destinations may be just off the beaten track, but we’re firmly assured that they’re well worth a few detours. He has a point, of course. Take
Vin Jaune, the yellow wine of Jura, for example—umami on a rampage, snoozing under a veil of yeast for years, gaining richness but also a generosity he describes as peculiar: “For some, fermented yak dung is more enticing,” he writes. “For others, it’s the most exciting taste-bud ping-pong imaginable.” To say, as one winemaker does, “It’s always surprising” is the understatement of the decade, but the wines are being rediscovered and lately gaining traction, and if Keeling’s love letter doesn’t at least entice you into a taste, you might just need your batteries recharged. Then there are Swiss wines, those notable stay-at-homes. (Not a question of traveling well, more of the way that “the locals don’t care much for sharing.”) It may take as much patience and digging to find the really good ones as it took to establish vineyards on the slopes of Valais (“working this gigantic granitic amphitheatre has more in common with rock climbing than farming,” he quips), but as he enthusiastically goes on, when you pair a first-rate Fendant with raclette, you’ll have proof that this particular mix of potatoes, cheese, and tangy garnishes can be “a gastronomic wonder” with a place at the top table if it has the right accompaniment. He also highlights Petite Arvine, the best of which lightly redefine nervosité, worth a serious search and happy to mate with lean freshwater fish, either grilled and herb-buttered, or smoked. Overall, there’s so much emphasis in these pages on what’s new and natural, offering discoveries of “character over consistency,” that it comes as something of a shock suddenly to find the author mounting a rare and judicious defense of sulfur, the “little brimstone” that’s been denounced and demonized so often and loudly in recent years. “Considering sulphur is the fifth-most abundant element on the planet […] I never understood the obsession with eliminating it at all costs,” he writes, before interviewing and tasting with no- and low-intervention winemakers (several of whom have moved from the former to the latter), after which he concludes, “Natural wine’s great achievements—improving farming
and minimising generic winery technology—should be celebrated with gusto. But thank god a few more of us can agree that a little bit of brimstone is not worth a war.” It’s quite possible to differ with
Keeling’s tone, emphases, or multiple choices—this is a free-spirited, free- form buffet rather than a methodically planned banquet, thrown together by a well-traveled, energetic, and eager chef with an unlimited larder, and an ear for the distant echoes of disruptors from a couple of generations past, of the assertive noises of a young Robert Mondavi, Angelo Gaja, Nicolas Joly, David Lett, Josko Gravner, Randall Grahm, Alejandro Fernandez, and other wide-awake “dreamers” intent on crafting “distinctive wines that have something to say.” Fill your plate and dig in; don’t skip the anarchy around the edges. Bring a hearty appetite and an open mind, and you can’t lose.
After all, of course, despite the
hubbub, there’s a firm response to the titular question, when the lucky author sits down to “the anxiety and the ecstasy” of a tasting of 25 vintages of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti hosted by Aubert de Villaine, the genially magisterial keeper of the ancient domaine’s flame. Change is fine, but it’s not everything, and the long arc of consistency, as manifested here, is “as close to sensual nirvana as it’s possible to get without divine intervention.” As another panelist, Michel Bettane, remarks, “No one—no super-rich collectors— could do what we are about to do.” Tasting notes are not often fun to read, but Keeling leavens his with astutely celebratory background about Burgundy and amusing asides about what it’s like to land on this peak. Altogether, here’s a good set of reasons to keep cheering on those looking up to it and climbing.
THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025 | 49
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