Part 3 (1/2)

Why does Chateau Palmer have an English name?

THE SHORT ANSWER to this question is, because an Englishman named it after himself. Before this is condemned as unwarranted self-aggrandizement, however, it should be remembered that from the end of the seventeenth century, it became something of a habit to add one's own name to an estate that produced very good wine-the renaming of Branne-Mouton as Mouton-Rothschild in 1853 is but one example. Major-General Charles Palmer was born in the city of Bath Spa in 1777 and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. When he was nineteen, his father purchased a commission for him in the 10th Hussars, the Prince of Wales's Own, which was a light cavalry regiment. He served throughout the Peninsular War from 1807 to 1814, and fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In February 1811, he became aide-de-camp to the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. In 1813 he became lieutenant colonel of the 23rd Dragoons (heavy infantry), colonel in 1814, and major general in 1825. In 1814, after Napoleon's first surrender, Palmer arrived in France with the British commander in the Peninsula, the future Duke of Wellington. Parliament had voted Palmer 100,000 ”as the representative of his father,” John Palmer, who had invented the system of mail coaches, thereby providing a safer and more regular method of delivering the post. Palmer was to use this to buy property in France. to this question is, because an Englishman named it after himself. Before this is condemned as unwarranted self-aggrandizement, however, it should be remembered that from the end of the seventeenth century, it became something of a habit to add one's own name to an estate that produced very good wine-the renaming of Branne-Mouton as Mouton-Rothschild in 1853 is but one example. Major-General Charles Palmer was born in the city of Bath Spa in 1777 and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford. When he was nineteen, his father purchased a commission for him in the 10th Hussars, the Prince of Wales's Own, which was a light cavalry regiment. He served throughout the Peninsular War from 1807 to 1814, and fought at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. In February 1811, he became aide-de-camp to the Prince of Wales, the Prince Regent, the future King George IV. In 1813 he became lieutenant colonel of the 23rd Dragoons (heavy infantry), colonel in 1814, and major general in 1825. In 1814, after Napoleon's first surrender, Palmer arrived in France with the British commander in the Peninsula, the future Duke of Wellington. Parliament had voted Palmer 100,000 ”as the representative of his father,” John Palmer, who had invented the system of mail coaches, thereby providing a safer and more regular method of delivering the post. Palmer was to use this to buy property in France.

Palmer was known in London as a ladies' man. In France, he was dazzled by a beautiful young widow, Mme. Marie de Gascq, who wished to sell her late husband's estate in the Medoc, Chateau de Gascq. This was primarily a fine vineyard-it had no chateau as such. The story goes that during a three-day coach ride with her from Lyon to Paris-which has been referred to as ”turbulent”-she convinced Palmer to purchase it. He did so, for the attractive price of 100,000 francs, and immediately renamed it Chateau Palmer. (David Peppercorn takes a more austere view, suggesting that Palmer's attention was directed to the property by one of the courtiers courtiers-brokers-of Bordeaux.) He threw himself into developing and extending his property, buying over the following seventeen years land and buildings in the communes of Cantenac, Issan, and Margaux. Indeed, by the time he sold it, it had grown from a small property to become one of the larger estates of the Medoc.

According to Captain H. R. Gronow in his Reminiscences and Reflections Reminiscences and Reflections, published in parts from 1862 to 1866, Palmer supplied samples of his wine at a dinner for the Prince Regent to taste, in the hope that he would make it fas.h.i.+onable. Unfortunately, this did not work: the Prince preferred his usual version of claret fortified with some Hermitage, and he advised Palmer to experiment and make some better wines. According to Gronow, General Palmer, feeling it his duty to follow the advice of the Prince, rooted out his old vines, planted new ones, and tried all sorts of experiments, at an immense cost, but with little or no result. He and his agent, in consequence, got themselves into all sorts of difficulties, mortgaged the property, borrowed largely, and were at last obliged to have recourse to usurers, to life a.s.surances, and every sort of expedient, to raise money ... the acc.u.mulation of debt to the usurers became so heavy, that he was compelled to pa.s.s through the Insolvent Court.

