Sorry for posting this here and there on the internet, but I find that different boards have a rather different feel to them and so if anyone bothers to comment on this post, I should hear very different ideas on different boards. I would love to hear criticisms of this pseudo-philosophy so I can smooth out any possible (indeed, probable) flaws in logic.
Wine is not a separate entity of our lives but is connected to everything that we experience hence we view wine from a certain paradigm. We will have some prime ideas, some essentials which we take for granted in wines and then build up a logical system around it which determines which wines and which styles we like.
My basic tenet is that wine must be fresh. Fresh is a difficult word, however, because it will be understood in different ways – just like all wine jargon. It might be easily misunderstood to mean that my wines must be light - but I do love Nebbiolos and Northern Rhones which hardly are light. But the examples of these wines which I like have hefty doses of minerals, acids and tannins which make my mouth water. So should I say that rather than fresh wines, I want palate-cleansing wines? Or savoury wines? Or food-wines? Or are all these terms tautological? It follows naturally from this basic tenet that heavy handed oak is out of the question for me as is over-ripe fruit (or, as it is too often called today, ripe fruit) or even raisiny fruit, low acidity, smoothness and in most instances high alcohol. But as this sort of wine is becoming the norm I find my tastes in wines and regions becoming more and more marginalized.
My current drinking, if I had a better selection of wines available to me, would be mostly German Rieslings, Loire Cabernet Franc and Chenin, traditional styled Burgundy and Claret (except that alcohols, to the detriment of freshness, have been creeping up) and Musar. Due to availability problems and general trends in winemaking I am however constantly on the lookout for such ”marginalized” wines as aged Slovenian Ribolla Gialla, unoaked Godello and Albariño, etc.
I am sure that there are still many wines made which fit my tastes, but at least with the selection available to me it seems as if all wines are made to a mold diametrically opposed to my tastes as understood through the paradigm I tried to note down above. Frankly, I am furious and more than a little dismayed at that. (So if anyone knows of a merchant in the EU who is willing to send to Finland and has a great selection of my type of wines, let me know, please!)
But this doesn’t mean I’m going to stop drinking wine. I find any new bottle exciting – whether it be my style or not. And this also does not mean that all producers should suddenly stop making the sort of wines they are making now to cater to my tastes. Rather I am hoping for more diversity or at least easier access to diversity.
Naturally, also, I do not mean to denigrate other paradigms of taste. As almost everyones starting points are different, I do understand than many peoples ideals of wine can be summarized thus: bigger is better, smoothness is ideal, prunes/raisins are delectable fruit flavours, acidity is overrated and no wine is overoaked but only underfruited. From other premises such a paradigm is logical and hence valid. But not for me, please! Let all tastes live, I say, so I hope mine isn’t about to die of extinction.
