6 For Dionysos let us be thankful.
For this god of civilization, rising from the east,
traveling ever westward, rising with the sun, divining the moon, god of
ecstasy, of poetic dreaming, of architecture and mysticism, of rest in times of
need, of springing into resurrection , divinity of madness and of song, dance
and flight and fantasy: I am thankful
for Dionysos. Where would I be without
him?; without the vineyards of the world?; without the millions of vines,
hundreds of thousands of artists and artisans working, doing, fulfilling the
promise of the god?
At this time of year the harvest of the the god must give great pleasure to the weary
vineyardists, hearing the wild fermentation and smelling the divine aromas
arising from their efforts, from fermenters and casks, from pithoi and
jugs. Dionysos is at work. Dionysos is about to arrive. In fact in those vineyards devoted to
carbonic maceration vinification he is already here, the first wine of this
year has arrived: Nouveau wines, made by
sealing the grapes without air, together with their yeasts, so the yeasts go
mad with hunger for the grape sugars they smell profoundly in this
captivity. In their frenzy they cannot
wait, they will not wait, they do not wait for this divine meal. Boring into the grapes the miniscule ferments
begin to eat within the grape the wonder summer has wrought within, sugar. Being overwrought in their feeding wildness,
the ferments belch while consuming their divine meal, belch carbon dioxide and
alcohol, bursting open the grapes. And
thus does Dionysos’s magic transform these un-pressed grapes into a wondrous
wine of fruity flavors and fragrances of roses and persimmons. Nouveau Gamay is particularly, headily
delicious. I am thankful it is arriving
as I write. By tomorrow I surely will
have found several to enjoy during this thankful week.
Once, in 1984, when I was the western US agent for
Bouchard Pere et Fils wines from their estates in Burgundy (akin to being the
Sorceress of the West) the Ahwahnee Hotel in California’s Yosemite National
Park and I hosted Yosemite’s first Beaujolais Nouveau wine weekend. The Ahwahnee already poured Bouchard Pere et
Fils Burgundy by the glass, and they wanted to be the first National Park to
have a Beaujolais Nouveau festivity.
Mindful that Yosemite is one of the grandeurs of California, I wanted
this festival to include some California Nouveau wines too. So I went to meet with my friends, Robert
Pecota in Calistoga and Charles Shaw
outside of St. Helena to ask them to please join us in celebrating the first
wine of the year. Then both were alone
in making the real “Beaujolais style” nouveau wines with the Gamay Noir au Jus
Blanc grape in the US. In fact for Chuck
Shaw’s winery this 1984 nouveau would be the first of a long tradition. We all met in Yosemite in July, with
wine-writer Robert Lawrence Balzer, and planned the Beaujolais Nouveau event
for the release of the new wines in November.
Mid-November Jean-Francois Bouchard, the fils of Bouchard Pere et Fils, flew
in on the Concord to bring the first cases of his nouveau wines. Charles Shaw and Bob Pecota brought their in
by car up over the snowy passes into Yosemite Valley. Joining us to discuss foods that accompany
well these young fruity wines was America’s darling, Chef Jeremiah Tower from
his Star’s restaurant in San Francisco.
Writing about it was James Suckling, newly elevated to staff writer at
the Wine Spectator. Writer-showman Robert Lawrence Balzer played
the master of ceremonies. And all the
rest of us there in the exhilarating Ahwahnee hotel enjoying these new wines
with delicious Thanksgiving dishes. For this first wine of the year I bow to
Dionysos.
No thanksgiving would be truly celebratory without
Champagne. I am thankful for Champagne. Another Grande
Dame of Champagne, Madame Lily
Bollinger, should be thanked for her advice given while describing her pattern
of life: “I drink my Champagne when I’m
happy and when I’m sad. Sometimes I
drink it when I’m alone. When I have
company I consider it obligatory. I
trifle with it when I’m not hungry and drink it when I am. Otherwise I never touch it – unless I’m
thirsty.” – Should we not be thankful for Madame Bollinger?
Thanksgiving is not quite here. Maybe tomorrow I could find another small
excuse to be thankful for Champagne?
Julius Caesar, be still.
Your time will come.
Madeleine de Jean,
The
Night Julius Caesar Invented Champagne.
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