Thankfully I have one more bottle of the 2017 Faury Saint Joseph left which I am going to hold onto for a few more years before I revisit it. I am still on the look out for more bottles, but the Saint Joseph Vieilles Vignes from Faury is great as well.
“Fine Wine” may be able to piggyback off the definition of “Fine Art”: Products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, or intellectual content! Seems like there are some similarities if one chose to wordsmith!
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Aren’t almost all the wines we talk about here and drink classified as fine wines?
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Texture. I agree. And with texture, you have balance.
Reading this reminded me of a quote by Christian Moreau.
I was at a special Frederick Wildman dinner back in 2010-ish in Boston.
At my table was Christian and (son) Fabian Moreau, (Romeo) Pascal Jolivet, my good friend Erika and a few others.
Also in attendance was Christian Pol Roger, Patrick Leflaive, Nicolas Potel, ??? Jaboulet, and…some other French icon. (Too many years ago.)
It was a seven course, seven wine dinner.
Anyway, Christian got up during the dinner, after we had the 2004 Nicolas Potel Vosne-Romanee, and exclaimed, “Drinking the '04 Potel Vosne-Romanee is like the Virgin Mary sliding down your throat in velvet pants.”
YUP! Now that is a fine wine! -)
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Well, fine art was, at least originally, a term of definition since art included things we now call craft. Cabinetry was an art, painting was a fine art. It wasn’t an evaluative term or one that classed all others as somehow hoi polloi art. It’s now redundant since we only call art what was once called fine art. I agree with Craig that the term, when applied to wine, was just elitist chichi. I never use it and I hope it falls into desuetude sooner rather than letter.
I was thinking of this thread today at the local Rite Aid. They have a wine aisle and it has aisle markers that read “Wine” and then “Boxed Wine” and, yes, “Fine Wine”. So there you have it, fine wine isn’t simply wine, and it sure as hell isn’t in a box. I feel satisfied with this nomenclature.
It’s what my beer guzzling brothers say I drink.
The wines I drink are. But most of your stuff is just “good” or “drinkable.”
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Balance and varietally correct for me.
If all the aspects are in balance and it tastes like it’s supposed to taste, that’s fine wine to me.
$50+ is fine wine. $20-49.99 is table wine…
I’ve simplified my definition of fine wine as wines that speak of either personality or place. It has to move beyond generic ‘wine’ into something both delicious and interesting.
Wines where the vintage year matters.
That’s a good point. There’s a chasm between what we drink and most grocery store wines. Maybe we’re just deluding ourselves that the historical differentiation between fine and pedestrian wine is really any different today, with “fine” being a synonym for “quality”.
I also don’t think “fine” carries the same weight as it used to. Language evolves. Context matters. “That’s a mighty fine wine!” “That wine is fine as a daily drinker, I guess.”
It seems like an anachronistic term best left in dusty old wine books.
Love this “out of the box’ perspective on it, David. You might be on to something!
I am leaning more towards James’ definition. While balance, elegance and other descriptors are hard to argue with, I still see these as subjective and limiting.
A few years back I tasted through Marcus’ Goodfellow’s lineup. I liked some of the wines more than others but they were absolutely all fine wine. For sure not all small craft wine makers achieve ‘fine.’ While there are many dedicated geniuses focused on reflecting terroir, vintage, varietal or perhaps their own vision, not all winemakers achieve excellence. Reminds me of that joke about Lake Woebegon - where “all the children are above average.”
My conclusion is that ‘fine’ to me (which is a term I don’t actually use) is about skill, method and intention as much or more than about subjective results.
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“This one over here is Very Fine Indeed”
I think he learned that from (Sir) Nigel Tufnel
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Chris, if you see this, do you mind posting what made you feel the term was exclusionary? Or meant with a segregationist intent(not racially, but between fine wine drinkers and those who are not)?
I’m in the camp of believing that any varietal or region can produce fine wines.
It always just seemed to be a term of respect for the craft to me. I couldn’t/wouldn’t argue that there can be an elitist attitude around wine, but the term fine never really struck me that way(outside of being spoken with a caricaturish tone of voice spoofing wine snobs).
Since I named my website “Fine Wine Geek” I felt compelled to define it, at least for myself. This is what I came up with: “Fine Wine is wine worth thinking about or even talking about, a wine of meditation.”
I agree. Hartford makes damn fine RRV old vine Zinfandel!
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Yes, let’s not lose that point! ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}