The Inside Story from Italian Wine Merchants

Shifting Perspectives

looking at vineyards from both sides now

I recently finished Malcolm Gladwell’s “What the Dog Saw,” a collection of his essays from The New Yorker. This collection focuses mainly on perspective—the other perspective.  In the titular piece, Gladwell examines why a feisty dog may be calm for one person and uncontrollable for another.  He writes his essay by looking not at the owner’s but the dog’s own experience to help us understand how we can better relate and communicate. In this way, Gladwell flips perspective from the customary to the unordinary, or what I have called “the other” perspective.

Prompted by this unusual article, I took Gladwell’s line of examination and applied it to wine. I think it’s fair to say that a vineyard will react differently to the different people who care for it.  I look at the producers who work with biodynamic wines, and I can tell you that those winemakers are obsessive about their relationship not only with the vineyard but also with everything and everyone surrounding the vineyard.

This holistic sense must be what Movia’s Aleš Kristancic means when he talks about capturing the positive energy of “happy chickens” who “wear sunshine glasses and smoke Marlboros.” It’s Aleš’ surprising, yet very effective, way of saying that everything we put into our bodies brings an energy with it. If we can nurture positive energy, we will receive the benefits, and if we’re cultivating grapes, this positive energy means that we’re honoring the vineyard and its surroundings as we grow. Further caring for all things around the vineyard explains how Aleš’ Sauvignon Blanc offers Mojito-like levels of mint on the nose, along with generous basil. It’s what grows around the vineyard, and it becomes part of the terroir.

As a typical skeptic, I’m a bit surprised to find myself to be writing about transfers of energy and happy chickens—writing about a vineyard’s being a living thing with its own fickle personality feels like describing the fictional island on Lost. However, my positive experiences, visiting local herbalists when sick here in Hong Kong, as opposed to using only western medicines, as well as undergoing some tremendous Chinese tea crash courses have supported my growing interest in all things natural. I suppose you could see it as a change in geography causing a change in perspective.

That said, I don’t see myself making any massive life changes; for example, it’s highly unlikely that I’ll give up McDonalds and go vegan anytime soon. But my conversations with Aleš, my remedies from my herbalist in Aberdeen, and my exposure to Gladwell’s “other perspective” have certainly given me plenty of reason to be more open minded about the vineyard, the producers, and those unusual perspectives. And, above all, it’s helped me appreciate how the great winemakers are often the most considerate communicators with nature, happy chickens and all.

A Tale of Two Bottles

a summer spent with people and wine

As a writer and a misanthrope, I spend much of my time alone, brooding, typing and occasionally, writing. But this past summer, I’ve been unusually social. I attended dinners, parties and weekends away, all pleasant obligations that require me to purchase and proffer a bottle or six of wine. This past summer, the social summer of 2010, has been defined by two specific bottles of wine: Di Conciliis Falanghina 2008 and Valle Dell’Acate Il Frappato 2008.

Neither of these bottles is particularly chic—they both come from southern Italy, areas windswept and arid, not lush, romantic regions like Toscana and Piemonte—so I wasn’t buying to impress a wine snob. They’re not expensive; both retail in the low $20 range. They’re not crafted from well-known varieties; rather, both Falanghina and Frappato are little-known indigenous grapes. They’re not big, fruity, international wines; some people might not easily understand either bottle. Not endowed with the qualities given to most hostess gift wines, the wines I chose are small, delightful, slightly eccentric and cheap—and I love them.

I’m not very good at describing wine in customary wine discourse. I could say that the white Falanghina has a white peach and lychee palate and a bouncy acidity or that the red Frappato has a lovely bright cherry color, a nose of raspberries and a charming, lissome body, but I’d sound disingenuous. That’s not how I think of these wines. It’s now how I remember them, and it’s not why I cart them by the case out to Fire Island.

Instead, I’d say this: the Falanghina always reminds me of a really pretty girl who is a lot snarkier and smarter than you first thought, and the Frappato always makes me think of eating berries on Central Park’s Great Lawn with the love of my life.  Regardless of how I think of the wines—with analogies to fruit and flowers or in metaphors of people and experiences—I’ve enjoyed spending time with these wines, and I’ve liked them enough to introduce them to the people I love.

Summer is ending, and even a curmudgeon like me starts to feel nostalgic. My nostalgia too has become embodied in these bottles. Though the Falanghina may have begun in Campania and the Frappato in Sicilia, they’ve become forever attached to my summer here in Manhattan, on Fire Island and in Vermont. Though they’re wines, they feel like friends. I’ll miss them when they’re gone.