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+--- Thread: Fruit Bomb? (/thread-18524.html)
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- Grape Stuff - 05-16-2003
I've seen this description a few times in the past few weeks, and it seems to be a negative one. Am I reading that right? It seems to me that lots of fruit would be good! Is it bad in the context of being so strong that it covers up other flavors? Similar to being over oaked?
- Botafogo - 05-16-2003
GS, for MOST of the history of wine (up until maybe the advent of the 1982 Bordeaux) the POINT of wine was to transform mere fruit into something much more transcendent and interesting with aromas and flavors of leather, earth, meat, spices, minerals and, yes, "barnyard". Philosophers did not advise you to drink le Montrachet "on bended knee with hat in hand" because it was packed with "gobs and gobs of super concentrated pineapple, peach and melon fruits overlayed with slabs of toasted oak" but because a mere whiff of its bouquet was cause for meditation on nature, being and a small bit of hedonism in an otherwise cruel existence.
With the ascent of the US (where we are weaned on Coca-Cola and sugary fruit "juice" products) as the largest wine market in the world and with the cheerleading of a very well vocalized minority of critics, wines are now considered "great" if they taste like diluted Smuckers Raspberry Jam and are 16% alcohol.
Of course this is oversimplified but you get my point. We were overjoyed to hear from a customer yesterday who had just returned from four weeks in Italy that the sommelier of his favorite enoteca in Florence had put all the wines made by Riccardo Cotarella (the Fruitmeister General) and others such as Planeta Merlot and numerous Super Tuscans on the shelf where he sells Mostarda (a sort of fruit chutney spiked with mustard) and Jams and Jellies and labeled them "I vini Marmeladi" (Marmelade wines!!!)......
Many here (this is your cue Steve) will tell you "if that is what people want then why not give it to them?" but this ignores the fact that MOST people in most markets never get the chance to make a choice. We have found that, given a blind tasting of what we would call REAL Wine vs Fruit Bombus Erectus, most people immediately "get" the added interest and culinary versitality of wines that show more terroir and less Welch's Grape Juice and then vote with their wallets.
"We want the Funk, show us the Funk" (from a song by George Clinton and Funkadelic but the anthem of our wine buying trips to Europe). A good musical analogy to answer your question of how could it be bad to have to much fruit is that it makes the wine simplistic and one dimensional, much like "Bubblegum" music...
Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 05-16-2003).]
- Thomas - 05-16-2003
Yeah, a "fruit bomb" is a wine that slaps you in the mouth with abundant fruit-like flavors, which to me means it is out of balance. Why? Because subtlety and, as Roberto says, the earth should be represented in a wine. Finesse, less said-more delivered, and all that kind of stuff, are what makes wine interesting to me.
One more thing, Roberto said the U.S. is the largest wine market in the world--he is correct, but lest there be misunderstanding, what that means is that we have a large population for wine producers to target. Check the wine consumption figures, however, and you find that only a small part of this large population drinks wine regularly, at least once a week. So, this truly is the largest POTENTIAL wine market.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 05-16-2003).]
- Drew - 05-16-2003
Roberto, as usual, is right on. I look for funky wines and complex, elegant offerings to pair with food but every now and then, I crave an "In your face, big ole, Fruit bomb just to sip and enjoy, without food, mostly Aussies. Can't explain it, I just like 'em.
DRew
- ShortWiner - 05-16-2003
Right on, Roberto, though I'm not sure about the term "Fruit Bombus Erectus"--this sort of thing seems sort of flabby to me... [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/biggrin.gif[/img]
- Grape Stuff - 05-16-2003
Thanks, those are all great answers. I guess one of the things my palatte is still trying to figure out is the easiest way to identify those "other" flavors. Any tips on how to do that? Like Cassis. That is such a common descriptor, but I can't go to the grocery store and buy some cassis....can I?
- Botafogo - 05-16-2003
Yes, you CAN go buy a bottle of Creme de Cassis (get a gooooood one from France) and, while you are there, ASK the guys at the wine shop for something from the "Dirt Road" (meaning a wine from the funky side of the tracks)...
Roberto
- Grape Stuff - 05-16-2003
Really? do you buy that from a grocery store, or a wine shop?
- Innkeeper - 05-16-2003
You get it in a liquor store, whatever that is in your neck of woods. Every one of our 50 states plus DC has different laws on the distribution of alcoholic beverages. Cassis is a liquor made out of black currents. These are as different from red currents as red wine is from white wine; and not normally found in the USA. You can go into a store that sells fancy jelly and preserves and get some Engligh Black Current jelly or preserves. They will lock the taste into your memory.
[This message has been edited by Innkeeper (edited 05-17-2003).]
- Thomas - 05-17-2003
The point is, Grapestuff, to talk about the many tastes and smells that wine calls up, you have to have experience with those tastes and smells.
The reason wine reminds of so many things is that the combination of soil types, other plants around the vineyards, type of yeast used, and similarity in component make-up of many fruits, conspire to simulate smells and tastes and to call up memories of same.
