New World or Old World?
Dan Bunton compares the two.
It's
been an eye-opener meeting the professionals here in Mendoza;
I've climbed (and later crawled) a very steep learning curve of
taste and technology, old and new. These people really don't mess
around, even the vineyards start life with topographers followed
by irrigation experts to install hundreds of computer-controlled
solenoid valves. No sign of a farmer for miles.
Where I live in the central coastal mountains of southern Spain
we make wine too. José, my wirey old campesino neighbour,
can be seen trotting off with his mule to his grape plantation
up on the hill. At about 1400m there's absolutely no water, be
it springs, albercas, acequias or even rain. These grapes are
an affront to the aridity of the area; great bunches of juicy
fruit, their water content taken via roots that reach two hundred
meters down into the hills. The vines grow on the ground without
the aid of trellising as if to suit the curved-backs of these
old campesinos.
These grapes are an affront
to the aridity of the area.
The grapes here in Mendoza pass through a hundred-thousand dollar
press which is effectively a large inflatable bag inside a stainless-steel
cylinder. I follow the juice into the winery and realise I've
barely begun to climb that curve. Very quickly I'm awash with
epoxy-coated-concrete, soft nylon rollers and the sheer scrap
value of what appears to be all the world's resources of stainless
steel. While juggling maloactics and laloactics I'm trying to
get my head around the big pores and little pores of oak barrels.
The American oak is more aggressive and the French tell you which
forest theirs came from. They're handmade, toasted on the inside
to order, expensive and expendable. At Ruca Malen I discovered
they're forging ahead into unchartered territory, as if all this
is not enough. They're test driving a giant hydraulic cafetierre
to push the solids down through the liquid, they're inserting
oak planks into stainless steel tanks and we hear about scientists
experimenting with new micro-oxygenation techniques. I imagine
Rhubarb and Custard in the shed out back somewhere.
Back home, after laying the grapes in the sun on his roof for
a couple of days, we get to pressing in an ancient screw-press.
José, home-grown tobaco cigarrete clamped permanently through
the gap in his teeth, dusts down the press with a filthy rag.
With the press now sterilized and everything ready to go, we stop
work for three hours, eat a dried pig leg and finish off last
years vino. Eventually juice starts to move from inside the grapes
to inside some old plastic barrels. At some point José
dissappears into the brewing shed, between the pidgeon shed and
the pig shed, his return preceeded by smoke billowing out. "Insectos",
he grins around his cigarette, and so, with the fermenting area
now sterilized, we push and shove the barrels inside and José
covers the open tops
with a bit of old olive netting. That's it, or "Ya'sta!",
as José beamed; four hundred litres of bliss. My friend
once suggested to José the idea of chucking some oak chips
in one of his barrels - he laughed so hard he had to take the
cigarrete out of his mouth.
We eat a dried pig leg and finish
off last years vino
Four hundred litres! I visited Codorniu's 2.3 million
litre/year operation here in Mendoza. It's called 'Septima' and
when it comes into view on the approach through their vast expanse
of vineyards you can be excused for feeling a slight chill down
your spine. I was reminded of The Ministry of Information; a vastimposing
stone and concrete structure with steel entrance doors that made
you feel like you've arrived in the Land of the Giants. There's
nothing petit about this operation. We patrolled the arial gangways
gazing down into gargantuam (how many litre?) tanks, you could
only gawp at the scale as we passed through the bottling plant,
the storeroom containing 3 million bottles and then into the ground-floor
environmentally-controlled cellars of oak barrels. A mere 2 million
litres happily micro-oxigenating away.
What José doesn't drink he sells to less-industrious campesinos
(and me) at a euro a litre in old plastic drink bottles. Two glasses
and you're giggling like a schoolgirl; it sells itself. Evidently,
here, wine does not sell itself. A visit to Alta Vista has me
marvelling over its oozing slickness. You can barely turn a corner
without bumping into another backlit logo. We pass a tasting room
that is reminiscent of the dentist; a clinically immaculate double
row of stainless steel sinks and tubes set in a huge long glass
table. Thankfully, we are set to tasting up against a bar constructed
atop an oak barrel parquet floor. The bottles glint at us from
individually-lit cases recessed in the walls. We try the Gran
Reserva and I grapple with the question of how much I'm being
influenced by this mind-boggling display of opulence. It's bloody
good wine and I consider buying the logoed apron and corkscrew
so I can serve it to myself at home. Then I realize I've just
found the perfect Christmas present for José, although
he probably won't be needing the corkscrew!
It's
been an eye-opener meeting the professionals here in Mendoza;
I've climbed (and later crawled) a very steep learning curve of
taste and technology, old and new. These people really don't mess
around, even the vineyards start life with topographers followed
by irrigation experts to install hundreds of computer-controlled
solenoid valves. No sign of a farmer for miles.
