THE WINEPODDER

The other day, a fellow WinePodder commented to me that they wanted to practice “non-interventionist” winemaking as much as possible.

Non-interventionist winemaking is a branch of “natural winemaking.” The non-interventionist winemaker in the extreme does not intervene in the winemaking process and lets the wine make itself—good, bad or indifferent.

From this definition, my first winemaking experience was fairly non-interventionist. I purchased one hundred pounds of beautiful Santa Cruz mountains cabernet, and with the exception of using cultured yeasts and a new American oak mini barrel, I let the wine make itself.

As beginner’s luck would have it, the wine turned out fairly well, but it would have turned out a whole lot better with more acid and tannin. This wine reminded me of a Silver Oak cabernet, which from my point of view, is a good thing. However, though the wine started off well, it ended flat and short on the finish. That was its major flaw—too bad. If I had known, I would have made acid and tannin additions and the wine most likely would have been balanced and complete, a real joy to drink and share with friends.

Interestingly, a few years later while developing the WinePod, I was concerned that people would wrongfully think we had created a “wine–making machine,” something that did not require people to intervene at all. “Look what those crazy people in Silicon Valley did. They made a machine for making wine by just pressing a button and ‘whamo!,’ wine comes out. How unnatural is that?”

If people had this perception, I was worried about a backlash from wine purists who considered natural winemaking a kind of Shangri-La. Of course, creating a machine to make wine was not our intention. We wanted to create a machine that could reliably teach people how to be skilled winemakers. There is a big difference.

In fact, our goal to create skilled winemakers caused us to eliminate features in the WinePod that would have negated the need for human intervention. For example, the WinePod currently has an automatic punchdown capability, but we have not enabled it yet in the firmware. Why? For one: I want people to smell, taste and interact with the wine daily. This is critical to training your senses and tuning your smell and taste skills.

If you take the non-interventionist philosophy to its absurd ending, then why bother understanding any modern winemaking skills? They will only tempt you to intervene even more. Why not just create a machine that will allow you to pour grapes in and pour wine out?

Yes, why not? For starters, non-interventionist winemaking does not teach the novice winemaker how to anticipate and react to issues that happen during the fermentation. These issues, if left to the grapes themselves, can create wines that are generally not palatable. And why spend your time and energy creating a wine that you will not want to drink or share with friends? This is especially critical for new winemakers who, upon having a good first time experience, will become winemakers for life.

Because of these issues, at WinePod we teach you how, when, and why to intervene. In understanding these skills, you will simply make better, more enjoyable wines.

Interventionist practices supported by the WinePod software and system include:

• Enzymes
• Cultured yeasts
• Tannin
• New barrels
• Acidification, including water additions
• Malolactic bacteria innoculum (ML)
• DAP
• Inert gas
• Non-barrel oak alternatives
• Sulfites

Having said that, the WinePod also has features that will please the non-interventionist winemaker:

• Stainless steel only
• Gravity racking; no pumps
• No filtration (micro or sterile)
• No fining
• No microoxygenation
• No residual sugar styles of wine
• No alcohol adjustments

In the end, I believe you will make better choices and better wines when you understand and can skillfully employ interventionist winemaking methods. Don’t let the wine marketers fool you. Purely non-interventionist winemaking sounds better than it tastes. But, if you wish to go the non-interventionist path, the WinePod will enable you to do that as well.

This entry was posted Friday, June 13th, 2008 at 4:18 pm and is filed under Uncategorized, WinePod, winemaking. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.