If my wife and I are lolling around on the sofa, sharing a bottle of wine and listening to jazz, I’ll sometimes ask, in tones combining the genial authority of a quizmaster with the tacit menace of a Stasi interrogator, “Who do you think is playing bass?” Or piano. Or drums. If she doesn’t know, I respond with appalled astonishment because it’s so obvious (you only need to hear a couple of notes) that it’s Charlie Haden. Or McCoy Tyner or Max Roach or whoever. When I was studying jazz in the 1980s (by studying I mean getting as stoned as possible with my friends) we’d play records for each other without revealing the identities of the musicians and, in this way, I built up an instinctive database of who sounded like whom. Of course, that’s not all I was doing, back then. I was also swilling gallons of beer and respectable quantities of wine, both of which I consumed with just as much pleasure as I listened to music. The difference is that with wine, I never paid any attention to what I was drinking, where what I was drinking had come from, or what grapes might have gone into it. Still don’t, actually. So, while my wife sometimes doesn’t know who she’s listening to, I rarely know what I’m drinking. Now, if my enjoyment of jazz is enhanced by knowing who I’m hearing, when an album was recorded, how a given version of a tune compares with other versions by different musicians and so on, does it follow that my enjoyment of wine is correspondingly diminished by ignorance and indifference as to its provenance and ingredients? Am I sitting around liking what I like while unable to tell whether what I’m liking is a bottle of Kenny G or vintage Sonny Rollins? To answer this question and address the larger issue, a bit of history is helpful (isn’t it always?). I grew up in a non-drinking household. We knew that other people drank wine with dinner but this was seen as an exotic, middle-class custom, as removed from our own potential experience as the tribal rites featured in National Geographic. No one we knew drank wine except the homemade kind – blackberry, pear, potato etc – that my parents made, stored in the cupboard under the stairs and offered to thirsty relatives who came to visit. Bearing no relation to wine as usually conceived, this beverage was more akin to a potent species of cider. Ah cider! As was the case for all boys of my generation, cider proved such an effective conduit to getting blind drunk that I’ve not been able to face even a sniff of the stuff since a horribly enjoyable first encounter. Same with Cinzano Bianco, but I’ve never turned my back on beer. As part of the general drift into all matters alcoholic, I drank a bit of Liebfraumilch (yum) but didn’t encounter anything like the notion of a ‘good’ wine until I was at Oxford. (The fact that I had to wait till then is a good indicator of the class status of wine in the UK back in the 1970s.) One day a fellow-student at my college offered to sell some bottles of what he pimped as “excellent red wine.” Three of us forked out for six between us. It was great. Sort of peppery tasting. We glugged the lot in one evening and I was violently sick, from my friend’s window, into the lane outside (a reversal of Charles Ryder’s first encounter, in Brideshead Revisited, with Sebastian Flyte who pukes into his room), but I was on my winey way. Most boozing took place in the pub (beer) but, as I gradually got used to drinking wine at dinners and at art openings, an unreliable and poorly projected map of wine awareness began to take shape.  In my early 30s, there was a Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon for which I developed a particular fondness. At three quid a bottle it seemed more appropriate, even then, to cut it down to three syllables: Bulg-Cab-Sauv. Then came the news that the contents of any bottle could be improved by being allowed to breathe. Sometime later, living in Paris, I got wind of a crude truth that you could tell a better wine by how far you could stick your finger in its bottom, in the whatever-it’s-called at the base of the bottle. The further the better was the rule of thumb, so to speak, though why this should be the case I never discovered. These were excellent, easy-to-implement tips but the bigger picture remained blurry. I knew there were regions, different kinds of grape, but I was never sure which was which (Burgundy always sounded like a type of brandy) and I knew enough to know