Newsgroup: it.hobby.vino
Titolo: Jancis Robinson: sante parole

Vi posto questo articolo uscito nell'edizione del weekend del Financial
TImes (Jancis Robinson ci scrive tutte le settimane).
Finalmente qualcuno di importante punta il dito contro questi vini
muscolosi, super-alcolici e imbevibili!
Per aprire la discussione: io sono d'accordo sul 90% di quello che ha
scritto. A voi la palla.
buona lettura e perdonate l'inglese
ciao
bacca
In praise of drinking
Is there anyone out there still making wines for drinking? And I do mean
drinking, as in taking a good old mouthful and swallowing it - not sipping,
nor tasting which is a different thing altogether.
Let me tell you what I enjoy most about wine. I like washing down a meal
with mouthfuls of the delicious and stimulating liquid that is the fermented
juice of the grape. I love the miraculously varied taste of different wines,
and the way they go so well with so many foods, partly because, unlike so
many other drinks, they are not sweet.
But wine is changing and, to my mind and palate, becoming very
much more difficult to drink - especially with food.
Since an increasing proportion of wine is now drunk without food, especially
in anglo-saxon countries, it has become sweeter-tasting, even if this is
unrecognised by most consumers. But the chief problem is that over the last
five years or so it has also become so much stronger. When I started writing
about wine in the mid 1970s many a red bordeaux contained only about 10.5
per cent alcohol - and anything over 12.5 per cent was exceptional. Today
wines less than 13 per cent alcohol are rarer and rarer, while an increasing
proportion of labels confess to alcoholic strengths of 14 or 15 per cent -
about the same as sherry.
Time after time I open a bottle of wine, especially but by no means
exclusively from the New World, and marvel at the intensity of the colour
and flavour - only to find that I really do not relish a third mouthful. The
wine is simply not appetising and refreshing enough. It leaves a hot, porty
taste in the mouth. And then I spy the explanation, the tell-tale
mid-teenage alcoholic percentage on the label. (Alcoholic strengths are
mandatory on wine labels within Europe and I am eternally grateful for them,
even if sometimes slightly sceptical about their accuracy.)
One British importer has just had a consignment of Pahlmeyer
Chardonnay, one of California's most admired, seized by the authorities
because, while the label says 15 per cent, the accompanying documentation
confesses to its 16 per cent, thereby pushing into the next band of excise
duty.
The brewing lobby in Britain has even been arguing to the Exchequer that
wine consumers should be penalised in the next budget expressly because wine
has been getting stronger while, thanks to lager's increasing dominance, the
average strength of a pint is weaker than it once was.
All of this means that, unless we wine drinkers want to risk head-spinning
and a hangover, we are having to cut down our consumption - which means
markedly fewer of those delicious mouthfuls. This seems to me a sorry state
of affairs. I already drink quite enough water as it is and, while there is
nothing to object to in water, it simply lacks what wine can deliver - not
just sensual pleasure but a sense of history, geography and human
achievement.
So why has wine become markedly stronger over the last 20 years? Some of the
reasons are outside the control of the wine producer. Global warming
provides one obvious explanation. Hotter summers mean riper grapes mean more
sugar to ferment into alcohol. The advent of effective refrigeration and
irrigation has converted many parts of the world once too hot for wine
production to vineyard. In the mid 20th century most wine available in
export markets came from the temperate climes of Europe. Today we import
wine from much hotter parts of Australia, South Africa and the Americas.
Then there is the fact that yeasts are becoming more effective, likely to
convert, say, a gram of sugar into more alcohol than they would have done 20
years ago. And the increasing and increasingly precise use of sprays against
rot and fungal diseases means that growers can afford to keep grapes on the
vine longer, being under much less pressure to pick before mildews and rots
ravage the crop.
But this is not the whole story. Over the last 20 years, and particularly
over the last 10, wine producers have deliberately left grapes on the vine
longer and longer. This phenomenon started in California where there has
been a quasi- religious worship of 'hang time', grapes left in the sun until
they start to shrivel to an almost raisin-like state. The sugars in the
grapes are certainly concentrated, resulting in much more alcoholic wines
than would have been the case if the grapes had been picked sooner. The
resulting wines, regarded as the height of fashion by many, are sometimes so
strong - 16 or even 17 per cent - that they may discreetly have water added
to them to 'bring them back' or 'humidify' them to a more acceptable
alcoholic strength. Other producers even go to the trouble of having the
alcohol removed by expensive physical techniques such as the spinning cone.
When an article I wrote about this phenomenon was published in
California recently I was amazed by the quantity and quality of feedback.
Growers, almost all asking not to be quoted, were incensed that by being
pressurised to leave grapes on the vine
longer while being paid on weight, they were effectively
sacrificing income. "Wineries are simply waiting as long as possible to pick
fruit so they can add water at the winery and extend their gallons," claimed
one.
Even more interesting perhaps was the reaction of several
winemakers of which this reference to the importance of earning high scores
from the two most influential wine publications in the US, Robert Parker's
Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator was typical: "Most modern winemakers are
striving for balanced vines in their vineyards, and they love wines with
fruit, acidity and balance. But like chefs who love to serve dishes with
pig's feet or tripe, there are only so many times you can watch them not
sell before you get the point. For better or worse, marketing departments
and owners require good ratings from their winemakers, even if those ratings
come at the expense of dead fruit, low acid and excessive alcohol."
There is even a company, Enologix based in northern California, which claims
to have a virtual formula of wine constituents which is guaranteed to result
in a rating in the all-important 90s (out of 100) from these arbiters of
American taste in wine.
And here we get to the nub of the problem: the difference between tasting
and drinking. Big, alcoholic, concentrated wines do indeed stand out from
the crowd in a tasting of scores, perhaps hundreds, of samples - and such
wines are therefore the most likely to attract the highest ratings. But this
is absolutely no guarantee that these are the wines any of us will actually
want to drink. Many of the professionals who wrote to me after the
California article reported
instances of disparity between the results of even their own
tastings and those bottles that were drained most rapidly at the table
afterwards.
The way the wine world is going may be fine if we are to turn into a planet
of wine tasters, but please, do not drive us wine drinkers to extinction.
--------------------------------
Inviato via 
http://arianna.libero.it/usenet/

