Awsome Winemaker or War Criminal, You Decide!

[RAD]

Great thread, though I'm not certain that I agree with the basic thesis that Italians are "Americanizing" via France, all Italian wine into merlot. I'm not in the industry, so perhaps I don't see it.

But I do find the notion of "original" and "source" philosophically disturbing, and analogous to the structuralism vs. post-structuralism rants that were all the rage when I was in grad school a few years back. Ideas such as "original" and "source" are easily deconstructed; change is the only constant.

The ancients recognized that wine was constantly changing; the Latin writer Columbella noted in the 1st century that farmers experimented with new varieties, some of them from neighboring Greece.

More recently, take chianti classico as an example: according to the Oxford Companion To Wine, Baron Bettino Ricasoli in 1872 recommended that sangiovese be the predominant grape in chianti, displacing canaiolo; however, it wasn't until the end of the century that this recommendation was widely implemented. The DOC regulation of 1967 codified things a bit more, noting that the white grapes trebbiano and malvasia were to comprise 10-30%. Finally, the DOCG regulations of 1984 stipulated that white varietals be a minimum of 2%, and permitted the addition of non-traditional cabernet sauvignon up to 10%. So-called purists can find solace in the fact that chianti classico can now be 100% sangiovese; but do these same purists know that 125 years ago, it was canaiolo, not sangiovese, that was the king of chianti?

It would seem, then, that Italy is doing its best to keep traditional vinification alive, as other DOCG designations would indicate. But is the preservation of indigenous varieties mutually exclusive from experimenting with new ones? Such a view, I believe, borders on the xenophobic.

Castello di Ama, I'm told, makes an oustanding merlot (Vigna L'Apparita), while at the same time producing (in my opinion) a wonderful chianti classico. Fattoria Le Pupille bottles a great cabernet (Saffredi), while at the same time producing a powerful Morellino di Scansano.

If we are to take this "keep it original" mandate to its logical conclusion, then we'd better uproot 99% of Napa Valley; after all, cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay belong in Bordeaux, not on the Left Coast (sorry winoweenie, no more Diamond Creek for you!). And that nice gewurztraminer that I picked up at Joseph Phelps best be destroyed, as it is clearly thousands of miles from its Alsatian roots, and as such is suspect.

Finally, for John and Jane Smith, sitting in a trattoria near the Ponte Vecchio sipping a glass of Vitiano--who's to say that's not Italy and all things Italian to THEM? I don't think that the Viettis and the Gajas and the Altesinos will go bankrupt as a result.

--RAD

[This message has been edited by RAD (edited 10-02-2000).]