Last year, a top Bordeaux winery indulged in a bit of preening. Nothing wrong with that; in fact, it created quite the excitement in the wine world.
It happened to be Haut-Brion, a Grand Cru house, one of the top five in Left Bank Bordeaux, with written records revering its quality back in the 17th Century. But surely 300 years’ worth of history, replete with the choicest of descriptions, wasn’t stars enough in their sky and hence the house decided to announce a contest to see if someone could find an even older mention of their wines in the annals of history.
Given that the prize was going to be a few bottles of this much-cherished elixir, which is in the five-digit price range, no matter the currency, it was reason enough to quit whatever one was doing and get rummaging through the oldest manuscripts in the local library.
Finally, two winners were declared: one who found a mention of the wine dating back to 1521 and the other found a younger mention at 1526. But the Chateau was generous enough to recognise both efforts.
This got me thinking: what about other wines, wines which aren’t as popular or prized anymore? Surely, their history too is worth knowing. So here are a few wine styles, the stories of which may otherwise risk being relinquished into the realms of obscurity.
Commandaria: This is most likely the top contender for oldest wine in the world, which is still in production under the same name as when it was first made. Although the earliest recorded mention dates back to the 12th Century, the wine has been made since 800 BC! It has won competitions and accolades throughout its history, appealing to kings, sultans, and nobility alike, and that could explain how this liqueur-ish sweet wine is still around.
Vin Jaune: This peculiar wine is made in an obscure corner of France and comes in an oddly-sized 620 ml bottle (called Clavelin ). The reason for this is that as the wine ages in barrels, mostly undisturbed for si years and three months, a part of it evaporates. This is called the Angels’ Share and the French, conveniently, pass the burden of this loss on to the consumer by subtracting the amount from a regular 750 ml bottle. And so we end up with the odd quantity, but each drop of this wine packs a concentrated flavour wallop that remains unparalleled.
Meritage: When California started making Bordeaux-style wines, they were forbidden from calling it Bordeaux or alluding to the region in any manner. So, they announced a contest to find a suitable name for wines that came from California but were made in the style of Bordeaux Clarets (red wines with Cabernet and Merlot as principle grapes). A certain Neil Edgar of Newark, California, won with his entry, ‘Meritage' (rhymes with heritage) and thus it came to be that Californian Bordeaux-style blends are called Meritage. Mind you, a white Meritage blend is also possible.
Methods Gaillacoise & Blanquette de Limoux: Long before there was even talk of sparkling wine in the region of Champagne,when monks of Reims and Epernay travelled through this region and learnt of the very existence of sparkling wines, there were sparkling wines in the South West of France. More similar to traditional craft ciders and ales, the bubblies here have are soft and have a lot more fruitiness. These two traditional styles, somewhat endangered today, are great value-for-money buys and can raise your connoisseur quotient a good few notches.
Chianti: The provinces of Siena and Florence were always at war over their boundary. It was finally decided to let two knights ride forth at the roosting of the first cock and wherever they met would be the new boundary. While the Sienese paraded their white rooster and fed him before the fated competition, the Florentines starved their scrawny black rooster and locked him up in a box. Consequently when the two roosters were let loose, the Senese waited for the crack of dawn but the much irritated and hungry black rooster starting roosting a good few hours earlier, giving the local horseman a head-start. Thus, the Florentines benefited from their craftiness and subsequently the region of Chianti Classico chose the black rooster to be their symbol.
Shiraz: Dr. James Busby, while immigrating to Australia, was convinced that the French Syrah was nothing but the Shiraz mentioned in the works of Omar Khayyam. Thus he thought he was writing a pronunciation wrong when he took the Syrah plantations to Australia and rechristened them Shiraz. Strange, considering that the wine he alludes to was actually a sweet wine, and it was white! So it couldn’t have been the same one which the recent ampelography tests proved, but the French Syrah nevertheless came to be known as Shiraz Down Under.
