Thursday, May 2, 2013

Wine as a living thing

Wine as a living thing? Well, yes, it is born and it dies and it can get sick and it has personality, but it can't pay taxes or make babies (on second thought, sometimes it can make babies ;)



I mean it's a living thing in the same sense that the Constitution is a living document: It is always changing over time.

And before we castigate only poor Mr. Pinot Noir for its ephemeralissitude, its changeability, let us realize that most wines change over time. Long-keepers will climb, slowly, into greater balance and harmony, their fresh fruit flavors subtly morphing into non-fruit flavors, and finally they begin the long, majestic march into decay. A sprightly white wine will settle down and come together in its first few months in bottle, and if it is a short-keeper (think Viognier, or Prosecco), its freshness will fade into blah within a year or two. And every wine with big tannins will get smoother as those tannins find each other and chain up into lengths so long that our tongues can no longer detect them (think about that! getting bigger, in order to become invisible!)

And some wines are like the screwballs uncorked from the pitcher's mound: they change in unexpected directions, and sometimes identical bottles will diverge from each other and then come back together, inexplicably.

This is why we must view wine scores as approximate snapshots in time. It is why a 92 point wine might seem unimpressive when we drink it, whereas an 82 point wine might blow us away before or after it's scored.

Is there volition in Evolution? Can we do anything but be amazed, and keep trying to learn?

Happy Spring!

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