Why PF White Tastes Different

Why does our Preservative free white wine taste like nothing you have ever experienced before? Are you allowed to like it? Can we make wine that tastes good without using sulphur dioxide?

It's because the grapes are picked by people with a readdy smile

Answer:
At this stage there appear to be two alternative routes to produce preservative free white wine. 

1. Allow the wine to go through whatever yeast and bacterial fermentations are possible. Having got that out of the way, bottle the wine.  The wine should be stable.  By comparison with white wines produced in the usual fashion such a wine will show the influence of malolactic bacteria to a much greater extent.  There is a second, subtler advantage of this choice.  The MLF reduces the level of stale smelling SO2 binding compounds such as aldehydes and pyruvic acid.  Sulphur dioxide binds up these compounds and that makes the wine appear fresher.  By reducing the level of these compounds we reduce the need for Sulphur dioxide.  Paradoxically, if sulphur dioxide is used prior to fermentation to control yeasts and moulds in damaged grapes there will be much higher levels of these compounds in the wine after fermentation.  Is bacteria capable of eliminating this greater total?  I don’t know? Better, I think, to be producing lower levels by using sound hand picked grapes.
2. The alternative strategy to produce a sulphur dioxide free wine would involve close filtration and sterile bottling.  This would produce wines that more closely fitted the conventional mould and should probably be explored.  However, without sulphur dioxide in the bottle, the possibility of contamination of the wine by moulds and bacteria on glass, in the air and on the cork would be very high. The result could well be a high degree of random bottle variation and commercially unacceptable product.

My guess is that our procedure will produce a wine that will maintain it's typical character longer.  Our procedure will also produce a stable product less reliant upon filtration and also therefore less subject to bottle variation.

The consequences of this choice

Malolactic fermentation is conducted by some of the same bacteria involved in the making of cheese and yoghurt. The bacteria produce potent flavours in the process of converting malic acid to lactic. Neither the wine industry nor the dairy industry is aware of all the habits and proclivities of these bacteria.  Aware that their numbers keep growing even after all the malic acid is gone; we guess that they are working away at some other substrate.  We don't know which one though.  Close observation suggests that some of the characteristic buttery, diacetal flavours appear most strongly late in the ferment after malic acid has already disappeared.  It’s a jungle in there and we haven’t yet acquainted ourself with the habits of all these strains of bacteria.

It is very unusual to allow complete malolactic fermentation in white wine making.  A proportion of wood matured Chardonnays are sometimes allowed to go through malolactic ferment.  In these cases the greater proportion of the wine will not experience the fermentation and will retain its fresh grapey character.  In addition, yeast lees and oak flavours make strong contributions to the flavour of Chardonnay. Consequently, the malolactic flavours are relatively hidden, overlaid and truncated. Not so with our PF White which so far has been produced in stainless steel.  It's thoroughly infected, wholly fermented and exhibits the MLF character in abundance.

The malolactic fermentation has another benefit that you may find strange at first.  The wine will taste rather less acid.  The palate impression will be longer and smoother.  That is because the rather hard tasting malic acid has been converted to the softer tasting lactic acid.  You cannot make a great red wine without a malolactic ferment and those who produce the great Chardonnays of Burgundy would probably say the same about their own wines.

The upshot is that in our style of Preservative Free white wine you will be trying something quite new.  Flavours are more aligned with what you might experience in dairy products like cheese and yoghurt and less like the white wines that you are used to. The wine will appear softer in the acid dimension. The original grape character will be less pronounced. However, the stronger the character in the original grape, the more it will appear as a part of the finished wine. We have well flavoured grapes and we think that shows. The 99  is wholly Chardonnay and the 2000 is half Chardonnay and half Semillon. Semillon tends to be more aggressive in it's youth, showing some rather angular tannins but it matures very well.  It should be drunk from two years of age, just like a red wine.

This is frontier stuff. There are very few producers making preservative free wines. There are many more trying to be organic in the vineyard than there are trying to be natural in the winery. It's all part of the rich texture. For my money, the latter is the more direct approach to reducing the use of what might be called 'doubtful chemical' inputs.

A related diversion……doubtful chemical inputs!

By the way, I have read recently (cant quote chapter and verse) that what killed Beethoven (1770 - 1827) was the lead in the wine. Being a sickly fellow, and having to endure much pain, it was his custom to drink a couple of bottles of wine every day. The wine had lead in it, the water pipes and the roof had lots of lead and so did the drinking vessels of lead glazed pottery and high lead glass. The use of lead in wine pre dates the use of sulphur dioxide and that practice was well known to the pre Christian Romans. Humans are terribly manipulative types.  We are told that lead much improved the taste of wine giving it a softer fuller flavour.  I don't know whether lead has antibacterial properties like sulphur dioxide but would not be at all surprised if it did. Many compounds that might induce nothing worse in humans than bronchial discomfort, a nasal snort or a slight headache can be fatal to bacteria and insect life. In Beethoven's time fermentation was a complete mystery. Winemaking today owes much to Louis Pasteur who drew aside the veil on yeast and bacteria in 1866.

Having started making preservative free wines and discovering that there are people keen to buy them, we continue in our efforts to learn how best to do the job. Our first PF Red was made in 1994. Selecting the grapes to use is a big consideration. Big tannins are something to avoid in a wine that cannot be deliberately oxidised. Mechanical harvesting or diseased fruit is out of the question.  In the 2001 vintage we tried to incorporate some oak flavours by fermenting some of the wine in new oak. The grape mix changes a little each year. We are actually planting vines specifically for this wine, namely tempranillo, grenache and pinot noir.

Summing up

As indicated above, were we to place our trust wholly in filtration we could perhaps produce a white and a red free of sulphur dioxide without a molalactic fermentation. The reason why we allow the malolactic is because we know that the bacteria actually use up some of the substrates that soak up the chemical when it is traditionally applied straight after the yeast fermentation. If we were to be using Sulphur dioxide we would need much less post malolactic than pre. This is the reason why wines that all go through the MLF need much less sulphur dioxide than wines that do not, typically 50 p.p.m. at bottling rather than twice that level. I reason that if we choose a stage in the evolution of a wine where it needs the least amount of sulphur dioxide then we are more likely to get away with the use of none at all.

Secondly, sulphur dioxide is quite insidious.  The more one uses prior to fermentation, the more one needs following it, because, as sulphur dioxide binding compounds are formed during fermentation they are grabbed by the chemical and persist in greater amounts in the finished wine.

And, are you allowed to like the wine? It's really a question of personal taste. If you don't like it, rest assured, its taste is not due to sloppy wine making or lousy grapes. Actually the reverse is the case.

Erl Happ  October 2001

PS The 99 wine, 100% Chardonnay is as fresh as a daisy. The 2000 is just beginning to show some of the typical bottle development that we expect from our Semillon, a fresh straw colour without a skerrick of browning that might indicate oxidation. The MLF character, quite dominant soon after bottling, is merging into the background yielding a toasty yeastiness typical of quality Champagne. In my view it is just beginning to show it's potential