What’s in your wine?

(A version of this article first appeared in The Weekend Australian A Plus section on 31 December 2011)

photo: Adrian Lander

Poor old wine. As we slosh our way through the festive season, our favourite Coonawarra cabernet is no doubt copping more than its fair share of blame for the headaches and hangovers we are currently enduring.

Some people identify the wine’s alcohol - specifically the alcohol in that fifth glass of Coonawarra cabernet - as the cause of our predicament. But many accuse the ‘other stuff’ in wine of making us feel bad: it must have been the preservatives/the additives/the sulphur dioxide - that’s why my head hurts this morning.

There is a widespread view out there among the wine-drinking community that the additives and processing aids routinely used in wine production have a detrimental effect on the drinker. There is also growing anxiety about what exactly is being added to Australian wine in the first place, and the detrimental effect this is having on wine’s image.

Consumer concern couldn’t have been expressed any more alarmingly than in a recent news headline in The Australian: ‘Nod for laxative chemical to be used in winemaking’. The chemical in question is sodium carboxymethylcellulose, or CMC, a thickener, already used in a huge range of products from toothpaste to ice cream (and, yes, laxatives) which has also just been approved as a wine additive by Food Standards Australia New Zealand. Despite wine industry assurances that CMC is harmless, the headline underlines that niggling worry; I mean, sodium carboxymethylcellulose ... it just sounds so unnatural.

One of the reasons people are worried about what’s in their wine is the fact that very little information about what’s in their wine appears on the label. Other than listing mandatory information such as alcohol content and the presence or even possible presence of widely-recognised allergens - sulphur dioxide (added as a preservative) and milk, eggs or nuts (used as clarifying agents) - the winemaker is not required to declare any of the dozens of approved additives or processing aids allowed by FSANZ.

A few months ago, when I wrote about the possible approval of CMC and whether such additives should be listed on wine labels, I asked readers for feedback. I was inundated with emails: it appears the vast majority of you would indeed like to see ingredients labelling on wine.

Two areas of concern emerged: health issues associated with drinking wine ‘laden’ with chemicals, and the perception of winemaking as an increasingly industrialized process.

“There is no doubt in my mind that the amount of chemicals in wine impacts on my health,” said one reader, echoing many. “There are times I can drink three glasses of wine from a bottle and wake up fine, and then other nights when I have three from another wine I wake up with a splitting headache. I feel very strongly that the Government has been criminally negligent in not legislating to have every single additive displayed on the label of all food [because] wine is a food as far as I am concerned - it goes into my digestive system!”

Creina Stockley, health and regulatory information manager for the Australian Wine Research Institute, hears similar concerns all the time. She points out that, while a few people are genuinely allergic to some wine additives (primarily sulphur dioxide), by far the primary cause of adverse reactions is - ahem - the alcohol, present in far higher concentration than any other component in wine. In other words, she says, it is highly unlikely that processing aids or additives are the wicked culprits they’re often made out to be.

But health isn’t the only thing you’re concerned about. The perceived over-manipulation of wine also threatens its image as a natural product.

One veteran winemaker wrote in to voice his contempt at the approval of CMC as a wine additive. “The search for more and more processing aids [like this] is driven by the commercial need to make an acceptable wine from fruit that has been either grown in an inappropriate climate, harvested too early or too late or converted to wine by incompetent winemaking,” he harrumphed. “Grapes harvested at physiological ripeness and handled by a competent winemaker should not need that many additives or enhancements to ‘improve’ quality. The addition of [CMC to the list] will further strengthen the perception (particularly overseas) that Australian wine is too ‘manufactured’.”

Many readers agreed, advocating labeling. “I think it’s only fair that we wine drinkers should be able to easily tell which winemakers are brave enough to let the grapes speak for themselves, rather than manipulate the juice to fit their ideal through the use of a cocktail of chemicals,” wrote one. “I travel to many wine producing regions,” wrote another “and if a winery promoted that it was limiting what additives it used I would make sure I visited there before less additive-friendly wineries”.

Katrina Birchmeier of Hobart’s Garagistes restaurant, which prides itself on its list of natural, additive-free wine, is adamant: “I definitely think that wines should be required to state on their labels all the ingredients used in the wine making process. I'm sure it would cause great uproar across the Australian winemaking industry. But if producers are willing to put this stuff into their wine (and drink it themselves), then why should they be scared to put it on a label? Consumers need to be able to make an informed choice.”

Some readers, however, felt that full disclosure is not the best way to address consumer concerns - and could even make matters worse.

