Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchAn interesting comment from Joe Dressner, a NY importer:
";Frankly, I’m sick of the variety as defining the wine. A New Zealand Pinot Noir made with yeast treatments and spoofed up is not the same as a Pinot Noir from California on Steroids in tons of new wood and is not the same as La Tache which is not the same as well-made Bourgogne Rouge. Yes, there is a far-flung genetic bind, but given that everything from the root stock to the climate to the geology to the winemaking to the cultural expectations is so divergent, why pretend that these wines come form the same ’family."; Each of these wines is a distinct category and it is only confusing and silly to pretend they are similar wines.";
http://www.datamantic.com/joedressner/?1426
For me, the name of the grape printed in a wine label is increasingly meaningless. I have a recent proof from four different Arrayán 2002 (a new winery from D.O. Méntrida, a wine region in the north of the Toledo province) drunk the last week-end. Syrah, Merlot, Petit Verdot... who is who?
Do you think a variety segmentation (a la Californian - Australian) is an interesting stretegy for the new Spanish wines?
Re: Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchI do not like it as a defining strategy, but I do like it, very very very very much, to know the grapes in a wine: I do not like at all the French (intelectual?) habit of not indicating the grapes at all.
MaJesus
Re: Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de MaJesusI believe the habit of not indicating the grapes is not a ";French (intelectual?) habit"; but a typical labeling procedure of well known wineries-wine regions. For instance, how many grape explanations have you seen in classic Riojas?
I defend labels with information about the grapes and the terroirs and characteristics of the vintage. But has this a real impact on the consumer? Do you buy a wine because includes more cabernet or monastrell?
Pablo Calatayud (from Celler del Roure winery) told me that his cabernet sauvignon was more like his merlot than from a cabernet from a terroir completely different. We have got the commercial ";fetish"; for the varieties but I firmly believe each variety expresses very differently from different soils, microclimates and vinification techniques.
Terry Theise explains in one of his catalogs a funny anecdote with this variety fetish that most customers have got (specially in the US). He was presenting his German rieslings in California and a woman approached him. She asked for a Chardonnay wine. Theise poured a riesling and waited for her reaction. She said: ";This white is great!"; And Theise replied: ";Yes. This is a chardonnay from a town called Riesling. Look for that town in the labels...";
Re: Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchI ALWAYS buy my chardonnay from Riesling. Must be the soil that puts some acidity into it... :^P
Re: Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de GastronautaI don’t like it much. I can see it is certainly useful for beginners, but the French system is so much deeper and more meaningful - like comparing an Hollywood movie with a European one.
Eventually the rest of the world (or at least those who want to make truly serious wines) will come back (and in many cases are already coming back) to terroir in some sense. The longer some people choose to ignore this, the longer it will take for the new world to compete with the old in winemaking (and the gap is still sooooo big....)
Maybe I missed something... surely our throwaway Anglo-Saxon culture has not come up with something of true value?
Re: Are you sick of the variety as defining the wines?
Ver mensaje de Juan SuchFrankly, I don’t think I have an issue here. Riesling-wise we are all the richer for the different styles, climates, soils...etc where this pretty one is grown. The fact that a few of these seem to be clearly negligible (some would go as far as ";prescindible";) doesn’t mar my enjoyment of its wonderful diversity. Every once in a while you come across a bad example (esp. if you experiment) but overall I think that’s a price we pay.
And then of course you have Chateauneuf... (yes, I know there are a few 100% Grenache bottlings but in general terms I think we could use it as perfect example of the harmoniously chaotic blend appellation, unless of course you take Port into consideration).
I don’t think I miss ";purity"; in C9 any more than I ";miss"; multivarietal complexity in Riesling... (in fact the complexity achieved in aged riesling is usually superior IMHO to most other examples around, blended or not)