Vessels

00:00:00: [Music]

00:00:16: Welcome to just another wine podcast. Here we are again. I'm Emily Harman.

00:00:20: I'm Doug Rick. And I'm Jamie Good. Yeah. And we interrupt each other a lot. You can have us.

00:00:25: We're all very eager here. So we've got a very interesting topic to discuss today.

00:00:31: And well, I think it's really interesting, but maybe for some people, you might think it's not

00:00:37: so interesting, but the topic is vessels of elivage or... Aging. Aging wine. Not just aging,

00:00:46: but fermenting as well, I guess. Yeah. So we're talking about... The journey of wine before bottle.

00:00:51: Yes. From grapes to bottle. Yeah. And what happens. And this is really,

00:00:57: I think, a really interesting topic. And it's kind of unique to wine.

00:01:02: Maybe it's not unique to wine, but I think it's this idea that...

00:01:05: You know, you're taking something, you're taking the grapes from the vineyard.

00:01:12: And you want to express the vineyard, the variety, the place in the final wine. So how do you get there?

00:01:23: And traditionally with wine, we've got this very unusual situation, which is that

00:01:28: with wine, you're not allowed to add any flavor to the wine. It's just got to come from the grapes.

00:01:33: But historically, barrels have been used in raising wines. So fermenting whites and aging reds.

00:01:41: And barrels are made of oak usually, and the oak... Can be treated in lots of different ways.

00:01:49: In its preparation, yeah, is heated in some ways, so like over a flame or over steam,

00:01:56: to bend the staves to make the barrel. And then that act creates something in the wood that then

00:02:01: gets transferred to the wine. And so a very significant flavor element in many wines comes from

00:02:08: an extrinsic source, which is the barrels. And then you've got, like, you know, derived from that,

00:02:15: because barrels are allowed in wine. Oak is allowed in wine, so you've got oak chips, you've got,

00:02:20: you know, even oak essence, staves, all these ways of using oak products to give flavor to wine.

00:02:29: So this is the legal thing, legal way you're allowed to flavor wine. So this is kind of

00:02:34: an anomaly, I think, in some ways. Then we have different types of oak, but then we also

00:02:38: have different types of wood that are also allowed, which have different impacts.

00:02:42: Yeah, I mean, and actually oak is, you know, making a barrel, being a cooper, is maybe a

00:02:49: disappearing art, but it's so valued by so many winemakers that we work with, they choose,

00:02:55: they select a style of oak, or many different styles of oak, because it gives them options.

00:03:01: They'll select maybe a proportion of new and oak barrels. Once they find a cooper that they

00:03:07: really love to work with, they'll probably stick with that cooper. If you're an Austria

00:03:12: and you love Austrian oak, you feel that, in a way, the barrels there made by two very famous

00:03:19: barrel producers complement the wine. In fact, they wouldn't dream of making, most of them would

00:03:24: not dream of making some of their, you know, more intense, long-lived wines without working with

00:03:32: Stockinger or whoever the author. Pasha. Pasha, yeah, with these barrels. And they're beautiful.

00:03:38: And it's, sometimes they have the barrels built specially to complement the wine, so the

00:03:43: barrel makers taste the wine and then when they sort of figure out what to do,

00:03:48: sometimes it's the shape of the barrels, the size of the barrels, are they, you know,

00:03:53: 600 litres, 1200, are they Fudra, are they vertical barrels, are they ovals, you know,

00:03:59: there's so much to talk about when you talk about oak and we're not going to just talk about oak,

00:04:04: because there are other various types of vessel. Looks a good starting point.

00:04:09: It is very interesting. And I think the, you know, actually, you know, you can dial down in detail

00:04:15: quite a lot. I went to a tenellery, Mercury, to see barrels being made and that was a fascinating

00:04:21: process because it's an insanely skillful process to take these, you know, staves of wood

00:04:29: so oak, you know, it's split, then it's put into staves and then you kind of get these

00:04:35: staves in together. All these different staves will create something that's watertight.

00:04:39: And, you know, it's an insanely skillful process. But then beyond just the forest of origin,

00:04:48: because they talk about that a lot, you know, you've got, well, basically you've got the source of oak,

00:04:53: so French oak, or American oak, so Quercus alba or Quercus cecilis or, you know,

00:05:02: they give quite different flavour impacts. But then you've got the forest, but even

00:05:07: teua impacts. So I tasted through some wines at Fechalecan where they've got one of their

00:05:15: cupas is giving them. It's a South African producer for anybody that's

00:05:21: not familiar. And in the cellar that some of the barrels that Luke, the winemaker, has been given

00:05:26: to work with are like not just forest origin, but they're different teua's. So the actual

00:05:33: soil that the oak trees grows in affects the way the oak tree grows. Then when you make the barrels

00:05:39: from those staves. It can affect the grain. Yeah, because how fast they grow and how slow they grow.

00:05:45: So you can dial down to a lot of detail. So this is nothing to do with grapes and wine. This is an

00:05:50: extrinsic influence on flavour, but it's become part of the tradition of wine that for many wine

00:05:56: styles oak is an important aspect of the flavour. But then of course we're not just talking about

00:06:04: flavour in back to back. We're also talking about the fact that an oak barrel is not totally impermeable

00:06:10: that some oxygen will get into the wine. And then we start talking about the size of the barrel,

00:06:16: which I think is a very... Doug, you alluded to this earlier, you know, that's this idea you can

00:06:20: work with food row, you can work with punchins, you can work with tonnows. Yeah, and it's really in

00:06:27: certain regions, very controversial like Barolo, where they've traditionally favoured Slavonian

00:06:33: Botti, which are huge and you know, they're not new, but they're obviously... And also chestnut as

00:06:43: well, no? This is true. But obviously during, shall we say, parkerisation for one of the better word,

00:06:49: sort of move towards finer, more structured wines than like smaller and smaller barrels. So

00:06:57: in a way, a lot of wines, an international style was created to ape Bordeaux and Burgundy to a

00:07:04: lesser extent using small barrels to give more influence of oak, whereas these larger, these

00:07:09: Botti were extraordinary. I mean, you know, like, and you can so easily recognise the wine which

00:07:16: is made in the traditional style to wines which are made in a much more sort of modern style. And

00:07:21: Northern Rome, I find that as well, you know, there's the new wave of, you know, people producing

00:07:27: Cotroti and the traditionists, basically. So your oak choice really, you know, puts you in one camp

00:07:35: or another. And I can understand why people will play around with formats, but I like to think that

00:07:40: barrels are traditional, the type of barrel used is a traditional to your culture, your wine culture

00:07:46: in your region. And I find it very fascinating when you talk about that even the wood has a sort of

00:07:50: like an imprint of terroir. And it's about this liaison, because we're not talking about oak adding

00:07:57: value, but adding something, again, I'm going to use the word beautiful, but beautifully textural

00:08:02: to the wine, harmonising with it over a period of time. So that you don't notice the oak, but it's

00:08:09: there. It has a wonderful presence as opposed to being this dominant, quite spicy, spiky force.

00:08:17: And so we'll discuss whether we think how beneficial it is and how oak compares to other

00:08:26: formats and what those formats confer to the wine as well, because every format will confer something,

00:08:31: even by absence of obviousness, there'll be something conferred.

