Maybe I'm too much of a sci-fi geek, but I instantly thought about a habitat ring in Star Trek or futuristic dome on Mars. But the future is already here. This will get done, is getting done. We have wineries in all 50 U.S. states and Montana and North Dakota do not have hospitable winters. But crops are grown. Humans find a way. We will continue to innovate.
The natty crowd has a scale issue. You reference using machines to pick grapes. This shouldn't be controversial, it's the only way to keep the price down. And part of the appeal of natural winemaking is its reasonable pricing. Labor will not be getting cheaper. Ever. The natty community will have to find a rationalization for using machines.
Speaking of rationalization, I said this on another forum, all wine is intervention, it's just a matter of degree and rationalization. I know natty winemakers and their advocates who eat tomatoes in winter, Doritos, Top Ramen, and cheap bulk pasta, and drink cheap beer, but want the highest standard for their grapes or winemaking. Rationalization. Like your PIWI reference, that's acceptable but using a machine to pick the grapes is a problem?
I don’t know enough about wine specifically, but there are so many things we don’t understand about how nature works that I’d be very suspicious of shielding plants from sunlight. Even though glasshouses have been used for centuries. And we can get decent crops from modern plastic greenhouses. I would agree that it breaks the definition of natural. Just as one small related example, many of us are growing grapes at home here in Upper Austria but we all plant them against or near a south-facing wall. What if the building materials are off-gassing whatever over the years and the strong summer sunlight against the wall is creating molecules that would never exist in nature, and these enter the grapes? Well for such small home harvests who cares. But on a massive scale, there are probably some differences. Maybe they’re harmless, maybe not.
I’m still mulling these issues and, in particular, the specific challenges raised by VitiVoltaic.
But a few observations ...
First, the contention that “just like it used to be” is a euphemism for “fruit [i]sn’t fully ripe” strikes me as one that only a winegrower who’s been living on another planet could voice. Excessive must weights and over-ripeness have become serious problems in winegrowing regions where that was undreamt of 30 years ago. And I daresay most of Simon’s readers have found delight in wines that in other quarters were accused of under-ripeness.
What’s radical about VitiVoltaic is that it's sophisticated hi-tech that significantly alters the vineyard environment. But if one considers each of these aspects in turn, it’s not clear to me why their conjunction should be automatically ruled out from a regimen that describes itself as natural winemaking.
Drones capable of applying plant treatments are hi-tech in my book. But I cannot conceive how a wine would be less natural or otherwise suspect simply because this rather sophisticated machinery is doing work that formerly required human hands. Pressure bombs are a relatively high-tech means of determining whether and to what degree one’s vines are stressed by water deficit and their stomata threatening to shut down. But I can’t see how “naturalness” of a wine should depend on whether a grower utilized solely observations and intuitions such as his or her grandfather might have accumulated, or has instead supplemented those with the use of a pressure bomb.
As for radically altering a vineyard environment, if one turns sheep loose on one’s vines and vineyard soil, if one plants hedges and trees not just on one’s vineyards’ perimeters but in the midst of them, if one builds or removes terraces ... these all represent pretty major alterations, and they will certainly change terroir influence and the eventual flavors of one’s wines. But there is no such thing as the natural state of a vineyard. If we want to accept some of these environmental alterations and reject others, then it strikes me we should employ the same criteria that we would in a well-reasoned attempt at defining “natural wine,” namely to ask whether they represent interventions that close off certain desirable organoleptic properties in the resultant wine, whether they render wines less healthy to consume, whether they inhibit long-term flourishing of the vines, or whether they do environmental harm as measured in terms of biodiversity and sustainability.
(Incidentally, since Simon mentioned him, I grieved when Niedermayr pulled out his last vinifera because they were Pinot Blanc that gave an exceptional wine. But there’s no question he is among a handful of winegrowers who have helped me comprehend the quality potential of Piwi’s. That said, I believe the first places to look in meeting environmental and gustatory challenges are diligent practice of massale selection and casting about for alternative vinifera varieties – which often includes ones that are part of a wine region’s history but were marginalized or eradicated, whether in the wake of phylloxera or of mechanization, because they were stubbornly acid-retentive, slow to sugar-up, low-yielding, or less amenable to farming with machines. And hard as it is to wrap one's head around this ineluctable fact, each and every vinifera cépage began - can only have begun - with a single vine, the product of single sexual dalliance. All further propagation that retains the relevant genetic makeup and fruit characteristics has been vegetative. So, by the same token, when it comes to breeding new vinifera, the set of potential cépages is for practical purposes infinite.)
