“We believe wine is born in a vineyard,” the winemaker mumbled pouring his liquid into a glass. The wine was flat and characterless. Like all the other wines of the estate. For the first time I wondered what the phrase “born in the vineyard” really meant.
These days commercial wineries making unremarkable products are — on paper — indistinguishable from artisans making unique wines. Are their vineyards so terribly bad ? The common phrases winemakers utter to tourists and journalists have actually nothing to do with reality. What’s born in the vineyard is grapes, which can be any quality. Like with human beings it’s simply not enough to “give birth” to wine, it must be placed in the right conditions, brought up.
A boring, envious, frightened neurotic wine with a miserable life plan is also “born in the vineyard”. How was it born? Did the pregnant woman drink, did she eat right, did she listen to music (and what kind), did she look at the paintings of great masters?
Surely wine is not born in the vineyard. Wine is born in winemaker’s head: as an idea, a concept, the sum of experience and personal perception, multiplied by what the winemaker wants to give to the world.
The overly-marketed concept of “family winemaking” is often not an advantage for quality. A son who blindly follows his father’s recipe — without rethinking, without introducing his own ideas -— is worthy of regret.
These days “expressing the terroir” is not enough of a justification for wine existence: two different winemakers will express it differently. The concept of terroir has become so blurred that one could call it anything — from steep slopes to sandy hills. It’s not about the hills. One will stupidly be kicking the gates of “traditions”, the other will make wine with clear understanding that someone else will actually have to drink it. And not just someone, but quite certain people.
“What the market wants” is the most terrible definition of the winemaking goal: dead eyes without any right to imagination. One should not expect shivers and taste buds’ revelations. That “market” is a herd of stupid sheep, a cheap hostel with 12 bunks in it.
They say that great wine is born only from healthy grapes. Do they, really, or is it a cliche? Tell this mantra to overexposed berries somewhere in Puglia: they give concentrated tanned liquor, and yet, you can call them very healthy. An insult to the old vines of the region is when they try to “improve” wines based on the trends from the 90s and reactionary marketing strategies.
Entire wine regions make wines that “sell well”. They, too, were born in the vineyard. Commercial success is by no means a sign of “quality,” another buzzword that no one knows the meaning of. And the meaning is subjective. You gonna drink that wine: not me, not him, not her. You!
Winemakers are just the same potential victims of “creative crises” as any other artists. You can make wines “for the market” or you can (most often, painfully) look for your own path. Some manage to go pain-free, easily and simply. Others have no idea how.
Wine is not born in the vineyard. It’s born in the head of the winemaker. As an idea, as a concept, as a thought.
As an impulse.