After I read New York Times wine writer Eric Asimov’s fascinating column about the world of “field blends” I asked Tzora’s UC Davis-trained winemaker Eran Pick to comment.

A traditonal field blend is a wine whose grapes are planted side-by-side in a single vineyard, and harvested and fermented together. More typical blends are grown, harvested and vinified (fancy wine talk for “made into wine”) separately.

Here’s Eran’s response when I asked him to respond to Asimov’s article and to the concept of “field blending” broadly:

Hi Richard,

I read this post on Wednesday, I love his column and “The Pour”. I think he’s a true wine intellectual.

About Field Blends. I think it’s a real old world concept that does not go well with improvement in quality.

Even at Chateau Lafite, some of their older vineyard plots are planted with a mix of C.S., C.F., and ,Merlot. Back then, 40 years ago they harvested everything together. Of course, once you do that you compromise quality because each variety has its own ripening schedule. Today, they go through the vineyard and pick the grapes separately according to the variety. Today some old plots in Portugal are still planted in this way (even without knowing the varieties in the plot).

Again, I think each variety has to be harvested separately. Harvesting date is one of the most important decision a winemaker makes. great impact on quality and character.

As you know I do believe in blending varieties from the same plot after the fermentation, as we did in Misty Hills 2006 and 2007.

Cheers,

Eran

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