"This wine is great!"

You may have said it before, but what did you really mean when you said it? Can you accurately describe it, paint a mental picture of its greatness in words? What makes a wine great? Or rather, what makes a great wine?

This question is really at the heart of an online discussion over at Eric Asimov's blog (specifically, here and here) between wine writers, makers, and drinkers regarding the use of wine-making technologies such as micro-oxygenation and de-alcoholization. Wine geeks like myself might find it fascinating, but most likely you don't care about what is done to your wine as long as its under 10 bucks and it goes with your steak frites. If you've ever said that a wine is great and you couldn't tell us why, you might be interested to know.

Without getting into the technical details, these two processes can be used to control a wine's texture, body, and flavor to a certain degree by either adding tiny amounts oxygen or by reducing the amount of naturally occurring alcohol. Proponents of these technologies like Vinovation's Clark Smith believe that they are simply an evolutionary extension of processes that winemakers have been using for decades, such as barrel aging and racking.

The other side of the of the argument is represented by who I'll call "the purists," those who believe that great wines are produced only by allowing the wine to naturally express its terroir, or its sense of place. Were the grapes grown in fertile soil or rocky? Are the vines on a hillside or the valley floor? Great wines, the purists, say, are considered ones which are both well-balanced and express the uniqueness of their fruit's growing conditions. Using technology to control a wine's profile to something other than its conditions allow is masking its true terroir, the purists say, and thus cannot produce a great wine.

I've never made wine (at least, not on purpose), but I'm sure natural wine-making requires a great deal of skill, simply because it puts the maker largely at Mother Nature's mercy. Technology takes some of the guesswork out of the process, allowing for a more controllable product, and in many cases one that appeals to the majority of wine drinkers. This makes a lot of sense from a business perspective -- After all, there is nothing artisanal about bankruptcy. As a both consumer and a technology advocate, I believe that these technologies have their place. Whether or not these technologies provide a more natural product is a more difficult question, the answers to which are almost entirely subjective.

The same could be said as to the question of what makes a wine "great." As Eric said, "The important thing is learning what kinds of wines excite you and then being able to find those wines." I find wine that expresses its terroir to be exciting, but how do I find those wines? Most winemakers refuse to disclose that they use these tools because they (correctly) believe that it will negatively affect the critical reviews of their wines. How am I and others like me to learn about expression of terroir if what is in the bottle isn't actually expressing what it naturally would, but what the winemaker believes that we believe it should? How do I know what's real?

The whole issue drives me to drink. Sometimes, naiviety is a blessing.