Good Grape Wine Company

April 15 2007

Hurling a Molotov Cocktail at Wine Hypocrites

There’s an old saying along the lines of, “Nobody should watch sausage or legislation being made.”

The wine industry is experiencing a little roiling debate about the sausage-making and incidentally it falls down party lines ala a political battle. 

Wine & Spirits magazine has an excellent article in the April 2007 issue about wine technology pioneer Clark Smith and his company Vinovation (perhaps one of the finest profile pieces I’ve ever read in a general consumer wine magazine.  Unfortunately, you can’t find the article online, just the excerpt here.)

Irrespective of the content being online, this is an article worthy of purchasing the magazine because it is acting as a lightening rod for debate around a simmering technological ideology war in the world of wine.  Speaking of war, ironically enough, the lead of the story says,

“Perhaps the most telling characterization one can make of Clark Smith is that, despite his reputation as a visionary, he found out about Hurricane Katrina after George W. Bush did.”

The story goes on to elaborate that Smith is something a detached brainiac, oblivious to his surroundings.  According to Mark Lyon of Sebastiani Vineyards, “He’s like a horse with blinders on.  He’s not looking at the periphery—he’s just going for the race.”

That sounds familiar.

Perhaps that sounds too familiar, but the more apt and direct analogy might be that Clark Smith is something akin to George W. Bush straight away without the glancing Katrina comparison.  Bush doesn’t know that you can’t win an ideological battle and apparently neither does Smith.  He is a pariah in a blue state; with many in the wine industry turning their coats conservative and “anti-manipulation” regardless of the sensibility.

Unfortunately for Clark he’s using a knife in a gun fight and he doesn’t have Karl Rove to craft his message.  As the Wine & Spirits article notes, “his ego and his rhetorical style can leave listeners drowning in his wake.”

Maybe the Bush comparison isn’t as apt as I thought …

In no less than a span of six weeks, Smith has been prominently featured in at least four media outlets fighting the ideological battle between intervention and supposedly “natural” winemaking. 

Essentially it boils down to two camps—the first camp are those that decry wine manipulation in the form of 1) de-alcoholization, 2) The removal of acetic acid which occasionally occurs with the removal of water that isn’t returned to the wine, increasing concentration and 3) micro-oxygenation—the practice of introducing oxygen to wine to soften tannins and create a gentler mouth feel, good for wines drunk in their youth.  The second camp is those, primarily Smith, who believe technology can help express terroir.  Smith is alone in this fight because most of his customers prefer that they remain confidential.

Can you imagine?  Outing the Vinovation customer list would be like the beltway madam whose black book makes its way into the journalist’s hands.

The wineries want confidentiality because all of these technological applications are dirty secrets the wine industry prefers that the greater consuming public not be privy too, lest they ruin the mystique for wine at higher price points.  Nobody wants to get painted with the “corporate wine” brush, particularly at higher price points.  Speculation indicates that as much as 50% of the wine industry might manipulate in some manner.

Eric Asimov picked up on the Wine & Spirits article and touched on Vinovation in what will become a legendary post that spawned about 30 pages of comments by my printer page count.  And, Asimov posted a follow-up that can be found here that picks up the same general thread and follows up on some threads from the user comments.

Elsehwhere, Smith is featured in a Wines & Vines article touting the use of oak alternatives—another dirty secret that most wineries would prefer to keep as a detail not discussed in polite company.

Finally, I took the bait and read the article referenced by Roger Dial from Appellation America in his email in trying to drive debate at the newly posted Clark Smith interview at Appellation America—including excerpted quotes to whet the appetite before the clickover.

The AA article includes such molotov cocktails like the below broadside, which is really a backhanded defense of the use of his technology, which he does by invoking Nazi Germany as the real pioneers of wine technology. 

“I’m telling you, the wine industry went right down the toilet when electricity and stainless steel and all of this hyper-technology came in,” he begins. “Because we took how to make wine like that (without the use of technology) and threw it out the window. We took everybody who knew how to make wine without SO2 (sulphur dioxide used as a preservative), and shot ‘em in the head because great German technology was going to save us.

“…They convinced the French to adopt far more reductive winemaking practices than is appropriate for Cabernet,” he goes on. “And Riesling and Cabernet are not the same thing. … And now we’re making wine like this (un-soulful) instead. That’s fucked up. Everybody thinks stainless steel, electricity and refrigeration are all perfectly fine because they have them in their kitchens. They grew up with them and they don’t understand the impact that it had on traditional winemaking.”

Throughout this debate, I’m left scratching my head thinking three things:

1) Anybody in on this debate that is not an uber-wine industry insider shouldn’t have an opinion because they haven’t had the wherewithal of full disclosure to discern the differences in between wines that are clients of Smiths and those that are allegedly not manipulated.  To alleviate this one for myself, I’m going to buy some of Smith’s vino in order to taste the technology.  You can buy some here. 

2) I want to hire a marketer/p.r. guy to help out Clark Smith because he’s not helping his own cause out.

This guy needs a handler and a marketer in the worst way starting with his wonkish way of abstractly trying to explain what he does, his mention of Nazi Germany and his whole positioning of “Practicing GrapeCraft” –bringing in the specter of technological witchcraft is not a very good association nor is the shameless treacle in his positioning statement of, “The Practical art of connecting the human soul to the soul of a place by rendering its grapes into liquid music.”

3) Everybody loves a good bratwurst, but nobody wants to know how they are made

I have a hunch that he is only now beginning to bare his academic chops and circuitous logic in defending himself in a fight that can’t be won.  As Rick Jones from UC Davis is quoted in the Wine & Spirits article in reference to an anecdote of Smith as a student, he says:

“I remember feeling a mixture of envy and embarrassment—he was so guileless, but he had such balls.  I think a lot of people in the wine business have a mixture of emotions about Clark.”

I’m not sure if he’s from Texas, but it looks like he’s got some spurs on his boots and is willing to dig in.  Pop some popcorn; this ideological war should be a good one.  Check out The Grapecraft blog to watch it unfold.  You might buy some of his wine to quaff, too.  You know, for reference sake. 

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