(Excerpted from my keynote address to this year's wine bloggers conference in British Columbia.)
Wine is an
accelerant. It lifts the spirit and loosens the tongue and at least in the
beginning inspires and energizes. Wine provides human beings with a glimpse of
the eternal for which we have yearned for from the beginning, and still do. On
a more prosaic level, wine greases commerce and what’s now called social
interaction - it makes business deals more palatable and occasionally gets you
laid – but best is the exponential speeding up of social standing. Wine’s one
of the best ways yet discovered to re-write one’s story, or to recreate an
entirely different one. Money acquired in unremarkable or unsavory ways may be
instantly laundered in stainless-steel tanks of chardonnay rapped with arteries
of glycol and in pricy barrels of cabernet whose indelible stains cover a lot
more than aging capacity.
The idea that you
can take two steps away from destructive
and enriching real estate development in a distant place and claim devotion to
nature and “the land” in this one shows how easy this transformation is. Cooler
clothes, a studied recitation of wine descriptors and cultivars, a pretended
knowledge of and affinity with ageless European culture and, “Viola, I’m a vintner!”
We all know the tired cliché, “It
takes a large fortune to make a small fortune in wine,” truer today than ever
maybe, but if you believe it then why not back out of it with the Balzac-ian
one: “Behind every great fortune there is a crime”? Not all are based in real
crime, of course. That term can still be applied to bribing politicians, but
what about just entertaining them lavishly and pouring money into their causes
or their spouses’ “non-profits” that aren’t really?
What about misrepresenting a pile of rocks to get a plot zoned for a house in a vineyard, or acquiring some of your neighbor’s land with an aggressive lot line adjustment? Are those crimes? Yes, if tacky ones. And what about getting tradesmen to effect a landscape adornment and then not paying? What about finessing effluent reports or, for that matter, technically disassembling an entire wine and putting back together minus the defects and calling it what you will?
What about misrepresenting a pile of rocks to get a plot zoned for a house in a vineyard, or acquiring some of your neighbor’s land with an aggressive lot line adjustment? Are those crimes? Yes, if tacky ones. And what about getting tradesmen to effect a landscape adornment and then not paying? What about finessing effluent reports or, for that matter, technically disassembling an entire wine and putting back together minus the defects and calling it what you will?
There’s more to
wine writing than chronicling the seasons of the vine or Ridel-diving for
exotic olfactory associations. However intriguing these subjects may be, some
of the adverse public reaction to wine criticism in general – what’s perceived
as its snobbishness and lack of utility - might derive from a widespread if
subliminal adverse reaction to terms like “forward” and “plush” and other fatuous
stand-bys.
Wine writing can
be a lot more than tasting notes and puff pieces about corporate chateaux and
the cycles of the vine. The unhappy effects of monoculture are evident today
and in evidence in much of California, better than houses and malls, granted,
but with the ever-increasing effectiveness and cost of high-end trellising,
thousands of miles of steel cables bind gorgeous landscapes from San Diego to
British Columbia and, when concentrated in places like Napa and Sonoma, can be
seen as figurative stays keeping the lid
on both development and the ever-expanding demands of big growers and corporations
for water, tax advantages, and wine-related enterprises that can become poor
substitutes for an uncluttered view and true nature’s casual, soul-healing
variety.
Indeed, the
question of environmental impact of wine, including the fine sort, is
inadequately – often never – addressed by professional critics and the journals
they write for. Obviously those organs are for people hungry for quality,
insight, and glimpses into the personalities of those who make the stuff and
envision ways to push the limits of terroir and technical manipulation.
But most such
publications ignore the impact of what is a unique form of agriculture, at
least in terms of making and marketing a beverage that has no real nutritional
benefit for the imbiber, however gargantuan the temporary psychological one.
Wine’s wonderful if ancillary enhancement of actual food is a value all its
own. But the body does not in any medical sense actually depend upon wine, yet
it is treated in many circles with an almost religious devotion, as if biblical
transubstantiation no longer requires the blessing of the host.
Those who fail to rave in print
about the practices of wine are in turn raved against as blue-noses or
ingrates, the point being that there is room for a holistic approach to wine,
both its production and its imbibing, that some leaders in the industry
embraced long ago and still do. Unfortunately they’ve inadvertently provided cover for big
producers who feel no real devotion to the land beyond its service under the
plow, most notably corporations making the usual green noises while seeking in
every covert way imaginable to get around them.
Aspiring wine
writers should look at the whole glorious, imitable culture of wine, as
seductive and often rewarding as it is, and at its human costs as well. Also
the money tree that shades it all these days. There are the usual cliches, like
“You need a large fortune to make a small one in wine.” Well, that’s often
true, but not always. As relevant of course is old Balzac’s maxim: “Behind
every great fortune is a crime.” This is true in spades if crime includes
influencing politicians to approve potentially catastrophic development and
subverting changes in product content and labeling that could extend or save
human life and also maintain land that bears some resemblance to the America that
formed us and our children.
Comments, etc.:
conawayjim@gmail.com
To see my bio, click on: http://cjonwine.blogspot.com/2013/02/heres-concise-bio-for-those-who-have.html
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