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Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing
By Mark A. Matthews UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS
Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of California
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-520-96200-2
CHAPTER 1
Low Yield and Small Berries Determine Wine Quality
One day Mara, the Evil One, was travelling through the villages of India with his attendants. He saw a man doing walking meditation whose face was lit up in wonder. The man had just discovered something on the ground in front of him. Mara's attendant asked what that was and Mara replied, "A piece of truth."
"Doesn't this bother you when someone finds a piece of truth, O Evil One?" his attendant asked. "No," Mara replied. "Right after this, they usually make a belief out of it."
— Zen Buddhist parable
Two of the most widely accepted aspects of received knowledge in winegrowing are that (1) low crop yields and (2) small berries are key factors in producing the best wines. Both winegrowers and the popular wine press frequently invoke the High Yield–Low Quality (HYLQ) and Big Bad Berry (BBB) myths when discussing wine quality in general, or with respect to specific wines. According to highly respected and successful wine producer Paul Draper, of California's Ridge Vineyards, "If there is one common denominator to Ridge's vineyard choices, it's an obsession with old vines, which tend to yield tiny quantities of highly concentrated fruit." David Gates, vice president of vineyard operations for Ridge and a well-respected viticulturist in his own right, reported that everything Ridge does in the vineyard is executed with the goal of obtaining smaller berries. In a Wine Spectator magazine cover article where she was pictured as America's greatest winemaker, Helen Turley claimed that low yield is key to wine quality. Wine writers sometimes refer offhandedly to the value of small berries, but Australian wine writer Huon Hooke is more specific in his review of the Irongate Cabernet Sauvignon from the Babitch family in New Zealand: "The quality of the grapes is exceptional. They are small berries with a high skin-to-juice ratio. Consequently, flavor and color are intense."
Some academics apparently concur; for example, according to the website of the Zinfandel Heritage Project, the vines located in the Zinfandel Heritage Vineyard at the Oakville Experimental Vineyard of the University of California, Davis (UC Davis), the vines are trained and pruned as they would have been in the nineteenth century, and "these practices ensure high quality but a low yield." It is more common for academic authors to give a noncommittal nod to the conventional wisdom of low yields or small berries, with comments such as "Crop load adjustment is widely accepted" and "It is often considered that small berries are preferred." However, there are many fully committed references to the BBB notion, including at least one of my own, which will be discussed in the pages that follow.
The popular press claims that the HYLQ wisdom dates back to Roman times; the BBB myth is definitely modern by comparison. Of course yield affects wine supply; thus, it is necessary to consider history and biology (and a little economics) when appraising each of these concepts. Fortunately, growers (and researchers) are able to manipulate both yield and berry size, and the consequences of these manipulations for the concentrations of many berry and wine solutes, as well as for the sensory attributes of the wines, can be measured. A variety of observations from the vineyard are available to assist in these evaluations.
YIELD
Historical Aspects of the High Yield–Low Quality Myth
The line Bacchus amat colles from the Georgics by the Roman poet Virgil, usually translated as "Bacchus loves the (open) hills," is one early reference point for the HYLQ association. The line has been popular in winegrowing literature dating back to the mid-eighteenth century, and is usually employed in commentary regarding the sites best suited for growing winegrapes. It appears in this context in the two-volume Australian textbook Viticulture, in the volume Practices, where viticulturist Richard Smart associates the line with a relationship between high yield and low quality. Prominent British wine critic and journalist Jancis Robinson observes that "Virgil may have known that vines love hillsides (Bacchus amat colles — because they are less fertile, they produce more concentrated fruit) but many Californians do not." What did Virgil know in Roman times that modern-day Californians do not? According to the "Yield" section of Robinson's The Oxford Companion to Wine, "A necessary connection between low yields and high-quality wine has been assumed at least since Roman times when 'Bacchus amat colles' encapsulated the prevailing belief that low-yielding hillside vineyards produced the best wine. Wine law in many European countries is predicated on the same belief, and the much-imitated appellation controlee laws of France specify maximum permitted yields for each appellation."
In these recent cases, the Bacchus statement is given the same gloss — the hills are preferred because the lower yields result in better wine. Note that it is contemporary authors who supply the reason why vines are thought to "love hillsides." The interpretation of Robinson's "necessary connection" with low yield in The Oxford Companion to Wine in fact has no direct link to Virgil's words. How did these authors come to know that Virgil was making this connection between low yield and high quality? According to the Companion, the line in Virgil reflects a prevailing belief from Roman times that low-yielding hillsides produce the best wines; however, a closer reading of the Georgics raises questions about what Virgil may actually have meant by that particular line. Consider the translation of the Bacchus phrase in context:
Nor do all lands carry all kinds of plants.
