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Public Zone 公開區 => Bookwyrm 書蟲天地 => Topic started by: chin on 29 May 2010, 03:19:40
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I just watched this 2-hour documentary about wine.
It's not about wine tasting, not general introduction of wine making, buying, drinking. Rather it's a study and stories of conflicts of globalization, diversity vs uni-cultural, etc... with specific focus in the wine making and marketing.
The story starts with a fight in Burgundy where a large American wine corporation, the Mondavi, tried and failed to take a large parcel of forest/land in Burgundy. On one side there was the traditional, small vineyard and winemaker who believe the wine should reflect the terrior - the flavor or characteristic of the land where the vine grow, and the care and labour of the wine maker. Their more traditionally made wine require longer time to mature thus much slower turnover of stocks.
On the other hand, there was this formidable of "modern market forces" typified by the Rolland/Parker/Mondavi combination. Michel Rolland is the "flying winemaker" who is consultant to hundreds of vineyards. In the documentary, he would tell the vineyard owners how to make their wine, or rather how to make their wine to get higher critic scores. He would tell the owners what to do but not why. Robert Parker (and other well known wine critics who rate wines numerically) would rate wines according to his own taste, with the understanding that their rating can and will move the demand and prices. Mondavi represents the capital and market distribution component of this combination.
The result of this combination is that the wines are made to the same Rolland style, being judged through the Parkrt standard, and marketed via big corporate distributions. Consumers are being guided by the monolithic thinking and standard. One of the example in the documentarty is that one Italian wineyard was taken over by Mondavi, then the next year was rate as the world's no 1 wine by the critics.
Since I am a true amateur in wine, this documentary is an interesting eye opener. But if look outside the wine trade, and compare the other industries, this is just another familiar story. Where globalization brings cheap product/food, it also destroys diversification, tolerance and traditions. And with the lost of tradition, also the lost of knowledge not yet fully understood or verifiable by present day science.
Yet as an amateur in wine, I fully understand the magic and attraction of ratings to consumers. When your taste preference in wine (or anything that's subjective) is not yet strongly developed, or when there is no way to try everything, we want to find safety and comfort and conformity in high ratings. Do ratings serve me right in finding high quality products? Maybe. But ratings certainly help the marketer pushing sales. (I was recently looking at a bottle of 2005 Lascombes, among the first thing the sales person said was that it has a 95 Parker score. And I did made the purchase.)
(I ordered two sets of Mondovino DVD. One appears to be a film length documentary and one appears to be a series. I just watch the film one, and one episode of the series. It looks like the film one is a much condensed version, or the series one expanded version.)
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Thanks for sharing.......
As you know, I prefer traditional wine. So I don't want wines being changed from varieties to unity. Rolland did a lot of work as a consultant for a number of vinyards. His statment is partly right that he would tell the owners what to do but the most problematic point is what he thinks that are good are all subject to his palate. In contrast, most owners in fact knew what they should do to make a good wine but they may lack of the science behind them so sometimes they are out of control of some winemaking steps. A funny example: I have watched an interview of a Spanish wine maker, he said that, after the wine finished its fermentation, he would move the wine into barrel in the winery to a store room (where is a bit hotter) for 3 days and then he would move them back to wineries. He did not know why as his deceased father told him so to do. In fact, this move initiates an important step for mellowing the wine but he lacks of such knowledge, tho he did that right. So, some winemaker really needs some understanding there but it should be based on diversified knowledge / theory, not on personal's taste and palate.
Generally, if you look at the Bordeaux's wines with high RP score now, you will find most of them have quite a similar character: robust, fruit driven, overly concentrated with powerful tannin. These are all like a new world wine. Some characters of individual commune are really losing. This may not be his own fault. Some chateau owners, in order to boost their sales, did employ Rolland to give advice on their winemaking, especially on blending. This is because he knows the palate of those wine critics like RP.
My view is that RP's palate is also changing too......If you compare his Tasting note 15 years ago and now, he is giving similar tasting notes now. In addition, sometimes I compare my tasting notes with his, my impression is that he likes robust wine more then ever. You hardly see him giving a high score to those delicate and elegance wine now.
When I was a newbie in wine, I use to refer to the RP score. But now, I only use it to persuade people that this is at least a quantitative measure of its quality, and nothing more. Those who tell me that a wine has high score cannot persuade me to buy but the one who can tell me its character does. After all, it is all about my own palate in choosing wine.
BTW, would you lend me the DVD later? ;D
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This conflict is not new, nor only limited to wine.
