Author: Bobo
Date: 2007-08-17 15:11
as a casual but well-practiced oenophile, and i gather i'm not the only one on this board (ahem, Craig), it occurs to me that the art/science of reedmaking is not unlike the art/science of making a fine wine. Certainly, the wine world has been hugely impacted by advances in science that allow for improved cultivation, harvesting, aging, structuring, balance...to the extreme point that many cheaper wines are recipe concoctions of 'wine consultants' who know how to engineer wines for the mass market that meet the standards (which are hugely controversial like any matter of taste) set by such leading critics as Robert Parker, Wine Spectator and others. Having said that, the beauty and fun of wine is that at the end of the day, taste is subjective and there is room for personal preference and disagreement. Nevertheless, most people when presented with a great wine and a box wine would know which one is superior. There are many ways to make great wines...more or less aging, more or less wood, different blends...wine tasters talk about structure in a wine in a very similar manner to how we talk about structure in reeds. Rails are like tannins, fruitiness is like responsiveness, acidity is like the Core CJ is so fond of. Good cane is like good grapes and fine oak. So where does this all lead? Wines are now consistently better than say 50 years ago at the low to medium end...that's the contribution of science...but at the end of the day, winemaking is an art and the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The greatest wines, and the greatest reeds, will never be the simple product of a scientific recipe, but science can undoubtedly help, especially at the low end!
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