The irrepressible Donna writes:
J’Arrive Vinisud!
Everyone who knows me, knows I love wines from the South of France. They are near and dear to me and I’m a firm believer it is the future of France as we see all the named and historically famous wines become prohibitedly expensive and disappear out of the hands of the regular wine drinker into the very wealthy and increasingly the Asian market.
Here you find amazing value to price ratios unlike most wine regions in the world, save for Spain, which is slowly creeping up and less the value it once was. Unfortunately as successful as the region is, there still is a wave of vine pull schemes which tug at my heart every time I see another report.
The Trade Office of France and Sud de France have very generously brought me to the Languedoc to experience Vinisud, the largest wine trade fair for wines from the Mediterranean. I have to give props to Marie-Helene Courade of the Houston France Consulate who never forgets how I love going on these trips, making fantastic connections and putting up with my indecision when making flight reservations. Also thanks to Sarah Nguyen the Director of the Wine and Spirits for the French embassy trade office in NYC,
The Sud de France organization gave us all a wonderful welcome gift with our itineraries plus small gifts and samples of regional foods. One really neat gift and excellent for quick reference in a fun way is a sampling of wine tubes. Each tube contains a sample of the different styles of wines from the region. The AOC’s are for each style are printed on the back of the tubes along with the authorized grapes of the regions. As a wine educator, I kinda feel like Martha Stewart when I say “It’s a good thing”.
There’s a very busy schedule at these events. Frequently there’s a different hotel every night in a different city, dinner until 1 am, back up at 6 am, on a bus by 8am, repacking every morning, bodies fatigued, palates broken down, livers distended no matter how much wine you spat out but the opportunity to be in an organized visit schedule to meet producers and potentially bring their products to the United States, is gold. This trip I am thankful to be stationed in one hotel and I was able to completely unpack my garment bag and take account of all the things I need which I forgot to pack, but I did remember my Dansko clogs and will decline competing with all the very fashionable French women so I can cover as much of Vinisud as possible instead of moaning about hurting toes.
In addition to all the wines from the South of France at Vinisud I understand there are some wines from Corsica (very excited), Italy and Greece to also be included. I also saw they have a blind tasting room which I’ll be sure to visit and find out what that is about to see how badly I can humiliate myself. For those of you wondering why I’m disparaging my decent palate, I’ll fill you in about two weeks what that’s about.
There is going to be about 12 Halls in total and I received the book on only Hall 1 which is about 350 wines. And looking at the map of the event, Hall 1 is one of the smallest. So potentially, looking at about 5,000 wines? It can’t be that many, although I was looking at the pictures from last years regular Languedoc trade tasting and yes it could be.
Here’s the video from the 2008 Vinisud to see how large this trade fair is.
There is so much to pack into 3 days. They are also doing 3 full days of conference programs. I have signed up for 3, including the International Federation of Wine Journalists and Writer’s roundtable and a course on the new quality labels which I just don’t understand why it’s been changed. I’ll let you know if I’m still cranky about the change after learning about it more from those who really know. I know I want to go to Ryan O’Connell’s presentation about using the internet as a marketing tool on the last conference on the last day. He gave me a shout out on Twitter and I want to see what this young gun and his family are doing to make their wines successful. First look at his website impressed me.
The schedule for February 20th tells me we’re going to Cite de la Vigne et du Vin Gruissan which is on the coast near La Clape and then Carcassonne in the afternoon and for the evening visiting Corbieres de Bourtenac.
Schedule for February 21st has me going to Montagnac then visiting area wineries and then dinner at the Restaurant Le Sequoia with wines from Perpignan hopefully including the famous vin doux naturels from the region. I understand 3 groups of importers are going to enjoying this even on 3 separate evenings and I’m thrilled to be included.
Then finally 3 days of the main event which I have no idea how I’m going to get it all in, plus hopefully do some interviews’ in the time allowed and then home. I still wonder if I turned my hair curler off before I left.
Donna
The Wine Trials 2010, by Robin Goldstein and Alexis Hershkowitsch (along with scores of others), is a curious book. At once rigorous and slippery, honest and evasive, it is precisely because of it’s structural ambiguity that it is a good place to initiate a discussion of what might be called the informal cultural anthropology of wine. And the discussion may most properly begin among small groups of wine enthusiasts tasting blind. This is the book’s great strength.
Robin Goldstein, whom I’ve never met, is perhaps best known for an interesting experiment (some folks used harsher language) he performed in 2008 involving the Wine Spectator’s (WS) ‘Award of Excellence’ program, the details about which this space has written. He created an entirely fictional restaurant on the internet, composed a wine list of WS ‘under-performers’, paid his $250 entrance fee and, voila!, the Award of Excellence was his. Equally importantly for Mr. Goldstein’s purposes (and ours) was the solicitation for advertisement space. Full details may be found on his website, Blind Taste. It was an amusing coup.
The Wine Trials 2010 takes elements of this project forward. First of all, it is important to stress that the tone of the book is a kind of hopeful skepticism, a forceful, yet playful insistence that though the consumer’s conscious freedom to taste is muted by three distinct cultural obstacles, they might yet escape through the practice of blind tasting. (And, of course, with the help of the wine recommendations in this book!) This is a book for adults interested in the ‘big picture’. It is meant to provoke thought. But that it also interferes with thought I hope to make clear.
The first of the three obstacles is the wine press, generalized under the titles Parker’s Wine Advocate, Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast. The second obstacle is the ‘placebo effect’, a universal feature of the human condition. The third obstacle, an equally universal feature, is cultural training whereby everyone is introduced from infancy into a specific gustatory regime. I shall briefly examine each in turn.
The Wine Press How is it that a $12 Domaine Ste. Michelle Cuvée Brut sparkler from Washington State is consistently preferred in blind tastings to a $150 Dom Pérignon? Or a $9 Beringer Founders’ Estate Cab to its close relative, the $120 Beringer Private Reserve Cab? Or a $6 Vinho Verde from Portugal to Cakebread’s $40 Chardonnay? Precisely because they were tasted blind. And the reverse, choosing the more expensive wine in the full light of day? In part, this is because of the distortions the wine press. Through well-publicized tastings by established critics, advertisement and a battery of lifestyle-enhancement triggers, the consumer comes to believe a higher price is correlated to quality. To see is to believe. Of course nothing could be further from the truth, the book argues. And it tries to show the reader why.
The Wine Trials 2010 tells us that four hundred and fifty “widely available” wines were initially selected, all under $15. As distinct from last year’s edition, this time around “We have accepted nominations from professionals in many different areas of the wine industry, from producers to sommeliers, importers to retailers.” It was from this pool that after multiple blind tastings among dozens and dozens of contributors, one hundred and fifty wines made the cut. Part Two of the book is an alphabetical compilation, with details and notes, of these wines. Now, what is surprising is that every one of the 150 wines “outscored much more expensive bottles in our brown-bag tasting.” It is surprising because of what the reader never learns :
1) The identity of the “more expensive bottles”. Indeed, very few expensive wines are mentioned in the book. Apart from the Dom Pérignon, Beringer and Cakebread, the only other wines touched on are Veuve Clicquot and a Chassagne-Montrachet 1er Cru from Louis Latour. Were there others? What was the price spread? Were $20 bottles included? We just don’t know.
2 Neither is a definition of “expensive” provided. Is it $18, $25? (The least expensive of the wines mentioned comes in at $40.)
3) Lastly, though the Wine Spectator comes rightly under considerable fire for their very questionable methodology, readers are not informed whether the “expensive” wines were ever given especially high scores in that magazine.
These are important methodological faults of The Wine Trials 2010, in my view. Of course, the book’s principle argument is that value may be found at lower price points. I heartily agree. No one would argue otherwise, not in the real world. But I do not believe their case is properly made absent a full disclosure of the expensive wines’ identities, how the expensive were selected and how widely did the authors select. We do know that all wines had to be “widely available”. But that is the sole criterion, as near as I can tell.
The placebo effect The Wine Trials 2010 discusses very important developments in the field of Neuroscience concerning how it is that to believe something is true in fact physically alters one’s perception. The authors provide a fine, though limited bibliography for further reading. Recounting various historical and current experiments in which test subjects, from the sophisticated to the novice, were creatively mislead (shall we say), the book amply demonstrates the very real phenomenon of the placebo effect. In these experiments wine experts come to believe the same wine in different bottles, one expensive, one cheap, actually taste different; casual drinkers, when mis-informed that they are drinking a cheap wine said to be expensive, prefer the ‘expensive’, by significant statistical margins. New experiments are being formulated as I write, so rich is the field.
Perception and expectation do alter taste. About that there is no question. Mr. Goldstein calls this framing of experience “The taste of money”. This we know occurs. And it is a far deeper phenomenon than the casual drinker might be willing to admit. Or the authors themselves. Indeed, the clinical trials of new drugs are routinely abandoned because the pharmaceutical company is unable to show a statistically meaningful improvement in a patient over a placebo in blind trials.
Further, there is a large body of brilliant research on differing experiences of pain when a subject’s expectations are wildly distinct. Take, for example, a soldier shot on the battlefield. He is offered pain medication, but he refuses it, deferring to his fallen fellows. Why? With allowances made for specific details, it is because he knows he is going home; he knows he will see his kids and wife; he knows he will receive a hero’s welcome; he knows he will receive on-going medical care. He was wounded defending a cause. Clinical experience clearly shows the experience of pain will be attenuated.
Now contrast that series of expectations to the victim of a random shooting on the street. This poor soul has no expectation of proper, complete care; he does not know whether his employer will keep his job for him and whether, as a consequence, he will be able to pay the rent; or how he will provide for his family. He is the anonymous victim of a random crime. There is no ’cause’, just the brutal reality of the street. Again, clinical experience reveals a different experience of pain.
I’ve gone on this tangent because I think the authors of The Wine Trials 2010 grossly overstate the simplicity of consumers rising above ‘the placebo effect’. They provide what I would call a ’soft’ case. The research they cite, however methodologically flawed, still remains compelling. It is simply that neuroscience and anthropology, the hard research, provides stronger evidence of the persistence and durability of ‘the placebo effect’ than the authors appear to believe.
Cultural Training The Wine Trials 2010 offers some very valuable insight into modern wines, what they call a ‘globalized’ style. Recognizing the jeopardy much of the world’s wine diversity is in, they point to a plausible suspect. Robert Parker? No. For Parker is only the bearer of a cultural marker, a gustatory preference. The real culprit is sugar. From the book,
[...] the culprit for the style convergence might not be Parker himself, or his followers themselves; it might be the taste for sugar that he, and they, all acquired in childhood–a taste that an increasing percentage of the world’s children are now also acquiring. [....] Should we call Yellow Tail not ‘Parkerized,’ but rather ‘globalized’”?
I think there is something to this. And one might look no further than The Wine Trials 2010 list of wines itself for evidence of this increasingly important cultural factor. Sure enough, of the 150 wines selected a full 42 ‘Heavy New World reds’ (their category) made the cut in their blind tastings! Nearly a third, and by far the largest single grouping. Of course, they might argue that this is because the decisive factor for inclusion into the original 450 wines was that they be “widely” available. And Heavy New World red does not necessarily mean ‘globalized’. But it, nevertheless, begs the question. No discussion of this statistically significant result is entertained in the book.
And this takes us to a more difficult question about the value, you could even call it the philosophy, of blind tasting. Mr. Goldstein cites a lively discussion shared on Eric Asimov’s NY Times wine blog, The Pour, about the subject. Among the many topics touched on, Asimov insisted that “blind tastings eliminate knowledge and context that can be significant in judging a wine. [....] It is an almost anti-intellectual position. Obviously what’s in the glass matters. But the more knowledge you can bring to a wine, the better your understanding of that wine will be.”
In The Wine Trials 2010 Mr. Goldstein responds in a very curious, though similar, way. He writes, “Our descriptions do not rely solely on blind tasting notes. Without a doubt, a lot of the fun of wine is in all the stuff that’s not in the glass.” [emphasis in the original]
Now, I have not read all the original source material framing this exchange, but I will say that both gentlemen seem to agree that Knowledge, with a capital K, is extraneous to what’s in the glass. I couldn’t disagree more; for knowledge comes in many different forms. I would argue that viticultural and winemaking practice have a direct bearing on what’s in the glass. Whether biodynamic, organic, conventional, whether terroir-driven, practice and soil informs the wine. It is one thing to recognize it, it is quite another to claim, as Mr. Goldstein certainly does, that knowledge, this time with a small k, does not inform a wine.
Mr. Goldstein is equally dismissive of the notion that wine is meant to be consumed with food. Who would argue with what half the wine-drinking world holds to self-evident? Well, he erases entire libraries and cultures when he writes,
“It is true that information about your experience of a wine in the absence of food, or in a sequence of other wines, will not be perfectly relevant to a reader’s future experience of that same wine over a relaxing meal. But information about how the wine’s fruit character and tannins reacted with your next-door neighbor’s demi-glace might well be even less relevant”
Try telling that to a Spaniard! I guarantee that uttering such a thing will not get you invited into his family’s house.