that it wasn’t enough to know that you liked a Merlot, say; you also needed to know what was going on within that species of grape or region, that certain brands and years were better than others. Although a drawing of a château on the label could be a good sign, it was not an infallible one, especially when some high-quality wines began to feature labels that shared an aesthetic with edible marijuana products or t-shirt design. And over all this uncertainty hung a larger cloud of astonishment – a symptom of the world’s fathomless ability to defy logic – generated by the ‘fact’ (I still have trouble accepting it as such) that white wine is not necessarily made from white grapes, nor red from red. Even when we factor in the odd big Tuscan moment in Italy, or Pinot epiphany in New Zealand, my understanding has not advanced significantly in the last 20 years. I know what I like but, as with many things – learning German, for example – I feel I’ve left it too late. Any attempts I make are the equivalent of looking up the occasional word in an online Deutsch-English dictionary. One can often spend one’s way to an enhanced experience, but my natural skinflintery means I prefer my father-in-law’s model, whereby he had knowledged his way to improved enjoyment. He not only serves fantastic wine, without exception, on every occasion; he always serves wine that costs a fraction of how it tastes.  I like this approach but, to borrow the term from London’s taxi drivers, I’ve never done the knowledge. I’m like the new generation of Uber drivers who rely so passively on their phones’ navigation apps that, after years behind the wheel, they still have almost no idea where they’re going. My phone comes in handy too. If I drink a fantastic wine at a friend’s house, I’ll take a picture of the label and, if it’s in stock at a local store, will buy a case. It’s nice being able to repeat a pleasing experience but it’s rarely as nice as I remember it and often not nice in the way that I remembered it. Or, if it’s nice at first, it almost always seems less nice, months later, when I’m down to the last couple of bottles. There are as many moving parts in the world of wine appreciation as there are in and around the mouth.  We have moved, by a combination of association and anatomy, to the potential source of the difficulty, to language. Having failed to acquire home-grown expertise, I am at the mercy of advice from the people who work in wine stores. Overall, I would estimate that this has resulted in a 50% success rate at twice the necessary expenditure. Is this because of shortcomings in their expertise and counsel, or is it due to linguistic failure, to inadequate translations of their knowledge into my preferences? We are told there’s no accounting for taste, which is not true, but it seems there are multiple problems with recounting one’s tastes or satisfying other people’s desires. Compared with sex where you can easily get by with half a dozen verbs and nouns, saying either what you want from a wine – or what it will do for someone else – demands a linguistic dexterity that is almost Joycean. We have all sat entranced as a waiter’s attempts to do justice to the merits of a given wine begin to sound like a libationary remix of Chomsky’s “Colourless green ideas sleep furiously.” But even while allowing for scepticism, incomprehension and constant proximity to parody, I continue to wonder about the extent to which my experience of wine would be enhanced by becoming more articulate in la langue du raisin. ‘Smooth’ is generally considered a good quality (as opposed to ‘rough’) but Kenny G, a purveyor of ‘smooth jazz’, is tacitly at odds with ‘complexity’. I can sort of appreciate complexity in a wine, without any understanding of how that complexity is constituted but – a defining character flaw – am more often conscious of a lack of complexity.  