I remember going to Burgundy in 2017 to taste the 2016 vintage and thinking I was stuck in a Twilight Zone episode.
You would ask a producer about his or her wine, and they would invariably say the exact same thing:
“The vineyard does all the work. I just try to stay out of the way.”
Bullshit.
That’s not to say that terroir doesn’t exist, or that non-interventionist wines aren’t good, but rather that winemakers still have to know something about making wine in order to produce something good. More importantly, they have to make decisions about winemaking that will ultimately affect the outcome of their wine’s flavor.
William Kelley touched on this naturalistic fallacy in an article from the Wine Advocate earlier this year, writing: “Winemakers have never been so self-effacing. Discuss their aesthetic ambitions with producers in practically any region today, and typical responses will likely emphasize a desire to bottle the taste of terroir in as pure a state as possible. In formulations such as these, wines are seemingly more discovered than made.”
Why are winemakers talking this way? Because that’s what sells right now: PURITY.
And it goes far beyond wine.
Single barrel cask strength whiskey also equates to purity for many of today’s modern whiskey drinkers. They want it untouched, untainted, and unmanipulated by the hand of man (despite the fact it was completely manipulated by man before it ended up in the barrel). When a single barrel is “chosen,” it’s exactly as Kelley stated: whiskey fans act as if the whiskey was discovered rather than made.
More importantly, a number of them are selecting their own barrels and taking the credit for discovering it! As if that was the hard part! Or worse, the more interesting part.
Where did this now-obnoxious trend begin, you ask? I think it started roughly fifteen years ago with the industry’s push for authenticity, before escalating into a modern-day purity contest. As an example, many of my wine industry colleagues became obsessed with doing things like the French do, and suddenly it became a competition to see who could be more French-like. People started wearing scarves around their neck to work and cooking old school recipes even my French friends won’t eat. Today it’s turned into more of a neurotic obsession than an homage to a culture.
Kelley asks an important question in his essay: “Does the pursuit of purity and “transparency” end in authenticity, or merely in homogeneous neutrality?”
You obviously know how I feel. The latter.
Do you know how fucking boring it is to chase purity, completely ignoring stylistic ingenuity, flavor, and enjoyment? I’m boring myself just writing about it now.
Even beyond the lameness, Kelley’s point is that there isn’t any such thing as a pure wine, anyway. He writes: “The fallacy itself is the notion that wine itself is immanent, existing in some sort of idealized state independent of actual wine production, waiting to be revealed.”
But what absolutely excited me while reading Kelley’s article was his reference to “patina,” a term I only discovered late last year while learning about vintage mechanical watches. Patina refers to the nicks, scratches, and general wear-and tear that gives each watch character. Whereas purists might see these scratches as flaws or reasons to downgrade a watch’s value, others see them as a unique and valuable character, almost like vintage-worn denim or a beat-up leather jacket.
While correlating patina to winemaking, Kelley writes: “The wines that excite me the most, I have come to realize, are all intensely patinated: the creations of strong personalities and clear visions, they are marked by the hands that made them even while they express the place where they were grown.”
In short, the enjoyment of terroir or purity can exist hand-in-hand with individualistic expression. It’s not an either/or proposition.
Like I’ve said repeatedly as of late: the best whiskies I’ve ever had were always blends of barrels created by someone who knew what they were doing. But you also have to start with great ingredients.
-David Driscoll