As you lift the glass to your lips and get a good whiff of the wine inside, you know, even before you taste it, that the black rot spray—or was it the downy mildew spray?—you applied two and a half years earlier really was worth the hassle of driving 60 miles to replace the sprayer cap you’d carelessly lost a week and a half earlier, even though you always enjoy your encounters with the Amish family in rural Pennsylvania that sells and services the Italian made equipment.
That, and the grape and site selection you did years before, the pruning you’d done months earlier, the leaf pulling and making sure that the grapes were properly exposed to fresh air and sunshine you’d done throughout the summer, the netting to keep birds and deer away as the grapes ripen, and finally the funny little dance you did for the three weeks before harvest to fend off the rains, insured that you hadn’t ruined the wine in the vineyard. After that, all you had to do was not ruin it in the winery!
Keeping the wine as far away from oxygen as you can is key—all containers, whether glass, stainless steel, or oak should be kept full—really full, and well stoppered. (That applies to your half drunk bottle of wine at home too: decant it into a smaller bottle, refrigerate it, and drink it as soon as reasonable.) A tiny amount of meta bisulfide from time to time to bind with the O2 dissolved in the wine also helps, as does keeping it away from light and at as steady a temperature as possible, which explains why caves dug into the ground, where the temperature is a constant 55 degrees, are so prevalent in wineries. Cobwebs are not necessary.
So next time you go to a fancy winery in Napa that looks like the cockpit of a 747, remember that the key to making good wine is still good raw material, good tending and handling of the grapes, and good luck. And if there’s any doubt in your mind, think of that woman nine to twelve thousand years ago in the Taurus or Caucasus Mountains who first tossed some grapes in a pot, covered them up, and came back a few weeks later to: WOW!