The strange thing is that while wine appreciation is not like a foal’s ability to get up and running straight away, it does find its feet over time. Even if uninformed, un-cultivated and left to fend for itself without any supporting help, it seems one’s tastes in wine not only change; they improve of their own accord. This might be considered a welcome, accidentally ameliorative side-effect of getting older. Or would be were it not for the fact – one I have no trouble accepting – that this improvement manifests itself negatively, as a steadily increasing capacity for dissatisfaction. To put it simply, what might have seemed an excellent wine a few years earlier becomes merely tolerable because of a lack of what may or may not be complexity. The tolerable becomes unacceptable, and the unacceptable becomes vile. My tongue has become more responsive to taste while remaining tied; my discernment is entirely inarticulate. The product, above all else, of laziness, this manifests itself in several unattractive ways. Do women on a date prefer men who take control of the wine menu? (Could this be the civilised residue of what was once a more widespread assumption and acceptance of male domination?) My own dating history leads me to suspect that they might, though the belief that the evening gets off to a bad start – with my saying, “I don’t know anything about wine, you choose” – is more palatable than conceding that it might have more to do with the way it ends (with my saying, “Let’s split the check”) or, come to think of it, with the middle passage (constantly refilling my own glass while droning on, without interruption, about the musical complexity of Ornette Coleman). It’s not just laziness and tightness, there’s also the question of sophistication and refinement. I can eat with chopsticks – I really can! – but have never been able to master the knack of swirling wine round the glass and forensically nosing it. You can do it, I’m sure, but I always feel like I’m engaged in such a blatant affectation that the first flicker of an erotic bond starts to form between my date and the waiter because they can tell that I’m parroting the action without any idea of what I’m attempting to discover, that it’s obvious to anyone watching that my head is entirely filled with a single idea: keep the cost down. In this regard, price, I am pleased to report that limited progress has been made. In my mid-20s, in London, I was sometimes invited to the house of the writer Lisa Appignanesi who was at the centre of London’s intellectual and cultural life. Well-mannered enough not to arrive empty-handed, I’d stop off at the off-licence near her house and pick up the cheapest bottle of discounted plonk on offer. Lisa always accepted this shabby gift graciously (she did everything graciously), while making sure that it never darkened the table. It now seems one of the rudest things one can do, to show up at someone’s house with a crap bottle of wine, though where crapness begins or ends is anyone’s guess. A shitty bottle of wine is always over-priced, is always money wasted. At the opposite end of the scale, my limited experience of drinking very expensive wine has confirmed what I had always expected: that it’s wasted on me. I ooh and ah, naturally and gratefully, but even though I enjoy these $200 bottles I am thinking: well, it’s not 170 bucks better than a 30 dollar bottle. Perhaps from a certain point – $100 upwards? – you have to pay twice that for a tiny percentage improvement in experience. That makes sense. If this were not the case, then a $1,000 bottle would surely bear so little relation to wine that it wouldn’t be wine at all. We now have sufficient linguistic tools available to describe my ideal relationship with wine. When I think of wine, it’s never as a drink or a taste experience but always as part of an occasion, part of a narrative. What I love is going to a dinner at a restaurant with a non-clamorous acoustic (wood and carpet, not metal and concrete) and a limited menu (I hate choosing food), knowing that someone else will take care of ordering the wine which will flow without let or hindrance. The problem at my father-in-law’s is that although the wine is always excellent, there’s never an infinite amount of it. And what I want from wine, above all, is more. That’s the key word in all this. I love talk and the progression of conversation as the wine makes itself felt: the glow of friends’ eyes, the flow of chat. Red wine, reflections of the room and of candlelight in the glasses full of wine. Everything is held together by the wine, even though that wine is less important than the people, the subject, the jokes and laughter. The wonderful remarks become more wonderful as the evening unfolds, until nothing anybody says really makes any sense at all. In the morning I will not remember the details of the wine or the food. What I will remember is the warm glow, the happiness of it all.  This article was originally published in FONDATA, Issue One

