Cellar goodies

originally posted by VLM: There are things that econometrics does very well. Many things, in fact.
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Of course. And there are many things it doesn't do very well. Just like everything else.

I would never say economic historians are better than econometricians and neither would I say the reverse.

I always get frustrated with these academic hierarchies. All of these approaches and methods add to our understanding of the world. Even the humanities! :)

But then now that I think about it, you have been known to seek hierarchical truth in wine, haven't you.
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by VLM: There are things that econometrics does very well. Many things, in fact.
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Of course. And there are many things it doesn't do very well. Just like everything else.

I would never say economic historians are better than econometricians and neither would I say the reverse.

I always get frustrated with these academic hierarchies. All of these approaches and methods add to our understanding of the world. Even the humanities! :)

But then now that I think about it, you have been known to seek hierarchical truth in wine, haven't you.
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I've got no issue with hierarchies, in principle. I believe that wines are better than other wines and our beliefs about such things can asymptote towards truth (the old JTB).

I also think some things are harder than other things. If you are in academia at all, you tacitly accept this.

Now this is all my take on things which I don't believe to be the whole truth, but more true than other theories.
 
Econometricians would never have planted some of the shit Syrah vine stock I saw in SA. Their vineyard Polanying would've been better.
 
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
I was trying to pin down, quite independent of my own preferences, what I impressionistically see out there as currently considered classic (in dry reds and whites) in the morass of places that generate these impressions - message boards, blogs, auction catalogues, store displays, magazine and newspaper articles, books, encyclopedias, wine courses, and, last & not least, conversations with animate people.
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But, if one grew up in, say, Bugey, then read all that stuff, the meaning of "classic" would both be about the same and somewhat different. And that is something that you might know but no one else would (impossibility of introspection of the mental states of others, and all that).

I cannot (do not?) write with Thor's clarity but I still just don't see how you can state what others (who?) have called "classic" by consensus (ha!).

As for those for whom subjectivity is problematic and need unambiguous truisms (and I certainly don't begrudge the comfort of a good rule every now and then), well, there's always therapy.
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Alas, alas.
 
originally posted by Jeff Grossman:I still just don't see how you can state what others (who?) have called "classic" by consensus (ha!).
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Simple! While I've already conceded that neither the concept of classic nor the list were essential to my point, there's still this aspect of speaking for others. Let's say you were to give me a list of famous movie actors and a list of your favorite movie actors. They would not only be different (presumbaly), but they would follow different procedures. Unlike the second, for the first you'd have to step outside yourself and rely on whatever anecdotal evidence you've accumulated about who is famous to the world at large. My list of classics was no more, no less, than any list in which a person steps outside themselves and lists what they perceive to be the case. That's no more presumptuous, I don't think, than saying that Bach, Beethoven and Mozart are classics, or Faulkner, Hemingway and Scott Fitzgerald are classics, etc.
 
But what you're doing is claiming that Beethoven and Mozart are classics, but that Bach isn't because he was Baroque, or because rigid counterpoint can't be classic, or because he wrote too much organ music. Whatever. What you're doing by excluding Jerez, Port, etc., etc., etc. is along similar lines, which is why I continue to be convinced that your definition of "classic" is "wines I like that can support an argument I'm trying to make." I'm fine with the argument. But I'm unconvinced by the defense of "classic."
 
originally posted by Thor:
But what you're doing is claiming that Beethoven and Mozart are classics, but that Bach isn't because he was Baroque, or because rigid counterpoint can't be classic, or because he wrote too much organ music. Whatever. What you're doing by excluding Jerez, Port, etc., etc., etc. is along similar lines, which is why I continue to be convinced that your definition of "classic" is "wines I like that can support an argument I'm trying to make." I'm fine with the argument. But I'm unconvinced by the defense of "classic."
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I'm claiming that all three composers are classics. I'm saying classic, not classical (as in classical v. romantic or classical v. baroque).

I've clarified several times since the original post that I was talking only about classic red and white European table wines. I couldn't agree more that Jerez, Port, Madeira, Tokajy, etc. are classics too. I excluded them not because they don't support my argument, which would have been intellectually dishonest, something you wouldn't suggest if you knew me better, but because we were talking about the red and white table wines of Argentina and Chile, and also some of the high octane Californians. It is only apples to apples to compare them to their European analogues. If anything, Chateauneuf du Pape, which I included, could stand as an argument against my position, since it is a hotter climate, with shorter maturations, producing high octane wines that are generally considered classic, as far as I can tell.
 
