Wine and Mystery

One way to distinguish beautiful objects from objects that are merely pretty is that beautiful objects have an aura of mystery about them. In the pulsating color field of a Rothko painting or the plaintive, world-weary ache of a Billy Holiday ballad, the sensory surface draws us in but then refers to something beyond what we can experience in the moment as if the painting or song is withholding something from us to which we must respond with curiosity and fascination.

The best wines also have this aura of mystery. The taste of something unusual intrigues, provoking the suspicion that there is more here than is apparent, a potential not yet fully realized calling us to further sensory exploration. Wine is a vague object with features difficult to detect, and wine and wine grapes are subject to variations that continually surprise both tasters and winemakers. Complexity that cannot be grasped all at once, that may take a day or two to emerge, leaves us wondering how much more a wine has to give.

This unpredictability and constant variation explains why people are devoted to wine. A wine that has the complexity, surprise, and originality to arrest our attention, that can hold us captive waiting for its next move, is “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma” to quote Winston Churchill on another matter.. Most of the world’s celebrated wines are beautiful in that sense, although finding mystery in a wine need not cost a fortune. You might well find it at that small winery across town.

If there is anything one learns from drinking wine it is that some things are beyond our grasp, to be enjoyed rather than understood.