Against the “International Style” 

Tom Wolfe once excoriated the International Style in architecture — those now ubiquitous glass boxes that have sprung up like weeds since the 1950s. J.M. Garcia III does the same for the new International Style in wine, with its move toward homogeneity.

I am one of those sensible sorts of men who places the potable at the service of the edible.

Therefore, I’m adamant the wine (and occasionally the beer) serve the purpose of making the food a higher, better version of itself. The wine, then, is given a sacred duty to discharge: become the means for the wine’s self-actualization. This is hardly a menial role. It is the cement which holds the edifice of the meal together and erect. While expressing this very opinion recently, I was told this was a very French way of looking at things. I was thinking this was very Iberic rather than very Gallic, but I shan’t quibble over what part of the Roman Empire begat this very sensible outlook. I s’pose the Italians may view this sort of opinion in a proprietary manner themselves.

It’s my greatest thrill when sampling a wine to realize I know exactly what sorts of foods will pair off beautifully therewith. “This would be ideal with grilled lamb chops!” or something like that.

There are others, alas, who take an opposite view. They stash away overoaked tannin bombs and then try to pair off these juggernauts with something edible. Failure is inexorable. Why? Because this is what the mass opinion of the wine writers have led these poor deluded fools to believe. If you are willing to take a large, expansive, big-picture view, you’d notice the modern wine writer’s palate has done as much for modern wine as phylloxera. Actually more, because when phylloxera strikes, it doesn’t replace what it destroys with something abominable.

In some quarters, such a representative of the modern wine, er, press could be safely called “Father Christmas” (no, not because mention of his name makes you want to belt out “Oh, Tannin Bomb!” in a ringing baritone, although that’s a proper instinct) because the International Style of WineTM which he has seemingly championed — with its varnish-dissolving tannins, clumsy masses of fruit, blunted and stunted acidity, forests of oak, and hot with ethanol — really have made winemaking very easy for the non-conscientious or expedient-minded vintners; with the added cultural component of allowing them to charge confiscatory amounts for 750ml of abused grape juice. You can’t blame the winemakers, exactly. They run businesses and not charities for the oeniphilically sophisticated. They produce wine to sell at a profit, not wine to store amid glad smiles of knowing self-satisfaction.

The lesser-known French, Italians and Spanish haven’t fully succumbed. Yet. But the 100 point scale is handwritten on the wall. One day, the scion of some grand family (an enterprising lad, who’s been to the city) will rip out acres or, if you’d rather, hectares of ancient native vines and replace them with Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot or some other ubiquituous-yet-incongruous varietal and proceed to make his best caricature of a California clone of a Bordeaux grand cru.

His efforts will be rewarded with a 95-plus rating and he’ll have to hire additional workers to harvest all the ducats which will inevitably be showered down upon him, courtesy of grateful serfs, the denizens of Winegeekville.

And you will have to seek out another unspoiled place in order to find a wine that, when paired with your favorite food, doesn’t make the entire enterprise taste as if one of the more misanthropic Borgias was the steward of the feast.

Think of it this way. It’s as if women of all ages, races, ethnicities and nationalities decided to start emulating the look of Pamela Anderson.

Not that I feel passionately about this or anything.

But all is not lost. There are still winemakers who have declined to, as it were, “drink the Kool-Aid” becoming recusants in the face of the International Style of WineTM, and even some of the most egregious offenders still have little-known bottlings worthy of your search. We cannot turn back the clock, but we can turn back the tide.

Your call.

—J.M. Garcia III