Strangest Wine-making Practices

If you are not familiar with the term terroir, let me explain it first because I would be corrupting the concept to suit my story for this post.

Simply put, terroir refers to all environmental factors that affect the quality of the grapes and, henceforth, the wine’s taste and flavor. This could include soil, its mineral content, water, amount of sunshine, rainfall, temperature and so forth. Now, I should like to propose a different kind of terroir, one that is man-made, man-induced or something to that effect. I am talking about the variables created, built or imposed by men on environment to control it or enhance it even in order to positively affect the quality of his wine.

Let us begin with music. Must you ask if I am serious? Well, it just so happened that I am. Because there is this Italian vintner by the name of Alois Lageder of Tenutae Alois Lageder  who commissioned a sound system to be installed on his wine cellar, which doubles as a cave. I am just messing with you: the cellar is a cave. The said contraption was programmed to play Bach’s sixth Brandenburg Concerto every hour for a minute. This was complemented by a light show of prancing yeast cells on the cave walls. The vintner proudly called the affair, Lullaby for Casks and Strings and was supposed to make wine more pleasant. Well who would not wake up in good spirits after slumbering to the tune of a Bach masterpiece? If you purchase one of his bottles, kindly inform me if it worked its magic.

Let me then proceed to a day or rather an evening when the moon is full in the rolling plains of Queensland, Australia, and a certain Mike Hayes of Symphony Hill Wines harvests his grapes in all his naked, er… glory? Mr. Hayes, a vintner poised to make big splash in the Australian wine industry is said to have discovered this 4,000 year-old ritual and swore to adopt and perfect it in his winery. He officially banned clothes during harvest time because it supposedly contaminates winemaking process. The initiative – if you can call it that – is part of Mr. Hayes drive for clean working conditions. Quite a laudable goal, if you ask me.

There are also vintners who are very serious about the terroir – the original concept, that is. These people have identified the best environmental conditions that would yield the best grapes for their wine. Once problem arises in this respect, say, the wind is a bit more enthusiastic than usual, or the weather more erratic or the snow has fallen a bit thicker so that the temperature shifts from ideal to not-ideal. Leave it to these vintners to be proactive in their response. Winemaker, Jim White, for example, would call in a fleet of helicopters to help encourage the wind in a windless morning. The helicopters would hover over the vineyard, almost completely covering the sky, working their blades to obtain the desired temperature. The first time I heard of this antic, I was momentarily concerned. Shouldn’t Mr. White consider the sensibilities of his grapes? I could just imagine the noise and the stress it would most likely impose on the hapless vines.

And then, there is this story about Mr. Gustavo Gonzalez of Mira Winery. In his quest to have the perfect aging terroir, he chanced upon the idea of submerging the casks underwater. Cases and cases of his 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon were promptly deposited to the depths of Charleston Harbor. The bottle dutifully waited for three months and when the time was up, they were hoisted up to be presented before the much incited bunch of wine aficionados. A sommelier was summarily called to sample the produce. Everyone waited with bated breath as his discriminating palate savor Mr. Gonzalez’ handiwork. With much ceremony – for, after all, the affair was right in the middle of a press conference – the sommelier declared it a resounding success, sputtering words like “control”, “relaxed”, “texturally different”, “fruity fresh” and a bit more superlatives here and there to describe the experience. As was expected the crowd, driven to a frenzy, wiped the wine shelves clean, leaving a very satisfied Mr. Gonzalez grinning all the way to the bank.

And to cap this list, I would like to cite this vineyard in Apalta, Chile called Montes Wine. Its owner commissioned a feng shui expert to design his winery when it launched in 2005. The result was a combination of architectural and engineering feats that managed to incorporate elements of water, the sun and the moon and all those variables that supposedly would harness energy. The entire affair culminated in ringing a bell (it really did), which would supposedly prod the soil to be more fertile as well as to make the earth happy.