Thanks David. I think this, from your comments sums it up for me "it's [VitiVoltaic] sophisticated hi-tech that significantly alters the vineyard environment"
It's a fair point that introducing animals to the vineyard, or building terracing are certainly also interventions. But I guess animals have historically had access to vineyards more often than not. So there is some weight of tradition here, as there is with terracing.
Shielding an entire vineyard from direct sunlight and integrating that with controls over every other aspect of the soil's temperature and moisture content feels like another level.
If interventions like this allow us to turn back time, or - by way of speculation - to make a cool-climate style wine in the Southern Rhone or Priorat, how can we really talk about sense of place or terroir?
I am not sure I share your misgivings about VitiVoltaic - and what really is the objection? Dual-use of farmland (veg or tree fruit production + solar energy generation) is growing and, in some cases, makes farming economically sustainable or even improves conditions, such as providing shade for livestock under panels. We seriously need to cut the use of fossil fuels and that should help to guide our land use patterns as well. Man-made climate change is a massive challenge and cannot be addressed soon enough.
"Ayscough’s article is fairly measured, but the discourse became more barbed in a series of back-and-forth posts on Instagram at the time" - that is mainly because he tends to get pretty unreasonable and overheated very quickly.
As I tried to explain in the article, my main misgivings are around the fact that mounting panels over vines would make a significant difference to ripening patterns. So the resulting wine might no longer display the true character (terroir if you will) of the place where its grown.
I am fully onboard with solar energy production and dual-use of farmland.
I think shade will become a bonus as climate change impacts viticulture more.
I used to farm in the Languedoc and over 25 years went from leaf stripping to shading the fruit as much as possible. If I had unlimited resources and was still there, I would be experimenting with overhead trellising. Increased shade (with airflow) = more aromatics but higher malic.
Interestingly I'm now in Rias Baixas where traditionally vines are grown on overhead pergolas. There are a variety of reasons why but I believe that growing fruit in the shade underneath the canopy also contributes to Albariño's aromatic intensity. Just compare Rias Baixas Albariño with the same grape grown elsewhere and vertically trained.
Nor do I believe that vines need anywhere near the surface foliar that viticultural researches have led us to believe. I saw some Swiss research that suggested 1.6m2/kg of fruit but I made very successful rosé with half that.
So I think a mixed vineyard with overhead photovoltaic panels could be a very useful tool, especially in warmer areas. Although I'm not sure how you'd be able to use a machine harvester (which I'm in favour of for some varieties, eg. Cab Sauvignon, and opposed to for others, eg. Cinsault) with photovoltaic panels mounted on the trellis post?
My only linkage between the two is in terms of thinking about newer technologies and their acceptance (or not) by the more back-to-the-roots elements of the wine world
True but there should be room for everything in wine. We simply don't know what the future will throw at us and all attempts at adapting to climate change should be examined with an open mind. At the same time, the vine nature movement is an antidote to the modernisation at any cost trend of the 1960s through 1990s. That brought its own set of problems and I believe that the vin nature réaction to it is largely positive. But it shouldn't be an intellectual or emotional straitjacket. We still need new strategies to adapt to the evolving climate.
By the way though, when you write "I think shade will become a bonus as climate change impacts viticulture more." that to me just suggests that growers need to review their canopy management.
In the past many would open up the canopy to maximise the grapes' exposure to the sun. There are choices that can be made here surely?
Absolutely. In 2021 in Burgundy I heard that there were experiments with extending the trellis and vegetative height on standard plantation density vineyards in burgundy. In theory the height of the vegetation should equal the row width which in Burgundy are 1m. But they were looking at extending the vegetation height to 1.5m so that the lowest 50cm of the vegetation - where the fruit hangs - is almost never in the sun.
This could change the style of the wine somewhat and they could resemble more the wines of the past (paler, more malic) although against that, the increased leaf area also brings the risk of more and faster sugar accumulation.
I cannot imagine that some shade significantly affects terroir. In some regions lower ripeness levels would be a blessing. Hail netting might have a similar effect but I cannot imagine objecting to that either.
Maybe I'm too much of a sci-fi geek, but I instantly thought about a habitat ring in Star Trek or futuristic dome on Mars. But the future is already here. This will get done, is getting done. We have wineries in all 50 U.S. states and Montana and North Dakota do not have hospitable winters. But crops are grown. Humans find a way. We will continue to innovate.
