Updated May 2022
What is considered manipulation in winemaking?
You’ve probably heard us applaud winemakers for their low intervention or minimal manipulation winemaking techniques. Recently we were asked what that really means.
To start, it depends how you literally you want to define the term manipulation. If you think about winemaking, the winemaker doesn’t just sit back and watch the grapes turn into wine; although that would be pretty cool.
In some regards, everything and anything a winemaking does is to some degree, manipulating the fruit.
Low intervention winemaking
Ok so maybe the winemaker doesn’t just sit back and watch wine being made. Let’s ease back on that definition and take a romantic vision of a winemaker as a shepherd, gracefully leading his grapes into wine with minimal intervention.
What is considered low or minimal intervention? This definition depends on who you ask, but we define it as a scarce use, or lack thereof of any “extras”. I.e. filtration, fining agents, excessive SO2, commercial yeast, supplements, oak chips etc..
In general, we have found winemakers who use less of these instruments and techniques to produce a superior tasting wine. And converseley,, we’ve found labels that introduce the gamut of intervention tactics to produce a wine that is overly sterile, boring, lacking sensory traits and is often mass-produced.
Is manipulation in winemaking bad?
So let’s say a winemaker uses some or all of the items and tactics used above; is that bad? No. We are not hating on any winemakers here. The job involves a lot of hard work, hours and is extremely stressful; made exponentially more difficult with poor weather and less-than-perfect fruit.
You as the drinker do want the winemaker to manipulate the wine at least in some regard. Especially when you think about all the terrible things that can go wrong with winemaking if there was literally no manipulation. Intervention via commercial yeast may have saved a wine from spoilage in a stuck fermentation. Intervention may be the only way for you to enjoy that wine on your counter.
Final thoughts
Like most opinions in the wine world, it would be foolhardy to believe this topic is black and white. We genuinely appreciate minimal interventionist winemakers who attempt to use less machinery, chemicals, fining agents, filtration etc.. to make a product that goes head to head with one that may “benefit” from the said list of options.
As winemakers, we will try our best to follow the former and emulate the great wines we’ve tasted around the world, utilizing low intervention techniques.
In the end, it all comes down to the wine itself. The aroma, taste, finish, how it made us feel, how it paired with our meal etc.. If that can be accomplished with light manipulation and intervention–all the power to the winemaker. If it can be accomplished with heavy intervention–great, as long as the additives are not harmful to us.
Ultimately, it’s not fair to have a negative stigma against winemakers who elect to heavily manipulate their wine. It’s their choice. But we think those winemakers who do without heavy intervention should be rewarded for their restraint, as they make a more pure, better tasting product that is more representative of the terroir in which the grapes grew.
