9th of November 2008
Excuse me Waiter there are boobs in my wine!
During my time in the wine industry I have heard endless mention of wine being closely associated with one sex or another.
It
is most often used to provide people with the appropriate guidelines
regarding a wine's characteristics, with these characteristics in mind,
I assume one can then also decide which sex they belong to based on the
wine that they wish to drink. Seems simple enough.
I am often
left wondering, however, what qualities I am expected to realise when
such talk is entered into when these connotations are attached, but I
can tell you this, the offer of a Pinot that is a real sl*t of a wine,
never seemed so unappealing, nor inappropriately used as a term to
describe something destined to be consumed. I wonder if the same
language works when selling beef, cheese or military equipment. I can
only imagine the conversations about the toey rib eye, spunky blue vein
and pants dropping anti personnel mines. |
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Alas, amidst all my negativity, I concede to using masculinity and femininity as broad descriptors for a style of wine, they often refer to concentration, colour and the tannic qualities in a wine. The darker and more tannic, the bigger the wine, the more it resembles a man, the more lithe and lissom the wine the more it resembles Julian Cleary. He has always reminded me of cheeky little Alsatian Riesling after all.
I will happily accept "brute" to describe something with aggressive tannins, but wine described as though it is a member of the opposite sex, who might, after a few more beers want to take me home, has no place in my fridge at all. Why can't I just say the wine has assertive tannins, or has an ethereal quality about it. Softness and gentleness aren't solely feminine qualities, nor is assertiveness or hard edges the domain of men. And if it is, which it isn't, what has that got to do with my wine?
Perhaps I'm strange, but one evening after having it suggested to me that all my reviews should be of this randy style...It was like a long legged woman wearing a satin dress, the air forcing the cloth against her buxom figure, she had eyes the colour of the sea, I thought long and hard about it for at least two seconds and thought, if the tables were turned, would I want to go and spend money on a bottle of wine that was like a tall, olive skinned stranger, with rippling muscles, eyes like jewels and a butt that wouldn't quit? No!, though many would, I wouldn't, and I don't want to have to join Lavalife to know if I'm going to like my next bottle of wine, or for that matter have a fulfilling sex life with it.
The moral of the story is, people are different, wine is different, people are free to drink any wine they please, regardless of the clothes they are wearing or sexual orientation. Wine is such a pure expression of grape and place, need it be sullied by such disagreeable verbosity? To misquote someone whose name I have forgotten, " A poem should be, not mean" and that is how I feel about wine.
Alcohol, it is said, is a social lubricant, but if I need to pluck up the courage to ask my next bottle of Semillon out on a date, I quit!
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