Altar Wines and Post-Modernity
Ξ January 21st, 2008 | → 0 Comments | ∇ A Day at a Time, Technology, Wine History |
I was preparing a post on the NMR machine fabricated at UC Davis designed to non-invasively evaluate the quality of precious wine, when my attention was drawn to an essay from a professor at the Virginia Tech’s Enology-Grape Chemistry Group about Chinese wine production. My supplementary question became how might NMR tech be used to combat counterfeit wines. However, one cautionary passage from the professor’s essay stopped me in my tracks: “Over thousands of years, intensive breeding has rendered the silk moth (Bombyx mori) a blind, flightless, egg-laying machine[.]”
For those unfamiliar with an academic’s diplomatic double-speak required when having traveled and researched in a difficult country, let me offer a plausible translation: the message, subtle, is that production of fully technologically designed wines are only a matter of time. Indeed, far beyond detecting counterfeits and the simple evaluation of precious wine, I suggest NMR tech could one day neatly dovetail with the ancient lessons of silk moth domestication, and both provide new insights as to how a laboratory’s time might most profitably be spent building wine. Of course, proper anxiety over the rôle of science in overwhelming terroir and the homogenization/manipulation of wine generally is nothing new among the cognoscenti. Witness the recent dust-up over Mega Purple on another blog. But what might the public’s response be when the increasing centrality of science reaches a cultural ‘tipping point’ and becomes widely known, whether through bottle label reforms, the blogosphere or mainstream media? Will Joe Twelve-case particularly care? Altar or sacramental wines suggest one possible answer. Let me try to explain.
According to the Wine Institute’s 2005 figures, the Vatican City State of 932 souls consumed over 62 liters or 16 1/2 gallons of wine per capita that year, the highest rate in the world. It is reasonable to assume a fair percentage was altar wine. Mexico, by contrast, though hardly less pious, consumed a mere .14 liters, a little over a cup for each of its 107.5 million persons, 1/2 less wine than Mongolia! Understanding the importance of Catholicism in Mexico and the indispensable role wine plays in the celebration of Mass, I am suspicious of the low figure. Yet, try as I might I can find no reliable figures as to the percentage consumption of altar wine in that country. A partial explanation for this dearth of information must no doubt be proprietary. It is the Church’s business, after all. (And perhaps my limited time and research skill play a part!)
And even finding figures for the United States proves difficult. But we do have major producers of altar wines here that provide clues. The historically important Mont La Salle, near St. Helena, Ca., brands more than 150,000 gallons of sacramental wine a year. Sold to proper Catholic authorities, and to Lutheran denominations in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and Pacific Rim countries, they do a thriving business. As does the equally important San Antonio Winery in Los Angeles. They produce 60,000 cases of altar wine per annum. To this distinguished list must be added Cribari Vineyards. A 1990 reference claimed their North American market share of altar wine at 90%, a figure I cannot confirm for 2007. They had the pleasure of providing the altar wine for Pope John Paul visit to Toronto in 2002.
Now, the most important feature of altar wines is that they must have the approbation of a Bishop. He alone can guarantee that the quality of a given winery’s production practices are in accordance with Canon Law 924.3. Nothing less than the reunification of God with his flock is at stake. However, it is generally felt that, with a few exceptions, in the main, altar wines are not very good. Needless to say, no terroir is either detectable or even desirable. They are sweet and simple, juicy and of a high alc., not unlike a Mollydooker, a good deal of Aussie syrah, and many boutique Cali cabs. In fact, I would argue that the current, dominant wine style, big, fat and structureless, without varietal distinction, shares more than just a flavor profile with altar wines. The dominant wine style, too, was born of the approval of an authority, whether a wine magazine or singular critic. Indeed, when the consumer drinks a wine on an advocate’s list they may thereby feel closer, more at one with the profound authority they follow. Authority informs flavor. And if I were running a winery I would look long and hard at how I might bring my vinous ‘product’ into line, and by whatever means necessary. Secular transubstantiation swells the bottom line, any marketer will tell you.
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