It is almost as if he is claiming ‘knowledge’ of/about wine is limited to price, the eccentricities of the winemaker, label and prestige, only those elements that fall under the umbrella of wine marketing and ‘the placebo effect’. An astute student of socioeconomic folly does not make one a wine critic. Neither does he claim to be, to be sure. And as to that, it is a curious effect of this book that it leaves this reader with the impression that Mr. Goldstein does not himself drink wine. There is little passion for wine on the page. Intelligence, yes. I think he might be principally a creature of the behavioral sciences, perforce hamstrung by the multiple ways his freedom may be hijacked by subterranean cultural forces at work on us all. Or, perhaps, a touch of how the gynecologist might reflect upon the prospect of having sex. He’s just seen too much!
But I like the book, even though my point of view cannot find a home there. It is stuffed with ideas, too many to fairly discuss in a modest review. It forcefully puts forward a point of view, a series of challenges to a large part of the wine industry which deserve, no, demand to be heard. I like the book well enough to give Mr. Goldstein the last word.
“The aim of The Wine Trials–aside from seeking out good, widely available values under $15–is to question the institutional structures that govern the industry, to encourage people to learn their own palates through the exercise of tasting blind instead of trusting the numerical scores that Parker and the magazines assign. It is the economic power of these institutional structures that damages not only the wallet of the everyday consumer, but also the chances for a small, interesting, good-value producer–even one that makes a wine costing more than $15–to succeed on the store shelf or on the restaurant wine list.”
Please also see the spirited debate over at 1 Wine Dude’s site.
Admin
It has been an extraordinarily productive second year on Reign of Terroir. Founded in early December 2007, this merry band of writers has continued to improve and deepen our work. With undiminished passion for the culture, history and future of wine filling our sails, we expect to be around for many years to come. The guiding principle of this blog is that no topic, story or individual will be approached without the writer learning too. I share with my colleagues this principle: if we don’t learn alongside our valued readership there is no point to the work. We would prefer, we insist, that something durable, something of lasting value come of our untold hours of scribbling!
But for the purposes of this post I will speak only for myself. What follows are the ten (okay, eleven) of my favorite interviews of the year, listed in chronological order. I decided not to include narrative and/or more technical pieces, despite my fondness for many of them, in favor of those posts where the idea is to let another speak with limited interference. The interview format, each requiring hours of (mostly) faithful transcription, has proven a favorite of mine. Even my sole complaint, the hours of tedious transcription, is actually a benefit. I am compelled to listen closely, in some instances to replay a dozen times difficult accents or wind and noise-buffeted passages and sentences to finally understand the sense of my interlocutor. (I’ve had migraine-inducing days teasing the meaning from an international phone call with an Aussie! Did he just say he wore women’s dainties?) For it is not always easy to receive clarification in a timely manner.
Just as with learning a foreign language, through repetition I am left with a lasting memory of the encounter. Indeed, though posted, I often keep the tape, not only for the resolution of the rare dispute, but because the voices of these people are fascinating, their speech rhythms and word choice, very much a part of the story. Sadly, the ‘performance’ of the conversation cannot be adequately conveyed. Perhaps I’ll begin posting audio files alone. Seems lazy to me, especially in a culture where the written word is under threat.
And doubtless the greatest reward from the interview format are the details which emerge from the brains of these gifted people. Some individuals are more guarded than others, to be sure. But in the fullness of the time I spend talking with folks much does emerge that seconds ago was unsaid and, perforce, unknown. Of course, the reader, too, will have to spend time with the people mentioned here to learn these things. Let me assure you, there are some wonderful insights to be found.
Let me add that many of the interviews are broken up into parts. The ‘infinite’ WordPress page is not. Reader patience is also a consideration. In any event, links to subsequent parts may usually be found at the end of the post. Sometimes after the introduction.
I have a couple of hours of recorded voices still awaiting transcription. And I will be back on the phone in a few days speaking with a new, creative soul. Stay tuned.
The charming and delightful Ariel Ceja of Ceja Vineyards.
Forensics scientist John Watling.
Swiss winegrower Peter Schmidt.
Sonoma winegrower Will Bucklin.
A lovely soul, Neal Rosenthal.
What a voice! Clive Coates.
Founder of Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard, the magisterial Ken Burnap. (I still have one portion coming. Fascinating man.)
The brilliant Jonathan Nossiter. His mind moves like quicksilver.
Portugal’s First Family! My friends, the Sequeira’s of Carcavelos.
Another intellectual hero of mine, Portugal’s White Knight, Virgilio Loureiro.
Colares’ enologist, Francisco Figueiredo.
Happy New Year!
Admin
Jonathan Nossiter’s Mondovino, The Series, is a revelation from beginning to end. On four dvds, ten one-hour episodes, not only does it build upon themes pursued in the original 2004 theatrical release, but it substantially deepens them as well. For those who have only seen the original, they will be greatly rewarded by viewing the enormous amount of material that had to be set aside to fashion a marketable film. For those who come to Mondovino, The Series fresh, they are in for a hilarious, educational ride.
One of the most fascinating aspects of The Series is the sheer number of new insights uttered by all the original players. I well remember the harsh criticism heaped on Mr. Nossiter for his alleged politically motivated edit, especially of remarks by Robert Parker and Michel Rolland. Well, in The Series each gentleman greatly expand on their positions with respect to globalization, tradition and the use and abuse of history. Threadbare do the protestations of a slanted edit become when throughout The Series Parker and Rolland insist on digging deeper holes. But, one the other hand, they thereby become much more human, frail, seemingly caught in an echo chamber, a hall of mirrors of mutual admiration. For here recounted is no ordinary love story. Flaubert’s brilliant Bouvard et Pecuchét does come to mind. Yes, let us not forget Mondovino, The Series is high comedy.
And there are many new characters: Jan Shrem of Clos Pegase, Bill Harlan, Jose Espinoza, psychoanalyst Jean Laplanche of Chateau de Pommard, Catherine Montalbetti, editor of the Hachette Wine Guide, a very curious plastic surgeon from Paris, Dr. Eric Auclair, Steve Harvey of Folie à Deux, Pierre Siri, proprietor of the artisanal-class Iris du Gayou, Becky Wasserman, Charlie Rodriguez, José Mounier… the list of new and interesting voices is vast. Indeed, Mondovino, The Series swallows the theatrical release whole. (Though there are a small number scenes in the original that did not make it into The Series. But I’ll leave their identification to the film buff!) Incidentally, the world premier of this expanded film was in December, 2006, at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. I have not been able to determine if that release differs significantly.
What I would like to do for the balance of this post is to provide a brief summary of each of the 10 chapters for the convenience of the viewer. (All images below are used with the generous permission of Jonathan Nossiter.)
1) Where’s Asterix? (or Little Town, Big Hell)
This first episode expands on broader themes most closely identified with the theatrical release, the global versus the local, narrowly drawn, the battle was between the town of Aniane in the Languedoc, pop. 2,300, and the Mondavis of California. The conflict revolved around two nominally independent issues: the preservation of a forest and the resistance to a global corporation. But there is much ambiguity introduced into this new cinematic presentation. Of course we are introduced to Aimé Guibert of Mas de Daumas Gassac, wine consultant Michel Rolland (I wonder if he still smokes?), Laurent Vaille of Domaine de La Grange des Pères, the Mondavis and their winery staff, Bernard Magrez, the former socialist mayor, André Ruiz and his elected replacement, the communist Manuel Diaz. We meet Mr. and Mrs. Gay, the founders of Citizens for the Protection of the Forest. Many new locals speak about the conflict, and we hear more from the clergy and from a very entertaining police officer most concerned with parking problems additional tourism might bring!
Interestingly, the more the ‘players’ in this episode speak, the more nuanced do their positions become. A viewer upon finishing this first chapter comes away with a far greater appreciation of the multiple meanings, as much personal and political, of the battle to save the forest. There is as much bad faith as honesty, as much cowardice as courage. No political position is as it seems. It is in this discordance that comedy reigns surpreme.
2) Magic Potion
Next we’re off to Burgundy. In Volnay we meet Hubert de Montille, his wife Christiane, and their three children, Isabelle, Etienne and the sublime Alix. Lighting up the screen is the magisterial Aubert de Villaine of the Domaine de la Romanée Conti (pictured). Also in part two we are first introduced to Jean-Charles Boisset, Director of the Boisset Group, and young Alix Montille’s employer at the time. Jean-Charles Boisset will make numerous appearances throughout The Series, each more ‘revealing’ than the last. Of great amusement is Floris Lemstra, General Manager of Marketing for Boisset. He awkwardly spies on Alix’s every exchanges with Mr. Nossiter while they are on the Boisset grounds.
Of the Montille children, truly remarkable new footage is included. Our understanding of Alix and Etienne is improved, both fascinating people. We follow a harvest with the workers grumbling over labor issues and the family’s response. Greek and Libyan students on break from the University of London stir up trouble but are seemingly placated by a fabulous lunch prepared by Christine. Great exchanges are enjoyed throughout!
Back to Napa where we are introduced to Chateau and Estate Wines (Diageo) employees Gregg Fowler, the head of Vineyard Operations, and Peter Hall, VP of Consumer Strategies (can you say Red Chardonnay?) We close with a visit to Sterling, a subsidiary of Seagrams, a subsidiary of Diageo. Much mayhem is set upon the world! Here the noose tightens another inch on the issue of globalization.
3) Rome Wasn’t Built in a Day
This third episode is the most revealing, weird and refreshing one-hour look the wine industry likely to be shot for a very long time. Deserving of wide circulation, it is a virtually perfect series of contrasting personalities. We meet the eccentric Jan Shrem of Clos Pegase, a comic figure of the first order, reflecting on art, the good life and the triumph of a kind of western aesthetic imperialism. Throw in eerie footage of Bill Harlan haunting his own winery, opening and closing each and every door, briefly opening then drawing drapes in an apparent effort to contain or exclude some prowling malevolence; mix in the strangely remote Staglins, Sheri, Garen and their daughter, Shannon; add farm worker observations about working conditions and the absence of overtime with an explore of antiseptic environment of Opus One, all capped by a sunset barbeque with former farm worker, now winemaker, Luis Ochoa, his wife and neighbors outside their trailer/winery…. This is the merest hint of the brilliant cross-cutting hilarity Mr. Nossiter assembles. (I hasten to add that of all the dogs and cats we meet, it is in Luis Ochoa’s back forty where we see the one and only jack rabbit in the entire ten-hour series.)
There was one moment I found very affecting. Owing to the fuller fleshing out of characters the longer series permits, we are given, per force, finer shadings of the Mondavi brood. For reasons not entirely clear to me, when Michael Mondavi says, “I got my father back”, he relates a painful truth that was quite beautiful, at least to this viewer. Margrit at Copia is equally touching. Indeed, the Mondavi story, built fragment by filmic fragment through the ten-part series, will finally add up to a tour de force in its own right by the series’ end.
There is much else that is commendable but I cannot resist mentioning Bill Harlan’s reply to Mr. Nossiter’s question, “Does Napa have an identity?” Mr. Harlan replies, “To me the Napa Valley is kind of as it’s always been. It’s been in transition of becoming what it will be in another 100 years.” No post-modernist academic (or Stephen Colbert, for that matter) could have uttered a more confounding sentence. A pitch-perfect summation of episode 3.
4) Pax Panoramix
We begin in Jurançon, Pyrenees at the Domaine de Souch where we meet Yvonne Hegoburu. An exalted woman, she offers powerful insights into what growing grapes means. As well as in Sardinia, Bosa specifically, where next we land. Battista and Lina Colombu, again, express puzzlement at the increasing homogenization of wine globally. This episode is particularly rich in contrasting opinion. Neal Rosenthal hits back hard. Michel Rolland blithely goes about his business. There is more push back in Burgundy with wisdom from Hubert Montille and Aubert de Villaine. Michael Broadbent joins in. Patrick Leon of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild does not seem to know an artisanal-class winery’s vines are interplanted with his, those of Domaine Iris du Gayou’s. Pierre Siri, winemaker for Iris, is a shrewd addition to the film. There is shown a fascinating meditation on the 1855 Bordeaux classification from multiple points of view. Perhaps most delightful is an interview with Jean-Michel Cazes, owner of the 5th growth Lynch Bages. He takes the filmmaker on a delightful tour of the bizarre architecture of prominent Bordeaux wineries. “There is really no local architecture!”
5) The Appian Way
The viewer might be wondering what is left to prove generally about the globalization of a limited wine style having heard multiple voices either pointing to or demonstrating the affirmative. And yet we are only four episodes into The Series. Previously critics have laid the blame for the argument forcefully made in the theatrical version of Mondovino at Mr. Nossiter’s feet. It was his selective editing that was to blame. That argument can no longer be sustained. And with episode 5 the beat goes on. But a more aggressively drawn contrast begins to emerge. Here is considered the influence of Robert Parker. From Rolland to garagiste Jean-Luc Thunevin of Chateau Valandraud in St. Émilion, from a visit to Leo McCloskey of Enologix, the largest wine consulting firm in the US, to Parker himself, it is in this episode where the rubber meets the road. I defy anyone to sit through Mr. Parker’s greatly expanded comments on his own influence, on pricing, terroir, his indifference to history and not come away astonished at his arrogance. Michel Rolland, as well. And a new, fresh voice is heard here, Catherine Montalbetti, the editor of the Hachette Wine Guide. She speaks well of the standardization of taste. And she goes on to say, “Because no way can you tell whether it comes from California, Chile, Bordeaux or Languedoc.”
