Outfoxing the Angels

It’s not that they’re a sacreligious lot, but winemakers have every reason to think poorly of the angels. It may come as a surprise to find out how thirsty they really are, but these heavenly beings account for up to 3 of all wine stored inside oak casks, God bless them. That’s a lot of wine and a lot of money besides.

To take perhaps a more scientific approach, it’s really a matter of evaporation. The very thing that makes the process of ageing wine inside oak casks so special and essential for top-drawer wine is that the barrels themselves slowly admit atmospheric oxygen into the wine, in a leisurely manner which a winemaker should be able to monitor. But if air can get in, wine can get out as vapour, which brings us back to the angels. Perhaps it’s because it’s out of their control that winemakers the world over refer to this inevitable evaporation and loss as the ‘angels’ share’. And in some wineries and cellars, where temperature control isn’t all that it might be, there must be a resident host of heavenly creatures with a perpetually dangerous divine equivalent of a high blood-alcohol reading. Perhaps the wineries are blessed in other ways in return.

One such winery is the small Geelong-based operation of Scotchman’s Hill, whose pinot noir, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc have captured the minds and hip pockets of the cafe set in most of our capital cities. Scotchmans’ angels had been helping themselves to around a quarter of a million dollars of wine each year over and above the expected level of such alms and oblations that the Browne family had every right to believe fair and reasonable. So, having conceded around 8 of their wine each year to the air, they’re now doing something about it; something so drastic and effective that it’s likely to take some time for the recipients of their generosity to adjust to their reduced ration of intoxicating vapour.

Scotchmans Hill is shortly to have one of the most sophisticated temperature and humidity-controlled wine cellars on Planet Earth. Having spent a couple of recent months fossicking through the cellars of a number of Burgundian domaines and Bordeaux estates, the Brownes have indeed bitten the bullet. They’ve chosen to emulate the US Federal Mint and the remarkable oak storage facilities of Robert Mondavi Wines and Kendall Jackson in the US, building a facility so advanced it uses materials and techniques hitherto unused in Australia for this purpose. The outcome will be a totally environmentally controlled barrel storage facility of around 1000 square metres, able to act as an entirely enclosed envelope, completely unaffected by outside conditions.

‘For a lot of reasons we were looking for a material which was mechanically strong and provided an external concrete finish’, explains Matthew Browne. ‘We didn’t use concrete tilt techniques because the material isn’t a great insulator, so we chose a material that is actually a sandwich of three parts. There is a concrete outer skin, an extruded polystyrene middle and an internal concrete skin. It’s going to make a durable, long-term building.

‘We’re avoiding metal altogether, since it transfers heat. Even in the roof the only steel are the nails holding it all together. The walls are held together by glass fibre rods and even the floor slab, which does have steel through it, is totally separate from any external concrete, so there’s absolutely no movement of heat’, he claims.

The Brownes are also installing a humidity-control unit outside the building to push humidified air into barrel room at 85 humidity. This air will then be propelled around by large fans, but will be replaced once each day by entirely fresh air admitted by computer-operated shutters in the building. An external cooling unit will also ensure the room’s internal temperature of 15 degrees Celsius.

The anticipated outcome is a building whose temperature should change by no more than half a degree in the year. ‘We’re expecting the new building to reduce our loss of wine through evaporation from 8-9 in our present corrugated iron shed to an acceptable and standard 2-3′, says Browne.

I reckon that were I an angel I’d be trading in my wings or else flying north. For just as there are good angels and bad, some wineries, especially if they’re located in Rutherglen, the Barossa Valley or McLaren Vale, go out of their way to keep their angels happy, if not permanently inebriated. Some of Australia’s finest fortified wines depend on the fact that if oak casks are stored in poorly insulated old cellars, many of which are simply sheds with corrugated iron rooves, the rate at which they lose wine through evaporation is greatly enhanced. Alarming as it may sound, such a generous angels’ allowance is actually considered to be a positive force for good, since it concentrates the sweetness, intensity, lusciousness and flavours of many tawny ports, muscats and tokays.

In fact, makers of fortified wines are so well acquainted with the temperature regimes in their cellars that they know where the ‘hot spots’ are and consequently use them for wines they wish to concentrate in this manner.

Many of the fortified wines influenced in this way are sold as ‘Liqueur’ Ports, Tokays and Muscats. They’re not genuine liqueurs at all, but have historically been labelled this way to suggest richness, sweetness and concentration beyond the dimensions of usual fortifieds. Real liqueurs are made by beginning with a spirit, such as brandy, rum or whisky, and steeping it with flavours and textures from any manner of nuts, beans, flowers, herbs or fruits. Mandarin Napoleon, for instance, begins life as a cognac before being introduced to the extract of Andalousian tangerines.

Love them or hate them, need them or shun them, winemakers each have a special relationship with the angels. So, next time you’re inside the dark, moody space of an old winery’s oak cellar, keep an ear out for the sounds of doors mysteriously closing, unusual or inexplicable currents of air and for the distant hark of trumpets and harps. It may not have been the cat. Please login to post comment