I have been around wine for a while now. I have been to countless wineries and met quite a few wine makers. I have even tried my hand at blending. I still can’t answer the question: What difference does a winemaker make?
I honestly don’t know.
For several years I was a high school basketball coach. I even thought I was a pretty good coach, winning my share of games and a few championships along the way. I coached at three different schools, and at each one I had a rather inauspicious beginning.
We lost the first 12 games.
At each school.
After that, we would start winning and at each stop, we won the conference championship the following year. What was the difference? What was the “magic” formula?
Well, it certainly was not that I suddenly became a better coach each time. Sure, I got to know the players better, I tweaked game plans and practice schedules and the players steadily improved–all of which are keys to winning. No, it was a rather simple formula:
Get the best players.
There is an old saying in coaching: “It is not about the X’s and O’s, it ‘s about the Jimmys and the Joes.” In other words, it is not as much about knowing the game as it is about having really good players/athletes on your team.
It is certainly not quite that simple. You need to know what your doing as a coach and you need to prepare your team. It is a lot of hard work and takes an enormous amount of time. In the end though, 9 times out of 10 the team with clearly superior talent is going to win the game. So if you want to win games, the formula is fairly straight forward:
Get the best players.
With the NCAA basketball tournament going on these last few weeks, I started thinking about this a bit more. Since I was usually drinking wine while watching the games, I wondered if this concept also applied to wine making.
Over my years being into wine, I have spoken to a lot of winemakers and there seems to be a common thread when they talk about the keys to making good wine.
Get the best fruit.
There are many variations on this theme, but it all comes down to getting the best fruit you can possibly find. Many go even farther and wax poetically about how “great wine is really made in the vineyard.”
That got me wondering, “what difference does a winemaker really make?”
A few months ago, Argyle winery announced that their longtime winemaker (and co-founder) Rollin Soles, would be stepping down as winemaker. I was told while at Failla, that Ehren Jordan had resigned from Turley so as to better concentrate on his Failla brand. I also learned that the Assistant winemaker at one of my favorite wineries would be leaving shortly as well (he is really the one making the wine since the head winemaker is basically a glorified consultant).
Will the wines at these two wineries suffer as a result? I doubt it since the fruit will still be coming from the same sources (I assume).
This is not a knock against winemakers–not in slightest. They have to know what they are doing with brix and pH and a whole host of other factors about which I have no clue. There are several winemakers that I consider true rockstars (Ehren Jordan and Ted Lemmon come to mind right away). There are other qualities that are important as well that not all of us possess: gregarious personality, devotion to the craft, even just being a “really nice guy”.
In the end, though, when determining where you end up, it matters a great deal where you start.
Get the best fruit.
As a winery owner, and you had to choose, would you rather have a great winemaker and average fruit or great fruit and an average winemaker?
I really do not know.
What do you think?
the drunken cyclist 
May have to think about thsi more but my initial thought is that their job is not to mess things up. You’re right, the greatest winemaker isn’t to make 2-buck chuck grapes into premier cru burgundy. But, they can over extract,like I’ve seen done to many pinots. Or they can try to do too much to a vintage to make it fit a vision rather than letting the grapes express themselves. Awesome question.
LikeLike
I agree. Just don’t screw it up. So as long as the winemaker is trained well enough to know how to keep out of the way, is the difference between winemakers a question of style?
LikeLike
I’d say so. One of the best domestic Merlots I’ve had us Pedestal from WA. I also like Clos de la Siete from Argentina. Both are very old world style because both brought in Michel Rolland from Pomerol. I’m assuming they brought him in for his style.
LikeLike
Totally with John on this. One of the best qualities of a winemaker is restraint. I have also heard many times that great wine is made in the vineyard, and I do believe that it is imperative to watch the grapes and their conditions all the time, cutting back leaves if necessary, thinning out grapes when needed. Another matter is picking the right moment to harvest. But what I hear from most winemakers in Germany is: restraint once it reaches the stainless steel tank or the barrel or the cask. Giving the wine room and time to develop. I think that makes the difference. And is frickin’ hard.
LikeLike
There is no doubt that the winemaker is important–they need to know what they are doing, but going from one winemaker to the next–does that really mean all that much “difference”?
LikeLike
Good question. You always read that so-and-so took “what the vintage gave him/her.” So, as already eloquently put, the winemaker’s job is to understand what he has and get out of the way and let it show itself. The great winemakers, I think, are incredibly knowledgeable and understand how their intervention and screwing around will play out with the fruit that they’re given. Having said that, there are times when I’ve noticed that a change in winemaker makes a huge difference. I mean Michel Rolland doesn’t get paid what he does because it’s the vineyard. He makes a difference. So, I’m confused as always.
LikeLike
The thing about Michel Rolland is a very interesting point. Is his paycheck based on his reputation (just saying his name will increase sales) or because of what he actually does?
LikeLike
Who knows about the famous? Michel might only poke his head in once a vintage for all we know.
LikeLike
That is essentially my point–a friend of mine who is an Asst winemaker does all of the work, but gets none of the credit since the “official” winemaker is a big name that just drops by once in a while to “check on things”.
