The
way the trade talks about wine usually exceeds most of their customers’ simple quest
for pleasure. When I studied for my WSET Higher Certificate I’d hoped Burgundy
would offer some relief from red Dalmatian grape varieties, but learning the villages
of the Côte d’Or by rote was equally onerous.
Visiting the region for the first time in 1994, I realised Wine Regions of The World had spared me the detail, though I ended
that week in Beaune believing that the
difference between Les Teurons and Grèves was profound, and not just
trivial.
In
Tokyo, the city blocks are numbered, but the streets have no names. The plan of
blocks, roads and intersections is historical. Visitors to the city can’t just
bulldoze a route across the city or impose their own schema of street names. Finding
your way around Tokyo is more like gaining access to other people’s memories than
reading a map; you’re required to wrest the past from the present.
I
remember the literary critic, Maud Ellmann, advising in a seminar: that “The
only secret of a labyrinth is how you get out”. I wasn’t sure what Maud meant
at the time, but I do now. Tokyo stops being a labyrinth when you get in, and acquiesce to its alien
configuration of numbered blocks and unnamed streets. The secret of the
labyrinth is you get out by getting in.
When
I joined Billecart-Salmon, twelve
years ago, with my small haul of awards, most friends assumed I’d be making the
wine or, at the very least, blending it. Tasting through
vin clair for the first time was unlike
any domaine visit I’d ever made
before. The wines were unyielding and acidulous; and even though no one asked me
for a favourite, I volunteered “Verzenay!”
At the time it just seemed the most complete. I probed our Chef de Cave, François Domi, about barrels and malolactic
fermentation, but never mentioned blending. It didn’t occur to me that the very
particular experience I’d gained in Beaune
might not work in Mareuil-sur-Ay as
well. My botched attempt to bash a Burgundy-shaped entrance through Champagne’s
walls meant the invitation to join in with assemblage
never came.
Asking
questions about street names and disgorgement dates won’t stop you getting lost
in Tokyo or enable you to unpick tirage
from all the mutations of methode and
add-ons from the past. Neither the people of Tokyo nor our Chef de Cave see themselves as prisoners of tradition. From their
perspective we haven’t expended enough time and effort acculturating ourselves
to their ways of seeing and doing things.
Using
a single grape variety, the Côte de Nuits
scales the heights and plumbs the depths. Separating the good from the bad
producers in terms of how each talk about their own production is impossible. They
all share in the same vernacular: that the quality and personality of their wine
is a reflection of environmental factors, and in Terroir and the Côte de Nuits
(parts 1 and 2) I tried to describe these site specific differences within a
non-esoteric vocabulary. The interaction of soil hydrology, plant water demand
and altered gene-expression does, I think, usefully add to the discussion on
the link between wine quality and the region’s appellation hierarchy. These
differences, far from being petty, became important to the Cistercians, and in
Cultural Terroir I argued that their continuing relevance to us is, in part, a
further example of secular life being shadowed by its non-secular past.
I
used an evolutionary metaphor in Cultural
Terroir to describe the way in which wine production divides incessantly.
Barrels and the fragmented ownership of land encouraged comparison, and a new
realm of environmental influence became visible to producers. Just as Hooke’s
microscope illumined a hitherto unseen world of plant cells and compound eyes,
so relating one barrel to another revealed a hidden domain of geological and
hydrological influences; even though they weren’t referenced as such.
The
microscope was revolutionary, whereas Burgundians’ framing of environmental
influence only succeeded in strengthening already existing ties to the
earth. Those fortunate enough to own a few hundred ares in both les Suchots
and les
Malconsorts believe the difference between the two vineyards is ineffable,
cast in stone – Bathonian and Bajocian – and when combined with
climate, inimitable. Of course, if the differences between wines were only a
matter of geology, then everyone’s les
Suchots would taste more or less the same, which isn’t the case. Geology is
only part of a much bigger picture: one that escapes the tight fit of the frame
the Burgundians habitually try and squeeze their wines into. If, as is often
suggested, the resemblances between an individual producer’s wines are greater
than the similarities between neighbouring wines from the same lieu dit, then we might conclude that
extrinsic human interventions are just as important as intrinsic environmental
factors in determining wine style. But this is a hard concession for Burgundians
to make. The difference between man’s inputs and nature’s inputs is that the
former also carry the prospect of duplication.
The more ground we concede to ourselves, the less inimitable wine appears
to be. What is produced by our efforts may be reproduced elsewhere.