6) Quo Vademus?
What does an older bottle of wine taste like? Neal Rosenthal laments the way prominent critics interfere with the cultivation of a tasting culture. In a cross-cut Parker explains “As I get older, I like them younger.” Jean-Luc Thunevin, much to the displeasure of his wife, says “Well, I say I don’t like old women.” Quo vademus? Where are we going? This episode explores the ‘plastic surgery’ of wine, especially the increasing use of new French oak. Parker dwells on his liking of vanilla and toastiness, and considering its prevalence and that he likes wines younger, it is very amusing we are taken to the Paris office of plastic surgeon, Dr. Eric Auclair. Back in Napa, Leo McCloskey, CEO of Enologix, notes the similarity of palates of Parker and the Wine Spectator. Indeed, so closely have become the palates of leading critics that Enologix specifically works with wineries to predict what the critics will say! Tom Matthews of the Wine Spectator is interviewed. More from Burgundy. Marketing has assumed a central role. Among the Montille’s family, Etienne explains that the enemy is ignorance and standardization, over-simplification and money, of course. Diversity, he insists, is the highest value. It was a pleasure to see Becky Wasserman and Russell Hone make an appearance. Yvonne Hegoburu, Aimé Guibert, Aubert de Villaine, and Michel Lafarge all join in discussing the matter of marketing.
Tourists are caught plundering the grapes of Romanée Conti! Aubert de Villaine’s reaction is priceless. We close with a brief moments with the eternal Charlotte Rampling.
7) All Roads Lead to Rome
Episode 7 is framed by the question of authorship versus midwifery in the creation of a wine. We begin in Paris at the Ministry of Finance. Alain Châtelet of the Govt. Bureau on Wine Fraud leads us through the delicate question of consumer protection with respect to fraudulent wines. Very difficult to prosecute owning to the reluctance of victims to step forward. Great ego investment in wine. And what can you say about a wine that is both pleasurable and a counterfeit? Indeed, this entire episode could be called “the psychoanalysis of wine” for we next meet Jean Laplanche of Chateau de Pommard. “I have a complex life, to tell the truth. Did you know that?”, he asks. Laplanche remains one of Jacques Lacan’s greatest students. Author of a dozen books on various aspects of the Freudian oeuvre, Laplanche introduces us to what might be called the ’strong’ argument: that only the author’s signature on the bottle is the guarantee of quality and authenticity of the contents. In stark contrast to his position are those of Montille and Villaine who hold that they are simply midwives. In broadly psychoanalytic terms you have a repositioning of the question of the Father and the Mother. (The consumer plays the role of child, constantly put on the spot to declare his unconditional love for one or the other.) Great anxiety! But what all gentlemen can agree upon is that for Robert Parker, as Laplanche puts it, “The complexity of Burgundy repulses him.” This is, I believe, a brilliant insight. There is a tremendous amount of important material here. Why do consumers feel the need for the strong hand of wine gurus? Why the anxiety over being cheated or of not knowing how to taste? How is it that powerful marketing forces have come between the consumer and their palates?
We next meet Scott Harvey, winemaker for Folie à Deux. That winery was named after the founders’ madness of the same name: the condition of two closely related people sharing the same delusional idea, in this case, of starting a winery. But perhaps the most interesting moments of this episode belong to Jean-Charles Boisset, Director of the Boisett Group, #1 in Burgundy sales. I shall not soon forget his unique method pf punching down the cap! Or his plan to produce a limited edition of a super-blend of wines from diverse Boisset holdings, a wine with no origins, possessing neither Mother nor Father, neither terroir nor authorship. The episode closes on a very painful recollection by Bernard Magrez. It seems his father used to pin a very public sign on his back reading ‘I am a lazy boy’ when he was a child. As he says, “If you’ve lived through that it is much harder to love anyone”.
8 ) Crossing the Rubicon
9) Et tu Brute…
Intrigue and regret in Italy. Here is recounted, finished in episode 9, the story of the Antinoris and the Frescobaldis, both aristocratic families of great antiquity. It is a grand tale of betrayal and familial discord, of false starts and of finding the courage to go on. A deep history is on display. Ornellia’s loss is recounted. It is a particularly ugly aspect of contemporary wine culture that history counts for so little. From Rolland to Parker, Boisset to Mondavi, there is simply no room for historical reflection in the pursuit of global markets. Unless one may make a buck off of it. But as The Series reveals again and again, whether it be Lafarge recounting German occupation of his family’s winery, Aubert de Villaine describing Burgundy’s religious patrimony, or Aimé Guibert railing against the erasure of cultural memory, real families, real histories are grinding forward.
Among the most bizarre and destructive of personalities on display is that of James Suckling. His casual child’s play with the meaning of the lives of others is both laughable and chilling. I’ll say no more except that his comments are greatly expanded from those presented in the theatrical release of Mondovino. Episodes 8 and 9 are truly a tour de force.
10) Veni, vidi, vendidi (I came, I saw, I sold)
In the final episode we may take a bit of a breather. Introduced to Chile, Brazil and Argentina (and the film crew’s mysterious denial of entry into Paraguay) we meet many fresh faces, many new winemakers. But we are also introduced to the persistent racism and class struggle that have blemished so much of the southern continent’s history. Rolland’s shadow falls even here. There is a strange, indeed, terribly tragic way in which the world of wine is repeatedly limited, boxed in, by the presence of so few authorities and consultants. How strange to wander the back country of Argentina and still hear the names Parker, Rolland, the monotonous incantation of so few names. But now, at the episode’s conclusion, we, too, have names, new names: Charlie Rodriguez, Isanette Bianchetti and Mauro Tedesco, José Mounier…
I highly recommend Mondovino, The Series.
Admin
Donna writes…
I was participating in a lively discussion on Jancis Robinson’s website on fraudulent wine and auctions and I commented on some caricatures of the different types of wine investors. Using the term investor loosely including collectors, I wanted to expand the types.
I’m not trying to poke fun, well maybe a little, but I see these people everyday and I love them. They are all good for the industry. The one thing all these “collectors” have in common, one way or another, they really like wine.
The Pure Investor: Never seeing the bottles they purchase, the wines go straight to climate storage, complete provenance, insured. Or they participate in a wine investment fund. Waits until the time is right and off loads for a good profit and they have absolutely no emotional contact with the wine, because they really don’t like it that much. It’s just a commodity to them.
Normally drinks beer, cocktails. They drink Champagne after a particularly successful sale in a hot club, preferably with some eye candy hanging on their tales of wine trade dominance.
The Ego: Buys nothing but names, the more expensive and harder to get the better. Doesn’t know a much about wine except what they hear second hand from others. This is a busy business person who wants to make more money to buy more big bottles. Only knows one grape varietal, Cabernet Sauvignon.
Thinks large format bottles are the Holy Grail. The smart Ego’s hire a professional cellar manager, sommelier, or other expert to do their purchases, but fight them a lot.
Food is sustenance; eats a lot of beef. Harder to get regular fakes through this buyer especially with personal consultants, but the rare wine fakes are really easy because none of their friends/contemporaries have these bottles and they start obsessing about getting that wine and ultimately will override their own judgment and consultants advice.
Once they realize they’ve been had, hell hath no fury. They want everyone to feel and know about the pain they are in.
The Romantic: Is in love with being in love with wine, usually also a “foodie”; covets the bottles they buy, brings out bottles cradling them like babies, and is avid about “supposed” wine manners. Is passive-aggressive and has a heart attack when someone pours more than 4 ounces or 125 ml into their glass. They attend every wine dinner possible to meet winemakers or wine celebrities and will pout if they don’t get to sit next to them, but this is rare since they are good clients of all the restaurants in town.
Frequently has “Iron Chef” foodie challenges with pairings at their homes. And when they open the wines they regale their friends with stories of meeting each producer, how each wine was made from the soil to the bottle and frequently brings out little jewel boxes each holding a magic rock or soil from vineyards around the world for show and tell at the dinner table.
Owns every decanter and glass Riedel has ever produced. Is extremely opinionated and lyrical about which wines they love and hate. Unfortunately they can be limited in their range, and get stuck and prejudiced about specific wines or regions because they have learned about wine only via other people’s words. Has a complete library full of wine books but 90% of the spines have never been cracked. Usually prefers red wine to white. Easy to pass fakes off to because buys emotionally. Would never admit having bought a fake and would sulk for a long time if anyone found out.
The Vacationer: Buys a few big and important bottles on vacation every year. Doesn’t know a lot about wine, but likes to drink it in abundance, preferably at French country cafes out of a jug in the back of the cafe. Invests in the bottle their friend “The Romantic or The Ego” tells them to buy. This collector never gets a fake because they buy their bottles directly from the wineries while on holiday.
Highly complex and expensive wines really aren’t their thing, but buy them anyway because of peer pressure, and then are told off by the Ego ten years later that they can’t sell their wine because they kept it on top of the fridge or a warm area of the house, upright. And the corks are dried out.
Finds someone to buy them off cheap (usually the 24 hour party person, see below) and takes the few dollars from the sale and invests in some Charles Shaw which is what they would have rather had to begin with. When listening to other wine friends gush, gawp and gawk about the details off a bottle, they drift into a lovely daydream and soon their eyes glaze over with boredom.
The Drinker: This person doesn’t really invest, they consume. They love wine, spirits and beer. They study it, are laid back about it and are very generous. They buy great wines from around the world and share them with their friends, even the ones that don’t know much about wine. Believes they can convert everyone into a wine drinker.
Loves good, unfussy fresh food. Many wines in their collection are under 10 years old, because they drink them instead of storing them for long time periods. Makes the Romantic and Ego crazy because they drink wines younger than what “they should”. Doesn’t have a favorite wine, loves them all. Great with sourcing high quality but low priced unique bottles from obscure regions and producers. If ever got a fake, would laugh it off and hold a party so everyone could sip their folly.
24 hour Party People: This brand of wine collector is normally employed in the wine/beverage industry. Wine consumes their life. They work hard and play harder. A complete enabler, their friends who are normally mild, they become animals when with this collector. Always brings home dregs of customers’ and sample bottles to blind taste with friends. Has fantastic after-hour parties at their house when the bars close.
They eat amazing food every day and are always broke. Their cellars consist of broken down converted refrigerators, and they usually have two or three. They know exactly what to buy. And they have no problem taking a risk on wine because they consider bad bottles an adventure and even educational. If they get a fake, they are thrilled; they call their friends to come over and taste it. Usually the wine fridges get opened soon after and a party ensues.
Most take advanced wine accreditations and study wine professionally. Always takes vacations that involve wine. Has no hesitation in making mischief and their adventures can be heard for many years, handed down as folklore to newbie wine professionals who will listen in awe.
The Professor: Is the know it all. Takes every thing about wine incredibly serious. Reads every book they can find about wine. Is enrolled in multiple wine forums online and expresses incredibly opinionated views and dares anyone to contradict their statements; those who do risk a complete and utter thrashing.
Despite thinking this person is an expert on wine, they have no accreditations because they can’t take the stress of being wrong or failing an exam. Every wine they purchase is meticulously documented with leather bound ledger inventory or online storage programs or both. All their wine is in offsite storage, so it gives them an opportunity to be around the Ego and Romantic so they can pick an argument. Never has a fake; no matter if they did, it’s never happened… period. Normally has food in their beard and wears suspenders, but not cool enough to wear a bow tie.
And finally……….
The Blogger: No need to worry about the Blogger getting a fake, they are too broke to even think about buying such wines. They have lots of wines from their travels around the world, (purchased with their OWN money) the more bizarre the better, are friends with all the wine types and frequent every wine tasting within a 100 mile radius of their location. As a result they wish their dentists would give a discount on teeth whitening and that there was a way to regain enamel.
They know a fair bit about wine, and what they don’t they learn from their fellow Bloggers and friends and wine institutions. There’s a little bit of each collector in them. They walk about with a laptop, iPhone, Flip video, a Moleskin notebook (looks really cool) and digital voice recorders with specialty microphones sat in a pocket protector ready for action. Talking endlessly to winemakers about biodynamic-beneficial bacteria retrieved from a buried cow’s horn gives them wood.
Donna
After years of contentious debate, foot-dragging and play in a house of mirrors, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) issued late yesterday (Dec. 3) their approval of the Calistoga AVA. The terse statement reads,
SUMMARY: This Treasury decision establishes the Calistoga viticultural area in Napa County, California. The viticultural area is entirely within the existing Napa Valley viticultural area. We designate viticultural areas to allow vintners to better describe the origin of their wines and to allow consumers to better identify wines they may purchase.
The full text of the decision is unavailable on either the TTB website or Thursday’s Federal Register as of this writing.
— Dec. 11th update: here is the link to the TTB announcement. The text reads,
Washington, D.C. – The Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB) published a final rule in the Federal Register establishing the Calistoga viticultural area in Napa County, California. In this final rule, TTB addresses the effect that establishment of the viticultural area would have on existing businesses which use the term “Calistoga” in the
brand name of their wines, including whether certain such brand names should be allowed to continue appearing on wine labels under a specific, limited grandfather provision.
