Lately I seem to be savoring a long line of what Michael Broadbent in his book Vintage Wines called "global reds." The book was subtitled Fifty Years of Tasting Three Centuries of Wine, so we get a hint just there of the depths of his experience. Worked for Christie's, I believe.
The global red is a smooth, lushly fruit-filled wine, produced anywhere from Italy to California to south east Australia ("that grape sink," as another colossus of the wine world, Jancis Robinson, calls it) -- to Argentina to France. It is a wine whose harsh edges, if it had any, have been buffed away. Hardly any Italian acidity or French tannins here; these are global reds for a global market, especially for a sweet-loving, ready-to-drink American market. Most buyers in that market now would be hard pressed to remember that once upon a time, it was precisely the harsher qualities in a wine that helped preserve it to a future wondrous drinkability. And it was still a very Italian or French drinkability. Are soreheads then justified in sniffing at the global red as being too uniform, too thick and jammy, too forever young, stateless, and uninteresting?
Retail for the Piccini below, which is very tasty, is about $9. That helps reconcile one to the jamminess and uniformity.
The global red is a smooth, lushly fruit-filled wine, produced anywhere from Italy to California to south east Australia ("that grape sink," as another colossus of the wine world, Jancis Robinson, calls it) -- to Argentina to France. It is a wine whose harsh edges, if it had any, have been buffed away. Hardly any Italian acidity or French tannins here; these are global reds for a global market, especially for a sweet-loving, ready-to-drink American market. Most buyers in that market now would be hard pressed to remember that once upon a time, it was precisely the harsher qualities in a wine that helped preserve it to a future wondrous drinkability. And it was still a very Italian or French drinkability. Are soreheads then justified in sniffing at the global red as being too uniform, too thick and jammy, too forever young, stateless, and uninteresting?
Retail for the Piccini below, which is very tasty, is about $9. That helps reconcile one to the jamminess and uniformity.
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