MICHAEL FRIDJHON: Cellar tours can help separate fact from PR spin
In-depth visits of vineyards and wineries are often motivated by personal priorities
Aficionados of cellar tours, the enthusiasts and the professionals who believe that by seeing the heart of the wine factory they will better understand the flavour profile of what lands up in the bottle are no more peculiar a species than, say, safari junkies. The bored tourist who says “when you’ve seen one lion you’ve seem them all” could well be the avatar of the Australian wine writer who once urged me to “take one for the team” and accompany the guide to see yet another bottling line while he feigned illness.
Both are correct: in appearance all lions are the same, just as all stainless steel (or oak or concrete) fermenters are the same. Nor is “my oak is better than your oak” an argument automatically resolved by looking at barrels, or foudre: the proof of this particular smoothie is in the drinking. Those of us who persist in undertaking these in-depth visits (in my case especially to vineyards and wineries though also to see lions and cheetahs) are motivated by our own ...
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