00:08:37: So shall we talk in? Yeah, I think maybe I should, I mean, it might be a weird way to taste,

00:08:47: because we've obviously, we want to talk about different vessels, but we start with the oak,

00:08:51: or the oak, the wine that's in oak, what do you think? So yeah, I think the thing about barrels is,

00:08:57: you know, I guess for a while I was kind of like in the camp of I think new oak is a terrible thing

00:09:02: because of the flavour impact. And because, you know, new barrels were associated with,

00:09:10: you know, the kind of modernising force in wine, we talked about Barolo, which is very interesting,

00:09:17: the Barolo situation is very interesting, because small barrels became a political thing.

00:09:21: There was one producer who had a cuve, which is no barrels, no Berlusconi. So basically,

00:09:29: the small oak was associated with Berlusconi fans, the right wing, and the large format traditional

00:09:35: was associated with politically left leaning sort of influences in Barolo. So it's more than

00:09:42: modernist or traditionalist, it was a left or right, you know, in terms of your politics,

00:09:47: which is fascinating overlay on the discussion. Suffice to say with Barolo now and Piedmonté,

00:09:52: I think we've gone past that traditionalist, modernist divide, and I think you've got

00:09:58: neo-traditionalist, neo-modernist. Yeah, there's now a whole spectrum where people are

00:10:03: taking chainsaws to destroy their body and replace them with new oak. Now I've bought new

00:10:08: large format oak as well, you know, and I think that that's a healthy correction, I think,

00:10:13: it's this idea that, and I thought for a long time that small oak, new oak, is a terrible thing,

00:10:20: and it's awful, but now I think sometimes it's an appropriate way to raise a wine,

00:10:28: for certain wine starts. Okay, so let's discuss what what new oak confers to the wine in terms of

00:10:36: its flavour and texture. Would either of you want to... No, I mean, I mean, I think we know that it

00:10:42: gives a depending on the type of oak, or let's just say new wood, because there's lots of different

00:10:47: types of wood. So I don't want to just isolate it just as oak, but depending on the origin,

00:10:52: there's often that sweet spice, sometimes an amplified fruit profile, sometimes almost like a

00:10:58: sexiness to the fruit profile as well, because it's because it does lift all of that. So it

00:11:05: feels a little bit sometimes on the, let's say the initial impact of the wine or the initial

00:11:12: experience of the wine, sometimes a primariness, a generosity, an abundance of like a sweet flavour

00:11:20: that's there, or sometimes an obvious fruit note that I definitely see in oaky wines, but then it

00:11:27: also depending on like the char, the toast, all those things, then you get those toastiness, sometimes

00:11:32: nuttiness, like these secondary flavours, and then we've got the structure that comes with it, and also

00:11:38: the development of flavours that comes from wine spending time in wood as well, right, like, which

00:11:44: can be interesting, not necessarily with brown new oak, but then if we start working with different

00:11:49: degrees of aging on oak, it can be very helpful. But do wines need necessarily need more time to

00:11:55: digest new oak? I mean, you would not particularly want to drink them when they're in their infancy,

00:12:01: because they would be very difficult. I think some, some, let's talk about reds rather than whites,

00:12:05: with the, I think they're both obviously have new oak influences, certainly for chardonnay,

00:12:09: oak is quite an important component of the many chardonnay wine styles, but I think for reds,

00:12:16: I think some reds can just soak it up, it seems, and they can have lots of new, they can have 100%

00:12:22: new oak, but still not be dominated by that oak. Other reds are much more fragile, and you stick

00:12:28: new oak on them, and it really is, maybe Ola is one of those grapes where it's very obvious, I think.

00:12:33: And then we talk about the, obviously the big distinction is between American and French oak.

00:12:38: Obviously we get Eastern European oak as well, that's a slightly different sort of flavour, but

00:12:43: the American oak is often has a lot more sort of vanilla coconut character. The oak lactones

00:12:49: are responsible for that, and so the good example of American oak that sometimes can work really

00:12:54: well is in Ryoka, and in Ryoka the wines often spend a lot of time in American oak, and not

00:13:03: necessarily new American oak, but it still imparts this flavour impact that does take time to integrate.

00:13:10: But do we, you know, we're so conscious of the oak in a lot of Ryoka, do we lose the grape variety,

00:13:16: do I even know what Tempranilo tastes like, and do we lose any terroir flavour?

00:13:22: Totally, yeah, I know, in some ways it's the, if you think of terroir as a sense of place,

00:13:29: a sense of place is kind of partly the cellar and partly the vineyard, but I think that the

00:13:34: big problem for me with Ryoka is that you've got these fantastic vineyards, and it's all lost

00:13:42: in the way that the wine is produced. So a lot of big companies... Because of the vessel?

00:13:49: Partly because of the vessel, and also the fact that in, when I first went to a big Ryoka winery,

00:13:54: they had like 10,000 barrels, I said, coming as a very naive person, coming from having visited

00:14:00: lots of wineries in Australia, and they'll say, well how'd you topple those barrels up?

00:14:04: And they looked at me like I was stupid, and so basically what they do is that every,

00:14:08: they don't top any barrels, they just leave them, and every six months they don't even taste the

00:14:12: barrels, they just rack them into another barrel, and add some more sulfites, and so it's oxidative,

00:14:18: that total transfer, so every six months, so depending on the age, you know, whether it's

00:14:25: Crianthor or... Makes sense for the style that you taste quite frequently, no? So you've got this

00:14:31: oxidative racking, and you've got adding sulfites there, and so what you do is it's a kind of almost

00:14:38: an industrial process, and what it does is it results in the wines that are distinctive, they

00:14:43: taste off the place of Ryokka, I don't necessarily... Because they've got this developed character,

00:14:49: because of that, yeah. And sometimes they reach this beautiful mellow harmony with aging, because

00:14:53: they've seen so much oxygen in the elevage, because this six-monthly sort of like racking,

00:14:57: erative racking, they kind of just keep on developing, but I'm not sure whether this is the,

00:15:05: this is an legitimate style, but I'm not sure it's something I'm that interested in.

00:15:10: Maybe also just on the oak point, it's also worth throwing in things of, if we move away a little

00:15:14: bit from new oak, it's just the strong example, if we think of regions like the Zura, and we think of

00:15:21: wines like Vanjone, and some of the more oxidative wines where people are using barrels that are like,

00:15:27: I mean, sometimes they look like centuries old, don't they? Because they're like black,

00:15:31: they are black, they are old, they're like the really like, you know, heirlooms, these barrels

00:15:38: that they look kind of on hygienic sometimes, but like these barrels also contain a lot of

00:15:45: characteristics that are collected over this time that then influence the wine as well.

00:15:50: This is what I wanted to be talking about. That can be very intriguing.

00:15:51: Yeah, to mention is that if you buy Zura barrels, take them somewhere else, which some people do,

00:15:59: or you make Savagnia and Chardonnay in a Savagnia barrel, my god, they taste the same, you know,

00:16:05: like it's amazing because the barrels have a memory of what was in them before and the previous

00:16:11: vintage, previous vintage. So there's a lot of this like nutty thing that goes on in Zura Chardonnay,

00:16:16: but they're not like a, they're not a Suval, they're not a Vanjone style, they just, they're

00:16:20: in being impregnated with, with a yeast, the sort of floor element that was perhaps in that barrel

00:16:27: before, because I don't suppose if you're a small producer, you can sort of necessarily pick and choose

00:16:32: those my Chardonnay barrels and my Savagnia barrels, that the same barrels usually,

00:16:37: they just get interchanged. And so, so maybe there is a terroir element in the, in the word,

00:16:43: or at least a memory of previous vintages, which is conferred.

