Wine, Mouthfeel and the Dilemma

"I would like a smooth wine." I've overheard this request plenty of times. I've also heard a sommelier describe a wine in that manner, and my heart sinks. Since when did texture become a selling point? When did it become part of an enological additive, something decided before the grapes came in. When did it become something like cheesecake, where the 'mouthfeel' is almost its identity, much the way people will debate a knaidel, golfball or puchy (airy). Maybe I'm the one here with the Cubist face in a world of symmetry. True I'm the first to pounce on the crusty potato at the bottom of the pan, the person who runs to scrape out the mac and cheese browned bits. But I never rejected food on the basis of texture nor when I think of wine do I think of texture first. Like color, it is part of the wine, something to note, something that can give sensual pleasure and it ranges from silk velvet to wide wale corduroy and some sandpaper in between. And vive le difference! I would not expect the same texture in my Chateauneuf as my Vosne, would I? (Tell that to California pinot makers though!) But alas, this is part of my insane existential dilemma. Am I alone in this too? I've been digesting an excellent, if somewhat of an industry advertisement and a tad incomplete (sidesteps wide use of gum arabics, RO and MOX--and refers to an Oregon Pinot Gris as 'Old World) article in Wines & Vines by Tim Patterson, Many Roads to Mouthfeel about the need for getting that right viscosity in the mouth from wine because, 'Mouthfeel is big business.' There were many hard-hitting sentences such as, " the trend toward high-extract, high-alcohol reds has meant a turn toward winemaking techniques to ensure that elevated tannin and ethanol levels don't stick out, but rather get wrapped in a softening mouthfeel." The piece was perfectly executed to show exactly how much the industry is behind products promoting texture. Last month when I visited Pierre Overnoy in the Jura he said to me, "The problem with wine isn't politics, it's business." While reading Patterson's piece, I shot out several Tweets (and you can follow me on Twitter at alicefeiring), because this is a hot spot for me; marketing wine to a perceived consumer palate preference. That sparked many a reaction including one man, a wine writer, who asked me whether I had a similar hard time with lees stirring (which effects texture.) Upon hearing that Kevin Hamel, the winemaker for Hamel Wines and Pellegrini recently chimed in, " People forget why battonage was employed in the first place - to help recalcitrant wines finish their malo. The effect on texture and flavor was a byproduct." The same writer kept coming back at me and asked, whether I objected to egg yolk in my ice cream. I thought he was poking me in the ribs. However, when the Facebook reactions started to pile in I realized that he was not having a bit of fun. In fact, he might have been one of those people requesting a smoothie instead of a Barolo. Others were making this analogy to cooking, straining sauces, emulsifiers and I wonder which Kool Aid they were drinking, and glad I had missed it when it got passed around. I feel out of step with most of the universe. It's a lonely place. And I'm trying to understand why do sophisticated wine drinkers, wine writers even, draw the connection between winemaking and cheffing? Because people drink with food, wine's been confused as a souffle (that was Clark Smith who was selling reverse osmosis machines and MOX machines' favorite). Do they view wine as a confection? As a sauce or soup? My friend Melissa has a yummy column in the New York Times, A Good Appetite, in which she looks in her refrigerator or pantry and fueled by creativity spins out something transformed and delicious. Listen. Cooking is about a reinvention.Winemaking is about husbandry. One can eat a grape raw but one needs to do something to a raw potato. Right? (for more on Texture, and its importance--especially when it does not come from a packet, check out Eric Asimov's post from a few years back