The problem is that the term "classic," borrowed from the arts, is useless, has largely been given up within the arts (except as a period designation) and needs to be given up here. All the problems that people have brought up--that it's an evaluative term masquerading as an historical one, that the mixing of a period designation with an evaluative designation isn't an accident but a trace of the problem with the term, that all lists tend to show cultural and subjective preferences, etc. ad infinitum--are old ones. If one replaced the term with an arbitrary historical one--wines made in places that the British Empire has bought from for at least 200 years, say--at least you'd know how you came up with the list and whether wine x belonged on it or not, even if you wouldn't feel comfortable brandishing it as a touchstone list.
 
... there are various other cultural or historic practices that are recognized or not. At Hermitage, you can make a vin de paille because it was a tradition to make it there, but not at Cte-Rtie or Condrieu or St-Joseph or Crozes-Hermitage. And the vin de paille has to be made by drying the grapes (not necessarily on straw though, see Chapoutier), not simply from grapes allowed to get overripe. (Although I have tasted from Viognier grown on Hermitage that was made simply from overripe grapes, but it is only allowed to be vdt.)
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A useful reminder that legal appellations (and their mandated viticultural practices) were originally created to limit supply and defend authenticity and typicity for marketing purposes. If you assume terroir includes historical cultural practices, then they are integral to terroir. If your definition of terroir is simply the effect of soil and microclimate on the flavors of the grape, then some mandated practices may in fact obscure it (like drying the grapes on straw mats?)
 
originally posted by Rahsaan:
originally posted by Oswaldo Costa:
Goddamitt, I lost sleep last night ruminating about this thread!

Classic, to me, means Alsace, Loire, and Germany/Austria for whites, Burgundy for both, and Bordeaux, Northern Rhone, CdP, Piedmont, Tuscany and Rioja for reds. One may quibble about this one or that one, but I think that's basically it..
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Why do France and Italy get regional breakdowns but Germany and Austria get a pass for the entire country?!

What about Tokaji? What about Shirazi/Persia?

I don't know how precise one can really be with terms like 'classic'?
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Exactly. It's been all downhill since Falernian.
 
I understand that you're restricting your definition of "classic" to red and white table wines, though that was not obvious at the start, and which I still think is odd...but moreover, isn't even necessary to make the argument about ripeness that you want to make. The argument stands just fine on the merits of long, slow growing seasons. It doesn't need these increasingly arbitrary and contradictory definitions of "classic," which really have nothing to do with ripeness except to the extent that our notions of what wine should taste like are, generally, historically derived. What you claim matters in Burgundy versus hot-climate pinot noir also matters in Champagne vs. hot-climate sparkling wine, and surely matters in Sauternes vs. hot-climate botrytized whites. There are generalized structural differences between traditional Porto and hot-climate mimics that are surely, at least in part, related to climate. And I could go on.

Beyond that, not all the regions you define as "classic" fit your defined criterion of "what your average Joe/Juan/Jos/Josef/Jean recognizes as such." Alsace doesn't, in my opinion. Much of the Loire doesn't. Austria doesn't. Were I to take a stab at "classic" as understood by more than just the little guy who types in my head, I'd probably have chosen something along the lines of what Jonathan offers: the core curriculum/canon as represented in the traditional British cellar. But even that is certainly arguable, even without bringing other cultures' understanding into it.

Again, I think what you really wanted to say never needed this concept of "classic." The more you attempt to claim external understanding of your use of the term as a pillar of the argument, the weaker both the pillar and the argument get. Because you then end up writing fairly silly things like:

There's no doubt in my mind that red and white table wines are the mainstream and everything else, including ros, is a niche
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...which aren't even close to demonstrably true.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
The problem is that the term "classic," borrowed from the arts, is useless, has largely been given up within the arts (except as a period designation) and needs to be given up here. All the problems that people have brought up--that it's an evaluative term masquerading as an historical one, that the mixing of a period designation with an evaluative designation isn't an accident but a trace of the problem with the term, that all lists tend to show cultural and subjective preferences, etc. ad infinitum--are old ones. If one replaced the term with an arbitrary historical one--wines made in places that the British Empire has bought from for at least 200 years, say--at least you'd know how you came up with the list and whether wine x belonged on it or not, even if you wouldn't feel comfortable brandishing it as a touchstone list.
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Classic may be useless in some contexts, but is alive and well in the vernacular, where it is meaningful. Aa an evaluative term, agreed, not a historical one (I hear and read classical most often used in art as a period designation, not classic).

