Vir Cless from Plato's Cave

O

Oswaldo Costa

Oswaldo Costa
2002 Domaine de la Bongran Vir Cless Cuve Tradition 14.0%
For the expression "Plato's Cave," the word "Cave" can be pronounced in English or French.

In English, it's a well-known metaphor for living in a world of illusions, Plato having suggested that we could never access reality, only its shadows projected on the walls of our caves [he had cave (English) dwellers in mind; winegeeks, on the other hand, are cave (French) dwellers].

Pronounced in French, Plato's Cave is the underground cellar that Plato filled with archetypes from each appellation, a veritable catalogue of what each wine should taste like. The AOC system is nothing if not Platonic in inspiration.

On pulling the cork, I was SO glad this wasn't premoxed, you can't believe. In fact, I was hard pressed not to handicap it (in reverse) just for being sound. And sound it was, a sound I could bite. Gorgeous aromas of white flowers, hazelnuts, ripe melons and honey, underlined by a serious mineral streak that said "baby, am I ever going to take you for a ride." No sign of wood, praise the lawd. In ze mouth, perfect weight, crisp acidity, and honeyed sweetness, all harmoniously integrated. Marcia says "this is my platonic ideal for chardonnay." I think maybe, just maybe, a wee bit more acidity would be welcome, but then I remind myself, from many a night of raucous drinking and drunken philosophizing with the Man himself, that the chards in Plato's cave (French) had exactly this much acidity. Taking this for what it's meant to be, it's hard to imagine better. Pleasure to be had in spades, hearts, diamonds and clubs.

Without enough unoaked Chablis in my cellar, I was beginning to despair of finding a chard that pulled its weight without oak, and beginning to tautologically conclude that chard needs oak to pull its weight. Believe! If this saw any new oak, it's integrated in the most desirable way possible. If it didn't, then who needs it? Plato, my man, this one's for you.
 
I've loved this stuff going back to the 90s. And Chamber's st. had a crazy sale on this vintage a few months ago. But I would hardly call it typical, much less a Platonic form (I'm not sure one can perceive Platonic forms, since that would make them appearances, thus defeating their point, rather a problem for wine). It had, I think, trouble getting AOC authorization for awhile because of its botrytis. Still a great Macon. If you like this, look for Roailly (sp.?) as well.
 
I tend to agree with the prof. It's a Platonic ideal of the Bongran/Roally/Thvenet school, maybe (though I'm not saying those wines are all alike, either), and I love it, but if I wanted to show someone "a Mcon," I'd choose a different wine.
 
It was a bottle of 97 Thevenet Levoutree that almost get me into a brawl at a recent Rickie Lee Jones show. That and the two Bombay martinis that preceded it.
 
I'm the wrong guy to ask, since what I'd probably suggest for a "platonic Mcon" means it's only chardonnay, by which I'm generally bored. Perusset, maybe?

I dunno. Ask someone who likes the grape more than me.
 
Point well taken that it's too ripe to be a Platonic Macon. I think Thevenet even uses a portion of botrytized grapes.

Looking back at what possessed me to write that, the lack of oak made it appear austere compared to a buttery Meursault, so it registered as midway between a Platonic (drier) Macon and a Platonic (wetter) Cote de Beaune. Presto, Platonic white burg, if one takes all of Burgundy into account. A stretch and a generalization, I know.

Jonathan, I have some Roallys too, but more recent. Hope to try them soon.

BTW, Thevenet makes the only dessert white burg that I am aware of. I've had some 375s of the 1995 Cuve Botrytis and it's fabulous.
 
Platonic Macon would be Talmard, Chateau Fuisse or older Ferret. Perrusset would probably fit in there too.
 
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I've loved this stuff going back to the 90s. And Chamber's st. had a crazy sale on this vintage a few months ago. But I would hardly call it typical, much less a Platonic form (I'm not sure one can perceive Platonic forms, since that would make them appearances, thus defeating their point, rather a problem for wine). It had, I think, trouble getting AOC authorization for awhile because of its botrytis. Still a great Macon. If you like this, look for Roailly (sp.?) as well.
Click to expand...

1) There was a mini-blowup over the AOC thing. As I heard it Thevenet found century(ies?)-old records that suggested that the Macon was a dessert wine region in historic time, and this ended discussion in his favor. Not sure if that's true.

