By vinini, Peretti states clearly that these wines aren't insignificant. What they are is easy to drink, pleasant to taste, fun to share with friends. Such wines are the "instrumentality" that lubricate easy discourse and social bonding; they are not the main topic of conversation and certainly not the object of lengthy analysis and argument.
In his somewhat pompously titled "Elogium of Vinino, or Manifesto for Wines That Are Easy to Drink", Peretti lists a neat set of oppositions:
* Wines that are easy to drink (lighter, less alcoholic, balanced) vs. colossally concentrated, high-alcohol oak-monsters
* Wines to drink vs. wines to taste
* Wines to share and enjoy with friends vs. those you dissect critically
* Wines made to the tastes of the individual winemaker (one attached to his own territory and traditions) vs. those made to some international conception of what a good wine is
* Wines that are what they are -- quirky, even imperfect -- vs. those made by the numbers, striving for technical perfection
Well, you get the idea. It's an elegant presentation of current dissatisfaction with today's wine culture and its obsession with mosts and bests as defined by a corps of tastemakers whose tastemaking days are waning.
What I like about Angelo's approach is that it is not predicated on some ideal of "natural" or biodynamic wine, which to me is suspect because it is becoming an orthodoxy no less rigid and wrong-headed as the "international" craze, to which it rose in opposition. Anyway, this entails taking winemakers at their word, which is, frankly, never a smart thing to do. (Sorry, guys. I know. You have to make a living too.)
None of that for Angelo. He centers the argument on the experience of pleasure (hedonism!) in the context of conviviality. This resonates deeply in our culture -- the symposia (drinking parties) of ancient Athens, the ritual use of wine in Christianity and Judaism, the drinking songs and games of Medieval students, the Sherry parties of our great-grandmothers, Sunday dinner in Italy, France, Spain, etc., etc.
All right, enough of this.
What are we going to drink with our amici this evening?
What are your suggestions for some delicious, very drinkable wines?
This one works for me
The $ 64,000 question (pun VERY intentional) is this:
How long before reasonably priced "vinini" become another fad, thus morphing into "Vinini", with the inevitable hike in price?
Especially here in the USofA, where a bottle that gets 3 Euros at the Italian vineyard inexplicably lightens my wallet by $ 18.
Posted by: Gianni Lovato | 12/21/2009 at 10:39 AM
I wish it would become a fad. Maybe it is one already -- look at how wine hipsters have been hyping the Loire in the past year or two.
As to the "inexplicable" price differential...it's pretty explicable, starting with our terrible exchange rate. And then there's the 3-tier system. And, oddly enough, everyone wants to earn something for their troubles.
Posted by: Strappo | 12/21/2009 at 10:46 AM
I do not wish to sound like some radical "ultra": I have a great deal of respect for those farmers and vintners who are working very hard at making a superior product. On both sides of the Pond.
Having said that, I am also getting tired of feeling that I should be ashamed of drinking and-yes-even enjoying, a bottle of wine that sells for less than $20 (or, God forbid, even a lot less).
It's not JUST a matter of what I am able to afford. It's also the (very disputable, I'm sure) fact that quite a few of the wines upon which so many of the gurus easily frown, or whose very existence they deliberately ignore, can be very enjoyable for many of us.
Including someone who was taught to be selective about wine at the age of 10 by a very "schizzinoso" Father with a very fine nose for wine, food and fakery (grazie Papa').
Now I'll get off the soap box. Ciao.
Posted by: Gianni Lovato | 12/21/2009 at 11:15 AM