How many kinds of wine are there? It’s a question I’m often mulling, in part because the answer always seems so appealingly out of reach. The idea that the query could be addressed merely by itemizing the hundreds of official geographic designations enshrined in appellation law (think Sancerre, Sonoma, or Chianti) is frankly laughable.
For one thing, that segment of wine that declines to submit to rules of this sort, thus escaping official categorization is not only enormous, it enjoys a certain cachet. Chalk it up to the number of talented but essentially ungovernable winemakers thumbing their noses at the whole calcified (as they see it) and confining appellation system, and bailing out of it. This doesn’t mean that wine of their sort is always preferable to that of their law-abiding counterparts simply by virtue its outlier aesthetic. It’s just that it’s so often . . . how to put this? . . . so much more fun.
Why this should be isn’t, I think, such a mystery. I put it down to the fact that many of us — wine professionals, amateurs and weekend drinkers alike — have ceased to think of wine as the plaything, the joy-giving toy, it essentially is and always has been. My thoughts reflexively turn in this direction each time I hear someone described as “a serious wine person.” Too serious by half, my guess.
There’s nothing new in this; wine has always had two faces. In the few places where vinifera vines were native or could be induced to thrive, indigenous wine cultures developed organically over centuries. The whole community participated in the rituals of production and consumption and wine was fully embedded in social life. Appreciated, certainly, but too everyday an experience to require much comment.
Everywhere else, wine was an expensive imported luxury good, restricted to the wealthy — in some cases confined to the small circles at royal courts. As cities emerged, wine flowed their way, finding in their diverse populations new opportunities to signal status and wealth. It was in these busy commercial hubs that the type known as the connoisseur first saw the light of day. Eventually, a whole industry of critique, classification, cellar masters, sommeliers, enologists, marketers and influencers took shape. So many genies from a single lamp!
It’s surprising how, in the midst of these evolutions, the places where wine was actually made remained, in many respects, backwaters. Glam isn’t a word you would have used to describe Napa, or Piedmont or Tuscany as recently as a few decades ago. And in most areas of production, wine culture remains stubbornly localized, isolated and parochial.
These are communities where many will never have tasted wine made by someone other than a neighbor, where wine meets basic everyday needs for amusement, diversion and relaxation. At their tables, wine may go down with no more ceremony than would be reserved for a boiled turnip. No offense, you root vegetables out there.
Reflecting on these things is a way for me to explain to myself why I enjoy drinking the kind of wine I do, these days: Playful would be one way to describe it.
But I leave it there, lest I become serious.