Once again, a specific wine topic has blown my mind and this time it’s creative winemaking. What could be creative about wine, you ask? Everything! Compared to nearly any other beverage, wine allows the farmer and the winemaker an inordinate amount of creative license! Follow me on this one as I’m obsessed. Let me start by sharing a few areas where creative juices (yep, pun intended) flow.
Creativity in wine begins in the vineyard!
As you know, wine starts with a simple agricultural product, grapes. Not any ordinary grapes, however. More than 10,000 varieties or varietals of grapes grow on this great planet of ours. And, if you believe in life on other planets, I’m sure that number would grow exponentially! Which one to plant, which one to pick, which one to blend? So many choices, so much creative license this is the obvious starting point for my next post!
Is there an order to all this creative winemaking?
So, you’ll have to keep me honest here. With all the aspects of creativity, I’m likely to get off track, but if I miss any of these over the next weeks, please call me out on it as they are all equally important! Once a winemaker and farmer have the specific varietal(s) of grape vines planted, the creative decision-making continues. How to trellis? How to manage the canopy? Organic? Biodynamic? Sustainable? When to harvest? How to harvest? See, the choices are endless and we haven’t even left the vineyard yet!
Within the winery, the creative juices can keep flowing and flowing and flowing! This is where the wine maker’s creativity blows my mind! Once we’ve moved inside after harvest, creativity can come into play in hundreds, if not thousands, of ways. De-stem or whole cluster press? Steel tank, concrete egg or oak for fermentation? Pump over or punch down? Skin contact? Oh, the list goes on and on and my brain simply revels in excitement!! (remember you’re reading a nerd’s blog here so no further judgment!)
Other aspects of creative winemaking continue in the winery into the bottle and beyond. With so much creativity at play in wines, it would be easy for winemakers to run amok! So much so none of us, as normal wine lovers, could even begin to know what was happening or how to pick a bottle of wine for dinner! As with every civilized society, laws and regulations keep some level of stability and the wild world of wine is no different. Nations, states, wine regions, even individual vineyards are governed by a high count of standards, regulations, and laws to ensure quality, control and some modicum of consistency is present. (In the U.S. the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau governs) This one would take years to cover but I’ll keep it simple by comparing a few Old World tendencies with the New World.
As I hope you can tell, this topic is one of so much depth I might not be able to even touch the surface! It’s truly this topic, creativity, which makes me so passionate and curious about wine. How can a simple grape grown on a gnarly vine turn into a magical liquid whose story unfolds with each and every delectable sip? I could write a book about each wine experience. Creativity in wine is truly mind-blowing so stay tuned and most importantly don’t miss another blog by ensuring you’re signed up for my newsletter!
Let’s take this journey of creativity together my friend!
Since I know your mind is blown over this topic, check out these other posts on the topic of creativity!:
Keeping the creative juices flowing in the vineyard!
To blend, or not to blend, that is the question!
Cheers!🍷
#creativity #wine #winery #winemaker #wineeducation #rulesandregulations #blowmymind #newworldwine #oldworldwine
