You Cannot Go Beyond Your Culture

„This past summer I received an e-mail from Zoltán Demeter, a winegrower in Hungary's Tokaj region whose wines I admire unreservedly. I met with him last year in Tokaj and we tasted carefully through his wines, the discussion extending well beyond the usual technical jabber. We talked about the fitful progress of Hungarian wine, and I commented, »You cannot go beyond your culture.«

This statement apparently struck Mr. Demeter, enough so that months later he asked my permission to use it as a quotation on the label of his 2011 Tokaji Veres Dry Furmint, a single-vineyard dry white wine of exceptional quality. I was happy to give my consent. What does »You cannot go beyond your culture« mean? It reflects, I believe, what might be called 21st-century wine sense.

Previously, the division between ordinary and fine wine was a matter of money and technical competence. Until very recently, the wine world was classically divided between the Haves and the Have-Nots. The Haves were famous districts that commanded high prices and worldwide distribution, and had long-standing technical competence. They ruled. The Have-Nots were the many wine zones around the world whose wines fetched derisory prices, had little or no distribution beyond their home countries or even localities, and whose winemakers often had little scientific training or modern equipment. They languished. And their often-rustic wines hardly encouraged a following.”