Writer and critic Geoff Dyer charts his slow journey towards an ever-increasing appreciation of – and reverence for – well-chosen wine. Photography by Marcus Nilsso.

Writer and critic Geoff Dyer charts his slow journey towards an ever-increasing appreciation of – and reverence for – well-chosen wine.

FONDATA: The Mirth of More

The Mirth of More

Bodegas Menade 

Spain

Accounts

Your access is restricted because of your age.

Access forbidden

You must be over the legal age to view this page. Please verify your age to enter.

Are you over the legal age to purchase alcohol?

As a result of the quantity requested for delivery, we recommend using Third Party Shipping. If you proceed with our Shipping, there may be a delay to the selected ship date.

As a result of the quantity requested for delivery, we recommend using Third Party Shipping. If you proceed with our Shipping, you will not be able to define a ship date, and we will get in touch with you to arrange delivery.

Your order request will be cancelled. Are you sure you want to proceed?

Due to the quantity requested for collection, there may be a delay in meeting your requested collection date.

Due to the quantity requested for collection, it is not possible to define a collection date at this stage. Our team will liaise with the warehouse and contact you directly to confirm a suitable pick-up date.

This item has been listed by a collector and is available for storage or immediate delivery

For orders with a high value, we recommend shipping with a third party carrier. Items shipped with third parties will remain in banded OWCs.

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to select a collection date. Please submit your request, and we will liaise with our warehouse and confirm the collection date with you directly.

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to continue the purchase. Please select third party, or change the quantity (maximum 48 is allowed).

Due to the quantity requested, you won’t be able to select a shipping date at checkout. Please submit your request, and we will liaise with our warehouse and confirm the delivery date with you directly.

For up to 499 bottles in storage, the rate is 39¢/bottle per month or a $50 minimum monthly charge (this covers up to 142 bottles). For over 500 bottles, the storage rate is 35¢/bottle per month.

Storage is charged at HKD 40 per 12-bottle case per month. A minimum monthly storage fee of HKD 80 applies, covering up to 24 bottles.

Standard storage rate

By selecting third-party shipping, you will take full responsibility for all aspects of legal compliance and authorize Vinfolio to transfer the items to the party specified in your instructions. Items shipped via third parties will remain in their original packaging.

Collection times are between 8:30am - 12pm & 1:30pm - 4:30pm, Monday to Friday. Wines at Will Call, that are not picked up within 10 business days, will be transferred to storage and subject to a $1.50 per bottle stocking fee.

Items to be sourced and shipped to our state-of-the-art fine wine storage facility for the best possible safe-keeping where you can arrange collection from our warehouse address in Napa.

Will Call (Napa)

You entered the incorrect password too many times. Your account has been temporarily locked. Please wait five minutes before trying again.

It seems you are visiting from {country}, we invite you to experience our {nationality} website.

Are you browsing from {country}?

We’re unable to process your order with both event tickets and a wine or spirit product in the same transaction. To proceed, please remove either the event tickets or the item from your basket. You’ll then be able to complete your purchase.

Please review your basket

Forgot Password

We're in the final stages of upgrading to our brand-new trading platform. As part of this transition, we're currently migrating all customer-owned inventory to ensure a smooth and seamless experience.

Our new and improved platform will be ready for you on Friday, April 4.

Thank you for your patience - we can't wait to show you what's next.

Oops, something went wrong

We couldn't find any results to show here.

Please note: tax will be calculated at the next step

Our website is currently down for maintenance.

Maintenance Mode

Pre-authorizing a Payment Method enables your Account Manager to make payments on your behalf, without payment verification.

Pre-authorize

This transaction has been blocked by authentication failure.

Authentication failure

Your payment card has expired. Please check your details and try again.

Expired card

Insufficient funds to pay your balance. Please check your details and try again.

Insufficient funds

This transaction has been blocked by the payment provider due to possible fraudulent behaviour.

Transaction blocked

Please choose a different payment method and try again.

Unknown error

About description for demonstration purposes

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold, delivered or transferred.

At {shortName}

Your allocation will be cancelled. Are you sure you want to continue?

Your pre-order item will be deleted. Are you sure you want to continue?

Your delivery request will be cancelled. Are you sure you want to proceed?

represents all the wines that are in your possession and have been consumed.

This is the price you paid for this item.

Cost price

After adding your new address, you'll be redirected back to this page.

Create a new address

Your notification will be deleted. Are you sure you want to continue?

The lowest price you're willing to sell at.

shows all the items that you have pre-ordered, including en primeur wines, and all the items on your watchlist.

