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Industry buzzwords come and go, but "hands-off" winemaking has remained oddly persistent.
Well regarded for environmentally friendly practices and minimal use of additives, hands-off vinification has become a favored style of winemaking for vignerons across the globe. However, this minimalist way of working actually involves more intervention than you might think.
In Alsace, Reichsfeld-based Bernard Bohn compares vinifying without a hands-off mentality to the likes of working as a replicative artist. "If we do not have a hands-off mentality, we are like a painter who only makes copies of a series," he says, explaining that a good winemaker does not make consistent and uniform copies of vintages, but rather highlights each of their unique differences through minimal intervention.
"If you feel obliged to work in a commercial way, its oppression and lack of character will be felt through the glass."
For Oregon-based winemaker Joe Swick, working hands off means not having the urge to mess with anything and simply allowing wines to be what they are. He does this through letting vinification processes happen naturally and only "intervening" via top-offs and/or sulfur additions.
Don't doctor; do little
Although working with a hands-off mentality looks slightly different for everyone, the core principles are unanimously the same: farm organically, manipulate the juice as little as possible, and add nothing, with the exception of minimal sulfur. In California, Chris Brockway of Broc Cellars believes that having a hands-off mentality means treating the fruit as gently as possible. "We do a lot of whole bunch and carbonic fermentations and try not to overly work the grapes," says Brockway, noting that punch downs are only done occasionally.
In Savigny-les-Beaune, Tomoko Kuriyama of Chantereves explains that working hands-off actually requires maximum attention in the cellar, especially when spontaneous fermentations are encouraged.
"When working with indigenous yeast, you have less security," she says, noting that the numerous variables, factors, and unknowns that go into hands-off winemaking actually makes it more prone to accidents. Though for her, this makes it all the more exciting. "Our aim is to focus on the individual nuance of terroir of a specific vineyard, and in order to enhance that, using a hands-off mentality is the best method."
The heat is on
Kuriyama adds that avoiding temperature control is essential when it comes to hands-off winemaking. "Temperature control is especially prevalent in Burgundy nowadays, mostly to extract tannins and [desired] aromatics," she says. After much experimentation on both sides of the debate, she has ultimately concluded that the practice is not necessary. "The more you depend on it, the more you mark the way of your vinification over the terroir, and therefore, the transparency of the wine will decrease the more you intervene," she says.
She relates her passion for eschewing temperature control to her time with Peter Kuhn in Rheingau back in the early 2000s. "[I was taught that] temperature control is some of the strongest intervention you can have in winemaking, and that really stayed with me," she says.
Bohn recounts the numerous winemaking styles that have existed in his family over generations. During his grandparents' reign, vinification was executed simply and naturally. On the contrary, he recalls his father's implementation of modern techniques, which in turn led to "limpid and sterile" wines. As for Bohn, his natural curiosity caused him to experiment with all styles of winemaking, though the answer was clear. "I think that we obtain the best wines by respecting the grapes as much as possible while in their raw state," he says. For Bohn, this means not intervening in the vineyards except for the occasional use of homeopathic doses of sulfites, as well as not "subjecting the wines to trauma" through processes like filtration.
Full speed ahead
For Swick, working with a hands-off mentality does indeed require some hands-on work, such as ensuring that all vessels are completely full (i.e. no headspace in tanks, eggs, or barrels).
"However, the fact that you don't have to move your wine back and forth from vessel to vessel means less work. In the end, I would say it is the same amount of work in the cellar," he says, pointing out that vinification processes can be riskier if high sulfur or additives are not being used. Bohn agrees. "[Hands off] sounds easy, but on the contrary, you need a lot of rigor and precision," he says, comparing it to crossing a canyon on a thread without a net. Brockway sums it up best: "It takes a lot of work to do very little."
In the vineyard, Kuriyama notes that there’s no such thing as a "hands-off" mentality, especially when it comes to organically farmed sites.