There is an alternative version, partly based on Palmer's obituary in the Gentleman's Magazine Gentleman's Magazine of 1851. After the war, Palmer lived primarily in England: in 1808, at the death of his father, he succeeded him as the mayor of Bath and as the local MP, a position he held, even during the war, from 1808 to 1826 and again from 1831 to 1837. He also inherited the proprietors.h.i.+p of the Theatre Royal, Bath. His estate in France, which he spared no expense to develop and improve, was managed by his of 1851. After the war, Palmer lived primarily in England: in 1808, at the death of his father, he succeeded him as the mayor of Bath and as the local MP, a position he held, even during the war, from 1808 to 1826 and again from 1831 to 1837. He also inherited the proprietors.h.i.+p of the Theatre Royal, Bath. His estate in France, which he spared no expense to develop and improve, was managed by his regisseur regisseur, Jean Lagunegrand, whose salary was as high as that of any of his profession in the Medoc. Palmer concentrated on promoting his wine in England, taking advantage of his connections at court and his charm. Because of its increasingly high quality, ”Palmer's claret,” according to Gronow, was much sought after by London clubs, and was particularly appreciated by the Prince Regent. This makes sense, given that Palmer had been aide-de-camp to the Prince and later his crony even before the prince became King George IV, and joined him in his love of fine food and wine. (This relations.h.i.+p, however, does not preclude the prince's having possibly told him that a bit more stomach in the wine would make it even better.) Even after the death of the King, Palmer spared no expense in providing himself and his friends with gastronomic feasts. This increasingly ruinous way of life was partly responsible for his reluctant decision to sell Chateau Palmer.

There was more to it than his desire for good dinners, of course. He had devoted much of his capital to developing Palmer, and it was now producing a great wine. But the high cost of running the estate was aggravated by economic difficulties in France as well as by the high duties, which damaged trade. His financial position declined alarmingly, and his wife left him; he lost his seat in Parliament. Things were brought to a head by a run of bad vintages, and in 1843 he sold Chateau Palmer. His death in 1851 prevented his seeing its inclusion in the 1855 Bordeaux cla.s.sification. Unfortunately, the fact of Chateau Palmer being in receivers.h.i.+p in 1855 and thus in the throes of reorganization was, according to Edmund Penning-Rowsell, probably responsible for its relegation to the second half of the troisieme grand cru troisieme grand cru cla.s.sification (the reorganization of Mouton-Rothschild in 1855 may also have been responsible for its listing as only a cla.s.sification (the reorganization of Mouton-Rothschild in 1855 may also have been responsible for its listing as only a deuxieme cru deuxieme cru). It is arguable that its quality should have accorded it a position at the top of the deuxieme crus deuxieme crus, a position that many critics and wine lovers believe it deserves today. Its highly regarded quality was underlined by the fact that the new owners did not change the name.

Can the war on terroir be won?

ONLY IN THE MINDS of romantics and New Age pastoralists is Nature benign and in any way on our side. It may be a truism to remind ourselves that we are a part of nature, and that nature doesn't give a fig for us; equally, it is at best euphemistic and at worst delusional to talk of ”saving the earth.” The earth will shrug us off if we become too troublesome, and do perfectly well without us: what we mean, really, is saving our own sorry skins. n.o.body knows this better than farmers, and few farmers know this better than the wine growers of Australia, where a combination of circ.u.mstances has threatened to halt, and even throw rapidly into reverse, the extraordinary way in which Australian wines have conquered the world over the last couple of de cades. of romantics and New Age pastoralists is Nature benign and in any way on our side. It may be a truism to remind ourselves that we are a part of nature, and that nature doesn't give a fig for us; equally, it is at best euphemistic and at worst delusional to talk of ”saving the earth.” The earth will shrug us off if we become too troublesome, and do perfectly well without us: what we mean, really, is saving our own sorry skins. n.o.body knows this better than farmers, and few farmers know this better than the wine growers of Australia, where a combination of circ.u.mstances has threatened to halt, and even throw rapidly into reverse, the extraordinary way in which Australian wines have conquered the world over the last couple of de cades.

It seems extraordinary that an underground ocean, its origins lost in the darkness of geological deep time, could affect the price of wine today on the other side of the world; but that world is increasingly and inextricably interconnected, however, and sometimes the past comes back to bite us.

The fertile southern tablelands of Australia-including the great wine-growing regions along the Murray and Darling rivers-lie upon just such a subterranean sea. Once they thought it came to the surface, and expeditions were launched to find the so-called Great Inland Sea, at the cost of many lives. The quest was in vain. The Great Inland Sea doesn't exist. But its legacy does. Beneath the soil lie deep deposits of heavily salt water. For millions of years, it simply didn't matter: native species evolved to cope with the salinity of the soil, and plants and geology lived in balance.

