Wine is but a dream

Some algorithm, computing from some data centre somewhere, delivered across one of my screens a short video clip of the musician and songwriter James Taylor being interviewed by the television host Stephen Colbert. The question posed is a list of Taylor’s five favourite songs by James Taylor. He names off a few of his songs that other musicians had told him they admired, but the number one favourite he names is his 1970’s hit “Carolina In My Mind.” If you don’t know it, the first line of that song goes, “In my mind I’m going to Carolina.” The song was written in 1968 when Taylor was recording his first album in London next to, and thanks to, The Beatles (his “holy host of others”). The best known version of the song is the 1976 recording of it that led toTaylor’s best-selling Greatest Hits LP. It has become a popular anthem about homesickness and daydreaming. And, if great works of art help us come to a better understanding of our lives, then I agree with Taylor that it’s his masterpiece. Specifically because the sentiment of the song has helped me to come to a better understanding, and a deeper appreciation of, wine. Since there have been wine sales, there has been marketing about wine. This is in part because it’s hard to tell how a wine will taste before opening the bottle. Most consumer goods can be judged by what they look like, but wine requires extra information, usually on the label.1Just as with a book and its cover, wine should probably not be judged by its label. But, of course, everyone does it anyway because the label and the bottle are often the only evidence before the court. Since wine is ultimately an agricultural product, that information will almost always begin with the place where the wine is from. When a wine seller can make a claim about the provenance of their wine, they can leverage two phenomena. First, they can take advantage of the old adage that they don’t make real estate like they used to. To associate a wine with a particular place is to create scarcity. Supply will always be limited by the boundaries of geography, whether it’s a single vineyard, estate, region, or an entire country. (Unless, like Champagne, a winemaking area is so sure of demand they increase supply by expanding the size of its territory.) The second and related phenomenon is the power of association. This gives the consumer a clue about what’s in the bottle. If you like one wine from a given place, then you’ll probably like another wine from the same place. The purpose of geographic appellations is to try to guarantee this by establishing some basic rules of winemaking. If everyone makes their wine in a similar way, then consumers can associate the wines from the region with confidence. The trend towards smaller subdivisions within larger regions is an attempt to further enhance this effect. So, what does this have to do with James Taylor’s Carolina? We’re getting there… For a few months, my wife and I have been looking for a new set of water glasses for everyday meals at the kitchen table. We had sunk below a critical mass of the old ones and couldn’t find more of that type to replace the ones that were lost or broken. I guess we’re fussy because nothing we saw, that was in our budget, was up to our standards until I saw an offer for a set of Italian tumblers in the email newsletter of a wine importing agent. I was set to order six when it occurred to me that I might as well order a case of wine while I was at it. Remembering my new years resolution to learn more about the wines of Spain, I checked to see what they had on offer from there. I ended up with a case of red wine: the 2022 Llebre made by Tomàs Cusiné in the appellation of Costers del Segre. I had to look up Costers del Segre and saw that it was in Catalonia, northwest of Barcelona, in what looks like the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains. It’s a stretch to say it looked like it was next to Rioja, but it appears to share some basic geography with the more famous region. I saw, too, that the Llebre is made with Tempranillo, most strongly associated with Rioja. Llebre is the Catalan word for hare, and the label of the wine is a detail of a woodcut of two of the animals on a striking persimmon orange coloured background. The label suggested to me that Cusiné makes this wine in a contemporary, fruit-forward style that’s easy on oak. The price (about $25 a bottle) backed up my gut feeling about the wine: it was likely made to be drunk now or soon. I was right. The wine is delicious with a predominant note of dark cherry, complemented by blackberry and violets. The tannin structure of the wine is discernible, but feels like it comes from skins. The wine punches above its price weight and is interesting enough to be contemplated slowly. It’s the contemplation that brings me back to Taylor’s song. Where exactly was I in my mind as I sipped a wine from a place I have never been? Or, had I? Was I there in some way, even though my body was very firmly rooted in a kitchen in midtown Toronto? There is a distinct thrill peculiar to the wine lover in visiting a place for the first time, if he or she has been tasting wines from that place for some time before. It’s not quite the same as seeing a thing or a place, like the Eiffel Tower or Lake Louise, that you recognize from pictures. It’s deeper, like something has been figured out and found, like a long-lost relative. Before I clicked on an ad for drinking glasses, I had never heard of this man, Tomàs Cusiné. Now, was he taking me to a corner of Catalonia I may or may not have vaguely been aware of in my mind? I think he was, and will again over the course of the next eleven bottles. When I finally set foot in Costers del Segre, I’ll already know it, if only a little bit. This is the power of wine and why it’s really like no other drink on earth. It brings a place to you and you to the place. Even if it’s only in your mind.