Futures

You can set a sell price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

You can set a market price on items you're selling based on a % of current unit net value.

shows all the actions that you have taken on items in your Portfolio.

groups every action by type - Purchase, Sale, Delivery, and Inbound Transfer - so it's clear at a glance what happened to each item.

History

shows all the items that are currently in transit to or from {shortName}.

In transit

Local delivery is free for orders over HK$1,800 (to a single location). For orders below this value, delivery is HK$150 for up to four cases and HK$50 per case thereafter.

Shipping starts from €15 within Italy and €45 to Switzerland and the rest of Europe for up to 48 bottles (75cl). Costs vary by destination. Larger shipments can be quoted on request.

The date shown below is when your order will ship from our local warehouse. Your final delivery date, along with full tracking details, will be provided once our team has processed your request.

You can arrange collection from our Retail store on 22nd Floor, 8 Wyndham Street, Central Hong Kong.
Collection times are between 9:30am-13:00 and 14:00-18:00pm, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

You can arranged collection from our warehouse STI INTERNAZIONALE SPA, on Viale del Lavoro, 57, 37051 Bovolone, Verona.
Pick-up hours are between 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM and 1:30 PM to 5:30 PM, Monday to Friday. We are closed on public holidays.

This is the current estimated market value for this item.

Manually set prices will be overwritten. Already listed wines are not affected.

Updates all unlisted wines to current market price.

Set all at market

represents all the wines you currently have in your Portfolio that aren't stored with us. Press the

My cellar

Name

Net price

New portfolio available

New portfolio

You do not have any invoices at this time.

shows all the items from your Portfolio that are currently on the market.

On sale

shows all the items you currently have in your Portfolio. You can perform individual actions on them from this page.

Overview

shows any items that are currently awaiting user action.

Pending

This is the dynamic estimated value of the item with trading margin removed.

This is the amount of profit you will receive if your listing sells.

Pre-authorised payments enable automatic transactions on your behalf, ensuring seamless and hassle-free payments. This allows recurring charges, subscriptions, or scheduled payments to be processed without manual approval each time.

The number of cases you wish to place on sale

Your catalogue item will be archived. Are you sure you want to continue?

Your catalogue items will be archived. Are you sure you want to continue?

Before you request delivery, you can adjust the quantity for each item in your selection below.

* At time of sale a 15% trading fee will be deducted from the final sale price.

Total estimated value*'

The fixed custom price you wish to sell each item for.

Split into {caseSize} individual {bottleSize}cl bottles.

Title

shows all the items you currently store with us. These items can be sold.

Available for sale — items stored with {name} eligible to be listed on the marketplace.

Profile

This item is at Vinfolio, available for storage or shipping. For more information on shipping and handling visit vinfolio.com/shipping

This item is at FINE+RARE HOME Hong Kong, available for delivery or local pickup. Most Hong Kong deliveries can be made within 3 working days, an exact date will be available when arranging delivery. International deliveries have longer lead-times, please contact us for details.

Wines sold en primeur will be released from the producer after bottling, typically 18 months after the so-called campaign ends. Upon arrival your wine will be stored at Vinfolio in our temperature-controlled warehouse until you decide to take delivery.

We will source this item at the guaranteed price from our network of suppliers and arrange expedited shipment to FINE+RARE.
 The lead-time depends on many variables, but 2-4 weeks is typical for expedited sourcing.
 Once your order is confirmed, we'll keep you updated on its ETA.
 Every item is checked on arrival by our expert team, with photographs available on request (please note that charges may apply).

When a wine is on "pre-arrival", it means that we have a confirmed order on the bottles from our supplier and we are simply waiting for the winery or distributor to ship the wine to us. The delivery timeframe for pre-arrival wines varies significantly, depending on where the wine is coming from. We will notify you once they arrive at our warehouse and, at that point, you can decide to arrange shipping or list them for sale.

Bodegas Menade

Filter

Please wait

Related articles