(Claude Auguste / Photo: Meinklang Winery / animated image: runwayml)
There is hardly a symbol as rich in meaning in early spring as the egg. At Easter, it is painted, hidden and hunted for – as a rare metaphorical promise of life and new beginnings – perhaps also, to some extent, as a consolation for the fact that everything starts all over again; including the egg. In viticulture, where the question of which came first – the hen or the egg – does not arise, the egg appears in two very different forms. On the one hand, as an unassuming helper that dissolves into the wine. And secondly, as an almost monumental object that remains for a few years and shapes the wine. Both have more in common than one might initially think: it’s about refinement, about transitions, about the question of how much intervention a wine can tolerate.
A touch of egg white
My first encounter with the egg in winemaking was not in a glass, but in the cellar. Rioja, a cool spring afternoon at Murrietta (about 30 years ago). The cellar master separated the yolk from the white, carefully whisked the latter and poured it into a cask. No show, no ritual – more of a casual gesture. And yet it is, or was, central to the style of entire regions. So-called egg-white fining is one of the oldest techniques in winemaking. Egg white – or, more precisely, albumin – carries a positive charge and binds those substances in the wine that are perceived as too harsh, too bitter or too sharp – primarily tannins and phenolic compounds. The substances that bind sink to the bottom and are later skimmed off. What remains is a wine that is softer, smoother and often more approachable, without losing its structure.
In classic regions such as Bordeaux or Rioja in particular, this practice was long the norm – in a sense, the finishing touch before bottling. And yet it has become less common today, almost extinct. Not because it doesn’t work – on the contrary, it is considered particularly gentle and selective – but because it no longer fits in with an era that increasingly demands purity in a moral sense, not just a sensory one. Animal-derived fining agents, be it egg, milk or fish bladders, run counter to vegan expectations. So they are replaced by bentonite, activated charcoal or synthetic polymers. Technically, this works. But something is lost: that unassuming, small, barely visible intervention that moderates rather than alters.
Egg, egg: concrete
The second egg is the opposite: visible, heavy, almost defiant in its presence. The concrete egg, popularised in the early 2000s by Michel Chapoutier, amongst others, is a tool of ‘attitudinal’ viticulture. I came across the concrete egg rather by chance when I was in Seewinkel, Burgenland, 18 years ago. At the organic winery Meinklang – I was already able to buy their wines in Verona back then. At Meinklang, these sculptures stood in the cellar. And the winemaker explained to me what they were all about. As a young traditionalist at the time, I missed the beauty of wood – the eggs seemed too cold and technical to me. But I am no winemaker, merely a romantic.
The concrete egg: a fermentation and ageing vessel that deliberately positions itself between stainless steel and wood. Concrete is porous enough to allow minimal amounts of oxygen to reach the wine – a micro-oxidation process that proceeds more slowly and in a more controlled manner than in a wooden barrel, yet still has a structural effect. At the same time, the material itself imparts no flavour. No vanilla notes, no toasty notes, no external aromatic signature. It is more expensive than wine-green barrels, but it lasts for three, four or more decades.
The real ingenuity, however, lies in the shape. The egg has no corners, no dead angles. During fermentation, natural circulation occurs: the liquid moves of its own accord, the yeasts remain suspended for longer, imparting texture and depth without the need for mechanical intervention. It is a system that does less – and, precisely because of this, allows more. Winemakers like to speak of ‘neutrality’ here, but they mean something else: the ability to reflect the terroir more precisely, because nothing is superimposed upon it.
The two eggs, not just for the farmer
However different these two ‘eggs’ may seem – the volatile egg white in the cask and the solid concrete egg in the cellar – they share a common principle. Both work with reduction. One removes what is disruptive without affecting the core. The other deliberately forgoes anything that might be added. In both cases, the aim is the same: to bring the wine to a state that makes it better and more palatable.
The egg, a symbol of the beginning, stands in viticulture, of all things, for transition. For the moment when raw material takes on form. Not through spectacular interventions, but through precise, almost imperceptible decisions. This is the lesson that can also be applied beyond the cellar: maturity arises not from more, but from less.