“No, wine makers should not list all the ingredients and processing aids,” wrote one reader, an industrial chemist. “Take diammonium phosphate. That sounds like a ‘chemical’, so it must be bad for you, right? In fact it’s a yeast nutrient and there’s none left in the wine by the end of the fermentation process. I'm sure that the more these additives are referred to in 'chemical' terms, the more the public will view the product as synthetic rather than natural. To reduce a wine to a list of its component ingredients is to reduce it to a science, not to elevate the art. As some great salesman once said, ‘Sell the sizzle, not the steak.’”

Winemaker Frank van de Loo from Mount Majura vineyard in Canberra has a similar if slightly different view: while he doesn’t think ingredients labeling is necessary, he’s all for transparency - and has even done something about it.

“I think if we winemakers are going to bandy big chemical names about,” he says, “we need to help people know what they are and what they are there for.”  So he has set up What’s In Wine, a blog that acts as a “plain-English (and slightly opinionated) guide” to wine additives and processing aids.

If you are at all concerned about this topic, or if you want to learn exactly what additives are available to winemakers, van de Loo’s blog is worth reading, as is the list of health-related FAQs on the Australian Wine Research Institute’s web site. Neither will put you off your wine entirely - but they might inspire you to seek out wines that haven’t been buggered-around with too much.

WHAT’S IN MY WINE? YOUR QUESTIONS ANSWERED

Why do some wines cause me problems while I have absolutely no problem with others?

“Unfortunately,” says Creina Stockley, “there is no satisfactory answer to this question. There are very few actual allergens in wine, the main one being sulphur dioxide (and other sulphites used as preservatives). But the majority of people aren’t allergic to sulphites; there’s not even a huge number of people who are intolerant.” So we can rule out sulphites as the bad guy? Well, yes - and besides, she says, wine contains relatively low levels of sulphites: you’ll find more in supermarket sausages or burgers, and much more - ten times the amount - in dried apricots or sliced apple. Stockley suggests that different wines affecting people in different ways is more likely to be caused by compounds derived from the grapes themselves. “There are hundreds of naturally occurring compounds in wine,” she says. “It’s very hard to pinpoint how they interact - and how the food you’re eating reacts with them. And there are so many other factors to take into account: as you get older your body handles the alcohol less well; for women, hormones play an enormous part; it could even come down to lack of sleep: how tired you are when you drink the wine.”

I can drink European wine without any side-effects but Australian wine gives me a headache. Do European wines contain fewer chemicals?

No. Contrary to popular opinion, it’s just not true that European wines contain fewer additives than their Australian counterparts. “It’s a myth,” confirms Stockley. “Australia’s standards are aligned with European standards: they can add the same things we can.” In other words, cheap industrial wine is cheap industrial wine, regardless of where it’s from. Indeed, says Stockley, the recent approval by FSANZ of carboxymethylcellulose was in part to bring our standards in line with the rest of the world: CMC is already an allowed wine additive in many other countries. Instead, Stockley suspects people’s different experiences drinking Australian and European wines may again be down to varying natural constituents in the wine derived from different soils and the use of different grape varieties.

If a wine is labeled ‘organic’ does that mean it contains no added chemicals?

Not necessarily. Just fewer added chemicals. Australian organic certifying organisations do allow some additives such as sulphur dioxide but in lower doses than in ‘conventional’ winemaking: according to the AWRI web site, “the amount of sulphur dioxide which can be added to ‘organic’ wines is approximately 50 per cent less than that which can be added to ‘non-organic’ wines.” And, to be fair, conscientious, quality-minded ‘conventional’ wine producers also try to limit the additions to a fraction of what’s allowed by FSANZ.

So ‘organic wines’ aren’t the same as ‘preservative-free’ wines?

No. You can find many organic wines that do contain low levels of sulphites - and you can find wines labelled ‘preservative-free’ that are made from conventionally-grown grapes. However, in my experience the best preservative-free wines are made by certified organic producers: Botobolar and Lowe in Mudgee; Temple Bruer in Langhorne Creek and Battle of Bosworth in McLaren Vale. 

Margaret River's worst kept secret

If I asked you to name the top cabernet sauvignon producers in Margaret River, you’d probably rattle off Moss Wood and Cullen without blinking. And for good reason. But does the name Woodlands also spring to mind? If not, it should, because Woodlands cabernet easily equals the region’s - the country’s - best.

I can understand why this vineyard hasn’t developed the household name status it deserves: it’s hard to build a reputation with more than a decade gap in full commercial production.

Things started well: the vineyard was planted by David and Heather Watson in 1974 with cuttings provided by legendary winemaker Jack Mann, and when a Woodlands cabernet won three best-of-show trophies in 1982 it helped catapult Margaret River to national prominence.

