Great Wine from Disgusting Grapes

While working at one Lodi winery years ago, the winemaker rounded up the skeleton cellar crew at the end of crush to hand-pick whatever Zin was left hanging on the vines.

Having already cleaned up the crush equipment, I wasn’t too pleased to see a couple of bins of hairy grey and green grapes waiting to restart the winemaking process.

We decided to make the Zin a “Port” by adding 190 proof distilled alcohol while the yeast were still fermenting the wine, leaving it deliciously sweet.

Fortunately, this Zin dessert wine turned out pretty nicely.

For all the whining I’ve been doing about the rains botching the tail end of harvest, all this moisture has actually been a huge benefit to those producing Sauternes-style or Late Harvest white wines.

In Richard Ripken’s vineyard, for example, the good mold, Botrytis, in many years loses out to the bad Penicillium mold in his thin-skinned “Neuf-du-Pape” clone of Viognier, meaning he can make very little or none of his award-winning Late Harvest Viognier.

Fog and humidity this year, however, were ideal to allow a few early-shriveling Botrytis-infested grapes to send spores through the field, covering 100% of clusters with perfect fuzz practically overnight.

I can’t wait to drink that!