Podcast Blues

 

I was walking the hounds this morning on our usual routine.  I generally listen to wine education podcasts as I walk along seeking to to maximize learning potential at every second in a grim functional efficiency.  One of my neighbors passed on the opposite sidewalk walking her dog.  The woman either genuinely doesn't like me or has massive social anxiety.  Despite a full two years of my initiating casual greetings such as "good morning", she will do whatever necessary to avoid any interaction.  This morning she walked passed me with her signature move, staring down at her phone with the intensity like she just received the news of 9/11.  I do recognize and salute the technique, as it does allow her the option of pretending to be startled as if she didn't see me if I say something dangerous like "hello".  Now, I know that she knows that  I noticed that she clocked me as soon as she stepped off her driveway, and since last January I have fully embraced my new policy towards her which is "fuck that lady".     

I was listening to the Guildsomm podcast.  I have a love/hate relationship with that podcast as the host finds himself unable to communicate without liberal use of the words "amazing" or "literally" like much of the 25-44 year old demographic in the United States.  There's good content there, but I struggle sometimes. The host also uses that verbal uplift that's popular right now where when you have to illustrate your point with facts, those become listed out as if you are so weary you can't make it though the list.  It's that move where the underlying suggestion is "we all already know this, but I'll repeat it anyway since I have to Daddy".  Everything sounds like a question.  Example:  "Today we have on Jane Doe, an advanced somm that works for the amazing Denver Steak House Chain.  Before that she worked at Restaurant A?  Wine Company B? Restaurant C with the amazing Janet Doe who literally gave me my first job."  

Let's all be honest with ourselves.  Jane Doe works at a restaurant that is "another fucking steakhouse", a place that charges $80 for a steak you could probably cook better yourself at home for $25 where she sells boatloads of Caymus Cabernet and Rombauer Chardonnay to suburban car dealers/yoga moms/finance bros.  You'd forget you ate there by the time you walked back to your company expense account paid business hotel chain room.  Amazing?  Sure, if when you walked in there a topless woman in an angel outfit descended from a cloud playing a harp as you get served a market price steak with a potato dish that is the best thing you've ever had and it's so new it doesn't even have a name.  At the meal's conclusion a team on horseback bursts into the room to offer you a Tokaji which they open with a sword as flashing lights synched to "Pump Up The Jam" kick on.  Now that's an amazing restaurant.   

So I'm walking along listening to these folks discuss blind wine tasting techniques and they get off topic a bit into how Chianti doesn't taste like Chianti, Rioja doesn't taste like Rioja, and Sancerre doesn't taste like Sancerre.  I am 100% on board with that assessment as I have been struggling inside a couple Triangles of Doom, namely the Rioja/St Emilion/Sangiovese and the Northern Rhone Syrah/Shiraz/Malbec ones.  The tricky thing with identifying these wines is that the version of St Emilion or Rioja you're calibrating yourself on might not be what the people giving you the exam have decided what is the benchmark version of that wine.  Is Lopez de Heredia's old school oxidized "Tondonia" with 6 years in barrel and 10 years in bottle "what Rioja is", or is it Muga's dense and chewy Torre Muga with 18 months in French oak the new definition of "what Rioja is"?  Is St Emilion a big soft purple wash of black fruit or it is a tannic grippy currant driven wine?  I mean, there's high quality examples of both styles, so which is "correct"?  I think I know but do I?

In the "Good Old Days" when Bordeaux struggled to get ripe and Italy was the only place where you'd normally hit 14% ABV, it was much easier.  Bordeaux was leathery and savory and tannic.  Rioja was American Oak and oxygen.  Sangiovese was high acid and dusty rustic high tannins.  Got it.  Taking the MW exam back in the 1980s must have been a breeze.  There would have been such an overwhelming emphasis on Champagne, Burgundy, Bordeaux, Port, Madeira, Sherry and Rioja that getting a Barolo blind would have been noteworthy.  Now it's all about differentiating the most important wine subregion on the planet, Elgin, from different zones of Stellenbosch.  What, you can't tell the difference between a Mornington pinot noir and a vanguard producer's top line pinot from Leyda, Chile?  WTF is wrong with you buddy?

I did my last Blind Wine Wednesday last night and tried to take it easy.  It's not like I'm going to get better overnight, so I wasn't too worried about mistakes.  I am where I am at this point in my development.  I have identified some holes in my tasting, but I don't have enough time to fix 'em before next week.  Eh, what are you going to do?  I continued to answer on the wines like I would on an exam, trying not to play the man.  Like, I knew Yoda wasn't going to roll into this with a pair of single variety Rhone whites, but I dutifully funneled out Cotes du Rhone White from a Bordeaux call (not as weird as it sounds based on where the acid was sitting).  I called a Cali Zin that had 70% American Oak a Rioja Crianza, which I would do 99/100 on an exam as I think that much American oak indicates Rioja on an exam... but does it?  Shit, I don't know.  A soft black fruit driven wine on French Oak with medium grained ripe tannins and savory finish I funneled through Ribera del Duero before landing on St Emilion (it was a Rioja).  Was that the right thing to do?  I don't know.  I was leaning into "trusting my theory" as they so often say, but what if the theory I learned doesn't apply any longer in this interlocked global marketplace?  Does theory from a textbook from 2018 still apply, or do I trust what I read on the Post Truth Landscape of the internet?  Where are my Alternative Facts when I need them?  Down is up, up is down.  Chianti Classico is Bordeaux is Rioja.  

Ah well, I'll get 12 random wines next week.  They'll probably all be from Elgin anyway.