Travels Along the Wine Route is far and away my favorite wine book, mostly because it is not just a wine book. On every page, author and importer Kermit Lynch also gives you history, culture, and verbal snapshots of the people behind that wines.
The people are frequently the most fascinating part.
I love this book so much that I have a tendency to lend it out, pressing it upon anyone who shows the slightest interest in learning about wines. Or on fellow wine geeks who somehow have not already read it. “Here-borrow my copy!” I must have done that again, because it is currently missing, forcing me to paraphrase the following story instead of quoting it verbatim.
After a few years in the importing biz, Kermit began to notice that the wines he’d purchased tasted different when they arrived on American soil than they had in his producers’ cellars. He thought that one difference might be excessive heat en route, and started shipping in insulated reefers. This helped, but with some wines there was still a difference; he believed it was related to filtering, or removing sediment and other solids from the finished wines. He asked producers to bottle his purchases unfiltered, but many- including the Perrin brothers of Chateau Beaucastel- refused. They did not want to risk a bit of sediment at the bottom of the bottle, because at the time that was considered a fault. But Kermit kept asking.
Then at one of his tasting visits, the brothers produced two unmarked carafes, without explaining what they contained. All three had a clear preference for the same carafe, and the brothers revealed that both carafes were in fact the exact same wine, one filtered and one not. They had all chosen the unfiltered wine, which had seemed somehow more vibrant and more complete. And why not? Has anyone yet invented a filter so intelligent that it only removes unwanted particles and leaves everything else intact?
After that, Beaucastel started bottling KL wines unfiltered. Eventually, they bottled everyone’s wines unfiltered. Better to risk the displeasure of an uneducated customer (and then to educate said customer) than to risk destroying some of the aromas and flavors of the beautiful wines. Today, quality producers generally accept that minimal handling in the way of pumping, filtering, and fining delivers a better representation of the wine’s true character. Unfiltered wines are more vibrant, more textured, more complex. More MORE.
In my opinion, this also works for writing. Ahead: unfiltered words.