When it became clear to me that a range of Rutherford AVA Cabernet Sauvignons from the 2004 vintage lacked much distinctiveness of regional character, I decided it was time to look at how this might have occurred.

Some might argue that the loss of varietal and regional characteristics has occurred as a result of factors totally out of the hands of man’s control (such as “global warming” or “super yeasts” or some other nonsense). It is clear to me that what has happened in Napa and other areas in California is a conscious effort on the part of wine makers to deal with a number of difficult factors. Winemakers are trying to make wines that both justify a high price and appeal to some of the more recognizable wine critics who prefer wines that are powerful and flavored rather atypically to what was previously rated as great. (Such as the wines that vanquished the French in 1976.)

This was not the case in the 1970s and 1980s when wines were made from grapevines grown far differently from the way they are today, and when wines weren’t being compared with some ethereal paradigm that, frankly, does not represent very good wine. Back then, the top Napa Valley Cabernets were seen as collectibles mainly because they were balanced, improved in the bottle, and delivered a charming level of fruit and complexity over a decade or two. Or more.

Today’s more heavy-handed styles of wines don’t appear to be aging as long or delivering as much complexity. Indeed, the lack of regional definition has left many of the wines with a hollow mid-palate that is filled mainly with alcohol and oak. In fact, the instant hedonism that some ascribe to some of these wines is more likely a result of aging in expensive French oak barrels. Caramelized flavors are, after all, appealing in a circus atmosphere.

Goodbye Phylloxera, Hello Big Vines

The key factors in how we got to this point - where alcohol is up, regional character is out, and flavor definition is compromised - probably began two decades ago when we began to hear reports of phylloxera hitting Napa Valley vineyards (and elsewhere). A lot of the vines were planted on the AxR1 rootstock, which was well known to be susceptible to that particular root louse. Soon after it was developed, AxR1 was prized for its ability to produce significantly larger crops than did other rootstocks.

AxR1’s vigorous root system allowed vines to produce as much as 16 percent more fruit per year (according to one scientific report), and of a quality good enough to make a wine as near-perfect as Heitz’s Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet – and with consistency. And many other great Cabs came from AxR1, whose abundance was due to the fact that the A in the name of the root system came from Aramon, a huge producer of red wine fruit of rather inconsequential character from France. (It has since been banned by presidential decree from French vineyards!)

When phylloxera hit, most wineries began to tear out the infected vines and many in the North Coast decided to use devigorating rootstocks, a complete reversal from the vigorous AxR1 that had existed before.

Moreover, the top wood (called scion wood) varietal material they chose to graft on top was virus free. Prior to phylloxera, much of the vine material in the North Coast was infected with viruses. Leaf roll virus in particular was actually beneficial, say many growers, because it helped to retard sugar development and allowed the grapes to ripen in terms of flavor maturity longer into the season without high sugars threatening the ultimate balance of the wine with excessive alcohols. It was the root system’s vigor that kept the vine in balance.

This was the situation for California’s North Coast for some 20 to 30 years or more, and growers got to know how to deal with their vines under this regime: vigor below ground, retarded development above ground. Result: even ripening while sugar developed slowly. Almost all of the new vineyards were thus inverted from what they had been.

Then came another innovation: a new trellising system called vertical shoot positioning (VSP). Older trellising systems had larger canopies of leaves, which also slowed sugar accumulation by not allowing as much sunlight onto the grapes. The VSP method, which was chosen partially because it was easy to manage, allows the vine’s fruit-bearing arms to be lifted well above the level at which they once grew, making the leaf canopy thinner and accordingly, exposing the fruit more directly to sunlight. Among other things, this insured what some wine makers said was complete ripeness of the fruit.

Make Mine Ultra-Ripe Please

Many wine makers saw this as a crucial factor in pleasing some wine critics who liked the more ultra-ripe flavors and seemed to dislike the more varietal/regional elements found in Cabernet Sauvignon from more shaded vines. Such wines are slightly greener and more herbal. The key ingredient in Cabernet Sauvignon as well as Merlot and other varieties was methoxypyrazine (or simply pyrazine for short). It was soon the target of near-universal derision and scorn.

The California Sprawl trellising systems of the past seemed to encourage the grapes to retain traces of this naturally occurring component, which is related to both varietal as well as regional character. It was regularly seen in Bordeaux of vintages prior to 1982. By switching to VSP trellises, California growers made life a bit easier in terms of canopy management, and they were able to get more direct sunlight onto the grapes, which generally had the effect of diminishing pyrazine character.

As a result, three major changes had occurred in the vineyards (new roots, new virus-free scion wood, new trellising). So those growers and wine makers who had learned what was happening in their vineyards for decades under varying weather conditions now had to discard what they knew and had to re-learn how to deal with their vines. Moreover, the (new) demand to make a wine with no pyrazine elements encouraged growers to harvest later and later.

Alas, ultra-late harvested fruit can be trickier to ferment to dryness, and wineries don’t like stuck fermentations. Nor do they like 16 percent alcohol in their Cabernets, which could well have resulted from some of the must-weights they were getting from later picking. And with high sugars, stuck ferments were a distinct possibility as many yeasts sputter in the presence of high alcohol levels.

So wineries quietly went to the state of California a few years ago and asked for the right to ameliorate with greater amounts of water (usually at the crusher) “to facilitate the completion of the fermentation,” according to the propaganda that was fashionable at the time. The State, which knows nothing of the grape growing or wine making process, complied and allowed greater amelioration. It was clearly unaware that one of the pernicious aspects of this ruling was that it basically flew in the face of growers. Most of them were aware that they had virtually ideal ripeness when the grapes averaged 24° to 25° Brix and that 27° or higher would produce what they began to call “dry port.”