 muscolosi, super-alcolici e imbevibili!
Sono d'accordo in buona parte, anche se non punterei il dito tout court
contro tutti i vini ad alta concentrazione di alcool ed estratti: c'è
vinone e vinone, ed i vini che riescono a mantenere l'equilibrio anche a
fronte di una notevole concentrazione sono comunque bevibilissimi.
Se ti ricordi il mio Amarone Fornetto '95 di Accordini che ci siamo
tazzati a casa tua con i formaggi, a fronte di 16 gradi alcoolici e di un
peso estrattivo non indifferente il vino si faceva comunque bere molto
piacevolmente.
Della categoria "vinoni" sabato sera penso di avere bevuto uno dei pesi
massimi: L'Ermita '99 di Palacios (Priorat), vino che già a versarlo
sembrava sciroppo, dalla consistenza quasi masticabile. Eppure equilibrato
e straordinariamente buono, un grandissimo.
Ciao,
  L.
-- 
questo articolo e` stato inviato via web dal servizio gratuito 
http://www.newsland.it/news
 segnala gli abusi ad 
ab...@newsland.it

TImes (Jancis Robinson ci scrive tutte le settimane).
Accordo parziale con la Robinson.
D'accordo contro la sommelierizzazione del pubblico bevitore, anch'io
dopo un breve periodo di sperimentazione trovo noiosissimo degustare
per degustare. Preferisco degustare mangiando. Un vino da solo non e'
mai cosi piacevole come un accordo azzeccato. Perche allora privarsi
di questo 50-100% di piacere in piu che risulta dal servire un vino
con un cibo scelto per esaltare il vino. Non e' questo il principio
fondamentale della degustazine, degustare in condizioni ottimali?
Ebbene, senza cibo credo che siamo in condizioni piu che imperfette.
Non d'accordo sul ridurre la questione all'alcool. No ai vini a 15
gradi, se questo alcool supplementare viene da metodi di arricchimento
artificiali, come e' il caso tipicamente a Bordeaux, zona che non da
uve mature ogni anno (ma quando le da'...) e dove le rese medie sono
ancora oggi relativamente alte.
Ma un elevato grado di alcool e' indicativo o di concentrazione
fraudolenta o di una viticoltura curata, con uve a rese basse
vendemmiate mature.
Un vino naturalemente concentrato in alcool, se e' equilibrato, non e'
un vinone. Direi addirittura che non e' facile sentire il grado di
alcool, e che fra un vino a 15 e uno a 12 indovinare quello piu forte
alla cieca non e' evidente. 
Le mie obiezioni valgono anche per coloro che trovano certi grandi
vini tedesci di gradazione troppo bassa. L'alcool e' un supporto per
gli aromi, un rivelatore di terroir, e basta. Non entra ne' nella
determinazione dell' equilibrio del vino, ne' influenza il profilo
aromatico. Basta che sia presente, e poco importa che sia a 7 o 15. E'
il resto che conta.
Se la natura ci da vino a 15 gradi, allora ricorrere a tecniche
speciali per ridurre l'alcool mi sembra ridicolo e fraudolento.
Semmai, cambiamo le regole doganali, basate su tecniche vinicole di 50
anni fa.
Anch'io considero Ermita come un grande vino, anche se non lo berro'
piu di 1-2 volte nella mia vita. Il controesempio e' Pingus, vinone da
concorso ultralegnoso costosissimo che da meno piacere che tanti vini
a 10 Euro.
Non sono d'accordo sulla questione del riscaldamento del pianeta, se
abbiamo piu vini super-alcoolici, e' perche li importiamo sempre piu
da zone calde e che erano gia' calde prima di produrre uva.
Non sono d'accordo sulla storia dei lieviti piu efficaci, semmai e' il
contrario, le esperienze dell'annata 2003 dimostrano che spesso i
vecchi poveri lieviti naturali lavorano meglio dei baianus selezionati
che si sono ritirati a pochi gradi dal traguardo, con conseguenze
disastrose per certi viticoltori.
D'accordo con Jancys sul vino da punti, sul vino Parkerizzato (ma non
da punti anche lei?). 
Mike
Mike Tommasi, Six Fours, France
email link 
http://www.tommasi.org/mymail

 da punti anche lei?).
Boh. Sul settimanale dell'FT non da' mai i punti ma scrive tre righe di
commento...
ciao
bacca


 tazzati a casa tua con i formaggi, a fronte di 16 gradi alcoolici e di un
non credo faccia parte del tipo di prodotto a cui si riferisce JR...!
ciao
bacca


 muscoloso da 90/100 che non un vino elegante e fine ma non muscoloso
Beh, la gradazione di alcuni vini in passato di base molto alcolici (i vari
nero d'avola, aglianici, primitivi, cannonau) mi invece sembra tendere a
scendere.
Luk
Luk

[CUT]
Grande post, Mike.
Un solo contrappunto: per me ci si può anche scolare una bottiglia, con
assoluto piacere, senza ricorrere necessariamente alla ricerca
dell'abbinamento; non è scontato il fatto che ci si perda il 50% della
piacevolezza, o almeno mi pare limitativo affermarlo. Purché il vino regali
emozioni, beninteso.
--
PierEno