Champagne
has no such problem with reproduction. When a new winemaker joins a House there
is normally a period of acquiescence during which past practices are repeated
and mastered. The variables in Champagne are so rampant with possibility that
you need to immerse yourself in the prevailing orthodoxy before trying to
change anything: blending, dosage and in-bottle fermentation pile intervention
upon intervention. François Billecart says it takes twenty year for a Chef de Cave to attain the requisite level
of competence and trust beyond which she/he can begin evolving blends for
posterity.
The
repetition of procedures; the recombination of villages according to historical
protocol; together these actions engender a sense of reality and permanence in
a realm of chaotic possibility and limitless choice. Reproduction yields the
grounding and the conditions from which the Chef
de Cave can affect change; it can provide both a destination and a point of
departure. The labyrinth only gives up its secret to those who enter and stay.
During
my induction at Billecart-Salmon I’d
wanted François Domi to offer-up answers that would dissipate ambiguity, and
cut through the crap of globally disseminated terms and anachronisms. But immersion historicises both actions and
descriptions. Causality becomes compromised, and effects emerge at the end of
weakly conjugated chains of events. Lineages, like that of Jean-François Coche,
have added a very human structure of assembly and amplification to the
differences they detected between their wines. Hooke’s microscope enhanced specific
images by magnification, but we can’t make similar claims about the empirical efficiency
of barrels and bottles; it’s all too messy. Dividing production into small
units encourages comparison, but the characters that appear in the wine are, in
part - through the effects and interactions of reduction, oxidation and suspended
solids – generated by the barrel. A good microscope improves image resolution, where
a new François Frères barrel adds
to opacity. I just don’t think that we can say with confidence which aspects of
Coche-Dury’s Meursault are given and which are reified by past generations of
Coches trafficking the passageways of the labyrinth in the same direction. Fetishism
isolates and augments a part of the body and then symbolically substitutes this
fragment for the whole in which it is constituent. Saying that Jean-François’ “mineral-style”
shows “typicité” is like recognizing
a Meursault family’s fetish, and then pursuing it as your own. Other villagers
and drinkers will be turned-on by different obsessions. We’re not troubled by the thought of a Chef de Cave purposely subduing and
exaggerating different characteristics of a blend, because assemblage is continuous in Champagne; but similarly decisive
interventions become visible in Corton
Charlemagne too, if we care to take
a long enough view of production.
In
the 1980s, a young Gary Farr left Australia to work at Dujac. The transmission of knowledge at Dujac (and Billecart) requires
that you listen to what’s said, and follow what’s shown. Gary did ten vintages
at Dujac, and still makes
“pilgrimages” to Morey St Denis; as
does his son, Nick.
Back
in Geelong, the Dujac influence is clear
in the perfume and colour of the Farrside Pinot Noir. Last week, I placed the Farrside
2009 in a line-up of Morey St Denis
2009s to prove to myself that the family resemblance between Gary’s wine and Dujac’s Morey, and Dujac’s Morey
and the other village wines, was commensurate; which it was.
I’ve
drunk old Geelong Pinots, but like many New World wines they want for that
rapturous second coming. Twice this year, I’ve tasted Farrside 2011, which meant
the 2009 was all the more intriguing for me. I remember hosting an “Old-New-World
Pinot Noir Tasting” and being shocked to discover how fixed and frozen in time
the wines seemed, as if the insertion of the cork had stopped the clock.
Ageing
is the pathway that turns wine towards its other destination in the future. The
Jesuits said: “Give me the boy, and I will return you the man.” Actions
performed early on in a process have transformative effects that only become visible
later in life.
If the Jesuits gave us "the man" in the past, then Blade Runner gives us a woman in the future. The
Los Angeles of Ridley Scott’s film is a paradox: unrecognisable but derivative.
Genetically modified slave replicants live in and for the moment; their
journeys beginning and ending in the same place, just like the “Old” New World
Pinots at the tasting. Early in the film we’re introduced to Rachel, a replicant woman, and the perfect
humanoid copy. Rachel’s identity, based on implanted memories, is delusional. Gary’s
and Rachel’s stories overlap because the veracity of their respective pasts
guarantees their futures. If the Farrside 2009 was a perfect simulation, then
it should have tracked the Moreys,
and started to transcend the continuous present tense of replicant existence towards
a future.
