Notes from Left Field

Brent Eddy
Jan 9
6 min read

Updated: Feb 3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnfT0RyoYCc

Video from the day that sparked this reflection. Turn on audio to hear Oz Clarke on the subject of natural wine. Oz, fatigue and appearance of a creature that pre-dates the dinosaur could not but set off some crazy mental sparks.

Simply, we believe in wine as a deeply human cultural inheritance. Wine has always played an uplifting and positive part in social ritual, culture and individual lives. Not exclusively positive, sure, but so much to the good and to all of our betterment than not.

You would not agree with this if all you did was absorb the cant and motivated reasoning that is forming a strangling narrative around wine. Journalists, influencers, researchers and consultants are doing the work of prohibitionist lobbyists to cast wine as an increasingly irrelevant, self-harming unhealthy, dying "category". There is a Crucible-like witchhunty, self-perpetuating tone to much of this. A powerful puritanical finger has been pointed (Movendi International et al) and the pile-on gathers pace.

Absolutely, it is beyond doubt that wine is in turbulent waters. What isn't? Much of the wine chop is generated by the industry itself - capture by conglomorates pumping out low quality bulk wine and squeezing out artisan producers, VC-driven white-label "brand" wine, marketing that verges on conceited and childish, and an education culture that marginalises and misleads the public. Each are factors deeply interesting in their own right. And deserve airing - first you would need to break the omertà that shrouds the often coven-like industry; many truths are not confessed to the public - vegan wine, organic wine, wine competitions...

As interesting as all that is, we are intrigued by the colourful, curious and entertaining aspects of the wine story; in all its grainy, sweaty, outrageous, random and dodgy magnificence. It's why we've transformed our lives in "burn the ships" fashion to join the story as grower/producers.

These deeper, non-marketing motivated stories of wine are incredibly important and beautiful - but they are counter-cultural; they run against the current narrative we tell ourselves about wine. So, as wet weather, sleeplessness, or sunstroke allows, we'll write our counter cultural palimpsest perspectives on the beauty and richness of wine as part of our human story, as we live it.

The goal here is to keep the wine torch burning in slightly gloomy times; to help see through the murk and affirm that we are on the side of the witch.

Part One - Holy Grails & Drunken Monkeys!

Sang Greal or holy blood, the Arthurian Holy Grail was found long ago. It turned out to be quite other than what the Knights of Camelot, Sion or the Disney Channel expected. But so much more wonderful.

There are two searing insights I wish to advance which speak to wine as the real Holy Grail, an actual exilir of life, 1) wine is not only an essential part of a balanced life, your existence as a super sophisticated, largely hairless ape is only possible because of wine, and 2) the wine you're hopefully drinking today is little changed from pre-human vintage stuff! Both observations should excite your imagination and cause you to consider that glass in hand with a great deal more reverance.

In the beginning there really was wine

Whether the light at the beginning was from a cosmic bang or from the tip of some chap's index finger is your call. Regardless, soon after the light there was wine. Not "soon" in news cycle terms. Wine emerged once the primordial soup cooled off and life began manifesting all over the show. We can happily say that we owe our very existence as a species to wine. I'm saying it! Although in all likelihood wine will be my financial if not existential demise.

It was Rotten Fruit Not a Monolith and Bone

And it's not just me saying it. There is an excellent school of thought called Drunken Monkey Theory you have probably heard about (or at least muttered the phrase while observing massed youth at an unchaperoned social event or 3 or more IT sales people together at lunch). DMT argues that groups of ape-ancesters began foraging for fallen fruit from the forest floor when the arboreal trees that had, until then, sustained them began to fail. The tree-huggers who were too afraid or prudish to come down soon failed too. But the bottom-dwellers thrived. They were selected for additional evolution and that culminated in you.

Forest floor fruit was abundant, easy to find, and rich in sugars. It also came in various states of ferment and was therefore mildly alcoholic. The ground apes had found sustainance and shelter from the storm of their existence. Unfiltered, fault-ridden and not an anchovy on toast in sight but in its essentials we have natural wine. Five stars! DMT doesn't say this but you could gaily make a case for monkey-gets-tipsy as the true zero point for the emergence of life. After all, until floor wine, life was probably pretty tedious, brutish and unpleasant for our proto-Hominid tipuna. The Drunken Monkey moment is a much more compelling image than that of a protozoan splitting or a slimy leg-fin fish beaching itself on some mud, bro.

By now it will be apparent that I am not Linnaeus or Attenborough. Therefore I think I can be afforded leeway to gloss over details here. Suffice to say this early wine-drinking behavioural adaption led to abundant dietary energy and a whole new set of social considerations (and probably regrets) for our increasingly clever ancestor. There were now a continuation of sufficient kilojoules and ample social complexity to warrant the growing of some decent cerebral cortex.

Howling at the Moon

I am no Mark Rowlands either. His rather special 2008 book The Philosopher and the Wolf (which has influenced our family in ways he could never imagine), amongst other things, contrasts the development of the ape brain with that of the wolf brain (and mind). Rowlands has distain for the ape brain. Nevertheless, he writes beautifully of the complex inner world of the drunken monkey, requiring a Moore's Law approach to brain development inorder to process the burgeoning information stemming from the apes' social living arrangements. To live long and prosper, the ape must have a theory of mind. And you'll need more hardware to run it and store it. icloud is some way away. Having a theory of mind is particularly important if you are not the Charles Atlas Silverback sort of ape; trading on great looks, shear bulk and a jackedup amygdala. If you can't bully and fight your way through the social jungle you have nothing but your wits! You must know the rules and apply them to your advantage.

Rowlands gives the example of a troupe sauntering through a forest. A lesser monkey towards the tail of the line spots a strawberry, or a Grand Cru or something, just off the trail. No one else has noticed. Its ancient brain wants it to scream huzzah! rush over, pop the cork and glug. But the wiley sub-alpha's new brain knows that to do that will have the jocks rush in to snatch it and beat the shit out of it while they're about it. Hold your peace little monkey. Delay the marshmallow. You'll need a cunning plan. "Oh, I think I left my cellphone back at the clearing. You guys carry on. I'll be right back". Such sophistication of thought, such deviousness, needs cortex power. And that needs calories. Leathery leaves aren't going to cut it. The fruit sugars help. But Koko can't live on bread alone. The mental exhaustion of balancing social rules and second-guessing complex interrelationships needs a way to quiet a busy, coritsol-soaked mind. What could be better than relaxing at the end of the day over a handful of fruitbomb? An image that draws a straightline connection between a forest in East Africa 80 million years ago and a Friday afternoon glass of Chardonnay at the office, deck or kitchen counter.

Welcome to the Jungle

What has changed, really? The Silverbacks now run hedge funds and have podcasts and crypto or trust accounts but still think of themselves as gods. That's the jungle we've created since coming down from the tops to taste of drops of god. The essential point of DMT is that without the disinhibiting effect of wine (alcohol) the ability to maintain exceedingly complex, frequently fractious, social bonds would not have been possible. Communities, cities, and civilisations are built on wine. To paraphrase Garrison Keillor's Powder Milk Biscuit jingle, wine gives shy persons the strength to get out and do what must be done! At a very prosaic level, I suspect there are many many marriages, and more children, that would not exist at all but for wine!

The Quest for the Holy Grail

First, we need to know what we're looking for. And then we'll need some coconut shells.

Before teeing off on the subject of Grails and making the vaunting leap to wine, as homework, I think we might just watch some Monty Python tonight! And drink to those fearless, non-discriminating wine scooping/sucking primate ancestors and their modern day inheritors - those who passionately and fearlessly make wine. A toast to them; to the winemaker!