"If you're growing organically, you definitely need to intervene more and be more observant than if you were using chemical pesticides," she says, adding that, unlike chemicals, homeopathic remedies and treatments can be weak, as well as washed away with rain. Because of this, they need to be applied more frequently. Kuriyama also cites the need for more detailed pruning when organically farming. "You need to do pretty intensive canopy management to let air in if your vineyard is organic," she says, affirming that jungle-like conditions can bring on higher risks for disease and rot.
Though for Brockway, ensuring that vines are not overly manicured is key. He does this through avoiding an excessive dropping of clusters and maintaining balance in the soil. Swick, who doesn't own his own vineyards, explains that he exclusively works with growers who farm organically or are moving in that direction. "Conventional herbicide is a big no," he says.
Honesty is its own reward
So why work this way? Ultimately, the response is unanimous: better tasting and more honest final wines. "When farmed well, organic grapes make better wines," says Swick, who prefers to make something as "close to just grapes" as possible.
Brockway views working this way as a sign of respecting grapes and the hard work that goes into farming them. "If you love the vineyard, you should try to show it in its purest form," he says. Kuriyama deems hands-off winemaking to be the most challenging, albeit, most stimulating way to work. "Our aim is to focus on the individual nuance of terroir of a specific vineyard, and in order to enhance that, using a hands-off mentality is the best method," she says.
Though for Kuriyama, this trust in a hands-off mentality came with age. "I think the younger you are, the more tempted you might be to intervene," she says. She recalls being a bit more experimental with her ferments back in Germany, as well as the temptations she faced to use a heavier hand in the cellar. Today at Chantereves, she and her husband do not do remontage, exclude the use of temperature control, and only use native yeast fermentations. "When you intervene, you decide and it's easy. When you exercise restraint, it's more exciting," she says.
Though hands-off or not, the wine must be good. Bohn notes that for him it feels natural to want to vinify with as little intervention as possible, though the wines must be of utmost quality in the end. Swick confirms that hands-off winemaking has mostly worked for him, though after many trials and errors, vinifying with absolutely no sulfur does not produce the best results. "I'm not a fan of having to dump wines down the drain," he says. "If it means 10-20 ppm total SO2 added to a wine, I will do it. I prefer wine that tastes like wine, not kombucha."
Bohn feels that winemaking decisions shouldn't be made to appease the masses. "The idea is not to make wine like a supermarket yogurt that will appeal to as many people as possible, but rather a living wine that stimulates the taster," he says. For him, this starts in the vineyard through organic viticulture and respect for the soil, flora, and fauna.
"When the foundations are good, we have a good starting point for winemaking. It is essential."
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Cedar is one of two red blends that Anthony Vietri makes at Va La Vineyards in Avondale, Chester County.
Released in January, this is the 12th vintage of what Vietri calls his signature red, made from nine clones of the Nebbiolo grape (michet, lampia, picotener, chiavennasca and fino, as well as massal selections from this vineyard) and Corvina Veronese. The vines are mostly in their 22nd years of age, according to the vintage notes, and are influenced by a daily blanket of fog emanating from the compost farm next door. They were harvested by hand in October 2016, aged 27 months in barrels sourced from central Pennsylvania and Burgundy, then aged 7 months in bottle before release. The result is a distinctive and unique red wine of Old World character, featuring savory flavors and aromas of wild mushrooms, eucalyptus, clove, and curry.
It sells for $52.
Vietri calls it a wine that probably never should have happened.
“My wife and I planted the first block 22 years ago, on a July 4th day that was 100F. I remember that I broke both of our shovels trying to dig the holes and we had to dig the rest with hand trowels,” he said. “Nebbiolo is a notoriously difficult variety, both in the field and in the winery. Back then there was almost none being grown in the US, so we had no expectation that it would survive or that we’d have anything to offer to the public.”
Some years like this one, he said, “it will literally produce almost nothing. Truly. So to make it, you must be willing to take huge risks to do so. But I come from Piemontese folks, and I just feel a need to make that wine that I can’t really explain, to be honest.”