The natty crowd has a scale issue. You reference using machines to pick grapes. This shouldn't be controversial, it's the only way to keep the price down. And part of the appeal of natural winemaking is its reasonable pricing. Labor will not be getting cheaper. Ever. The natty community will have to find a rationalization for using machines.
Speaking of rationalization, I said this on another forum, all wine is intervention, it's just a matter of degree and rationalization. I know natty winemakers and their advocates who eat tomatoes in winter, Doritos, Top Ramen, and cheap bulk pasta, and drink cheap beer, but want the highest standard for their grapes or winemaking. Rationalization. Like your PIWI reference, that's acceptable but using a machine to pick the grapes is a problem?
I don’t know enough about wine specifically, but there are so many things we don’t understand about how nature works that I’d be very suspicious of shielding plants from sunlight. Even though glasshouses have been used for centuries. And we can get decent crops from modern plastic greenhouses. I would agree that it breaks the definition of natural. Just as one small related example, many of us are growing grapes at home here in Upper Austria but we all plant them against or near a south-facing wall. What if the building materials are off-gassing whatever over the years and the strong summer sunlight against the wall is creating molecules that would never exist in nature, and these enter the grapes? Well for such small home harvests who cares. But on a massive scale, there are probably some differences. Maybe they’re harmless, maybe not.
Just a no from me. It flies in the face of everything I would want from viticulture
My instinctive feeling too. But I felt I had to at least run it around the block a couple of times
I'll listen to any ideas, so, worth considering
I’m still mulling these issues and, in particular, the specific challenges raised by VitiVoltaic.
But a few observations ...
First, the contention that “just like it used to be” is a euphemism for “fruit [i]sn’t fully ripe” strikes me as one that only a winegrower who’s been living on another planet could voice. Excessive must weights and over-ripeness have become serious problems in winegrowing regions where that was undreamt of 30 years ago. And I daresay most of Simon’s readers have found delight in wines that in other quarters were accused of under-ripeness.
What’s radical about VitiVoltaic is that it's sophisticated hi-tech that significantly alters the vineyard environment. But if one considers each of these aspects in turn, it’s not clear to me why their conjunction should be automatically ruled out from a regimen that describes itself as natural winemaking.
Drones capable of applying plant treatments are hi-tech in my book. But I cannot conceive how a wine would be less natural or otherwise suspect simply because this rather sophisticated machinery is doing work that formerly required human hands. Pressure bombs are a relatively high-tech means of determining whether and to what degree one’s vines are stressed by water deficit and their stomata threatening to shut down. But I can’t see how “naturalness” of a wine should depend on whether a grower utilized solely observations and intuitions such as his or her grandfather might have accumulated, or has instead supplemented those with the use of a pressure bomb.
As for radically altering a vineyard environment, if one turns sheep loose on one’s vines and vineyard soil, if one plants hedges and trees not just on one’s vineyards’ perimeters but in the midst of them, if one builds or removes terraces ... these all represent pretty major alterations, and they will certainly change terroir influence and the eventual flavors of one’s wines. But there is no such thing as the natural state of a vineyard. If we want to accept some of these environmental alterations and reject others, then it strikes me we should employ the same criteria that we would in a well-reasoned attempt at defining “natural wine,” namely to ask whether they represent interventions that close off certain desirable organoleptic properties in the resultant wine, whether they render wines less healthy to consume, whether they inhibit long-term flourishing of the vines, or whether they do environmental harm as measured in terms of biodiversity and sustainability.
(Incidentally, since Simon mentioned him, I grieved when Niedermayr pulled out his last vinifera because they were Pinot Blanc that gave an exceptional wine. But there’s no question he is among a handful of winegrowers who have helped me comprehend the quality potential of Piwi’s. That said, I believe the first places to look in meeting environmental and gustatory challenges are diligent practice of massale selection and casting about for alternative vinifera varieties – which often includes ones that are part of a wine region’s history but were marginalized or eradicated, whether in the wake of phylloxera or of mechanization, because they were stubbornly acid-retentive, slow to sugar-up, low-yielding, or less amenable to farming with machines. And hard as it is to wrap one's head around this ineluctable fact, each and every vinifera cépage began - can only have begun - with a single vine, the product of single sexual dalliance. All further propagation that retains the relevant genetic makeup and fruit characteristics has been vegetative. So, by the same token, when it comes to breeding new vinifera, the set of potential cépages is for practical purposes infinite.)