00:16:47: The great example of this though is the Criodera system, you know, in, in Hereth, and so, and,

00:16:54: and, you know, the, the whole second terroir of the cellar, and these barrels are insane,

00:17:02: they're very old and they have people who repair them and keep them and they, they're worth a lot

00:17:06: of money, these old barrels, these, these, these sherry butts. And what's fascinating is the Scotch

00:17:11: whiskey industry has a lot of whiskeys that are, but they're not the, the real genuine sherry barrels

00:17:18: that you get in the, the bodegas, because those are priced, they're really expensive. What they

00:17:22: have is they, they have people who make barrels and put some sherry through them and sell them to

00:17:27: Scotland. And that's actually a very profitable arm of, of an industry that isn't always so profitable.

00:17:33: But in those old, you know, bodegas, the sherry bodegas, or in San Luca, you know,

00:17:39: you know, you go in there and there's like a, this is a special terroir and those barrels are

00:17:44: intrinsic part of that. And when some people make the unfortified palaminos using these sherry

00:17:51: butts, they often have a little ghost of the sherry to them. Like, that's quite interesting.

00:17:59: You can always taste this little ghost of the sherry that's come from those barrels. It's what

00:18:03: you were talking about with the very special barrels.

00:18:05: Like I think it's like, interesting, you said with the yeast, because I've also heard from a few

00:18:09: producers in the region how they'll also talk about certain walls of the cellar.

00:18:13: Ah, yeah.

00:18:14: Having certain characteristics in one.

00:18:16: So we went to visit a meteorite dalgo in Jareth and, and they did have some vineyards once upon

00:18:23: a time. And they said, we don't talk about vineyards now. We talk about the walls of the cellar

00:18:27: north, southeast, west, because there's different levels of humidity on each wall and different

00:18:33: amounts of light, but also different according to how high the barrels are.

00:18:37: It gets warmer as it goes up.

00:18:38: Yes. So they, they, they taste every barrel and they do these like weird hieroglyphic

00:18:43: annotations about what's in and they, I mean, I'm talking about, they taste dozens of times,

00:18:50: hundreds of times probably to, to sort of feel what's happening, the development in the barrel.

00:18:56: But the, the barrel is part of this amazing cellar and each part of the cellar, you can almost

00:19:01: feel it, you know, like as you walk through it, has a different character. And that's the terroir.

00:19:06: It's the terroir that's enabling these yeast cultures to grow in these particular ways.

00:19:11: And they are just monitoring it. And it's, yeah. And the barrels are fundamental to this

00:19:17: because every barrel is reacting differently. Quite extraordinary when you think about it.

00:19:21: It is.

00:19:21: It's like the microclimate of a vineyard. Every vine is different, but we don't,

00:19:25: we don't spend time on each vine.

00:19:26: So when I, when I first started visiting vineyards, sort of wineries, I shouldn't say,

00:19:32: what I found was that there were like two ways of elevage in the wineries. So the wineries would

00:19:36: have like stainless steel tanks and then have smaller barrels. Fast forward to now, and when

00:19:43: you go to winery, even if it's a big commercial winery, it's like going in the old days, it'll

00:19:48: be like you're going to a kitchen and you'd see a frying pan and a pot. And that's it.

00:19:54: Now you go in, there's all sorts of different pots and pans and everything. It's like a kitchen

00:20:00: where you've got all these tools for, for cooking. And you go into the winery and you'll see

00:20:04: so many different options in terms of elevage. So you'll see the smaller barrels. You'll see

00:20:10: large oak. Large oak is becoming much more popular. It's very trendy. Then you'll see

00:20:15: other types of wood. Yes. So acacia, chestnut. I've even seen mahogany in Wales. I've seen cherry as

00:20:23: well. Yeah, cherry is a little more common actually then, but mahogany and a Degadir

00:20:29: Kalarish and Kalarish. They have a lot of exotic woods because they shipped a lot of woods from

00:20:34: South America actually through trading by Portugal back then. So they actually have like

00:20:39: what's the trade with it? Like trade, like, well, trading woods, like woods coming, exotic woods,

00:20:45: like mahogany, for example, coming from South America to mainland Europe and Portugal being

00:20:50: one of the like main drop-up points because they're big in the trade. I remember when I went to my

00:20:55: commerce the first time that they had these fermentation vats. There was certain sort of wood

00:20:59: that they were made of. I forgot what it's called, but then again, another sort of wood for the

00:21:02: fermentation vats. So lots of different sorts of wood. Then obviously concrete, which is back

00:21:10: to the future because a lot of wineries, like if you go to a big cooperative, wine or a large winery

00:21:14: anywhere, you would have seen the old cellar would have been full of concrete tanks.

00:21:18: Even the great old Bordeaux was unified in concrete. And then concrete and now

00:21:26: concrete is back and you've got all sorts of different concrete now and famously the

00:21:30: non-blue concrete eggs or cinnamon, cast stone, do the eggs as well. And then obviously not just

00:21:37: concrete, but we're going to terracotta, amphora. Clay. So amphora is also known as tanajas or

00:21:45: quervry. Quervry in Georgia, tallyas in Portugal. Novum, no, in Oregon. Yes. So Andrew Beckham,

00:21:52: yes, makes these beautiful vessels then Oregon. And this is, you know, these things are cropping

00:21:58: up in Artanova. They make some as well. And I remember we were in Tuscany last year and there

00:22:04: was this artist who was making what was just for his mate, wasn't he? There was a guy who was just

00:22:10: like a ceramicist that started making a clay vessel for his friend and he'd done all this very

00:22:14: elaborate painting. The painting, the actual height of it. Yeah, it was kind of cool. Quite a

00:22:18: character. Yeah. And don't forget glass. Five glasses. Glass jars. What's five of glasses?

00:22:23: The old fashioned. Demi-johns. Coming back with champagne in particular, a lot of people making

00:22:28: small batch. Now we've got the wine globes. Wine globes. They're cropping up every one. Yes. Beautiful,

00:22:34: but very expensive and obviously a little bit fragile. And then not to be ignored as well.

00:22:40: There's a variation on clay is ceramic. So clayvers becoming quite popular. Yeah, also in places like

00:22:48: Czechia, I've seen that quite a lot. Like Petey Korob's got like these big ceramic vessels.

00:22:52: But also I suppose it depends like, you know, they'd claim. Stainless steel we haven't mentioned as

00:22:56: well. Yeah, but we'll come out of that. Fino Deanna, they use the wine globes, but when you're

00:23:00: doing a micro-venification, you're only making the best part of like, I don't know, 100 litres or

00:23:05: then a Demi-john. Yeah, then you can use Demi-johns. And it makes sense to use the

00:23:10: Southern Formats because you cannot fulfill even a fraction of a barrel with them. So you need all

00:23:15: these options to be able to sort of like, if you want to vinify a particular plot, yeah,

00:23:21: that makes a lot of sense and gives a lot of individuality. But then a further twist on this

00:23:25: is when you're talking about clay or concrete is whether or not the clay or concrete is lined.

