28.12.2011 / Food & Leisure
The Wine Scholars
What if wine fermentation was a perfectly self-sufficient process needing no intervention from our part?
That’s the main idea behind one of the most interesting wineries in Napa Valley, California: The Scholium Project.
Its founder, former philosophy professor Abe Schoener, gave up his academic career back in 1998 to become a wine scholar, and later developed with a couple of partners a somewhat philosophical and “non-interventionst” approach to wine production.
To make a long story short, the method consists in interfering as little as possible in the spontaneous development of natural fermentation, avoiding fruit, juice, or must sterilization and restraining from adding commercial yeasts, enzymes, acid, and bacteria.
If the developing system veers toward winemaking disaster, there’s always time for intervention. If not, nothing is added or taken away. The result is an ever-surprising taste and aroma, enriched by the fact that these grapes come from the small vineyards of individual farmers whose sites and farming practices cannot be duplicated.
An undoubtedly experimental approach, warranted through several years of trial and error and rooted in science as well as in philosophy – with a touch of poetry as well, since sipping a glass of Scholium is like tasting fogotten and previously unknown aromas created by nature, experimentation and chance. No matter how you like them, these wines sure have personality.
If you wish to try them, check out Scholium’s online emporium.
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