Sherry and Madeira production is elaborate and generative, but the end product can be inert. We may not step into the same river twice but the flow downstream is lazy.
Elevage is like the last act of a play that brings the drama of fermentation to its conclusion. Dwight’s depiction is too chaotic. Predication tends to be repetitive vis a vis grape varieties/regions/cru, but isn’t that because outcomes are broadly predictable?
Natural v conventional is a rhetorical strategy, whereas the shift to domaine bottling was a properly generative event. Individual estates found a way of escaping the demands of large scale production. Low SO2 is a good example of producers working things out for themselves.
What I think is interesting, again taking Chardonnay as the example, is that the points of escape - delayed malo/the slow pace of wild ferments - that come into play when our control is rolled back, tend to consistently produce better wines.
Production is certainly impelled from within by yeast and bacteria, but the surprise for me is the repetition in outcomes. Chardonnay made in barrel is an almost frictionless process yet you usually end up in the same precinct even with wild aldehydic detours. Soil is the hidden, regulating hand.
Isn’t wine as much about our desire as it is about our consumption. Writing can be part of this excess: an unopened original wooden case, the stem of a Zalto; the cold weight of Lafite 2000 in the cellar. Writing that irritates and seems irrelevant to some can feel like poetry to others.
The difficult shift from accumulation to pleasure. Nice work, Peter.
Too many seduced by a view or a chateau, when it’s the work of wine, certainly expensive wine, to render the invisible visible. Yours, John , Southend on Sea.
