DAN'S WINE BLOG-MILESTONE MEN

September 4, 2020

Just about everybody who drinks wine in Australia has heard of Max Schubert – the creator of Grange and the story of its creation. He is one of what I call, the “Milestone Men”, in the history of wine.

Another such Milestone Man was, Baron Philippe de Rothschild, who in 1973 as head of Chateau Mouton Rothschild became the only person to successfully have their status in the 1855 Bordeaux Classification upgraded. Originally Mouton had been rated as a 2nd Growth (due to not being French owned in 1855) and after almost a lifetime of lobbying Baron Philippe got Mouton Rothschild upgraded to become the fifth First Growth Chateau in Bordeaux. There have been no changes since then!!

Other Milestone Men include Robert Parker, the American lawyer who thrust the 100 point wine scoring system onto the wine world as well as nudging a whole generation of winemakers into making “flavour bomb” wines with high alcohol, tannin and flavours. Also, Angelo Gaia, who helped create the whole ‘Super Tuscan’ scene in rebellion to the “status quo”.

However, the guy who was the original Milestone Man nobody would have heard of, unless they read my articles and blogs, as I sometimes refer to him – that is, Pliny the Elder (called this because his son, Pliny the Younger, was almost as famous). He was born Gaius Plinius Secundus in 23 A.D., and had a huge curiosity for reading and writing at a time when very, very few people were able to do so. In the military he served in Germany and Spain before being given command of a fleet to combat piracy near Naples. At the ripe old age (for those times) of 56 he sailed his fleet into the bay at Pompeii during the eruption of Mt Vesuvius to help rescue people. During this rescue he died from the toxic volcanic fumes.

Pliny lived during the best of times in the Roman Empire, at a time when Roman citizens usually consumed a bottle of wine a day. He developed a deep love for wine and through his military connections tasted and wrote about wines from all corners of the empire. Like people do today, he celebrated appellations, grand cru sites and specific estates, based on their quality and age-worthiness. His works included recording the best sites of what is now Lombardy, Venice, Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany as well as the top vineyards south of Naples and around Pompeii. Among the estates he praised for their high quality was Mamertine in Messina.

His extensive writings on the “first Growths” of the time included the legendary, Falernian – Rome’s most celebrated wine. He wrote much further afield than just the wines of Rome, writing about wines from around the empire. This included commenting on such things as the planting of the variety e.g. the Spanish red variety, Balisca (ancestor to Petit Verdot), in Bordeaux, and the high prices being charged in Rome for the wines of Vienne (Rh?ne). Along the way he lamented the rise of cheap (in quality and price) wine within the empire that was tainting the good name of the noble vinum.

His best known achievement was the publication of his 37-volume, Naturalis Historia encyclopaedia, which was used as a reference guide up until the Middle Ages. In the wine book (Book 14) he even ranked the top vineyards of Rome, whilst in Book 17 he covered viticultural techniques and expounded his concept that vineyards had a greater influence on the wine than the grape variety did – the first steps towards today’s concept of Terroir.

What an amazing man he was. Today’s equivalent would be someone like Jancis Robinson, Robert Parker, Hugh Johnson and James Halliday all rolled into one! It is no wonder that even today wine writers refer to Pliny the Elder when talking about ancient grape varieties, etc. He was the first and longest referenced of wine’s “Milestone Men”.

In these difficult times I will leave you with a quote from Pliny the Elder: “the only certainty is that nothing is certain” – which is certainly true!

Cheers and enjoy great wines!