Received thinking in the wine trade these days is that what goes on in the vineyard is more important than what happens in the cellar. It’s all part of the triumph of terroir, the quasi-spiritual French idea that what makes a really great wine – or, these days, coffee, tea or crisps – is that it tastes of where it comes from.
Which is fine up to a point: but it does overlook the significant advances made in what has been a bit of a golden age for creative viniculture (what happens after the grapes are picked), with producers playing with the raw material in ever more ingenious, sensitive ways.
One fashionable technique guaranteed to get a wine geek going is whole bunch fermentation, where winemakers include the stems of the grape bunch along with the grapes in the tank when fermenting red wines. It’s not entirely new: until the advent of the crusher and de-stemming machine in the 19th century, all wines would have been made with the stems. But standard practice since then has been, for the most part, to work with the grapes alone, with the stems deemed to bring a green, unripe flavour.
What’s different about today’s practitioners is the refinement that comes from using only the properly ripe stems of each bunch. And when it all comes together, particularly in wines made from syrah, grenache and pinot noir, the wines have a kind of limpid grace with a relative lightness of colour and alcohol, and a distinctive freshness and complexity.
A similar technique having a bit of a moment is carbonic maceration, which involves fermenting whole, intact grapes, rather than crushing them beforehand, in a closed vat with carbon dioxide. It’s popular with the sulphur-phobic natural wine movement, which has given the technique a twist by adding cold dry ice to help cool down the fermenting mix. That means wines with extra floral-spicy dimensions when compared with the traditional bright, fruity but simple beaujolais nouveau wines.
In Italy, meanwhile, the use of air-dried, raisined grapes in red wines, famous for bringing extra richness, and dark cherry-chocolate bittersweetness in the ripasso and amarone wines of Valpolicella near Verona, has taken off throughout the peninsula. Not least with affordable appassimento versions of primitivo in Puglia and nero d’avola in Sicily, and inspired winemakers in Argentina, Australia, and the US, too.
Producers have been equally creative with white grapes. Inspired by the vins jaunes of the Jura in eastern France and by fino and manzanilla sherry, a handful of producers, from south-west France to Argentina, are working to make dry white wines that age under a thick layer of yeast – known as flor in Jerez sherry country – bringing savoury-yeasty tanginess. Other producers are playing with the herby, spicy characters and red-wine-like tannic textures (and coppery colours) that come with leaving the skins of white grapes in contact with the juice for days, weeks, or even months.
So yes, let’s celebrate terroir. But let’s not forget the sometimes dirty, behind-the-scenes work of the vignerons.
Six of the best
Tesco Beaujolais Villages France 2018 (£7, Tesco)
Consistently one of the best-value wines in the Tesco range, this superior budget beaujolais is made using semi-carbonic maceration of the local gamay grape, which leads to a vibrant and vividly red-fruited, crunchy light red for chilling before sipping.
Nero Oro Appassimento Terre Siciliane, Sicily, Italy 2018 (£9.99, or £8.99 as part of a mixed six, majestic.co.uk; nakedwines.com)
An excellent-value Sicilian example of appassimento winemaking, which uses grapes that have been dried for months to concentrate flavours, leading, in this case, to a rich plummy, figgy, dark cherry-chocolate indulgence.
Bosman Fides Grenache Blanc Wellington, South Africa 2016 (from £17.50, woodwinters.com; thegoodwineshop.co.uk)
The white grenache blanc grapes have a long fermentation with the skins for four weeks, bringing a gentle orange tinge to the colour and some fine mouth-gripping tannins with intriguing pithy and Campari-bitterness, along with peachy fruit. A seriously food-friendly wine.
Silwervis Smiley Chenin Blanc V4 Swartland, South Africa NV (from £18.50, vincognito.co.uk; shop.vinoteca.co.uk; handford.net)
Part of this superb dry white blend of four vintages is, like fino sherry, aged under a layer of flor yeast, adding textural complexity to a zingy mouthful of stone fruit and nuttiness.
Domaine Guyon Bourgogne Rouge Burgundy, France 2016 (£35, bbr.com)
Many whole-bunch advocates will have just a percentage of the final blend made with the stems included; Domaine Guyon likes to go 100%, and its wines, such as this gorgeous pinot noir, have a lovely balance of fleshy-succulence, clarity and energy.
AR Lenoble Brut Intense Champagne, France NV (from £31, thechampagnecompany.com; stannarywine.com)
The réserve perpetuelle, a store of old wines topped up with new wine each year, is a fascinating winemaking fashion in Champagne, with AR Lenoble’s superbly vital, rich but incisive fizz an example of how it can add depth and life to non-vintage fizz.