The final rule does not provide a new grandfather provision for the continued use of labels that contain “Calistoga” in the brand name; it provides a 3-year transition period for the continued use of those brand names on wines that do not source a sufficient amount of grapes from the new viticultural area for that name to appear on wine labels.
This final rule becomes effective January 7, 2010.
For a bit of background reading please see two pieces previously posted on this blog. Each recounts different aspects of the struggle for Calistoga’s recognition from people closely associated with the effort. The first post is a verbatim account of remarks made by Pat Stotesbury of Ladera: The Fight for the Calistoga AVA, the Legal Front.
The second piece presents verbatim remarks by Calistoga’s elder statesman, Dr. J. Bernard Seps of Storybook Mountain Vineyards: Terroir and History.
Congratulations to the new Calistoga AVA!
Admin
Donna writes:
Germany’s Appetite for Destruction
Monday, November 30, 2009 will be the last day the world puts their protests in for the building of the High Mosel Bridge. I am hoping my blog will be one of many posted Monday regarding this grave action by the Rheinland/Pfalz government.
Many articles from mainline and bloggers have been written cross referencing previous articles to raise awareness of a project that originally was conceived back in the 1960’s. It was considered folly then, raised back in the 70’s and stopped again because it was seen as a waste, but the past couple years, politicians doing what they do best, creating projects that will give them some sort of recognition for future votes no matter their costs have put the bridge through.
This quarter of a billion dollar bridge only cuts 30 minutes of travel time. Not only is it destructive, it’s a waste of German taxpayer’s dollars.
It is going to upset the delicate eco system of the middle Mosel and some of the greatest heritage vineyards will be ripped up. The bridge is being built as any other bridge without consideration of the land it is spanning.
It is hoped at the last moment, on December 1st, Chancellor Angela Merkel will grant clemency and stops the bridge. But even though she was the Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation & Nuclear Safety under Helmut Kohl’s administration, she appears to have little interest in the preservation of her countries environmental heritage.
I can only hope this fiasco will bring awareness to the preservation of other world heritage vineyards. It’s a shame when humans have something precious, we are so eager to destroy it.
Please sign the petitions and write Chancellor Merkel and make your voice known.
Below is a listing of famous vineyards that are going to be grubbed up and affected during and after the bridge is built with the producers who are directly reflected.
Ürziger Würzgarten: J.J. Christoffel, Dr. Loosen, Merkelbach Zeltinger Sonnenuhr: J.J. Prüm, Selbach-Oster, Markus Molitor Zeltinger Schlossberg: Selbach-Oster Graacher Himmelreich: Dr. Loosen, Selbach-Oster, Willi Schaefer, Markus Molitor, J.J. Prüm, Heribert Kerpen Graacher Domprobst: Selbach-Oster, Willi Schaefer, Markus Molitor, Heribert Kerpen Wehlener Sonnenuhr: J.J. Prüm, Dr. Loosen, Selbach-Oster, Heribert Kerpen*
*(copied from Slate, Mike Steinberger, September 10, 2009)
Petitions:
— Twitter Petition: Angela Merkel: Stop the Mosel Bridge
— Protest the Mosel Bridge in English and German
— Chancellor Angela Merkel’s email: angela.merkel@cdu.de
Links:
— Great speech by Stuart Pigott regarding the bridge first spoken in German then he speaks in English. Stuart Pigott at the ‘Last Chance Wine Forum’ against the High Mosel Bridge.
— The planned bridge that could ruin Germany’s cherished Mosel wine region. – By Mike Steinberger – Slate Magazine
— Open letter to Angela Merkel concerning the High Mosel Bridge
— Please fight Mosel madness | Tasting Notes & Wine Reviews from Jancis Robinson
— YouTube – Hugh Johnson’s speech against the High Mosel Bridge
— Linden Wilkie
— Wine Anorak
Donna
I came to Portugal knowing very little apart from what was commonly available in standard English language wine texts. Before touching down in Lisbon in advance of the European Wine Bloggers Conference, I could recite from memory, as any studious schoolboy could, all of the country’s major wine growing regions, perhaps a dozen of her most important grapes, the names of some of the larger producers, and a few truisms about the Portuguese wine culture as a whole. While it is good to know such things (it can render you an instant ‘expert’ among a crowd of English speakers, for example), such information does not get at the heart of the matter of the meaning of wine in Portugal. To acquire that knowledge a kind of cultural submersion or surrender is required. To speak to the right people is particularly important.
During my time in Portugal I can only claim to have inched closer to an understanding. It was certainly not the understanding that I was expecting. I spoke to many people, perhaps no one so well informed as Prof. Virgilio Loureiro of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia in Lisbon. The former winemaker at the Dao’s Quinta dos Roques and Quinta das Maias, Professor Loureiro has been working very diligently for many years to document and to preserve elements of Portugal’s threatened wine traditions, history and culture. As may be read, much has been lost, yet much may still be saved.
It is my curious fate to have listened closely to the man and to have thereby had impressed upon me the ethical obligation to join in Prof. Loureiro’s effort. Passing along his words is a start.
Admin Thank you very much for agreeing to speak with me. I’ve recently been to Carcavelos and Colares. Quite fascinating histories may be found in those DOCs.
Virgilio Loureiro Colares is amazing. The vineyard landscape is really unique. Have you tasted the old whites?
Not the old whites yet, no.
VL They are absolutely amazing! The reds are very interesting. But the whites are really amazing. It is possible to find 40 to 50 year-old whites, like the best Montrachet’s in Burgundy. But here in Portugal, unfortunately people don’t understand this style of wine. It is really a pity. They have no idea how to speak to the world of wine about what treasure we have. This is a pity.
I am here for a wine bloggers conference. I come from America but most assembled are from Europe. What happens when the world fully wakes up to the quality and uniqueness of Portuguese wines? Is there a risk to Portugal’s wine culture?
VL It is not only a risk. The risk is already fact. The loss that we have actually realized is a tragedy. Most of the best wine regions we have in Portugal are producing wines in the Californian and Australian style. They put in a lot of American oak; they put in 6 to 10 grams of sugar to round the style; they are extremely aromatic and with very low acidity, all so that wines may be drinkable very early. This is now a normal approach for most wineries and of most enologists.
Mr. Nossiter, when he was here for the first time, he was very sad because he didn’t know the situation in Portugal. But he knew very well the situation in Spain. And the problem of Portugal is that it is in the last position of European development, but is moving in exactly the same direction as Spanish wines. It is a pity.
I don’t know if you know of the famous Spanish figure of Don Quijote de la Mancha, well, I am the Don Quijote of Portugal trying to fight against this globalization of Portuguese wines. And I have some friends, one of them is a very important person, it is Mr. Nossiter. So I’m trying. (laughs)
Now I have a very exciting project to put on the map the important historical regions for Portuguese wines. I have here some pictures I can show you to make clear the potential we have. Because we still have time to preserve a lot of treasures of wine production mostly in the Mediterranean area in general, treasures that have been almost completely destroyed in Spain (in Italy there remains a little).
We have real Roman wine being made exactly as it was 2000 years ago, in clay jars, in the south of Portugal, in Alentejo. Here the wines in clay jars are protected with pine resin, like in old Greece, and the wines are made exactly as in a Roman villa 2000 years ago in the territory of what is now called Alentejo. The people from the small villages in the Alentejo make this type of wine for family consumption.
This winery has 19 jars. They produce whites and reds. They produce around 20,000 liters per year. But the owner does not completely respect the old technology because he puts his wine in glass bottles. Still it is a good approach. Some of the jars are as old as 400 years. And what happens in them is amazing in enological terms. I really don’t understand the process scientifically, but when we have a lot of oxidized wine, if we pass that wine across the solid parts of the bottom of the jar, the oxidation is practically eliminated. The wine becomes o.k.
I am now writing a book titled ‘Portuguese Wines From the Bronze Age To the 21st Century’. I collected a lot of history in this region. When the wine was sold out they imported wine from the center of Portugal. But when they passed that wine from the center of Portugal across the solid parts of the jars the style of wine was changed to that of this region!
Today, first they drink this wine and then they drink the modern technological wine. Why? Because it is a very, very special wine. The technological process used is the opposite of the technology described in modern treatises of enology. Both white and red are made with native yeasts, of course, but also with the solid parts of the grapes in the jars. And after fermentation the cap falls and acts like a filter. The effect on the wine when it passes through this filter changes it completely, it changes the aroma; and in the whites, they become lemon-yellow in color, fruity, with a very, very special style which is completely typical of the wine.
Today in Portugal we no longer have the artisans to make the jars. We are trying to recover the art.
We also have Cistercian wine from the center of Portugal which is made exactly like that of the monks in 12th century Burgundy. It is special because it is the only survivor of this type of wine in Portugal. And the reason is very easy to understand. It is a micro-climate they have in that region which gets wines with 14 degrees of alcohol and with it the possibility of developing into vinegar.
Ten years ago when I discovered this wine there were around 5000 wine growers. Today there are perhaps less than 500. But now I think it is protected by law, a law we promote, so it is probably safe. But that is not enough. We need to push it so that it can become known in the world of wine. And this is the challenge we now have.
Another wine is from the Azores Islands. The vineyard landscape of Pico Island, as you can see, is absolutely amazing. It is flat, with walls made of volcanic rocks, more rocks than the Great Wall of China. Only with this idea is it possible to conceive of the work done in the islands. And the wine is very, very special. It has strong acidity, and with good technology it is possible to make wines with extreme longevity. They become very nice at ten to fifteen years old.
In that picture you can see that there is no soil, only rocks. And each square has two or three vines, no more. This is unbelievable work. Forty kilometers! And most of the wine freaks from all over the world didn’t know this wine or its vineyards. And this is the typical winery used by them, with wooden screw presses, a Cato press, like those from Roman times.
In this picture you can see that the rocks are broken. They put the vine in the cracks. This has been the way since the 15th century. The technology didn’t change! (laughs)
Today I have another project, financed by the regional government, to improve the aging process of their fortified wines. They are very similar to the wines of Madeira. When the wines are well done they are of the same level of quality as the best wines of the Madeira.
I will soon have published an article on these matters in an American journal Chronica Horticulturae. I think it will be out in December. Next year we are organizing here in Lisboa the 2010 International Horticultural Congress. We’ll have workshops on winemaking and climate change. They invited me to write a small article on the history of wines.
I am also trying to recover the old grape varieties from the Douro. I’m making wine in the Douro Superior, near Foz Côa, near the Spanish border. It is a more preserved area of Douro. And I identified three small vineyards with pre-phylloxera vines. Most of the vines are of unknown varieties. Now I am trying to make a ‘new old’ vineyard by grafting buds from these very old vines of unknown varieties. I already have some wines! This year I made two different wines. Last year I made another one. And one of the red grape varieties has color in the juice [and flesh], like Alicante Bouschet and like Grand Noir. There are a very small number of these varieties [teinturier grape varieties, I believe he means. Admin]. And this is one such variety. The wine, again, is very special, really special.
Do you have allies in the Portuguese wine industry? Do you enjoy support from people who think like yourself?
VL Yes. But unfortunately they are not V.I.P.s. There are some people with sensitivity, with high culture and background, but unfortunately not V.I.P.s from the wine sector. This is the reason I call myself Don Quijote! You see? This is the reason why I so quickly established a friendship with Mr. Nossiter. He understands me.
What is the Portuguese government doing to protect these endangered wine regions?
VL Unfortunately, the Portuguese government is doing almost nothing to protect our historical wines, because they are neither considered an economical activity nor a historical patrimony. Furthermore, it is encouraging the vinegrowers to “modernize” their vineyards and wineries without criterion. In fact, the “wave of progress”, supported by public aids, is provoking a fast destruction of the remaining traditions (as happened in Spain and Italy recently). In some cases it would be better if the vineyards were under control of Ministry of Culture instead of the Ministry of Agriculture!
The vineyard landscape of Pico island is under protection of UNESCO. The only recognized (not really protected) Portuguese historical wine by law is the Cistercian wine of Ourém. At this moment, we are trying to protect the clay jar wine of Alentejo by a proposal submitted to the CVR of Alentejo (Regulatory Commitee).
How should Portuguese wines be marketed?
VL Today, the marketing strategy of Portuguese wine companies is based only on low price. It is impossible to promote these types of wines with centuries, millennia of historical age behind them. I think the best strategy for a small country like Portugal is to invest in the tradition and the culture; to say to the world that we have a lot of specialities, like France, like Spain. But Spain has practically destroyed this type of heritage.
The Portuguese wine heritage is different in all the world. I’m trying to convince the growers in Portugal that it is possible to protect it. How? Paying a fair price. For what? For the next generation, so that it has the stimulus to continue. Because, as you know, the younger generation today are very egoistic. They want to go to the big cities and abandon the traditions of the small village. The stimulus is to be found through the strengthening of the culture and by being paid the fair price to continue.
You, and Mr. Nossiter, people from the New World and also people from European culture can repeat this. There is one more thing I would like to say. These types of wines are completely out of fashion. As Mr. Peynaud of Bordeaux has said, ‘It is impossible to taste a wine from another age with a palate of this century”. We need to understand wines, of course. But I think ten minutes of talking is enough to understand wine! And with two or three tasting experiences it is enough to love wine. It is like tonic water. The first experience is not good, but the second is o.k.
