It all started with my interest in ancient Chinese philosophy and martial arts
practice, Méi Huā Quán and Tài Jí Quán. At that time, in Italy and in the
so called western world, any Chinese martial art was simply and
generically called Kung Fu, (more properly, Gōng Fu), although it
would have been more correct to say Wŭ Shù. More specifically, it all
started with my interest and passion for tea. The precious leaves of
Camellia Sinensis, in fact, are mentioned in many books and writings of
ancient China, a plant – and a beverage – having deeply marked the culture
and philosophy of those lands and their people, including martial arts. I, in
constant search of what, in terms of tea, my country, Italy, could have never
been able to give me – it was the first half of the 1980's – was forced to
look elsewhere in order to quench my thirst of knowing more about tea.
There was not Internet yet – or, better said, the famous telematic network
already existed for many years, but it was not yet the mass phenomenon that it
has become today – therefore establishing and finding contacts was not exactly
easy or at the reach of a click. All I could do was using the phone and
sending letters everywhere in the world – many, many letters – and hoping
someone replied. You are probably wondering what ancient Chinese philosophy,
martial arts and tea have to do with wine. Certainly, for the majority, it has
nothing at all or just a little to do with it, for me, to tell the truth, a
lot. It was in fact thanks to my spasmodic interest in tea – the continuous
search and tasting of tea of increasingly value and rarity – to educate
me to sensorial analysis. A discipline requiring – among the many –
commitment, study, passion, strictness, method, concentration, infinite
practice: just like Wŭ Shù or any other martial art, with no exception.
Tea sensorial tasting is – in many aspects – more complex and vast than that
of wine because it introduces elements totally unrelated to the beverage of
Bacchus. It is not my intention to diminish the greatness of wine – in its
entirety and for all that it represents – since its sensorial tasting is
obviously neither trivial nor simple, but I think tea is definitely more
complex. I admit, however, the years spent practicing and studying tea
sensorial tasting have greatly determined the way I taste wine. The same can be
said for all the other things that are part of my sensorial interests,
including beer, coffee, extra-virgin olive oil, cheese, spirits, food and
cooking, more generally, life as well as the senses that are part
of life and make it alive. An infinite journey giving the ephemeral
illusion of knowledge and in which, in reality, a growing, desolating
and unbridgeable ignorance is always and skillfully camouflaged, most of the
times rendered invisible by an unsuspected, silly and pathetic pride.
Sensorial tasting – of wine, of anything else capable of stimulating emotions
and senses – strongly determines what we perceive in a more or less conscious
way and what it represents for ourselves in the inner of us. This evidently is
a choice – conscious or not – clearly determining the way we consider or
listen to wine and things. I am aware not everyone is interested in
listening to wine or things – moreover, it is so exquisitely linked to
our concept of knowledge and curiosity – and for some, the
gratification of drinking a glass is more than enough. Including the fact for
some it is even enough celebrating oneself through wine and what one wants it to
say. These are in fact choices, including the choice, so to speak, of
being happy with just so little. Sensorial tasting, of course, is not an
exact science because it is inevitably conditioned by the subject
performing it, by ability and experience, sensitivity and training of senses,
psychological and intellectual attitude, as well as culture, memory and talent.
And honesty. The honesty of sincerely listening to one's own senses without
allowing alien stimuli and entanglements to spoil them.
Sensorial tasting is a journey to beauty. During this journey, you do not
always meet what makes you think about the beautiful – and here I
specifically refer to faults – but it is also thanks to what you consider ugly
if you get a better understanding of beauty. After all, one can consider
something as good or beautiful – including wine – when one recognizes it as
such. This presupposes, in fact, the critical exercise of comparing what is, or
we believe, ugly with what we consider beautiful. Without the knowledge or
existence of what we consider ugly, it would not be possible to define
and recognize what it is beautiful for us. After all, a world made only of good
wines would be even boring. A utopia, of course, but also an unattainable
perfection because it is impossible to achieve it objectively because it is
strongly conditioned by the subjective perception in each of us. Beauty is part
of culture: for everyone it takes and represents a distinct and different form
of expression, therefore unquestionable.
Sensorial tasting is also the beauty of a ritual – a ceremony – which is
always repeated with the same suggestion and, in some respects, mystery.
I refer, of course, to sensorial tasting done by means of the so called blind
method, that is without any prior knowledge of what it has been poured in the
glass. Because the beauty of sensorial tasting is just this: being in front of
a stranger and being forced – so to speak – to watch, observe, listen to it,
understand and deal with it, trying to discover and unfold its secrets, its
story and those of the one who produced it, its land. An experience in which
you can never be superficial: attention and commitment are the key to
everything. It is a never ending journey and, probably, without return, because
when you listen to the wine through sensorial tasting, you will not come
back and look at it as you did before. This is also the beauty of sensorial
tasting: the endless story of a timeless book, in which what really matters is
the emotion of the new being renewed, the beauty of feeling the reassuring
sense leading to new horizons. And this is absolutely true for everything, not
just wine.
Antonello Biancalana
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