SC - Poppa's mustard

[LrdRas@aol.com]

In a message dated 6/18/00 1:58:18 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
CBlackwill at aol.com writes:

<< Thank you for the information.  I had not considered this before, and will 
 now have to hit the books again.
 
 Balthazar of Blackmoor >>

I would suggest that when 'hitting' the books to keep in mind that current 
practices of vintners in California are very much different from traditional 
practices. While California wines can be said to little resemble traditional 
European wines because of the bulk tank methods used in their production, 
there are wines available that are made in the traditional ways still. 

Calloway Chardonnay, for instance is produced on the 'lees'. And a few small 
vintners still use or are experimenting with naturally occurring wild yeast. 
A good rule of thumb is that if a vineyard produces consistently small 
batches of wines then it's production methods are usually closer to the 
original methods.

So far as 'blending' is concerned, that really was the traditional way to 
make wines. The recent rise of California varietals is a modern phenomenon 
and is the major reason that I do not purchase California wines very often. 
European wines are almost exclusively blended. They always have been.

I also disagree that wines 'taste' any different now than they did in the 
middle ages. As I pointed out in my earlier posts Several of the Trebbiano's 
are still produced in the same way as they always were. Many of the Rhones 
also are still produced using the same stone pits and tanks that have always 
been used. According to the producer of Est! Est! Est!, it produced from the 
same varieties, using the same techniques that have been used since the 13th 
century. 

According to the same producer burning sulfur to sterilize casks, is not a 
modern invention. However, the addition of sulfur to the juice by some major 
commercial wineries is. Also storing wines in casks does not greatly lend to 
their going bad any quicker than storing them in bottles.

While it can be said that there are few California varietals that taste much 
like a period wine would have, it can also be said that many of the wines 
available from France and Italy most likely taste little different from their 
medieval counterparts. The exception would be mass produced commercial wines 
which are most likely better tasting now than in the middle ages. The art of 
vintning is truly ancient and almost all of 'innovations' that have occurred, 
with the exception of corking, have occurred in this century and almost all 
of those innovations are entirely restricted to commercial mass production. 
Basically if you avoid Ernest and Julio, Almaden, Paul Masson and Inglenook, 
avoid varietals and buy your wine from small European wineries, your product 
will be very much the same as that which was used by our ancestors for 
hundreds of years.

Ras