Excellent. A quick observation about the Douro Boys.
VL The Douro Boys is another concept of wine. I respect them. I am a friend of most of them. But I think that they have some responsibilities that they don’t assume. They are known all over the world. They have the obligation to promote what we have here in Portugal.
Please give my regards to Mr. Nossiter. Next time you come we can arrange a visit to the past.
Sir, thank you.
VL Ken, it was a pleasure for me. I thank you because you can help me in my fight.
Admin
On my last day in Lisboa I had still not properly thanked ViniPortugal for my visit. It is true that I had a brief exchange with the organization’s president Francisco Borba. And I had sent an e-mail. But I was still hoping for a longer face-to-face encounter. The opportunity came to me with a visit to ViniPortugal’s tasting room located in the Ministry of Agriculture premises in Praça do Comércio. What follows is an interview with Maria João de Menezes. She has been with ViniPortugal since its formation.
Admin I had the pleasure of meeting Francisco Borba, ViniPortugal’s president, at the European Wine Bloggers Conference commencement. He offered a dignified welcome to the bloggers. What is it ViniPortugal does? What are its aims?
Maria João de Menezes It’s like this. I think you understand that in Portugal wine is one of the major products of our economy and our culture, one of the most important that we produce. Before ViniPortugal came into existence 12 years ago, the last big promotional campaign of wine was before the Revolution of 1974. When we have a product so important to us and we don’t promote it, the wine producers felt the need to get together; and the most important associations and federations of Portugal connected to wine, all joined together and created ViniPortugal. This was 12 years ago. It was created with one aim: To promote Portuguese wine.
We use tax money that every producer has to pay to the government for every bottle made. It is something that happens all over the world. All bottles have a seal, and that seal means that the wines are certified. The producers pay for that seal. This called the ‘promotional tax’. The government collects that money for promotional efforts. ViniPortugal was created to do this promotion.
So you are tax-funded by the government.
MJdM Exactly. The government gives us a part of this money, not the total amount, yet. The aim is to reach the point to where all the taxes the producers pay to the government for promotion should come to institutions like ViniPortugal, all associations which promote wine. That is, after all, why the producers pay. But these are political matters, and I believe what we now receive is 25% to 30% of the total amount of tax [revenue] to promote wine.
So, the first thing ViniPortugal decided was to ask what strategy would it take. It started with a study. And we asked Porter [of Price Waterhouse] to do the study. We knew that we had to concentrate our efforts in the United States, in three or four states, and in the UK, in Brazil, in Germany and northern countries for a start. And now we are growing. We are opening into the Asian markets, and also to Angola and India. These are new markets that we are studying to see if they will work for the Portuguese wine producers.
We have campaigns, different kinds of campaigns depending on the country and on the markets. We go to festivals and wine fairs, like the London Fair, or in Germany, the Pro Wein Festival. And we invite journalists to come here to visit our farms and wineries so that they might write in their magazines for their respective audiences about us. They learn a little bit about Portuguese wines. And perhaps it will facilitate the locals to buy our wines we export.
We also to tastings in cities around the world in important markets, in New York, an Francisco, but also in Portugal. Here we do campaigns as well. We have places, tasting rooms like this one; also in Oporto. We have two showrooms where people can come and try Portuguese wines for free. These tasting rooms are not only for locals but also for foreigners and tourists. When you came in you saw some of our publicity and guides. These are distributed to let people to know there is a place for them to come and taste Portuguese wines.
The majority of the people in the tasting room already know to come here. It is different than one year ago when a number of people who came in were just passing along and found our door open without knowing what we did, which is to offer tastings and information to the public.
This is our main aim. That is what we do. I am not good with numbers but I know that we have increased exports in all markets I mentioned. This is good. It is a slow process when you start something like this. Success does not happen over night or even next year. Even when the numbers are not very exciting we have to be persistent! We have to keep on doing what we believe is the right thing to do, and be patient enough to wait for results.
Yes. Of course, there are large producers and there are small producers. Are there any special efforts made to assist the small producer to compete in the marketplace?
MJdM No. We represent them all. In Portugal we have ViniPortugal on top of the pyramid. We talk to each certifying commission from each region. And each region has its own producers. We talk with the wine certifying agencies, not the adegas. There are 11 or 12 regional wine certifying commissions. Each regional commission certifies the wine from only their region. It is with them that we speak. We call them CVR, Regional Commission of Viticultura. Each CVR is one of our interlocutors. They, in turn, talk to each producer.
We never help one producer more than another. We don’t help the larger producer more than the smaller. We talk about Portuguese wine in general. We talk about regions and grape varieties. We never talk about labels. Or producers. That is not what ViniPortugal does.
So you don’t keep a data base of who produces how much. etc?
MJdM No. That’s the work of another institute called the Portuguese Wine Institute, the IVV [Instituto da Vinha e o Vinho]. It use to be one of our associates. But it stopped being so about one year ago because one of its tasks is to perform a ‘fiscalization’ of our work. [I believe she means that the IVV determines the cost/benefit of ViniPortugal itself.] They could not determine our value while also being a part of us.
It would have been a conflict of interest.
MJdM Yes. Exactly. So because they are of the state, of the government, they could not be a part of us. ViniPortugal is a private association. We are not part of the state.
But you get your money from the state. Does the state have any influence over your work?
MJdM No. No. We only have to show work. At the end of the year if they don’t think we are doing well then they can say, ‘OK, next year we are not going to give you money.’ It has never happened because we work hard! (laughs) But if you, yourself, had a plan to promote Portuguese wine you could come and compete for the job. ViniPortugal presents their ideas, and other people and organizations, bigger or smaller, they can come and compete, too. There are some rules. But if you abide by those rules you may compete and the government may say, ‘Yes, I like your promotional plan for Portuguese wines better. It makes more sense and is less expensive so I’ll give the money to you.’ It is in that way we are private. The government is free to distribute the money to whomever has the best plan.
Very good. How big of a staff does ViniPortugal have?
MJdM Today we have 15 staff at the most. It used to be two in the beginning, twelve years ago! We’re growing. And the work that we do is different today than back then.
I love the tasting room. It is quite elaborate and detailed. It rather surprised me. You’ve got interactive video, wines from all over the country, historical wine-making tools, a few…
MJdM Yes. We’ve been open here for five years. We have a second in Oporto, in one of the most important places of the city, the Palácio da Bolsa. It is a building you have to see. This one is smaller, but also very nice. Twenty-five thousand visit just this one every year.
Twenty-five thousand?!
MJdM Yes. They come in to taste and we invite them to write down their notes and opinions which we keep to show our producers. We think this is important because when you write something down you have to think about what you are drinking. So they look at the wine with more awakened senses. And it is very important to the producers. Some of them are very wrong when they think their wines are more appreciated in Germany than in the US, for instance.
So you also ask for their nationality.
MJdM Yes. Nationality, age, sex… not a very deep questionnaire, just enough for some indication.
Well, great. Can I get a couple of pictures of the place?
MJdM Of course, as you wish.
We head downstairs to the tasting room for a few pics.
And a picture of you?
MJdM Of me? (laughs) You said something about the small producers. They don’t always have enough for export.
Of course. One thing that I’ve been hearing a lot is how inexpensive Portuguese wines are. Even the small producer. But there is a problem. There is a lot of work put in by these winemakers, perhaps more work per person on the smaller properties. They work on small budgets; often with family members who go unpaid; they are under tremendous economic pressure to sell their properties, in Colares, for example. So it should not be a question of a low prices, but of a fair price.
MJdM (laughs) Yes, that’s true, that’s true. I think it would help.
Thank you.
MJdM Thank you very much.
Admin
One very significant question I failed to ask was how the wines are chosen for the tasting room. I will contact ViniPortugal for elaboration and post their answer here asap.
This first visit to Portugal shall not be my last. Given an extraordinary opportunity by ViniPortugal to attend the European Wine Bloggers Conference, I have come away with a deep respect and lasting affection for the culture of the country. Ten days is not enough time. How could it be? Ten days is not even enough time for a fruit fly to hatch.
I would like to take a moment to thank a few of the people of Portugal who have enriched my visit.
Three of the staff of the VIP Grand helped me in very significant ways. Paulo S. provided his translation skills for passages in books, magazines and internet web pages otherwise impenetrable to me. He went so far as to surprise me with a two-page compilation of vocabulary. Always alert, he never showed the slightest frustration with my naivete, if not stupidity!
Paulo R. is a special gentleman. He has written hundreds of poems himself and can quote long passages from the Portuguese canon. He told me of the best Fado club to visit, and worked the background arrangements. A bit of a philosopher, he explained to me subtle cultural distinctions, Portuguese syntax, how best I might leave a smaller, more discrete footprint than most tourists. His life story is one of struggle and victory. A good man.
Though the gentlemen above eyed me with amusement, it was Antonio B. who was most skilled at sizing this traveler up. He very gently reminded me in various ways that I should look a little more deeply into cultural matters. After I would return from a particular adventure he would say that I should also do this other thing. Never at a loss for suggestions, it was Antonio who turned my attention to Carcavelos.
I would also like to thank the maids at the VIP Grand who every day cleaned my room and made my bed.
Prof. Virgilio Loureiro of the Instituto Superior de Agronomia generously came to the VIP Grand to speak with me. A great champion of tradition and terroir, he is the self-described Don Quixote of the Portuguese wine industry. My interview with this august figure, to be posted in about a week, will be among the finest I have ever had the opportunity to enjoy. Special thanks must be given to Jonathan Nossiter for his assistance in making this encounter possible.
Enologist/winemaker Francisco Figueiredo introduced me to the vineyards of Colares. He took two hours out of his day to educate me in the ways of Colares viticulture. I was then taken to the adega for a very thorough explanation of what it is they do and why. He has an excellent sense of humor, as may soon be read. My interview with him is forthcoming.
Jose and Licete. Words fail me. The warmth and generosity shown by mother and son was a profoundly moving experience, one that I shall remember the rest of my days. Meeting them gets at the core value of travel: Get out of the tour bus. Abandon the cocoon of the canned itinerary. Put yourself at risk. There are no greater rewards than meeting people like Jose and Licete. Jose calls it ‘fate’ that people meet, that we met. The fragility of that thought astounds me.
Rita was our two-horse carriage driver when members of the EWBC went to a cork forest in the Tejo and then to a perfectly simple lunch on the grounds of Quinta da Logoalva. A magnificent visit in every way. There are horses in my family and Rita herself owns one. We enjoyed an excellent exchange on horsemanship and training. An ethereal soul, I learned much that was unexpected from this very lovely woman.
Last but certainly not least (!), the extraordinary people of ViniPortugal. How can I thank them for this opportunity? To Andreia, Ana and Marcio, thank you for all of your help and attention.
About the wines of Portugal, a personal note.
Portuguese wines have consistently, day by day, been among the very finest I have ever tasted. And taken as a whole, no country’s wines has awakened such curiosity and excitement in me with each new bottle as has Portugal. That is the simple truth I take away.
It is a truism of the human condition that one becomes habituated to styles and flavors most commonly experienced. And one may certainly be forgiven remaining fixed in wine preference if no opportunity, such as I’ve been granted, ever comes one’s way. But what cannot be forgiven, should one find a way here, is being unmoved, unchanged by the direct, face to face encounter with the variety, quality, the sheer difference of the vinous pleasures Portugal has to offer.
Indeed, as I have previously written, Portugal is one of the last great hopes in the world for the preservation and continuation of distinctive terroirs. For those skeptical of the concept, I can do no better than point you in Portugal’s direction. And I mean the country itself. If living in Northern America, a visit to your local supermarket is a good start. Though good Portuguese wines may be found there, to be sure, and I encourage everyone to drink as widely as possible, nevertheless you cannot let the supermarket’s selection define your understanding of Portuguese wine. Just as you cannot let a chain bookstore define literature, the supermarket merely scratches at the surface.
This condition will be modified as more and more variety, as I trust, will be imported from Portugal. Exports edged up this year. But one particular concern of mine, a gnawing worry, really, is whether all the current attention the country is drawing, the growing marketing ‘buzz’, will finally have deleterious consequences. As Freud famously remarked upon the occasion of his first visit to the America, “They don’t realize that I am bringing them the plague”. And true enough, signs of a fever may readily be detected.
It is a troubling irony that some of the wines served at the European Wine Bloggers Conference have already been marked by a compromise to a more international style. The dark shadow of Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, blotted out more than one label. Though this transformation has been going on for more than a few years, it would be a gross, even cynical misapprehension for a participating wine blogger to pretend for moment that they now understand Portuguese wines based on those wines alone. A true understanding of Portuguese wines may only be found by exploring the countryside.
In my opinion, the Portuguese wine industry cannot thrive in the international market without bottling the ‘cure’ that their distinctive terroirs offer. Their general marketing approach must be that of the unqualified celebration of difference.
This is not a controversial summation. Should one plant eucalyptus in a cork forest, the cork oaks will not survive. It could not be much simpler.
And as for me, because of the wine culture of Portugal, her traditions, native grape varieties, and her people, I have become profoundly radicalized by this beautiful experience. Not only has my modest understanding of wine been greatly enriched, but my life as well. I leave Portugal a changed man.
