Not famous enough and trying too hard
Can you imagine, in italy The season for Hotspring is summer! no one from Asia is able to understand this. So we went to hotsprings in winter.
The other day, we were in the only restaurant still open for “off-season” in San filippo. We chose a wine from the wine shelf and then the host told us the price is 40 euro. which is pretty high by italian standard. because italians still consider wine a daily drink, an agricultural product, so most quality italian wines are still far far away from being expensive, except a few famous brands.
And this 40 euro wine was actually perfect in all dimensions, but we really can not say i like it more than the bottle we had the night before, which is also made of sangiovese and produced nearby but only cost half of the price.
why? maybe because it is trying too hard.
in Chinese art there is a concept of “leave a free space by purpose(留白)”, which is considered essential for all the artworks. And this wine we are talking about is too full in all dimensions, leaves no free space, and ends up lack of character except for being loud.
I understand, wineries want to stand out in those wine challenges and competitions, blind tastings and ratings, where the judges will taste a hundred wines in one day, and compare wines closely, dimension by dimension. The easy way to stand out is to be the loudest. high in acidity, high in tannin, have high concentration in primary, secondary and tertiary flavors , better be full bodied because it is more likeable and seems better when people are comparing a group of wines… especially for wineries not famous enough, who really need some medals some prizes some good ratings for marketing.
in fact, There are still many wineries in italiy not famous but stay classy, not trading their own charactors for medals, i really think they deserve to be celebrated much more. there is another wine from the region as i criticized above,also made of sangiovese, even more concentrated in flavor, but thinner in body and more refrained, i like it very much, but it is also not famous and not known by most wine drinkers.
关于葡萄酒的松弛感
意大利人很爱泡温泉，比较不可思议的一点是，意大利温泉旅游的旺季是夏季,冬季反而是淡季。所以我们也乐得错峰出行，冬天去附近的温泉到处泡。这种玩法唯一的缺点是，淡季这些温泉小镇的商店酒店餐馆基本上都关门了，只剩一两家还在营业。
有一天我们在san filippo唯一一家还开着的餐馆，点了一瓶40欧的酒。意大利人一向把葡萄酒当成普通食物，所以本地产的酒就算品质再好，除非是特别出名的，40欧就算是很高了。一喝，确实还是挺优质的，方方面面都很优秀，但是跟昨天一款同地区出产同样是桑娇维塞葡萄做的，要价23欧的酒比起来，我真的不能说我更喜欢今天这款，虽然今天这款按各种指标来看，确实更优秀。
究其原因，今天这款酒缺乏松弛感，用力过猛了，各个维度上都做得太满了，没有任何留白，所以感觉不够高级，甚至可以说过分喧闹却缺少特点。也许年纪大了之后会生出一些松弛感吧。不过这款酒是2016年的，到现在也有5-6年了，世面上这个年份的brunello也已经出来了，给人感觉也不是这样用力过猛。
进一步的问题是，为什么好的brunello就会有松弛感呢? 认真想了想，结论是，因为brunello 本身的风格就比较收敛，而且不会每个维度上都做得这么满，某些维度上稍微松一点点，松弛感就出来了。
同一个产区有一款我非常喜欢的酒，也是桑娇维塞葡萄做的，风味其实比这款更加浓缩，但是感觉比这款收敛且明显瘦很多，不像这款这么饱满，也就实现了恰到好处的留白。但这事儿也不能怪酒庄，因为现在动不动就各种葡萄酒比赛，盲品，酒评家评分什么的，酒庄手上要是没有几个奖没几个高分也不好做营销。但是在评委一天试上百款酒，所有酒都怼在一起，从各个维度进行比较的情况下，就是要尽量把各个维度都做满才更容易得高分。特别是还不够出名的酒庄，其实也很难抗拒这种“应试型”的做法。