SUB-ZERO WINE BLOG

In my early days as a budding wine writer, I sometimes referred to certain wines as “feminine.” I got quite a bit of flack from the politically-correct crowd, so I stopped using gender-related wine descriptors. I wasn’t quite sure whether I should continue to refer to big wines as “brawny” or “muscular” (much less fruit-forward ones as “fruity”) lest some segment of the population think they were being downtrodden. I began limiting my vocabulary to safe, generic words, such as “tannic,” “aromatic,” and just plain “red.” Occasionally, I would sneak in a ringer like “dramatic” or “brooding,” just to see whether anyone was actually reading my writing.

Flash forward twenty years. Imagine my surprise when Chris Curran, the winemaker at Sea Smoke (who happens to be a woman) used gender-specific terms to describe her wines in a recent interview. “Pinot Noir is a woman,” Chris said, pointedly. And she described her three different Sea Smoke Pinot Noirs as “very different females.”

The Pinot called Botella, says Chris, is “a cheerleader who’s really bouncy and will tell you her life story.” The Pinot called Southing is “an educated older woman who is very complex.” And the Pinot called Ten Chris refers to as “an opinionated, athletic volleyball player – very beautiful, but you wouldn’t want to meet her in a back alley.”

I guess I’m off the hook now. Buxom, fruit-bomb Zinfandel, anyone?