Clusters and Skins and Juice, Oh My!
There are star clusters and then there are whole clusters. One flavors our night sky and the other adds character to our wine.
Winemaker Tony Rynders must make hundreds of decisions about what happens with the grapes between the time they hit the sorting bins and the time the wine hits your lips. While each decision is important, skin contact time and whether to use whole cluster fermenting are some of the earliest and most important decisions. Some techniques will be dictated by the wine. Our Expressionism, for example, is always whole cluster fermented. The vintage influences other techniques. One stark example is the 2020 vintage. Tony minimized skin contact with our red wines, eliminating smoke taint while yielding a softer, quaffable product. Such are the skills of the master.
Generally speaking, skins and stems add tannins to the wine and extended contact with both will make a wine that can present as fuller, with more mouth feel. A similar effect can be produced by aging longer in the barrel or aging in new oak. As discussed in an earlier article, the origin of the oak also impacts tannins.
In many Rosé wines such as Rosé of Pinot Noir, brief skin contact gives the wine that pinkish blush that is so popular for summer sipping in today’s market. For red wines, longer skin contact leads to deeper color. This is just one reason that we often associate a darker wine with a fuller, more tannic taste. It is not the only reason, of course. Cabernet Sauvignon grapes will, all other things being equal, produce a darker wine than Pinot Noir grapes. Vintage will also affect color with longer hang time on the vines leading to development of the phenols, a contributor to color.
Each wine maker has a palette of tools to use in producing the final product which is why a Saffron Fields wine may be distinctly different than a Roots or EIEIO wine, even when sourced from the same vineyard and vintage. We periodically showcase these differences by hosting horizontal tastings from some of our favorite producers who use Saffron Fields grapes.
Whole cluster wines may be initially off putting due to the high tannins when the juice is first put in barrels. This is just one reason that a wine maker might hold the wine in barrel longer and only release the wine in bottle after several years. Of course, holding back hundreds of gallons of premium wine is an expensive proposition, just one reason that your finer Willamette Valley wines may cost several times more than bargain basement bottles.
When you taste one of our whole cluster wines, look for the earthiness and full mouth feel that is associated with skin and stem contact. Later, after you have set down the wine for months or years, those tannins will mellow. The acidity will also fall. In a poorly-crafted product, these changes can make a wine seem flabby: just fermented grape juice with no particular character. We’ve all experienced it in so-so wines. In a well-crafted wine, consumed at the right moment, aging can lead to the “Ohhlala, I wish I had more of this” moment. Our recent club release included several library wines that are well aged to present that delight.
So, on the next bright autumn night, sit back and gaze up at the overhead star clusters (see Owner’s Musings) while appreciating the whole clusters that have given depth and character to your Expressionism wine.
