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Wednesday, November 29, 2017

Katherine Cole on Black Chardonnay

My husband forwarded me this link Meet Black Chardonnay written by Katherine Cole (author of the book Voodoo Vintners). Both of us read it with a lot of interest. Since we vinified our first small batch of Chardonnay this year, we know that turning Chardonnay grapes into wine can be tricky if we want our wine to age well.
The question is: reductive or oxidative strategy?
Professor Denis Dubourdieu and Dr. Valérie Lavigne researched the recent propensity of Chardonnay in Burgundy to succumb to premature oxidation and I wrote about their research in a blogpost that I called How to Prevent Premox in White Wines.
Answer: Keep it reductive. So consequently, winemakers struggled mightily to keep oxygen out of their winemaking regime. Press gently, keep oxygen away from the must!
Now, however, Katherine Cole writes about the black Chardonnay movement. This is NOT the "benign oxidation" browning, that our class reached a consensus on, as a good thing, in our online U.C. Davis course while reading and discussing the seminal article written by V. Schneider called Must Hyperoxidation: A Review.
In a technique used in Burgundy some 60, 70 or 80 years ago on Chardonnay, you must crush, grind, shred and hard press the resultant pulp in order to get this black must. This heavy handed treatment removes those phenols that cause astringency and bitterness as a precipitate, leaving the juice clear. It also removes phenols that become prone to browning through oxidation.
This technique is being practiced by winemakers in Oregon with amazing results. My husband looked up OO Wines that is using this methodology on their Chardonnay, but it cost $65.00, a little too rich for our tastes. I did try to convince him that we needed to purchase a bottle for "research purposes".

References:
1. Katherine, Cole, Meet Black Chardonnay, SevenFiftyDaily, August 3, 2017.
2. V. Schneider, Must Hyperoxidation: A Review, Am. J. Enol. Vitic., Vol. 49, No. 1, 1998.

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