De gustibus

There are many reasons to drink wine: it is intoxicating, delicious, and probably healthful. There are fewer reasons to write about it. For me, one of the reasons to write and read about it is that wine is a form of esthetic experience I understand personally. Much as I love music, I can quickly get lost in a serious conversation about its higher forms and nothing can spoil a good day at the art museum faster for me than someone who assumes that I noticed the brush strokes. Of course wine making is not art so much as an advanced form of agriculture and pretentious discussions of wine are even more off-putting than pedantry about sculpture. Still, the debates in the wine world about, say, the importance of terroir, track debates in esthetics pretty closely. Much of this debate has been fired up by the documentary Mondovino, which is dedicated to showing how global capitalism is leading to an homogenization of wine styles, destroying the uniqueness and diversity of the wine pool and extending the American empire through agents like Robert Mondavi and Robert Parker. Not surprisingly, the movie is praised by opponents of the World Trade Organization and trashed by much of the American wine establishment, in very heated discussions that quickly involve Iraq, fast food, the European Constitution, and about everything except a recognition of how much this duplicates discussions in other esthetic fields. This debate hit me recently as I was lucky enough in the past week to compare two different wines recently given me by friends. One was a simple cabernet sauvignon from Washington, the Chateau Ste. Michelle 2000 – a delightful straightforward expression of pretty fruit in a medium body, with refreshing tartness. The other was a blockbuster in the international style from California, a 2001 St. Clement Oroppas (80% cabernet sauvignon plus merlot and cabernet franc) – which I found full of many loud flavors, confusing, overpowering, almost a stew of oak and sweet spice and dark fruits. This second wine is rated 93 by Robert Parker, is difficult for ordinary people to buy, and costs four times as much as the first, which is given a nice bourgeois 88 points by Parker. They are both made with skill and vision by knowledgeable and respected winemakers. But the vision behind them is very different. The Ste. Michelle is meant to brighten the end of a normal day and the St. Clement is meant to be a big deal, the difference between a pretty country church and a wedding-cake cathedral in a big Italian city. Stephen Tanzer recently observed in his “International Wine Cellar” (May/June 05): “California winemaking consultant George Vierra has proposed establishing a new category for these big boys, which are always above 14% alcohol, the traditional ceiling for so-called table wines. He calls them ‘social wines,’ because they are successful at wine tastings, and as topics for conversation, but far less suitable at the dinner table.” If you want to see the future Mondovino is against, the St. Clement would show you. But if you’re having dinner, I recommend the Ste. Michelle, which is widely available and doesn’t require connections to score.