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| DEIPNOSOPHY |
SHEBANG CHEZ VINS |
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Stephane Verdood, a Belgian businessman and Chezvin’s interviewee at Starlab, modestly declines to be called a connoisseur; he is prepared to be put forward as an interested amateur. Wines he has recommended in the past: Cahteau Palmer. Masculine. A white Condrieu. Distinctive. Unique. Chateau Lynch-Bages. Distinctive. Chateau Petrus. Perfection. |
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| Some key advice from him: "
If you want to discover unique wines you will not buy them in a supermarket.
You really do need to go to the vineyard." "How do you do that?" I asked. "You book an hotel, you travel in the area for a few days. You ask questions. That really is the only way. Because of the economic mechanisms that are still in place, that at least is the way to discover the really precious secrets." THE VINIFICATION PROCESS As soon as we had arrived at Chezvins, Stephane started explaining: "The wine we drink is simply not comparable to wine that people used to drink 50 years ago. It’s a different liquid altogether. We call it ‘wine’; but it’s an utterly different liquid" We are served a Figaro 1998. Stephane holds up the glass, puts his nose close to the precious, deep red of this red Vin de Pays de l"Herault. "Mmm’" he declares, " Trés parfumé." It’s a good wine, not a great wine. Stephane explains that with very great wines, after you have taken a sip, the aftertaste remains for 10-12 seconds. With this one the taste is gone within 2 or 3. But it’s robust, good with poultry, excellent value. "Nowadays," tells me, "There are some excellent wines. But the vast majority of wines are not good, not bad. One hundred years ago, most of the wines were simply bad, so far as we can tell. Wine in the old days was intended for everyday consumption, it was just a drink like coffee, coke, or lemonade. What we do know about those times is that there was no quality control, there was no legislation, and I know enough about human nature to know there would have been cheating. And even then, when it came to grapes they would have gone for quantity not quality." What has changed then? "A revolution began in a vinification process which was mastered in the 1970’s. To get red wine you need double fermentation. The first time you ferment the wine, humans have to get it started. The second fermentation starts spontaneously. That’s really how you achieve a better quality of wine, and this was mastered at that time." I put it to him that there has been a lot of talk about Australian experts being brought to France and the rest of Europe, to teach the old masters the new ways. "Nonsense," he says. " This new process of vinification was developed in France of course — as usual" Right now, though, the vinification process is identical everywhere - from South Africa, to Argentina from Australia to Spain from France to California. It has to be said that, while in years gone by wines may have been bad, there were some outstanding wines, and there was a greater degree of distinctiveness. The problem with modern wine drinkers is that they crave consistency. They ask of their vintners, "Make me the same wine that I had last time, last year." . I ask about the peculiar taste of recent wines, which people often identify as coming from tannin. "It’s not tannin" I am told, "It’s young oak Very fine wines should be fermented in young oak. With these lesser wines the oak is expected to create a kind of perceived quality. Young oak is expensive, you see, so these not very good wines hitch a ride on the oak." "But I’m not fooled" I say "I can’t believe anybody’s fooled." MICROCLIMATE. I am still with Stephane, the interested amateur, and the subject changes to the greatest hype worldwide in the wine industry: identifying the microclimate. Every 2 or 3 acres of vineyard have a particular topology, which results in a specific microclimate I am inclined to scoff. Throughout the ages, pseudo wine experts have talked about a grape coming from the ‘South side of the wine’ and all that sort of guff For Stephane it’s a new thing, though. Up to now, he explains, winegrowers have blended the grapes, because they wanted a wine that tasted the same every year. But to him that is redundant in thinking and in action They’ve discovered now that by unblending that wine —by recognising the microclimates - one winegrower could obtain 5 or 6 different wines. But wasn’t that always the case Probably they did in the Middle Ages but for the past decades at least, in practice - not in conversation , but in the actual practice of preparing the wine they didn’t think about the microclimate, the south side of the estate and all that. What were they concerned with? The quality of the grape. The wines they produced were clearly different from what they have now. In what way? They didn’t make the distinction in the types of grape. They blended everything They often didn’t even know what kind of grapes they were using. All that stuff about grapes that people talk about — that is all bullshit. Bullshit. It had to do with the maturity, that’s all. They would have kept the mature wines apart. Now the microclimate is takes into account not only the type of grape exposure to the sun, type of smells around it as it is growing and a number of other factors create that unique wine And, says Stephane "That’s the wine of the twenty-first century". Our first chat about wine ended with the following exchange: Stephane said, "I am going next weekend to the Loire valley just to discover tastes... I know a winegrower there: he’s capable of producing 6 different tastes, all distinct Six years ago he has only 1 wine just l wine and it was merely wine; it didn’t have an identity" I asked, "Are the costs different if you go to the vineyard?" He replied: "It is actually slightly more expensive. But worth it" "You have a vast cellar?" I asked "Ja, 1500 bottles," he said. "Not that vast. Not such a lot. My father has 7000" "All good?" "Most really good. Some great." GENETICALLY MODIFIED GRAPES Our second meeting, at Chezvin. Stephane and I talked about what are called ‘biological wines’. This is a distillation of our discussion: There is a big tendency among several winegrowers to say, ‘Let’s not go for quantity, let’s go for quality’. This means low productivity, attention to the microclimate, no fertilizers, no danger to the vineyard’s natural environment, lest there be any risk — even the slightest risk — of producing an inferior wine. Of course you do take a risk if you let Nature do her own work, but that is a different kind of risk, one that the winegrower appreciates and understands. After all, it is Nature’s own work that gives us the great wines too. Now, with genetically modified vines, in fact can influence what Nature does, or so the theory goes. You can decrease the natural acidity. You can try to get more volume while keeping the perceived quality high. You can make sure that all your crops are flood-resistant and frost resistant. So good things may come from modifying grape crops in this way. But: to what extent will the modified crops still reflect the character and the personality of the wine? That is a big debate. No-one knows. The traditionalists say, ‘No way. Genetic modification is going to wreck our wines. Large corporations say, ‘Let’s do it. It will increase production. Wine creates a great deal of emotion. Wine can be extremely beautiful. It can the contrary. It never leaves you indifferent. Our feelings about wine can be like our feelings when we’re in love, or when we are confronted with a work of art. Now, no-one actually knows what effects genetic modification will have upon the taste and the quality of the wine, long-term. We don’t know. It is simply too early to judge. On most of these points Stephane and I agreed. I put it to him though, that one thing we must be prepared for is that experts in genetic modification are going to make very sure that a lot of what they produce is going to taste wonderful Stephane’s reply was "Well, it’s my instinct not to try it. Why go against Nature? Playing devil’s advocate I argued, ‘Any number of things that we accept now, take for granted and even love, including wine itself, originally involved helping Nature along, giving her a nudge.’ Stephane conceded that: ‘Yes humankind originated because of a genetic error for all I know’ Well of coure we may not know, not in our lifetimes, whether biological wines will be of any value at all. Stephane’s instincts are clearly against the whole idea. He is concerned about the balance of factors that come into play when one id producing wines; our genetic knowledge is too hazy to be able to make all these different elements interact properly and cohere. His message is clear: "Don’t do this to wine.’ And if his fears are misfounded? If wines are made wonderful by genetic modification? But who will judge him wrong? That is his question. Humans may well judge him wrong. But the only judgement he will accept is the judgment of Nature Herself.
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