The arguments for and against the use of technology to improve a wine pose a nearly metaphysical problem. First, how do we define the word “improve?” I think it’s fair to say that it’s still debatable whether a 16.5 percent alcohol wine is rated as a “better” wine than its de-alcoholized counterpart at 14.5 percent.

The so-called purists would argue that the 16.5 percent alcohol wine was made more naturally than was the wine that was manipulated down to 14.5 percent, and notice the use of italics to denote how the purists would use the terms, which are highly charged. This argument presupposes that the naturally made 16.5 percent alcohol wine was not manipulated before it reached its final 16.5 percent state. But how did it get to be this way?

First and foremost comes the growing of grapes. Let’s assume all viticultural aspects of these particular vines were “normal,” in that nothing aberrational was done to force the retardation of the development of the grapes.

That means the grapes from these vines were allowed, by human decision, to ripen to the point where they would ferment to dryness, or near dryness, at about 16.5 percent alcohol. This decision to let the grapes remain on the vine that long is a form of manipulation. Moreover, one simply does not get 16.5 percent alcohol by dumping in some old strain of yeast and waiting until the fermentation quits. Oh, no, with high-alcohol musts, you need super yeasts along with yeast nutrients to keep the fermentation going. Otherwise, in a high-alc environment, the yeasts likely would die prematurely, leaving the wine sweet.

The choice of a super yeast and yeast nutrients is yet another human decision that could be called intervention or manipulation. And then the decision was made by remove a fraction of the alcohol, to bring it down to 14.5 percent alcohol. Which intervention was appropriate and which intervention was malevolent? I suggest that whichever intervention robs the wine of its regional character is the far worse use of technology.

Winemaking: Natural vs. Technological Manipulation

And these kinds of arguments could be made for dozens of other issues – the choice of whether to deal with tannins by fining or by use of micro-oxygenation; the choice of whether to leave a wine with volatility or to remove or reduce it with a technology that makes the wine more commercial and thus saleable.

So the choice of whether to de-alcoholize a wine is related to prior decisions that the wine maker chose in the first place. The most natural of wines are those that fell off the vine of their own accord or were knocked off accidentally by a passing camel, then lay in a trough on the ground until accidentally stepped on by another camel, and then the liquid fermented of its own accord in the trough by using the yeasts on the grape skins.

Sure, it would have been totally “natural,” but how good would such a wine have been?

The use of technology, then, is not in and of itself a question of good versus evil, right versus wrong. I suggest that the use of technology is perfectly acceptable if it makes a better wine and allows it to reflect its place of origin better than if left alone; and that the use of technology is bad if it makes a wine more homogenous and robs the wine of its regional character.

From all we are hearing these days, a quick fix is what fine wine is all about. I once read an article from one of the people in the so-called Naturalist Wine movement. He alleged that the best way to make wine entailed the least intervention and that any techniques (specifically filtration and fining) are anathema to fine wine. Or, in other words, no wine could be rated as great if it were fined and filtered.

So a mouthful of tannin is acceptable as long as the wine wasn’t fooled with?

Such a view, in which this formula was adopted for all the best wines, was accepted as gospel in the wine cellars, cathedrals of vinous power, and wine merchants. But in the groves of academe such “wisdom” was seen as sheer poppycock.

All the World is a Délestage

As a case example, let’s look at dealing with tannins in red wines. One technique to create softer tannins in red wines is called délestage, also called “rack and return,” in which the cap of solids in a fermenting tank is broken up and oxygen injected into the must.

Simply pumping over the juice from the bottom of the tank to the top helps break up the cap and extracts color and flavors from the cap. Punching down the cap doesn’t provide much oxygen and is rated as best in Pinot Noir, as long as the tanks are small enough. But with Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, Zinfandel and other darker red wines, neither pumping over nor punching down is seen as effective as is délestage in flavor extraction.

In délestage, the juice from a tank is removed entirely from the cap to an empty tank, then pumped back over the top of the cap in the original tank. The Australians have used this technique widely for years; American wine makers recently caught on to it and many are using it. Now the Aussies are forging ahead, fine-tuning the idea.

But some in the Naturalist Wine movement believe that tannin management is best supported by micro-oxygenation. The Naturalist Wine people do not suggest there is anything radical about délestage. They simply like the idea that micro-ox (which was a key topic in the controversial film Mondovino) works faster and better than other methods of tannin management.

