Book Review: The Wines of Provence

         In the 2010 film The Ghost Writer, the protagonist, played by Ewan McGregor, says he’s never seen the point of white wine; well, for a long time, I didn't really see the point of rosé. It was somewhere between white and red wine, and I thought it was inferior to both.

A recent, excellent bottle of Tavel somewhat mollified me, however, so I approached The Wines of Provence with interest and an open mind. (I realise that Tavel is in the Rhône Valley, but let’s not split hairs.) Moreover, as the authors observe in the concluding chapter of this book, ‘one thing has always been clear: Provence is more than rosé.’

Like a batsman playing himself in, the book takes a bit of time to hits its stride. There’s an obligatory opening chapter about ‘Provence History’, which I really didn’t find very diverting. ‘No shortage of actors, film stars and directors have been attracted to the area for holidays’ was one of the rather desperate observations I highlighted in my copy.

Things start to pick up when the writers, Elizabeth Gabay MW and Ben Bernheim, move on to ‘The Business of Provence Wine.’ I think this is a really fascinating subject. There have been some visionary people involved in the marketing of Provence rosé, and the brilliance of the labelling and the design of the bottles turns out to be less of a modern phenomenon than I assumed. The curvy Domaines Ott bottle and the sublime Clos Cibonne label have long histories, I learned.

Unusually for a book in The Classic Wine Library series, the producer profiles are frequently more interesting than the sections about the regions where the grapes are grown. There’s a good reason for this: I’d never heard of areas like Pierrefeu or Notre-Dame-des-Anges, but the names of brands like Minuty, Mirabeau and Miraval were familiar to me. Even so, too much of the book is devoted to describing estates whose wines drinkers will never see or taste, even if they travel to the south of France.

Reflecting my preference for reds and whites, I thought the parts about Bandol and Cassis were the highlights of the book. The latter has an air of mystery about it: a diminutive coastal appellation, one of the first to be awarded AOC status in 1936, expensive, and as rare as hen’s teeth. 

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bottle of Cassis, but the whites - 'soft, rich' and 'sometimes flabby' - sound very appealing. It is ‘clearly the region for white wine in Provence’, according to the authors, with Marsanne and Clairette, those stalwarts of the Rhône Valley, the principal grapes.

This is a good book, by two people who clearly know their stuff and write well. I think it may be a hard sell, unfortunately, as the majority of drinkers of La Vieille Ferme and Whispering Angel probably don't give a monkey's about things like grapes and terroir. 

While that may be true of wine drinkers in general, there's usually a market of specialists for these books. Dare I say, though, that most people working in the trade probably don't drink Provence rosé? 

 

 

 

Book Review: Italianity

 

   

     The excellent final chapter of Italianity consists of a series of short articles by people in the trade, mostly North Americans, explaining why they love Italian wine. As I read it, I thought I could have contributed a good one.

     I would have written about the time I attended the wedding reception of my Moto GP-loving Italian former student in a winery in Campania. It left a confused memory of bottles of sparkling Fiano shared on a terrace, silly amounts of Aglianico drunk over dinner, and an excited man repeatedly rising to his feet and toasting the newlyweds. It was the best wedding I’ve ever been to – even better than my own.

 

     I'd also have told the story of the bottle of Barbaresco I drank out of a plastic mug in my flat in Tokyo, just because I really wanted a great wine and couldn't be bothered to buy a glass. 

     Italianity could be the best book about wine that I've ever read, and Italy isn’t even one of my favourite countries for wine. It was so good, in fact, that I put to one side a novel by the American thriller writer Douglas Preston, author of the stunning true crime story The Monster of Florence, after I’d started it.

     Italianity is largely the work of two people, Andrea Lonardi, a Master of Wine, and Jessica Dupuy. More than half of the book is devoted to a discussion of what the writers call the red wine spine of Italy, comprising Piedmont’s Nebbiolo, Alpine grapes like Corvina, Sangiovese in Tuscany and Nerello Mascalese on Mount Etna. There's a chapter about whites, another which deals with the future of Italian wine, and the aforementioned final section written by lovers of Italy.

     Lonardi and Dupuy are both very good writers and, importantly, they have a talent for storytelling. There are many entertaining anecdotes about Italian winemakers, producers and restaurateurs, including some very big cheeses, such as Angelo Gaja. The structure of the book, which consists mostly of one-or-two-page essays on a theme, helps. There's no chance to get bored. You read a story about the old-timer Lonardi struggled to win over in Sicily, then it’s on to the tale of his friendship with two Italians with whom he did the MW course. Italianity is therefore unlike many books about wine, which lack the human element.