But then came the Europeans, and with the Europeans came European crops-particularly the grain and the grape. These, unable to handle the salt levels, needed irrigation, and the rivers were there to provide it. But the cost was high. The water for irrigation sank lower than the natural freshwater from the rains; as one farmer put it, we were pouring three feet of fresh water on land designed to cope with ten inches. And so the freshwater leached down, dissolving the lower levels of highly salty earth and seeping into the salt.w.a.ter tables. Fresh and salt began to mix, and the salt.w.a.ter rose to the surface or into the waterways. The results were potentially catastrophic: as one water engineer told us over ten years ago, ”By the time you've realized the problem, you've missed the boat for the solution.”

And just to make absolutely sure that we realize the indifference of nature, the ”Big Dry” of 2007 posed an equal threat to the region's wine growers, promising to halve the 2008 grape harvest from 2 million metric tons to between 800,000 and 1.3 million. Australians seldom refer to ”drought,” preferring to talk about ”a bit of a dry spell,” but at the time of writing, the D D-word was being bandied about freely.

Yet there is something about viticulture that brings out the best of human ingenuity. Partly it's the sheer figures involved today. Australia earned $1.9 billion from wine exports in 2006, exporting 176 million gallons, 40 percent to Britain and 30 percent to the United States. The majority was exported by Australia's largest wine company, Southcorp, which owns well-known labels such as Penfolds, Lindemans and Rosemont Estate, and nearly 2.5 million acres of vineyards (and whose biggest single customer is the U.K. supermarket chain Tesco); but individual winemakers, as well as selling to the big s.h.i.+ppers, are producing small but increasingly high-quality house wines of their own.

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This is currently all under threat: some growers are allowed to take only 10 percent of the water they would normally use for irrigation. As crop yields fall, prices increase; the good-quality, ma.s.s-produced ”clean-skin” wines that Australia has become famous for will no longer be such excellent value. There is no way out of the economic loop.

Yet the reversal of the salination process in the Murray/ Darling Basin has been hailed as an example to the rest of Australian agriculture. Tammy Van Wisse, of the Murray Darling Rescue project, described salinity as ”arguably the greatest environmental threat facing Australia today. No one is immune. Salinity is spreading like cancer.” The farmers of the Murray River have seen that cancer halted by a combination of engineering works and the management of water flows, and a national campaign is now encouraging the planting of perennial crops, trees, and salt-tolerant species such as Atriplex amnicola Atriplex amnicola and a hybrid gum tree whose name clearly explains its most prized quality: the Saltgrow. Individual vines are drip-fed water-each one gets precisely what it needs and no more. and a hybrid gum tree whose name clearly explains its most prized quality: the Saltgrow. Individual vines are drip-fed water-each one gets precisely what it needs and no more.

Whether it will be enough remains to be seen. But the two commonest phrases among Australia's farmers are ”no worries” and ”she'll be right.” These originated from a time when even the simplest of things was a big worry and whether she'd be right or not was always questionable. The Australians know what they're talking about. But nature is a hard taskmistress, and the war on terroir terroir goes on. goes on.

How did steam drive Toulouse-Lautrec to absinthe?

THINK OF A fin-de-siecle French cafe and the chances are you think not of wine but of absinthe, a strange spirit invented by the inappropriately named Dr. Pierre Ordinaire in 1792. He offered it as a panacea; containing the egregious-tasting anise and, more important, wormwood (which contains a psychoactive compound, thujone), absinthe was modestly successful. fin-de-siecle French cafe and the chances are you think not of wine but of absinthe, a strange spirit invented by the inappropriately named Dr. Pierre Ordinaire in 1792. He offered it as a panacea; containing the egregious-tasting anise and, more important, wormwood (which contains a psychoactive compound, thujone), absinthe was modestly successful.

But what happened in the next hundred years that caused absinthe first to triumph, then to be seen as a threat to health and French civilization? And why did the French government eventually ban it from sale in France, a ban that continues to this day?

First, it should be said that absinthe is perhaps not the most benevolent of drinks. Taken to anything resembling excess, thujone has a tendency to cause a strange disorientation and even hallucinations. Not for nothing was it nicknamed La Fee Verte La Fee Verte-the Green Fairy.

