The Somm Journal

18 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 { one woman's view } DEFINING THE WORD ELEGANCE IN WINE by Karen MacNeil SOMETIMES A WORD begins to creep ever more insistently into the wine zeitgeist. It's happening right now. The word is elegance. Like the word minerality (and, famously, like the word pornography), eleance is easier to reconize than define. The dictionary ies the synonys race, style, refineent. But how do we identify that uality in wine? ro y perspectie, eleance is neer about specific aors. eon, for example, is categorically no more or less elegant than chocolate, which is no more or less elegant than, say, rotting leaves. Instead, eleance is concerned with how aors are epressed. If you anthro - pomorphized a Chardonnay, would it be more like Audrey Hepburn or i ardashian Beethoen or rap usic orsche or a uer leant wines hae a certain subtlety about the. They are uietly sublime. You often have to "listen in" carefully to taste what they have to say. This doesn't mean the wine is weak or wishy-washy. The most amaz - ing thing I've ever experienced is how a wine that's intense and powerful when youn can be transorified by ae to becoe superbly eleant. There's an undeniable mystery to all this, an unpredictability, and an inability to uantify. hich is perhaps one reason why winea- ers don't like to use words like elegant. Yet, sometimes even they are left with no other way to describe what they are trying to achieve. Last week, in the middle of her rd harest, Cathy Corison of Corison inery in Napa Valley told me, "For my whole winemaking life, I've been chasing the intersection of power and elegance in Cabernet Sauvignon." No one can say exactly where elegance in wine comes from. Certainly, the winemaker must use restraint in winemaking, since a winemaker can ruin all hope for elegance to simply "happen." Overripe grapes, overwrought winemaking, over-extraction, over- oaking . . . they're all too over the top, which is why so many of us want to be oer it already. But careful wineain alone is not enouh. Because eleant wines also possess a spark, a life force, a kinetic vitality that can be spellbinding. And who knows where that comes from? The Ascent of Elegance PHOTO: MELANJURGA VIA THINKSTOCK 18 { THE SOMM JOURNAL } OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2017 Karen MacNeil is the author of The Wine Bible and the editor of WineSpeed. You can reach her at AskKaren@ winespeed.com.

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