LikeLike
I have very limited experience meeting winemakers, but I tons of experience with their work. To answer your question, I would definitely take great winemaker and average fruit. I’ve experienced a lot of wines which were great and then became worse, even in the best years, and the reason was that their winemaker changed. If you look at the wine buying recommendations in the bad vintage – the advice is to stick with better wineries – and that only means the winemaker, or winemaking team for that matter. There are so many things great winemaker can do with whatever nature would give him or her. And then with the average winemaker even in the best year your only hope is that he or she will not mess it up too bad…
Great post, though : )
LikeLike
So it sounds like you are saying that there is value added, at least at the upper end of the spectrum? I can buy that. But. You said that you have “experienced a lot of wines which were great and then became worse” as a result of a change in winemaker. Were these wines no longer to your liking, or were they universally accepted as “worse”?
LikeLike
Jeff, I didn’t think public opinion on this. If you are looking for “change in style”, I don’t mean that. So this is an opinion of me and few of my friends. One of them owns a wine store. So it is somewhat of a collective opinion of him and his customers.
LikeLike
An interesting thing that I have heard from a very good wine friend of mine who has been tasting old vintages of Riesling over the last years (we are talking really old, all the way down to the 1940s) is this: He says that to him, the idea of a “good” or “bad” vintage lost its meaning completely when you taste how vintages that are considered “bad” actually hold up very well against vintages that everyone thinks are stellar. I thought that was such an interesting statement. I lack experience regarding this, but I trust this friend of mine….
LikeLike
Anatoli and Oliver, I understand the “stick with the good wineries” in bad vintage years, too. But is this because they typically get the best fruit and in bad years, they just get the best of the bad fruit? I have no idea, nor am I making any insinuations, just throwing it out there for discussion….
LikeLike
I agree with your premise that the old wineries you mentioned won’t suffer from losing their winemakers. Do you think the wineries they go to will improve (are they in need of improvement)?
LikeLike
That is a great question. I don’t know! Winemakers leave for a whole host of reasons (some are likely forced out). We will never know the real reason(s) but I wonder how many are actually do to the quality of the wine?
LikeLike
Another thing that I have learned in Germany: There are old wineries with stellar possessions and a bad cellar master (the guy making the wine) pretty much ruined them. I have actively tasted that. After the cellar master was replaced the wines picked up over the years. To me, that is the clearest indication that a winemaker does matter, even for top notch holdings.
LikeLike
Sorry I have been posting all over but there is so much to say about this. To me, as I indicated, it is very clear that a winemaker can totally mess things up. The example I am using is Kesselstatt winery, which has only prime holdings in the Mosel and Saar. When I first tried their wines they were outstanding (late 90s). The cellar master changed and the wine quality went down. The opposite example is Friedrich Wilhelm Gymnasium, another winery with a continuing history since the 1700s. The winemakers ran it into the ground. As soon as it was taken over by the Bishop’s wineries the quality improved within very few years…
LikeLike
I guess my next question would then be: “to what extent are there ‘bad’ winemakers like the person you reference here?” Won’t they eventually be weeded out and you are left with more or less competent winemakers?
LikeLike
Oh yes, but it takes a while…and some wineries seem to be taking a more trial and error approach…I think it really can be quite difficult to assess a winemaker’s quality quickly because there are so many other factors: weather conditions etc.
LikeLike
But don’t you think more would be said/heard about this? I rarely hear that “such and such winery would be great if they got a halfway decent winemaker.” Maybe I am too far removed from those “ITB”.
LikeLike
Very interesting point, Jeff. I think sometimes it depends – or to say it better, I think you are 110% correct that you need great fruit to begin with, but I think the ability of a winemaker can play a role too. Just think of the example of Sassicaia: when at the beginning of its history it was made directly by the Marquis it was reportedly an average wine at best, but when the Marquis accepted to hire the Antinori winemaker, he changed most of the winemaking process and vineyard policies (including reducing yields) and Sassicaia took off as a top notch wine. What I mean by that is, you are certainly right that replacing a good enologist with another good enologist is not going to make that much of a difference in the end product, but even if you grow excellent grapes, your wine is likely not going to (favorably) impress anyone unless you have a competent enologist by your side. Would you agree?
Great thought-provoking post as usual!
LikeLike
Stefano, you make an excellent point–that there are certainly wines that seem to transcend others (like there are basketball teams that seem to be good every year). By definition, almost there must also be winemakers that are well below average. Unless these inferior winemakers have a “different” connection (in other words some sort of familial link [son of the owner, e.g.]), I would think they would eventually replaced. These less than competent winemakers would most certainly do harm, I would think….
LikeLike
Yes, I think so too. In essence, if you have great grapes and a good winemaker to begin with, chances are that if you replace him/her with someone else that is equally as competent, chances are consumers are not going to notice any significant difference. But a not-so-great winemaker can screw things up, no matter how good the “raw material”! 🙂
LikeLike
I completely agree. I guess I am just surprised that you never really hear about “bad winemakers”. I assume they exist, but….
LikeLike