Yankees and wine
Working at Traducendo Ltd
we deal with wine almost on a daily basis.
When we started we were quite ignorant on the topic, I mean, yes of course, we were able to choose a bottle of wine for a dinner and we could tell if a wine was good or not. But considering how much there is to know on wine, yes, we were so damn ignorant.
Working with so many clients at the top of this industry we learned more than if we went back to school. But we didn't only learn stuff about the wine itself, we did learn also what is around the wine industry and how wine is perceived all around this crazy world.
Wine industry is full of snob, poshy people that believes they are the only one to know about wine. Crazy enough, they are mostly American (at least in our experience). And crazy enough, and I am sorry to say but it's true, US is the world cradle of ignorance and over simplification.
In this case I think it's fundamental to talk about the number of vine varieties, and wines, Americans believe it exists.
If you go around in internet, news, generic magazines, Facebook, LinkedIn, and similar you will realize that for US, apparently, there exist only maybe 10/15 different varieties. Merlot, sauvignon, chardonnay, cabernet, Shiraz, Medoc......and?
And all the others? We are
talking about approximately 4020 varieties (according to OIV list, which is far
to be complete)!!! Ok, it's true not all of them are for wine, plus many wines
are assemblages of different grapes. So let's say that there must be, at least,
1000 different possible varietal wines (I think this number is way too little...).
Now, can a country which strive to become a recognized wine produces allow to let its own citizens and consumer believe that all is to buy is only those few varieties which are grown in its own territory?
Isn't this just a way to fraud its own citizens from the pleasure of wine and isn't it just one more way to risk to create a population of ignorant that will one day fight to defend their bottle of industrially made, screw corked, low quality, low controlled Merlot, believing that it's the best possible, against an unknown (for them) bottle of "Refosco dal peduncolo rosso" or "Carignan"?
Americans don't make your usual mistake, don't believe that only 10 wines exist, the world is big and your palate calls you to taste more!
When we started we were quite ignorant on the topic, I mean, yes of course, we were able to choose a bottle of wine for a dinner and we could tell if a wine was good or not. But considering how much there is to know on wine, yes, we were so damn ignorant.
Working with so many clients at the top of this industry we learned more than if we went back to school. But we didn't only learn stuff about the wine itself, we did learn also what is around the wine industry and how wine is perceived all around this crazy world.
Wine industry is full of snob, poshy people that believes they are the only one to know about wine. Crazy enough, they are mostly American (at least in our experience). And crazy enough, and I am sorry to say but it's true, US is the world cradle of ignorance and over simplification.
In this case I think it's fundamental to talk about the number of vine varieties, and wines, Americans believe it exists.
If you go around in internet, news, generic magazines, Facebook, LinkedIn, and similar you will realize that for US, apparently, there exist only maybe 10/15 different varieties. Merlot, sauvignon, chardonnay, cabernet, Shiraz, Medoc......and?
And all the others? We are
talking about approximately 4020 varieties (according to OIV list, which is far
to be complete)!!! Ok, it's true not all of them are for wine, plus many wines
are assemblages of different grapes. So let's say that there must be, at least,
1000 different possible varietal wines (I think this number is way too little...).Now, can a country which strive to become a recognized wine produces allow to let its own citizens and consumer believe that all is to buy is only those few varieties which are grown in its own territory?
Isn't this just a way to fraud its own citizens from the pleasure of wine and isn't it just one more way to risk to create a population of ignorant that will one day fight to defend their bottle of industrially made, screw corked, low quality, low controlled Merlot, believing that it's the best possible, against an unknown (for them) bottle of "Refosco dal peduncolo rosso" or "Carignan"?
Americans don't make your usual mistake, don't believe that only 10 wines exist, the world is big and your palate calls you to taste more!
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