Willows grow by rivers, and alders in dank marshes,
and the barren manna ash on rocky hills:
the coast delights in myrtles: lastly Bacchus's vine
loves open hills, and the yew the cold North wind.
The context of the passage is a discussion of the role of the environment in establishing what grows where. Virgil describes how lands around the world cannot grow all kinds of trees: vines grow on the hillsides, willows by streams, and so on. A little later, Virgil more clearly addresses crops and vineyard cultivation when he says that soils that are dense and tight are best left to corn (i.e., grains), soils loose and light are good for the vine, soils that are rocky can be used for rosemary, and the like for the bees, and that all three types of soils can be found on hillsides. Importantly, that passage is followed by this:
But a rich soil delighting in sweet moisture,
a level thick with grass, and deeply fertile,
(such as we're often used to seeing in a hollow valley
in the hills: the streams flow into it from the high cliffs,
carrying with them rich mud), one that rises to the south,
and nourishes ferns, hostile to the curved plough,
this will one day provide you the strongest of vines,
and rich flowing wine: from it come fruitful grapes,
and the juice we offer in golden bowls,
while the sleek Tuscan blows his ivory flute at the altars,
and we deliver up the steaming organs in curved dishes.
Now we are in a valley in the hills, deeply fertile and fed by "rich mud" and streams. Virgil refers to the best soils for grapes as giving rise to the "strongest of vines" and "fruitful grapes" — these are not synonyms for low yield. Virgil is evidently describing wines fit for a fine banquet, and promising that much good wine is to be derived from fertile hillside soils. He does mention how difficult it is to plow the hillside, so Virgil may just as likely have been talking pragmatics and long-standing (even in Roman times) agricultural practice: that grains need to be plowed and therefore must be planted on the flats, while trees and vines can be planted on the slopes.
I traced references to the Bacchus line in wine and vine writing back to canonized French chemist Jean-Antoine-Claude Chaptal (of Chaptalization fame) and earlier. The Bacchus quote has been described in winegrowing literature as a Roman proverb, Roman precept, old saying, old saw, maxim, and fact, but in some cases it is not clear that the author was even aware of its origin within Virgil's poem. Often, as in Chaptal's 1801 Essai sur le vin (Essay on wine), the Bacchus line is simply reproduced, leaving just Bacchus amat colles. When left to context, the sense is a description of a proper place to grow the best wines, with different authors emphasizing soil, aspect of the slope, altitude, or narrowness of a valley. According to my research, it was not until the 1990s that Virgil's comment on hillside viticulture was used to invoke low yield as a causal factor in the resulting wine quality.
Another concern regarding the interpretation of the Bacchus quote as suggesting a fundamental relation between yield and quality is whether Virgil's writing was a well-informed and accurate description of how grapevines operate both then and now. Virgil was one of the most accomplished Roman poets, and as such he wrote poetry at a high level that would certainly have been a difficult read for farmers. Some argue that he wrote in the context of farming but not as a guide for farmers, perhaps instead with the intention of glorifying the rural lifestyle for returning soldiers and/or pining for the good old days in the country. His work on agriculture has at times been cited as a source, but others, even in Roman times, criticized Virgil's poetry for its inaccuracies. For example, Seneca (philosopher and author of Letters from a Stoic) wrote: "So says our Virgil, who looked for the most apt thing to say, not the most accurate: he didn't want to teach farmers, but please readers."
Fortunately, several of the best-known Roman writers on agriculture and viticulture also made pertinent comments relative to grape yield and quality. Columella (a friend of Seneca's) was the author of De re rustica (Agriculture), Pliny the Elder penned Naturalis historia (Natural History), and Cato the Elder, also known as Cato the Censor, wrote De agri cultura (On Farming) about two centuries before the others.
Cato the Censor claimed, "Most important in purchasing a farm is whether the vineyard makes good wine and the yield is great." Cato was widely quoted by Pliny, and both Cato and Pliny apparently agreed that a vineyard was the most profitable investment in agriculture, which can still be true today. In an extensive survey of wine regions and grape varieties, Pliny notes that the wine varieties in his second class produce less than the varieties in his top-quality class. Pliny reports on many regions famous for good wine, identifies the best wine as coming from vineyards near the sea, and notes that wine character responds to weather factors, such as whether a prevailing west wind was present during the season. He describes some regions as producing small amounts of low-quality wine and others as producing large volumes of well-respected wines. Pliny does describe one region as being more famous for its productivity than quality; he suggests that the reputation of a top wine region (near Mt. Falernus in southern Italy) is faltering because of an emphasis on quantity rather than quality; and with respect to one variety he says that it makes up in production what it lacks in quality. Pliny cites Virgil often, but not the Bacchus line, nor does Pliny invoke a hillside or low-yield requirement.
