I find that whenever I drink a white wine, I intuitively place the style of wine into one of 3 categories. On the one end there’re the ones that send a chill down my spine and make the hair on the back of my neck stand up, on the other end – the big, fat bold ones which taste like the grapes were fried in butter before fermentation. And then, sometimes, there’re the beautiful ones in the middle.
The other night when I got home from work, I switched on the music to accompany my first glass of wine. My mood was rudely interrupted when Muddy Waters came on and sounded as if he was strangling a piglet (I reluctantly recalled the exact sound from my Agricultural High school days when we had to castrate piglets). Little (mischievous) hands had probably been fiddling with the amplifier’s dials during the day. The music had way too much treble and I experienced the same chill running down my spine. Of course I simply turned down the treble and upped the base a bit until it was in balance again. That’s when it happened – my AHA moment! That is exactly what I strive for in my wines. They have to be fresh, yet weighty with OOMPH!!
I aim to achieve this by making use of many varietals and blending components. We pick certain varietals as “treble” components and other as “base” components. We then focus not on the varietal as such, but on the specific contributing factors of that wine to the final blend. Year on year, depending on nature, the blending components will vary.
I suspect that’s why both the Moment of Silence 2009 and The WHITE BLACK 2009 recently came out tops at a private informal blind tasting, compared to some prominent (not so modestly priced) South African white blends. Like all things in life, wine too is all about balance.
