Sunday, May 27, 2007

Weather or Not?

Tiger Woods has won another World Golf Championship last week at CA Championship in Doral. He has so far won 13 out of the 24 WGC events since it was renamed in 2000, which was previously known as World Cup of Golf. Despite Woods talent, he does not capture every single event he plays, not as frequent as Roger Federer did in Tennis. The reason for that (not because he is less talented than Federer, however, I think the reverse is true), is he has to contend with the biggest force on earth - weather. As a simple physics logic will give you, things that are further away from your body, smaller the object, is harder to control and manipulate. Golf requires a big physical movement but the hitting object is as small as it targets, which demands tremendous accuracy and physical ability, not to mention the talent required and a lot of imagination. For those who think golf is a waste of land with few golfers chasing a small ball in a big field? Dude! you are missing one of the most challenging game in all games! In golf, you will never play the same situation twice despite the same course being played. Apart from the common target that will be shifted each time you play (target hole is moved each day), you have to contend with your own physical ability, but the most challenging of all - the weather. You can be playing in the condition whereby it is either wet or sunny (which will affect the course, particularly the speed of the green), but the worst of all, if the winds are gutsy, you have to alter your swing, the ball-flight trajectory to off-set the wind direction. Another word, you might not be swinging your usual swing path.

By the way, I am not here to promote the game of golf (despite I am equally passionate about it), but rather to emphasize that, weather is the hardest thing to contend, which nothing can be consistent under the influence of mother nature.

Now, let discuss about consistency in wine. Where is the most consistent wine region in the world? I think no one would ague is Australia. Why make Australian wine so consistent, while, apart from the weather, which they enjoy adequate sunlight to ripen their grape. One of the biggest advantage is - there is no rule of blending, where grape source could literary coming from anywhere! Take Aussie nation pride - Penfolds Grange for example, it is known today as a multi-district blend that fruit could possible coming from anywhere in South Australia. The goal for Grange is no longer about vineyard, site, but rather the wine style that the house is trying to portrait, much like the way the Champagne houses are doing. There is no question about the consistency, year-in-year-out Penfolds Grange has displayed, having had the advantage to blend more than a dozen of fruit-source stretching from Eden Valley to Coonawarra. Obviously, you could come up some sort of concoction to counterbalance the deficiency of each source of the grape. Even the worst vintage, Grange is way up the top of the league! So, what is problem with wine like that? While, to me, they are too predictable, they lack the excitement (no offend to the Grange lovers out there)!

What made wine so fascinating apart from the well-site vineyards that are capable of delivering the "sense of place", it was in fact the vintages that create those excitements, those diversity. Take European vineyard for example, their weather variation are obviously much greater. As a result, vintage signal is more obvious when compared to wine from the sunny California, Australia (my Euro-beautiful syndrome!). Weather can potentially affect the yield (drought, hail storm, humid - which promote wine diseases) the quality (overripe or underripe), the wine style (featured more acid or sugar ripeness), which creating a range of vintage character in a single given wine. Especially if the wine came exclusively from one single vineyard source, even more so, one single grape variety. Like color, the more you mix, more bluer it gets! If you blend multiple fruit sources, not only is the uniqueness of each vineyard destroyed, and since each source may receive different weather treatment (due to their various location, terrain, harvest time) despite coming from the same vintage. The characteristic of the vintage can also potentially be altered. To give a good example on how vintage (weather) dictate the wine style. Take the recent vintages of Bordeaux for example (all Bordeaux-Chateau are wines made exclusively from their own estate-grown vineyards), 2003 featured extreme weather, thus resulting atypical fruit profile, featuring more jammy, darker, cassis-liqueur fruit. To balance such a lush personality, many Chateaus opt to increase the wood treatment to provide some sort of grip and structure to balance the acid-deficient year. 2004 being an delay vintage (cool), which feature sounding acidity, purity and wine details is the extreme opposite of 2003 heat-laden year. Very elegant, plenty of red fruit and as transparence as one gets from Burgundy. 2005 is perhaps unusually a combination of both vintages characters, with richness without compromising the acidity, full, yet equally details, obvious alcohol, but with unusually high-pitched. The best I have seen since my short three years en primeur tasting experienced. All those vintages are the testament of what weather can do to your bottle of wine. Added to that, there are no bad wines made these days, since the knowledge of science and modern technique have taught us how to control the winemaking. These days, is the choice of preference, the mood of drinking, the occasion...etc. I would drink 2003 Bordeaux anytime, anywhere (anyone), and need not to have a fancy dinner to crack a bottle. 2004 I will drink with a delicate meal, a comfort and quiet place, with someone equally appreciative of elegant, details and purity. Is like listening to classical music, to hear every subtle pitch of each musical instrument, whispering in your ear...nice! 2005, is the "Grande", since it will not come cheap (by the time it releases), you need to find yourself a reason to open, especially your life-time companion is not a wine drinker (and why she/he is not invited - don't waste!), but definitely drink across a long meal, decant them, slowly see the wine evolve, see the wine interact with various dishes, and obviously, those are privileged to be invited, must be some of your closer buddies - What else do you want in life?

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