But from 1988, while the Watsons put their kids through school and uni, the vineyard was leased and most of the fruit sold, with Woodlands grapes anonymously ending up in other producers’ wines. It wasn’t until the early 2000s, when sons Stuart and Andrew became involved in the business, that more and more of the Woodlands grapes started being made into Woodlands wines at the family winery.

I caught up with the Watson boys recently and was blown away both by the quality of the wines and the enthusiasm they share for their vineyard. They are very different souls: Andrew, who studied to be a lawyer, is excitable and talks a million miles a minute. Stuart, who worked as a brick cleaner and windscreen fitter before taking up winemaking, is solid and laconic but no less passionate.

‘We grew up surrounded by Margaret River locals, grapegrowers and winemakers, and were always being told that we had the best vineyard in Australia,’ says Andrew. ‘With that kind of self-belief, you can make things happen.’

‘Every time I walk out of the winery,’ says Stuart, ‘there’s this one spot on the path that looks down across the vineyard where I think: holy shit, this place is awesome! How great is it that I get to do what I do?’

The current release Woodlands reds are all excellent, across a wide price spectrum. If you’re a serious wine nut with a cellar and a bit of cash, you simply must splash out on the 2008 ‘Shelley Anne’ Cabernet Sauvignon (around $100): from the original block of low-yielding, dry-grown vines, this exceptionally fine, cedary, balanced wine will mature gracefully for 20 years or more. If you’re looking for a special dinner party wine, the 2008 ‘Margaret’ Reserve Cabernet Merlot  (around $40) is more generous right now, with wonderfully complex black olive and chocolate richness. And if you’re into good value Margaret River red for more frequent drinking, then the 2009 Cabernet Merlot (around $21 and available from quite a few retailers including the Dan Murphys chain) delivers in spades: intense, elegant blackcurrant fruit and fine, savoury tannins.

More: www.woodlandswines.com.au

(This article was first published in the Weekend Australian on 17 September 2011)

And the winners are ... best wines from the 2011 Australia / New Zealand Organic Wine Show

This is my pick of the best wines from the 2011 Australia/New Zealand Organic Wine Show, which was judged by myself and four others in Sydney on Monday September 26.

GOLD MEDALS and TROPHIES

2009 Lowe Zinfandel, Mudgee - BEST RED, WINE OF SHOW

An excellent expression of zinfandel, and a testament to the quality of the Lowe vineyard in Mudgee: dark, dense and brooding, it has lots of woody-spicy fruit framed in a complex, dusty tannin structure.

2011 Battle Of Bosworth Puritan Shiraz, McLaren Vale - BEST PRESERVATIVE FREE WINE

This preservative-free red fair bursts out of the glass: heaps of joyful black fruit, but layers, too, of more complex flavour - garrigue (wild thyme, dried oregano) and game (rare seared venison, I think).

2009 Tamburlaine Noble Chardonnay, Orange - BEST WHITE           

A glorious sticky for sipping with rich parfait and brioche toast: super-rich and peachy to start - almost like apricot syrup - it finishes with, and is balanced by, fresh citrusy acidity.

BEST OF THE REST

2011 Thistle Hill Riesling, Mudgee - SILVER MEDAL

A good follow-on from the trophy-winning 2009, this lean and savoury riesling has lovely crystalline green acid line and structure. Should develop well in the cellar.

2008 Robinvale Wines Kerner, Robinvale - SILVER MEDAL

A perennial favourite at this and other shows: rich fruit flavours, like mandarin juice and butterscotch, balanced by fresh acidity. Very drinkable wine.

2009 Ascella Semillon, Hunter Valley - SILVER MEDAL

Gently easing into what looks like being a happy life as a classic Hunter sem: some tangy lemony richness, developing classic waxy complexity and length.           

2010 The Millton Vineyard Riverpoint Viognier, Gisborne, NZ - SILVER MEDAL

Bloody ripper of a viognier, this: rich and creamy, honeyed and fine, with lovely weight and complexity.

2011 Salena Estate Ink Series Vermentino, Riverland - SILVER MEDAL

Some of the judges thought this was one of the best examples of Australian vermentino they’d ever seen: crisp green apple and feijoa fruit; bright, chalky texture.

2010 Richmond Plains Pinot Noir, Nelson, NZ - SILVER MEDAL           

Terrific, lighter style of pinot that screams its origins: juicy, sappy, herbal, powdery, some beetroot juice, rhubarb, forest floor and tamarillo. Phew ...

