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 The World of Wine is ever expanding, and is a much,
much bigger place than it was, say, back in the late sixties when I started
buying fine wines for the restaurant industry in Europe. Wine has become
the theatre of a global scale passion. In our western countries, wine enjoys
today the same kind of respectability and admiration as the fine arts. The
1990s saw a great surge of interest in wine across the planet. Tens of
thousands of new amateurs of the pleasure of the fermented grape juice
appear every year on the market place. Some of them have comfortably swollen
wallets and they have sent the prices of a handful of cult and trophy wines
spiraling out of control; there are also plenty of others who are happily
seeking out the best bargains possible. It would seem that the wine lover
never had it so good. The number of good and great wines produced on the
planet is stunning and the number of top-performing wine producers is
swelling out of proportion. The consumer has a better, wider offer than ever
before in history. The problem is that such a situation generates much
choice but also much confusion! There are so many varieties of wines
to choose from. Should we go for the New or the Old World
styles of wine? What is the basic difference between the two approaches? It
seems that one is more focused on grapes and the other one on location but
how will these fit your own personal preferences? Which wine is more
appropriate for your special occasion? How can you learn to taste for
yourselves and trust your own inclinations rather than following some
dictatorial and dogmatic rating systems?
In the following series of articles, we will attempt to answer these
questions, give you a lot of practical
knowledge about wine culture, tips and hints on how to taste varietals,
discover how to assess the quality and even the greatness of a wine and find
out how the world of wine became the amazing place it is today. This all
began in very ancient times. Wine is at the root of all cultures and is one
of the foundations of Western civilization. The story of wine is that of the
human race, religion, medicine, war and science. It is imprinted with many
of man’s agricultural breakthroughs and discoveries, and linked with his
hopes and dreams. It is also associated to every form of festivity,
celebration and rejoicing. Together with fine food, it is the cement of
conviviality and the essence of “The Good Life”.
A Little History
It is impossible to cultivate grapes and not
end up with some kind of wine. Grapes ferment spontaneously, if just
left to themselves. The natural
yeasts present on the skins of the grapes, given a certain temperature, will
feed on the sugar and break it into alcohol and carbon dioxide. After a few
days, you have wine; it won’t be Château Lafite, but it will be wine!
Importantly also, wine is safe t o
drink and has many medical benefits (as recently rediscovered in the US!).
The ancient Egyptians already mastered the
art of wine making 3,000 years before Christ; the amateurs of the times had
probably as fine a palate as those of today! A little over two thousand years ago, the Romans established their
domination over the known world and brought their wine making skills to Gaul
and central Europe. The Romans needed wine for their legions, and as they
set up stability together with law and order, they helped improve the
practice of wine making. Wine thrives
in times of peace and does not flourish during wars! As the Romans
pushed the people from Gaul to start producing wines for their troops, they
found that the wines were showing remarkable qualities and flavors. In
fact, the Franks soon created wines that , thanks to the exceptional quality
of their soil, would outperform even the best Roman wines of the times.
Before long, Rome became envious and in the second century, the Emperor
Diocletian ordered vines in several large regions of Gaul to be uprooted and
burned, to eliminate competition. It took a couple of centuries for the
French vineyards to recover. The next part of the history of wine, from the
Middle-Ages to the modern era, will be essentially shaped and influenced by
France! At the end of the fifth century, the Roman domination began to
decline and got gradually replaced by the growing influence of the Catholic
Church, which also needed wine for its antiseptic virtues, as well as for
Mass and Holy Communion.
France, Mother of All Wines
France shows many cultural attractions and
Paris is the world’s capital of fashion but the soul of France rests in the
country.  It is above all a land of farming and an agricultural paradise for
plants, fruit, vegetable and vine, growing as much variety thereof as the
rest of the planet put together. This tradition goes back to the early
Middle-Ages, when the French
farmers and cultivators found their most significant support with the help
of the monks. Following the rules of the monastic orders, monks were driven
by charity to the task of feeding the poor. So, they joined in with the
workers in the fields, and since they could read and write, (monks also have
plenty of patience) they took notes and codified everything.
Modern
wine making was almost entirely designed and developed by the Benedictine
and Cistercian monks in Burgundy. And because France has the ideal
temperate climate and a very well adapted soil structure, the French were
able to grow the finest products. All the grape varieties that wine lovers
appreciate today were cradled and nurtured on French land, with the
exception of Riesling and there is plenty of Riesling in Alsace anyway.
Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Malbec, Sirah, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Sauvignon
Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, Grenache, Viognier, you
name it: they all originated somewhere along the French 45th
parallel! When the first European settlers found the East coast of North
America, they brought their favorite vines and crops with them and planted
them in the new soils, in spite of the fact that they found plenty of wild
native vines locally. They started to cultivate and grow vines and make
wines according to the European standards they were used to and liked,
against adverse and difficult conditions. Some tried to make wine from local
varieties
 of vitifera but could not get used to the strong foxy
flavor of the indigenous grapes. In the mean time, the supremacy of the
French wines reached its peak with Burgundy producing mythical vintages and
Bordeaux creating in 1855
 a classification system which became a model of
supreme efficiency and overconfidence. The legendary First Great Growths of
the Médoc are still today icons of perfection and reach astronomical prices.
Since 1855,
all First Growths have been chosen as benchmarks for style and quality for
more than two centuries. Georges Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and
generations of aristocrats and millionaires have collected these wines. In
1985, publisher Malcolm Forbes paid more than $150,000 for a 1787 Château
Lafite believed to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson; it remains the highest
price ever paid for a single bottle of wine. Bordeaux wines were sold out a
full three years in advance and France just couldn’t produce enough grape
juice.
Sudden Devastation
In 1860, the wine trade was booming. Both
Italy and Spain were beginning to create their first export wines;
California was in the midst of its first wine rush. This was the world a
tiny microscopic louse called Phylloxera Vastatrix
 was about
to strike and break asunder. The larva of this pest feeds on the sap of the
vine and destroys it completely in a very short time. There is no way to
eliminate this vermin and no cure could be found, even to this day. At the
time, when it caused the pulling up and burning of almost every vine first
in Europe, then in the New World, it seemed like the end of the World of Wine had arrived.
(To be continued…) |
