Shall We Talk About Wine Again?

 I know, I am talking about this too much. The fact is that I am watching the world of wine, of wine information - more or less competent, more or less boorish to the limit of vulgarity and insult - leaving me perplexed by reading certain accusations, most of the times unfounded and of which one does not have any competence about the subject, things said “just to say something in order to recriminate one's presence”. So boring! A pathetic show, sad and useless, where everyone is talking about everything - that is, about nothing - everything but wine. Nevertheless they are all convinced to talk about wine, maybe confusing one's own vanity, a supposed competence, religions, the need to be noticed while shielding oneself behind a fundamentalist position - therefore idiot and blind - shouting words out just because they must be said with the hope of considering oneself “important”. Everyone convinced to state the ultimate verdict while believing others will certainly drink it as a revealed truth.

 They talk about schools of thoughts, wine making religions, wine rules and laws, about who is better in making it - wine, of course - about the ones who had the gift of enological omniscience, who has been enlightened while walking the road to Bacchus, who fiercely believe his own wine is the very best, whereas the wine of others is, in the best case, the absolute evil to be fought. I try so hard, I truly try to do that, only using my possibilities - of course rich of limits and ignorance - but it seems impossible to me, I cannot really understand all that much ado about nothing. Everyone trying so hard to put in front of their wines - both producers as well as those silly megaphones - words, suppositions, conjectures, supposed superiority, most of the cases never supported by objectively and proven facts, far before talking about their wines, as if they should justify or hide something.

 All that makes me think about the wisdom of past times, a sign that, after all, these behaviors have always been part of the debates of all times: excusatio non petita, accusatio manifesta. This locution, is translated as excuse not required, evident accusation, or more precisely, if you don't have anything for which you should be sorry, there is no need to excuse yourself. Some wine producers, some fierce supporters of a position - of any trend or any belief - look like those kids who, caught in the act of stealing cookies, have the cheek to say they were not guilty. For what reason, at the moment of tasting a wine in presence of a producer, he or she must continuously saying it is a wine made in a certain way, meeting specific wine making criteria, belonging to specific wine making religion, and, as such, must be classified in a certain way, before pouring in the glass and letting me taste the wine, denying my right to form my own idea, the idea I can get by listening to that wine?

 I have always said this and still say it: I don't give any importance or guarantee to appellations - while I give absolute importance to the territory - certificates, religions, ideological and fundamentalist positions, fashions “coming and going”, in particular when they are shown off with a violent and vulgar way, in order to “hide something else”. It is an insult both to my intelligence and to my skill of wine taster, qualities that, both and with no fear, I am aware to be very limited. I don't care - in any way - a wine is natural, organic, biodynamic, conventional, technical or belonging to any other category, and all the words said about this “nothingness”, just to impose one's mediocrity on others, makes everything dull and useless. Sadly useless. Shall we understand quality is not something set by law - as a new law is being issued, you find a way to break it - and that morality and honesty are qualities which cannot be imposed but are an intimate part of persons and their ethics? A honest producer does not need any law or rule, and has no interest in imposing anything on others in order to protect what he or she does: it is the wine which can speak for itself and for the producer.

 Behaviors and factions quickly becoming new fashions, sometimes brought back to new life, when - at their times - they were openly denied and rejected. Fashions getting a striking success and have frequently the result of distracting the attention from wine while keeping debates alive and making fierce proselytes. Positions becoming hypocrite and absolutely sad, in order to fiercely support the wine belonging to the category of “the heart” even in case it is of evident bad quality, but however becomes the ultimate masterpiece just because it is the son of the trendy “revealed truth”. I don't like, in fact, when they put in front of wine quality the category to which it belongs to and the production technique - no matter what it is, with no exception - while presenting this aspect as a merit or, even worse, the justification to certain evident faults or excesses. Likewise, to revive certain wine styles, of disputable wine making quality, considered in the past unanimously of bad quality, calling them with romantic names while presenting it as “pure”, “traditional”, “healthy” and “sound”. It is too far obvious everyone is interested in a healthy wine and in a viticulture respectful for the environment and ecosustainable, with no exception, including and in particular myself.

 All this makes me really smile when I think about my grandfather, who has always made white wine by fermenting the must with the skins - all of the skins - while keeping them in the cask until the first racking. His wine had a deep golden yellow color and a pretty robust body if compared to a white wine. All he used in the vineyard was sulphur and crystals of copper sulfate dissolved in water, whereas in the cellar he used sulphur pills to be burnt in wine tanks and rackings. Nowadays, such a white wine, produced by a long maceration with skins, would be defined as orange wine, and - for the products he used - included in the category of natural wines, while noticing my grandfather's wine has never been oxidized nor turbid. Indeed, a turbid or oxidized wine upset him quite a lot, defining the produced as incapable, besides using quite “strong” dialect adjectives that, because of the limit of a language, would not be fully understood and properly translated in English. Unfortunately, time and the natural course of life, does not allow me to ask my grandfather his opinion about the fact his wine was a natural orange wine. Who knows what he could think about such a definition: my grandfather has always simply called the fruit of his vineyard “wine”.