thesprezzaturist

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Tag Archives: Bordeaux

Eau Naturel

08 Wednesday May 2019

Posted by juleslewis in Wine

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Bordeaux, Claret, natural wine, Wine, winetasting

I’m here for a winetasting. Set up by a friend in a crusty old gent’s club to presumably add some context and gravitas to the wines on show. ‘You’ll love it’, I recall him saying, ‘It’s right up your street’ – thankfully he didn’t say alley. It’s true, I generally enjoy listening to old relics of the wine trade banging on about Claret, as what they often lack in knowledge they make up for in amusing anecdotes. But this one is different, and I silently curse my (soon to be former) friend while absentmindedly gazing at a clumsily executed seascape and wait for the florid, farm-fresh, magenta faced, red-trousered windbag to stop talking.

As this appears not to be anytime soon, I smile, to feign interest, and settle back into the coma inducing embrace of a faux leather chair, fingering my glass of ‘not so good ordinary claret’ fighting the unripe, unresolved tannins (akin to licking the floor of a long abandoned outhouse) my disappointment growing as I’m told the wines are available in large format bottles and come with their own presentation box – presumably to die in.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the wines of Bordeaux – just not these, and while the windbag extols their, non existent, virtues to his captive, comatose, audience I look for a plant pot to pour mine into, although sympathy for the plant prevents me. Dumbstruck by the bombast and troubling certainty with which Tristram Shandy’s Uncle speaks, I am secretly in awe of his Farage-esque absolutism and the kind of extreme self-confidence that leaves no room for doubt, nor brooks interruption. 

I overlook his use of the words ‘pedigree’ and ‘breeding’ and even his positive spin on Brexit, but when he moves on to the subject of Natural Wine and manages to dismiss an entire movement – something previously done by Jonathan Ray (in an interview with Jason Yapp, who, rather surprisingly, failed to ask him to qualify such a sweeping assessment) and Bruce Palling in the Spectator – my hackles rise, particularly as he outlines his, ill informed, views on organic and biodynamic practices whilst eagerly extolling the merits of the appallingly adjusted and astringent plonk he’s peddling.

Now I must admit to disliking the term ‘natural wine’ as it implies that other wines are unnatural, and is probably an insufficient way to describe a complex ideology that includes organic and biodynamic viticulture, minimal handling and intervention, fining and filtration and extremely radical, yet differing, views on the use of sulphur dioxide. 

Contextually, the movement began as a counterpoint to the fruit bomb driven behemoths beloved of Robert Parker, seeking a return to something more artisanal, both in the vineyard and the winery, with the ultimate goal being to make wine with no other ingredient than the grapes themselves.  

Obviously this requires some firm ground rules: no factory farming, all vineyards must be organic or biodynamic and hand harvested only – machine harvesting however sophisticated damages the vines and compromises cropping – use of indigenous or natural yeasts, no culture corrections, no enzymes, additives, acidity regulation, no additional sugar (to increase alcohol), tannin, sulphur addition no higher than 7mmg/l, no fining, no filtration and absolutely no heavy manipulation such as; reverse osmosis, cryoextraction, spinning cone, centrifuging, rapid finishing or ultraviolet C irradiation – bet you didn’t know all that stuff went on did you?

And that’s just scratching the surface of an industry that regularly uses; tartaric and citric acid, potassium sorbate, gum arabic, carboxymethyl cellulose (to prevent crystals forming) dimethyl dicarbonate (to kill microbes) a dash of megapurple (to increase colour and boost mouthfeel), activated charcoal, potassium ferrocyanide, copper sulphate, pectolytic enzymes, bentonite clay and a soupcon of polyvinylpolypyrrolidone! Now these may not be as dangerous as climate change denial or driving at 30mph in a 20mph zone, but they may go some way to explaining that hangover!

However, if your goal is to take wine back to the Stone Age then you are not going to please all of the people all of the time. I admit to not liking all natural wines. Some are quite frankly volatile, full of brettanomyces, brown as Victorian furniture and, even in youth, smell like a teenagers bedroom, or an old aquarium, and taste like licking the outside of a wet canvas tent. When they are good they are very very good and when they are bad they are horrid. 

A word of advice though before you open up Pandora’s box. Do not judge natural wines against other wines, judge them against others of their type and always on their own terms. In a world of, increasingly, bland homogeneity they make a refreshing change for people with open minds.

Which brings me back to Mein Host whose mind could only be opened by invasive surgery. ‘Right, that’s stumps’, he says, ‘Lovely to chat’ – although he hadn’t – and makes his way into the evening to await the arrival of his sedan chair.

