Over on Another Forum™, I can't even begin to guess how many times I've read variations on "wine is made from fruit, wine should taste like fruit" from consumers and West Coast winemakers. While I'm sure that some of this can be attributed to language, I've never once heard a winemaker from anywhere else -- other than Australia -- say that or anything akin to it. (Consumers from elsewhere, yes.) That doesn't preclude their belief in the idea, and their wines often reflect the likelihood that they do in fact follow the cult of fruit, but they tend not to express it in such simple terms.
Part of the problem is that when you try to have a conversation about the idea, people who say such things cannot fathom you mean anything other than either wine faults or a lesser wine ("lesser," of course, means "less fruit"). It's not just that they disagree with other preferences, is that the idea that the only consequence of less fruit is less fruit rather than more of something else in exchange, and that the only form not-fruit can take is something unpleasant, like brett. It's a complete fork in the road in terms of preferences, rather than just the usual branches and divergences.
I think, though, that the oenologist in the Piedmont had it right: there's a lot of technology (some of it modern, some of it old but repurposed) being applied to wines to keep them as much like freshly-pressed and/or INOX-preserved juice -- I dislike that word when applied to wine but use it here deliberately -- as possible. And in a way, were it not for the sulfur issue, a lot of the "natural wines" are almost exactly what these fruit-adoring folks are looking for, except that they tend to be made from the less massive and fruity grapes. Were they all made from grenache, syrah, and so forth, in hot climates and with a little more sulfur than is currently the norm, I think you'd see a certain embrace of the category from some of the people who typically argue about how much Carlisle and Sea Smoke they've been allocated this year.
Part of the problem is that when you try to have a conversation about the idea, people who say such things cannot fathom you mean anything other than either wine faults or a lesser wine ("lesser," of course, means "less fruit"). It's not just that they disagree with other preferences, is that the idea that the only consequence of less fruit is less fruit rather than more of something else in exchange, and that the only form not-fruit can take is something unpleasant, like brett. It's a complete fork in the road in terms of preferences, rather than just the usual branches and divergences.
I think, though, that the oenologist in the Piedmont had it right: there's a lot of technology (some of it modern, some of it old but repurposed) being applied to wines to keep them as much like freshly-pressed and/or INOX-preserved juice -- I dislike that word when applied to wine but use it here deliberately -- as possible. And in a way, were it not for the sulfur issue, a lot of the "natural wines" are almost exactly what these fruit-adoring folks are looking for, except that they tend to be made from the less massive and fruity grapes. Were they all made from grenache, syrah, and so forth, in hot climates and with a little more sulfur than is currently the norm, I think you'd see a certain embrace of the category from some of the people who typically argue about how much Carlisle and Sea Smoke they've been allocated this year.
