Remember Ernest and Julio Gallo’s old-time TV commercials. We will sell no wine until it’s time? I know I have said over and over again no one makes bad wine anymore. Winemakers don’t get up in the morning and say let's see how we can make cheap undrinkable wine today. In fact, I am certain they say the exact opposite. What can I do today to make the next great 100-point wine in the world? To a point wine making technique is pretty much made the same the world over. Close to 100% of winemakers graduate from the University with a degree in winemaking. The most famous most of us know is the University of California at Davis. And even after that many winemakers continue to go to school. In Burgundy, France all winemakers are required to take a specific one-year winemaking course peculiar to the Burgundy region.
So if no one makes bad wine why am I dedicating a new article to the subject? Last month I went to a charity function and as part of the games and prizes offered was a ring toss game where when your ring landed on a bottle of wine you won that bottle or any one of your choosing. As part of the game, there were approximately 50 different wines to throw your ring at. As I watched the festivities I realized I would never buy or drink any of those wines and there were quite a few to choose from. So if none of them were bad why would I not want any of them? I sort of felt a dilemma coming on and frankly, maybe my own opinion was hypocritical.
So what is going on? I have been to vineyards all over the wine and spent weeks watching and learning how winemakers make wine and especially their philosophies on how to craft a specific style of wine. After thought, it dawned on me basically why these lower-priced and less recognizable wines are there and I for one am, not interested in buying or drinking them, it really goes back to the Ernest and Julio Gallo commercial. They will sell no wine “before it’s time”. Making good wine takes a lot of time, years sometime, and can be very expensive. The key to making great wine is harvesting wine when the grapes have grown to perfect maturation. Winemakers have all kinds of tools to help them make the decision as to when to pick the grapes. They have computers that track the day-to-day weather changes and compare them to years past to get a read on what is going to be the best day to pick. They use Brix meters, a small tool with a needle they stick into a grape to measure the sugar or Brix level in the grape. The better ones who have been around a lifetime put a raw grape in their mouths and taste the grape which elevates it to an art form. Winemakers know that the best day to pick is at optimal maturation which means just the right amount of sugar concentration in the grape that when fermented will produce the best wine.
So what do the less expensive wine makers do? They pick the grapes early and pick before optimal sugar maturation has occurred. Time is money so they pick too early but not so early that the wine is not at least good. They also don’t spend a lot of time aging wines or pampering the wines in the production facility. The way they make wine is to speed up the process to get the wines in the bottle and onward to your wine shop in the shortest time they can get away with. Hence drinkable pleasant wine but nothing that will age or get any better and those wines will certainly never develop with complexity.
No the wine is not bad. But it is picked and made fast before the grapes have had enough time to mature to perfection. Ernest and Julio Gallo were right on. You don’t pick and make wine before it’s time. It’s funny but as a physician, I am aware that most medical schools in the world have a minimum age to enter medical school so that you have a minimal level of maturity to excel at the medical curriculum in regards to not only the technical aspects of medicine but also to be able to have a level of emotional and spiritual maturing to deal with the rigors of day to day practice. I have not heard anyone say they cannot wait to see the new 16-year-old doctor even though he is probably a genius having graduated from high school at 10.
