名利場:最令人愉快的品酒會

ing-bottom: 66.6%;">

The Friday before last I was treated to one of the most pleasurable wine tastings I can remember. It was not that the wines themselves were the greatest ever. In my time I’ve been lucky enough to enjoy various series of classic and historic vintages. This was not one of those. And at least part of the reason I enjoyed it so much was that it was in such a congenial setting.

不久前我參加了一場品酒會(wine tasting)，那是我參加過的最令人愉快的品酒會之一。我想至少有部分原因是當天的品嚐環境非常對我的胃口，而不是因爲當天所品嚐的葡萄酒特別好——這麼多年來我品嚐過太多經典和著名的葡萄酒。

It was in a house close to my own that I had long wanted to snoop inside. The 26 bottles were lined up on a pine table in a pretty, light, comfortable dining area with a wooden floor, lots of cookbooks and interesting bits and pieces round about, a fire glowing in the grate, intriguing family photographs, unscented flowers and a view over a welltended garden.

品嚐會的舉辦地點距離我住所不遠，是一座我很久以來總是想要一探究竟的房子，而這次品嚐會正好讓我得以見識它的真面目。在漂亮、明亮且舒適的木地板用餐區，二十六瓶葡萄酒整齊地排列在一張松木桌上。活動處還展示着很多烹飪類書籍，壁爐中的火焰快樂地跳躍着，各處的小擺件和家庭照片也非常有趣。因爲品酒會的關係，花朵都是無香的。屋外花園也非常美麗，可以看出主人常常用心打理。

The tasting had been organised by a genuine grape enthusiast, not to say grape obsessive, whose interest in wine in general and unusual grape varieties in particular is so marked that he prefers to remain anonymous lest his clients (who belong to another field entirely) feel neglected. After ensuring I had everything I could desire (decent glass, tasting sheet, spittoon, water and, nowadays, chair) Mr Grape Obsessive tactfully withdrew to his study, just within sight, while Mrs Grape Obsessive showed me where I could refuel on Sally Clarke’s delicacies. (I may not eat much when slurping and spitting but there is nothing that stimulates the appetite more effectively than wine tasting, so provision of something more nourishing than a Carr’s water biscuit is always appreciated.)

這場品酒會的主辦人即便不能被稱作葡萄迷先生，但也稱得上是葡萄愛好者，他對葡萄酒和各種葡萄品種尤其感興趣，喜歡用匿名的方式辦活動，以免客戶（處於與葡萄酒完全不相干行業的客戶）感到自己受到忽視。在我確認了品嚐會所需物品都已經齊備（正確的酒杯、品嚐表格、吐酒桶、水以及椅子）之後，葡萄迷先生自然地退回到自己的崗位上繼續勞作，葡萄迷女士（即他的太太）告訴我如果感到餓了，可以享用莎莉克拉克(Sally Klarke)的美食。在品酒會中不能吃太多東西，不過沒有任何事情能夠比品酒會更讓人胃口大開，所以如果活動中能夠有比卡爾牌薄脆餅乾(Carr’s water biscuit)更有營養的食物當然令人非常開心。

A wine professional might have arranged the wines by colour and then by ascending order of body or sweetness. But to Mr Grape Obsessive, the grapes were the thing, so he arranged the bottles in alphabetical order by name of grape variety – the theme being wines made from exotic grape varieties that he had picked up on his travels over the past four years. He told me that he thoroughly researches any new region his work takes him to so that he knows in advance exactly what to look for. “You can find the most extraordinary things in wine shops,” he assured me. I gathered from Mrs Grape Obsessive that she was delighted that at long last these hoarded bottles were being opened and would soon be out of the house.

葡萄酒專業人士安排品嚐順序時通常會按照顏色進行區分，接着再按照酒體或甜度進行升序排序。但是對於葡萄迷先生來說，葡萄品種是永遠的主角，所以他將所有的酒款以葡萄品種名稱進行字母表式的排序——品酒會的主題也定爲主人四年來周遊列國所收集的異國品種所釀造的葡萄酒。他告訴我說，每當出差之前，他都會對前往地做事先的產地研究，所以動身之前就已經決定了將要購買什麼葡萄酒。最後，他非常確信地告訴我：“在葡萄酒商店中，你總是能夠找到最特別的東西。”後來我從葡萄迷女士那裏得知，最後所有的葡萄酒都被打開品嚐令她非常開心，她也很樂意來賓們將打開而沒有喝完的美酒帶回家享用。

