{"text":[[{"start":5.15,"text":"Scott Becker, of the ambitious Realm Cellars in Napa Valley, is no fool — although he claims he was only accepted into Harvard because his interviewer was tickled by the fact that he applied via satellite phone, as a US Air Force captain in Afghanistan. I recently caught up with him and his wife Meaghan as they passed through London on their first in-depth visit to Bordeaux in three years."}],[{"start":29.299999999999997,"text":"I asked him to let me know how they got on and was intrigued by this passage from a long email he wrote on the plane journey home: “From a pure wine-growing perspective (ignoring commercial realities for a moment), I find Bordeaux so interesting and compelling these days. Generally speaking, I met producers who are incredibly thoughtful and intentional about their craft, who try to take a long view, who are endlessly curious about the science and what it takes to make better wines. There’s a sense of stewardship, a desire to better understand the unique character of each vineyard, each block."}],[{"start":60.449999999999996,"text":"“Napa Valley,” he added, “certainly has elements of this too, but not with the same breadth that I find in Bordeaux. The number of experiments, the level of investment . . . in top Bordeaux these days is incredible. I can only think of two or three Napa wineries who employ someone dedicated entirely to R&D, for example, and I must’ve met six or seven of them in one week in Bordeaux.”"}],[{"start":85.25,"text":"I’d always assumed that more of the wealth evident in Napa Valley, Bordeaux’s most obvious counterpart with its emphasis on Cabernet Sauvignon, was dedicated to research than it clearly is. So I was keen to speak to one of the leading wine researchers at Bordeaux university, famous for its close contacts with local producers."}],[{"start":104.55,"text":"Axel Marchal, 42, was made an associate professor of oenology at the age of 33 and a full professor three years later. He’s from the north-east of France, so his first encounters with wine were not with bordeaux. “I really love burgundy,” he confessed. “I’ve spent too much money buying it.” Nevertheless, he plans, unlike many wine enthusiasts who seem to be giving the en primeur system the cold shoulder, to buy some of the 2025 bordeaux currently being offered “because the wines are very nice and there are some good buys”. Although he admits that the overall perception of Bordeaux’s famous habit of selling futures is “not very good”. "}],[{"start":144.05,"text":"Marchal initially studied chemistry in Paris, but was sufficiently fascinated by wine to join the university tasting team and compete against the wine societies of Oxbridge and other colleges in rigorous competitions. He decided to devote a year to studying vinification, but spending six months at Bordeaux first growth Château Latour was enough to persuade him to change his PhD topic to wine. He studied perceptions of sweetness in dry wines under the legendary wine academic and producer Denis Dubourdieu. Factors that can make wines with no residual sugar taste sweet include certain compounds released by oak, as well as the enriching effect on wine of yeast lees through a process called autolysis."}],[{"start":188.20000000000002,"text":"I asked Marchal which of his research projects, generally nowadays conducted with PhD students and usually focused on taste, he was most proud of. One very early one, conducted just after his own PhD, turned out to be financially valuable to the university. His research showed that, of the two most common species of oak used in wine production, sessile oak can be more suitable for wine than pedunculate oak, thanks to an enriching compound called QTT. The two oak species are usually mixed in forests, and oak barrels typically include staves of both. The researchers developed a method to identify each species, for which the university owns the patent and which it sold to French coopers Seguin Moreau. Their QTT barrels made exclusively from sessile oak can now be found, for instance, chez first growth Ch Haut-Brion."}],[{"start":238.85000000000002,"text":"Five years later, in 2016, came the discovery that grape stems can be particularly rich in the sweet compound astilbin, with effects on the fashionable technique (de rigueur before the development of destemmers) called whole-bunch or whole-cluster fermentation, whereby only a portion, or possibly none, of the grapes are destemmed before fermentation. Marchal analysed stems from different plots of the Burgundy grand cru Clos de Tart, which has had a direct effect on winemaking there."}],[{"start":267.45000000000005,"text":"It is perhaps his 2022 project that has so far had the greatest effect, certainly in Bordeaux, of making red wine more approachable in youth. It was traditional to keep pumping the embryonic wine, or must, over the cap of grape skins that float to the top of the fermentation vat — quite a brutal process, designed to extract colour and chewy tannins. But Marchal and associates have shown that it is more important to keep the must at a temperature of 28C-30C, which encourages the release of certain useful compounds that soften the tannins. So they are still there, doing their job of preserving the wine over many years, even decades, but are much less aggressive on the palate."}],[{"start":309.75000000000006,"text":"All these discoveries are communicated to producers, or at least Bordeaux’s most proactive winemakers, first through published research papers and later presented at congresses, such as those organised regularly by Bordeaux’s generic body."}],[{"start":323.80000000000007,"text":"As those of us who have followed the evolution of red bordeaux over many years have noticed, the prevailing style has changed considerably. Marchal admits that when he first arrived he was not that happy when, as a consultant, he was involved in the production of some pretty ripe fruit bombs. “But now the wines are very different, with more freshness and less extraction,” he said. “Twenty years ago I was totally out of fashion, but I’m much more comfortable now.”"}],[{"start":352.20000000000005,"text":"By no means is the work at the university entirely focused on Bordeaux; the staff co-operate with wine research institutions in Adelaide in Australia and Germany’s Geisenheim. Marchal is currently investigating umami, the savoury taste especially celebrated in Japan, in conjunction with some Champagne producers interested in the effect of long-term ageing on lees and the perception of umami. He is also working on Chardonnay flavour while a colleague is doing the same for Riesling — neither white wine grape associated with Bordeaux."}],[{"start":383.85,"text":"As we were discussing white wines, I wondered why, with all this scientific expertise, it took so long for any useful work to emerge on the notorious scourge of white burgundy made from the mid-1990s and for many years afterwards, which fell victim to premature oxidation. “The first step is to admit a problem,” Marchal said carefully, “but lots of producers were reluctant to. What’s very different with this topic is that it’s so multilayered. The relevant compounds are known, but it’s a very complex problem.”"}],[{"start":414.95000000000005,"text":"I asked how Bordeaux’s vines have been coping with the recent extreme heat. Marchal reports they are still looking green and healthy, perhaps thanks to the very wet April and May. He’s unconvinced that irrigation, which is much discussed in Bordeaux, is the answer in drought years. Would people be happy about precious water supplies being used to produce wines at €100 a bottle? Meanwhile, he regrets how the Bordeaux vinescape has been changing — as one would expect of a wine region that has shrunk from 115,000 hectares of vineyards to 85,000 in just a few years, to address a shift in demand."}],[{"start":452.00000000000006,"text":"What a shame. Just as the wines are getting better and better, they are being bought less and less. "}],[{"start":null,"text":"