WINE: Good wine needs nurturing

(BDLive) - THE old adage that there’s no such thing as bad kids, just bad parents, could easily have been written for the world of wine. The French use the term “elevage” — which literally means “bringing up” or “rearing” — to describe the process of nursing wine to market-ready condition, and it suggests that the analogy of poor parenting is not a poetic liberty.

I used to find drinking Cape sauvignon blanc something of an ordeal — not quite in the league of Egyptian cinsaut, but close enough. I’ve been much more enthusiastic lately, and what has changed is the vinous equivalent of the parenting and home environment. When sauvignon blanc became the goût du jour of the country’s well-heeled wine punters, growers sited plantings wherever they had land available. Wine makers treated it with scant respect, pumping up volumes and even, on occasion, lifting the already mouth-searing acidity. In short, incompetence and inexperience conspired to make many of those early sauvignons the kind of reach-for-the-Rennies beverage you shouldn’t risk in your mouth. In the same way, a generation of South African wine drinkers condemned pinotage for its harsh tannins, gamey aromas and rustic mouth-feel. Instead of excoriating the parents (the viticulture and the wine making) for the delinquent child, they blamed the grape.

It is clear that the same problem now afflicts shiraz — and not just in South Africa, but wherever it has been over-planted by growers hoping to milk its 10 minutes of fame. The Cape’s shiraz area grew tenfold in as many years, so poorly sited vineyards and bad wine making have been the inevitable outcome. It’s easier enough to find wines which are impressive but unappealing, made in a showy style, bulked up with dollops of oak, plush with texture — but very difficult to drink. Sad to say, producers who looked to the success of the southeastern Australian classics have landed up caricaturing the best examples (a sin, it has to be said, of which many Australian wine makers are themselves equally guilty).