Sunday, 1 December 2013

A wine of two sorts

I grew up around wine, I practically grew up in a vineyard . My grandparents home was tucked away in between a northeast facing small vineyard and a southwest facing one. I remember the difference of soil, the northern one was more clay than stone and it was on a higher slope than the chalky, pebbly southern one and that was just a couple of few hundred yards away.So there was definitely a Terroir character in both wines, very different indeed. Both small vineyards had some rustic amalgam of red grapes, mostly merlot but some Romanian varietals too, they were both hand worked and hand picked and yet the northern wine was always more tannic, deep red, leafy , herbaceous and somewhat leaner, the southern one was vivid red, almost clear, bright berry flavoured, jammy and with much more sweetness but not really full bodied. By springtime there was never enough left in both barrels so that was the cue for blending the two in just one barrel to last until the next one was made and that meant the best of the two terroirs would meet and marry in a very used continental oak barrel, taking in more oaky vanillin flavours and shedding some fruit. Sure the wine was rustic and not made to last but the fact that even at such low levels of production and quality one can still separate the characteristics is amazing. I don't remember all the details, I was probably 15 when I last drank wine from there, but the main memories lasted. Wine is almost everywhere , you just have to discover!