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“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”

22 Sunday Sep 2013

Posted by juleslewis in Art, Wine

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Art History, Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignon, Manet, Titian, Venus of Urbino, Visual arts, Wine

untitled (2)

Its loveliness increases…..” I know that Keats wasn’t talking about wine, or indeed art, in Endymion – but he could have been, couldn’t he? The wine trade is fond of its suggested parallels with art, books such as: “The Art of wine”, “The Art and Science of Wine”, “The Winemaker’s Art”, all imply that an appreciation and understanding of both, are indicative of good taste. Add their respective histories together with the prefix “Fine” and who could argue? Is wine art, or artisanal – lets give it a little test.

“I know what I like and I like what I see”

This is art appreciation at its most basic. The enjoyment of looking at something, just for what it is, allows art to be easily assimilated into popular culture. Apply this to wine and we may say that many wine labels are aesthetically pleasing and that a great deal of wine is bought on the sight of the label alone.

wine labelTherefore it can be stated that both Titian’s “Venus of Urbino” and Some Young Punks “Passion has Red Lips” fit the statement. I am not dissing either when I say this.

Art has, at its most minimal, a four step programme, obviously there is a great deal more to art criticism than this, but we need speed and flow. Description: Stick to the facts, who made it, what is the subject, when was it made. Now we can enjoy it without context, to contextualize it more we need to ask how it was made. Analysis: We are still collecting facts, but now we must pay attention to the core elements such as line, shape, form, colour, texture, proportion, balance, rhythm, pattern, recognition. It is easy to apply this analysis to wine so I wont patronise you by pointing out which analytical elements could apply – see earlier post BLIC. Interpretation: What is happening, what is the artist trying to say? Be creative, don’t be afraid, this is the fun part. Judgement: Give an opinion, does the work, or wine, succeed or fail? Honesty is essential here, how to you feel about it and are you finished.

untitled (3)

“Our principal aim is to start a process of questioning”    John Berger

This is an oil painting, probably 19th century (you can tell by the uniforms) entitled ” Execution of the Emperor Maximilian”. The painting is in three distinct sections reading from left to right, three figures on the left, a group making up the central section and a figure on the right for compositional balance. Two of the figures on the left have dark skin, white shirts and no hats, the central figure has pale skin and is wearing a sombrero – we can safely assert – with reference to the painting’s title that this is Max.  The firing squad, making up the central third, have their backs to us – in homage to Goya’s “Third of May” – thereby ensuring their anonymity and absolving them from blame – they are the blunt instrument. The figure on the right is facing us and calmly loading his gun.

A little more info on the piece: Maximilian was a figurehead, in name only, of the Second Mexican Empire, and appointed by the Emperor of France Napoleon III. He was executed, along with two of his generals, when the French troops pulled out in 1866/7 – Manet painted it in 1868/9, after the fact. The controversial element is that not only was the execution seen as unjust, but could have been construed as murder. The figure on the right of the painting is a direct likeness of Napoleon III, inferring that it was he (by loading the gun) who sanctioned the death of Maximilian. We the viewers are culpable because we bear witness to this atrocity but do nothing.

Is it aesthetically pleasing? Probably not. Is it successful? Most certainly.

IMG_2237

This is a red Bordeaux, Ch Patache d’Aux, 2005. The label shows a disproportionately large black carriage or stagecoach (patache), drawn by three small white horses – in ancient Egyptian profile – stylised to imply six. The bottle is large, a double magnum, with two glasses – possibly Austrian (like Maximilian) – all are situated on a silver plated salver with a small corkscrew to the left. In the background there is a reproduction of a 16th century artwork, of Germanic origin, and a lamp with a base of Asian provenance. The wine in the bottle had a deep purple core showing minimal browning towards the rim. Dominated by Cabernet Sauvignon, at around 70%, the wine showed pronounced cassis fruit with some lighter hints of strawberry and cherry, wrapped in a light pullover – not cloak – of velvety oak (only 25 -35% of the barrels are new). It was judged an extremely attractive wine, ready to drink – if accompanied by food – with ripe and very accessible tannins. Well balanced and delicious – good rather than great – it is now sadly gone, only the bottle remains.

Aesthetically pleasing? Of course, its a great package. Successful? As a cru bourgeois definitely.

Where am I going with this? Much as I love art and wine I do not consider them synonymous. Some attributes may be considered similar, but art can reflect and bear witness to events, whereas wine may only accompany such events and serve as an aide memoire. Whilst I have talked of beauty, I have failed to mention further aesthetic criteria such as: truth, genius, civilisation, form, status and taste. Status and taste may certainly be applied to wine – the former is a prerequisite in wine snobbery, the latter is learned and remembered. This leaves connoisseurship, the specialist knowledge or training related to an understanding of taste, the word comes from the French word conoistre meaning “know”. When studying anything beyond a basic level, a specialist vocabulary and a deep knowledge are essential. These should never be used as a means to exclude others, after all, they may like what they see on the surface.

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