Choosing Wine - Overview
It must be possible to speak and write dispassionately about wines,
but I have never read anything on the subject, or engaged in any
conversation about wines, into which opinion, mild or vehement has
failed to enter. Indeed, it is sheer delight to provoke the expert by
proffering for his opinion a wine that one knows to have failings and to
watch him struggle manfully for a sentence or two to find virtue in it.
He has made so many wines himself that have not come up to hopes and
expectations that for a moment or two he is reluctant to call it
"Muck!", which it may be.
The world produces about 4000 million gallons of wine a year, of which
perhaps 1 percent could justly claim to be fine wine, and only a small
proportion of that truly great wine. It is, therefore, not surprising
that in the lifetime of most of us a bottle of one of the world's truly
great wines never arrives.
But there is so much good "standard" quality wine made and of such
variety and subtlety of flavor and bouquet, in Australia as well as in
Europe, that real pleasure need not wait on a Chateau Margaux or a Veuve
Cliquot.
Part of a pleasurable experience is to enjoy wine in company, and this
involves talking about it. The purpose of this book is to provide a
vocabulary on wines so that discussion is made more lucid and "palate
memory" aided. It is not enough to say of a wine, that it is "very
nice", or "I like it". Why does one like it, or not like it? Why is it
different from another? How can one's wine education grow without the
words to express it?
Wine, and the enjoyment of it, is a subject on which the greatest
variety of opinions are held and expressed. Most of us ever will have
only a little knowledge, which, even if dangerous, lends enchantment to
the occasion. Champagne was not meant to be drunk in silence, nor a dry
red from the Burgundian hills to be taken without comment on its
virtues.
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