Lutte Raisonnée

Yesterday we had the chance to sample two wines from Mollydooker, an Australian estate that has created a stir in the wine industry. The wines were not to our preference. The important thing to note here is that our judgment of Mollydooker is simply a subjective opinion. It's not a diatribe on style or craft. Too often, and very unfortunately, the wine world is polarized into two camps, the old world and the new world. The old world camp looks at Mollydooker as a manipulated milkshake, a cocktail that tastes nothing of a grape. The new world camp looks at Mollydooker as an exemplar of fruit and fullness, a wine that truly pushes the limits. What people fail to notice is that Mollydooker is the extreme of the new world camp (hyper-manipulation) just as Radikon and Gravner are the extremes of the old world camp (no manipulation). There are moderates in the wine world, people without pure theory and agenda, people who are not jingoistic. The old world camp says that all new world wines taste the same and mask terrior, yet they fail to notice that many old world wines done under semi-carbonic maceration and without sulfur also tend to taste the same. Here at Cépage we sell wine that we like to drink and have with food. Those tend to be European wines, wines that are lighter in color, weight and fruit, be we also sell some California wines that are darker and richer and unmistakably Californian. That is what we're concerned with: authenticity of place and not dogmatic theory. We feel that all our wines are distinct of their place and enjoyable to drink on their own or with food. We also know that our winemakers are conscious of their land and the land around them, meaning they are trying to create living ecosystems instead of drowning the soil in chemicals. We're not saying that organic or sustainable viticulture make 'hands down' better wine, we're just saying that it's better for the environment. Just because most of the wines in our book come from the old world and are grown organically doesn't mean we're fully of that camp. We're just selling wine we like tho drink from farmers we respect. As in wine, and just about everything else in the world, the most prevalent color is gray and few things are black and white.