🍷 Élevage vs Aging

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Happy Monday! We hope you have a great week. In this week’s DECORKED digest, you will read all about the differences between élevage and aging, fortified wines, Chile’s harvest, tips for brand communication, AI assisting winemakers, and much more. Keep reading!

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INTERESTING THIS WEEK

🔍 Scientists find a solution for off smells in canned wine READ HERE

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⛈ Bad weather hammers French vineyards READ HERE 

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HOW WINE BRANDS HAVE EVOLVED IN THEIR COMMUNICATION

Guy Woodward, a veteran wine writer and editor, recently launched Grand Cru Creative, a creative agency for the wine industry, highlighting the evolving landscape of brand communication. Initially dominated by a few magazines and independent blogs, wine communication now thrives on digital platforms with branded content, allowing direct consumer engagement. Despite this, the challenge for brands is to make their content stand out amidst the digital clutter, as many marketing emails are often ignored. Effective content, particularly for the fine wine market, requires depth and authority, often achieved by involving knowledgeable wine buyers. However, even these experts need editorial support to ensure clear and engaging communication, emphasizing the importance of professional content creation in shaping brand perception.

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CHILE’S 2024 HARVEST: YIELDS LOWER BUT QUALITY HIGH

Chile’s 2023/2024 wine season saw a mild winter affecting the northern and center-southern regions differently, resulting in overall lower yields but high quality. The season's notable feature was the contrasting weather impacts due to the El Niño phenomenon, which raised Pacific temperatures by 1-1.5 degrees, leading to greater cloud cover, less sunlight, and rainy winters, causing slow ripening. In Limarí, the mild winter led to early budding and water shortages, reducing yields by 20%, but cloud cover prevented overripeness. In contrast, Colchagua and Maipo experienced unusual conditions with high winter temperatures, cold, damp springs, and uneven ripening due to a cold, cloudy year followed by a hot summer. Despite these challenges, the quality of the 2024 vintage remains high, though yields are 10-15% below average.

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HAVE WINE DRINKERS BEEN MISSING OUT ON FORTIFIED WINES?

The fortified wine industry is actively appealing to a new generation of wine drinkers with Sherry and Port-based cocktails, and food pairings featuring Marsala and Madeira. This is an excellent opportunity for fortified wines to showcase their diverse styles and shed the outdated image of being reserved for special occasions. Patricia Stefanowicz, chair of the Global Fortified Masters competition, praised these wines for their suitability to modern tastes, noting their versatility as both aperitifs and food pairings. The Global Fortified Masters competition, which features blind tastings by experts including Masters of Wine and Master Sommeliers, aims to highlight the best fortified wines based on style and price. Entries are open for another week, and results will be featured in the August issue of the drinks business magazine and online.

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AI HAS INFILTRATED THE WINE INDUSTRY AND IT'S AFFECTING WHAT'S IN YOUR GLASS

Wineries worldwide are utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize various aspects of winemaking, from vineyard management to bottling processes, enhancing the quality, sustainability, and accessibility of wine. AI assists in decision-making, budgeting, and mitigating the impacts of climate change. For instance, California's Gamble Family Vineyards uses AI-equipped tractors for real-time crop analysis and yield estimates, while Australia's Mount Langi Ghiran monitors water levels and cropping forecasts with AI, allowing precise resource planning. Chile's Viña Concha y Toro employs AI for yield estimation and grape quality assessment, improving productivity and resource management. AI also optimizes irrigation and disease management, aids in simulating fermentation processes, and predicts bottling plant failures. Despite these technological advancements, human expertise remains essential, with AI serving to enhance rather than replace traditional winemaking skills.

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WINE ÉLEVAGE: COMING TO TERMS WITH AGING

The term "élevage" is often used interchangeably with "aging" in the wine industry, but it encompasses much more. Josh Bergström of Bergström Wines describes élevage as the process of "raising" a wine, involving various technical actions from fermentation to bottling, such as lees stirring, choice of aging vessel, and malolactic fermentation. In contrast, aging refers to the period after a wine is bottled and left to mature. Élevage involves intentional interventions to prepare the wine for consumption, while aging simply allows the wine to develop over time. This distinction highlights that élevage is a more comprehensive term, capturing all the processes that refine the wine before it leaves the cellar, whereas aging refers to the wine's development post-bottling to enhance its flavor profile.

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'STONE AGE MAMMOTH BONES’ FOUND IN WINE CELLAR

In Austria, a winemaker named Andreas Pernerstorfer discovered rare mammoth bones dating back up to 40,000 years while renovating his cellar in Gobelsburg, Krems district. The find, described by experts as an "archaeological sensation," led Pernerstorfer to report it to the Federal Monuments Office. Archaeologists from the Austrian Archaeological Institute (OeAI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) have since uncovered multiple bone layers, marking the first such discovery in Austria in 150 years. Stone artifacts and charcoal at the site suggest the bones are between 30,000 and 40,000 years old. Excavation work, led by archaeologists Thomas Einwögerer and Hannah Parow-Souchon, has revealed bones from three different mammoths.

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A WINE HAS BEEN MATURED USING A COMPUTER GAME SOUNDTRACK

Japanese electronics company Onkyo has aged wine using the soundtrack of the NieR: Automata video game. The wines come in two variants, 2B and 9S, named after characters in the game. NieR: Automata, developed by Yoko Taro for PlatinumGames and published by Square Enix in 2017, is set during a war between alien machines and human-made androids. Onkyo's wine range, called NieR Automata Ver1.1a, was matured by playing the game's soundtrack through speakers attached to the barrels. The wines, priced at 12,000 Yen (£80) each, were also featured at a tasting event at Onkyo’s Akihabara store. The bottles include a glass with a ‘lunar tear’ design. The game's soundtrack, composed by Keiichi Okabe received acclaim for its dynamic integration of hard and soft songs that transition based on in-game situations.

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WINE REGION OF THE WEEK: BOHEMIA, CZECH REPUBLIC

Bohemia, located in the Czech Republic, is a northern European region with a long history of winemaking, dating back to the late 16th century. Despite its early establishment, it now contributes less than five percent of the country's wine production, with its role being mainly ceremonial. The region's continental climate features four seasons, with warm summers and snowy winters, necessitating grape varieties resistant to cold temperatures. The area's diverse soils, such as limestone and basalt-based, contribute to the unique characteristics of its wines. Bohemia's vineyards were historically planted according to individual caretakers' capabilities rather than efficient agricultural practices.

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GRAPE OF THE WEEK: HIBERNAL

Hibernal is a hybrid white grape variety bred in Germany but grown mainly (but still in small amounts) in Moldova and the Czech Republic. There are a few hectares in Germany and Canada. The wines tend to show good acidity and body with higher alcohol levels and can taste similar to a Scheurebe. As with many hybrid varieties, there can be some hints of “wet fox” aromas. The variety was developed in 1944 by Heinrich Birk at the Geisenheim Grape Breeding Institute. It has been permitted commercially in Europe since 1999. Hibernal is a crossing of Seibel 7053 (a hybrid red grape also known as Chancellor) and Riesling. It contains genes from Vitis labrusca, V. lincecumii, V. rupestris, and Vitis vinifera (the species to which noble varieties such as Chardonnay belong).

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