A blind tasting of Corney & Barrow's Sauvignons would no doubt yield the result required by the globalisers, namely, that they are interesting variations on the common theme of Sauvignon. That is what is wrong with blind tastings. They remove all the knowledge that causes wines to taste of anything interesting, such as history, customs and gods. The reason why a Rembrandt looks so different from the many forgeries is that knowledge changes the way things look. Knowing that the painting is by Rembrandt causes you to see the soul in the skin, the grief in the flesh-tints, the sense of life's passing in a moment of joy. In short, you are not just looking but thinking.
The global wine trade encourages you to taste without thought, to come to wine in the same spirit as people now take their holidays. It is fine to fly your carefully packaged ignorance from place to place and to dote upon it like a favourite child. But travel undertaken in such a spirit both erodes the planet and narrows the mind. If you absolutely must visit Egypt, read some Egyptology, learn the hieroglyphs, spend a month with an Arabic grammar and the writings of Mahfouz and Qutb. Your mind will be so broadened by your studies that you will know well before undertaking it that the journey is a huge mistake.
Which brings me to Chilean Sauvignon. Yes, it really does resemble Sancerre, though with a sweeter and more tropical tang to it. The Chileans deserve all credit for having coaxed their local variety of the Sauvignon into bottles and floated it over the pond. Look at the small print, however, and you will discover that this excellent wine is made by two Frenchmen, the Lurton brothers, and that the flow of knowledge has been entirely from the Old World to the New. In which case, ought we to be importing it? What's wrong with Sancerre?
Nothing at all, as this beautiful example from a tiny, chalky farm in the heart of Sancerre country reminds us. This is not the pale, acidic, swimming-pool drink that is too often associated with the name of Sauvignon, but the distilled essence of an ancient terroir, with straw-coloured depths beneath the grass-green surface like the melancholy glints in a Rembrandt cheek. This is the benchmark against which the other three wines should be measured, and the question is not whether they reach it, but whether their falling short can really be forgiven.
We forgave all three, the Petit Bourgeois on account of its name, the Chilean on account of its sheer effrontery, and the Bon Courage from South Africa on account of its honest attempt to be itself. This is not a global wine at all, but a distinctive, golden-hued, honey-nosed product of the African soil that went beautifully with our spicy couscous.