Soon, he’ll be harvesting his 23rd vintage from those vines (as well as the 16th vintage of Cedar). “There are folks that seem to like it OK, I hope,” he said. “I guess at this point I just think of myself as a Nebbiolo farmer who sometimes makes a little bit of other wines.”
It was another growing season that caused plenty of angst, from what he called a “brutal stretch of weather of late after a real nice start.”
But that’s why it’s a marathon, he said. “Actually it has not been so much of a normal year for us. We started with a late frost, then had a long warm and very dry stretch where the vines were showing drought stress, followed by a deluge of late, and now we are having our first experience with the dreaded lanternflies,” he continued. “However, the vines somehow are holding up ok at the moment.”
Released in January, this is the 12th vintage of what Vietri calls his signature red, made from nine clones of the Nebbiolo grape and Corvina Veronese.
On the whole, he said. the winery has been drawing a “surprising number of first-time visitors to the farm, which is just great to see. But it is true, our wonderful regular customers have really sustained us through these difficult times, and we are truly blessed by them.”
He said they continue to work with the restaurants throughout the Philadelphia area that carry his wines, but “they are definitely fighting to keep things going. We feel very fortunate to be part of what they are doing, and you hate to see the difficulties and challenges that independent and creative places have to face,” he said. “But I truly believe that for those that can hold on and survive these times, we will all be better for it.”
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For days, Bradley Brown was anxiously waiting to learn the fate of his property in Boulder Creek. After a mandatory evacuation was issued for the area on Tuesday, the winemaker was camping out in his RV at a friend’s house. Tracking fire maps, he could see that his home and his winery, Big Basin Vineyards, were directly in the line of the CZU August Lightning Complex fires.
Late Saturday night, Brown learned from a neighbor that his house was destroyed. Miraculously, the winery — and, along with it, his wine inventory — had survived.
He felt fortunate, but “there’s a lot of question marks right now,” said Brown, one of the top winemakers in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Had the wine inside the winery been damaged by heat and smoke? Were the grapevines scorched? With harvest approaching, would he be able to use the winery to make wine at all this year?
It’s a set of problems familiar to many winemakers across California right now, as they confront the loss of property — and the ongoing threat of further destruction — that accompanies the arrival of the harvest season.
With the fire now gone, it was a race against time to save what remained at Big Basin Vineyards. “The whole 2019 vintage is inside the winery,” Brown said. “We finished bottling 2,000 cases the day before the evacuation order.”
By Sunday, the power had been out for more than a week; wine can be ruined if exposed to heat for long periods. He hoped that the sealed doors had kept the temperature around 75 degrees, but he planned to drive to Napa to pick up a generator so that he could get the air conditioning running again.
Brown was certain that the grapes on the vine, the first of which would have been ready for harvesting this week, were lost to smoke damage, and he doesn’t have crop insurance.
As for the other vineyards throughout the Santa Cruz Mountains from which he buys fruit, the results could be more varied. He was hopeful that the Coastview Vineyard, in the Gabilan Mountains — the source of some beautiful Big Basin Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays — had been spared, but was waiting for tests to be run to assess the presence of smoke-taint compounds.
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“This year may be a huge bust for the Santa Cruz Mountains,” he said. And with the fires still burning, “we’re still not out of the woods yet.” Two other winemaker friends had already offered to let Brown use their facilities for winemaking if he’s unable to return to his.
Why had the fire obliterated his home, but not the nearby winery? That, Brown said, was a mystery. Before evacuating, he’d doused the sides of the winery with water, but he was sure that it had dried out by the time the fire came through on Friday. He’d moved his propane tanks away from the building, which may have helped. But that still didn’t explain why the stacks of wooden barrels directly outside the doors hadn’t caught fire.
“It’s eerie looking,” he said. “It’s really hard to say why the winery didn’t burn.”
Brown has owned this property, located next to Big Basin Redwoods State Park, since 1998. Its history as a winegrowing site stretches back to the late 1800s, when a group of French immigrants arrived and planted grapes. They sold the place around the time Prohibition was enacted, according to records that Brown has found. By the time he purchased the land, it had been mostly neglected for decades, and there were few remnants of the original vineyard. “Vines were crawling up into trees,” he said.