Obrigado a todos, Portugal.
Admin
I came to Carcavelos in search of the grounds where a regional wine museum will be built. Yes, I was looking for a patch of dirt. I had also hoped to speak with people familiar with its grand history of fortified wine production; but the idea of simply stepping off a train and into the life of a community is foolishness. Given my limited time and naive expectations, what chance would I have of learning a thing?
I had recently read, more accurately, pieced together the general sense of Portuguese newspaper reports of the building of a wine museum in this Greater Lisbon community, itself a part of the Estremadura Province on the Atlantic Coast. Whether ground had been broken I could not ascertain. So it was to Carcavelos that I went in search of answers.
Estremadura, the Vinho Regional (VR), is coextensive with its socio-political boundary. Though the VR boasts of many winemaking areas, for my purposes I shall mention only the DOCs, Bucelas and Colares, moving quickly to the Carcavelos DOC itself.
Informed sources tell us,
“Carcavelos can be a blend of up to nine different grapes. The principle grapes of the Carcavelos region includes Arinto, Boal, Galego Dourado, Negra Mole, Trincadeira and Torneiro. The wines are usually fermented completely dry with some fermenting must known as the vinho abafado containing some residual sugar set aside prior to the fermentation’s completion. The wine is fortified with a distilled grape spirit to bring the wine up to an alcohol level of 18-20% and the vinho abafado is added back in to add sweetness to the wine. Carcavelos wines are then aged in oak barrels for three to five years to give the wines a tawny color and nutty flavor.” (Please see the wiki page itself for links to the grapes mentioned above.)
Like many oceanside parishes here, the real estate industry has been booming in past decades with terrible effects on the local civil and agrarian culture. Wine growing no exception, of course. Though always small, what used to be a thriving wine industry, making among the most sought after sweet, fortified wines of Europe, in recent years the DOC has been reduced to a very few small properties amounting to a couple dozen acres (exact figures unconfirmed as of this writing).
Spoon fed such internet info, I entered the town. Wandering to the center square, clutching my map like a white flag, I began a harmless but still mildly offensive search for English speakers. Who might help me find the museum yet-to-be-built?
Every person sent me in a different direction. Others looked at me with amusement.
“There is no museu da vinha.”
“I know. I know. I’m looking for the (variously used) l’espace, la terra, the empty lot!”
In a men’s clothes store a gentleman did tell me a bit more about the project: Funding was short, the political will, firm but practical. Maybe they had planted vines. Maybe some flowers. And yes, the museum’s future site is somewhere over there by the church.
A church and a bar later, I gave up. I passed through an open market on my way back to the train station. What a fine waste of a morning.
There was a bookstore/tabac. I stopped for a bottle of water. Just on a lark I asked the proprietor, Jose, whether he knew of a museu da vinha being built. He wasn’t certain of its location. But his grandfather used to make Carcavelos wine many years ago. And his mother knew a great deal about its history here. Would I like to speak to her? My spirit leapt to the very end of its tether. Yes.
“Come back at 1. I’ll take you to her. It’s about a five minute walk.”
I had a little more than an hour to pass. Passing by some kind of retirement housing complex, I again began asking people after the museu. A North African gentleman emptying the trash finally put the pieces together. In perfect English he sent me to the abandoned winery, Quinta do Barao.
Loosely translating from a pamphlet I was later given by Jose, Carcavelos, a Vinha e o Vinho, published out of Cascais.
“The Quinta do Barao, up until the 1980s of the 20th Century, was the most important center of the cultivation of vines and the production of Carcavelos wine, a view all share in their memory, especially the people of Carcavelos (os carcavelenses).”
It is for this reason Quinta do Barao was selected to house the museu. And when I retuned to the bookstore/tabac as 1 o’clock came around, upon mentioning my discovery of the quinta, Jose Maria Ramos Costa Sequiera, his full name, quickly added details as we walked to his mother’s apartment.
(In all the discussion to follow I shall interfere with the Portuguese to English as little as possible. I am responsible for all errors of their actual intent.)
“It’s a sad day to destroy everything they used to sell. It is now owned by a private owner. But I think the city wants to maintain it because it is very old. Oeiras came and took the vines, and moved them within the city walls of Oeiras, our neighbor. They want to start to produce again [Carcavelos wine] with the old vines. But there are many problems with legalities, some not very clear, but they also plan to plant olive trees for olive oil.
We are at the end of the territory [DOC]. It begins in Cascais and ends here. When you see the towers, that is Oeiras.”
Jose added that it was the construction of the freeway through the middle of the Quinta do Barao vineyards that brought about the beginning of the end of wine production at the facility and in Carcavelos overall. The final blow was the construction of apartment towers he mentions above which effectively blocked the breezes off the Atlantic, breezes necessary for the proper maturation of the grapes. It is that freeway which now divides the two cities.
Correction: I learned today (11/03) that as a matter of public record the apartment towers were built over twenty-five years ago. The freeway was put in around only seven years ago. And according to this source the owners Quinta do Barao very much wanted out of the wine business. That the Atlantic breezes were blocked is, therefore, met with considerable skepticism. In any event, the property was sold in the mid-eighties. Wine-making then ceased. The balance of the property, the larger division, was sold to a real estate concern with plans to build a luxury hotel. Same result. Only the details have changed. Admin
We arrived and waited for his mother to return from her volunteer work at the Fire Station. Jose continued.
“Carcavelos used to be little houses and all farms, farms, farms. Now people come here only to sleep. It’s not a town now.
It is very interesting. I bought the shop three years ago. I was an accountant but I retired from accounting and bought the shop. Here, everybody knows who I am. It’s very complicated here. People go to work somewhere else and come here only in the night to sleep.”
Up walked his mother and into the apartment we went. Her name is Licete Das Dores Ramos Costa Sequeira. (Jose helped with the Portuguese translation. Licete and I found common ground in a bit of French. To protect their privacy I took very few pictures.) Her voice was very strong. And she looked at me with combination of amusement and grace.
“My mother wants us to go upstairs. But she is concerned that it is a little disorganized. She is the vice-president of the Fire Station organization. It’s her hobby! She goes everyday to the station.”
We climb up a very thin and narrow, iron circular staircase. From the landing I immediately see dozens of framed labels, their vintage dates beginning from more than a hundred years ago. The room is filled with books and thick binders. Everywhere I turn I see drawings, old bottles and posters, all related to the family’s wine history and that of Carcavelos. Indeed, much of the material will be or has been given to the city for the museu. There for a few minutes, we head back down (but not before Licete gives me the poster pictured at the top of this post as well as the labels pictured here).
Owing to my sudden arrival, we quickly agree to meet again on Tuesday, November 3rd. Then much more will have been planned, including, if possible, a meeting with the author of the definitive text on the region, A Vinha e o Vinho do Carcavelos, Ana Duarte Baptista Pereira. As Jose turns the pages he explains,
“Published by the Cascais city hall, it is the story of every farm. Here is a picture of my grandmother and grandfather. My father wrote many texts and collections because he wanted to write this book. But he died five years ago. He had a lot of documentation about this farm and other farms. This book is very interesting because it contains everything.”
Licete has disappeared into the kitchen. I hear glasses clinking. Jose takes me to the wine cabinet and begins pulling out bottle after bottle of old Carcavelos wine, the oldest dating from the late 1890s. I ask if I may be permitted to photograph them. Yes. And as he places them near Licete’s working desk, she enters with a tray of walnuts, mildly sweet biscuits, and tastes of a 1948 Carcavelos. I take a glass but suddenly realize how much better it would be to take a picture of her holding the tray. So I put the glass back and raise my camera. She says something I ought not repeat. Jose laughs.
“She does not serve that to everyone!”
—–
End of part one. Please read Part 2.
Admin
“I acquired my love for the taste of wine as a small child when it was first dropped into my mouth or mixed in a glass of water”.
This is not how the book begins. Liquid Memory follows no sequential narrative logic, one recollection does not force the next. For that is not how memory works.
Neither does the book begin with reflections on Mondovino, though the popular memory of that ground-breaking film might, too, have made thematic, if not commercial, sense. (Indeed, I suspect the majority of reviews will follow this noisy thread.) And don’t think for a moment we have before us a guidebook of wine tasting notes fetishistically severed from place and time, isolated by a ‘wine professional’ from all worldly contamination. Isolated from memory.
Instead, Part One, The (None)sense Of Place, chapter one, Why We’re Not Dogs begins with this.
“The term globalization is frequently misused. This is particularly disturbing for me, a child of the globe. My father, Bernard Nossiter, an American journalist, moved our family from Washington D.C., to Paris when I was two. I grew up across the cultures of France, Italy, Greece, India, and England, as well as the United States. So, where do I belong?”
Liquid Memory is not an attempt to answer this question by submitting to an easy, marketable nostalgia; you know, a story of the search for a warm hearth before which one might safely curl to sleep. Instead, Mr. Nossiter performs his answer with a very personal journey of recollection, exploring the multiplicity of ‘homes’, ‘heimat’ or terroirs that memory itself calls into being.
We are not dogs because we possess the unique freedom to cross ideological borders, to resist cultural and commercial forces that offer to name us in exchange for a kind of security. (‘Consumer’ is one of many such names.) And wine is the agency of resistance par excellence. This book is an invitation to escape from the kennel of advertisement, to snap the tether of scores; to cultivate an intellectual nomadism of both sapience and of culture, in the company of others.
“Without terroir–in wine, cinema, or life (I’m happiest when the three are confused)–there is no individuality, no dignity, no tolerance, and no shared civilization. Terroir is an act of generosity. The last thing it should be is sectarian or reactionary.”
We are all complex mixtures of the past, the present and the future. There is nothing new in this. What is new is that Mr. Nossiter demonstrates through generous, playful stories that bottles of wine, what he calls liquid madeleines, may quietly, entirely by themselves, stir in us the experience of blended time, so to speak. We have only to learn how to listen.
“Wine bottles to me are not inanimate objects. And not just because the liquid inside them is biochemically alive. The shape of the bottle, the label, with its carefully printed place names, family names, and year of harvest, both evoke deeply human stories that remain vital even once the contents are consumed. When I see a bottle of wine, I travel in space–of course to the place the wine comes from (if its identity and personality have been respected), but also to the place, people, and circumstances where it was consumed.”
Though Liquid Memory makes serious arguments, there is nothing doctrinaire or ideologically rigid about Mr. Nossiter’s approach. Philosophical, yes; but he is too disciplined, too creative an independent film-maker to write sermons. The book’s prose is bright, often lyrical, always entertaining, even when discussing dark topics. He is never pugnacious, but he is willing to push back. How could it be otherwise? This book is a self-avowed “Proustian journey”, after all. But unlike Proust, Mr. Nossiter has not spent years in a cork-lined room endlessly scribbling emendations in the margins of an infinitely unspooling text. And unlike Proust, memory for Mr. Nossiter must be fed with the real-world anticipation of future pleasures. Indeed, his tone is resolutely upbeat, open to new loves.
(As a purely personal aside, rather than Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdue, the text that actually returned to me again and again when reading Liquid Memory was Claude Levi-Strauss’ Tristes Tropiques.)
Before beginning his thoroughly original adventures across the Parisian winescape, the greater part of the book, he writes,
“When I enter a wine shop–a magical place for me since adolescence (an arrested adolescent replacement for the childhood delights of a toy shop?)– or when I scan a restaurant wine list, I feel a surge of excitement, like someone arriving at the doorstep of a potential love affair. A tour of places in Paris where wine is critical–wine shops and restautants–becomes for me a kind of triple Proustian journey. I might go back in time with one glance (a bottle last drunk or seen years before), forward with another (there are millions of bottles that are unknown to me that I hope one day to meet), and rooted in the present with a third turn of the head (because the choice of wines is like choice of friends: it instantly reveals character and taste).”
But, push back? Yes, there is plenty. Robert Parker’s work, for example, is discussed with a combination of bemusement and genuine revulsion, as is “modern wine gibberish” generally. But the reason for his hot and cold critique throughout the book has nothing to do with personal animus (despite the unrelieved hostility of Mr. Parker and some of his board members, the wine world’s equivalent of Rush Limbaugh and his excitable ditto heads). Rather, it is the simple proposition that, among other Parker foibles, lugubrious tasting notes and scores do not get at what is most important in wine. Tasting notes and scores dumb down wine, at best rendering each bottle one of an endless series of Warhol-esque Campbell soup cans.
“But Parker is not alone. Modern wine gibberish (and the desperate attempts of winemakers to make wines that correspond to that gibberish) is a global product.”
And as a global product,
“Consumers all over the world have now become accustomed to seek out ‘Parker 95 wines’ or ‘ Wine Spectator 90’s,’ no longer sure of, or necessarily interested in, the wines’ origins, makers, or contexts. [....] To assign numbers to a wine, given that a wine is fully living and infinitely mutable, is almost as repugnant to me as assigning numerical worth to humans.”
Memory is aborted; our fundamental distinction from dogs is no longer necessary or even minimally required. Consumers, like dogs, run in packs. This is the great insight of modern business psychology. And we, as dogs, are left obediently waiting permission to feast from the bowl of the one who eats first.
