Why California is watering down its wine

The Economist

Water into wine

John Andrews
From Intelligent Life, Summer 2005, print edition


Few insiders will admit it, but the dirty little secret about Californian wines today is that many of them are adulterated. That happens to be no bad thing

"I'M NOT drinking any ******* merlot," screams Miles, played by Paul Giamatti, in the marvellous Oscar-winning movie "Sideways". Instead, the luckless writer turned obsessive oenophile waxes lyrical on the subtleties of pinot noir. So lyrical, in fact, that wine stores across America report soaring sales of Californian wine made from the delicate, thin-skinned pinot noir grape. Constellation Brands, for example, saw sales of its Blackstone pinot noir leap by 147% in the first three months after "Sideways" opened in America's cinemas in October 2004.

And why not? California's pinot noir wines are a delight (not least the Hitching Post pinot noir, featured heavily in "Sideways" and subsequently in every trendy wine outlet). So, too, its cabernet sauvignons, its shirazes, its zinfandels, even (with due respect to Miles) its merlots. From the soil of the Napa Valley, Sonoma and Santa Barbara County, California is producing not just some of the world's finest wines, such as Opus One from the joint-venture of Robert Mondavi and Baronesse Philippine de Rothschild, but consistently drinkable, moderately priced wines from companies such as E&J. Gallo or Kendall Jackson.

Yet there is an embarrassing feature of the Californian wine industry that the Paul Giamatti character neglects to mention: much of the wine output is "watered back"?-or, dare one say, watered down. In other words, that fine cabernet or shiraz may have been produced with a judicious addition of water. Cue, one might assume, for consumer outrage, wine-buff alarm and?-surely in litigious America?-a raft of criminal prosecutions and civil lawsuits.

The assumption, however, would be a trifle hasty. Certainly in France, with its strict rules on product quality (such as AOC, the Appellation d'Origine Contrôlée), adding water to wine would supposedly be an absolute no-no. But Napa and Sonoma are not Bordeaux and Burgundy.

The big difference to the tourist, of course, is that French towns and villages are a great deal more picturesque than anything that northern California can offer. Calistoga and Yountville are not exactly Beaune and Châteauneuf-du-Pape. But for the winemaker the obvious difference is the weather: California has longer and warmer sunshine?-which means that the fully ripened grapes may well produce a wine with a bit too much alcohol for comfort (too much, also, for the bottom line, since wine and liquor are taxed according to their alcohol level).

One obvious solution would be to pick the grapes earlier, except that that would be at the cost of the "full-bodied" flavour and "big" character of the typical Californian wine. Hence a preference for the other obvious solution: adding water during the fermentation process. At which point, everyone gets a little coy, even a trifle alarmed. Witness the concern of a spokeswoman for California's Wine Institute. "How did you hear about this?" she demanded. "This is a long, long story?-it's kind of a stylistic thing."

Indeed so. Over the years, California's winemakers, intent on getting that full body that sells so well, have been leaving the grapes longer and longer on the vine. That brings two risks during the fermentation process: either the alcohol level will get so high that it blots out the flavours, or the fermentation will become "stuck", with the sugars in the grape juice refusing to convert into alcohol.

"Stuck fermentation", which would lead to the kind of low-alcohol, sickly sweet drink that only a gullible under-age teenager would think was wine, is clearly something to be avoided. But it does have one useful property: it gives legal cover for the addition of water, ostensibly to restart the fermentation process.

Mind you, the legalisms are a little complex. The letter of Californian law?-section 17010(a) of the California Administrative Code, to be precise?-says "no water in excess of the minimum amount necessary to facilitate normal fermentation may be used in the production or cellar treatment of any grape wine." The Food and Drug Branch of the California Department of Health Services explains that "this has historically been understood to mean that no water except that minimal amount necessary to facilitate pumping of grapes after crushing, ?'for mechanical purposes', and for flushing equipment may be added to wine."

That, you might think, means that the only water that can be added to wine is the residue left from cleaning out the vats from the last batch of grapes. You would be wrong. Well aware of the difficulties facing the wine industry, James Waddell, acting chief of the Food and Drug Branch, wrote to the Wine Institute in April 2002, saying that in future the Department of Health Services would interpret the wording of the law to mean "no water in excess of that needed to prevent a fermentation from sticking." A cynic might ask how the department can possibly tell when a fermentation is stuck, as opposed to being in danger of producing too much alcohol.

The answer is that it cannot. Wendell Lee, the Wine Institute's San Francisco legal counsel, admits that in most cases the only risk for a winemaker adding water to reduce the alcohol level rather than to unstick a stuck fermentation will be if a disgruntled employee blows the whistle.

Does all this mean that California's winemakers are involved in a terrible scandal, collectively short-changing the consumer by watering down their wine? Only if you have a very naive view of an industry that has to cope with the vagaries of the weather and the whims of the market. The reality, as Mr Lee points out, is that "most countries are pretty much like California in that you can't add water?-except in special circumstances." In other words, just as for a Californian winemaker, there is surely some wiggle room for an Italian or French or Spanish vintner, too. Moreover, at the other end of the climate scale, where the problem is a lack of sunshine rather than an excess, the wiggle room is often clearly spelled out: it is perfectly acceptable for German winemakers, for example, to "chapitalise" their wines?-to add sugar to the fermentation process in order to increase the alcohol content.

The sensible conclusion for the consumer, then, is to judge a wine by its taste and bouquet rather than by any tricks of the trade that the winemaker may or may not have used. After all, Mr Giamatti and fellow wine-lovers in "Sideways" made no mention of "watering back" (the very term makes most in the industry shudder), so why should anyone else? The reality is that a shiraz that is too heavy with alcohol will lose its charm before the first glass is even finished. Indeed, one of the delights of French wines is their comparative lightness: a 12.5% alcohol Bordeaux, reflecting that mix of soil and climate that the French call its terroir, can offer a much more rewarding experience than a 16% Californian cabernet.