Nor do artists' representations of its devotees inspire great joy. Manet's painting of 1867 shows a solitary absinthe drinker, with s.h.a.ggy beard, tall, battered hat, and a strange smeared expression, beside his gla.s.s of absinthe: the drink has taken on the louche louche-the pearlescent milkiness that the spirit acquires when mixed with water. He himself, like the room he's in, is out of focus: brown, blurred and bleary. Nine years later, Degas's Absinthe Drinkers Absinthe Drinkers are faring no better: they sit side by side on a hard bench before cold marble tables, both looking ahead, disconnected from the world and from each other. Perhaps the most dispiriting is Pica.s.so's 1901 painting: an angular and seemingly anguished woman in a blue dress, her thin arms and bony hands wrapped around herself. In front of her are the absinthe gla.s.s and a blue water fountain; otherwise she is as utterly alone as can be. The only glamorous absinthe painting we know of is by the Czech artist Viktor Oliva. It hangs in the Cafe Slavia in Prague and shows us a man in evening dress gazing at the human-sized figure of the curvaceous, alluring are faring no better: they sit side by side on a hard bench before cold marble tables, both looking ahead, disconnected from the world and from each other. Perhaps the most dispiriting is Pica.s.so's 1901 painting: an angular and seemingly anguished woman in a blue dress, her thin arms and bony hands wrapped around herself. In front of her are the absinthe gla.s.s and a blue water fountain; otherwise she is as utterly alone as can be. The only glamorous absinthe painting we know of is by the Czech artist Viktor Oliva. It hangs in the Cafe Slavia in Prague and shows us a man in evening dress gazing at the human-sized figure of the curvaceous, alluring fee verte; fee verte; in the background, another smartly dressed man is approaching-a friend, perhaps, who will find little companions.h.i.+p in the drinker, who is already in a world of illusions. in the background, another smartly dressed man is approaching-a friend, perhaps, who will find little companions.h.i.+p in the drinker, who is already in a world of illusions.

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Not, then, a companionable drink; not a promoter of commensality or conversation. The paintings of absinthe drinkers depict it more as a drug than as a drink, more like opium than like wine.

To find out the reason for the absinthe craze, we need to wind the clock back to the North American colonies of the seventeenth century. The French colonists in Florida first experimented with Vitis vinifera Vitis vinifera, the European wine grape. It was not a success, and they did not quite know why. But in due course they had more luck with native grapes.

They continued experimenting with hybrids, but the idea that vinifera vinifera was no good in America persisted, despite its doing well in California. was no good in America persisted, despite its doing well in California.

Unknown to them, the French Americans had made a mistake. The problems with vinifera vinifera were being caused by an aphid, the North American grape phylloxera. This, they failed to notice, was for a number of reasons. One is that phylloxera kills European grapes by injecting a poison into the vine, which swells and eventually kills the small roots. It behaves differently on North American vines, living mainly on the leaves, where it causes harmful galls but affects the roots much less badly. Another aspect of its behavior is that, feeding on the roots of were being caused by an aphid, the North American grape phylloxera. This, they failed to notice, was for a number of reasons. One is that phylloxera kills European grapes by injecting a poison into the vine, which swells and eventually kills the small roots. It behaves differently on North American vines, living mainly on the leaves, where it causes harmful galls but affects the roots much less badly. Another aspect of its behavior is that, feeding on the roots of vinifera vinifera, the phylloxera aphid will rapidly abandon s.h.i.+p when the osmotic pressure in the now-diseased root falls. Dig up the dead vine and there's nothing to see: the aphids have long gone.

Viticulture is an international business, and almost from the outset, European growers were experimenting with American vines. Yet there was no hint of phylloxera until the early 1860s, when Pujault, in the Languedoc, fell victim to a malade inconnu malade inconnu, an ”unidentifiable sickness.” This spread from vine to vine, and by the third year most were inexplicably dead, their roots decayed and blackened.

