From the book...
Introduction
To me a bottle of wine is a coded message from another place -
I hope to give you the key to the code that unlocks the message. I want you to share the mystery in every sip you take and understand the leaps of imagination created by honest men and women of the soil who keep refining the code every year giving us better and better wines.
That code in every bottle of wine has three stories.
- where it comes from - the place
- who made it - the person
- what it is made from - the grape varietal or varieties
So you see it's not a bottle of wine but a book with three chapters,
The first part of the book introduces you to three elements : the place where the vine is grown, the personalities and process of making wine, and lastly the vine varieties that go into wine and their special properties.
In the second part I will concentrate on you, the consumer of the wine. You will learn to discern what you like in a wine so you can purchase with confidence, as well as all the nuances that go with wine lifestyle, in particular matching food with wine.
Part of this process is learning to discern wines of high quality. That is, that they are well made, possibly award winning and low-volume produced; often from a single vineyard, handpicked and privately owned. These are wines made with passion and extraordinary commitment, wines which have a worthy place on a table or in the cellar of any wine collector anywhere in the world.
How do you unlock the information about these good wines and how do you bring your level of understanding up? That is the challenge set here.
A joyful part of life
The simplest side of wine drinking is that it softens the hard edge of existence. It can open our eyes and minds to the true delights of the company we are keeping. The food tastes better; the wine tastes better because of the food, ideas form and fly and humour finds its home; it is this subtle entwining of very pleasurable experiences in a moment that is the birthright of any wine drinker who imbibes moderately or sensibly.
More recently in our cultural history, wine drinking has gone hand in hand with tourism and the desire for authentic experience of another world. One small example is the wine tours run in the Barossa for visitors who want to see 100-year-old vines. People get a kick out of seeing them and hearing the tales of people and the forces of nature. That wineries are often in beautiful places undoubtedly adds to the joy, as well as the stories - the epics - that are told as part of each region or vineyard or vines' history.
In another way, the tale of authentic experience is told in individual preferences for different varieties or regions or colours. In this way, the art of wine appreciation can allow expression not only for the grower and maker but also for the drinker. The culture of wine gives an interesting opportunity for the manifestation of individual style.
Epilogue
From aristocracy to meritocracy: New world v old world
The unthinkable happened, California defeated Gaul and the French were aghast. Time Magazine
The past 30 years of the international wine industry could be described as the era of the blind. I'm specifically referring to the arrival of blind tastings and the belief that points out of 100 and awards can provide enough information for consumers, judges and the media about the quality inside a bottle of wine. The acceptance, use and importance of blind tasting results by different countries plays out wines epic discussion: the role of nature and the power of place verus nurture and the power of man.
Blind tastings challenge the traditional European way of judging wine and the reputations they developed. In France quality is primarily described by geography and framed by history. Initial drinker awareness of regional quality led to reputations for places, which over generations of production has become historically defined and recognised less by variety and more by region. Their use of vineyard classifications as quality clues reduces the label's emphasis on the property or producer. The French linking quality to the nature of the place and its special taste more than the people that inhabit the place, it's a pre renaissance view of man and nature.
On the other side you have quality based on the result of a blind tasting and the transcendence of mans nurturing of wine over the natural beneficial contributions of climate, soil and location. The best wine is defined by a tasting based on grape variety not by history; by producer rather than region, by one example tasted once. As they say "it's what in the glass that counts."
This has been at the heart of the very important changes that have occurred since the 1976 tasting that has come to be referred to as the 'Judgment of Paris'.
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