What Would Joan Scott Say About This Column..?
Speakers of Romance languages are familiar with the concept of gendered nouns - “masculine,” “feminine,” sometimes “neuter” or “neutral.” In French, “nation” is feminine, while “people” is masculine (la nation versus le peuple). These grammatical concepts are often reflected in culture. The Marianne is France’s visual meme representing the “nation.” She is a bare-breasted, sword-and-flag-wielding woman striding resiliently toward the future with citizens in tow (Perhaps you are familiar with Eugène Delacroix’s 1832 Romantic masterpiece “Liberty Leading the People,” on display in the Louvre?).
Discussions and debates about gender, ranging from turgid to acrimonious, are everywhere, even in the wine world. Wine itself has a long history of being gendered. There are masculine wines and feminine wines; there are gender-neutral wines and wines that defy heteronormative definition. What “genders” a wine? Why does the wine industry need to gender wines? Is having a gender a valid descriptor of wines?
As an easy shorthand definition, “masculine” wines are bold, powerful, opulent, and assertive. “Feminine” wines are silken, reserved, complex, and soft. Consider the two most famous growing regions of France, Bordeaux and Burgundy. Conventional wisdom will tell you Bordeaux is masculine and Burgundy is feminine simply by virtue of type and style. Cabernet Sauvignon, typical of Bordeaux, bears the “masculine” qualities listed above. Burgundian Pinot Noir exemplifies supple, refined femininity in wine.
The connection holds up when you look at wine through a cultural lens. Grape tannins, the element that gives a wine its dryness, combine with proteins in meat. The ensuing chemical reaction enhances the flavor of both. When you consider the historical coding of steakhouses as male-dominated spaces of heightened (over-)consumption, a high-tannin wine like Cabernet Sauvignon makes a good deal of sense as “masculine.” One could make a case that Paul Giamatti’s depiction of a powerless - if not entirely neutered - character pursuing Pinot Noir in Sideways draws a subtextual connection between the grape and femininity.
Much is problematic about these varietal and cultural assumptions. They fail to understand the diversity within varieties, especially given the diversity of terroir. I shall hold up Burgundy as exemplary of these nuances. Burgundy is carved into more than two dozen appellations and eighty-four separate lieux-dits. Some vineyards have tightly banded limestone and clay, such as that which produces Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the greatest Pinot Noir in the world. Others demonstrate a mixture of fossilized shellfish from the Jurassic epoch, such as in Gevrey-Chambertin. There is schist, red marl, flint, and even granite, in a constant state of flux as soil erosion flows downhill with the annual winter rains.
Chandon de Briailles Pernand-Vergelesses 1er Cru Ile des Vergelesses is a traditional example of a feminine Burgundy. It has an unaggressive character, with supple fruit tannins. The nose, replete with violets and peonies, is reminiscent of a spring meadow. And yet, with age, as most Pinot Noir of this caliber will, it grows chewier and spicier as the fruit acids ease. It can become quite balanced and more assertive (read: more masculine) after only three years in the bottle. It is a most seductive and balanced wine, appealingly soft and plush in both youth and age. The interplay of clay and chaillots (large limestone pebbles) tends to create more textured and complex wines.
Compare the Pernand-Vergelesses with Domaine Vaudoisey, Volnay 2018. Volnay is only twelve kilometers (about seven miles) south from Pernand-Vergelesses. But it demonstrates much more limestone-dominant soil composition. Pinot Noir from Volnay tends to be tighter, crisper, more terse in structure and assertive on the palate. Domaine Vaudoisey will show fresher, more acid-forward fruits in the bouquet and on the palate, bursting with full-body flavors. This particular bottle will show secondary notes of game, dark spices, and even some dried black fruit after six years.
Cabernet Sauvignon in Bordeaux also demonstrates diversity despite similar geography, soil composition, and variety. Esprit de Saint-Pierre, Saint-Julien AOC is a lush and full-bodied blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc from one of the Left Bank’s most sought-after appellations. Saint-Julien produces wines of gentle roundness and full body, the Bordeaux equivalent of a nude by Dutch master Peter Paul Rubens. Esprit de Saint-Pierre is no exception to this rule. It shows lush black fruits, a touch of tobacco smoke, a fine structure of graphite and spice tannins, and resplendent softness. A most feminine Cabernet Sauvignon.
Six miles up the Gironde river is Château Cos Labory, Saint-Estèphe AOC. Saint-Estèphe is as different from Saint-Julien as Pernand-Vergelesses is from Volnay. The wines there are dark, powerful, and more rustic. Cos Labory is solid, assertive, unabashedly primary in its black fruit and crème-de-cassis character. It does not so much seduce the palate as punch it into submission with its gracefulness. It is a Cabernet by French Neoclassical painter Jacques-Louis David, angular and dense, with idealized muscular lines.
Thinking of wine along gender lines tells us more about our perceptions of gender roles than it does about the wines themselves. There is “feminine” Cabernet Sauvignon and “masculine” Pinot Noir, to the point that the differences become irrelevant. The lesson here, then, is gendered thinking about wine is lazy to the point of misinformation. It covers our potential to learn and experience wine by substituting wrong-headed presumptions about an unrelated field of inquiry. We would do better to leave this sort of language behind and create a more accessible vocabulary for all.
