Maynard's Merkin Vineyards knock harvest over on September 11th
by PHILIP WHITE
Whitey! It's been a strange blessed vintage," Arizona mountaintop winemaker Maynard James Keenan reports.
"I try to ignore the fright feed from all over the shifting globe. I have this nibbling at my earlobe feeling that it's a universal wrap. We're the clown band on the Titanic arguing over a set list.
"Having said that," he continues, playing sweeter music to my ears: "I put what I learned in 2015 to work. That year I picked everything earlier than has ever been advised. 22-23.5 brix (roughly 12-13ᵒ Baumé) across the board."
Depending on the efficiency of the yeast, one degree Baumé ferments to one per cent alcohol in a dry wine.
These figures pull focus through the murky past, searching out alcohol numbers of a sensible modesty perhaps best called pre-Parker. Before his retirement, that single USA critic was responsible, accidentally, for warning the wine world of one of the primary results of global warming, a vector which far too many ridiculed.
It seemed that Robert Parker Jr. could barely appreciate any red below 15% alcohol: his years of preaching saw alcohol levels soar internationally, as fawning winemakers competed to make bigger and bolder booze in pursuit of that elusive, life-changing, perfect 100-point Parker score.
Now that changing weather and climate means many winemakers can get those 100-point alcohols without trying, there's nobody nearly so influential, fortunately, standing in the Parker power spot.
Except perhaps Maynard himself. Along with fellow thespian Sam Neill he must be one of the world's most famous winemakers, if not yet as influential within that community as he deserves to be. It's a bad mistake to write this bloke off as a very successful rock star.
Maynard knows his moves. He thinks with more clarity and bravery than most winemakers. He has an exceptional gastronomic intelligence, and has carefully planned his route to making comfortable appetising wines of smooth ease and very pointy characters at the sorts of alcohol levels I'd expect to find on a particularly civilised table. Like below 14.5%.
He reports his recipe involved "Mostly submerged [skins] cap and a few extended macerations to polymerize any grassy-assy. It worked. Lovely palates and aromatics. Acid retention."
This too, was partly climate-change-driven. "My rationalization for this approach was that annual threat of monsoons during vintage. This year was exactly that worst case wet scenario. Roughly 9 inches of rain plus in 6 weeks. The wrong 6 weeks for growing grapes.
"Most of my so-called peers were semi to fully fucked. The ones that are grape greedy. Lots of rot for them. Not nearly as much for me. We walk the path of Petrus. Drop that fruit to one cluster per shoot. When we're doing that our neighbors resemble The Scream. They visibly shudder. But once you taste the difference there's no going back. Undeniable."
"I pulled off my first blocks of Sagrantino, Souzao, and Aglianico on the new Eliphante blocks," he says. "Promising. I'm thinking the Sagrantino could be the return of the Caduceus Sensei but it's too early to say.
"Managed to pull off roughly 35% wild ferments this vintage as well. Shit pinching at first. But once you get through a couple, no more kegels."
He's also adept at the wry sign-off: "First fruit came in around July 25," he concludes. "And our last was September 11. Fitting in a way."
2 comments:
Great blog. Maynard is a huge inspiration. I've been thinking of getting into home winemaking. Any suggestions on where would be a good place to start?
Always start with the best grapes grapes you can get. Next year you'll want even better.
Post a Comment