The Difference Between Rustic and Incompetence

I struggle with “rustic.”  I have a glass of Aglianico in front of me. The aromas are bold with plenty of secondary and tertiary notes to make it interesting. But it is rustic even after 8 yrs in the bottle. What do I mean by rustic? There some obvious VA lurking in those aromas. And the edgy, thick tannins  are made more edgy by high acidity that bites just as the tannins swell. The wine is telling you “I’m not trying to be pretty.” Message received.

But I  know that with the right food, this wine might sing. I’m thinking wild boar cacciatore.

I also know that in the right mood, even without the food, I might really like this wine.

So is this just bad winemaking or is the winemaker a secret friend, sensitive to moods and nuance, creating wines not only of place but for occasions? If you’re a wine lover you don’t have to decide. Put a cork in it and try it again tomorrow. But I’m in the scribe tribe; I like verdicts and arguments. I want to know is it worthy or not.

Today we’re deep into the back end of a trend that praised polished wines in which oak and technology “sanded off” the rough edges. We’ve outgrown that tendency. We can handle character even if it’s a bit obstreperous, like your favorite uncle.

And there is room for rude, crude forms of art. Grunge, punk, and film noir enrich our lives. Why should wine be different?

Well, because you don’t like what you don’t like. You don’t have to swallow out of tune guitars or a nasty character. You can “taste” them at a distance.

We tolerate an obstreperous uncle because he may also be funny or generous. If he is merely obnoxious, we stop inviting him. A rustic wine faces the same test. Does the VA add lift and volatility to the aromas, or does it simply smell like VA? Do the tannins give the wine dramatic force, or do they merely punish the mouth? Difficulty may be a cost worth paying, but the wine has to offer something in return.

So the jury is still drinking. I am going to cork it and try again tomorrow to find out what this wine can do. Can it change with air? Can food reveal relations that weren’t apparent when it was tasted alone? Does it accommodate several moods, or does it demand one very specific set of conditions? A wine with many possible futures may be more interesting than one that is immediately agreeable but has nowhere else to go.

Rustic is an aesthetic gamble and “drink it with food” can be an all purpose excuse. Tomorrow may not make the wine prettier. I’m hoping it makes the ugliness more intelligible.