 

     There are some surprising pieces of information. Dolcetto was an easy sell in Piedmont in the past. Barbaresco, on the other hand, used to be an ‘afterthought’, and ‘was given away for free’ by producers ‘as an incentive for a minimum purchase’. Perhaps my caper with the plastic mug in Tokyo was not such a faux-pas, after all.

     The book has a few flaws. I don't like the title, for one thing. The word ‘Italianity’ is taken from the Italian word Italianità, which is ‘Italian-ness’. ‘Italianity’ is supposed to mean the culture of Italian wine, but I don’t think it sounds right in English. It’s a made-up word that recalls a spell in Harry Potter. Close your eyes and you can hear Hermione saying it as she waves her wand.

     Half of the book is written in Italian, which is only really a good thing if you speak or are studying that language. I thought the section about whites didn’t quite attain the heights of the chapters on red wine, although it could just be that I prefer drinking reds, as reflected by the fact that Italianity inspired me to buy a bottle of Chianti Classico.

 

     I read Italianity twice, so it must be pretty great. It contains many pictures, which are always a welcome addition to any book about wine, and some of the writing shows real flair. It’s rather well-priced too. Give the quality of the publication, I’m even willing to overlook the fact that Andrea Lonardi doesn’t consider the flavour of cherries to be one of the defining characteristics of Italian reds.

 

My Own Fyre Festival

There's a documentary on Netflix called Fyre: The Greatest Party That Never Happened, which tells the almost incredible story of a brilliant social media campaign before Covid. Videos of scantily-clad supermodels, apparently having the time of their lives in a dreamy location, were enough to convince a lot of people to travel to the Bahamas for a music festival. Alas, the organisers were in over their heads and the project ended in disaster.

 

The genesis of my own tale occurred in the spring, when I went to a Hungarian wine showcase. There were some lovely wines to try, including a Juhfark (pronounced you-fark, and therefore a minefield for English speakers) from the volcanic soils of Somló. It had the most astonishing aroma, like a log fire.

 

I was also impressed by a blend of the grapes Furmint (of Tokaji fame) and the less renowned Hárslevelű, which is pronounced harsh-le-ve-loo. Say it out loud and it sounds like you've been hitting the bottle. The aroma reminded me of the packs of pineapple chunks I used to buy in supermarkets in Japan. The whites were the highlights, but there was a memorable red made from the Kadarka grape, which, according to my tasting note, smelled of 'smoke mixed with strawberry jam'. Perhaps that sounds strange, but it made me want to try another one, which is rarely the case following a tasting.

 

A colleague who was present at the Hungarian event is very gifted at networking. He seems to know everyone and have been everywhere. A mutual friend has observed that he sometimes adopts the accent of those he's speaking to, which may explain his rare talent for winning favour and making connections. At any rate, he got chatting to a Hungarian, email addresses were exchanged, and a week or two later he and I were offered the opportunity to travel to Hungary for a wine summit in the autumn.

 

It was as if we'd found the Holy Grail of wine shindigs: a week in Hungary with airline tickets, local transfers and accommodation paid for by the hosts. There would be events in the capital, tours of wine-producing regions, even a 'guided Budapest gastro walk' (whatever that meant). The last day of the week was set aside for a farewell bash, as if the anticipated 170 participants wouldn't already have had ample chance to drink themselves silly while touring the country on someone else's dime.

 

My friend and I couldn't believe our luck, and we jealously guarded the secret of our invitations. As a pragmatic Scot, he did express the view that it seemed too good to be true, though. Personally, I was confident it would all happen. I've had more than my share of very good luck over the course of my life, so I thought it would just be another such episode. Moreover, I pointed out to my pal that I had been invited to Austria the year before, with the hosts generously footing the bill. Admittedly, I went alone, not as one of 170 participants.

 

Two months before our anticipated departure, we received the terrible news: the summit was off. Suddenly, it all seemed to have been inevitable and I couldn't understand why on earth I'd been so confident about it in the first place. I said to my friend that someone must have knocked a few heads together and pointed out that the event would be a very expensive act of insanity. Immensely enjoyable, certainly, but ruinous.

 

If someone hadn't pulled the plug, I could picture well over a hundred individuals pitching up in Budapest, only to discover that the money for the summit had run out. I envisioned an almighty drinking binge, before everyone sobered up and realised that they might as well go home. Our very own Fyre Festival.

 

I remain grateful that I put in an appearance at that tasting in the spring. Hungarian wines, it turned out, can be really good - unique, I think, in the case of Juhfark from Somló. As for the week-long party that never materialised, it's good to dream. To quote Tim Robbins in The Shawshank Redemption, 'hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things'.