Does technology = better wine?

Interesting! How automated is the rest of the NZ wine making? I would not be enthusiastic about wineries producing the same "perfect" wine each year; not that NZ wine is uninteresting.

"James Silverton" asked......

If you are specifically referring to ultra-precise hand destemming / berry sorting - it does not exist in NZ (too labour intensive; too expensive considering the minimum wage here is $13.75 / hour).

I cannot think of one winery who hand-sorts berries on a regular basis (I think I can recall one or two instances, over the years, where a dessert wine may have been afforded such treatment) - so, technology such as this would have no takers in NZ.

Elsewhere in the winemaking process, obviously machine harvesting (in the larger establishments); mechanical destemming / crushing (excluding those artisans who whole bunch ferment); pneumatic presses and automated bottling.

Apart from a very few who have wooden or concrete fermenters - stainless steel predominates in the winery.

Pretty much standard stuff.

I can see where, even at $US150,000, this would be extremely cost effective.

Of course, the trade unionist in me would abhor such a blatant capitalistic way of putting good hard working people out of a job - however menial.

st.h

I should hope not after publicly declaring me to be a union supporter myself at that bastion of Capital, the Langham :)

Yes, Joseph - but of course, you are unaware of the fact that your image was captured on CCTV alighting from said indiscrete vehicle, and stored in a rather insecure manner on my computer.

Said image has probably been "sourced" by the NSA !!!!!!!

I say this because, I continually hear clicking noises on my cellfone, and foreign accents in the backgroound using a strange language ie "hey yowel, won sum grits an jowls in an aluminum bowl"

You have been warned :)

p.s. To try and get this post even remotely on-topic, what wine matches grits and jowls?

All the grapes you have..sugar and water makes good wine. Dont make me come up there. Thanks.

"st.helier" wrote in news:lbpdf7$mkk$ snipped-for-privacy@news.datemas.de:

I read somewhere that using only "perfect" grapes can be against the quality of the final wine. The idea being that such perfect grapes are very alike and resulting wines are technically perfect but lack emotion.

Actually, what we wine drinkers perceive as "terroir" can also be thought as a group of common defects to a vineyard or a place, that instead of be perceived as "defect" are perceived as "personality".

Some winegrowers I have been fortunate enough to talk to stated that when doing their own vine selections for replanting their vineyards, they typically select their best vines but also medium-class vines from their own vineyard because they want genetic diversity to provide the grapes.

Also, I am very fond of some wines that are made without too much selection. A good example of this can be the block-picked parcels that Johannes Selbach is picking "at the same time" by opposition to the common practice in the Mosel to pick for Kabinett, Sptlese, Auslese... in different "tries". Consistently, my favorite wine from Selbach-Oster is Rotlay, or Schmitt..., which are block picked.

My personal opinion (I have no science evidence to prove all that) is that this "perfect sorting method" will make low-end wines much better wines and that's good enough. For fine wines, the ones that emotions us.... I am not so sure.

s.