Last Saturday, after our presentation on winegrapes growing, vineyard management and wine making at MiraCosta college in Oceanside, I found myself explaining our minimalist approach to grape growing and winemaking to the winemaking students. I told them that our philosophy was to grow grapes and produce wine as naturally as possible. Over the years, we had benefited from experimentation. In the final analysis though, after blind tasting our “natural” wines and wines that had been “adjusted”, we liked our “natural” wines a lot better because they retained the body, fruitiness, bouquet and natural flavors that the “adjusted” wines lacked. Although we cannot proclaim that we practice 100% organic and biodynamic viticulture, we can say that we focus on making wine as naturally as possible. It’s like the difference between a well cooked meal prepared with only fresh wholesome basic ingredients vs. trying to attain the same natural taste by cutting few corners and then relying on artificial enhancers to provide the ‘Missing’ flavor. You just can’t duplicate some natural occurring flavors, aromas, mouth feel, and other intrinsic qualities in wine via artificial means……. In our humble opinion.
My final advice to them was to start with high quality wine grapes at the desired Brix level as the best wines were made in the vineyard.