Columella distinguishes hills as producing better flavor and lower yield compared to the open spaces, acknowledging that there may be a trade-off of production for quality in selecting some vineyard environments. But Columella's distinction between the wines from open slopes and those from the steeper hills or open spaces is not part of a theme that relates yield and quality or that implies a causal relation. Rather, Columella repeats a story about a farmer, Pavidius Veterenssis, who had "two daughters and a vineyard; when his eldest daughter was married, he gave her a third of his vineyard, and this notwithstanding he used to gather the same quantity of fruit as formerly. When his younger daughter was married, he gave her the half of what remained and still the income of his produce was not diminished."
In discussing soil management, Columella claims that applying manure is the "way to grow not only luxuriant crops of grain but also very fine vineyards." He also believes that "the uppermost roots of vines and olives [would be] detrimental to the yield if they [were] left," and recommends that they instead "be cut off by the ploughshares." Columella also makes specific recommendations for vine training, claiming that those whose chief goal is high wine quality should "encourage the vine to mount to the top of the trees, in such a way that the top of the vine keeps pace with the top of the tree." At the same time, he also indicates that higher supports are needed for higher-yielding situations. Columella apparently feels that good management will improve yields. He argues that low-yielding vineyards are often the result of a lack of investment in caring for the vines, and that low-yielding vineyards should in fact be rooted out.
In contrast to Virgil's low-yielding hillsides, there is straightforward advice in the writings of these Roman agriculturists that promotes intensive, yield-increasing vineyard management practices in conjunction with high-quality wines. This advice is at odds with the contemporary interpretation of the one line about hills in Virgil's poem — which may not be intended to advise on yield at all.
In the end, it is difficult to extract meaningful information about what makes good winegrapes from an anecdote in the form of an ancient poem, especially one full of mythological references. The significance of Virgil's comment for those who repeat it may, it seems, have more to do with its age and its fit in the contemporary wine-world zeitgeist, in which low yield is equated with quality. There are many other passages from the ancients that are not cited in the wine press, on back labels, or in tasting rooms, as they do not fit or benefit today's marketing. Pliny reports that pouring wine on plane (aka sycamore) trees encourages growth, being most beneficial to the roots. According to Columella's uncle, whom he respected, "Dung should not be applied to vines, because it spoiled the flavor of the wine; and he thought a better dressing for making a heavy vintage [high yield] was humus." This same uncle also believed that applying human urine aged for six months "improves the flavor and the bouquet of the wine and the fruit."
Opinions of the ancients on agriculture and plant biology must be received and evaluated with the understanding that at the time, knowledge of plant functions was limited. Even if the best wine in Virgil's time did come from hillside vineyards, it was not possible to test or know whether the positive wine attributes were derived from low yield itself, or if they were the result of other hillside factors, such as shallow, well-drained soils. In addition, Pliny describes varieties that produce wines "deemed excellent in their own country, while elsewhere they are held in no esteem at all." What we appreciate in food and drink is very much a cultural phenomenon, and wines in Roman times were also very different from those of today. For the time being, I suggest that we accept that Roman wine was almost certainly bad by today's standards. At the time, oxidized white wines were the most revered by Romans, cooking or heating wines was standard, and although some wines were consumed "neat," most were adulterated with honey, pitch, salt, or herbs in order to make them palatable. Until we find that there is a human universal in wine aesthetics — one that makes the wine judgments of the ancients similar to those of consumers today — the ancients must be considered unreliable as experts on wine quality.
The Disloyal Grape
Another legend that is popular in the wine press involves Philip the Bold and his ducal order to cease Gamay production in favor of Pinot noir in late fourteenth- century Burgundy, ostensibly because Gamay's high yield resulted in low-quality wine. As the story goes, Philip the Bold attributed the (recently) poor wine market in Burgundy to the Gamay grape and its high yield. Some consider this edict a wise predecessor to appellation controls. This legend lives on in popular wine books and on websites around the world of wine as evidence of early insight into fine winegrowing.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Terroir and Other Myths of Winegrowing by Mark A. Matthews. Copyright © 2015 The Regents of the University of California. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS.
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