When TJ was in Washington State last Fall, his travel group and the WA winemakers got into a very deep, philosophical and sometimes heated discussion about the current trend in the American wine palate – the “yummy wine” syndrome.
Some of the winemakers were complaining that winemaking these days has become too much about the fruit. They feel that the nuances of old world wine – tannins, terroir – have been lost. Other wine makers were saying, this is what the American palate wants right now and who are we to say that it is wrong? Life is hard enough these days, why should we argue with consumers who just want to be enveloped by their glass of wine at the end of the day?
I would say as a general rule that I am completely guilty of jumping on the yummy wine trend. Our lives are so busy and complicated that I just want to crawl into my glass and lap it up, not feel like I’m licking someone’s boot strap with a side of manure. I’m confident enough in my own palate that I’m okay with that. I also think this trend is happening because more and more of us start drinking wine BEFORE we eat. So a really dry, dusty, tannic wine will not taste good because it doesn’t have the fat of the meal to round it out.
So where am I going with this? Last night, TJ and I drank a bottle of the 2000 Guiseppe Quintarelli Valpolicella Classico with dinner. We opened it up to raise a glass to to Guiseppe, who died this week after a battle with Parkinson’s disease. He was a master wine maker, one of the best that Italy has had in recent memory. I found this quote about Qunitarelli wine on the Italian Wine Merchants website and I think it’s brilliant. It’s from the book Passion on the Vine:
“If normal wine is a paper airplane, Quintarelli’s wine is a spaceship. Every quality is overblown – its sweetness, its sourness, its acidity, its tannins, texture, flavors, smells – and at the same time, all the qualities work in tandem. The drink was an exercise in contradiction, and the question it brought up for me was: How, in the blast of confusion created by such exaggeration, could there exist perfect poise and harmony? It was a mellow symphony.”
Exactly. Or, to me, it was the perfect combination of yummy and complex. A wine that wrapped it’s arms around me, but made me work a little for the love. To me, this is the answer the the WA winemaker’s conundrum. Wine needs to be yummy. But it can’t be one-dimensional. It has to be reminiscent of its place, of its winemaker, of its grapes. Wine needs to transport us – the same way you can almost feel the Florida sunshine when you eat a perfect grapefruit, or remember an afternoon in Paris from an unexpectedly brilliant bite of gooey cheese. Quintarelli’s Valpolicella transported me.
Thanks Guiseppe Quintarelli, for the yummy, and thoughtful, wine.
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