BLENDING

While much attention is given to the harvest with the short and intense birth pangs of the vintage, I consider blending to be the greatest of the winemaking arts. It took me many years to recognize how central it is to crafting the best wines and improving the worst. In my first decade as a winemaker I practiced blending but cannot really say that I focused on it or even recognized its importance. I learned a few basic lessons early. The most useful was not to give up on any portion of the wine. Both the ’80 and ’81 Chardonnays at Acacia where I spent my long apprenticeship had significant portions that were problematic. Some of the ’80 Chardonnay had a stuck ferment, while a part of the ’81 had an ethyl acetate flaw – it smelled like nail polish remover. Both flawed portions were 15-20% of the whole. We found that when we did the blend trials that the wines with the “bad” parts added were preferred over the blends using only the correct parts. While this came as a relief, I never took it to its logical conclusion and purposefully spoiled some percentage of the vintage. Perhaps this knowledge has given me more courage to try riskier techniques than I would have otherwise.

Even after more than four decades of practice blending remains a mystery of sorts that never fails to surprise and intrigue me. Just yesterday I made a single barrel modification to a Pinot Noir blend that I anticipated would lift and lighten a somewhat ponderous starting point. The barrel I was adding was very perfumed in a floral herbal manner. Instead of lifting the aroma as I expected the change instead broadened the palate, tamped down the oak, and most curiously of all appeared to make the fruit aspect riper. The change was beneficial, but not at all in the way I’d have predicted.