E.g. in Puer tea, you have producer who does not historically appreciate aged tea. The expertise of how to age is in HK and sort of in TW. But now the producers are trying to control the standard and education to new consumers.
The same thing is happening to food. Are we increasingly fed standardized food, in the name of safety and low cost and blind by advertisements? When the last live chicken vendor died out, do we all left with the only choice McNuggets?
It's certainly an irony that the Internet seemed to democratize information dissemination but actually equally empower disinformation and concentrates greater influence in the hands of a few. (Like Google, like Parker.)
When do you want to see the DVD? The series is longer but explains the message clearer. The 2-hour documentary is too concentrated and shortened, thus sometimes confusing.
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When do you want to see the DVD? The series is longer but explains the message clearer. The 2-hour documentary is too concentrated and shortened, thus sometimes confusing.
No hurry....anytime when you are convenient to bring me the DVD.....in July at least.....Thanks
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I just watched 2 of the 10 episodes of the Series (not the 2-hour film.)
The Series has more about wine, the people, and ideas behind the wine making. Sofar the focus has been following the Montilles, who strongly believe in the purity of terrior. See the following screen captures.
The father, in his 70s, was a lawyer, and the son was a banker. At one point he say, "Corporate lawyers aren't lawyers. They're law clerks for corporations. For banks and insurance companies." ;D
The 2-hour film is really excepts of the Series with focus on the Rolland/Parker/Mondavi influence on the wine business.
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The father, in his 70s, was a lawyer, and the son was a banker. At one point he say, "Corporate lawyers aren't lawyers. They're law clerks for corporations. For banks and insurance companies." ;D
Can't agree more......
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The Series has more about wine, the people, and ideas behind the wine making. Sofar the focus has been following the Montilles, who strongly believe in the purity of terrior. See the following screen captures.
Someone may say that it is not important about the concept of "Terroir" as long as a good wine is made, but I do not agree that, with respect.
In fact, anyone with proper sense of tasting can distinguish the terroir of different wines, though the degree of difference varies a lot. I like the concept of Terroir, as it reflects the style of a particular wine under a defined set of enviornment.
A funny thing is that if you ask the wine maker the meaning of "terroir", each of them will give different answer. ;D
To me, terroir is the history and evolution of the viticulture in a defined set of environment and practice. Anyhow, I never had a good Pommard.....some of them are too rustic, some of them are too soft.
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I cannot tell the wine "terrior" maybe because I have not develop the palate.
But in tea, I can taste the difference of tea made from difference places, although I cannot blind taste and name them. E.g. the Yiwu 易武 tea we are ordering now had it's own unique aroma/taste/feel/character. It taste light when young, getting fuller when aged a bit more.
However, in the case of Puer tea, the really old antique tea (>80 yrs) are too rare to tell if they are blended or single terrior. But the good classic ones made in 1950-1980 are all blended. So in Puer, the judge is still out whether blending is better or single terrior.
BTW I watched the 4th episode before I slept this morning. In the interview, the neighbour of Mouton was effective saying Mouton is using chemical in their vineyard. There are quite a few grower, mostly smaller growers, claimed not to use any chemicals in the vineyard. The Montilles was supposedly going biodynamic.
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Your Yiwu example tells the point.....Why the tea has such an distinctive aroma/taste/feel/character?......It is given under a set of environment / practice.
In fact...the concept of terroir is evolving......like wine, some regions traditionally had more different grape varieties planted but now they usually reduced to a certain types. It may be due to the climate there, their practice, their adaptability to the soil of that area, etc.....I think this will apply to tea well.
In fact, most of the vineyards are still using chemical, artificial chemical. They need that mostly for dealing with mildew and rot.
Organic viticulture does not generally use chemical. Biodynamic vineyard is using chemical too, but to a lesser extent. Organic viticulture and Biodynamic viticulture are two different things.
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My comment about the Montilles should be "in addition to not using chemical, they are supposedly also going biodynamic." :)
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I finished watching the 10 episodes last weekend.
Before the topic focus on Robert Parker, the producer made a few interviews. You can see the message from the following screen captures.
1st set was with the Valandraud owner who benefited enormously from high Parker rating. The 2nd set was with this very small 1-acre producer who has his plot right next to Mouton's.
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That's why nowadays bordeaux wines are totally different from what they were in the old days......
My view is that the climate and environment of bordeaux should not make wine like that. Or I should say RP's palate is more on the American's wine.
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The producer interviewed Parker at his Maryland home. How Parker responded to many questions was very typical American self assertive with a hint of moral grand standing.