00:23:30: Because there's all sorts of things you can you can paint it in tartaric acid, you can line it with

00:23:37: with epoxy and then it's very neutralist like glass then or stainless steel. Yeah, but then also

00:23:42: if it's clay, let's say, is it buried or not? Is it above the ground or not? That's obviously the

00:23:47: Georgian in the Morani that the crevary are buried. So that's going to have a bit of a

00:23:51: thing. And they're also lined with beeswax, which creates its own problems in terms of cleaning

00:23:56: as well. It's a quite elaborate protocol. I've got a book actually about how to maintain Georgian

00:24:02: crevary. It's quite explicit in what you need to do. It's very interesting. It's not a simple

00:24:06: process, you know. And I think that I know that Ben Walgate put some crevary into the ground and

00:24:12: Morani and telling him and he was later on finding out this is a very complicated thing to make clean

00:24:20: wines from after a few years. You know, it's not straightforward. They also have to be really good

00:24:27: and when they're made there's only a few people who make them and really understand how to make

00:24:32: them because yeah, they can get infected by bacteria if you don't clean them. So and that

00:24:39: can just ruin everything. So I mean, it goes it goes without saying that staying this is probably

00:24:43: the easiest to maintain and that you know, crevary are the most difficult because they're on the

00:24:48: ground as well. And that but you still have to maintain hygiene and barrels as well. So I like

00:24:54: to add another thing because I just feel like if we're going into the vessel talk, then I definitely

00:25:00: think we should add stone because that would then include things like palmentos, some like and

00:25:07: traditional vessels in different places. There's a couple of producers. There's one which I think is in

00:25:11: the north of Spain, Castel Uncus, who do like ferment literally in the like hollowed out rock face.

00:25:20: Well, yeah, if you go to Riocco, you'll find these as well. This is basically a sort of series of

00:25:26: chiseled out legars. They're like shallow legars, a bit like the Portuguese legars, but carved with

00:25:32: the rock face. So you do the vinification in that and I guess the palmentos like that. Yeah.

00:25:37: Yeah. So it's like you're doing this, you're basically you're the ancient way of making wine

00:25:41: would have presumably been to bring your grapes along, foot tread them, whether they're white or red,

00:25:46: foot tread them, then drain off the juice and then ferment off the skins. Yeah. Yeah. And so the red

00:25:52: wines in the past would have been a lighter style red. And the whites are doing more like an orange.

00:25:56: Yeah. Yeah. Which is sort of what people try to get back to weirdly. But yeah, they're always like

00:26:00: gravity, though by gravity with them. Yeah. But it's a fantastic way of making I think legars and

00:26:06: I spend a lot of time in Portugal and I think the legars are used cleverly as a brilliant tool

00:26:12: for making wine. This shallow. Should we taste some wines out of different vessels? So let's start.

00:26:18: So where should we start maybe? Let's start with the tinaca. And the one I'm going to taste is

00:26:25: de Martino's Viejas Tinacas Muscat 2013. So this comes in the Tata Valley. So Tata is like down in

00:26:33: the south of of Chile. It's grape vines are dry grown. They're usually bush vines, unsupported.

00:26:41: They can be very old. Farming is often with horses, you know, plowing and they do a lot of

00:26:47: turning the soil just before the rainy season, just before the growing season. So just before the

00:26:54: rain's come before the growing season to absorb the rain and to deal with the weeds. And de Martino,

00:27:01: actually, they have a whole collection of these very old clay sort of amphoras they call tinacas.

00:27:07: But they're based in in Maipo, the winery in Maipo. So they take the grapes up to Maipo and they

00:27:15: have the cellar there. And what's very interesting is when you've put the grapes in there, they just

00:27:19: leave them in there and they put a lid on and they put fresh clay over the top of the lid. So it's

00:27:26: like it doesn't harden so much. It's not fired. But that clay is what keeps the oxygen out of the

00:27:32: the wine. Bit like the Georgian way of doing it, but above ground as opposed to. I'm using clay

00:27:38: instead of like beeswax or whatever. Well, I think on top the Georgians would bury it and then we'd

00:27:44: put a put a stone on top and they put clay on top. But I thought they did the clay top and then they

00:27:50: also sealed it with like beeswax. I don't know because they I mean they given how often they

00:27:56: dig up they dig up the uh crevory to taste the wine. So this is the interesting thing about this

00:28:04: though is this is a wine I bought a long time ago. But this is the 2013 vintage. So this is a

00:28:11: wine that probably wasn't meant to age. But you've aged it. I've aged it. So let's see what's thanks.

00:28:18: So this is muscatel or muscat of Alexandria which is brought. This is skin fermented.

00:28:24: Two chili. Yep. Six months. Six months on skins. I mean I don't know how fermentation probably

00:28:30: takes about three weeks or something. So this is almost like the Georgian process but the

00:28:34: tinnachas is above ground. Yeah. So it's fermented in tinnachas and aged in tinnachas. And yeah,

00:28:42: as Jamie said, these are these are old bush vines because muscatel was with pice was brought by

00:28:49: the Spanish settlers in the 16th century. And this is the part of chili that they colonized way back

00:28:56: And so, De Martino hooking back at the traditions.

00:29:00: You know, they say, you know, the past is our future.

00:29:04: You know, like, itata was just being farmed by, you know,

00:29:10: the sort of, you call them like cowboys almost, you know,

00:29:13: people be farming on horse, the old bush vines,

00:29:16: and making wine for the table.

00:29:19: And it's wonderful that, you know, they really,

00:29:23: De Martino pioneered going back down there

00:29:25: in rediscovering and so many other wineries have followed suit.

00:29:29: And there's a vibrant scene down there.

00:29:31: One of my favourites is Leo Arrasso.

00:29:33: Yes.

00:29:33: Making some amazing wines there.

00:29:35: Yeah.

00:29:37: But I went there a couple of years ago

00:29:39: and met with maybe 20 different producers.

00:29:42: And it's so exciting to see this, you know, really vibrant scene,

00:29:48: because most of the people who are making wine there

00:29:49: are trying to make it naturally.

00:29:51: Yes.

00:29:51: They're not trying to make techno wines.

00:29:54: No, and people, I mean, if they use oak, they use the Rowley,

00:29:58: you know, sort of the traditional barrels.

00:30:01: So, and there was a shortage of tin-yaches,

00:30:04: but suddenly everyone seems to have discovered them.

00:30:07: And from us, it seems to work really well

00:30:08: with this skin fermentation style.

00:30:10: Well, it wasn't in Italy, the Zibiba.

00:30:14: Yes, it's the same.

00:30:15: And also in Australia, Prash Higgins,

00:30:20: incredible, you know, skin fermented Zibiba.

00:30:24: But there, muscat is a great variety

00:30:27: that I think flourishes when you ferment on the skins.

00:30:31: Yeah, I mean, I think you have to be careful,

00:30:32: because sometimes it can be overwhelming you bitter.

00:30:35: Like, so there's a bit of managing that with the tannin,

00:30:37: but definitely that lifted aromatics in general,

00:30:40: I think, work really well as...

00:30:43: What is great about this is that itata is essentially,

00:30:47: I wouldn't call it cool climate, but it's on the cooler side.

00:30:50: It never gets more than 30 degrees in the summer.

00:30:52: It rains more than Manchester.

00:30:55: It's very green, very rolling, as Jamie said.

00:30:57: These are old vines. These are self-regulating.

00:31:00: You don't get high alcohols in Pice and Sanso and Moscatel.

00:31:05: So you get a lovely balance.

00:31:07: And you can actually, then you can work with a grape variety.

00:31:10: And muscat, as you both said,

00:31:13: is like it works so well with skin contact.

00:31:16: The other place in Southern Spain, Anacanti,

00:31:18: and that sort of area.

