The arch anti-terroiriste visits the anglophones
14 February 2007

A review of Malcolm Gluck’s Brave New World, by Angela Lloyd

Malcolm Gluck’s Brave New World
By Malcolm Gluck
Published by Mitchell Beazley 2006, 192 pages  RRP R360 (UK £20; loot.co.za R241)

British wine writer Malcolm Gluck is the arch anti-terroiriste. He loses no time in making this clear in the Introduction to Brave New World; `Wine is an expression of locality, yes, but that locality, that expression, is, to my mind, less about local soil and more about local soul.'

The ‘local soul' in this case extends across Australia, California, New Zealand as well as South Africa. No Argentina or Chile? Well, no: Gluck's introduction explains his inclusions thus: ‘People who speak English as a first … language are, as a general tendency, like that language itself, open to ideas, generous to admit neologisms, and sceptical of hard and fast rules. It shows in the wines.'  Apparently a one-time working title was ‘English-speaking wines'!

If you can stomach that `irreverence' (the jacket blurb describes Gluck's style as ‘irreverent and witty', though many would say plain rude is closer to the truth), you'll be ready for more of the same throughout the book.

The sub-title to Brave New World is ‘Why the wines of Australia, California, New Zealand, and South Africa taste the way they do’. On his travels in the four countries, Gluck seeks the answer from the people who make them;  the book records his impressions of both them and their wines. His own photographs, competent if not thrilling, are liberally strewn between the text.

It's always as well to check home turf before pronouncing generally. Prior to his present visit, Gluck was last here in 2003 and it shows. Who remembers Stellenbosch Vineyards? That name was, I think, two incarnations ago. And the previous winemaker, Chris Kelley [sic] has been at Hidden Valley since 2005.

Out-of-dateness isn't exclusive to South Africa: in Australia, Dr Andrew Pirie is still given as with the Tasmanian winery, Piper's Brook, an association that was ended some four and a bit years ago.

You see, Malcolm, the problem with people - unlike terra firma - is that they move around! And for your theory to hold water, you need to be up to date with where your winemaker is now.

I don't doubt the sincerity of Gluck’s belief that wines reflect the people who make them, rather than ‘terroir',  and agree with his support for screwcaps, but repetition of these views ad nauseam does become tiresome; eventually, one feels he's both striving for effect and protesting too much.

This, together with unnecessary and irritating inaccuracies (like Tolana instead of Tokara), gets in the way of Gluck's telling and often imaginative powers of observation. There's a considerate description of Mexican casual workers waiting in Healdsburg in the hope of earning a day's wage grape picking, and Gluck's views of their uncertain way of making a living.

His turn of phrase when describing wines can also be evocative. Of Neil Ellis's Vineyard Selection Cabernet Sauvignon he says ‘Its local Jonkershoek fruit, plainly showing its cold night-time locale, stiffens sinews, summons up the blood and has heroic tannins.' I can relate to that.

The book will no doubt appeal to Gluck's fans and, who knows, maybe others, (though it's difficult to know what level of winelover it would attract) but all may well be horrified that the author, who is a well-known critic of over-hyped and over-priced wines, allows a more-than-cheeky full price of R360.

COMMENTS

From Vinfundi:
I enjoyed the review more than I enjoyed the book.