As harvest descends upon us in Sonoma County and we begin shepherding yeast to produce wine we turn our attention to the idea of intervention in winemaking.

Wineries frequently advertise minimalist winemaking, gentle handling, little to no intervention, and a hands off approach as methods for producing wines of terroir.  This assumes that little to no intervention is 1) practiced, and 2) valuable to driving what makes wines terrific.  To some extent I completely agree, one of the definitions of great fruit is that there is little required in the cellar to transform it to great wine.  But has the idea of “minimalistic” been framed in terms that are too black and white?  It seems we have begun to couch the discussion in two camps: those who highly intervene making wines of effort and those who do very little – native ferments, “gentle” pump overs or punch downs, and other minimal handling of the grapes.  The former is considered antithetical to producing a wine of terroir, and the latter the prescription for producing a wine of terroir.

Now I agree that less is more: fewer additions of water, acid, yeast, bacteria, tannins, enzymes, velcorin, etc. generally affords one the ideal opportunity to make a wine that Continue reading →