The Vintners Voice

My life, like many others, has aspects that are routine. For instance, each morning I stop off at the post office to pick up the company mail. When I get to the office I plug my lap top in and, while waiting for the thing to warm up, check the voice mails and sort through the mail to see if anything is any of my business.

This morning I received a magazine, the inaugural issue, Mutineer. It billed itself as ‘not your parent’s beverage magazine’. I wasn’t completely surprised to see it. I had met the magazine’s editor-in-chief, Alan Kropf, while he was in Oregon for Pinot Camp. He had said that we would be getting a copy of the magazine, and this morning we did. So of course I began thumbing through it and noticed an article by Alan, The Great Oregon Wine Mutiny.

Let me just get it out in the open now, I am by no means a literary critic. This should come as no surprise to anyone that reads this blog regularly or knows me personally. I am also no expert on pop culture; I am a farmer and craftsmen. I should also go on the record as saying I make a modest living and have never been to Paris, the Grand Cayman Islands, don’t have accounts is Swiss banks and have never tasted a single drop of Petrus. I am not a wine expert, with the exception of the wines in barrel at Patton Valley, which I know like the back of my hand. In other words I have little use for ‘lifestyle magazines’.

Thumbing through several pages of Mutineer magazine, I found the article written by Alan. He had visited Oregon last fall and written an article about, well mostly, Doug Tunnel and his winery, Brick House Vineyards. Doug has been growing grapes in the Willamette Valley for probably close to 20 years now and had a whole other life before he decided to become a vintner. A fascinating character to say the least, Doug is the sort of guy that a lot of people might write a story about. In fact, many actually have.

Alan didn’t wade into the subject with the usual kind of wine wank. He seemed to be trying to get past the bottle and the brands and get down to what I think is interesting about wine; the people behind the wines and the nature of their relationship to their vineyards and process. I actually had to let out a ‘fuck yes’ when I read Alan’s description of Doug; “It is hard to tell where the vineyard stops and where Doug begins…”. If any of you have met Doug Tunnel you would likely agree that it would be hard to find a more elegant and accurate way to describe him.

Alan, and Mutineer, doesn’t go into petty tasting notes. They don’t list the scores assigned to the most recent Brick House releases. They don’t add to the hype that surrounds the legend of Doug Tunnel, they simply describe why Doug is worthy of that sort of attention. Alan circles the subject, tries to look past the haze of Branding and Marketing and get down to the very essence of what great wine really is; someone’s connection to a piece of ground and their commitment to honoring it. Mr. Kropf manages to slice through all of the trivial aspects of wine like Brick House Chardonnay cuts through rich foods; directly and seemingly without trying. In the Letter from the editor, Alan defines Mutineer ’s mission; “… the world of wine, beer, spirits, and all fine beverages has been somehow perverted within the void that exists between maker and drinker.” He also states that; “… the people, ideas, and culture surrounding the world of fine beverage are far more relevant and interesting than countless pages of beverage ratings… the Mutineer, will NEVER reduce something as complex and beautiful as a fine beverage to a mere number.” To that I say; can I get an Amen!

I haven’t read the entire magazine, yet. But I wanted to Post on what I think Mutineer could do for the current state of wine writing. I think, based on this one article in the first issue, that it could provide a view point that is not only lacking, but is very much needed; the point of view that wine is an honest product made by honest people and deserves to be addressed honestly. All of the pretension that surrounds wine comes from someplace AFTER is has left the vineyard and winery. There are plenty of publications that raise wine to collector’s items, symbols of elitism or make it into an intellectual pursuit on par with quantum mechanics or medieval history. Hopefully Mutineer can return wine, in the public eye, to what it has always been…real.   http://www.mutineermagazine.com