Wine's mystery dance Why don’t you tell me ‘bout the mystery dance. I wanna know about the mystery dance. Why don’t you show me, ’cause I’ve tried and I’ve tried, and I’m still mystified. – Elvis Costello and the Attractions,“Mystery Dance.” By Mark Criden For the consumer, wine is one long, nerve-racking mystery dance. All those grapes, all those countries, all those labels, all those vintages. Emperor Joseph II complained to Mozart that The Marriage of Figaro had “too many notes.” Most people believe wine has too many notes. What’s more, daunting as it can be trying to guess which glass holds cabernet and which syrah, the wine buyer believes he enters a special circle of hell when asked to tell the good from the great. But shake off the brimstone and toss away the pitchforks, folks. Despite what experts tell you—experts, let us not forget, whose livelihood depends on your intimidation by their expertise—you too can judge whether a wine is great. All you have to remember is that greatness is a matter of depth, length, and balance. Let’s start with depth. A magnificent wine doesn’t just taste or smell fabulous. It must be multifaceted, showing a kaleidoscope of flavors and aromas. People often joke about wine writers and their preposterous descriptions: spices and flowers and minerals and smoked meats and the like. While these sound silly and pretentious, it’s not easy to translate complicated olfactory and gustatory experiences into words. The greater number of layers to the taste and smell of a wine, the more complex, or deep, it is. Great wine is always deep. Next, remarkable wine must stay with you—it must have length. While the essence of lesser wines disappears right after you gulp, a top wine will linger in your senses, right through to the end of the bottle. Next time, grab a stopwatch with your corkscrew. Most wines—even good wines—disappear from your senses within a few seconds. The best fill every corner of your mouth, and hold on for up to thirty seconds or more after you’ve swallowed. Forty-five seconds after the last sip, you’re still tasting the wine. That’s greatness. Finally, the best wines are truly balanced: not too sweet, dry, acidic, oaky, tannic. Not too anything. Plenty of wines with pretensions to greatness can be complex—some top Australian Shirazes spring to mind—but rather than shouting, “Wonderful!” you’re far more likely to cry, “Timber!” And length in an unbalanced wine is no virtue, if your gums spend minutes recovering from tannic shock. A great wine is harmonious, with all of its parts in sync. And the truest test is if you reach for another glass. Complexity, length, and balance: a prescription for greatness in wine, as in life. And speaking of greatness … No future in futures Wine lovers spent much of the summer scratching their heads over the latest sales job out of Bordeaux. Each spring, the winemakers in this part of southwest France flog much of their still-in-process wine as “futures.” After legions of wine writers descend on Bordeaux and tout the greatness of the vintage, the winemakers give the thirsty, the greedy, and the needy the chance to buy their infant wines twenty-four months before bottling. It’s easy to see what the producer gets out of this arrangement: early cash. What you, the consumer, are getting is a promise of wine two years from now and two risks: (1) that someone along the way will default, and (2) that you’re buying a pig in a poke. Buying futures is similar to agreeing to marry someone when they’re eight years old: the fully formed adult will remind you of the child, but you have no idea what traits are going to be dominant or recessive. So why would an American consumer essentially make an interest-free loan to a Bordeaux producer? Despite the romantic conception of the French winemaker as an old grandfather trodding through his vineyard in his sabots, Bordeaux Chateaux are by and large industrial scale productions and will have plenty to sell when the wine leaves the bottling line. So the only theory to plunk down cash now is to secure an early-bird discount on wine that is sure to appreciate during the two-year wait. Well, that’s the theory anyhow. In practice, however, not so much. Most vintages do not sharply appreciate prior to bottling; in 1999, 2001, 2002, and probably 2004, the futures price and the shelf price (prospective, in the case of 2004) were pretty similar. In some lame vintages, like 1997, retail prices were ultimately—and in many cases substantially—less than futures offerings. In rare instances, those who bought early in futures campaigns—in 2000 and 2003 to take some recent examples—bought well. And those exceptions have made futures purchasing a popular sport. Everyone wants to win the lottery. Every wine lover can tell you of buying Chateau X for $20 only to see it soar to $60 when bottled. But like stock market investors, you rarely hear about their losses. There’s likely to be losses aplenty with the 2005 Campaign. Anointed by Robert Parker, Wine Spectator, and the general wine blogosphere as one of the greatest vintages ever, the 2005s had Bordeaux lovers drooling. But after years of releasing their wines to the futures market only to see others get rich in great years by bidding up the prices throughout the supply chain, the Bordelais this time were determined to grab the front-end profits themselves. The result has been sticker shock. Favorite châteaux are being offered at what were widely seen as cutthroat prices. Branaire Ducru, a St. Julien whose excellent 2000 and ethereal 2003 were available for $30 or less, was now $60. The newly renewed Pauillac Pontet Canet, whose compelling, ready-to-go 2000 is widely available for under $50, is $80. And Palmer, the top Margaux estate whose price often nudges past $100, is asking $250. The world has gone mad. Part of the problem, of course, is the weakness of the dollar. Part of the problem is the manipulation of the market by the producers: releasing only small lots of chum to test shark-infested waters. But this is only part. Bordeaux is a worldwide commodity and newly minted zillionaires from Singapore to Dublin gotta have it, whether it’s $30 or $250. Regular classified-growth Bordeaux purchasers are now largely priced out of the market, and there’s grumbling aplenty from those with larger appetites than wallets. But there is good news for the Bordeaux buyer. For those who are jonesing for the 2005s, keep in mind that great vintages lift all boats. While the greatest wines can bring longshoremen to their knees, the modest can find nobility when Mother Nature smiles. So I’ve got my eye on humble 2005s from Cambon La Pelouse, Clos Puy Arnaud, Puygueraud, Charmail, and Haut-Bergey. I’ll look forward to opening my wallet for them—in 2008, when they hit the shelves. And if I miss them, there’s always another vintage coming quickly down the pike. Mark Criden (mcriden@yahoo.com) is a non-profit executive and the former chair of the Buffalo Branch of the International Wine & Food Society. Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top