Setting aside the ridiculous theater of modern wine gibberish for a moment, the finest section of Liquid Memory in my view is Part lll, All Roads Lead To Burgundy. Here Mr. Nossiter steps away from driving the narrative; he largely subtracts himself in order to let others speak. He then lovingly devotes 35 pages to the voices of some of the finest vignerons of Burgundy’s new generation. Can they find “a means of communication as limpid as their wines”?
“We are in the home Jean-Marc Roulot and his wife Alix de Montille to find out. They’ve been joined by their friends Dominique Lafon and Christophe Roumier, creating a quartet of inspired vignerons, all of whom are themselves children of talented vigneron fathers. Though anchored in a sense of tradition, they have each one of them acquired international reputations as modernist pioneers. Indeed, because the opposition between tradition and modernity is as absurd in wine as it is in cinema, it’s not surprising that the tradition within the Roulot, Montille, Lafon, and Roumier families is to assert a new ideal of progress in the expression of terroir with each generation.”
The next four chapters are quite simply a tour de force in contemporary wine writing. Mr. Nossiter has done brilliant work here. I cannot review the chapters without repeating them. But I will say there may be found detailed discussions of biodynamics and organic viticulture, the burden of tradition, the fragility of familial relations, of fathers and sons, with respect to the preservation and transmission of historical experience and memory. How does one persevere, how does one make durable a vision, a terroir, while all around is compromise and accommodation? The many strengths and pleasures of Liquid Memory notwithstanding, ‘All Roads Lead To Burgundy’ will be read for many years to come.
The section ends with this reflection.
“It must be said that the current practitioners of marketing are often congenial figures with no wish at all to subsume us in any evil design. But those who preach the cult of the individual nonetheless are contributing to the erasure of our collective culture and therefore, ironically, of our individual identities. The (historically mutable) delineation of Burgundian terroirs and their highly idiosyncratic interpretation by people like Jean-Marc, Dominique, and Christophe seems to me a very graceful (if infinitesimally miniscule) response to this threat.”
Part lV, The Taste of Authenticity, the last part of the book, reads a bit like a compilation of essays; of related pieces, to be sure, but with a free-standing quality. Each may be read independently of the book as a whole. All chapters will be welcomed, deepening, as they do, our understanding of the politics and culture of wine.
Finally, I can only imagine that Mr. Nossiter is pleased to finally set Liquid Memory on its way, to give it a life of its own. My interview with the gentleman was sprinkled with new ideas, new departures for thought, new terroirs. Thoroughly future-oriented, with children to raise, movies yet to make, should he have met Marcel Proust I suspect he would have slapped him on the back and spirited him off to Caves Legrand for a cheering-up. Yet Mr. Nossiter’s relation to Literature remains a mystery to me. He writes on pg. 14,
“In fact, nothing so complex, so dynamic, and so specific, nothing that links both nature and civilization, can be said in relation to memory in literature, painting, cinema, music, architecture: and any of the other records of human civilization. However, precisely because neither terroir, nor nature, nor men are fixed, and because a wine itelf is destined to be consumed–to vanish–a wine of terroir is by its nature, an ultimately undefinable, unquantifiable agent of memory. This is a curse for relentless rationalists, unrepentant pragmatists, and all the busy codifiers of this world, anxious for absolutes. And a blessing for the rest of us.”
But it is equally true people are destined to be consumed; they vanish. They, too, are records of human civilization. Yes, it is true that men are not fixed. But a man is, when he vanishes. As does all that he knew.
From Borges’ Dreamtigers.
“In a stable that stands almost within the shadow of the new stone church a gray-eyed, gray-bearded man, stretched out amid the odors of the animals, humbly seeks death as one seeks for [sic] sleep. The day, faithful to vast secret laws, little by little shifts and mingles the shadows in the humble nook. Outside are the plowed fields and a deep ditch clogged with dead leaves and an occasional wolf track in the black earth at the edge of the forest. The man sleeps and dreams, forgotten. The angelus awakens him. By now the sound of the bells is one of the habits of evening in the kingdoms of England. But this man, as a child, saw the face of Woden, the holy dread and exultation, the rude wooden idol weighed down with Roman coins and heavy vestments, the sacrifice of horses, dogs, and prisoners. Before dawn he will die, and in him will die, never to return, the last eye-witness of those pagan rites; the world will be a little poorer when this Saxon dies.
Events far-reaching enough to people all space, whose end is nonetheless tolled when one man dies, may cause us wonder. But something, or an infinite number of things, dies in every death, unless the universe is possessed of a memory, as the theosophists have supposed.
In the course of time there was a day that closed the last eyes to see Christ. The battle of Junin and the love of Helen each died with the death of some one man. What will die with me when I die, what pitiful or perishable form will the world lose? The voice of Macedonio Fernandez? The image of a roan horse on the vacant lot at Serrano and Charcas? A bar of sulpher in the drawer of a mahogany desk?”
Liquid Memory is a valuable contribution to the conversation about wine, of course. But it is a rare book. It makes the strongest case that I have ever read that wine matters; it matters to culture, to history, to our self-understanding of what makes us human. I highly recommend adding it to your library.
For my three part interview with Mr. Nossiter please see this and follow the links.
Admin
For those of us interested in the development and improvement of new wine regions; for those who cheer on the heroic struggle for the world-wide recognition of new wines from around the globe, fewer regions have shown as much promise so quickly as Israel. A Wine Spectator article from the summer of 2008 admirably sums up the changes brought to the wine-making culture by a new generation. As the article’s author Kim Marcus writes,
“I came away impressed by the leaps in quality, especially of the red wines, and by the dedication of the vintners. On my previous visit, many bottlings were tired or had matured before their time. This year, many reds displayed mineral elements and firm structures, as well as rich spicy notes, pointing to an emerging Israeli style.”
The article goes on to quote Shuki Yashuv of Agur Winery, located in the Judean Hills.
“In this country, we still don’t have enough vineyards. The plots are small, it’s expensive and we need capital—and the market is so small,” says vintner Shuki Yashuv, the owner of Agur Winery in the Judean Hills. Yashuv reckons that the potential domestic market is only about 2 million out of a total population of 7.2 million, once the nondrinking Muslim and Jewish populations are taken out of the mix. “We have lands, especially in the Judean Hills, but it’s a question of investment. We need to grow and export,” he says. “We understand it’s an extremely competitive wine world.”
From stories posted here about Israel’s thriving wine industry by one of Reign of Terroir’s writers, Greybeard, the point is emphatically made. This is a region to watch!
Indeed, one the greatest success stories is that of Agur Winery, which in 2007 did exceptionally well in a series of international tastings, from a Gold Medal in the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition, another Gold at the prestigious Zarcillo competition. And the good news continues into 2009 with the inclusion for the first time of the Agur Winery in Hugh Johnson’s 2010 edition of his dependable Pocket Wine Book.
But one element in the Wine Spectator’s coverage is not quite correct, or was left out. Agur Winery has, in fact, additional owners, Rosa and Peter Schechter. From Mr. Schechter’s website.
“[...] Rosa and Peter are co-proprietors of Agur Winery in Israel. Situated next to Bet Shemesh in the beautiful Judean Hills between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem, the area is designated by the Jewish Federation of Greater as Washington’s sister city. Shuki Yashuv, Agur’s winemaker, is Peter’s talented cousin. They have grown Agur in the past ten years from a garage winery into a blossoming, exporting winery with Gold and Silver Medals from prestigious wine competitions in Spain, USA, Argentina, Columbia, Panama and Israel.”
Who is Peter Schechter? In addition to being Agur Winery’s co-owner, Mr. Schechter has accomplished many other things. He is also a novelist of political thrillers, Virginia farmer, editorialist and a very successful Washington D.C. restauranteur. Indeed, he co-owns five D.C eateries. Again from Mr. Schechter’s website.
“Peter is also one of the founding owners of the celebrity chef, José Andrés’ DC food kingdom.”
For those interested in the very talented José Andrés, please see this.
But, (and here is where the rubber hits the road) Mr. Schechter is also one of the three founding partners of Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter, (CLS) a high-powered PR/lobbying firm headquartered in Washington D.C. CLS has been much in the news lately. They were recently hired by the Honduran military junta to improve its sullied international image following upon their coup of the Constitutionally-elected President, Manuel Zelaya. As The Hill reported on September 27th:
“According to Justice Department documents, the Honduran government signed Chlopak, Leonard, Schechter & Associates to a four-month contract worth more than $290,000. Filed on Sept. 18 with Justice by the public relations firm, the documents say the company will “advance the level of communication, awareness and media/policy maker attention about the political situation in Honduras.”
And again, from The Gov Monitor:
“The government of Honduras – referred to these days as ‘de facto,’ ‘interim’ or ‘illegitimate’ – is dealing with its public perception problem just like any tarnished ruling party would: by launching a PR campaign.
The interim government, installed after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted in a coup in June, has hired the Washington lobbyists Chlopak Leonard Schechter and Associates to sway policy makers’ opinions, The Hill reported last week. The nearly $300,000 contract was signed on Sept. 18. The lobbying firm – which has represented the governments of Brazil, Colombia, Nicaragua, Georgia and Serbia, among others – is tasked with advancing “the level of communication, awareness and media/policy maker attention about the political situation in Honduras.”
If you’ve missed this story of the first military coup in Latin America in many years, please read this October 7th story from the New York Times. It not a pleasant account, redolent as it is with the ugly politics the region thought it had put behind them.
CLS has also recently signed on to help shine the image of another controversial government, long-suffering Kenya. According to sources familiar with the contract, 1.7 million dollars will be paid out over the next two years dedicated to, in the words of the blog Muigwithania 2.0:
“[h]iring a firm to sanitize the [image of the] country when the country can’t feed its people; has wanting governance; can’t protect its citizens against crime; can’t supply electricity; can’t supply water and is selling parcels of land to multinationals is like washing a cup on the outside but leaving its inside dirty.” [word order slightly changed]
An interesting question emerges from Mr. Schechter’s discordant assemblage of commercial interests. Will the fortunes of Agur Winery continue to flourish, and that of the restaurants, or will public opprobrium leave Mr. Schechter very much in need of all the PR talent he can muster? It will be an instructive mis-en-scène to follow.
Admin
This, part 2 of my interview with Jonathan Nossiter, contains among some of his finest ideas, ideas elaborated with great lyrical passion in his forthcoming book Liquid Memory to be released to the English-speaking world by Farrar, Straus and Giroux October 13th. To fully understand all that follows please read part 1. But even if this portion is read in isolation, it is undeniable Mr. Nossiter’s views here have the force of a kind of revelation. Even if we had only this much to read we would nevertheless understand far more about how the world’s cultural forces intersect in wine than we did before. He mingles or interweaves concepts not often lucidly or convincingly placed near one another. I remember reading in my student days the great intellectual Walter Benjamin. He would rearrange the books of his library at random, mixing genres, subjects and historical periods in unexpected ways. His task was then to think new conceptual associations and liaisons among the titles.
Note the picture of the wine bottles on a shelf above, kindly provided by Mr. Nossiter. This photo, in my view, is very close to the spirit of Benjamin’s intellectual ambition, and superbly captures the adventure of reading Liquid Memory. From the book,
“Terroir has never been fixed, in taste or in perception. It has always been an evolving expression of culture. What distinguishes our era is the instantaneousness and universality of change. Before, the sense of a terroir would evolve over generations, hundreds of years, allowing for the slow accretion of knowledge and experience to build into sedimentary layers, like the geological underpinning of a given terroir itself. Today layers are stripped away overnight, and a new layer is added nearly each vintage.”
Part 3 will post the week of September 27th.
Admin What has been happening in the world of wine since Mondovino’s release?
Jonathan Nossiter I think the global outlook for winemaking has improved radically in the last couple of years. I think there’s been a concerted global rejection among winemakers recently of the ethos that has dominated for the previous 20 years, which was increasingly towards making wine as a product for a world consumer culture, and stripping it of identity, subtlety, delicacy. I haven’t been back to the states in years, but every time I go to Europe, every country I go to, I am really, really stunned by the number and variety of wines that suggest this seismic shift.
I was in Italy in May because my wife had made a film on Brazilian winemakers [Vinho De Chinelos/Immigrant wine] that was in the Slow Food Film Festival in Bologna. We came across dozens of exciting wines from tons of regions, regions that 15 years ago in Italy were producing the most cynical industrial swill or else the most cynical market-driven pseudo-boutique, globalized style product. I was very despairing at the state of Italian wine before.
But it’s just amazing the number of winegrowers in Italy now, from Sicily to Friuli, who seem to be reversing course or inventing new stories, or emerging from obscurity. In Bologna at a very good restaurant called Camminetto D’Oro with a wonderfully (caminetto d’oro_carta pdf) adventurous list, we drank the sublimely fragrant and fish-friendly “Frappato” red from the Sicilian Silvana Occhipinti ; an insanely oxydised but energetic and complex white (or orange!) wine from the Colli Bolognesi called Vej, which the guy on his label calls “antique wine” and another white by a guy named Zidarich in the Friuli, clearly inspired by Josko Gravner’s organic, earth-related experiments. They’re expressions of what the French call “vin naturels”, a definitely natural, organic, radically non-interventionist and frequently oxidised style. But it’s a form of oxidation that is homeopathic…that makes these wines beautifully resilient and alive. I don’t know if in the US there is a term for those kinds of wines.
