabernets grown in regions which experience pronounced maritime influences. Coonawarra Cabernets are somewhat different and unique in their own way. They are often minty and have a eucalyptus or menthol note in addition to the usual ripe blackcurrant notes. The green pepper note is often suppressed under the menthol notes. Nonetheless, the Cabernet structure remains in both these wines.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a feat that Mills does not question. \u201cI don\u2019t doubt regionality exists, but what causes it is a whole other set of issues.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In Cosmos, Andrew Masterson investigates what is still an art and what has been codified as science: \u201cWith commercial yeast you get certainty \u2013 you can sleep at night,\u201d says Bicknell. \u201cBut how do you make wine more interesting? You exploit the metabolic processes of different yeast species.\u201d Bicknell\u2019s faith in wild yeasts adds stress […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[331,16,131],"tags":[713,872,924],"class_list":["post-29858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-australia","category-science","category-wine","tag-biology","tag-chemistry","tag-farming"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-7LA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29858"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29859,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29858\/revisions\/29859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}