Photo contributed
Flexcube
Did romance ever save anyone money? Probably not. And when it comes to the romance of winemaking, Luke Smith would resoundingly say, definitely not. Smith feels the industry can still have the taste of tradition while giving up some of the cost and waste.
“I think right from the start, it became apparent that the industry, like a lot of other industries of its kind, has the word tradition pop out all over the place,” Smith says. “As soon as I hear the word tradition, especially in business, it means you’re doing something the old way without any other reason. Which usually means high cost.”
Smith and his wife Jennifer planted the Howling Bluff Estate Winery vineyard on Naramata Bench in 2004. The first release of white wines sold from their kitchen in 2007. Right from the get-go, Smith knew there were better ways to do things. Like a bloodhound, he sought out ways to make their vineyard more responsible as well as profitable.
“First was water. There really was no technology to put water where you needed it without putting water everywhere else,” he says. “It made no sense to be watering everything when all you were trying to do was water one plant.”
The solution was drip lines. Smith removed the overhead sprinklers which sent water everywhere, including into the wind and trees.
“That did get me thinking, what’s next?” says Smith. “The next thing that became obvious was the maintenance of the plants.”
New sprayers that sprayed only the leaves (not the ground and air too) were coming on the market. This more efficient style of sprayer was incorporated into the vineyard’s practices along with organic sprays.
“I did not move to organic farming practices to make you feel good,” Smith says, tongue-in-cheek. “I did it because my dogs walk through my vineyards and my kids live here and I live here.”
Next on the list was the barrel, which he has always questioned. Interestingly, who should come up with an alternative to that? In this case, wisdom came from Daniel, one of the Smith’s children.
“He’s the real push behind going into (this method),” says Smith. “Daniel said, ‘let’s make great wine and let’s do it smart,’ and I can’t argue with that. Within the process of winemaking is the smartest, most cost-efficient and least wasteful way of making wine.”
Smith started thinking about natural resources and how oak forests are finite, yet more and more barrels are being purchased. Plus, there’s Smith’s concern around the inefficiencies in barrel making itself.
Photo contributed
Howling Bluff View
“I’ve heard something like 50 per cent or more of the tree is wasted. That’s insane,” he says of barrel making. “It’s a massive amount of waste that goes on.”
Add to that, the cooper’s rule. Smith explains, in a batch of 10 barrels, six barrels will produce wine as expected, two will create “magic” wine and two will be less than impressive. He realized that because barrels are handmade, each is unique which alters the Oxygen Transfer Rate (OTR) and creates variations in the final product.
“If I need consistency, how the heck can I do that?” Smith asked.
He determined the oak barrel has three jobs: to be a container, to influence flavour and to allow for the right amount of oxygen.
There’s controversy (as is often the case in winemaking) about the job of the barrel. Many see it as the essential element, but according to Smith, some research shows it’s only the cuts against the grain that impart the flavours. Those who opt for stainless steel tanks use proprietarily-shaped oak pieces. When he discovered this option, Smith saw the way to circumvent one of the three roles of the oak barrel. One down, two to go.
“To get the oak influence on the wine, they will use a block of oak, oak chips, or oak staves, whatever the winemaker wants,” he says. “It’s all part of that waste wood that is hitting the cooper’s floor. The traditionalists have poo-pooed that because they are saying there’s something magic about the barrel.”
Further exploring the stainless steel tank, Smith learned about OTR systems where the exact amount of oxygen a winemaker wants can be adjusted.
“They have replaced one [more] function that the barrel does, which is the oxygen rate and the stainless steel replaces the container function,” he explains. “Two out of three.”
However, this wasn’t Smith’s preferred option. The system controlling the oxygen for the tanks includes equipment that could break. He says it is elaborate and needs to be monitored.
It was the Australians, who like Smith were exploring alternatives in winemaking, that came up with a space-age polymer that delivered the two functions: container and OTR. The manufacturing process of the plastic permits a designated number of milligrams of oxygen per liter through the container walls.
The plastic tanks gave Smith control over the process he was after. The Australians had even explored the best oak shapes to effectively mimic the desired flavour transfer from oak barrels.
At last, Smith had discovered how to replace the oak barrel. Why such a burning need? Including the finite nature of oak forests, Smith saw hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on barrels that would last a maximum of seven years. To top that off, cleaning the barrels leads to excessive water waste and use of chemicals.
It was time for Howling Bluff to switch to the Flexcube.
“It’s a shape that’s perfect for storage. The cube can put more wine in the same volume of space than any other shape,” he says. “Not only do we have [the roles of the oak barrel] solved, we have them dialed in as efficiently as they can be. We use only one tenth of the water and no chemicals to clean it. It lasts at least 20 years.”
The only thing left was to try the wine. After all, the quest would be pointless if it didn’t create great wine. Smith’s son Daniel brought local winemakers and wine consultants in for unfinished wine tastings. Not only could no one tell the difference, about 80 per cent of the time these experts preferred the Flexcube-made wine over traditional barrel-made wine.
“There are a number of winemakers who are quite embarrassed [that they can’t tell the difference],” Smith says. “This technology is actually becoming widespread in China, Australia, California, South Africa and France.”
Smith believes he is saving between 65 and 75 per cent on winemaking, and labour costs are 98 per cent less because of the ease of moving the Flexcubes around. Fortunately Investment Agriculture Foundation (IAF) helped Smith make the move to the new method.
“We weren’t going to do it unless we had co-funding or shared the risk, because if I made 1,000 liters of bad wine, that would just kill me,” he says. “My hat’s off to that program. Programs that take the risk out of experimenting. This wouldn’t have been done without them.”