In 1868 the pharmacist J. E. Planchon, a hero of the French wine industry, discovered the link between the small yellow aphid and the dying vines. But as so often, opinions varied, and many believed the aphids were an effect of the disease, not the cause. It wasn't until 1870 that the American Charles V. Riley demonstrated that the phylloxera aphid was responsible for the leaf blight on American vines and and the root disease in Europe. Furthermore, the odd life cycle of the aphid made the usual methods of attack ineffective. Laliman and Bazille came up with the idea that eventually worked: grafting the root disease in Europe. Furthermore, the odd life cycle of the aphid made the usual methods of attack ineffective. Laliman and Bazille came up with the idea that eventually worked: grafting vinifera vinifera onto resistant American root-stocks. It was not a new idea-the Spanish had been doing something similar in Mexico since the early sixteenth century-but it worked, and the Herculean task of reconst.i.tution began throughout France. onto resistant American root-stocks. It was not a new idea-the Spanish had been doing something similar in Mexico since the early sixteenth century-but it worked, and the Herculean task of reconst.i.tution began throughout France.

The effects of phylloxera were dreadful for small French wine growers, many of whom emigrated-to the eventual benefit of the world's wines. At the time of the outbreak, too, wine growers were responding to skyrocketing demand by overplanting, growing inferior grapes, and growing them in unsuitable terrain. Much of the quality of today's wines, and many of the varietals we now take for granted, might simply not have existed had it not been for the phylloxera aphid. To call it a blessing in disguise is over -egging the pudding, unquestionably; still ...

But back to the cafes of Paris. The first thing to happen when phylloxera began its devastation in France was that wine became scarcer and the price went up. The vie boheme vie boheme of Paris, on the other hand, was not about to stop. It simply needed another fuel, and absinthe won the day. Centered upon the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, at the heart of the Parisian red light zone, so marvelously chronicled by the stunted, aristocratic, ungainly, and hopelessly alcoholic Toulouse-Lautrec, the absinthe craze spread unstoppably. Even if not drunk in the form of Toulouse-Lautrec's of Paris, on the other hand, was not about to stop. It simply needed another fuel, and absinthe won the day. Centered upon the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre, at the heart of the Parisian red light zone, so marvelously chronicled by the stunted, aristocratic, ungainly, and hopelessly alcoholic Toulouse-Lautrec, the absinthe craze spread unstoppably. Even if not drunk in the form of Toulouse-Lautrec's terre-tremblant terre-tremblant-”earth shaker,” made of half absinthe and half cognac-but consumed in the usual way, with five parts of water slowly dripped through a sugar lump held in a pierced spoon to provoke the louche louche and sweeten the bitter taste of wormwood, absinthe was an unforgiving drink. In 1910, the French drank 9.5 million gallons of the stuff, and the Swiss banned it. In 1912, the Americans banned it, and in 1915 the French government decided that, far from being a specific against malaria for the troops, it was responsible for ma.s.s desertions from the trenches; that, together with pressure from the French wine lobby, anxious to regain its status as provider of the national drink, meant that the French banned it, too. and sweeten the bitter taste of wormwood, absinthe was an unforgiving drink. In 1910, the French drank 9.5 million gallons of the stuff, and the Swiss banned it. In 1912, the Americans banned it, and in 1915 the French government decided that, far from being a specific against malaria for the troops, it was responsible for ma.s.s desertions from the trenches; that, together with pressure from the French wine lobby, anxious to regain its status as provider of the national drink, meant that the French banned it, too.

The draftsmen of the French law had, however, made one tiny mistake: they had banned the sale of absinthe in France but not the manufacture. After a ruling from the U.K. government allowing British companies to sell absinthe in any European country where it was not specifically banned, La Fee La Fee absinthe went into production in Paris. absinthe went into production in Paris.

We asked how steam had indirectly driven Toulouse-Lautrec to absinthe. Recall that the French colonists had been experimenting in Florida since the mid-seventeenth century; recall, too, that vines had been across the Atlantic for wine-growing experiments for much of the time since then. Why was it only in the 1860s that phylloxera first began its devastation of the French vineyards?

The answer is almost certainly that it was only after 1838 that regular steams.h.i.+p crossings of the Atlantic were established. In the days of sail and the early days of steam (the first steams.h.i.+p to make the crossing, the Savannah Savannah, in 1819, only had a tiny 90 hp auxiliary engine), the voyage took just under a month: too long for the aphids to survive. By 1838, the Great Western Great Western took half that time, and the subsequent generation of iron-hulled, screw-driven steams.h.i.+ps competed furiously for the Blue Riband for the fastest pa.s.sage. took half that time, and the subsequent generation of iron-hulled, screw-driven steams.h.i.+ps competed furiously for the Blue Riband for the fastest pa.s.sage.