He set to work restoring the property, planting Syrah, Grenache, Pinot Noir, Roussanne and Viognier and, over time, establishing Big Basin Vineyards as one of the best wine producers in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Although Brown doesn’t have crop insurance, he said he does have a good insurance policy on his house, which was designed by architect Craig Henritzy. The loss hadn’t quite sunk in yet, Brown said, but he was optimistic. “I’ll be able to rebuild better, smarter, more sustainably,” he said.
In fact, despite the fact that the house was gone, there was a lasting memento of it: Musician Bill Nershi, of the band String Cheese Incident, had recorded his latest album with his wife Jillian Nershi inside Brown’s home in February. “The house is gone, but we have this incredible music to remember it by,” Brown said.
Esther Mobley is The San Francisco Chronicle’s wine critic. Email: emobley@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Esther_mobley Instagram: @esthermob
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Just a week before the world as we once knew it dramatically changed — before store shelves and online retailers’ supplies of hand sanitizer and toilet paper were completely depleted, and before New York City was deemed the epicenter of the coronavirus — I made a visit to the Jane Hotel’s restaurant Old Rose with a pair of friends. It was a Monday. The weather was ominously warm for the beginning of March, and that was more than a good enough reason to stop for a glass of wine.
I settled for a pour of Nùo, a Vermentino produced by Azienda Vitivinicola Cardedu in Sardinia. The first sip was unforgettable. For starters, the aromas of citrus fruit nearly jumped out the glass. But on the palate, the white wine zinged with salinity, and herbaceous notes of basil and rosemary, with a hint of grapefruit, instantly transporting me to sunny seashores in a peaceful place far away from the noise and madness of Manhattan on the brink of a pandemic.
I ordered another, and made a mental note about Vermentino, a grape that I, at the time, wasn’t aware of until fate brought me to occupy a seat in this buzzy restaurant. It would mark my last restaurant experience before lockdown regulations, overwhelmed hospitals, and skyrocketing cases of Covid-19. Over the course of the quarantine, Vermentino became the wine I turned to for an escape.
Every sip took me beyond the walls of my shoebox apartment to a place miles and oceans away from the harsh realities surrounding me. But finding bottles of the Italian wine often proved to be a challenge, mostly because shops and retailers aren’t stocking shelves with much of it. Sales of Vermentino are relatively low compared to well-known white wine varieties from Italy. According to a Statista report, the sale value of Vermentino produced in Sardinia, the island with the highest production of the wine, amounted to just $15.5 million in 2018, while grapes from better-known varieties, like Tuscany’s Chianti, topped $52 million.
But curiosity among drinkers is rising. “As Italy’s expanding out, certain varieties like Vermentino are taking a bit more space in the conversation about what people know about Italian wine,” says Brian Long, a sommelier who formerly worked at the Michelin-starred Marea restaurant in New York.
With so many styles and varieties, it’s easy to understand how people can be a bit apprehensive about Italian wines, but Long notes that producers like Marchese Antinori are helping expand Vermentino’s reach. “Part of the reason why people are becoming more familiar with Vermentino is because of the Antinori family and their Guado al Tasso. People who are really into their red wines, they look at them and say, ‘I know them, why don’t I just go ahead and try that?’” says Long.
As one of the first wineries to plant Vermentino grapes in the 1990s in Bolgheri, a coastal village in Tuscany right near the Tyrrhenian Sea, Marchese Antinori only planted about 14 acres of Vermentino at its Guado al Tasso estate, which covers 2,500 acres. * But today, about 170 acres are dedicated solely for growing Vermentino, and Antinori imports 2,800 cases of Guado al Tasso Vermentino, with a global production of 39,000 cases, both annually and only for Vermentino grapes.