Watered-Down Wine?

However, under the newly liberalized water-addition regulation, wineries could then tell growers to wait until their grapes got to 27° or even 29° Brix. They didn’t fear an alcohol content of 16 percent or even more because the new regulations allowed them to “water back” the fruit at the crusher and make a lower-alcohol wine. Many growers became irate since later harvesting caused their grapes to dehydrate. The loss of water meant that a vineyard that once would deliver four tons of fruit now would deliver only three tons. Most growers are paid on a per-ton basis.

After paying a lot less for ultra-ripe fruit, wineries could now put back the lost ton of water by adding water from a hose. Net result: the growers realized they were being shafted out of revenues and the wineries were still getting all the “tonnage” they desired. It was estimated by one major grower that by waiting as late as the wineries desired, he was losing more than 30 percent of his revenues.

At the same time, it was getting worse for the consumer seeking a balanced wine. The VSP trellising system wasn’t working out well for that older, more food-friendly, age-worthy style of wine, since many canopies under the VSP system are so thin, with far less leaf surface area than under other systems. So much so that many red wine grape varieties were getting too much direct sun, which is known to cause sunburn, creating a more raisiny aroma, as well increasing certain harsh tannins in the resulting wine.

But many wine makers didn’t have to deal with strong tannin levels because they already were making the wines with elements that mitigated that astringent effect:

Alcohol - Even though they were using later-picked grapes and reducing the alcohol with water, few wineries reduced alcohols to the 13.8 percent of the 1970s or 1980s. In fact, the majority kept the alcohols in the 14.5 percent to 15 percent range, which adds a certain “sweet” feel to the wine and masks the tannins. Alcohol delivers a “sweetish” taste.

The pH. - Wine scientists suggest strongly that a red wine pH of 3.6 or less is appropriate for a wine to have proper balance, and to have the potential to age, and to have the structure to work well with food. But the pH levels of most North Coast red wines in the last decade have risen to almost ridiculously high levels. Most were 3.75 or so, some exceeded 4.0, and at that level the wine is considered to be unstable. But the immediate impact was to compromise the acidity. So again the tannins were masked a bit more by lower acids and high pH levels. This was done regularly by some high-end producers by simply adding calcium carbonate.

Oak. - The use of new well-toasted French oak can also mask tannins because of the added texture from the barrel. So can use of oak chips. And then we began to hear about “double-oaked” wines that were aged for a year in new French oak, then racked into new barrels for the second year!

It All Comes Back To The Original Paradigm:
Wine is Made in the Vineyard

Those wine makers who claim that so-called “super yeasts” are really to blame for higher alcohols may be hoping the consumer will accept the notion that the basic rules of chemistry no longer apply. Yeasts convert sugar in wine to carbon dioxide and alcohol (ethanol) in a precise, unchanging formula. About 60 percent of the sugar converts to alcohol, so grapes harvested at 24° Brix will have an alcohol level of 14.4 percent if no water is added. With a must weight of 25° Brix, a dry red wine will have 15.0 percent alcohol; at 26° Brix, the alcohol would come out at 15.6 percent. Yeasts, which are catalytic agents, do not create sugar; they only convert what sugar is in a liquid to alcohol on a formulated basis. (The above figures are for wines in which no ameliorating agent or alcohol-removal technique is used.)

As for global climate change, that subject was extensively discussed at Australia’s 13th Wine Industry Technical Conference, and most experts said that, thus far, the increases in temperature we have seen in the last few years don’t account much, if at all, for higher sugar levels - and most certainly it is not as great a factor as are the demands of wine makers seeking to pick later and later.

In the last decade, a patented reverse osmosis system developed by Vinovation of Sebastopol, Calif., has been widely used by literally hundreds of wineries to remove alcohol from wines. Clark Smith, the developer of the process, estimates that 45 percent of the wines in California are alcohol-reduced by either his technique or the use of the Australian-invented Spinning Cone. (Another patented concept, developed by Memstar in Australia, also allows the use of reverse osmosis to reduce alcohol levels.)

Think about it: if wineries were not completely aware that excessive alcohol posed a serious problem, would they spend the money and effort to reduce the alcohols in their wines? But here’s the curious part: once having made the decision to “de-alc” their wine, why have so few dropped the final alcohol below 14 percent?

Reducing wine below 14 percent is a logical process since wine at 13.9 percent is taxed at a lower rate than wine above 14 percent. One would think that, once the de-alc-ing was under way, wineries would drop their alcohols to a more cost-effective, tax-saving level. Yet the vast majority of wines made in California today have alcohols of 14.5 percent or so.

Thus do I suspect that wineries are fearful that their wines could possibly have distinctive varietal or regional character at lower alcohols, which could cause their scores in the glossy magazines to drop. As a result, I believe there is a desire to have high-alcohol to insure that wines have a certain weight, density, impact, and concentration that appeal most to the handful of critics who seem to disregard varietal and/or regional distinctiveness as a factor in their wine evaluations.

In sum, we have started a new vineyard system that is 180 degrees topsy-turvy from what existed just 20 years ago; we have begun to employ new winemaking tactics that discard the teachings of the past that made for classically structured wines. And to justify it all, we have developed a series of buzzwords for today’s wines that seem perfectly logical to the newer generation of buyers who have been brain-washed into thinking that today’s monster wines are the best use of some of the greatest vineyards in California history.

And the purists be damned.