Finally, because of the speed of the new steams.h.i.+ps, the aphids could survive the transatlantic voyage. The stage was set for disaster, and disaster came onstage and made its bow.

When is rot ”n.o.ble”?

THERE IS A fungus with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality that grows on grapes: fungus with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality that grows on grapes: Botrytis cinerea Botrytis cinerea. Given the right autumn weather conditions-cool misty mornings and warm sunny afternoons-the result can well be botrytis bunch rot. If the grapes are unripe or damaged, the result is the disastrous gray rot, which can destroy both quality and quant.i.ty. If, however, the grapes are white, ripe, light-skinned, and healthy, the result is likely to be ”n.o.ble rot” (pourriture n.o.ble in France, in France, Edelfaule Edelfaule in Germany). Grapes affected by n.o.ble rot look disgusting-shriveled, dotted with light brown spots, and covered with a gray dust that looks like ash (hence in Germany). Grapes affected by n.o.ble rot look disgusting-shriveled, dotted with light brown spots, and covered with a gray dust that looks like ash (hence cinerea cinerea). Thin-skinned grapes such as Furmint, Riesling, Semillon, and Chenin Blanc are particularly susceptible to n.o.ble rot, and each of them also has the necessary acidity to balance the intense sweetness of the botrytized juice. They can produce glorious wines, among which are Hungarian Tokaji Aszu, German Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, and French Sauternes and Quarts de Chaume (from the Loire). The grapes develop this condition individually, so grapes on the same bunch shrivel unevenly. This means that pickers have to walk through the vineyard time and time again (tries), picking the grapes one by one. Unavoidably, wines made from these grapes are expensive.

Grapes affected by n.o.ble rot produce some of the greatest and longest-living wines in the world. The oldest is Tokaji Aszu, which comes from northeast Hungary. The story goes that in 1650, the priest on the estate where the old castle of Tokaji stands, who was also the winemaker, delayed the harvest because of the fear that the Turks were about to attack. While the bunches hung on the vines, some were attacked by the fungus. They were then pressed and fermented separately from the other grapes, and the result was a wine of unexpected flavor and character, which rapidly became the wine of kings and a diplomatic weapon in the hands of the Austrian emperor, who took over the estates as his own.

In Germany, the first making of a wine from botrytized grapes is traditionally attributed to Schloss Johannisberg in the Rheingau in 1775. It was owned by the abbot of Fulda, and the grapes could not be picked without his permission. The winemaker looked at the grapes and sent a courier to Fulda to tell the abbot that on the day the courier returned to the Schloss Schloss, the grapes would be ready to be picked. The journey there and back normally took fourteen days, but for reasons that n.o.body knows, the journey this time took much longer. By the time the courier did return, the grapes of Schloss Johannisberg were rotten. Nevertheless, wine was made, and, stunned by its sweetness, acidity, and floral spiciness, the abbot and the winemaker agreed that this wine, which was probably a Beerenauslese, should be made whenever it was possible.

In France, there is less conviction as to when botrytized wines were first produced. The utterly delicious wine Quarts de Chaume in the Loire, possibly the longest-lasting wine in the world, has arguably been made since the medieval period; those of Sauternes have been produced since the eighteenth century. It is a curious fate for the other wines that Sauternes is the most widely known, since they are at least as delicious. Does this reflect the power of public relations?

How would rhinos do conjuring?

YES, IT IS a strange question ... but no, we have not taken leave of our senses. In fact, it's our senses that lead us to ask the question, and in particular, the most important sense in judging wine, which also happens to be our weakest: the sense of smell. a strange question ... but no, we have not taken leave of our senses. In fact, it's our senses that lead us to ask the question, and in particular, the most important sense in judging wine, which also happens to be our weakest: the sense of smell.

We'll keep the rhino in the back of our mind for a moment. Let's think about ourselves first. We are, primarily, creatures of sight. Hearing comes second; then taste, touch, and, finally, poor underprivileged smell.

Yet smell is more important than we think. When we taste wine-or, indeed, anything else-all we can really taste are five basic categories: sweet, sour, salt, bitter, and umami umami, the last a j.a.panese word for what the Western palate might describe as ”meaty” or ”savory” and found, for example, in miso, Roquefort, ketchup, mushrooms, and broccoli.

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Those five are the only things we have taste buds for. Everything else we think we're tasting, we're actually smelling.