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ISSUE 82 2023 ISSN 1743-503X THE WORLD OF FINEWINE www.worldoffi newine.com Founder Laurence Orbach Editorial Adviser Hugh Johnson OBE Contributing Editor Andrew Jefford Editor Neil Beckett neil.beckett@worldoffi newine.com Deputy Editor and Website Editor David Williams david.williams@worldoffi newine.com Tastings Editor Anastasia Edwards anastasia.edwards@worldoffi newine.com Food Editor Francis Percival francis.percival@worldoffi newine.com Chief Subeditor David Tombesi-Walton david@sandseditorial.co.uk Team Assistant Kazumi Suzuki Group Art Director Henrik Williams Designer Simon Murrell Production Manager Clare Ovenell Subscription Manager Ikram Qureshi Special Projects Manager Jeremy Wilkinson Advertising Group Sales Director Jiggs Patel jiggs.patel@worldoffi newine.com Tel: +44 20 3096 2286 Sales Director EMEA Anit Mistry anit.mistry@worldoffi newine.com Tel: +44 20 3096 2290 Wine Advertising: France Delphine Rouget-Marquézy drm@espacequadri.com Chief Executive Offi cer Mike Phillips Editorial Director Thea Halstead Events Director Sara Donaldson Data Protection Manager David Watkins Subscription & Back-Issue Inquiries subscriptions@worldoffi newine.com Tel: +44 20 7406 6790 Subscription Prices One year (4 issues): US$202, €165, £105 Two years (8 issues): US$327, €267, £170 The World of Fine Wine may be purchased at selected stores worldwide. The World of Fine Wine John Carpenter House 7 Carmelite Street London EC4Y 0BS Printed by Stephens and George Goat Mill Road Dowlais Merthyr Tydfil Mid Glamorgan CF48 3TD For reprint, e-print and licensing inquiries, please contact: Media Licensing Co, The Grange, 3 Waverley Road, Farnham, Surrey GU9 8BB, UK. Tel: +44 20 3773 9320 or email info@medialicensingco.com § WELCOME Neil Beckett In medias res (“into the midst of things”) is not only how Ancient Greek and Roman epic poems and Elizabethan plays begin, but how every bottle of wine is opened. It may seem like a beginning, but it’s only one moment, albeit a crucial one, in a much bigger story, in which we are all among the dramatis personae. Nobody appreciates that reality more, or explores it more meaningfully, than Terry Theise, who makes a passionate plea for the more active participation in all those “narratives” and for a “literature of tasting” (pp.134–46). “In my view, the collision of a taster and their tasting object constitutes a narrative. If I am correct, these narratives are poorly served by the ‘Good fruit… fragrant… nice creamy texture… decent length…’ vein of tasting notes. […] Tasting, for me, is a process of engagement with a flavor in its moment. It therefore needs to depict that ‘moment,’ and in order to do that, it needs to describe a variety of contexts—that of the wine, that of the environment of tasting, and those of the impulses that arise. I presume that wine exists in a nexus of emotion and beauty and imagination. In the process of describing, deconstructing, and evaluating its flavors, it sometimes suffices to stay within the wine as such, and how it […] tasted. However, at other times a wine wriggles free of that stricture and starts to roam the world. When that happens, the narrative needs to ask, Where is it going, and what does it see? […] If the way I write about wines amounts to ‘literature,’ I’d be pleased. Tasting is important and needs a literature beyond the quotidian functions of the usual tasting notes.” Most of our brilliant columnists are kindred spirits. Asking whether we can use gendered wine descriptions, Harry Eyres argues that they may still have their uses, as well as being, like those of Maurice Healy, “poetically memorable—unlike most over-literal contemporary wine writing (those unreadable tasting notes full of stone fruits and minerality)” (p.20). Andrew Jefford (whom Harry also invokes) spins the threads of a narrative stretching back from a bottle of 2022 sans sulfite Brouilly, to Rabelais, “monk, doctor, theological scholar, humanist, curator of obscenities, and compiler of colossally irreverent, wine-sodden word-riffs written almost 500 years ago,” via a 1970s lunch with “a flamboyant (later disgraced) priest” and a bottle of Beaujolais that “changed my world. It’s why I’m here today” (p.156). Nick Ryan’s tale begins with Olivier Krug drinking the Champagne with his name on it, from a butcher beer glass with his name on it, in “an Adelaide pub with a dress code that could be summarized with the words ‘pants are polite’” (p.106). Other contributors relate equally engagingly the stories of the producers who make the wines: Margaret Rand, that of Federico Graziani, whose acquisition of a magical Etna vineyard began (one of life’s many small ironies) with a butcher walking into a bar; and Raymond Blake, that of “two and a half Irishmen” at Les Deux Cols in the Southern Rhône (pp.108–11; 150–52). However wine fits into your story, and you into the wine’s, all of us here hope that you share good bottles in good company over the holiday period. “Tasting is important and needs a literature beyond the quotidian functions of the usual tasting notes” —Terry Theise Images Images Bridgeman © . Photography , France let, Paris Carnava , Musée Paris de ille Vla de canvas). Musée il on (o .1882 inner at Les Ambassadeurs, c (1849–1935), D Beraud : Jean ll. Inner cover image Murre Bridgeman / llection Co Harris Jackson lerie Va / Learn and Look © . Photography llection co century). Private 19th l (late Schoo lish . Eng card greetings iter or butler, Christmas wa a as oodpecker dressed : W Dan by Illustration Outer cover image THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 82 | 2023 | 3