Not quite yet; natural wine, perhaps. But I know there will be, and that they will be subject to certification of some kind. I can already see the signs.
JN Yeah, I’m sure. Those wines are going to piss off a lot of people. They’ll be denounced as unclean and unhygienic, unsound, just as Cassavetes, Fassbinder and Pasolini were denounced as unclean and unsound. But, you know, I love the opposite style also, Kubrick and Max Ophüls, works of high polish, maniacal control and sophistication! I’m not a fanatic. I’m not strictly partisan in that sense. But I think the resurgence of “vins naturels” –because clearly many wines from before the 2nd half of the 20th century were made this way- is a great contribution to the wine world. Whether you like those kinds of wines or not -I personally love them- but there is no question they open up the debate about the nature of wine and about the nature of taste, and also about the nature of the relationship to a place because these wines often allow a -literally- more unfiltered view of the landscape, of the terroir. And it’s incredibly exciting to see this phenomenon occuring across Italy.
A wine like Angiolino Maule’s “Pico” from the Veneto for example, is much more sophisticated than this Colli Bolognesi, putative white, “Vej.” That wine is filthy. It’s three years old and it was already a kind of russet orange. Deliberately made in a dangerously, thrillingly oxidized style.
What’s great about these wines, like the radical filmmakers -say John Cassavetes- whether you get pleasure from them or not, is that they are going to have an influence on even mainstream winemakers. They are going to make people think. ’‘What is it that we’re doing? Why are we doing it?’’ Someone may not want to go that far. And I’m not sure I’d want to drink those wines every night. I’m very happy to drink an incredibly lush, rounded and juicy Dominique Lafon Meursault, if I can, after drinking one of those.
But the point is that this diversity wasn’t so readily available or visible even a few years ago. And people weren’t even trying to think in that way, on such a comprehensive scale, even ten years ago, certainly in Italy.
I was going to tell you about this guy, Camillo Donati in Arola, the Colli di Parma. He’s amazing! I had never never been much of a fan of Lambruscos. Not until my Brazilian-Italian wife, because of her family’s origins, started prodding me, and got me to overcome my ignorance and snobbery. I started tasting other Lambruscos, which I felt were really interesting and really good. But when I tasted the Lambrusco of Camillo Donati it flipped my world upside-down. Suddenly, the whole point of Lambrusco became clear to me. It’s actually very sophisticated, very earthy, and insanely vital, at least his style of it from the Colli di Parma. (It’s not the central area of production for Lambrusco, generally. There are lots of different areas where Lambrusco is produced.) He’s been working biodynamically since the early 90s, like Domaine de Beudon, interestingly enough, from the Valais, which is a recently discovered passion (last month in fact!).
We drove up to Parma to visit Donati after the [Slow Food Film] Festival in Bologna with a critic from Slow Food-Gambero Rosso. They’’ve actually now split, thankfully. Gambero Rosso became as corrupt as most of the other wine magazines. And Slow Food is planning on launching a new guide, a new magazine that, hopefully, will not be as a corrupt as Gambero Rosso. Their intention is to offer a guide that is less ratings-driven and less concerned with social status and power. Anyway this guy was very interesting, one of the people involved with the new Slow Food effort. We invited him along because we had a lot of respect for him.
But Camillo Donati, as soon as he heard ‘Gambero Rosso’ critic, he put his dukes up! (laughs) Most winemakers will want to curry favor with a Gambero Rosso critic. In fact, he said [the critic] ‘‘You never sent us your samples. I’d like to try your wine. We’ve heard about your wine from many people”. Camillo said ‘‘Why would I send you samples? If you want to get my wine you’re welcome to get it like anyone else. It only costs 4€”. And then the Gambero Rosso critic said, trying to establish his street cred, that he wasn’t just another critic sitting around behind his desk, he said, ”You know, I go to vineyards a lot. I’m always in the vineyards. I’m always helping winemakers. I often prune vines”. And Donati cut him off in mid-sentence. He said, ”Not here, you wouldn’t. Every single vine on my land is a vine that I know personally. I’’m the only one that touches them”. (laughs) That got him [the critic] to rethink a little! It was great. Afterwards they got along very well. Donati realized that he was not in front of a critic just looking to show off and to spew out a stream of useless adjectives, but someone who actually was eager to learn.
Donati makes not just a Lambrusco but also Sauvignon Frizzante, and Sauvignon in the region of the Colli di Parma stretches back at least to the 18th Century, so it’s not part of the international fad. He also makes a Trebbiano Frizzante, Malvasia Frizzante…. He is simultaneously recuperating traditions of Lambrusco, dry, earthy, complex Lambrusco and somewhat newer traditions, like Sauvignon, but still a 200 year-old tradition. And he is also experimenting. He’s planted Cabernet Franc. He makes a Cabernet Franc Frizzante that’s wild.
Donati to me is kind of a classic example of exactly why the debate is dead between a modernist and a traditionalist. He’s both, of course, like anybody who’s progressive. He invited us to lunch; he lives in a modest house, with his wife and his daughter. We were stunned by one wine after another. My wife Paula asked him, ”You only charge 4€ for all these wines? Surely you could charge a little more without becoming an expensive, super-elitist wine”. He looked at Paula, and he said, ”Look, wine is, first of all, for everybody, and it should be made and sold for as democratic a price as possible. And second of all, most important for me, is that by selling my wine at 4€ a bottle I earn enough to pay my debts. I live well enough for me to be happy. What do I need more money for?” And then he passed a plate of luscious culatello from a prosciutto producer down the road and bit into a chunk of sweet parmigiano made by his neighbour.
I wished I’d met Donati when I was filming Mondovino. Especially when I saw that instead of putting up all the prizes his wines have won and articles in magazines on his walls, as many, many wine producers do the world over, he had a few photos of his deceased parents and two certificates attesting to the fact that his dad was a partigiano [partisan], in the resistance against the Nazis. And from the begnning of the war, not from ‘44 when it was a much easier for people to join the movement. I chuckled when I thought what if I had actually filmed with him and shown these documents. All those snide attackers of the film for having mixed politics and history with wine would have snarled that this was yet another setup or fabrication!
But really, there are all kinds of cynics that can dismiss an engagement like Donati’s as sort of, you know, romantic claptrap, a kind of quixotic, unpractical view of the world, and heaven forbid, as anti-capitalist. But there is a fairy-tale aspect to it, and I say screw them. Because part of what is beautiful about the world of wine is that fairy tales are sometimes very true, much more true in the wine world than elsewhere I think.
There’s another wine that the same critic [from Slow Food-Gambero Rosso] had us taste, from the Marche, called ‘Barricato’, which doesn’t refer to barrique but to the barricades. It was started by a couple of hippies in the Marche region in the 70s. The wine has become a kind of cult wine in Italy and is apparently sold on the gray market for, I don’t know, a hundred bucks a bottle. And they got really pissed off! And they’ve now put on the back label: This wine should be sold for 11€.
Ten years ago, obviously that wine existed and so did Donati ten years ago, but you didn’t get access to them. You had to be local or to be lucky to know them. Or it had to be one of the new finds of a Neal Rosenthal or Marc De Grazia or a Terry Theise. But anyone who wasn’t lucky enough to be discovered by a zealous American importer didn’t even have much visibility even in his own country.
What’s amazing today is that there is a growing movement everywhere, and it’s a movement that’s interconnected. It goes back and forth between little Camillo Donati and his Colli di Parma, to Domaine de Beudon in the Valais in Switzerland to the hugely talented newcomer Bruno Duchêne in Collioure with his daring Grenache whites, to Dominique Lafon in Meursault, to Nicolas Joly in Savennieres, to people of all different levels, of socio-economic levels, prestige levels… They are creating a global dialogue, producing concrete results and concrete effects. It’s not just a nice global dialogue about how to deal ethically with the planet. People are really, actually, doing something concrete. And I feel tremendously encouraged and moved.
The twenty or thirty year reign of the transformation of wine into a pure product of greed and social ambition, I think that reign of terror is coming to an end. Maybe it’s not coming to an end, but it is being met by a very powerful counter-movement.
Indeed. One of the most beautiful sections of your new book Liquid Memory is titled ‘All Roads Lead To Burgundy’, in my opinion the heart and soul of the book. As I read your of beautiful encounters with Dominique Lafon, Jean-Marc Roulot and Christophe Roumier, a question constantly occurred to me: How did Burgundy degenerate to such a degree by the 70s such that their rejuvenation had to take place? What on earth happened there?
JN Well, you’re better off asking a Burgundian. Honestly, I think that importers had a lot to do with it. I think it’s a combination. I think it’s a combination of a new generation of winemakers, like Christophe Roumier; that’s why I wrote about them, that’s why I tried to give them, allow their words to come through unfiltered. It’s a generation that was born in the late 50s, early 60s, who came of age in the late 70s and the 80s; who simply said ‘’We’re throwing away a national treasure, an international patrimony by creating chemical-driven, diluted wines’’. I think they influenced their fathers.
And I think there was a powerful movement on one side, and I do think the work of Kermit Lynch and Robert Haas, Becky Wasserman, Neal Rosenthal, has been critical. I think that it really provided an outlet. I think all of those people from the 60s on, particularly in the 70s and 80s, really encouraged these people to think locally, as a way to think internationally with maybe a little more understanding.
Obviously, given the geography and the history of the division of Burgundy domaines, they’re much smaller, it’s easier for people to react there against global trends. It’s obviously much harder for a Bordeaux chateaux, given the Bordeaux environment and because of the size, to try to go against fads and fashion. It’s always easier for individuals to go against fads and fashion.
That’s for certain. Now, I look at the blogosphere. And, of course, among them there are some very well known critics we can perhaps touch on in a bit. But the question is that, yes, one can write any kind of nonsense that one likes, any vapid tasting note, assign any score, all in the name of democratization. Yet at the same time, there is no push back from committed growers. And the comments section on various blogs and forums don’’t fill up with outrage that marketing and homogenization tendencies are eviscerating memory, as you might say. Critics often follow the path of least resistance.
How do you educate what is cynically called the ‘consumer’, assumed to be devoid of memory, assumed to be one who passively accepts advice? How do you educate the individual to take a more critical view of marketing approaches?
JN That’s an unanswerable question. What can any of us do to counter-act things we think are not right? We can try and act. That’s all. It’s up to anyone who likes wine to dig as deeply as they are able to into what wine is and why it is interesting to them; and why it has been interesting to other people.
The more people gain confidence in themselves, the more they’ll reject the imposition of monolithic views of wine, like the Wine Spectator and Robert Parker, et alia. I think that critics like Parker or Michel Bettane, or magazines like Wine Spectator function on fear and ignorance. It’s a double-edged sword. For those who feel they don’t know about wine, they look to these magazines, these critics as guides and gurus. And to those who feel that they’ve become instructed, they feel like they’re members of an exclusive club. Unfortunately it creates a cycle of recidivist ignorance.
I think the first gesture has to come from winemakers. The great news is that I think it’s been coming from winemakers all over the world. And when they start to make different wines, and then when, you know, it’s a chain isn’t it when importers like David Bowler, from the younger generation, start to go after these winemakers, and hustle on the street to convince restaurateurs, sommeliers and wine shops that ‘Hey, there’s a different kind of drink out there, there are different ways of thinking the same kind of drink’. All of this has a cumulative effect.
It goes without saying that critics who would rather think in a different way about what wine is rather than as a consumer product with a pseudo-mathematic value that can be attached, that exists in an equally spurious mathematical relationship to price, everyone is contributing at that point.
These are all drops in the bucket. But enough drops and you fill the damn thing.
Part 3.
Admin
—Very special thanks to Patrick Petruccello of Kahuna’s Food and Wine for his invaluable technical assistance.
The Trade Office of France and Sud de France have very generously brought me to the Languedoc to experience Vinisud, the largest wine trade fair for wines from the Mediterranean. I have to give props to Marie-Helene Courade of the Houston France Consulate who never forgets how I love going on these trips, making fantastic connections and putting up with my indecision when making flight reservations. Also thanks to Sarah Nguyen the Director of the Wine and Spirits for the French embassy trade office in NYC,
The Sud de France organization gave us all a wonderful welcome gift with our itineraries plus small gifts and samples of regional foods. One really neat gift and excellent for quick reference in a fun way is a sampling of wine tubes. Each tube contains a sample of the different styles of wines from the region. The AOC’s are for each style are printed on the back of the tubes along with the authorized grapes of the regions. As a wine educator, I kinda feel like Martha Stewart when I say “It’s a good thing”.
There’s a very busy schedule at these events. Frequently there’s a different hotel every night in a different city, dinner until 1 am, back up at 6 am, on a bus by 8am, repacking every morning, bodies fatigued, palates broken down, livers distended no matter how much wine you spat out but the opportunity to be in an organized visit schedule to meet producers and potentially bring their products to the United States, is gold. This trip I am thankful to be stationed in one hotel and I was able to completely unpack my garment bag and take account of all the things I need which I forgot to pack, but I did remember my Dansko clogs and will decline competing with all the very fashionable French women so I can cover as much of Vinisud as possible instead of moaning about hurting toes.