00:31:20: Yeah. Yeah.

00:31:21: But this is skilled when you're alive.

00:31:23: But maybe we talk a little bit about amphora,

00:31:25: because my experience of wines that are aged in amphora,

00:31:29: or fermented and aged in amphora,

00:31:31: is that what I really appreciate about them

00:31:34: is the textural element that you get

00:31:36: from working with amphora, like often,

00:31:39: especially with skin contact wines as well,

00:31:41: which sometimes, maybe when they're fermented and aged in oak

00:31:44: versus amphora, that there's like a silky suppleness,

00:31:49: texturally, that can be very interesting

00:31:52: from working with clay.

00:31:54: However, often I feel that a lot of people talk about clay

00:31:57: as something that does an impact flavor.

00:31:58: And I can say from my own experience,

00:32:00: actually it can, and that can be a wine fault, actually.

00:32:03: Like I've tried a number of Georgian wines

00:32:05: where the clay characteristic in the wine is so dominant,

00:32:10: that actually I think it can be problematic as well.

00:32:13: And there's not--

00:32:14: Don't talk about the lining or the coating

00:32:17: of the inside of the vessel.

00:32:19: So that varies.

00:32:20: I mean, in the Alentejo, where they have the tallias,

00:32:23: the traditional coating is what's called page,

00:32:25: and this is a blend of resin and other stuff

00:32:30: that then is coated on the inside of the tallia.

00:32:36: And if it's done well, it's not noticeable,

00:32:38: but if it's done carelessly or it's too intense,

00:32:42: then this can affect the flavor.

00:32:44: And then we need to talk about firing temperatures as well,

00:32:47: because with these clay vessels, the firing temperature

00:32:53: determines how much oxygen will come through.

00:32:56: Because these are not totally inert vessels.

00:32:58: They allow some oxygen through.

00:32:59: And the higher the firing temperature,

00:33:01: the less oxygen gets through to the wine.

00:33:03: So controlled firing is quite important

00:33:06: if you want to know what sort of characteristics

00:33:09: your clay or terracotta vessel is going to have.

00:33:14: And so this is another interesting element

00:33:18: that I think needs to be discussed.

00:33:20: I think the Georgian ones, I mean,

00:33:21: they are fired at high temperature, like 1100,

00:33:23: I think, centigrade.

00:33:24: But they're fired in such a way that they'll maybe

00:33:27: have seven or eight of them in this kind of like--

00:33:31: House.

00:33:32: --killness.

00:33:32: Somebody looks like a house.

00:33:33: And then the fire goes for three days.

00:33:36: And it's like--

00:33:37: It does.

00:33:38: So your skill in terms of maintaining the temperature

00:33:41: is going to really affect the property of those vessels.

00:33:44: That's why there's only--

00:33:46: Three people in the country.

00:33:47: Yeah, three people.

00:33:48: And they study for like 30 or 40 years.

00:33:50: And why is UNESCO, peculiar heritage thing?

00:33:54: Yeah, I mean, there's other properties, obviously,

00:33:56: of clay.

00:33:56: The size.

00:33:57: Tenyachas tend to be quite small.

00:33:59: I mean, 300 liters, 350 or something like that.

00:34:02: But obviously, kevevery can be--

00:34:04: Couple of thousands.

00:34:05: --two, three thousand liters.

00:34:06: I think the biggest is like 3,000, which is huge.

00:34:08: Yes.

00:34:09: But I guess they're mostly for storage.

00:34:10: So they will ferment in one vessel

00:34:12: and maybe rack into a big kevery where it will just remain.

00:34:17: But there's just different shapes as well.

00:34:19: Kevevery's different shapes.

00:34:20: I mean, in Bordeaux, I've seen some like 250 liters.

00:34:23: But they've got a small opening like a barrel hole--

00:34:25: Yes.

00:34:26: --in the top.

00:34:27: So they're quite different to the wide opening

00:34:30: on the tallyas or the amphora.

00:34:34: And also the other thing is that in Portugal,

00:34:36: traditionally, these weren't sealed.

00:34:38: They would just be like a flycatcher on the top.

00:34:41: But they would be open.

00:34:43: And then sometimes they'd use olive oil on the top of the wine.

00:34:48: That's a traditional thing, actually.

00:34:49: Yes.

00:34:50: All the way back to Etruscan times, actually.

00:34:52: And what they do is they make the wine.

00:34:54: So they're usually with all the skins and everything

00:34:56: and the stems.

00:34:58: And then, like this, the 13th of November, St. Martin's Day

00:35:03: is when the tallyas will be tapped.

00:35:07: And so it's almost like-- there's

00:35:08: some restaurants you can still go to in Vidigera, around Vidigera

00:35:13: and Cuba in Alentejo, where they have these restaurants

00:35:17: where you go in there.

00:35:17: And you can drink straight from the tallya.

00:35:20: So it's really cool.

00:35:21: I think you need to go there before May or something

00:35:23: when they run out.

00:35:25: Do you remember like Anton on Klopper and Tom Shabruk

00:35:28: were part of a group called--

00:35:30: Yeah, they used to do--

00:35:31: --natural wine section theory.

00:35:32: And they used to do this cuve called Voice of the People.

00:35:36: And they drove to Melbourne.

00:35:38: This is when I was living in Melbourne.

00:35:40: And they'd drive to Melbourne.

00:35:41: And they'd made this big tank of wine just covered in--

00:35:43: Yeah, massive glass thing.

00:35:45: --olive oil and just pour out of it.

00:35:46: --with olive oil.

00:35:48: It was a demi-john with a tap at the bottom, right?

00:35:50: A demi-john with a tap.

00:35:51: And the olive oil was on the top.

00:35:53: And so basically, when people ordered a glass of wine,

00:35:56: it would be poured out of there.

00:35:57: And I said, what happens when the olive oil got to the bottom?

00:35:59: And they said, excellent salad dressing.

00:36:03: Oh, you're fantastic.

00:36:04: This is fantastic.

00:36:06: I love this sort of thing.

00:36:07: It's not good.

00:36:07: It's like--

00:36:10: So yeah, that's an interesting wine.

00:36:11: I think we should maybe move on and talk about--

00:36:15: this next wine is a wine from Ryokha, which is normally

00:36:23: associated with OK-ging.

00:36:27: And this is from Remem-Babao.

00:36:30: And the wine is called Magirado En Hominon.

00:36:36: Hominon.

00:36:38: It's very hard to read.

00:36:40: It's very hard to read.

00:36:41: And 100 months.

00:36:43: So this is Ganache, which is interesting for Ryokha.

00:36:47: Ganache is a grape variety, I think,

00:36:49: that should be more widely planted than Ryokha.

00:36:52: It's a fantastic grape variety.

00:36:53: Obviously, Ryokha has moved steadily more and more

00:36:56: in favor of Tempranio.

00:36:58: And this is 2015.

00:37:03: And 100 months in concrete.

00:37:08: So that's the interesting thing here.

00:37:09: You've got a region that's normally associated with oak,

00:37:11: but they've aged this wine for 100 months in concrete.

00:37:14: Are we doing that before that?

00:37:15: Yeah, yeah.

00:37:17: So is this classified as a creanthor or a reservoir,

00:37:20: or does it have any designation?

00:37:22: And it's just Ryokha.

00:37:24: Because there's no oak, so it can't go to any of the other categories.

