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| Most winemakers will, while aging a wine in barrel, periodically siphon a bit of spare wine into the barrel to compensate for evaporation. What happens if you fail to do that? Over time, an air gap develops at the top of the barrel and the wine often simply oxidizes in the presence of the air. In other circumstances due to the vagaries of the local biome and climate, a wine may develop a layer of yeasts inside the barrel that float upon the surface of the wine. This yeast layer, referred to as “voile” in the Jura and “flor” in Jerez, protects the wine from becoming fully oxidized but also metabolizes some of it, producing distinctive flavors and aromas. Tonight’s tasting, well-timed for our battening down the hatches before our forthcoming rainy weather, focuses on savory wines affected by voile/flor.
A caveat: conventional winemaking and conventional thinking scorns voile and rejects it as a revolting flaw. The solution is simply to keep barrels topped up to avoid it. And yet there are long-established winemaking practices and sensibilities that do not top up their barrels, where voile is appreciated and promoted as a desideratum. The expression of voile as you will see tonight can be subtle or exaggerated: a function of the time under voile (months…years), grape variety, elevage, and the microbiological specifics of various voile biomes. We’re tasting wines with Some of the wines we will taste use “neutral” (by which I mean non-aromatic and not overtly fruity) grape varieties such as palomino or savagnin, highlighting the effect. The voile effect can also be unexpectedly compelling and subtle with aromatic varieties such as welschriesling and furmint, as you will also witness tonight. Are voile-affected wines funky? To me, they are funky yes in a Bootsy Collins sort of way, but not funky in a stanky armpit horse ass sort of way. Earthy, subtle, and evocative. Lichtenberger-Gonzalez “Tres Quatros” Burgenland/Austria 2020 |