When asked how does it feel to have such large influence on the market and pricing of wine, Parker basically says he earned it by working harder.
Political languages also came in often in the interviews. In more than one occasion, Parker claims that he "democratize" the wine world. Yet the French actually labeled him a "dictator" because his person taste now dictates price, thus how wines are made. The result of Parkerizing wine is the lost of diversity in wine.
This woman, a sales assistant in a French wine shop, tells what a Parkized wine is like. New oak is apparently one of the characteristics.
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The use of chemicals (pesticide, I assume) was mentioned in a few occasion.
One of the tells of use of chemical is the lack of grass near the vine. I forgot which domaine in Burgundy was this, but as the camera moves from one plot (where the owner refused to use chemical) to the next (where chemical was used regularly), you can see the land became bare.
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These women were enjoying the wine made by a widow who started to plant vine when her husband got sick.
Their comment echos a joke that we made all the time - I don't want to go to the heaven, because all my friends and family are not there.
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Back to the Parker like ratings...
One of the interviewee was making a very concise comment, "Ratings simplifies information."
As much as we may claim that we don't want our judgment be colored by guys like Parker, our mind may not work that way. We may always want to have approval and assurance from 3rd party, and expert ratings served that needs well.
Anyway, the DVDs are in my office. Hang you can come pick up any time. Call Emily if I am not in the office.
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This woman, a sales assistant in a French wine shop, tells what a Parkized wine is like. New oak is apparently one of the characteristics.
It may be too simple to say that. Oak using is a technique adopted by all wine makers. There are a lot of options of oak using, New oak vs Old oak, seasoning or not, their combination, types of oak, time spent on new / old oak, etc.
Even the traditional wines are using new oak. Wine making has hundreds of years of history. In the old days only wooden vats were used for making wine.
New oak does impart certain flavours into wine but, as usually, overly oaked wine makes more harm than good.
My view on Parkerized wine is "overly concentration of fruit and extensive new oak ageing". The result is a hugh, big, burly wine with tons of fruit and strong oaky flavours. It lacks the elegence of a wine. Some Parkerized wines are so concentrated that it is like an unaged Port. The result is that the wine usually has stronger flavour then the food. French food emphasizes its delicacy, freshness so a parkerized wine may overpower it.
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Back to the Parker like ratings...
One of the interviewee was making a very concise comment, "Ratings simplifies information."
As much as we may claim that we don't want our judgment be colored by guys like Parker, our mind may not work that way. We may always want to have approval and assurance from 3rd party, and expert ratings served that needs well.
Anyway, the DVDs are in my office. Hang you can come pick up any time. Call Emily if I am not in the office.
Thanks....but I think I will pick it up when I am back......
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The use of chemicals (pesticide, I assume) was mentioned in a few occasion.
One of the tells of use of chemical is the lack of grass near the vine. I forgot which domaine in Burgundy was this, but as the camera moves from one plot (where the owner refused to use chemical) to the next (where chemical was used regularly), you can see the land became bare.
Again, this may be too simple to say. Weed control is quite a topic in viticulture (i.e. grapegrowing). It is a matter of choice: weed can prevent soil erosion, prevent nitrogen leaching, reduce vine vigour and improve soil structure. However, it also cause competition of water and nutrient, increase the frost risk, hamper the machine working, and house the pests and disease.
Chemical weed control undoubtedly save manpower but it incurs a lot of impact on the quality. Most burgundians will only do weed control manually in order to protection their limited yield.
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Finished watching the 2-hr movie and the first 4 episodes.
What impressed me is that those small winemaker/vinegrowers love so much on their land / vines.
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Don't forget they are farmers who rely almost completely on their land. And don't forget that they can also maintain a lot more dignity when not dirt poor, like those in less developed countries.
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An observation is that the different systems of Bordeaux / Burgundy did enforce the people's view on the globalization.
I see that those "modernised" winemakers do not have a better understanding of "terroir" than those small burgundian makers. The system that Bordeaux is using is actually a "brand" system while Burgundy is using a system by location. So I am quite sure that the bordeaux makers will blend the grapes from different vineyards.
Hence, those bordeaux winemakers do not fight much on takeover, etc. as they see their wine as a branded product, while burgundians see their wine as a local craft.
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Finished watching all.......
Somehow I am still against "globalization" but worried about the survival of those small wine makers...... :-\
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Finished watching all.......
Somehow I am still against "globalization" but worried about the survival of those small wine makers...... :-\
It's good to see the other side of things. The good thing about it is that it creates lots of wealth for some people, and bring down prices generally (may be not in the case of wine, but in many other goods.)
