Wine Souvenirs
A tribute to the memory and love of wine
The love of anything is a bit of a mystery. What draws us to this and not that? All of us are attracted by some things and less by others, and although tastes and desires change over time, it seems that certain things are almost ingrained.
Where there is love, there is life
It might be stating the obvious, but I have a profound appreciation and love for wine. But not just any wines, only living wines. For the past 25+ years, I have only consumed biodynamic, organic, and natural wines, because I don’t want to poison myself. But it’s more nuanced than that. I also only want to drink wines that sing, that have taste, and that speak to me; wines that are complex, that invite introspection and reflection, and that bring ‘ivresse’, a word that embodies a spiritually uplifted state, a state of euphoria, of enthusiasm and joy.
Real wine is fermented grapes, nothing more - grapes that have been grown with the greatest respect for nature and the environment, without pesticides, insecticides, fungicides and herbicides. Real wine requires no additives, no artifice, no meddling. This is what living wines are. The taste of a real wine is alive. The vitality it holds is the embodiment of natural practices and growth processes that are held together by sunlight, the falling rain, the wind, the moon, the planets, and the stars. The French philosopher Voltaire said, "Love is a canvas furnished by nature and embroidered by imagination." What better definition for wine.
So is wine love? That might be pushing the point, but one could say that anything done with respect for the planet, with good intent, with passion, with a view to producing something of quality, is a form of love. “For those of us who stand upon the margins of this world, as yet, unsolicited by any god, the only truth is that work itself is love” (quote from a Pali text in Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet - Mountolive, p. 467 in Faber). And growing grapes and making wine is definitely work. Some would say it is divine work and certainly the devotional aspect of toiling to the glory of god would have been the main motivation for monks working their vineyards in the Middle Ages. That and the wine becoming ‘the blood of Christ’.
"Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit."
Khalil Gibran
And life without wine would be much less lovely… Loving wine might suggest to some that I drink wine all the time and they would be only partly right. My love of wine is such that I cannot begin to imagine drinking it in a state that isn’t close to feeling physically fit and well. If the senses are dulled by excess (which does happen from time to time) one loses the capacity to fully appreciate what’s there. Which isn’t to suggest that wine makes me ill or physically unfit. Au contraire! Drinking ‘real’ wine (organic, biodynamic, natural) never makes me feel unwell. I would otherwise have to give up what I do and do something else, as I value my health above most all else.
So I make a point of taking days off, and sometimes, successive days. Which is surprisingly easy as I’m fortunate in not feeling it as a ‘need’. Although I must also admit that from the first sip, which happened at a very early age, I was intrigued. At first I thought that all the encomiastic tributes to wine were hyperbole, exaggerated descriptions probably written in a state of inebriety. But then on my first trip to France many, many years ago, I tasted a 1966 Chambolle Musigny and was so profoundly awakened, I’ve never looked back. There was something beyond beautiful. The nose of that wine was beyond anything I’d ever experienced and the taste sent me into raptures. So, it was all true. There was something of the divine, the ineffable, the heavenly, the beguiling, and the bewitching in wine. Trying to express what that is has been the task of wine lovers for centuries.
"Love does not dominate; it cultivates."
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
This was not the first of many memorable wine experiences, just the most dramatic. I have a very fond memory of a Rosé d’Anjou that was brought to me in Victoria (British Columbia in Canada) by a friend who had just returned from a trip to France with her family. That she had carried this bottle all the way from so far away and then given it to me was an incomparably generous and thoughtful gesture. I was in love, and the wine was pure joy. It was summertime and the colour was something I’d never really seen before, while the taste was sublime. Fresh, gushing fruit captured in a heady ambrosia that made you feel as though anything were possible.
While making a film on biodynamic wine I interviewed David Ridgeway, who was the head sommelier at La Tour d’Argent here in Paris at the time. I asked him what his favourite wine was, and he gave the perfect answer: “Well Geoffrey, that will be the next wine I share with friends”. Having managed the largest wine cellar in the world with wines going back to the 1800s, I expected him to mention one of the iconic domains from one of the best vintages. Placing the emphasis instead on the convivial aspect of wine, the joy of sharing, was as unexpected as it was appropriate.
I once saw a solitary Japanese man in a restaurant in Beaune with a bottle of Petrus that he was thoughtfully sipping all alone. It was clear from the way he held his glass, studying it, sniffing, and then putting it down again, reflecting, perplexed, then picking it up again, that he was totally rapt, trying to figure out what this mysterious and sublime elixir was. Drinking a bottle of Petrus alone might be the perfect way to focus and to pay tribute to what many consider to be one of the finest wines in the world, but it seemed a little sad not to be sharing something so fine with others. Wine invites exchange and is, as David Ridgeway suggested, best shared.
Sharing is bonding
Every wine that is shared creates or reinforces bonds of friendship and fraternity. My elder brother came to visit me in Burgundy in the 1980’s and we had dinner at the Hostellerie de Levernois outside of Beaune. There was a 1945 Gevrey Chambertin (half bottle, and quite irresponsibly, I’ve forgotten the producer) on the wine list that was expensive, but not beyond reason. So we decided to share it and that moment of sipping history remains engrained in my memory forever.
We also shared a bottle of Petrus years later that I had given him (that had been given to me by a group of appreciative Americans I’d taken on a wine tour to Bordeaux) as a thank you for his countless generosities. We were with another friend and they had lined up a number of ‘gold medal’ wines they thought we should taste at the same time. I suggested we start with the Petrus, while our palates were freshest, but instead, we consumed at least 4 other wines first. I thought our senses would be muted and the Petrus would be lost on us, but no. It pierced the veil of our inebriety with perfect clarity and woke us like nothing else could.
There have been many other memorable shared wine experiences that have convinced me I am blessed. But I grew up feeling blessed. Fine wines have simply blessed me in another way, reminding me that wine is perhaps love, and that "the madness of love is the greatest of heaven’s blessings” (Plato).
Santé
Thank you for letting me into your world and for reading the Paris Wine Walks Substack. Your support is invaluable as are your comments, suggestions, critiques, dreams, thoughts and remembrances. A little encouragement goes a long way, so please consider a paid subscription, which need cost no more than (a cheap) glass of wine per week. Or, book a wine walk!
My book, ‘The Hidden Vineyards of Paris’ (reviewed in Jancis Robinson’s wine blog, the Wine Economist, National Geographic Traveler UK, UK Telegraph) is available for purchase via our website and at anglophone bookshops and wine shops in Paris. You can also find it at the Musée de Montmartre and the Librairie Gourmande.
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