The longer, the cheaper


But if the consumer can afford to be relaxed, the same is not true for California's grape-growers. They are paid according to the weight of their grapes, and the longer the grapes are left hanging on the vine in pursuit of a fuller, richer wine, the more they become dehydrated?-and the less they weigh. In other words, there is a conflict of interest between the grower and his customer: the longer the "hang time", the lower the price paid by the winemaker.

In the 2004 grape season, many growers found the weight of their harvest was down by 25%?-enough to make the difference between profit and loss. As Ben Drake, a grower from Temecula and chairman of the California Association of Winegrape Growers, puts it: "What really irritates you is that you pull up to the scales, weigh the grapes?-and they then add water. We could have done that in the field!"

He has a point. Grapes used to be picked when their sugar content was 23 or 24 degrees of brix (the standard measure of sugar levels); now the vintners, when they are buying grapes that they do not themselves produce, are demanding 28 or even 30 degrees?-levels that can only be attained by picking the grapes late. For the grape grower that brings the money-losing loss of weight and also the risk of damage from insects, birds and the weather.

But what irks Mr Drake and other growers is not just the risk of immediate money, but the potential for the premature demise of their vines. The "useful" life of a vineyard can be up to 40 years, but that assumes a timely picking of the grapes. If the hang time is increased, the vine has to work harder?-and so exhausts itself sooner.

Just how much sooner is a matter of conjecture, since there has been little scientific research into the effects of a prolonged hang time. The reason is that the fashion for extending the hang time is relatively recent and, ironically, began almost by accident. The California grape crop of 1997 was so unexpectedly large that the winemakers ran out of space in their fermentation tanks?-and so had to delay much of the harvest. The pleasant surprise, of course, was the softening of the wine, with the extra hang time smoothing out the tannins.

All of which means longer hang times are here to stay, as the grape-growers ruefully acknowledge. Mr Drake argues that the sensible solution will be for the wine industry to invest in scientific research: "We need to determine what's the risk the grower takes, and the loss he makes." Armed with that knowledge, grape-grower and winemaker can negotiate an appropriate contract: "It's a win-win for everybody."

Meanwhile, whatever the gripes of the grape-growers, California's wine industry as a whole is certainly winning. The latest statistics show that, in 2003, American consumers bought (and for the most part drank and enjoyed) some 417m gallons of Californian wines, while consumers abroad bought a further 77m gallons of American wine (including non-Californian). Those figures mean that California accounts for two out of every three bottles of wine?-both American and imported?-drunk by Americans and some 90% of the country's wine exports (which rose 29% in volume in 2003). Factor in the weak dollar and export sales for 2004 and 2005 will be even healthier.

So, would public knowledge of watering-back harm the industry's health, both at home and abroad? It is not only the winemakers who might be worried. According to the Wine Industry's figures, the industry directly or indirectly employs more than 200,000 Californian residents and is worth some $45.4 billion to the state's economy. Hence the reluctance to confront the issue. Even though Mr Drake reckons that "anybody getting sugars over 26½ degrees is adding water," very few winemakers in Napa and Sonoma are willing to confess to the practice and praise its worth. (Karl Wente, whose family produces the Nth Degree wines in Livermore, is a notable exception.).

But the worries are probably exaggerated. Over the years, the Bordeaux wine industry has been hit by one scandal after another: fake labelling, or mixing in cheap wine from other regions or even other countries. In 1973, one "respectable" Bordeaux wine-shipper was caught adding Spanish Rioja to his Bordeaux. Similar problems have dogged Burgundy, Austria (in 1985, a winemaker was caught upgrading his wine with ethylene glycol) and Italy (in 1986, a winemaker added methanol to his blend and 23 drinkers died).

Yet it is hard to argue that such scandals have done long-term damage. The fact that the French wine industry is now in the doldrums?-rescued in January only by government aid?-has more to do with last year's bumper harvest, a government drive against excessive drinking, and the accumulated pressure of competitors from the New World, be they from California and Australia or Chile and South Africa. Similarly, any "scandal" over Californian watering-back would soon be forgotten, especially if the rationale of the process were properly explained.


Much of a muchness?


Indeed, the real danger for California's wines is one shared by wine-lovers the world over?-the standardisation of taste and the loss of individualism. As giant corporations buy up one winemaker after the other?-for example, Constellation's purchase of Robert Mondavi in 2004, or the acquisition of the Chalone Group by Britain's Diageo earlier in 2005?-the risk is that a wine's marketing will count more than its terroir. It is certainly true that labelling wines by their grapes has demystified the appreciation of wine (even French winemakers are now adopting the habit). But what happens if one cabernet sauvignon tastes much the same as another? What happens if giant winemakers, imposing standardised methods of production, put consistency ahead of character?

The answer is that Paul Giamatti's character Miles will be very disappointed. So, too, will any other wine connoisseur. They should all take seriously the warning of Jonathan Nossiter in his polemical film "Mondovino": "Wine is an expression of civilisation, but it is also an expression of power. It was the Romans who introduced wine to the Mediterranean basin, and for them it was part of their mission to civilise. Today, the picture is paradoxical. On the one hand, never have so many people taken seriously the notion that their place of origin and identity have meaning and are worth preserving. And yet, never has the world been under such threat from the forces of homogenisation." That, one would have thought, was a much greater threat than watering-back.




John Andrews is the Los Angeles correspondent for The Economist