I wrote the article on the use of tannins in winemaking feeling like someone who’s telling a secret. In this case it’s somewhat of a strange secret though. A secret that a selected elite (the winemakers) is not making any attempt to guard, but that nevertheless remains known by a selected few. I reckon that the above is because of two main reasons: laziness (anyone could source the information on books or on the internet) and a sort of fear of “poking” one’s ignorance on chemistry. I’ve poked my ignorance too, but luckily it responded with a merciful caress rather that with a full blown punch in my face.
Someone could argue that it is not necessary to know whether the chestnut tannins are hydrolysable or not to tell a good wine apart from a less good one. Others might say that to know such things could ever be counter producing, but I do not agree. I think that the above way of meaning the profession of wine journalist could have been valid some twenty years ago, when the wines were sorted in “good”, “less good” and “not good”. It goes without saying that in order to make a perfectly valid point, here I should give a definition of what is “good”, but I won’t: it would be way too long to write and to be read. I’ll just say that when I say “good” I think of the general meaning of the word itself.
Nowadays, the production of a clean (correct) wine is within every producer’s reach but the globalization of the taste is an always pending risk. That’s why the difference between wines cannot be any longer only a matter of “taste” but needs to consider also the ethical side of a bottle, both in the vineyard and in the cellar. Dare I say more: even out of the cellar, when the bottles travel to their places of distribution (read the article “Ten glass Eiffel Towers less!” on this website”).
In order to be able to understand this difference, it will be necessary for whoever writes about wines to know much more than the key points of wine appreciation. For such a professional it will be of paramount importance to know (and to keep up to date on) the latest technological developments in the winemaking industry. Only by doing this one can hope to tell apart the “good” and the “good but constructed”, which are two very different expressions of “goodness”.
Personally I don’t think that the various additives used in winemaking (including tannins) are there to make “better wines”: I believe that they are only used because they simplify enormously the life of the winemakers. Otherwise we could not explain those “ancient” wines that today, the ones who can, enjoy with delight. To conclude then, I would like to put forward the idea that, on the grounds of what just said, the wine producers could be divided into 3 large groups:
• Those ones that, doing  a splendid and meticulous job in the vineyards and in the cellar, feel that they can trust their own grapes, their own yeasts and their own abilities, even though they know that this comports some sort of risk;
• Those ones that, despite doing a great job in the vineyards and in the cellar, can’t afford (economically) to rest their trust in their grapes, their yeasts and their abilities. These producers will then use some additives in order to guarantee two things: the most genuine expression of the character of their grapes and a good sleep at night;
• Those ones that, for different reasons (i.e. a not perfectly good fruit) make an important use of additives.
Whilst I find humanely impossible to blame the producers of the second group, I also think that it would be only fair to find a way of recognizing to the first category of producers a bigger cultural and economic effort. The producers in the third and last group, even though they might produce some quite palatable wines, are using the additives as a “technological expedient”, and I believe that this way of using them should be opposed.