If
I struggled to separate the Farrside 2009 from the Moreys - the copy from the real – it may have been because the
generous climatic conditions in Burgundy that year were just too Geelong-like,
or vice versa. Was the Farr wine really
on a sweetly lubricated slide towards a finale? Or was it simply the
case that the Burgundy had become stuck along the way? I couldn’t tell. Those
who’ve seen Blade Runner will recall
that the main symptom of Rachel’s “more human than human” simulation is self-doubt.
Los Angeles 2019 is cluttered with good and bad copies.
Rachel’s identity becomes problematic when she discovers the photo she believed
was of her and her mother together is actually of Dr Tyrell’s niece. This
realisation defines Rachel’s identity negatively: it is the place previously
occupied by the photo, experienced as loss and absence; but it becomes, through
the rest of the film, the lacuna within which her new identity takes hold. In a
moment of reversal, Rachel rejects the identity she was given by Tyrell, and then she gives herself to Deckard, the Blade
Runner.
Rachel
can change because she’s such a good copy. As I suggested, the young François
Domi and Jean-François Coche proved themselves very adept at reproduction. Billecart’s NV blends twenty-seven
villages and takes ten years to make, if you measure the time between
disgorgement and the age of the oldest reserve wines. You need to prove yourself well-practiced
in rebuilding the edifice created by past generations before you’re trusted to make
any revisions to its structure; otherwise you’re just groping in the dark.
Perfect simulation can be the starting point for change, whether you’re a replicant
or a Chef de Cave.
The
principle of reflexivity, as proposed by the sociologist William Thomas, is:
that “the situations that men define as true, become true for them”. Burgundians
believe environmental causes beyond the winery are the main source of variation
in their wines, and these variations provide the proof of this connection. It’s
a seductive but circular argument. It holds out the barely resistible prospect for
some of our lying side-by-side with nature; and there being wines which are
better and closer depictions of the world of rocks and rain beyond the cellar.
But in all of this talk of encounters we need to keep reminding ourselves that
wine is the murky point of contact with that which lies outside itself. I used
the analogy of a microscope to make a point about how changes in the scale of
production can make visible an already existent world. But winemaking throws us
a kaleidoscope rather than a lens to buff. The “luminance of the outside”, to
use Foucault’s phrase, which comes with these new exposures is reflected,
coloured and captured in patterns that we either like or don’t like. I just
happen to be partial to Coche’s intricate ordering and staining of the crystals
- spur pruned massale chardonnay, an old press, heavy lees, new oak, and long
elevage – but I accept that others might find his style too stark. We can
disagree about preferences, but I don’t think there is a further argument to be
settled by invoking prejudicial terms like typicité.
Tabula rasae don’t usually take the form of messy, drawn-out production processes.
If
we amalgamate causes we can avoid some of the difficulties associated with
exclusion and prioritisation. Difficult concepts like “mineral” might prove easier
to handle if we think of them as multifactorial, and see its presence in a wine as an indication that various causes have been bundled together in sophisticated
and studied ways. Winemaking begins to look far less passive when we consider
its innovations and reproductions though time. I don’t believe all those centuries
spent in the vineyard and cave were
really about removing all the incriminating evidence of human involvement, like a gang
of thieves covering its tracks. We adopted a particular way of talking about
wine and we’re still adapting the proofs to fit the terminology.
There
is nothing pernicious in the Burgundian’s prioritising of environmental causes.
In Cultural Terroir I claimed that
the Cistercian’s pursuit of universal cause reinforced the power of the
“outside” so forcefully that it’s stuck with us through to this day. Human
influence is, as discussed, imitable, where God and natures work isn’t. But duplication
can be an immensely useful tool. Simulation creates its own labyrinthine realties
through repetition; it brings intelligibility and order, and thus provides a stable
medium from which the distinctive and generative differences that separate Lafon and Coche Dury can begin to coalesce.
Much
of this essay has been about the difficulties of travel: from Burgundy to
Champagne; across the labyrinth; or the philosophical difficulty of moving from
the “inside” to the “outside”. John Updike said the problem with travel is: “It’s
always you that unpacks the suitcase”. Nothing I have written here changes
anything: the differences between Coche Dury and Lafon remain the same. Twenty-five
years ago Gary Farr left Australia, and when he repeats that same journey today
it’s a different man that unpacks the shirts and boots onto the bed. The story
of Farrside is about rocks and sunshine, immersion and repetition; but it’s also
a tale of individual self-fulfilment. The Old World is particularly good at
giving us accounts about the former, where the New World inspires us with the latter.
If I feel a solidarity with Gary that allows me to run our two stories
together, it’s because we both found ourselves, as Deleuze would have it, somewhere in the middle of things.
