The biggest fear for students approaching the final exam to become sommelier is not being able to remind the hundreds of existing denominations (italian DOCG and DOC, plus those from other Countries). In Italy only there are more than 70 DOCGs and over 300 DOCs. The neo-somm have to – must – know each of them. And have to be able to place them geographically.
Generally speaking we all know the geography of our zone of origine, or the one in which we live or have lived, or carefully visited. But, regardless how many maps are stored in our mind, those will ever be just a small tile of a thousand pieces puzzle.
Geography is a fascinating subject for many but from which many others run away, almost scared by names and numbers, not to mention a natural incapacity to position themselves even on their own place’s balcony.
I’m in the group of those that have always paired geography with the idea of traveling, exploring new worlds, arriving in unknown places and need to handle logistic difficulties; as I grew up then, these thoughts turned on the philosophic side, but this is another story.
I still remember when I was a child with my fingers sliding on the coloured lines on the roadmap’s pages, with my mind creating imaginary trips in real places: the mountains, the State’s borders, the cities, the seas.
Once grew up, I made those trip for real, by car, by motorcycle or other means of transport. And I feel lucky to have made a number of them when still technology didn’t put into retirement those roadmaps, clearly marking the border between the necessity to understand where we are and the ability to follow a line on the screen. Of those trips I remember almost every single town I passed through, valleys and mountains, beaches and countrysides.
From the beginning of my studies in the wine world I’ve always been made aware how geography is important for a somm, and I do the same today with my students, to whom I don’t get tired to repeat it.
As per any subject, describe something we touched with first hand is alway easier and more precise compared with something simply imagined in our mind. With wine is exactly the same. The list of denomination of origin of a region is not anymore a pure list of names without meaning, but becomes a trip throughout the vineyards, in the villages where wines are produced; we’re gonna visualize the morning fog on the hills, the top of those hills that protect the vineyards against the cool winds, the lakes that mitigate winter temperatures and thousands of other details.
It’s well known that an imagine can be much more powerful than thousand words and the same applies for our memory. Even just visualizing a map and position some names in their space allow our brain to create almost accidental connections, creating the joining link we didn’t think before.
Remember the production zones of grape varieties such as Nebbiolo or Vermentino is definitely easier with a quick look at the map: the zones appear virtually (or even physically) connected each other, so it pops up the reason why these grape varieties can be found right in these areas and not elsewhere. And even before thinking of it, your mind will already have matched joining links based on style of produced wines, on climatic differences and much more.
Another, possibly too easy, example is about the interregional PDO. It seems taken for granted that knowing Brescia and Verona province areas can be helpful to identify the PDO shared between two or more regions, but under stress for an exam and with countless other informations to remember, it can really make the difference.
The examples on how geography can help to study a subject like the wine could be endless. The basic idea is really simple: the more informations about a subject, the easier to remember even just a share. And the more point of view we know, the more understanding of the subject. If we hold a globe in our hands, regardless the area we will be looking at, we’ll know what’s on the opposite side.
Geography allows us to observe the wine world from an alternative point of view and this ease the load of specific informations we’re trying to memorize. And it becomes an allied even more precious when we approach the study of areas we haven’t travelled to yet. In this latter case then, raise your hands if you can state you don’t feel the need to leave and travel, especially after this prolonged period of missing travels.
So, if geography is helpful for studying reasons, it’s not less important its beneficial effect on our willing to discover, to explore, to know. Let’s open an atlas, right now!
