Should we pour fine wine down the sink? | New Brief #273

Some words slip into everyday vocabulary without anyone really noticing. Minerality comes to mind — a term that suddenly appeared out of nowhere and began taking up space, a lot of space. These days, minerality is sprinkled over wines as if writers were paid by the syllable. Another one is “fine wine”. Admittedly, it has been around for longer than minerality.

Fine wine is easier to grasp than minerality, but that doesn’t make it self‑evident. Is it simply something that rises above the ordinary — in other words, particularly good wines?

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Or are we talking about classic age‑worthy wines, famous bottles whose names have travelled the globe, wines that routinely receive high critic scores? In other words, expensive prestige wines?

In many parts of the world, that’s exactly what people mean. If we look at how critics, merchants, and others use the term, it encompasses all of this — and especially the idea that the wine has resale value. Cellaring potential seems to be a magic word. Then there are those who add vaguer notions, like a fine wine should “move you emotionally,” create an unforgettable memory, or even possess an “objective” (objective?) dimension of finesse (as Areni Global suggests, adding the winemaker’s intentions to the mix). It all feels a bit affected. Sustainability is also sometimes mentioned as a criterion. Admirable, yes, but hardly something that would raise the price at auction.

For most of the 20th century, fine wine came from the classic regions: the top wines of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, occasionally from Napa, and perhaps a few extraordinarily age‑worthy sweet wines from Germany. Italy’s top wines were relatively late to be elevated into the fine wine pantheon.

Because the ability to age gracefully was a key criterion, vintages were judged by their cellaring potential. “Lesser vintages,” meaning those meant to be enjoyed earlier, received lower scores and lower prices. That’s still the case, though thankfully, more people now appreciate the virtues of lighter years.

But the traditional image of fine wine has changed, or is in the process of changing. The French classics still dominate auction houses, but more countries and regions are appearing. And perhaps most strikingly, the light, fruity, easy‑drinking wine is now being celebrated. No real tannins to speak of, but wonderfully refreshing and thirst‑quenching. Not for ageing — for drinking now. A wine that once would have been dismissed as simple. Today, long‑held assumptions are being turned upside down. What is quality in wine, really? Quality means different things to different people. A quality wine doesn’t have to be expensive, but can a cheap wine ever be considered a fine wine? Hardly, given today’s prevailing definition. Reputation and critical acclaim tend to bring high prices.

It’s easy to disprove many of the attempted definitions of fine wine mentioned above. There are plenty of wines that deliver deep emotional impact, that are of outstanding quality (if tasted blind), that are produced in small quantities (and many so‑called fine wines are produced in huge volumes), that age beautifully — yet they are not typically classified as fine wine.

So perhaps “expensive and famous” is the most accurate definition. It certainly fits the wines most often promoted as fine wine. It’s difficult to imagine a fine wine that doesn’t fall under that description.

Fine wine may be a convenient shorthand for a certain category of wines, without sounding as blunt as saying “expensive wines,” but the term feels old‑fashioned and dusty. (As, frankly, does fine dining.) It feels like a relic of the late 20th century.

Not exactly the ideal expression for breathing new life into the wine world.

Travel

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Enjoy the Brief!

Britt & Per

Wine editors to the national encyclopedia, Forbes.com contributors, award-winning wine book authors, wine tour advisors to the UN and national wine organisations, wine judges … and, above all, passionate wine travellers.

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