2008 Cape Jaffa Wines Cabernet Sauvignon, Mount Benson - SILVER MEDAL

Tastes more like a big Spanish red (think Toro, Ribera del Duero) than a typical Limestone Coast cab, but loadsa fun: mocha oak, blackcurranty fruit, ample sooty tannin.

2004 Temple Bruer Reserve Cabernet Petit Verdot, Langhorne Creek - SILVER MEDAL

This rang many judges’ bells because it has more than a touch of mature Bordeaux about it: cedary oak, dark, licoricey blackcurrant fruit, savoury tannins.

BUT NOT LEAST ...

I thought the following two wines were very good indeed, but my fellow judges weren’t quite so enamoured. Both wines are quite tight, tannic and savoury. I perceived these qualities as positive expressions of terroir and vineyard; other judges perceived them as ‘lacking varietal character and fruit’. As I was totally out on my own on this one, I had little chance of talking all of my fellow jurors round - I’m no Henry Fonda - and, after all, the whole point of having multi-person panels in wine shows, surely, is to encourage consensus, not bullies. But I thought I’d tell you about them all the same. Just in case, like me, you like tight, tannic, savoury wines.

2010 Switch Organic Wine Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills           

From a new label on the organic wine scene, Switch’s pinot is all about powdery tannin, dried herb aromatics, brooding black fruit and cellaring potential - classic Hills pinot characters, really, I would argue.

           

2009 Lowe Wines Reserve Shiraz, Mudgee

I thought this wine was stunning; it certainly had a very commanding presence. Tight and sinewy, with iodine and black soil and graphite rippling though it, it’s a wine I’d love to have in my cellar.

Rain stops play? How biodynamic and organic vineyards fared in 2011

It started last November. Back when the heavens opened on vineyards across south-eastern Australia, bringing every grape-grower’s worst nightmare: the triple fungal whammy of downy mildew, then powdery mildew and, finally, botrytis.

When the downy first appeared - as distinctive yellow ‘oil spots’ on the vine leaves - I heard a winemaker utter a phrase that would be repeated across the industry time and time again: “This is one year you really wouldn’t want to be organic or biodynamic.” By the end of the wettest, most disease-ridden vintage since 1974, this view seemed to have become accepted wisdom: that unless you used systemic chemical fungicides during the growing season, 2011 was a write-off.

But is that true? After speaking to dozens of Australia’s organic and biodynamic winegrowers it is clear that, on the whole, they did not fare any worse than their chemically-assisted counterparts. Indeed, in some instances, being organic or biodynamic has been beneficial.

Sure, there are stories of total or near-total crop loss in organic and biodynamic vineyards. The Cooper family at the recently-certified Cobaw Ridge vineyard in the Macedon Ranges, for example, did not pick one grape - partly because the incessant rain made it so hard to get into the vineyard to work and partly because they refused to resort to systemic chemicals: “If we had it would have meant loss of our organic status for three years,” says Alan Cooper. “And we have invested too much emotionally to go back to the start.”

The Baldasso family at Protero in the Adelaide Hills also eventually succumbed to mildew rather than lose their biodynamic certification: they managed to pick just a couple of tones of pinot noir and cabernet, but this may not be released under the Protero label. “Vintage was a disaster for us,” admits Rosemary Baldasso.

It was a similar story for Julian Castagna in Beechworth: “We discarded more than 60 per cent of our grapes on the sorting table - and what wine we have made is not typical and therefore unlikely to be released as Castagna.”

But “disasters” like this aren’t limited to organic or biodynamic growers by any means: plenty of “conventional” vineyards that were sprayed with synthetic chemicals also lost some, most, or all of their crop. It was, remember, the vintage from hell - as Julian Castagna points out, “We had more rain between the end of November and the middle of March than we've had in the last 10 years.”

And for every tale of woe, there is at least one tale of survival. Larry Jacobs from Hahndorf Hill reports that a spray regime consisting solely of organic-approved doses of sulphur and copper and applications of biodynamic preparations resulted in minimal crop losses for most varieties - particularly the Austrian grapes gruner veltliner and blaufrankisch - and that, thanks to rigorous fruit selection, “what ended up in the tanks is really excellent.”

Some growers are even more positive. “We came through vintage 2011 with some of the best fruit we have seen for years,” says Sue Carpenter of the certified-biodynamic Lark Hill vineyard in Canberra. “Acid levels were high, fruit flavours were pristine and delicate, sugar levels were moderate.”

