Wine
and Table Grapes, Hillsides and Fields
Summary: The difference between wine grapes and table grapes
reflects the difference between hillside and valley floor vineyards. This also reflects
the argument between the traditional and scientific winemakers that emerged in California
the 1980’s and continues today.
There is a long held belief in the wine world that the best
grapes come from hillside vineyards. The combination of steep inclines and
rocky soils encourage the kind of drainage that prevents the main problems that
grape vines suffer from, molds and fungus. The full Sun exposure, the daily
pattern of wind, the extremes in temperature all provide the conditions where
the vines have to struggle to thrive and that produces superior wine grapes.
Those conditions represent a fundamental difference between what
produces a good wine grape and a good table grape. The former is pitted against
the elements with a minimum of pampering, while the later is lavished with
everything it needs to be abundantly productive. A wine grape vine is given as
little water as possible, productive leaves are trimmed away, nutrition is
limited, and they are trained and pruned like an over-sized Bonsai tree
clinging to a rock. Table grape vines are given plenty of food and water, and expansive
trellises to spread themselves out upon on broad and fertile valley floors.
That’s why a wine grape is a small berry, with a thick,
flavor-filled skin and very little juice, and a table grape is a thin-skinned,
mildly-flavored watery sack. A premium wine grape has twice as much sugar as
its table cousin, and that sugar is converted into alcohol. There are many
varieties of grapes and you can make wine from anyone, but what growers choose
to plant is based on which makes the best wines according to current tastes and
price points.
Many of the varietals that were used for California’s early
jug wine industry are barely grown today. Instead, for today’s box wines seedless
table grapes provide the majority of the juice, with a small addition of the
grape variety that is on the label for flavoring. In a large winery factory
environment the ease of processing grapes with thin skins and no seeds is hard
to beat. The tannins that make people’s mouths pucker and require wines to be
aged are found in the skins and seeds; in table grapes tannins are minimized.
If you want to move juice quickly from vineyard to box it’s much easier if you
don’t have to deal with those pesky tannins.
So, if the best wine grapes come from the hillsides why is
the floor of the Napa Valley, America’s premier wine producer, covered with
vines? Because it is much easier to grow grapes on a flat field than clinging
for your life to trellises on a steep hillside! The valley floor will also
produce twice as many high quality grapes per acre as the hillside vineyards. Many
people feel that farming is hard enough without adding the challenges of
gravity and financial deprivation to the mix. Other people think differently,
and that’s why there are plenty of vineyards on the hillsides, and they include
many of Napa and Sonoma’s most prestigious wines. From my own experience, the
main difference between a valley floor and hillside vineyard is the character of
the wine it produces. There is a depth of personality, a vibrancy and life that
seems to roll off of those inclines. Just like the difference between a
person’s experience striding across an open field or hiking through a wooded
hillside, which is more engaging and demanding?
Often the growers who cling to the valley floor and deny the
wisdom of the hillsides espouse a school of thought that was fostered in
California’s academic communities in the 1980’s; that the location of the grapes didn’t matter as
much as the wine making. They believed that fields were simply growing mediums
and as long as they had enough hot days, science and chemistry could make up
for any deficiencies in the grapes. This approach represented a shocking
philosophical collision between the traditional winemakers, who viewed their art
as akin to magic, and the modern pragmatists. Part of the motivation of the
scientifically backed theorists was provided by the fact that they had some expensive
products to sell.
There is ‘right’ on both sides of the argument, technology
has removed some of the risk and toil, but that hard-headed adherence to doing ‘what
my Grandfather did’ has also served growers well when money was on the line. In the late 1800’s it became necessary to
graft wine grape vines onto disease resistant root stock and the technique
brought the world wide wine industry back from the brink. Score one for
science. In the 1970’s when premium grape production began to soar in Napa, the
politically connected academics promoted a new root stock that promised greater
production. Those growers that worshiped at the altar of science, including
Robert Mondavi, planted it extensively throughout the valley. Twenty years
later the new root stock’s resistance collapsed and fortunes were lost as
vineyards were bulldozed and new ones planted with less productive, but more
resistant stock. That is why the Mondavi company went public, to raise the
money to replant. Guess who didn’t lose any vines? The traditional growers,
mostly Italians, growing a great deal of the Zinfandel that went into jug wines
like the hearty Burgundy! They had continued to use the root stock that had
proved itself since their Grandpa’s time! Today those old vine Zins are sought out for
their complex flavors, despite their smaller production.
After years of denying the importance of location and
tradition, even the California winemakers are using the French word Terroir,
denoting the magic of location, with increasing frequency. Books are being
written on it and systems like Biodynamic farming that depend on it are
expanding their influence, especially among the ultra-premium growers. There
are also long discussions about what Terroir means. From the English point of
view French is often a hard language to translate as a single word, since it
often depends on its social or environmental context. Maybe locals should go
back to their linguistic roots, because many of the original Sonoma and Napa
growers came from Italy. Instead of Terroir they should use the word the
Italians use, Territorio, with all of those delicious vowels. Territorio has
more of the possessive quality that you feel when seeing grape vines clinging
to a steep hillside, their roots dug deeply into the coarse soil while they magically
transform sunlight and water into wine.
© 2010 Ralph & Lahni de Amicis
Ralph & Lahni DeAmicis are authors of seven books on
wine country and two iPhone Apps. They operate Amicis Tours and transport
clients throughout Napa, Sonoma, San Francisco and the rest of California.
http://www.AmicisTours.com
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