Sense of Time and Place – Txakoli and Daffodils

Txakoli – not one place, but three different regions in the Basque Country of Northern Spain where white, red and rose are produced in a fairly separatist fashion.  For today’s exercise, the whites – which are often produced in a semi-frizzante style with a touch of carbon dioxide left in the bottle – are what I am interested in.  Bright, citrusy, bursting with acid and minerally focus, the whites produced from the Hondarrbi-Zuri grape are often locally served in glass tumblers, two fingers worth at a time.  We’ve managed to sneak in a few glasses of the spritzy stuff over the past couple of weeks as temperatures have reached into the fifties on more than one occasion.  But the time isn’t right yet, so back in the wine closet my stock of Txakoli goes to hibernate for a couple of months more.

Narcissus, or the daffodil to you and me, begins to reach through the soil and towards the sky this time of year in New Jersey.  The green shoots serve as a subtle hint that Spring is around the corner.  Sprouts of green along the driveway are rooted in specific sense of time and place – basking in an increasing amount of sunlight and anticipation – carafes and wine glasses will be resting on the garden table sooner rather than later.  It has been an unseasonably warm winter so far, but more snow, wind and Arctic air will re-emerge before our daffodils bloom in the greener months.  And we will welcome them, with more than a dram of Txakoli in hand.

Photo Credits - Tiffany Heater, Teroldego & Tomatoes

We Prefer Natural Wine Because They are Real

Excuse my brevity, but I ran a little under 7 miles tonight and have a few books on the wines of Portugal on my lap while watching the Indiana/Michigan men’s basketball game.

Tonight I came across a post from Charlie Oken as he chimed in on the latest kerfuffle over natural wine.  Tom Wark posted his latest thoughts on vitis naturalis on his site (and for the record, I have almost zero respect for anything that comes out of Wark’s mouth or keyboard since he compared wine wholesalers to Nazi’s awhile back) which led to a response from Hardy Wallace on his site – Dirty South Wine.  Oken, like so many wine writers, misses the point when it comes to understanding why a growing sector of the wine market prefers place over process.  For those of us who prefer to drink wines that are reflective of place and are produced in a manner that involves minimal intervention, our value for these wines isn’t based solely on method – the wines need to taste delicious.  I have had many wines made with little to no intervention that taste terrible, while others are some of the most memorable bottles I’ve ever come across. However, for those wines that taste delicious and are made in a responsible, non-interventionist fashion – they represent not only a process that allows a wine’s voice to speak, but they offer something that is real.

What do I mean by real?  I mean there wines out there that are mind-blowing examples of what’s great about non-manipulated food products.  They fall into a category that is much bigger and more important than taste alone – they represent a method of production that is anti-process.  And by process I mean processed product.  When I teach wine classes, I often use the analogy that when foods such as doughnuts, cookies, juice from concentrate and by-product cold cuts replace their freshly made, and more authentic predecessors, these pre-packaged food-like products represent more factory than real ingredients.  I, along with a large number of natural wine lovers, believe, though “flavor” and “texture” might be gained by manipulating grapes in the vineyard and juice in the winery, a connection to what’s real is lost – our feet are no longer on the ground.  Instead of viewing a painting in a museum, we are now understanding it through a 17 inch high definition computer monitor.  Though shiny, crisp, clear and lucid, it’s no longer the same painting.  We believe that same “there there” is lost when wines going through the funny business of manipulation.  These wines aren’t always delicious, but those that are represent something that far too many people in this world are losing touch with – an experience that cannot be duplicated, wrapped in plastic and mass produced.  And that my friends, is what the best wines in the world stand for – an unmistakable sense of place that provides an eye opening respite from banality that floods too many wine shops and restaurant lists.