Winemaking Dullsville or Getting Warmer?

 I have the distinct pleasure of participating in the muscat harvest in southern France, Frontignan to be exact. This is the home of Muscat de Frontignan (an obviously appropriate name for the AOC) where fermentation is arrested with the addition of alcohol to realize a 15% abv, about 100 g/L of residual sugar aperitif. We've tasted a few MdF's over the past weeks and it is with regret that I report I cannot tell a governable complexity in this wine. In fact, I cannot detect engaging complexity in the dry muscat either. Or maybe it's a characteristic of muscat in general: muscat grape off the vine smells and tastes like muscat grape. Wine made from this grape smells and tastes like muscat, too. On one hand it's a refreshingly linear relationship; on the other hand, I can't drink a lot of the stuff, either the fortified or the dry (late harvest is a different story however).

 Though I now make for a good candidate for an A535 ad due to weeks of picking bush vines measuring less than a foot off the ground (ground meaning rock, as there's more stones than dirt), to say nothing of the 37 degree temperatures we've been working in, I have learned a thing or two. 

One. Bush vines good as they're a cheap and no-frills solution. If hand harvesting is the mandate, then there's not much that can't be achieved with a well-trained bush vine versus one on a trellis. The domaine I'm at now has experimented with trellis, but now goes back to bush vine for all new plantings, stating that trellis makes sense at higher yields (more control and precision in big volume situation), but for 30 to 40 hl/ha or whatever they're doing here (I think this translates to about 3 tonnes per acre), trellis doesn't seem worth the cost or hassle. 

Two. When we're talking optimum berry ripeness (i.e. "pick that vineyard"), there are two stages. First, there  is the fresh fruit stage. This is recognized as the juice from grape samples is being tasted, and it reaches an optimum aromatic stage. This likely happens before full phenolic maturity. So, if you want to make that fresh and drink-me-now type of wine, it is vital to recognize this point. As the graph shows above, it lasts for about ten days, making a peak at day 5. 

Thirteen or some odd days after fresh fruit perfection, you may see full phenolic maturity, the appropriate time to pick grapes that are destined for longer ageing wine, or wine where the primary aromatic profile is not vital, rather the other stuff.

I was told that there's a scary purgatory of "no real benefit to the user" between the two stages, fresh fruit and ripe fruit. I have no experience to back up this theory of no-pick-zone, but it sounds just horrible. 

Anyway, the moral I suppose is "taste the juice" rather than "look at the numbers". Though it's easier said than done.