Wines Til Sold Out is offering a Brunello this morning, which it describes in the headline as “A Rustic Yet Polished Brunello That Will Delight The Senses”. In my mind, “rustic” and “polished” are antagonistic terms…What does “rustic” mean to you, and do you see room in the world for a rustic yet polished wine?
Old school cellar floor tasting ‘or’ more terroir than your glass could handle…
I concur that rustic and polished are pretty much mutually exclusive. Kinda like traditionalist and modernist.
I tend to think of rustic as pejorative, and to me it connotes an absence of fruit in the presence of strong secondary characteristics, especially earth, mushroom, meat, etc. I have had more than a few poor or tired Cahors and Cote-Rotie whose fruit has either never been strong or has lost out to dark, musky aromas. I love funk in a wine, but when it happens at the cost of fruit, I usually term the wine “rustic.” I guess I have used the word as a neutral descriptor for wines I genuinely enjoy, but more often than not it means what I’ve described.
I think of rustic as meaning course tannins more than anything else.
I think of it as the opposite of refined, but not necessarily a bad thing. Think Verset Cornas. Or Armagnac vs. Cognac.
BB King / Duke Ellington = Polished
John Lee Hooker / Hound dog Taylor = Rustic
Both can be wonderful…
I disagree that the ideas of a rustic wine and a polished wine are mutually exclusive. If someone is using “rustic” as a positive descriptor it probably means simple production, not a lot of additives, straightforward, and “honest.” Something like that could still be polished but getting that shine wouldn’t require a lot of “buffing” from the winemaker. You could still have a traditionalist wine that is well made.
Agree that rustic and polished exclude, but don’t think of rustic as traditionalist, which can deliver very lithe, elegant wines that also aren’t rustic. To me, it’s a kind of rough quality that can easily be caused by, say, sandy tannins. But it can be a great quality, too, conveying a kind of heartiness or wholesome sincerity. I think of Guillemot’s Savignys as fairly rustic (and also traditionalist), but excellent.
I have used it as a slight downgrade mostly, and few times neutrally, but never as a full flaw or knock. Funny, if I had not checked my CT notes, I would have guessed that I would have used the term generally more negatively.
The word means ‘country-style’ as opposed to urban. It is not a word that’s specifically wine related, but I think of it as denoting a wine that hasn’t been polished up, either in the vineyard or cellar. I think it’s a rather condescending usage, though.
Rustic to me generally means two things – more funk than jam, and chewy, either from acid or tannins. I think that you can have very polished rustic wines, and some of the higher end Produttori Barbarescos come to mind.
To me, Rustic denotes an old-world style and is not a pejorative. Outside of wine I see it used in marketing (particularly for bread, where it would indicate coarse texture and hearty crust). I would consider it exclusive of “polished.”
In wine, I’d expect coarse tannin and/or some barnyard aromas. I’d consider it a positive descriptor for certain wines, indicating traditionally made e.g. Cornas or CdP.
People don’t open restaurants called Cantina Rustica because it’s a bad descriptor.
Could it mean “rustic” in vineyard management and vinification and “polished” in elevage?
I don’t think the concept entails tannins, though hard tannins might make a wine seem rustic compared to its peers. I can think of rustic Southern Rhones or Languedoc wines, or Rioja, that wouldn’t have to be tannic. They might have some funk, some distinct acid, some unusual fruits – something that made them the opposite of a city slicker.
I find that wines like Bea, Pepe and such have a DIFFERENT tannic structure that definitely sets off my rusticity meter in a good way. It’s almost granular but not harsh.
This, from the Wine Lover’s Page, matches my understanding of the term: WineLoversPage - Straight talk in plain English about fine wine
By any chance were you recently in the market for a house?
For me, whether it is negative or positive is completely contextual. If a Domaine du Cayron Gigondas is not rustic, it’s a shame. If a La Conseillante is rustic, that’s a shame too.
Rustic can eb a polite way of saying the wine has brett.
More generally a wine that is a bit coarse and earthy - Pavelot Savigny’s spring to mind.