Friday, September 11, 2009

Shaken Bottles









Bottle Shock (2008) is a story based on the 1976 entry of Californian wines to worldwide prominence, after being accepted by the French wine-experts. Bottle shock is a term to describe what can happen to wine as it travels from one place to another.

Napa Valley’s Château Montelena won the top nods of wine sommeliers and viticulturists, when the son of a Napa Valley vineyard, submitted two bottles of brown Chardonnay for a blind taste-test in Paris. The discoloration was considered anathema, although the flavour and taste of the wine was exquisite. Apparently, it is possible to make a too perfect wine. That said it is a wine that has almost no oxygen present during the fermentation and bottling processes. That was Napa valley’s Jim Barrett’s problem when his great-tasting chardonnay looked unpalatable. Yet, his problem cleared up, in time to be assessed in the ‘Judgement of Paris’ where French wines were pit against the much-maligned Californian wines.

Can you be too perfect? Is perfection unattainable?

To reiterate the scientist, inventor and artist Leonardo Da Vinci, ‘Details make for perfection, but perfection is no detail.’

If you are a perfectionist, how do others perceive and relate to you? Some may perceive perfectionists as being anal-retentive. Others may find them annoying, and nitpicking. Yet, perfectionism is about aspiring to higher standards, even excellence. How do you initiate changes without shocking the system you are in? Can change be as subtle as the myriad and complex flavours in a bottle of wine?

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