Is This Bottle Corked__ The Secret Life of Wine - Kathleen Burk [37]
Finally, because of the speed of the new steamships, the aphids could survive the transatlantic voyage. The stage was set for disaster, and disaster came onstage and made its bow.
When is rot “noble”?
THERE IS A fungus with a Jekyll-and-Hyde personality that grows on grapes: Botrytis cinerea. Given the right autumn weather conditions—cool misty mornings and warm sunny afternoons—the result can well be botrytis bunch rot. If the grapes are unripe or damaged, the result is the disastrous gray rot, which can destroy both quality and quantity. If, however, the grapes are white, ripe, light-skinned, and healthy, the result is likely to be “noble rot” (pourriture noble in France, Edelfäule in Germany). Grapes affected by noble rot look disgusting—shriveled, dotted with light brown spots, and covered with a gray dust that looks like ash (hence cinerea). Thin-skinned grapes such as Furmint, Riesling, Sémillon, and Chenin Blanc are particularly susceptible to noble rot, and each of them also has the necessary acidity to balance the intense sweetness of the botrytized juice. They can produce glorious wines, among which are Hungarian Tokaji Aszú, German Beerenauslese and Trockenbeerenauslese, and French Sauternes and Quarts de Chaume (from the Loire). The grapes develop this condition individually, so grapes on the same bunch shrivel unevenly. This means that pickers have to walk through the vineyard time and time again (tries), picking the grapes one by one. Unavoidably, wines made from these grapes are expensive.
Grapes affected by noble rot produce some of the greatest and longest-living wines in the world. The oldest is Tokaji Aszú, which comes from northeast Hungary. The story goes that in 1650, the priest on the estate where the old castle of Tokaji stands, who was also the winemaker, delayed the harvest because of the fear that the Turks were about to attack. While the bunches hung on the vines, some were attacked by the fungus. They were then pressed and fermented separately from the other grapes, and the result was a wine of unexpected flavor and character, which rapidly became the wine of kings and a diplomatic weapon in the hands of the Austrian emperor, who took over the estates as his own.
In Germany, the first making of a wine from botrytized grapes is traditionally attributed to Schloss Johannisberg in the Rheingau in 1775. It was owned by the abbot of Fulda, and the grapes could not be picked without his permission. The winemaker looked at the grapes and sent a courier to Fulda to tell the abbot that on the day the courier returned to the Schloss, the grapes would be ready to be picked. The journey there and back normally took fourteen days, but for reasons that nobody knows, the journey this time took much longer. By the time the courier did return, the grapes of Schloss Johannisberg were rotten. Nevertheless, wine was made, and, stunned by its sweetness, acidity, and floral spiciness, the abbot and the winemaker agreed that this wine, which was probably a Beerenauslese, should be made whenever it was possible.
In France, there is less conviction as to when botrytized wines were first produced. The utterly delicious wine Quarts de Chaume in the Loire, possibly the longest-lasting wine in the world, has arguably been made since the medieval period; those of Sauternes have been produced since the eighteenth century. It is a curious fate for the other wines that Sauternes is the most widely known, since they are at least as delicious. Does this reflect the power of public relations?
How would rhinos do conjuring?
YES, IT IS a strange question … but no, we have not taken leave of our senses. In fact, it’s our senses that lead us to ask the question, and in particular, the most important sense in judging wine, which also happens to be our weakest: the sense of smell.
We’ll keep the rhino in the back of our mind for a moment. Let’s think about ourselves first. We are, primarily, creatures of sight. Hearing comes second; then taste, touch,