00:37:28: So this is a region that's become--

00:37:32: in a so associated with this means of alivage, which

00:37:36: is small oak barrels, and particularly small American oak.

00:37:41: But it's kind of hard to see it getting away from it.

00:37:46: So basically, Bordeaux winemakers turned up there

00:37:49: when Flockstra hit Bordeaux, looking

00:37:52: to make Bordeaux looker-like wines in Ryokha

00:37:57: because the market needed them.

00:37:59: And that's when everything changed in Ryokha before that.

00:38:02: There was a lot more diversity of grape varieties.

00:38:04: Alivage wasn't an oak.

00:38:06: Alivage was often in concrete.

00:38:09: Wines were often moved around in pigskins.

00:38:12: I went to a small winery.

00:38:14: So people would often make the wine in there.

00:38:17: Their cellars attached to their homes,

00:38:19: and then the wine would be transported in the pigskin,

00:38:21: which is a really cool way of transporting wine.

00:38:23: It would be full of wine.

00:38:24: A pigskin is about 80 kilos.

00:38:26: You'd be quite strong.

00:38:27: So it's like a way of transporting wine, not for aging wine,

00:38:30: but just for moving it.

00:38:31: And it's kind of like you'd skin the pig and turn it inside out

00:38:34: and then sew it all over the bits

00:38:35: where the wine could leak out of.

00:38:37: But anyway, that's the side point.

00:38:39: This wine, I think, is kind of interesting

00:38:42: because this idea of moving away from oak alivage

00:38:47: for a grape variety, ganache, which I think

00:38:50: ganache is a little fragile sometimes.

00:38:51: It doesn't like some more oak.

00:38:53: Also, it's quite prone to oxidation.

00:38:55: I've had a lot of oxidized ganache lately.

00:38:57: So using concrete for ganache is quite a cool thing.

00:39:05: I mean, Commando G, big advocates for a lot of concrete

00:39:09: in the cellars, no?

00:39:10: Yeah, and 500, [INAUDIBLE]

00:39:13: large barrels.

00:39:16: Yeah, I don't know whether it's a terroir thing or not,

00:39:20: actually.

00:39:23: Maybe Altitude and Ganache works.

00:39:27: Works as a really beautiful combination.

00:39:29: And then, yeah, not using--

00:39:30: I would never use new wood.

00:39:32: I mean, it's not my decision.

00:39:33: But I wouldn't use new oak on a ganache

00:39:36: because it's too fragile.

00:39:38: This is darker than some.

00:39:43: I still feel.

00:39:45: Brambley, more brambly.

00:39:46: Yeah, yeah.

00:39:48: And more concentrated.

00:39:50: I also think-- I don't know.

00:39:51: I've definitely observed that in the last decade,

00:39:57: a lot more producers in warmer climates

00:39:59: are using concrete for their reds rather than wood.

00:40:01: And it seems like there's a collective understanding

00:40:06: that maybe in warmer regions, moving away from oak

00:40:10: to extract more doesn't necessarily

00:40:13: make sense if you want to make a more balanced, poised,

00:40:17: let's say, purer style of wine that actually

00:40:20: may be using oak makes a little bit more sense

00:40:22: in cooler climates.

00:40:23: But that's a wider--

00:40:25: That's a wide statement of broad stroke state.

00:40:27: I remember having Sadi saying to me once,

00:40:29: they said that an oak barrel is a way of ripening a wine.

00:40:33: And it makes sense in Bordeaux.

00:40:35: It really makes sense in Bordeaux that you've

00:40:36: got the elevation in small oak.

00:40:39: It does really help.

00:40:40: So I think-- and Burgundy seems to do very well

00:40:43: for Pinot Noir with small oak.

00:40:46: But in other regions, where there's a bit more warmth,

00:40:49: then you don't need that extra ripening effect.

00:40:53: And you don't need more concentration,

00:40:55: because you've already got that from the sunshine.

00:40:57: But with the climate change in Bordeaux,

00:41:00: making 14 and 1/2% wines easily in Burgundy, do we need it?

00:41:05: I mean, are they just using this super ripeness as an excuse

00:41:10: to use more oak?

00:41:12: Conversely, are we not finding in Spain in particular,

00:41:17: where I've always found growers have a love affair with oak

00:41:19: in certain regions?

00:41:20: Or Bordeaux-Douara is insane.

00:41:22: Yes.

00:41:23: But in certain parts of Spain, I think

00:41:25: there's a bit of a moving away.

00:41:27: Moving back to-- I mean, we work with a producer in Riocco.

00:41:31: Works with Amfora.

00:41:33: And elsewhere, using different formats to--

00:41:37: Which produces that big illusion?

00:41:40: Which producer?

00:41:41: That one.

00:41:42: Oh, yeah.

00:41:43: Alonso Pedrache.

00:41:44: Oh, yeah.

00:41:44: Yeah.

00:41:45: Yeah.

00:41:46: And the wines are just so much lighter and brighter

00:41:49: and more vivacious for the fact that they're not swamped in oak.

00:41:55: So what about the heresy of doing red wines in stainless steel?

00:42:01: OK, well, this comes back to something

00:42:03: that I believe which is a bit quirky on me.

00:42:05: I may have mentioned earlier this evening.

00:42:09: Shall I pour your wine for us, doc?

00:42:10: Oh, yes, please.

00:42:12: Is that I like my red wines to taste like white wines,

00:42:16: and my white wines to taste like red wines.

00:42:18: So I like my white wines to be textural.

00:42:20: So I don't mind oak as a sort of like--

00:42:24: not a flavoring, but as a textural, sort of warming element.

00:42:28: But for red wines, I love this red fruit.

00:42:30: And I love coolness and freshness and lift and focus.

00:42:35: And I love the way that stainless steel

00:42:40: seems to sort of almost grip and compress the wine

00:42:44: into a sort of--

00:42:45: into the red fruit spectrum rather than allow--

00:42:49: sometimes oak, I think, makes wines flabby and lack of corsetry.

00:42:54: I love precision in red wine making.

00:42:57: I'm into sort of elegance.

00:42:59: Monde d'oeuvre is quite-- we're tasting Monde d'oeuvre at the moment.

00:43:01: So the wine we're tasting is from Domaine Louis--

00:43:05: Magnol.

00:43:06: Magnol.

00:43:07: And it's a Vendor Savoir.

00:43:09: Arban.

00:43:11: It's the village.

00:43:12: And it's Monde d'oeuvre 2003.

00:43:14: Vieille vien.

00:43:16: And it weighs in--

00:43:17: This is a crazy wine.

00:43:18: It weighs about 12 and 1/2% alcohol

00:43:21: from the warmest vintage of the last something 20 odd years.

00:43:24: And this is raised.

00:43:25: Where everybody dies.

00:43:26: This is raised in stainless steel.

00:43:28: Yes.

00:43:29: And then in bottle.

00:43:31: And I think it just--

00:43:32: it's kept its focus and precision and elegance.

00:43:36: You know, all things I really love in red wine

00:43:38: and it makes it drinkable to me.

00:43:40: The acidity is very fine.

00:43:41: The tannins are granular, but very fine.

00:43:44: They're kind of grainy and gravelly, I think.

00:43:46: Yes.

00:43:47: Which I think is actually very much Monde d'oeuvre.

00:43:49: That actually helps with the freshness, I think.

00:43:52: It's a wine that's almost 22 years old.

00:43:57: It's got a lovely black cherry, blackberry fruit character,

00:44:02: but with freshness, with its chalkiness and its graveliness.