Since there was no particular vinous rhyme or reason to the order of bottles, I sat down where there was a space, which happened to be beside the first bottle of Uhudler I had ever tried. Mr Grape Obsessive, of course, had both a white and red version of this questionable southeastern Austrian speciality that is made from American hybrids. It was a big mistake to start with the pale red Uhudler, made by Pfeiffer from Concord – the common labrusca grape responsible for so much grape juice and jelly/jam in the US – and the much more obscure American hybrid Ripatella. Do you know how American grape juice smells? Or, indeed, anything grapeflavoured in the US. “Foxy” has become the accepted term for this unforgettable smell that is somewhere between fraises des bois and damp fur. I tried to rinse out my glass to ready it for the next wine, made like 99 per cent of all wines from the European vine species. I failed and had to get a new glass. I’m not saying American vine species are evil. But their grapes and wine sure taste odd to palates more used to conventional wine aromas made from European grapes.

考慮到當天葡萄酒排序的方式比較特殊，我覺得從哪裏開始嘗起都無所謂，因此就隨便找了一個空位就坐了。而這個空座面對的，正好是我曾經嘗過的一種葡萄酒——烏德勒(Uhudler)。這種備受爭議的奧地利東南部特有葡萄酒有紅和白兩種類型，採用美洲雜交品種(American Hybrid)釀造，葡萄迷女士當天也爲我們準備了紅和白各一瓶。從淡紅的烏德勒紅葡萄酒開始品嚐實在是一個大錯誤，當天的酒款由普菲佛(Pfeiffer)採用康科德(Concord)和裏帕特拉(Ripatella)這兩個品種釀造——前者是美洲種葡萄(labrusca)，在美國主要用於榨汁或製作果凍和果醬；後者是美洲雜交種，品種特點比康科德更加模糊。你知道美洲葡萄汁聞起來是什麼感覺嗎？或者我應該問美國所有帶有葡萄味道特點的東西聞起來是什麼感覺。“狐騷味”應該是一個很有代表性的詞彙，這種味道介於野生草莓(fraises des bois)和溼皮毛之間，很容易就能夠給人留下極其深刻的印象。品嚐完這款貌似唯一採用美洲種釀造的葡萄酒之後，我嘗試通過多次涮杯來清除味道，不過屢戰屢敗。最後沒辦法，只好換了一個新酒杯。我倒不是在控訴美洲葡萄種有多麼邪惡，但是對於習慣了歐洲葡萄種風格的人來說，它們的味道實在很怪。

As coauthor of a book on 1,368 vine varieties (it was tactfully left out in a prominent position in front of the fire), I had come across many of these exotic grape varieties before. But Mr Grape Obsessive gave me my first opportunity to taste Resi or Rèze, whose 700th anniversary was recently celebrated in its native Valais at an event organised by my coauthor José Vouillamoz. The 2011 version – made by the obscure local grape specialists, the Chanton family of Visp – was apparently the star of the anniversary celebrations, while Mr GO’s 2006 was the star of his tasting for me. It had developed beautifully into something that managed to be both tangy and somehow burnished yet seemed to have lots of life ahead of it too. In Wine Grapes we note that there are just two hectares of this historic Valais grape variety left. There should be more, and recently José discovered, through his groundbreaking work analysing the DNA of grape varieties, that a few ancient Rèze vines can be found in Savoie in the French Alps and that the variety is related to several others, suggesting it was once much more widely planted.

作爲一本介紹了1368個葡萄品種的書籍的作者之一（這本書當時就擺放在壁爐前的一個顯要位置），我遇到過很多外來的葡萄品種，不過葡萄迷先生給了我第一次品嚐雷西(Resi, Rèze)的機會。與我共著葡萄品種書籍的何塞弗拉莫茲(José Vouillamoz)最近舉辦了一場慶祝該品種七百週年的活動，舉辦地正是其發源地瓦萊(Valais)。2011年份的雷西葡萄酒由維斯普(Visp)地區非常擅長該品種的尚頓(Chanton)家族釀造，是歷年慶祝會的主角；而此次品嚐會中大放光彩的則是葡萄迷先生帶來的同廠釀造的2006年份——這款酒發展得非常好，既不失勁道又顯得平滑，目前來看還擁有陳釀潛質。《釀酒葡萄》(Wine Grapes)曾提到，這個源自瓦萊的葡萄品種目前種植面積僅剩兩公頃，不過何塞最近的一項具有突破性的葡萄品種脫氧核糖核酸(DNA)研究分析表明，在法國境內阿爾卑斯山(Alps)地區的薩瓦(Savoie)找到了古老的雷西植株。不僅如此，何塞的研究還發現，雷西與其他一些葡萄品種有着親緣關係，這表明其種植範圍曾甚爲廣泛。