In my posts, classic is not masquerading as anything else. It is, indeed, an evaluative term, representing how I understand today's subjective consensus of greatness. It does not represent my personal favorites, is not biased in their favor, nor serves any ulterior purpose. It's true that I can't tell you how I came up with my impressions of classic. I have no footnotes showing sources. But my list at least tells me where I appear to be in the mainstream, and where I don't. We live in a capitalist culture where consent, as Chomsky says, is constantly manufactured, our minds bombarded, programmed, influenced right and left. While we all try to carve some little niche of individuality within this mass of information and opinion, we can never be certain of the origin and individuality of any view we hold of the world.
 
originally posted by Thor:
I understand that you're restricting your definition of "classic" to red and white table wines, though that was not obvious at the start, and which I still think is odd...but moreover, isn't even necessary to make the argument about ripeness that you want to make. The argument stands just fine on the merits of long, slow growing seasons. It doesn't need these increasingly arbitrary and contradictory definitions of "classic," which really have nothing to do with ripeness except to the extent that our notions of what wine should taste like are, generally, historically derived.
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I've agreed several times already, but everyone keeps pulling me back to the definition of classic!
 
originally posted by Thor: Alsace doesn't, in my opinion. Much of the Loire doesn't. Austria doesn't. Were I to take a stab at "classic" as understood by more than just the little guy who types in my head, I'd probably have chosen something along the lines of what Jonathan offers: the core curriculum/canon as represented in the traditional British cellar. But even that is certainly arguable, even without bringing other cultures' understanding into it.

Again, I think what you really wanted to say never needed this concept of "classic." The more you attempt to claim external understanding of your use of the term as a pillar of the argument, the weaker both the pillar and the argument get. Because you then end up writing fairly silly things like:

There's no doubt in my mind that red and white table wines are the mainstream and everything else, including ros, is a niche
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...which aren't even close to demonstrably true.
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Alsace is dubious, perhaps, but I said Loire whites, thinking Sancerre, Pouilly Fume, etc., certainly not my beloved cab francs, which I don't see anyone considering classic. Jonathan's definition has the advantage of specificity, but I would prefer to be broader, even losing specificity. But, again, I have no stake in maintaining the term alive on this thread, I agree that the use of it was not necessary, and I'd love to move on. You have been a sympathetic and perceptive responder, so if you find my opinion about red and white table wines being the mainstream silly, so be it. But it stands.
 
My suggestion about the British Empire was more than a bit satiric. It's point was that the notion of classic is historically defined by an accident of empire (although also by the taste of imperialists, which we have learned to share). I expect that, in choosing wines to import, just as in choosing friezes to liberate, the Brits exercised very good taste, in fact. But it was based on where they were and what they learned and for how long. There's a reason Greek architecture is classical in both meanings of the term and Japanese or Mayan isn't, and the reason is evaluative about the Greek, but not about the Japanese or Mayan.
 
I plan on reading this exchange when I'm sober.

Snowed in drinking Dolin white vermouth and cooking while snowed in. Pasta with today's all day sugo and 2006 Montesecondo Chianti Classico are on the agenda.
 
originally posted by VLM:
I love this fucking bored.
I plan on reading this exchange when I'm sober.

Snowed in drinking Dolin white vermouth and cooking while snowed in. Pasta with today's all day sugo and 2006 Montesecondo Chianti Classico are on the agenda.
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You're snowed in and looking forward to the day you're sober enough to read this rambling post?

Count me in the Yixin camp.

Also, (for others) it's not precision it's accuracy that's desirable in econometrics.

BTW how's the Dolin (besides the color match with outside) ?

Fruit day, time to open a bottle.
 
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