The Critic Read Online Free PDF Page A

the mixture being squeezed out of the
pressoir
. ‘Two winemakers can take the same grapes, from the same vintage, and produce entirely different wines. One might give you soft, vanilla fruit, the other tannic green pepper. It could even be argued that a wine reflects the personality of the winemaker.’
    ‘And what do
you
make, Monsieur de Bonneval? Soft vanilla fruit, or tannic green pepper?’
    Bonneval smiled, brown eyes full of mischief and amusement. ‘Oh, soft vanilla fruit, of course. These days winemakers must pander to the tastes of critics who grew up drinking Coca Cola and root beer.’
    ‘Which says what about your personality?’
    He threw his head back and laughed. ‘Probably just that I’m a man keen to sell his wines.’
    Enzo followed him through to the adjoining shed where red flexitubes, like giant worms, lay about the floor, attached to motorised pumps, moving grape juice under pressure between tanks. Workers were dragging tubes from one black bucket full of foaming pink juice to another, then hauling them up ladders to grilled walkways overhead which provided access to the tops of two rows of huge stainless steel vats. The air was filled with the distinctive smell of mashed grapes and alcohol, thick and heady. And all the time the roar of the
pressoir
and the pulse of the pumps assaulted the ears.
    Bonneval led Enzo up a steel staircase to the network of walkways above. He pointed to the tube feeding the incoming mix from the
pressoir.
It was tied to the rail beside the top of the nearest vat, and you could see the grape juice pulsing through its semi-translucent skin as it thundered up and then out and down again into the vast, black emptiness of a container that held one hundred and fifty hectolitres. Enzo did a quick calculation. That was fifteen thousand litres. Or twenty thousand bottles. A lot of wine.
    ‘Once the
cuve
is filled, we let the juice settle,’ Bonneval said. ‘The skins and seeds rise to the top. So we extract the juice from the bottom and pump it back into the top, re-mixing the
must
to get the maximum flavour. Sometimes at high speed. Sometimes transferring the entire contents of one
cuve
to another. Which also helps to oxygenate it, which in turn combines with the yeast to produce more heat, and therefore more alcohol.’ He grinned. ‘Another reason why we want to pick the grapes at maximum maturity. Sugar plus heat equals alcohol. And wine wouldn’t be quite the same without the alcohol now, would it?’
    ‘So you measure the sugar content of the grapes before you pick?’
    ‘Daily, as we get near harvest time. We also taste-test them for sweetness and flavour. And when the seeds have turned brown, and you can crush them between your teeth, you know they are ripe.’ He turned back towards the
cuve
. ‘Of course, we also need to control the heat that gets generated during fermentation. Too much heat equals too much alcohol, and you ruin the wine.’ He pointed to large black tubes running around the outer walls of the
chai
. ‘Cold water. We run smaller tubes down into each tank to feed cold water through filaments like radiators that hang down inside them. That way we can stop the mixture from overheating.’
    They went back down to the floor of the
chai
and walked through to a third shed. ‘We have twenty stainless steel
cuves
now,’ Bonneval said. Enzo did another calculation and blew a silent whistle through pursed lips. That was four hundred thousand bottles of wine! Bonneval was still talking. ‘Before that we used resin tanks, made from fibreglass.’ He indicated a row of half a dozen tan-coloured tanks with lids that were raised and lowered by an old-fashioned pulley system. ‘But we don’t use them for primary production any more. Before that, the
cuves
were made of concrete. We store some of our
rosé
in those now.’ He turned to Enzo. ‘But enough of that. Let’s go and taste some of the finished product.’
    They went out through huge sliding