The bad thing is that the little guys, including those with special crafts and niches, are priced out or forced out. And the world ended up more uni-cultural. And may ended up less tolerant of difference.
BTW we are now facing the ugly face of sort of globalization right at our door step, right at our face - that is the potential lost of Cantonese in a few generations.
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You mean the "Potunghau-lization" in GuangDong?? >:(
I don't know why.....Did the PRC government want to unify the pronunciation and wordings of Chinese language? That's stupid. UK has the size of Guangdong province but they have more than 20 accents of British English........
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You mean the "Potunghau-lization" in GuangDong?? >:(
I don't know why.....Did the PRC government want to unify the pronunciation and wordings of Chinese language? That's stupid. UK has the size of Guangdong province but they have more than 20 accents of British English........
Well, I'd like to say again that you may not agree with what they do, but they are not stupid. (OK, may be they are in this case...)
I can see perfectly why SOME in the government would like to put Putonghua first. See my Tibet story below. The reason could be totally legitimate in a macro view. Again, in this case I I do not think it's necessary, and I hope the idea does not come from the top of the central government.
When I went to Tibet in 2004 (http://chinman.com/index.php/topic,22.0.html), one of the most striking scenes is how with ease kids would come to us asking for money. At the same time I can see that it's a very common practice to hand out small money. (Read my story, especially 32 & #7.) During and after the trip, I was thinking about how the Tibetans' may improve their lives, material well-being wise. And I think one of the ways is to improve education and integration with the rest of China. And one of the key for the improvement is learning to speak Putonghua, learning to read Chinese. I can see the the better off Tibetans in Lhasa are those who speak Chinese.
You remember our Chinese history lesson, where 秦始皇 was mean and ruthless, yet at the same time he did something of positive and of long lasting value to China - that is the unification of writings and measurements. While at the expenses of the minorities, the standardization allowed easy of trade and literature. I don't think anyone can argue against these long term positive effects, especially we are now still enjoying the benefits.
So in certain situations, standardization (or globalization-like policy), including language, could bring very positive long term benefit.
However, in the case of Cantonese, I think it's not necessary and may not be possible. Cantonese speaking regions are well developed economic wise, and Cantonese speakers, while may not speak Putonghua well, can read Chinese as well as any equivalently educated person in China. The existence of the Cantonese culture does not interfere with the grand national development. In fact the study and preservation of Cantonese can be of great value to the study of Chinese literature. One of my tea friends who teaches Chinese literature in Baptist University once told me that Tang poems 唐詩 sound better in Cantonese when reading outloud, because Cantonese has long root and influence in early Chinese language.
So, long live 掉那媽，頂硬上！
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Somehow I have the same feeling that reading Tang Peoms in Cantonese sounds better than in Potunghua, as I had tried both before. I really wonder what those poet's accent had in say Tang Dynasty.
Having said that, this type of "globalization" may not go too far. My sister told me a story about her trip to Middle East 2 months ago. In Egypt, she had a cruise on river Nero. That part of river oftens has crocodile around. She saw a little kid sailing on the river by a plank with 2 smaller wooden board as the paddles. The kid drove his little "boat" to their ship and held on the rim of the ship. The ship was driven by motor so that his boat will travel with the ship without paddling.
Then the kid asked to my sister "Spainish?"
My sister replied "No."
"Portuguese?"
"No"
"Germany?"
"No."
"English?"
"Yes"
After the kid confirmed my sister's tongue, he started sing an English song. My sister said after that he would be happy if you could give him some money. Then he will go for another boat and sing another song in maybe another language.
I think, language as a communication media may not need any globalization. The one who relies on it for living will find a way to adapt it. We see lot of people in Guangzhou, like my uncle there, can speak fluent Putonghua. Even us. Most of us had not learned Putonghua in school but most of us now have some business in PRC. We are "forced" to speak and learn accordingly.
Just like what the doctor said in Jurrasic Park, "Life finds its way." ;D
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Almost miss this topic, just minutes ago I found that the original of 李白《靜夜思》isn't what we've learnt.
We learn:
「床前明月光，疑是地上霜，舉頭望明月，低頭思故鄉。」
and the original should be :
「床前看月光，疑是地上霜，舉頭望山月，低頭思故鄉。」
And surprisingly it was preserved in Japan! The original sounds more natural with Cantonese, and the Mandarin speaker somehow changed it to what we've learnt today, to make it sound better.
:o :o