The funniest article I have read this year

A gentleman called Oliver Styles has just written a rather silly article in Wine searcher why we should not be cellaring wine. I am not sure about copyright (although on reflection I am pretty sure he would want as few people to read it as possible) so I cannot reproduce it in its entirety, but here is a small excerpt to give you an idea of what I am talking about.

“ There’s none of that lovely, fresh primary fruit – the fruit of the grape, right? No, it’s all about notes of leather and tobacco and sous-bois which, surely, is really a French term for erectile disfunction. How did it get to this? Have you tasted 50 year-old Burgundy? It’s all watery mushrooms. These people need a lobotomy, not a retirement plan.

No wonder Rudi Kurniawan got away with it – he just had to get a few wines from the nearest couple of decades to the unicorn he wanted and hey presto: no-one could tell the difference”

https://www.wine-searcher.com/m/2021/06/time-to-stop-cellaring-wine

Halfway through it I actually scrolled back up to check whether it had been published on April 1st. It hadn’t.

Oliver Styles? Is that the guy who scored Snoop Dogg Cali red as a 101 pointer?

I think I know this guy

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You beat me to it! [cheers.gif]

That struck me as a snarky column written to generate engagement, using humor/satire that was too dry to register as such (at least for me). This twitter post of his seems to confirm that was the goal.

From that thread: “I admit I got carried away in places but the basic premise of the piece wasn’t really about old wines but taking tired tropes used against natty wines and applying them to old wines - although I do stand by elements of it!”

I have absolutely no idea what this means. Perhaps if he were to lose the sophomoric humor, he might write clearly enough to actually express what he actually means.The real loser here is Wine Searcher who printed the original.

This is how internet, social media and cable news/sports work these days. Say something outrageous and polarizing to get clicks and attention.

Fortunately, WB is mostly an exception to that rule, and there is still usually more respect for thoughtful comments than flame throwing.

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It really looks like he’s not owning what he wrote. As a Chris says above, this is where we are.

One of the dangers of writing something like that is precisely the reaction on this board. I sort of had to accept that when I wrote it - and, when it is published, you have to take the flak - that’s part of being a sometime opinion writer. This was a bit special in that I wasn’t necessarily being honest with the audience. Again, when one does this, one has to accept the consequences of that, which I do (although I feel I should be clear that I haven’t yet tasted, or rated, any of Snoop Dog’s vinous output). I sort of hoped that the last line of the piece (which, I think, was modified slightly before it was published) would perhaps help shed a little light into the soupy depths into which I had plunged but obviously that it didn’t function. Ah well.

The piece was intended to take a bunch of arguments used against Natural wines and the natty crowd and just turn them against another category. Claiming that “mature wine” has a superiority attached to it - and an implication that everything else is “immature” or “juvenile wine” is (to my mind) every bit as disingenuous an argument as saying that the title “Natural wine” has an inherent superiority to it and that, by inference, everything else is unnatural.

The insistence that because a lot of Natural wines don’t have primary fruit flavours, they are somehow treacherous. And this complaint that because there is no definition attached to what a Natural wine is, this renders the category opaque: ref. when is a wine “drinking well”?

Also, the oft-repeated mantra that Natural wines have a fault problem (ref. sous-bois, mushrooms, etc.) and that they all taste the same. Or the captivated generation (again, these sweeping generalisations) that enjoy these wines without questioning what it is they are drinking.

Now, of course, that’s a dangerous game to play and like many allegories, they are full of issues. Furthermore, the very fact I’m writing this shows, I suppose, a degree of failure in my endeavour.

There are, I think, elements of truth in it (as with critiques of Natural wines - a term I don’t like all that much, but it saves extended explanations) and I have indeed tasted some terrible aged wines. But also some truly glorious ones. We had a particularly wonderful 2008 Chapelle-Chambertin from Cecile Tremblay - oh, and a glorious 2017 Dauvissat La Forest - last night, for instance. So it’s not all bad, right?

Doubtless, people will now leap on the poverty of my allegory, and the rest of this thread (if it goes on) will be filled with how I can’t equate mature wine and natural wine as terms, and so on. And that’s fair enough - have at it.

To be honest, though, it was strangely good for my mental wellbeing to read every piece of outrage and think to myself “well, maybe now you know a little bit about what it is like to read all this hate-filled nonsense against a wine category you love, despite some of its flaws”.

In the ideal world of my mind, it is a reconciliatory piece. But as you’re all by now no doubt aware, my mind takes more than a little getting used to.

All the best to you all

Olly Styles

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[cheers.gif]

Hey, man! Welcome!!!

Please stick around!

[cheers.gif]

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Thanks Anton - as you can maybe see, I’ve been sticking around since 2010!

Although, aside from a decade of regular ghosting, I haven’t obviously contributed directly.

I have long made a quite serious version of this kind of argument – that aged wine is everything natural wine claims to be but isn’t really. That is, aged wine is truly the home of an ineffable and inexplicable natural process that, when it works, elevates the quality of wine to unpredictable heights which cannot be attained by any industrial mechanisms. Natural wine is a cheap and inadequate substitute – instead of waiting for nature to do its work you just open the wine up to spoilage organisms early on. Aged wine achieves all the mystique that natural wine promises. But in the modern world nobody wants to wait for the aging process, so they substitute with lots of marketing plus This One Weird Trick (no sulfur!)

The aging process is the place where nature gets its deepest say about what happens to wine – more than the vineyard even.

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On the other hand I do agree with this part of the article completely. When wines get really really old there is such a strong random component to how they taste that it becomes extremely difficult to tell the real thing from a fake. There are just too many reasons a very old wine could end up tasting really weird.

Well, then, I look forward to your next post in 2032! champagne.gif

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The life of a wine: - YouTube

Hopefully I’ll get better with age…

Cheers, Oliver, and welcome! I really don’t have enough experience with either natural or highly-aged wine to have strong opinions on those topics, but thanks for breaking your silence to shed some light…

Oliver, your piece, followed by this thread and your response is why I adore this forum. Cheers! [cheers.gif]