We came to the third category identified by Stephen Millions, that of wine-wood. A type of wine that corresponds to a world taste standard, as long as the wood is well dosed.
Wine-wood has dominated the scene for a few centuries and is the result of the convergence of random factors and technological insights that have led to a universally accepted codification of quality parameters for modern wines.
The random factor consists of theadvent of wooden containers. Gradually, in the cellars, they replaced amphorae, jars and tubs made of stone and masonry. The insight, in realizing that these new containers were not just vessels but real winemaking machines that were involved in the maturation of wine . They improved it while transforming it taste-wise, standardizing its salient characteristics by making wines of different origins and vintages more similar. The conferred longevity extending the season of its marketability in no small measure.
Wine-wood, a world taste standard
It is no coincidence that the primeval land of wine-wood is Bordeaux and that that is the place where the market has always been in the hands of the négociant, that is, people attentive to precisely those characteristics of organoleptic and temporal stability that guarantees a wine (well) aged in wood.
But it is equally not coincidental that wine-wood has become a world standard. First try for anyone who wants to measure themselves, in the old as well as the new worlds, against international markets. One taste standard which in the last thirty years has rapidly moved down the rungs of the quality pyramid, prompting the most astute mass producers (read: Australians and Chileans) to rediscover ancient tannin-enrichment techniques (now called “chips“, Sante Lancerio, praising their use, called them “turkeys”) using them to produce wine-wood at low cost and with enormous market potential.
I Italian producers became aware of this trend very late, and when they became aware of it. They jumped into it with The enthusiasm (and naiveté) of novices immediately aiming to “beat” the market dominators, namely the big Bordeaux châteaus. Some, like Sassicaia, have even gloriously won their battle. But it is so obvious that “our people” are so lacking in units, equipment and organization that the war can never even dream of winning it.
Italian wine-wood, in short, with the sole exception of the two strongholds of Brunello and Barolo, moreover in a perpetual state of renovation, appears as a large mosaic in which each individual tile shines in beauty, color and intensity of light, but the overall image continues to appear blurry, of those in which everyone can see what they want to see.
Article from “RuvidaMente.com,” courtesy of author Stefano Milioni: The 6 Faces of Planet Wine – RuvidaMente by Milioni [/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
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