Browse Month

December 2009

Mystify me

[ghostly vines]Didn’t I just get done saying that no one wants to read (or write) yet another holiday wine column? OK, this is me swallowing my words – mea gulpa – and starting off with a seasonal theme. Don’t worry, it won’t last long.

This is a time of year in which many celebrate the various mysteries and miracles particular to their beliefs. The rituals will differ, but except where it is disallowed almost all of them will involve an alcoholic beverage, even if only as part of a communal gathering of like-minded celebrants. Sometimes, those beverages will be mere quenchers. But in many cases, there will be something else at stake…some sort of symbolism or cultural/historic reference.

Throughout the history of our species, we’ve had no problem assigning liquids this sort of secondary meaning and import – not just ferments or brews that sate our thirst and alter our mood, but something more – within the boundaries of practices spiritual, ritualistic, and social. And in fact, it’s probable that wine has fulfilled this transubstantiative role more than any other beverage.

So it passes strange that the first thing just about every journalistic wine writer must promise, as they make their entry into the field, is to “demystify” wine. This promise is usually extended to the readership, as well. Hell, I’ve done it myself, back when I was first starting out.

The appeal of the idea of obvious. Wine’s a reasonably complicated subject around which there has been built an unreasonable amount of cultural fear, and in most cases those with expertise and a forum are inherently charged with the duty to make themselves understandable to other than their peers.

But let’s once again compare fields of inquiry. A newspaper column on the merits of, say, a pitcher acquired by a baseball team does not stop to define the position, iterate the various pitches that can be thrown and their most accomplished practitioners, and delve into an explanation of how the physical structure of the baseball interacts with the pitcher’s musculature to produce certain physical effects. Why not? Because no one interested in baseball wants to read those explanations time and time again, no one interested enough in baseball to write about it wants to write those explanations over and over, and the practice itself would bring any interesting narrative to a screeching halt. Yet a wine column on Crozes-Hermitage will almost always have to locate the appellation, define its cépage, identify its best producers, and talk about its uses with food.

The same is true for coverage of equities, in which a columnist need not explain and define the workings of the stock market and the history of the Dow versus the S&P 500 to cover the day’s news, and in most other fields as well. Yet a column on how to select a wine by identifying its importer will inevitably find itself mired in an explanation of just what it is that importers do (which should be obvious, I would think) and their role in the three-tier system, which will start referring back to Prohibition…and suddenly, we’ve got the history of the alcoholic beverage industry in the United States, when all we wanted was an explanation of what Neal Rosenthal vs. Eric Solomon means for the consumer.

No, for some reason wine writing, unlike other types of specialist coverage, must somehow appeal to the lowest common denominator or risk the heavy hand of an editor’s (electronic) pen. Referring to Morgon in a column? Better explain that it’s a Beaujolais, that’s it’s made from gamay, that all Beaujolais isn’t Nouveau (and the yearly ritual of Nouveau must then be explained for what must be the ten-thousandth time), and so forth. Is a micro-buying guide for spätlese-level riesling on tap? It’s not sufficient to talk about balance as if everyone knows what that is, it’s necessary to attempt a ground-up explanation the interaction between acidity and sugar in wine, why that is of particular interest along various German riverbanks, how this philosophy differs from that operative in the Wachau or the Bas-Rhin, and so forth. In other words, wine writing in its journalistic, general-interest form, must be presented as if utter novices comprise the entirety of the audience, novices who must be gently coaxed from square one with the first paragraph of each new column, and led no further than square two by the conclusion.

But aren’t (you might object) novices the actual audience? Maybe they are, and maybe they aren’t. The question remains: why does this matter so much when the subject’s wine, and not hockey? Mergers? Senatorial shenanigans? Contract negotiations? All may occasionally hold back on the most arcane terminology, but none will suffer the editorial supposition that the reader is new to this planet, that the audience is comprised of dull children, that it might not be interested enough in the subject to read more than just the one column, as if it would be impossible to infer information that’s not spelled out in painstaking and word count-chewing detail.

I have little idea why this state of affairs should be, though I have theories. But those theories aren’t actually the point of this little rant. Instead, I propose an alternative philosophy to all this wine-for-dummies pandering.

Knowing that Morgon is Beaujolais, and that Beaujolais is gamay, is – I suppose – useful. It may, to the dedicated seeker of vinous knowledge, even be interesting, though in all cases I’d argue it’s reference material, and not the sort of thing one expects to find in the immediacy of a journalistic or columnar setting. But it is certainly nowhere near as interesting as the story of Marcel Lapierre and what he represents for all three of those above-referenced nouns. And it is unquestionably less interesting that the sensory revelation possible in a glass of Lapierre’s Morgon.

Wine writing limited to the first of these three modes of inquiry will never be more than a pale shadow of what’s possible. It should aspire to the latter, even if this isn’t quite achievable without providing samples of the wine in question. But the potential stories in a glass of wine are myriad, they’re very much beyond a rote recitation of facts and figures, and they’re best told from a position not of mere expertise, but of expertise fired by passion. They’re something elevated, something symbolic, something more.

