You can take wine on whatever level you like. Enjoy it without thinking about it. Or lean in, pay attention, and revel in the complexities and layers. There’s no right or wrong.
In an (as usual) great article by Eric Asimov in the New York Times, he argues that wine is the drink of the people: “It all depends on how you choose to approach the subject, just as you can use music as a backdrop for other activities or devote your full attention to it. For any occasion, hundreds of different bottles can satisfy. There’s never only one right way to drink wine.“
If you are looking for a wine you can simply sit back and enjoy, or get geeky about and give it some time, you wouldn’t go far wrong with a bottle of the latest vintage of Murmure from Jean-Pierre Rietsch. Muscat Ottonel grown on marl limestones around Mitterlbergheim in Alsace, fermented on skins for 10 days, matured on lees for seven months, organic viticulture, spontaneous natural fermentation, no added sulphites, it shows Jean-Pierre’s mastery of this wine style and the beauty of skin-fermented aromatic variety wines. It isn’t a shouty orange wine but listen up and you’ll catch its layers and subtleties. Or just pull the cork and enjoy.
We’ve got it on by the glass at PetitGlou this weekend too, so call by for a little me time with a great glass of wine and perhaps catch up with that NYT article.
And we also now have J-P's Cremant d'Alsace and have had a restock of Demoiselle, a skin contact Gewurztraminer, and the Pinot Noir.