To judge from the conversations I have with friends, colleagues and Formaggio Kitchen clientèle, something called balance is considered a desirable trait to discover in a wine. It seems reasonable enough, since balance is something we value and try to maintain in many aspects of our lives. We strive to create a healthy work-life balance, eat balanced meals, maybe do a little yoga to help ensure that as we get older we can still put our socks on without falling over.
There are other ways to think about balance, though — as moderation, for example. In this sense, balance involves not letting any one aspect of things assume too much importance or get too much attention.
Along these lines, we might guess that the reason there’s so much wine talk around balance is because wine exhibits a set of discrete primary components organized in some proportion to make a particular wine what it is. Among these are body, tannin, acid and alcohol.
The simplest way to judge body is to consider how much or how little the wine resembles water. The less watery, the more body. Tannins give wine its texture, which can be as nubby as a wool scarf or as sleek as a silk hankie. Acidity creates a perception of shapeliness and adds a perky counterpoint to wine’s natural richness (think of that squirt of lemon you enjoy on grilled shrimp or swordfish). Alcohol plays numerous roles besides that of mood lifter and social lubricant, contributing a sense of volume, viscosity and what one might call punch.
Any wine 101 course will teach you to pay careful attention to each of these components when tasting — first separately, then as a kind of gestalt — as they strike up the tune that plays itself out in a given glass of wine.
One might arrive at the conclusion, as I once did, that the highest quality, most drinkable, most desirable wines are those that modulate each element until a perfect balance is achieved among them But that appealingly simple notion, doesn’t hold, at least not in every case. Here’s why.
Balance is really just another way of talking about symmetry, which is itself another way of talking about sameness. Symmetrical things share the same measure (the etymology of the word, after all), repeat a few similar motifs, make a virtue of regularity. And while we might admire the architectural purity of a Parthenon or the rigorous Palladian geometry of a St Paul’s Cathedral, a city full of nothing but such structures would be rather boring, don’t you think? No pointy Gothic spires, no whimsical Victorian gables, no Bilbao Guggenheim with its origami-inspired twists, bends, curves, humps and prows.
A dogged pursuit of balance is all right if all you want is the expected, but, as everyone who has ever watched a juggler or an acrobat knows, the really exciting stuff happens when balance is, for moment at least, in serious danger of giving way and threatening a tumble. It means that something unusual and possibly risky is being attempted, and you’re about to witness it.
Next time you’re tempted to diss a wine for committing the crime of imbalance, you might think about what surprising, or at least unexpected experience awaits you. Failing that, try closing your eyes and thinking of the Sidney Opera House.