Let's Talk Style and Price

I sure we can all agree no one goes into the wine business to make "bad" wine.  Today most Vitners have been to some kind of wine university, the University of California at Davis, University of Bordeaux, One-year wine course in Burgundy, etc.  The net result is for the most part most of the wine made today is technically made the same.  So what separates the wines to me can be summed up as "style".  Style encompasses a broad description of course and as many Vitners there are could be the different kinds of style.  In addition, the soil, weather, past history, yield, date of harvest all play into how a bottle of wine comes out.  Some things the Vitners can control, some they cannot, and some they have to modify how they make their wine based on how out of control were the factors they could not control.  The biggest one, of course, is the weather.  As much as you cannot control the weather Vitners in some parts of the world try.  In Bordeaux, some vineyards have these big black buildings that send out a very high pitched sound that is supposed to break up hail.  So when they expect or have hail they set these sound machines off.  One downside, the frequency hurts dogs ears so all the dogs in an area start howling causing complaints from the neighbors. 

So how they develop their "style" of wine is done by controlling what they can control and the following list is by no means all inclusive as there are other factors I am sure I have missed.

1.  Sugar content or Brix.  Determined to a large degree on the date of harvest or maturity of the grapes when they reach an "ideal" sugar concentration.

2.  Acid content.  Again determined by a variety of grape and again harvest date.

3.  Alcohol concentration.  Primarily determined by length and temperature of fermentation.  Most vineyards today try to control fermentation using temperature controlled fermentation tanks.  Fermentation is a chemical reaction which converts sugar to alcohol and causes heat which harms wine, even during fermentation.  Fermentation is stopped by putting a small amount of sulfur into the fermenting wine and fermentation stops.  So the Vitners can decide what concentration of alcohol do they want their wine to have and stop fermentation at that point.

4.  Tannin concentration.  Tannin is to a large degree a preservative for wine and can best be described as the bitter taste you get from tea.  Tannin is present in the grapes themselves, the branches and twigs, and the oak barrels used to age wine.  A Vitner can decide whether to allow twigs and branches into the vat when the wine ferments or not.  He also decides how long to leave the wine in contact with the oak wood in the barrels.  All of this changes how much tannin is in the wine.

5.  In the same vein oak aging is something that can be controlled.  Do the Vitners use French or American Oak barrels?  Do they throw wood chips into the barrels? How much do they toast or burn the inside of the barrels?  Some are now even experimenting with using computers to precisely carve the inside of the barrels with specific groove patterns to change the surface area of the barrel and hence the style of the wine.

6.  Body or concentration of the wine.  This is determined by length of time the wine is exposed to the skins while fermenting in the tank.  What develops is called "must" and the "must" can be left alone, wine drained off the bottom of the tank and poured on top of the must can be stirred, called "stirring the lee's" etc.  All of this determines how concentrated the color and body of the wine will be.

So a couple of examples.  One winemaker likes to grow Sauvignon Blanc grapes and likes drinking it with oysters and shellfish.  So he makes a bottle of wine with lower acid and alcohol with low tannin and low body that is light and great to drink with shellfish but would not expect to age well and would be consumed early after production.  Another winemaker, on the other hand, wants a bold heavy wine to drink with fatty cuts of steak, something that will cut the fat so to speak, so he grows Cabernet Sauvignon grapes and crafts the wine to have high alcohol, high tannin, high rich dark body that will age in the bottle for years.  Again both wines are great, just different styles.  And when we bring in Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, etc. etc. the "styles" of wine that can be made are almost infinite. 

So how is all of the above reflected in the price?  It is easy to understand that a wine that requires lots of labor, an example being hand sorting each individual grape and picking out the leaves and twigs prior to crushing, and time, an example aging the wine in barrels for 18 months or even years is going to be reflected in a higher price.  Just as a low alcohol wine where everything is thrown into the fermenting tank and then the wine is bottled immediately with no time in the barrel will reflect a much lower price.  In general, one can say wine that is made with time and skill can be expected to be a more complex and "better" wine but not always.  Nothing is 100%.  And some wines that are made cheaply and cost $8 a bottle can be a really good wine.  For the purposes of argument here is what I expect in a bottle of wine at various price points understanding again nothing is 100%.  Another factor is the area you live in.  In Northeast Florida where I live French wines are not particularly popular hence any you see are usually lower priced than elsewhere.

Less than $15 a bottle of wine

Generally, these are not the best wines.  I see a lot of $5 for sale and trust me I have never had one $5 or less worth drinking.  Though on occasion you will find a bottle of great wine at a low price.  New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc's come to mind as does Spanish Rioja's.  The absolute best bargain Chardonnay we have found lately is the 2016 Chateau St. Michelle from Washington State sold at Costco for under $8 a bottle. 

$15 to $30 a bottle of wine

As I see it this is the average price you will see in a wine shop or grocery store for average everyday table wine.  Most wines at this price point have had some thought given to harvest, sorting, and fermentation and many have had some barrel aging.  Occasionally you can find a spectacular wine and when these wines go on sale you can get some great savings.  These wines are not particularly complex or compelling to a wine expert but for the average wine drinker, they are good wines for most occasions.

$30 to $100 a bottle of wine

This is the starting price of what many would consider special occasion wines where they want to celebrate a birthday for example.  Usually, these wines are some of the more famous ones you hear about and many "reserve" wines.  The winemakers consider these wines their better ones and they will have had substantial work done to make them and usually longer barrel aging to further "craft" the wines.  I find this price point the best for Sparkling wine and Champagne.  Roderer Anderson Valley Sparkling wines can be found here and at this price point, most feel they are as good or better than the higher priced ones like Cristal.

$100 to $6000 or higher a bottle of wine

I have a broad range here I need to explain.  The vast majority of people are never going to drink wines more than $100 a bottle, especially the ones costing thousands.  And the question always comes up how can any wine be worth that much money.  The average drinker with minimal tasting experience cannot tell any difference.  But having had some of the more expensive wines I can say that many of them do have subtle differences that on rare occasion can come close to justifying their high costs.  These wines come from small unique plots of ground with a long history of exemplary wines made by legendary winemakers who are obsessed with making what seems at times impossible wines and have very low production bringing into play a clear supply and demand equation.  But I can also say that wines in the $100 range more often than not approach the level of the higher price ones.  A clear example here is based on a tasting I attended where Hall's Jack's Masterpiece Cabernet Sauvignon($150 a bottle) clearly was equal to the legendary Screaming Eagle and it is 5% of the cost of the Screaming Eagle($3000 a bottle).  At a recent auction, someone from China purchased one bottle of 1945 DRC for $450,000 and a second bottle for $550,000.  Trust me there is no way those wines taste that much different than Jack's masterpiece.  Both those wines are famous and were purchased for sentimental and maybe investment reasons and will never be opened and drunk as a rule.  If someone drinks them it will truly be a waste of money.  In the $100 to $200 area, you can find some wonderful Top Shelf French Champagnes like Taittinger Comtes De Champagne, Laurent Pierre Grand Siecle, and Krug Grande Cuvee, three of my favorites.  In my blog, I hope to direct you to those great wines that can compete with the more expensive ones at a price you can afford.