2) Forms are perceived through intuition, as opposed to physical objects, which are perceived through sensation, and contents of our own minds, which are perceived through introspection. Or that's a traditional categorization, anyway - obviously all of this is problematic in a variety of ways here in the early 21st.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
originally posted by Jonathan Loesberg:
I've loved this stuff going back to the 90s. And Chamber's st. had a crazy sale on this vintage a few months ago. But I would hardly call it typical, much less a Platonic form (I'm not sure one can perceive Platonic forms, since that would make them appearances, thus defeating their point, rather a problem for wine). It had, I think, trouble getting AOC authorization for awhile because of its botrytis. Still a great Macon. If you like this, look for Roailly (sp.?) as well.
Click to expand...

1) There was a mini-blowup over the AOC thing. As I heard it Thevenet found century(ies?)-old records that suggested that the Macon was a dessert wine region in historic time, and this ended discussion in his favor. Not sure if that's true.

2) Forms are perceived through intuition, as opposed to physical objects, which are perceived through sensation, and contents of our own minds, which are perceived through introspection. Or that's a traditional categorization, anyway - obviously all of this is problematic in a variety of ways here in the early 21st.
Click to expand...

Perception being via sensation, forms aren't perceived at all, which was my point. Forms are the unitary reality behind any multiplicity. Any perception creates a doubleness that would mean that the unitary form is yet behind that. Plato made an exception for the Idea of Beauty in Phaedrus because beauty was a perceptual response to an object and so he thought one could have the impression (an inaccurate impression, though) that in seeing a loved object, one was actually seeing an Ideal.

Unless you are thinking of intuition as Kant did, we may apprehend through it, but we don't perceive through it. If you are thinking of intuition as Kant did, well then you don't have Forms so you don't have the problem.
 
Perception is a broader concept than sensation in many philosophical systems. Sense-perception is sometimes opposed to intellectual perception.

The Dialogues vary in how literally they seem to want to take this, but they do often treat intellection as, at the very least, metaphorically very similar to perception. Aside from the Phaedrus example there are the famous allegories of the Sun, Line, and Cave in the Republic. In the first truth is characterized as a light emanating from the good that makes perception of the forms (mental knowledge) possible, just as light emanates from the sun to make sense-perception possible. In the Divided Line Plato uses 'dianoia' and 'nous' as the names for the faculties by which we know/perceive/whatever the forms, the former through their physical images and the rather by way of direct interaction.

That said, your remarks duplicate some very reasonable criticisms Aristotle made of Plato's view in Metaphysics I and elsewhere. Plato himself seems to have felt a need to respond to some of them in his later philosophy.

Speaking personally I tend to look at things from a more Aristotelian point of view so I tend to think that intuition-of-forms always proceeds by way of some sort of sensory and/or introspective experience. However, although this is sometimes soothing to me to say, I don't think it really solves all the philosophical problems about the ontology of even physical structure, in the way that a complete reduction of all structure in the universe to its constituents would. And so I actually don't really know what to think at all.

Now I need to go drink some more wine. Probably merlot after all this.
 
"Perception is a broader concept than sensation in many philosophical systems. Sense-perception is sometimes opposed to intellectual perception"

It may be semantic, but it would be better to amend intellectual perception to intellectual apprehension. It is a matter of some controversy as to whether we apprehend in any other way than via the senses, but nobody disputes that we do perceive because we do perceive through the senses. Since we don't apprehend wine except through the sensations, in any case, the point of my original parenthesis remains unchanged.

"The Dialogues vary in how literally they seem to want to take this, but they do often treat intellection as, at the very least, metaphorically very similar to perception. Aside from the Phaedrus example there are the famous allegories of the Sun, Line, and Cave in the Republic. In the first truth is characterized as a light emanating from the good that makes perception of the forms (mental knowledge) possible, just as light emanates from the sun to make sense-perception possible. In the Divided Line Plato uses 'dianoia' and 'nous' as the names for the faculties by which we know/perceive/whatever the forms, the former through their physical images and the rather by way of direct interaction"

But these are, famously, allegories, meant to explain to us what forms are, not to claim that we do see them, at least in the instance of the allegory of the cave. In particular, to handle the multiple workings of light between fire, sun and the light of truth, you need to be adept at working with catachresis. For instance, one can never learn to look directly at the sun. I won't comment further on how resistant these allegories are to close reading, except to say with Glaucon, that they are strange stories. They work to express ideas, not to delineate specificities.

Dianoia is the mental activity by which we "know" mathematical formulae and hence, by extension, the existence of forms. You are right to be apprehensive about using a word for it. It is tied up with memory as in the Dialogue in which the servant is made to articulate mathematical formulae that he has clearly never learned. As Socrates says, see he remembers. Thus Socrates also speaks of the memory of justice. Plato may, at times, have written as if he thought we could apprehend specific Forms, but when he thought about it, he certainly didn't.

Nous I have always taken to be mind, or so it was taught to non-Greek speaking me. If that is the case, it isn't a faculty at all.
 
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