Thanks David. I think this, from your comments sums it up for me "it's [VitiVoltaic] sophisticated hi-tech that significantly alters the vineyard environment"
It's a fair point that introducing animals to the vineyard, or building terracing are certainly also interventions. But I guess animals have historically had access to vineyards more often than not. So there is some weight of tradition here, as there is with terracing.
Shielding an entire vineyard from direct sunlight and integrating that with controls over every other aspect of the soil's temperature and moisture content feels like another level.
If interventions like this allow us to turn back time, or - by way of speculation - to make a cool-climate style wine in the Southern Rhone or Priorat, how can we really talk about sense of place or terroir?
I am not sure I share your misgivings about VitiVoltaic - and what really is the objection? Dual-use of farmland (veg or tree fruit production + solar energy generation) is growing and, in some cases, makes farming economically sustainable or even improves conditions, such as providing shade for livestock under panels. We seriously need to cut the use of fossil fuels and that should help to guide our land use patterns as well. Man-made climate change is a massive challenge and cannot be addressed soon enough.
"Ayscough’s article is fairly measured, but the discourse became more barbed in a series of back-and-forth posts on Instagram at the time" - that is mainly because he tends to get pretty unreasonable and overheated very quickly.
As I tried to explain in the article, my main misgivings are around the fact that mounting panels over vines would make a significant difference to ripening patterns. So the resulting wine might no longer display the true character (terroir if you will) of the place where its grown.
I am fully onboard with solar energy production and dual-use of farmland.
I think shade will become a bonus as climate change impacts viticulture more.
I used to farm in the Languedoc and over 25 years went from leaf stripping to shading the fruit as much as possible. If I had unlimited resources and was still there, I would be experimenting with overhead trellising. Increased shade (with airflow) = more aromatics but higher malic.
Interestingly I'm now in Rias Baixas where traditionally vines are grown on overhead pergolas. There are a variety of reasons why but I believe that growing fruit in the shade underneath the canopy also contributes to Albariño's aromatic intensity. Just compare Rias Baixas Albariño with the same grape grown elsewhere and vertically trained.
Nor do I believe that vines need anywhere near the surface foliar that viticultural researches have led us to believe. I saw some Swiss research that suggested 1.6m2/kg of fruit but I made very successful rosé with half that.
So I think a mixed vineyard with overhead photovoltaic panels could be a very useful tool, especially in warmer areas. Although I'm not sure how you'd be able to use a machine harvester (which I'm in favour of for some varieties, eg. Cab Sauvignon, and opposed to for others, eg. Cinsault) with photovoltaic panels mounted on the trellis post?
Ha, that's a very good point!
My only linkage between the two is in terms of thinking about newer technologies and their acceptance (or not) by the more back-to-the-roots elements of the wine world
True but there should be room for everything in wine. We simply don't know what the future will throw at us and all attempts at adapting to climate change should be examined with an open mind. At the same time, the vine nature movement is an antidote to the modernisation at any cost trend of the 1960s through 1990s. That brought its own set of problems and I believe that the vin nature réaction to it is largely positive. But it shouldn't be an intellectual or emotional straitjacket. We still need new strategies to adapt to the evolving climate.
I absolutely agree.
By the way though, when you write "I think shade will become a bonus as climate change impacts viticulture more." that to me just suggests that growers need to review their canopy management.
In the past many would open up the canopy to maximise the grapes' exposure to the sun. There are choices that can be made here surely?
Absolutely. In 2021 in Burgundy I heard that there were experiments with extending the trellis and vegetative height on standard plantation density vineyards in burgundy. In theory the height of the vegetation should equal the row width which in Burgundy are 1m. But they were looking at extending the vegetation height to 1.5m so that the lowest 50cm of the vegetation - where the fruit hangs - is almost never in the sun.
This could change the style of the wine somewhat and they could resemble more the wines of the past (paler, more malic) although against that, the increased leaf area also brings the risk of more and faster sugar accumulation.
I cannot imagine that some shade significantly affects terroir. In some regions lower ripeness levels would be a blessing. Hail netting might have a similar effect but I cannot imagine objecting to that either.
Well French appellation bodies forbade hail nets on exactly that basis, until 2018.
They came to their senses, clearly. As a grower i would use such a tool if needed and have left the AOC.
Real good words
Thanks Jaime, glad if it struck a chord.
I passed that and David’s article to my modest 250 or so sommelier friends
🙏🙏🙏