Itâs up there with âputting syrah in their pinotâ and âusing oak chips and sawdustâ in terms of being the go-to conspiracy accusations leveled against wineries that someone doesnât like.
The reason that I ask is that I have a friend who owns a small winery in Napa & his winemaker who has been there for yrs has told him that is is WIDELY used but did not name anyone.
As Chris correctly points out, this is one of the bogeymen of wine nerd circles. Itâs usually accompanied by something about how that the wine the person likes is pure natural vineyard to the bottle yadda yadda.
âWIDELYâ used can mean lots of things. If itâs used in all the large corp wines that sell for cheap from your grocery store by the pallet then that surprises no one. That would include lots of wines that originate from Napa. If they are suggesting that itâs âWIDELYâ used by boutique wineries then lets hear some proof. Most of those wineries probably have more to lose than to gain by using something like that. High quality fruit thatâs attended to by premium vineyard management and hand picked isnât gonna need something like that.
This topic has come up a number of times here over the years. As I recall, there are people in the trade who say that it is fairly widely used even among higher-end wines. But, of course, no one will go on the record about which places.
Yes I would stop buyingâŚit would be a breach of trust (unless of course they saidâŚwe are using it publicly). Agree with most other comments here----I think the usage is high but no one will admit to it.
Grocery store wine that is $5 -$20 is the prime segment that may use it. My wife who doesnât have the most refined palate can tell the âaltered sweetnessâ in wines in that price point segment. Its off putting and kind of obvious. Another reason why finding enjoyable widely available $10-$20 wine can be tough.
All you need to do is go out, hire some computer nerd 13 yr old, have him hack into the Mega-Purple companyâs data base, which is probably not very secure and would be pretty simple, and then publish the name of their clients.
Iâd donate to the GoFundMe campaign to do this. Anybody else with me on this?
Tom
As others have said, this is a topic that comes up often, but because (a) no winery ever admits to using anything other than what consumers expect and (b) they donât have to and (c) nearly every winemaker and winery is more concerned about appearances than anything else, we collectively will never know.
Being in the industry for nearly 2 decades, I have seen so many situations âportray themselvesâ as doing one thing but in fact do something else - whether itâs filtering wines when they say they donât; having to remove volatile acidity from a wine but never mentioning it; using Velcorin instead of filtering to avoid the âstigmaâ of filtering; blending a little white wine or, egads, fruit juice to roses to âpopâ the fruit; adding some petite sirah or alicante bouche or something else to âadd colorâ to a wine but still saying that itâs 100% of a specific variety; and the list goes on and on.
And to those who say a lot of âgrocery storeâ wines have them, how do you know? The âslight sweetnessâ could be coming from the same âgrape concentratesâ that many wineries use to add a touch of RS or sweetness to cut bitterness.
The easiest way to find out is to directly ask a winemaker or winery what they do - but do not expect them to put anything in print . . .
There are lots of âthingsâ that take place that consumers really are not concerned with - but they collectively go up in arms about certain things . . . and the same happens here from time to time.