Younger drinkers’ growing thirst for wine knowledge and new experiences are driving interest in Vermentino, says Alessia Antinori, vice president at Marchese Antinori. “Knowledge is becoming more and more of a thing, especially with the younger generations who are studying wine and maybe go out more often and are more inclined to try new things. Younger generations specifically are really attracted to a good variety that is different that they can discover.”
She adds: “Italy has really interesting varieties. It’s one of the places with more indigenous varieties and Vermentino is one of them. And what we are doing as a family, we are concentrating a lot on indigenous varieties.”
Italy isn’t the only country producing Vermentino. Winemakers in France and Spain and even the U.S. dabble in the grape but Italy’s Mediterranean coastline is where Vermentino shines because the grape grows best when it’s close to the sea.
Vermentino is also versatile in a range of soils, from volcanic to limestone. Where bottlings from Liguria can be bursting with intense and distinctive minerality, says Jennifer Foucher, who was head sommelier at Fiola in Washington D.C., before coronavirus hit, expressions of Vermentino in Tuscany may be more floral, with riper fruit. Meanwhile, in Sardinia, the wine can be more full-bodied with saline and tropical fruit notes. “Sommeliers like it a lot because of its versatility and value. Once you introduce someone to it, they love it,” Foucher says. Although there are some premium examples, much Vermentino comes from cooperatives, making it a wine that’s meant to be young, fresh, and fruity, with an accessible price point.
The grape has loads of character that make it a perfect patio pounder or something to wash down a meal with, according to Pierangelo Tommasi, executive director of Tommasi Family Estate’s Tuscan winery Poggio al Tufo, which also produces Vermentino. “It’s a great solo sipper wine, but of course Vermentino with its creamy character, salinity, and bitterness is a wonderful wine to match with medium-weight dishes that play with rich herbs and spices,” Tommasi says. “You can easily match this wine with richer fish such as halibut or even meats.”
In fact, many foods pair well with Vermentino, from grilled vegetables to pork tacos. And it’s that versatility that makes the wine great on it’s own if you’re sipping a glass sitting out on your fire escape, reminiscing about the pre-Covid past, or just unwinding after work. Whatever the context, it’s bound to deliver a memorable experience.
5 VERMENTINOS TO TRY
Guado al Tasso Vermentino
This bottling from the iconic winemaking family radiates with freshness and balance and intense citrus aromas. “You know those things you will never forget because it was one of your first experiences? I have that memory of those aromas of grapefruit after harvesting Guado al Tasso,” Antinori says. “It was at the beginning of my experience as a winemaker, and the aromas of grapefruit left such an impression.” Average price: $25.
Riviera Ligure di Ponente Vermentino
Liguria-based Azienda Agricola Laura Aschero produces fewer than 6,000 cases of wine annually, including Pigato and Rossese, but Foucher says the winery’s Vermentino is a standout thanks to its vibrant freshness and aromatic herbal quality. “The wines are consistently good, and I use them in my wine pairings,” she says. “I always get requests for an additional pour.” Average price: $30.
La Cala Vermentino
Long noted Sella and Mosca as one Sardinian producer worth remembering. It makes Vermentino in the northeastern area of Gallura, known for its strong, northerly winds that gives the wine its superior quality. Although the aroma rings of citrus fruit and white flower, it is surprisingly soft and balanced. Average price: $12.
Poggio al Tufo Vermentino
The volcanic soils where Tomassi’s family grows its Vermentino is what leads to the wine’s richer and fuller style. “The soils on which the vineyards were planted are of different types,” Tomassi says. “All the vineyards have been designed in full compliance with the morphology of the area, safeguarding the characteristic rolling hills and enhancing them.” All that diversity of the soil results in incredibly lively wines that are characterized by fragrance and freshness. Average price: $13.
Nùo Vermentino
The vineyards at Azienda Vitivinicola Cardedu in Sardinia are dry-farmed, but make no mistake — this is a full-bodied wine that drips with acidity, juicy stone fruit and a lingering salty finish that begs for another glass. Average price: $18.
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NAPA, Calif. — If it were not for the thick blanket of smoke hanging low in the cloudy afternoon sky, there would be no way to tell that anything was amiss in downtown Napa on Saturday.