Biodynamic Barossa winegrower Troy Kalleske is more cautious in his assessment. “Overall we fared pretty well this vintage,” he says. “Some wines are good, some great and a couple so-so. There were some people in the region who thought the Kalleskes would be screwed this year and it’s quite the contrary. We just did our usual biodynamic spraying regime, but just a couple more times than normal. And we were able to pick all of our blocks - unlike many vineyards in the Barossa, who sprayed up to 15 times with chemicals, and still ended up dropping grapes on the ground or leaving them hanging.

“People think that organics is only good in an easy growing season but I think the opposite: that a tough, wet, disease-prone season is really where organics comes into play. I do genuinely believe that because we have been farming this way for so long now, the health of the soil has given the vines a natural resilience.”

Angove winemaker Tony Ingle is also impressed with how the company’s certified organic block at Nanya vineyard in the Riverland and the biodynamically-farmed shiraz in McLaren Vale held up this year.

“There were a few revelations,” he says. “Firstly, the vine leaves appeared to be sturdier and more resistant to disease pressure in the organic blocks. Secondly, we noticed with the shiraz that the skins seemed thicker than conventional fruit. Not just on our own vineyard: we took fruit from other growers, and saw the same thing, where organic fruit came in fine and other fruit was rejected. And we also discovered that some organic certified fungicides worked better than the synthetic chemical products - and we ended up using them instead on the conventional vineyards towards the end of the season.”

According to Yalumba winemaker Heather Fraser, the various South Australian growers who supply fruit for the company’s range of organic wines fared no worse - and in some cases better than - “conventional” growers.

“On the whole, the organic and biodynamic vineyards took longer (if at all) to show signs of disease than neighbouring non-organic vineyards,” says Heather. “The biodynamic chardonnay vineyard, for example, was almost the only Riverland chardonnay block to show no sign of powdery mildew. And in the Pewsey Vale Contours vineyard in Eden Valley, which is in the first year of conversion to organic and biodynamic management, we saw no disease other than a small percentage of botrytis, and there was no significant difference between this and the conventionally managed blocks.”

So, yes, 2011 was as challenging for organic and biodynamic growers in the south-east as it was for everyone else. But a total write-off? Not at all.

(This article was first published in Gourmet Traveller WINE magazine in August 2011)

Into the mystic

Agricultural scientist John Gladstones is a demi-god in Australian wine circles. A thesis he wrote in the 1960s helped to inspire the establishment of the Margaret River wine region, and his 1992 book, Viticulture and Environment, is regarded as a seminal work. Given Gladstones’ status, his new book, Wine Terroir and Climate Change, will no doubt be read as gospel. Appropriately, it tackles some very big themes.

Like a one-man IPCC, Gladstones has waded through the climate literature and concluded that not only is global warming not as bad as we’ve been told, but climate variability is natural, none of it’s caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gases, and the next few decades are likely to be cooler.

In other words, don’t panic.

This is a view that will no doubt provide succour for many - despite the fact that it contradicts the work of almost every other scientist involved in wine-related climate research.

I’m sure many people will also agree with Gladstones’s stand on organic and biodynamic, or “BD” viticulture. Being a natural-BD-wine-loving old hippy, of course, I don’t.

Gladstones supports the pragmatic, quantifiable aspects of organics - improving wine quality, for example, through composting. But he dismisses biodynamics, with its homeopathic preparations and following of lunar cycles, as “nonsense”: “rituals” practiced by “true believers”. And he warns, gravely, that because BD is founded on the ideas of controversial philosopher Rudolf Steiner - “medieval superstitions that science has long superseded” - adopting BD in the vineyard is but one step away from practicing witchcraft or sacrificing virgins: “[It is] an unhealthy retreat into irrationality and mysticism, such as the world has too much suffered from in the past. [It has] no valid place in an enlightened 21st century.”

I think he’s missing the point. He’s not asking the human question: if there’s no place for mysticsm and irrationality in our oh-so-modern world why are so many of us attracted to biodynamics? Could it be that we feel dissatisfied with the too-rational approach to grape growing and winemaking? Could it be that we are yearning for greater depth, beauty, and even spiritual nourishment from the wine we drink?

Ironically, Gladstones himself answered these questions two decades ago in Viticulture and Environment: “Post-industrial man is instinctively returning (to wine) as a remaining link with the natural world,” he wrote, “as an antidote to the barbarity of his mechanistic surroundings. Quality in wine is an artistic goal in its own right. Like other artistic goals to which humans aspire, it is a civilizing influence. The world needs such influences.”

Indeed we do. Even if they’re irrational. Or a bit mystical.

(This article was first published in The Weekend Australian Magazine on 6 August, 2011)