00:44:05: It almost makes me think of Bordeaux varieties

00:44:09: in terms of that sort of grainy, say granular tannic structure.

00:44:15: But can we imagine it in another format?

00:44:18: If can we imagine it in oak, what that might do to it?

00:44:21: I think we've gone mushy by this stage.

00:44:23: Yeah.

00:44:24: Oak would have made it go soft and formless.

00:44:26: And I think the fact that obviously red wine tannins

00:44:31: and stainless steel can often be a little unresolved

00:44:34: and a bit grainy and grippy.

00:44:36: But when you're keeping a wine 20 years--

00:44:38: And not even from a shape perspective,

00:44:40: like you're talking about.

00:44:41: I'm also thinking from a flavor perspective

00:44:43: that this with an oxidative edge,

00:44:46: I just don't really feel like it would be very pleasant.

00:44:49: It's also what you feel like a wine from Southwark,

00:44:52: a high-altitude mountainous region,

00:44:55: where I think you're expecting all the wines

00:44:58: to have this kind of glacial--

00:45:00: A pristine clean--

00:45:01: Pristine glacial purity.

00:45:03: And I really like that, even though it's--

00:45:06: Mondos is on the darker side of the fruit spectrum.

00:45:09: It's still fine and fresh.

00:45:11: Mondos can lose its focus quite easily

00:45:13: and become quite flabby, can't it?

00:45:15: Yeah.

00:45:15: So this is a beautiful example of this.

00:45:18: Also, it can be quite wild.

00:45:19: And this is still quite--

00:45:21: It's a very drinkable, digestible wine.

00:45:25: It's nutritious.

00:45:26: And I guess I had this weird feeling about stainless steel.

00:45:33: It's like, I don't really like to see it.

00:45:35: I feel it's soulless.

00:45:36: It's mechanical.

00:45:38: And then, as I say, for whites, I tend not to favor it.

00:45:43: I don't know what it is.

00:45:44: I find that a member like Dominique Beloit

00:45:48: of passed away in 2020 saying that I

00:45:55: don't like stainless steel because it kills the wine.

00:45:58: And this is white wine.

00:46:00: And I don't like wood because it superimposes on the wine,

00:46:06: which is why he eventually ended up with his noblo eggs.

00:46:10: And they just seem to be perfect for his particular savoire

00:46:13: white grape variety.

00:46:14: Because--

00:46:15: Granger.

00:46:16: Granger.

00:46:17: So the wines had fantastic--

00:46:19: they were precise, but they had amplitude as well.

00:46:22: So they grew layer upon layer.

00:46:24: But his Mondos was quite similar to this.

00:46:26: It was very pretty, very precise.

00:46:29: I think he actually worked with them for a bit,

00:46:34: although he didn't always get on with them.

00:46:36: But I just think stainless works well for the reds

00:46:39: from this region.

00:46:41: Very nice wine.

00:46:42: Thank you very much for sharing it.

00:46:43: You're welcome.

00:46:44: And like, it's still got--

00:46:45: No, it doesn't feel like it's past its best year.

00:46:48: So we've got one last wine.

00:46:49: Last wine, we're going to head towards oak territory.

00:46:52: So a classic wine, a very well-known wine

00:46:58: that is raised in small oak barrels

00:47:02: with a good proportion of me.

00:47:04: And this is from Spanish wine company Torres.

00:47:09: It is the Mas la Plana 2018 from Pernedis.

00:47:13: This is a famous wine that kind of debuted in, I think, 1970.

00:47:19: The idea was that Torres, at that stage, in Spain,

00:47:22: people weren't taking Spanish wine seriously from Pernedis.

00:47:25: And Torres thought, well, we're going

00:47:27: to make a Cabernet Sauvignon that will take the world by storm.

00:47:30: So this is Cabernet Sauvignon based wine,

00:47:35: majority in small oak.

00:47:39: This is a French oak, isn't it?

00:47:40: Yes, yes.

00:47:42: And this is a wine that, in its time, made a huge impact

00:47:48: and raised the profile of Spanish wines quite a bit,

00:47:52: because internationally, it was very successful.

00:47:56: So let's open it up and see what it's like, the influence

00:48:02: of elevage in small oak.

00:48:05: I can say to our listener that this

00:48:15: will be the first Cabernet Sauvignon I've

00:48:17: tried in about five years.

00:48:20: Yes, and Doug's already getting triggered by this wine,

00:48:24: I think.

00:48:26: This will be the first Cabernet Sauvignon

00:48:27: I've had from Pernedis in a long time.

00:48:31: You said from Pernedis, right?

00:48:32: Yes, yes, yes.

00:48:35: It's a really nice vineyard, and there's

00:48:36: something to do some quite interesting work with regenerative

00:48:41: projects.

00:48:41: Yeah, I've seen that also.

00:48:43: Organics.

00:48:44: Really.

00:48:44: De-alkalized wine as well, right?

00:48:49: Maybe less interesting, then.

00:48:53: Alcohol wine only.

00:48:54: Alcoholic wine only.

00:48:57: So quite brooding, and I think the effect of the small oak

00:49:00: is often to fix the color and the structure,

00:49:05: especially when a warm climate wine like this.

00:49:06: I mean, it's kind of another-- it's like day and night,

00:49:12: the two wines that we just tried side by side, right?

00:49:14: Because the Monders is so fresh and bright and energetic,

00:49:19: and this is--

00:49:21: It's a richer wine.

00:49:22: --bigger, textural.

00:49:24: It's got a sleek and black current fruits and blackberry--

00:49:29: Very fruit.

00:49:30: But again, that kind of going back

00:49:31: to what we talked about at the beginning,

00:49:33: this sort of flashy fruit up front, no?

00:49:36: Is this sort of--

00:49:37: I mean, because I don't drink Bordeaux,

00:49:38: so you two will have to abuse me or disabuse me or this.

00:49:42: Is this more typical of modern style Bordeaux?

00:49:45: Because I grew up on--

00:49:46: This is quite different.

00:49:47: I think it's really different.

00:49:49: --quite weedy, herbaceous style of--

00:49:52: So Bordeaux certainly went through a phase

00:49:54: of getting riper and richer.

00:49:57: But I think Bordeaux has kind of made a little correction.

00:50:00: I'd taste the--

00:50:00: There's some really good wines--

00:50:01: --the wines in Bordeaux now.

00:50:02: I think there's a lot of money in Bordeaux.

00:50:05: There's a lot of smart people, a lot of intelligent people.

00:50:08: And they're not all chasing the critic scores.

00:50:11: That sort of era of chasing the big park of scores

00:50:14: is gone now, I think, partly because the scores have all

00:50:17: got so high that all the wines score the same.

00:50:20: So there's no advantage from having a critic score.

00:50:25: Everyone's got a high score.

00:50:28: So what a lot of people are doing,

00:50:29: they're thoughtful people in many places,

00:50:32: where they're going back to the vineyard

00:50:34: and doing things right in the vineyard more

00:50:35: than they were in the past.

00:50:38: And in the cellar, they're rethinking their approach.

00:50:41: And they're also rethinking their picking time as well.

00:50:43: So I think that Bordeaux now, I think,

00:50:45: is more interesting than it was seven or eight years ago.

00:50:49: This is a Mediterranean climate wine.

00:50:53: - I think so too, because there's a generosity of fruit

00:50:56: and like a density of thickness and those flavors.

