Could I be creating wine like my favorite style of music?
A notion came to me a couple days ago while pedaling my fanny off on the mountain bike.
Through the rhythm and cadence, I spaced off into a Zen-like zone where my mind freed for a moment (love that when that happens) and it came to me. I enjoy wine pretty much in the manner I listen to music. Let me explain.
If you break down music (the quality of it) you basically have treble, mid-range and bass.
Okay, you could throw in a sub-woofer for "mega bass". Now, think of the sensations in wine being assigned those in music, meaning, acidity would be treble, the fruit would be mid-range and the weight or fullness of the wine as it sits in the mid-palate to the finish would be bass.
If we consider the commonly accepted virtues of the different growing regions in our state, we could come up with high(er) acidities for the Yakima Valley, tannins for Red Mountain, depth and length of fruit for Horse Heaven Hills and weight and volume given to Walla Walla. Now, certainly there are variations, so this generalization is just that. But I find that I'm creating and blending the wines at Napeequa in similar style to those I personally like to drink and in a way there's a correlation between that style and my preference in tonal quality of music.
I'm a treble and mid-range kind of guy. The thundering sub-woofer going by my house at 1:15 AM gives question to whether the driver is really hearing all there is. So, brighter acidity and serious fruit attack at the fore and mid-palate are wine styles I enjoy the most. I do like thundering bass (big, meatier wines), but not a steady diet.
How I got here (hear).
I confess, I was born under the lesser-known Zodiac sign of New Wave. Sorry, it just happened. I really tried to get my head around Led Zepplin, The Who, Hendrix and The Doors... but I was eleven at the time. Associated with this music were hippies. Crawling out of smoke-filled VW vans with their "turning on" and "dropping out". Then there was free love. Like it was ever free. One of my uncles called them "lazy". Point made when I read about a hippie serial killer named Charles Manson. So lazy, he subbed out his work to followers. Bearded faces, pelvic length hair, smelling of BO, wearing macrame and waving the peace sign were etched into my brain as the tribal symbols associated with this music. I was eleven. Crew cut, white tee, crisp blue jeans. Possibly a vicarious fashion holdover through my dad. I found solace in Motown. Motown saved me from Cream, America, The Moody Blues, Bread, Deep Purple and Jefferson Airplane. Grace Slick? Think not. Her psychedelic dementia meant nothing to me. Sorry to you fans of these greats... but I was too young to be impressed. I wasn't buying any of it. Then came the mid-seventies and thanks to the coke-snorting Warhol-wannabies at Studio 54, music detoured by way of mirror balls and opened shirts to Disco. I admit at this time the music center in my brain was awakening. Junior high dances. Sticky and nervous. Trying not to spaz (or act like one) to Leo Sayer, The Commodores and the Bee Gees. Ghast!
Then around 1976-77 something happened.
The music world got a much-needed enema and me my path to musical salvation.
Four foul-mouthed goons, with spotty faces, spiked hair and three chords told the Queen where to stick it. The flood gates opened. Punk gave the arena-rock genera a much needed boot to the ass. Frolicking half-naked in the mud (see: brilliant things you can do on LSD) gave way to slam dancing. Punk begat New Wave which begat Techo and so on and so forth.
And... here came my treble and mid-range. Techno and New Wave was full of it. Crisp highs. Even the bass was tight and snappy. The Cure, B-52's, Elvis Costello, Gang of Four, The Jam, The Clash, New Order, Thomas Dolby, The Beat, Echo and the Bunnymen and XTC... you get it. Not thunderous. No power cords. No five minute guitar solos played on the first two frets. No pseudo-operatic half hour intros. No mic twirling. Just melodic, crisp, tight and different. I was seventeen and it was damn refreshing.
And now the wines.
Cut to my palate (thirty years later). I like acid and fruit. Brightness. Lean focus with finesse. Lost on me is "jammy" (whatever in hell that over-used term is supposed to mean, remembering "jam" is cooked fruit). Alcoholic, meaty, weighty and powerful don't push my buttons. My godson wears AXE at doses which can only be measured in half-lives. Lost on him is the allure of the faint... the whisp, the hint. I like wines that don't tell you everything about themselves in the first glass. I like people like that too.
Do you see similarities the styles of wine and music you enjoy? No? My recommendation is to drink more of your favorite wine while listening to your favorite music. Do this long enough and you'll come up with a tipsy-epiphany... I assure you.
Oh, you're doing that right now?
Never mind.
David
