Wine not?
December 5, 2003 | 12:00am
What I like to drink most is wine that belongs to others.
Diogenes , 320 BC, Greek philosopher
Why should one despise wine? Let me count the reasons:
Reason #1: It can seriously hurt your finances. There are still a few good cheap wines out there but it’s becoming more difficult to find quality for less than P500 a bottle. I was recently in Singapore with my good friend Celine and we went on a champagne weekend rampage – given the exchange rate, our credit card bills rampaged us as well. Daddy’s platinum card will certainly be handy if you drink wine often.
The more one learns about wine, the more one is tempted to spend. You begin to taste the difference between an okay and a great Cabernet Sauvignon, and you are lured upward along the price curve as your tongue pursues more intoxicating flavors (hmmm one can think of other things to relate this to).
So great is the reality distortion field of wine, that when you really get into it, you find yourself nodding your head in agreement with the sommelier when he labels a P2,500.00 bottle of Bordeaux as a great steal.
Reason #2: It can be severely complicated. Only a full-time professional could know the thousands of makers and dozens of sub-regions that exist in one major wine region alone of France. And to be really good, one should have actually tasted a substantial portion of those wines.
With wine, you have layers of information and knowledge lying over one another that influence a bottle’s taste and role: grape variety, the terroir, vintage year, accompanying food, and what else you are drinking. All these different facets relate with each other, making the subject interesting but hideously complex to all but those who persevere.
Reason #3: Wine is virtually unknown in our culture, a seldom habit. On the one hand, President Estrada loved wine and somehow was able to afford the P20K bottle of Petrus on a regular basis. On the other hand, the rest of us have mostly not grown up with a bottle of wine on the table, as they do in France, Spain or Italy. You won’t find it served at Jollibee.
Reason #4 (and certainly not the least): It can be superiorly pretentious. When you combine arcane fields of knowledge and enormous sums of money you are sure to get people named Buffy standing around talking about the bucks they dropped on big-named bottles of Burgundy.
Halt! That’s enough of the negatives! This set of difficulties – expense, complexity, pretense and the non-existent relationship wine has with our culture – will form a backdrop against which I hope to show (or rather tempt) readers wine’s more oh la la aspects. En francais, voila:
One: A truly excellent meal can never be described as such without wine, despite its tortured history here. Whether it’s steak tartare or filet mignon, a glass of red wine cuts through the grease, sets off the flavors, and aids digestion. Care to apply it to Pinoy food? Try pairing kaldereta with a full-bodied cabernet merlot or lechon with a Rioja.
Two: The health effects of wine are not just hype. A glass or two of wine daily really does calm the blood and clear out the arteries. The country dwellers of southern France who are known to drink at least a bottle of wine a day are known to live lengthy lives, and now science is backing them up. †It is also a wonderful antiseptic.
Three: The complexities of wine become oddly comforting, as one grows older. As I climb through the years, it’s somewhat reassuring that there is a field I can devote the rest of my life to and never master.
Four: I like that wine has no redeeming social value. It is a purely sensual pleasure, good because it is good, and bad only if one does not like the taste. Drinking a great glass of wine is like staring at a masterpiece, enjoyable only for itself. For someone who can be overly inclined to think about "the big questions" of society, history and politics, wine can be a comfort.
There you have it. If you choose to go along for the ride, our mission is to find good and great bottles at reasonable prices, and to together find our way through the forest of dollar signs and hype. Cheers!
Email your comments to djmontano@ pacific.net.ph
Diogenes , 320 BC, Greek philosopher
Why should one despise wine? Let me count the reasons:
Reason #1: It can seriously hurt your finances. There are still a few good cheap wines out there but it’s becoming more difficult to find quality for less than P500 a bottle. I was recently in Singapore with my good friend Celine and we went on a champagne weekend rampage – given the exchange rate, our credit card bills rampaged us as well. Daddy’s platinum card will certainly be handy if you drink wine often.
The more one learns about wine, the more one is tempted to spend. You begin to taste the difference between an okay and a great Cabernet Sauvignon, and you are lured upward along the price curve as your tongue pursues more intoxicating flavors (hmmm one can think of other things to relate this to).
So great is the reality distortion field of wine, that when you really get into it, you find yourself nodding your head in agreement with the sommelier when he labels a P2,500.00 bottle of Bordeaux as a great steal.
Reason #2: It can be severely complicated. Only a full-time professional could know the thousands of makers and dozens of sub-regions that exist in one major wine region alone of France. And to be really good, one should have actually tasted a substantial portion of those wines.
With wine, you have layers of information and knowledge lying over one another that influence a bottle’s taste and role: grape variety, the terroir, vintage year, accompanying food, and what else you are drinking. All these different facets relate with each other, making the subject interesting but hideously complex to all but those who persevere.
Reason #3: Wine is virtually unknown in our culture, a seldom habit. On the one hand, President Estrada loved wine and somehow was able to afford the P20K bottle of Petrus on a regular basis. On the other hand, the rest of us have mostly not grown up with a bottle of wine on the table, as they do in France, Spain or Italy. You won’t find it served at Jollibee.
Reason #4 (and certainly not the least): It can be superiorly pretentious. When you combine arcane fields of knowledge and enormous sums of money you are sure to get people named Buffy standing around talking about the bucks they dropped on big-named bottles of Burgundy.
Halt! That’s enough of the negatives! This set of difficulties – expense, complexity, pretense and the non-existent relationship wine has with our culture – will form a backdrop against which I hope to show (or rather tempt) readers wine’s more oh la la aspects. En francais, voila:
One: A truly excellent meal can never be described as such without wine, despite its tortured history here. Whether it’s steak tartare or filet mignon, a glass of red wine cuts through the grease, sets off the flavors, and aids digestion. Care to apply it to Pinoy food? Try pairing kaldereta with a full-bodied cabernet merlot or lechon with a Rioja.
Two: The health effects of wine are not just hype. A glass or two of wine daily really does calm the blood and clear out the arteries. The country dwellers of southern France who are known to drink at least a bottle of wine a day are known to live lengthy lives, and now science is backing them up. †It is also a wonderful antiseptic.
Three: The complexities of wine become oddly comforting, as one grows older. As I climb through the years, it’s somewhat reassuring that there is a field I can devote the rest of my life to and never master.
Four: I like that wine has no redeeming social value. It is a purely sensual pleasure, good because it is good, and bad only if one does not like the taste. Drinking a great glass of wine is like staring at a masterpiece, enjoyable only for itself. For someone who can be overly inclined to think about "the big questions" of society, history and politics, wine can be a comfort.
There you have it. If you choose to go along for the ride, our mission is to find good and great bottles at reasonable prices, and to together find our way through the forest of dollar signs and hype. Cheers!
Email your comments to djmontano@ pacific.net.ph
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