00:50:59: - Fruits, meat, spice.

00:51:02: This is what Cabernet Sauvignon does quite well,

00:51:03: is it adapts to climate.

00:51:06: - But it's Cabernet Sauvignon that almost tastes

00:51:08: like ripe, renational, do you know what I mean?

00:51:10: Because there's a lot, the fruit profile's different.

00:51:13: And then you're right, like these Mediterranean flavors

00:51:16: that are definitely there.

00:51:17: - It's a warm, well-balanced in terms of the warm climate,

00:51:22: sort of wine making style, rich.

00:51:26: - But it's kind of an atypical Penedaise red for me.

00:51:31: Like, because if I think of Penedaise

00:51:33: and I think of Catalonia, like, which is not far away,

00:51:36: I think of kind of lighter, brighter, fresher, crunchier.

00:51:39: So obviously it's interesting to see

00:51:42: that this great variety can ripen this well there, right?

00:51:46: - Yeah, it can ripen as well and produce such a bold wine.

00:51:50: - And the oak is part of this flavor signature.

00:51:52: So you're getting this spicy character,

00:51:54: you're getting the slight warmth, dried herbs,

00:51:58: and hint of vanilla.

00:52:01: And the oak is definitely part of that whole flavor spectrum.

00:52:04: In its style, I think it's a good wine.

00:52:08: It's certainly a stylistic sort of wine.

00:52:11: - I think it's a stylistic choice to make it in that style.

00:52:14: I think I would compare it, perhaps, you know,

00:52:17: I'm consciously with Domus Cassek,

00:52:19: we're in the sort of longer dock in the sort of same climate

00:52:23: in terms of like heat days and, you know,

00:52:27: you know, not dissimilar.

00:52:28: But, and although they use oak,

00:52:31: I find the oak really elegant the way it's,

00:52:36: - But the Domus Cassek wines,

00:52:37: they're certainly ripe wines, aren't they?

00:52:39: The Domus Cassek wines, they're good.

00:52:40: - Yes, I know, but they also have like

00:52:42: very finely-grain talons and really good,

00:52:44: acidity because of the soil there.

00:52:46: - And they're much, I think that I don't,

00:52:47: haven't tried, obviously,

00:52:48: this is the first one of this I've tried.

00:52:50: I don't know how vintage sensitive this is.

00:52:52: You try Gassek and they're wildly vintage sensitive,

00:52:56: which I really like because they're very true.

00:52:58: - This is the 2018 vintage of the Masler plan there.

00:53:01: So it's probably the current for this.

00:53:04: So released at, with some age, I guess,

00:53:07: that's the view, it's almost seven years old.

00:53:11: - I think also with Gassek,

00:53:12: it's that limestone soil that like the Terra Rosa,

00:53:14: and I like that you also get this,

00:53:15: like there's always this backbone and vines.

00:53:17: - There's more minority, yes, probably in those vines.

00:53:20: It's very special.

00:53:21: - So, interesting.

00:53:24: - I want to see, like, I mean,

00:53:26: we had a real different mix of wines here today, no?

00:53:30: - But I think what's, you know,

00:53:33: in summary, what I think is really encouraging

00:53:35: about the world of wine now is that

00:53:37: instead of being like chefs in the cellar with two pans,

00:53:41: the chefs have got eight or nine pans now.

00:53:43: And a lot of wine growers are thinking more carefully

00:53:47: about matching the means of Elevage

00:53:50: and the vessels of Elevage

00:53:51: with the styles of wines that they're making.

00:53:54: And I think that's really exciting.

00:53:55: And I noticed this, you know,

00:53:57: 'cause I've been visiting wineries for quite a while now

00:53:59: and traveling, you know, to every wine region in the world,

00:54:04: you see that there's definitely more of an openness

00:54:06: to different forms of Elevage.

00:54:08: Which I think is really cool.

00:54:10: Because in the past, it was almost like a recipe.

00:54:14: And now we're seeing this, you know, open-mindedness

00:54:19: and thinking about the importance of Elevage

00:54:21: in terms of shaping a wine.

00:54:24: And, you know, yes, of course, wine is made of the vineyard,

00:54:28: but it's also made in the cellar.

00:54:30: And intelligent work in the cellar, you know,

00:54:33: whether that's low intervention or not.

00:54:36: I mean, to be honest,

00:54:37: you need to be more skilled to go low intervention

00:54:40: and to produce something really expressive of your place.

00:54:43: You know, I think it's this key aspect of the world of wine,

00:54:49: which is that people are realizing that to make great wine,

00:54:52: you don't need to copy the famous regions.

00:54:54: You can adapt what you do to suit your place.

00:55:01: - But isn't like winemaking also about

00:55:04: the voyage of self-discovery.

00:55:07: So often you obviously want to respect your region,

00:55:10: the tradition of the region,

00:55:11: but often you also want to respect what you'd like to drink.

00:55:14: We notice in Austria,

00:55:15: so many of the Boganland producers love the Jura.

00:55:18: And their wines have transformed

00:55:21: from being quite powerful square red wines

00:55:25: to delicious plusar style.

00:55:28: And then we go to the Jura,

00:55:30: and there's like young producers

00:55:32: who have maybe half a hectare or a hectare to deal with,

00:55:35: you know, to play with.

00:55:36: They have no money,

00:55:37: so they just got to stay in the steel tank.

00:55:40: You know, that's all the equipment they have.

00:55:42: And eventually they'd like a barrel.

00:55:43: And if they do have a barrel,

00:55:46: they'll probably put their white wine in the barrel

00:55:47: and make a carbonic red,

00:55:49: which they released a year earlier than their white.

00:55:52: So these are all choices and local choices

00:55:54: and personal choices.

00:55:55: - So there's a pragmatism, I guess.

00:55:56: And the other thing is that, as you say,

00:55:59: a small barrel is quite a cost effective

00:56:05: and a nice way of making wine.

00:56:07: And so a lot of people, you know,

00:56:10: working on a small scale,

00:56:12: that's their elevator of choice.

00:56:14: - Yeah, and of course, if you buy a second and third hand,

00:56:20: it's so much better.

00:56:21: So, yeah, the investment in a new barrel is a big investment.

00:56:25: And, you know, it's going to put the wines price up

00:56:30: because you had to pay for it.

00:56:31: Do you need to get the money back?

00:56:33: - Yeah.

00:56:35: - Very interesting.

00:56:38: - Yeah, such a fascinating and topical topic

00:56:43: in the world of wine.

00:56:45: - And I guess also we also have our personal preferences.

00:56:50: Like I don't go bundle on tasting open wine.

00:56:53: And I guess that will inform my choice on what I drink.

00:56:58: And I'm intrigued by things like amphora,

00:57:01: the clay element, which I think Emily said,

00:57:05: like, yeah, you can really taste it.

00:57:08: But I quite like the sort of brickiness sometimes

00:57:11: that it gives to a particular wine,

00:57:12: not every wine, but some wines.

00:57:15: And stainless, I tend to avoid,

00:57:17: but then, you know, I love it in red wine.

00:57:19: So I'm inconsistent.

00:57:21: (laughing)

00:57:23: - Well guys, fantastic chance as usual.

00:57:26: - Stay in touch with us by following us on Instagram

00:57:28: at just another wine podcast until next time.

00:57:32: - We'll see you then.

00:57:34: - We'll see you then.

00:57:34: - Before then.

00:57:35: - Cheers.

00:57:36: - Cheers.

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