The mere act of experiencing a wine that, more than any before it, somehow reaches or speaks to the taster can be as powerful and as unquantifiable as any mystery. We celebrate, honor, or at least respect those mysteries elsewhere in our lives. Why must wine suffer the dishonor and disrespect of demystification?

Harry

[label]Lapierre 2007 Morgon (Beaujolais) – Light, with the texture of flake-depth foil, as if the fruit has been pressed and stretched into the most delicate leaves of nearly-transparent fruit. The wine is, in the context of its ancestors, so light that it’s not easy to discern its Morgon-ness (though the quality of the fruit is darker than most other Beaujolais of similar weight, and there’s the faintest iron-like soil component that meets one’s expectations). Drinking this wine is a little like holding one’s breath, knowing that the slightest sound will disturb something that’s important to hear. (8/09)

Lapierre 2007 Morgon (Beaujolais) – More soil and (absent the heat) dusted peppercorn than has been typical for this wine, the result of a slight diminishment of the delicate. I don’t mean to suggest an absence of fruit, but a very slight change in the balance is all that’s necessary for this wine to shift position. (8/09)

Gaules bladder

Lapierre 2008 Vin de Pays des Gaules (Beaujolais) – “What’s this wine all about,” I asked my most reliable retailer. “Green and acidic,” he responded, or something along those lines…and this is a guy with a store full of bottles that fans of pointy fermented goop would call exactly that. Well, he was right: it’s green, it’s overly sharp, it’s thin and edgy, and it’s not for everyone, or even for most. Is for anyone? Well, I suppose; it’s not far in structure from the “Cuvée Granit” bottling that some like to call “red Muscadet,” but it doesn’t have the nervy balance of that wine. It’s the worst Lapierre I’ve ever tasted, and while I’d be happy with it served from carafe in some country bistro, I’m not eager to pay a U.S. retail price for it again. (9/09)

One hundred bubbles

JP Brun “FRV 100” (Beaujolais) – I didn’t check the lot code on this bottle, but based on its performance I think it may be part of the previous year’s stock, rather than a new release. (I’m not sure, however.) This suspicion comes from a slightly stumbling stick and chew to the fruit, which carries a little more residue than the fun freshness it usually has. A minor nitpick, perhaps, but then again this was never advertised as an ager. (8/09)

Fields of gold

JP Brun “Terres Dorées” 2007 Beaujolais Blanc (Beaujolais) – Continuing to stand above the Beaujolais Blanc pack (admittedly, I don’t even think I’ve reached a half-dozen examples, although I have no idea how many wines labeled Mâcon that I’ve tasted have been secret brethren), due less to its rich, earthy aromatics than its more vibrant palate presence and firmer structure. Still one of my favorite French chardonnays, given a certain and deliberate personal poverty within that category. (9/09)

Fabric

Granger “La Jacarde” 2008 Beaujolais Villages Blanc (Beaujolais) – Pure chardonnay seen through the lens of Beaujolais: a simple, sweet melody rather than a concerto or symphony of flavor. Light and pretty. (9/09)

Lone Granger

Granger 2002 Juliénas “Cuvée Speciale” (Beaujolais) – Earthen more than brightly-fruited, which would seem to be the usual destiny of aging Juliénas, and in a reasonably pleasant way. Early maturity? Yes, probably, though the resistant tannin might be an issue going forward. There’s a light within that gives hope, but this is a fairly muscular wine. (9/09)

Stuck in my Crau

Domaine du Père Pape “La Crau de Ma Mère” 1998 Châteauneuf-du-Pape (Rhône) – Dirty meat, sticky and supple, but with still-intrusive structure. Someone’s rammed peppercorns into well-ridden saddle, as well, and maybe there are a few wads of that grenachy bubblegum stuck between the leather than the horse. Ready? No, not precisely, though I don’t know it’s going to get better…note, however, that this is from a very cold cellar; normally-matured bottles may show more advancement. (8/09)

Faire

Clos du Paradis “Domaine Viret” 1999 Côtes-du-Rhône-Villages Saint-Maurice “Renaissance” (Rhône) – Fading into a wet stew of stale leather, meat artifacts, and overdried herbs. With very occasional exceptions, the reds from this house and vintage (I bought each bottling) have not survived as long as I’d predicted while tasting them on site and at release. Young vines? Cosmoculture? Terroir? Over-optimism? There’s no way to know without comparing more recent releases, which for the most part I haven’t. (8/09)

Roussillière rabbit, viognier’s for kids

[vineyard]Cuilleron 2001 “Roussillière” (Rhône) – From 500 ml and partially-fermented grapes. The problem with Cuilleron’s wines is that they’re overwhelmingly goopy, structure-free, and far too soup-like for their own good. Here’s a wine that goes ahead and admits its faults by intent, by leaving unfermented sugar in the wine. The result is far more pleasant than Cuilleron’s allegedly dry wines, and I think the sweetly floral nature of the raw material is ideally-suited for the dessert category. (9/09)