How can one varietal based wine be different from another?

How can one varietal based wine be different from another?

All wines have an aroma, a sense of sweetness to dryness, a flavor or combination of flavors (often fruits or herbs) and a sense of sweetness to dryness that you first notice.

There is also an expression of acidity, body or weight, tannin, and finish. Some may also have a hard to describe “something-ness” that eludes a good description. While all wines may have these components, it is how the components stand out from one another or mutually work with each other that sets wines apart.

Some wines have an aroma, fruit or herb flavor, sweetness, oak-driven vanilla, tannin or acidity that “grand-stand” and pop out more than the other supporting cast of characters. Or there is any combination of degrees of intensity of these characters which means there are a limitless number of possibilities here. Just like there are all sorts of musical styles or takes on what is labeled as rock and roll or blues, they are plenty of variations on a Merlot or Chardonnay.

What version of a wine we choose to is not something that is as simple as right or wrong, just like you could say Bob Dylan’s version of “All along the Watchtower” is different than Jimi Hendrix’s version. Neither one is wrong, they are just different and both can be appreciated for their unique expression that song. Many factors effect the differences in wines from clones, rootstock, regional weather, soil chemistry, compaction, and water holding capacity, access to water, canopy management, sunlight hours, temperature fluctuations between day and nighttime (diurnal shifts), the grapes exposure to the sun, rain and humidity, pests, diseases, slope and orientation to the sun, crop level, vegetative vigor, and of course when the grapes are actually picked.

Then there are all the decisions in the cellar. Whole cluster or crushed and destemmed, some whole berries or not, temperature control level, native or inoculated fermentation, pump-overs or punch-downs, extended maceration or early pressing, malo-lactic or not, barrels or stainless steel, how long to age the wine, keep it on lees or not and on and on. Over the life of a wine there are literally thousands of decisions from the planting to the bottling that have to be made. Some wineries have a cookbook recipe that they never stray from in hopes of re-creating the same type of wine every year. This is what I call the soda pop wine.

We accept that every year is different and our wines will reflect this. So as long as the winery has chosen to embrace Mother Nature’s fingerprint on the wines and not try to smudge it out every year, then you can experience a wonderful diversity in wines of the same varietal.
 

Mark Beaman