Last year on a trip to Australia (my 14th), one of the top wine makers in Australia said, “Look, there is just no substitute here for time. Micro-ox is a great technique for [tannin management in] low-priced wine, but you’d never want to risk doing it with anything like fine wine.”

A second Australian wine maker told me that micro-oxygenation is a fine technique to reduce tannins in cheap wines, but that the process tries to speed up the polymerization of tannins and can leave a fine wine lacking some of the stability wine makers prefer for wines that will be aged -- which is the goal of many fine wines.

And oddly enough, even though Natural Wine supporters decry fining and filtration, they seem to have no concerns for micro-ox or any other “modern” processes that are widely used in the making of fine wine. Imagine, for instance, what happens when the wine maker chooses to take a cooler-climate wine and forces the pH up by the addition of potassium carbonate. It can rob the wine of one of the key components of its regional character. Yet this is an intervention that seems to be widely used these days in the Napa Valley for certain wines, and which leaves us with wines that do not speak much or at all of their origins.

And what’s so bizarre is that we are told that fining and filtration are anathema to the fine wine-making process, but we hear little from the those who hold that view about the use of yeast nutrients, micro-ox, Mega-Purple, specialty yeasts, cold stabilization, malolactic fermentation cultures, vacuum pumps, evaporative perstraction, or the use of chemicals to raise a wine’s pH. Is it because these are esoteric topics that call for a basic scientific education to talk about them cogently?

Fining and filtration are relatively simple processes and easier to understand -- and thus easy to decry. The other processes? Well, all may be used in the making of wine, and some seem to have benefits for top-rate wines when carefully used. But always there is the risk of losing regional identity if the processes are over-used. And there are some techniques, I believe, that ought never be used in the production of fine wine for precisely that reason: essential regionality is threatened.

Using science is infinitely preferable to than making a poor wine. Bring on the technology if it makes for a better wine – as long as the terroir isn’t covered up.

But some might ask, ‘What do we do when a wine of distinctive regional character also has a major flaw, and the only way to cure the flaw involves a technique that also removes the distinctive regional character?’ That clearly creates a dilemma. To sell the wine, you have to “cure” what ails it, and the result may well be a wine without an essential terroir component.

I argue that the use of technology, as good as it is for removing accidental flaws, also can be used for malevolent purposes, to “cure” an ill that was caused directly by the improper use of technique in the first place.

Most users of technology see the current state of things this way: We will use current advances in technology to “save” a wine that had a bit too much early intervention (i.e., late-harvesting, too much skin contact, etc.). But what they don’t say is that the use of some technological advances are easier to use and less time-consuming. (Those who support the organic farming of grapes suggest that they make better wine than those who use herbicides, pesticides, and other interventionist techniques. But they also point out that organic farming is more labor-intensive, and that those who are not organic growers are avoiding doing so because it’s easier to spray.)

Moreover, I find it to be a sad commentary that many would continue to use poor techniques because they can rely on the technology to solve later problems. And they seem not to care that their overt actions drive the terroir from their wines.

Is Technology the Terrorist of Terroir?

Yes, the use of technology may make for more palatable wines, but they are wines that are “repaired” often to become more homogenous, and that's anything but good for terroirists.

One case in point is how red wines are made in Australia. Almost all are drained off skins before dryness, which helps manage their tannins by (a) getting them off the seeds, where the greatest bitterness lies, and (b) eliminating post fermentation maceration during which tannins creep into the wine that (I believe) are extraneous to quality.

In fact, by draining the fermentation tanks early, the wine is then racked into barrel to finish fermentation, which all wine makers know makes a wine that’s creamier and more supple. (If tannin is needed later, the Aussies add it out of a bag; this, they say, does little to alter the terroir character of the wine.)

American wine makers, for the most part, do post-fermentation maceration with their red wines and that includes more seeds than (I believe) are necessary, creating a tannin layer that is harder to deal with. And thus we see greater use of micro-oxygenation to "soften" the tannins. (We have little space here to get into the issue of tannin extraction in a high-alcohol environment and the relationship of acid/pH to all of this in the texture/mouth-feel of a wine.)

The making of fine wine is a complex process that usually takes time. And any tools that can make a wine better ought to be considered, not defamed because it’s not “natural.” However, the use of these tools runs the risk of removing an element or two from a wine that may be essential to its regionality.