Tyranny of great vintages

At long last, Eric Asimov has written an article about the tyranny of great vintages.  He first mentioned his interest in writing it on The Pour a year or two ago, and while I was away he published it on February 13.

In the piece, Eric succinctly examines the very old habit of puffing up vintages that the wine trade and press have declared to be "great" (now expressed most clearly in Parker's 95+ scores), with the effect of ignoring merely "good" and even "very good" ones.  As he notes at the end of the article, there's a big component of "mass psychology" involved.  Irrationality, anxiety and status-seeking are all at work.

This is to me the key paragraph:

When it comes to wine, though, the focus on greatness comes at a significant cost in both pleasure and money. This is most obvious in terms of wine ratings, where consumers irrationally (at least from a wine lover’s perspective) chase after bottles that critics have awarded 90 points or more, but shun those in the 85 to 89 range, even though the lower-rated wines may be cheaper, more flexible with food and readier to drink.

I've long wondered about this tendency on the part of winelovers to fetishize the "best", the "greatest", the "vintage of the century" and so on.  When I was in my 20s and worked in wine retail down in Richmond, Virginia, I'd read the glowing reviews a particular vintage and domaine had received.  I'd try the wine and say, "Oh that's good."  Then there would be another bottle from the same domaine but a different vintage -- it was a golden age of low-cost but superb Burgundy -- and I'd say, "Well, this is wonderful too!  I think I like it better than the big-deal one!"  For that second-rank vintage may indeed have given us a wine that was "more flexible with food and readier to drink." 

The inordinate emphasis placed on one vintage over another struck me even then as mistaken.  I think this is where anxiety may best explain what happens in such cases.  My suspicion then, as now, was that most winelovers don't know very much.  They need and want to be led, to be told what to value and why.  In short, they aren't winelovers so much as people who wish to accessorize their lives with "fine wine" and a line of patter that will enable them to hold their own with those they imagine to be their social betters.

I don't wish to portray myself as some sort of American rebel, a loner, some malcontent trailblazer who is impelled to Find His Own Way.  (Please, somebody, don't supply the road less traveled here.  Please.)

Still, when I realized just how much bullshit there was in all of that swooning over particular vintages and properties, I decided to branch out, to allow myself to try new wines from a range of different regions, countries, grapes, etc.  As a consequence, one of the great revelations I had, circa 1973, was a 1949 Rioja from Bodegas Bilbainas.  Its aged grace and complexity floored me, and I still remember the pleasant shock on my tongue when I first sipped it. (To my shame I thought, "It's so Bordeaux!" Of course I knew about the migration of Bordelais winemakers to Rioja when phylloxera struck; and I had read everything I could find by Hugh Johnson and Andre Simon.  But still.)

Another was my pleasure at drinking a Gattinara from Travaglini.  Back then most Italian wine available in the States was dreadful slop.  This Gattinara changed my perception of Italian wine and its potentialities.  And you know, I still prefer the lighter, northern take on Nebbiolo to the heavy Barolo one. 

These instances of wine epiphany aren't exactly in the same league as Proust with his madeleines -- a good thing, too, since he was impossible to curb after it. 

Before I go on too long, let me just end by saying that love of wine isn't determined, or even much conditioned, by vintage charts, let alone scores and reviews.  Granted, those can be useful signposts on the wine journey.  But the greatest pleasure is to find a wine that surprises you in some way -- a wine you may never have heard of before -- and to have the wine at that moment, in that place, with those people out of all the infinite possible moments, places and people.  A theologian might call that the scandal of particularity.  But there is no scandal in such a blessing consecrated by the wine you have in your cup.

Comments

[gabrio]

For some producer I have the "if they bottle the vintage it's good" philosophy. I can't see people like Quintarelli or Soldera jeopardize decades of reputation to make such a big mistake, so they either downgrade their juices, see Rosso del Bepi, or they don't bottle at all if vintage didn't gave enough to do so. Remember that if you crush grapes and let them be without influence you won't get wine but vinegar, the human hand is the only one capable to transform it in the Nectar of Gods...
Buona Bevuta a Tutti

www.de-vino.com
www.de-vino.blogspot.com

[Marco]

Excellent, germaine, thoughtful points, Terry, about the tyranny of vintages. When a famous producer in Ribera del Duero was asked about the 2001 vintage being the vintage of the century, he replied merely that "yes, it was a good year".