The grape is among the most complex of fruits.
[This message has been edited by foodie (edited 05-17-2003).]
- stevebody - 05-17-2003
Well, as an old actor, I wouldn't want to miss my cue...
"Fruit Bomb" is used as both a pejorative term and, as R. Parker sometimes uses it, as a way to let his more basic-minded consumers know how to get what they want. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with a wine being a fruit bomb. But, as everybody has noted, wine is about a whale of a lot more than fruit. Despite whatever impression I may have given by insisting that people have the right to drink whatever they want without relentless criticism, my own preferences run to wines that express - and this is becoming more and more important to me as I get older - a BALANCE of all the elements: tannins, acids, fruit, minerality, surrounding vegetation (like the wonderful, bold flavor of dill that showed up in the L'Ecole No. 41 Schoolhouse Red a couple of vintages, caused by an adjacent plot of fresh dill), groundwater, airborne scents, types of soil, and on and on. Winemakers have a lot of leeway in what they can choose to play up or tamp down but the best wines I've tasted have all had in common a lack of calculation and simply letting the grapes and land speak for themselves. It's just that they sometimes say "fruit" louder than they do anything else. (See all of Australia)
Speaking of Cottarella, I met him at Esquin yesterday. It was, for me, like meeting Mick Jagger. I mentioned to him that I had read that his wines were routinely villified in Italy and he smiled and shrugged one of those great Euro shrugs that we Americans just can't pull off properly, and said that his wines sell as well there as they do here. Posterity will take care of his place in Italian winemaking so I needn't do that here. Yeah, he makes fruit bombs. He also makes the amazing Fobbiano, which expresses its terroir as well as any Bordeaux.
Anyway, "fruit bombs" sell very well here, for the reasons set forth previously: we ARE a nation of soda pop drinkers. We're a very young wine culture, to be fair to us. Italy and France are ANCIENT wine societies. Is it strange that they would know more than us? One day in the (I hope) not too distant future, the average American consumer will know a lot more about that Balance than about fruit. Until then - and this is the crux of everything I've said on this forum - it isn't kind or useful for me to inflict my own mild disdain on my customers - or on people on this forum - for liking fruity wines. I try to help them find better fruity wines and, whenever possible, move them into something that shows terroir, has actual character, and that Balance. Drink whatever you want without apology...but always remember that there's something more, different, and maybe better out there.
- Botafogo - 05-17-2003
>>Speaking of Cottarella, I met him at Esquin yesterday. It was, for me, like meeting Mick Jagger. <<
More like Pol Pot or the guy who brought the first rabbit to Australia if you ask me....
But the great thing about his wines is that, if you like the style, you can just buy the cheap ones 'cause they all taste the same.
We don't give people "disdain" we give them a choice...and an amazing number choose the funk.
Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 05-17-2003).]
- randery - 05-17-2003
Roberto, that would be PARLIAMENT Funkadelic, if you please.
- Botafogo - 05-17-2003
The last time I saw them tear the roof off the Mother (which has been a while...), the bill was:
Bootsy's Rubber Band
The Brides of Funkenstein
Parliment
Funkadelic
George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic
and they slowly built the band by just adding more people (the way the Talking Heads did on the "Burning down the House" tour). As Maurice White of EW&F used to say "How you gonna compete with that? They put a Goddamn ARMY on stage...."
do fries come with that shake? Roberto
[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 05-17-2003).]
- randery - 05-17-2003
Hey R, could be the funk free-for-all, 1978, Philly. Problem is, I can't recall the lineup. I think Sly appeared. A jug of Paisan was my juice of choice back then! Pathetic swill, great groove. Thanks for jogging what memory is left!
- winoweenie - 05-17-2003
Bucko....Does we allow these Mammy-J's to speak in Tongues???? 'Kaint unnerstand one flippin' word.WW [img]http://www.wines.com/ubb2/frown.gif[/img]
- Botafogo - 05-17-2003
Verne, you're hipper than you know: the album with "Burning down the House" was CALLED Speaking in Tongues......
- stevebody - 05-18-2003
I interviewed George Clinton for a magazine I wrote for back in North Carolina, in 1979. He laughed a lot, ws intelligent as heck, and gave me two passes for the show that night, which was the first P-Funk tour. One of the ruly GREAT nights of my life. We ended up playing poker and smoking cigars until 7 the next morning. I later got sogned copies of all his albums in the mail and an invite to visit whenever I was in Philly. Totally sweet, smart, TALENTED man.
- wondersofwine - 05-18-2003
Regarding black and red currants--I did recently buy a jar of red currant jelly to study that aroma and flavor. I earlier bought some black currant tea bags. The aroma is quite memorable once you sniff it. I have had cassis (the liqueur) or kir (drink mixing cassis with white wine, usually aligote) but not recently, so may have cassis again sometime to solidify my memory cells.
- randery - 05-19-2003
Least' we haint a bin writin' an a typin in tongues, WW.