Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields. It's also basic chemistry. There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to).
Look up, for example, why top Napa vineyards go for low yields.
I tried and failed (wikipedia) -- can you point me to something informative? I don't know what I'm looking for.
There is a finite number of nutrients in the soil, and the plant can make a finite amount of such things out of these nutrients (like phenols in the grape skins and... er.. this is not my subject, but I can look it up again myself should I have to).
In general they're not finite. Phenols are just C,H,O -- they're made from water and CO2. All of these compounds, as far as I can tell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phenolic_content_in_wine
I haven't found anything that says that, for example, soil nutrients correlate with phenol concentrations in vines (for example). It's not obvious.
When i have a moment I"lk try to find a source.. In the eanwhile, this is the book to get by the ultimate wine scientist http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520275195
I don't understand this. Flavourful chemicals aren't a scarce resource to "go around" -- they're organic compounds plants synthesise "from scratch" (or their reaction products, after aging). Perhaps scarce soil nutrients influence this, for better or worse (I don't know), but this isn't a priori obvious.
Wikipedia didn't help me resolve this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yield_(wine)#Yield_as_an_indic...