So, this post is for all the wine geeks out there, and since I could be considered a wine geek, I am super excited to share our snazzy Malbec Cloning Program with you.
The Malbec vine is a strange beast, that has a tendency to mutate quickly, and up until now nobody has attempted the painstakingly tedious process of studying all the different mutant Malbecs out there, so Malbec as a vine is kind of all over the place. The Malbec vine is such a mess that it is often mistaken for other grape varietals, especially Bonarda.So, we started this project, seven years ago, to try and set the Malbec vine straight once and for all. Here at Team Tempus our goal is to not only to isolate the DNA of the Malbec vine, but to isolate the DNA of the best Malbec clones we can find. This means no more mutant Malbec and no more Malbec that is actually Bonarda.
We started by sourcing over 500 different ¨Malbec¨ plants from different regions of Mendoza. We planted 2 separate 2.6 ha plots with the mash of Medocino Malbecs.
After four years of patiently waiting for the vines to be mature enough to produce “studyable” fruit we started doing Agronomic analysis on the vines. So, what the hell does that mean. Well, it means this.....
1.) An Agronomist is an expert in agriculture.
2.) Analysis is the process of breaking down a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.
The smaller parts are the following:
1.) Vigor: how much green matter does the vine produce and at what rate does it grow
2.) Production: how many bunches of fruit does the vine produce
3.) The actual size of the individual berry
4.) Spacing of the fruit on the vine
So, at first I thought we would want lots of all the above listed. A vine with lots vigor, that sounds good. How many bunches do we want, well I would guess a lot. Size of berry, big I imagine. However I was quickly corrected and for these reasons.
After four years of patiently waiting for the vines to be mature enough to produce “studyable” fruit we started doing Agronomic analysis on the vines. So, what the hell does that mean. Well, it means this.....
1.) An Agronomist is an expert in agriculture.
2.) Analysis is the process of breaking down a complex topic or substance into smaller parts to gain a better understanding of it.
The smaller parts are the following:
1.) Vigor: how much green matter does the vine produce and at what rate does it grow
2.) Production: how many bunches of fruit does the vine produce
3.) The actual size of the individual berry
4.) Spacing of the fruit on the vine
So, at first I thought we would want lots of all the above listed. A vine with lots vigor, that sounds good. How many bunches do we want, well I would guess a lot. Size of berry, big I imagine. However I was quickly corrected and for these reasons.
A vine with too much vigor or an overly thick shoot (the thickness of your thumb for example) produces a green tasting fruit, resulting in a green tasting wine. Yucky! The ideal amount of vigor is rated as medium, and the ideal thickness of the shoot is about the with of a pencil.The ideal amount of ¨production¨ or amount of fruit per plant is rated as low. All the vines good stuff like: sugar, tannins and acids get distributed among all the plants fruit. An overly productive vine, or a vine with too many bunches produces a less concentrated fruit. Less concentrated fruit means less concentrated wine. No good!
The same basic rule goes for berry size, the bigger the berry the bigger amount of water per berry. We are looking for good concentrated fruit to make good concentrated wines.
The last analysis ¨spacing of fruit on the vine¨ is the most important of all. Why? Well, it goes as follows: when the vine is feeding its fruit it isn’t always fair. For example, sugar gets distributed to the plants fruit evenly regardless of location on the vine. Tannins however aren’t distributed with such unconditional love. The further away from the vines trunk the less tannins the fruit is going to receive. Might not seem fair but apparently tannins aren’t mobile. So, a vine with nice evenly spaced fruit will ensure a nice even balance among the bunches.
So, after all this analyzing we chose the 20 best Malbecs from the original 500 plants and the saga continues year after year with the same tests. The most exciting thing about this project so far is that we have produced our fist vintage with grapes from the experimental vines. It is called ¨Vero¨ which means ¨True¨ and cleverly is an acronym for the three grand children of the Biondolillo family at the same time. There were only 10, 000 bottles made and if you ever get to try this wine you will find that the name speaks for its self.