Shoppers browsed boutique clothing stores, families slurped noodles in a plaza, couples sipped wine on outdoor patios and the popular Oxbow Public Market was bustling — even as a nearby series of wildfires ballooned into the third-largest conflagration in California history.
“It’s starting to feel like business as usual,” said Hilary Olsen, who was eating lunch with a friend in nearby Yountville. “We almost check fires this time of year like people check tides to go surfing.”
Higher temperatures, winds and lightning strikes that could spark new wildfires were expected on Sunday in an already dry Northern California. Firefighters made some progress on Saturday, with cooler temperatures and humidity, but Sunday’s weather threatened to erase it. Officials told residents in at-risk areas, like Santa Cruz, on the coast, to prepare to flee at any moment with “go bags.”
“Bracing for more lightning,” California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection Chief Thom Porter tweeted.
Evacuations were also ordered at the edges of Silicon Valley in Fremont in Alameda County.
The massive wildfires raging across Northern California have scorched more than one million acres and forced more than 100,000 people to evacuate in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. In wine country, the L.N.U. Lightning Complex has spread to 325,128 acres throughout five counties, including Napa and Sonoma Counties.
But locals seemed unfazed on Saturday afternoon, expressing a weary acceptance: We’re used to this.
“It’s the new normal — what next?” said Bulah Cartwright, the manager of Inti, a clothing and jewelry store in Napa. “We’ve had earthquakes, fires, flooding. It’s exhausting, but we’ll get through. We’ve gotten through worse.”
Wine country residents are well aware of the perils posed by wildfires. The Tubbs Fire swept through the area in 2017, devastating the town of Santa Rosa and killing 22 people. Last year’s Kincade Fire destroyed hundreds of buildings, including much of the Soda Rock winery in Healdsburg.
But shop owners and locals said on Saturday that they were more concerned that the smoke and flames might drive away the tourists upon which the region relies.
“Business has been slow, obviously,” said Thea Witsil, the owner of Wildcat Vintage Clothing in Napa. It might seem busy on a Saturday, she said, but “come here in the middle of the week, it’s a completely different story.”
Many tourists, though, were also undeterred by the persistent fumes that blew through Napa Valley towns and partially obscured nearby hills.
“We feel bad doing all this nice stuff when people are having to evacuate and lose their homes, but at the same time, if we cancel, we leave a lot of them as employees in the dust,” said Daniel, who was visiting Yountville from Los Angeles for his birthday and declined to provide his last name. “I feel like if Covid’s taught us anything, you have got to try to enjoy things and work around life as you can.”
Though many of the region’s more rural wineries remain open, some have been forced to evacuate and some are concerned about their grapes. The 2017 blazes largely spared the valuable vineyards themselves, but grapes that were still on the vine absorbed smoke taint that ruined the wine, giving it an ashy taste.
Kayakers floating down the Napa River under the haze of smoke.Credit...Ian C. Bates for The New York Times
Wineries that are still open have introduced pandemic-era rules for their tastings: keeping guests outside, ensuring they remain socially distanced and requiring them to wear masks when not drinking.
Jon Ruel, the chief executive of the Trefethen Family Vineyards winery, located between Napa and Yountville, said he was not concerned about this year’s grape crop, as long as smoke does not hover over Napa Valley for a sustained period. If the fires stay mostly in the hills, he said, the chance of smoke contamination is low.
“I’m calm,” Mr. Ruel said. “Every year represents challenges.”
On Washington Street, tiny Yountville’s main drag, the upscale restaurants and wineries were packed, and tourists braved the 94-degree heat to line up outside the Bouchon Bakery, spaced six feet apart. Ms. Olsen, a Marin County resident, sat outside a restaurant with her friend from Napa, Francein Hansen, as they reflected on how wildfires have become synonymous with life in California.
“There’s monsoons in Arizona. There’s hurricanes in Hawaii,” Ms. Hansen said. “You’ve got to pick your natural disaster.”
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