"If I were Emperor of China!"

Hardly back from the wine trip in China, I am standing in the vineyards of the Bündner Herrschaft (Eastern Switzerland) at the "Wimmlen" or - more understandably - in the "Wümmet". An old children's game comes to mind: "If I were Emperor of China". What then?

Yes, then I would turn water into sweet must, build mountains of chocolate, abolish school, kiss the most beautiful girl (or no, that was a little later, but certainly before the young Wencke Myhre hoisted "Chinese Emperor" into the hit parade).

A selection of bad grapes% that need to be sorted out

All this is now stuck in my head as I stand in the vineyard day after day, cutting grape after grape for hours, turning them three times in my hand, looking for rotten, unripe, pricked, vinegar-smelling, lame or red berries, and cutting out everything that doesn't agree with the wine later, Now and then I pick out individual berries before I throw the grapes into a small box, watching the thirty or so hard-working people as they think they have to work at piecework.

I think of the wine it will become, I think of the pleasure it will give me, I think of the Parker points it will probably never get. Why not, actually? Coincidence or system?

All of a sudden, the lively children's game about the "Emperor of China" turns serious. What would I do? I would send all wine connoisseurs who give their points at the "tastings" lightly - out of the hollow or full belly - and who like to "play Parker" so much, to the vineyard for two or three weeks, for the grape harvest. Not for piecework, no, for hours of patient, careful reading. For a winegrower's work with a sense of proportion, for the first prerequisite for a good, even very good wine.

Big and small with boxes on the way to the vineyard

But then I would also make the responsible winegrower the strictest emperor in the history of the world, chasing his inspectors incessantly through the rows of vines so that they can monitor everything that goes into the baskets or crates. No stalkless grapes, but also the berries with "sunburn", no vinegar berries, no yellows, no Yes, what else would have to be observed?

Today, for example, we steadfastly resisted the temptations of the many "winter trollers" - actually bird feeders, berries from side branches: all the beautiful full "red" grapes were left hanging. Grapes that look so temptingly plump and not red at all, but are acid unripe and don't taste good at all. Yesterday, it was the insipid white Sauvignon that depressed the must weight so drastically. And the day before yesterday it was the wasps that pierced so many berries that it now smells strongly of vinegar in almost the entire vineyard. All of them that are not quite "healthy" must be removed - there is no mercy.

"Wintertrole" do not go into the harvest. They still serve as table decorations

Yes, if I were "Emperor of China", I would have berry after berry precisely sorted, introduce the strictest control, hire the best experts, train the harvesting team until they could easily recognise and correctly judge all varieties, diseases, mutilations, wild growths.

Thank God I am not the "Emperor of China" but a wine lover who can correctly name a few wines "blind tasted", who occasionally knows how to write about good and not so good wines, who has had it explained to him for the umpteenth time in the most famous wine cellars (in a fortnight I am going to Bordeaux once again!) how grapes can become wine, who is familiar with all the stages and different methods of wine production, who knows the terms of vinification, from grape crushing to malolactic fermentation, from fining to ageing in barriques.

Despite this - or perhaps because of it - I stand in the middle of the vines every year in late autumn, pick up grape after grape, look closely at the leaves, observe with interest the training of the vines and shoots, and still only in the rarest of cases do I know exactly which grape variety it is and certainly not which clone, which variety. Suddenly I need the winegrower, but he usually just looks at me pityingly: "You self-confessed wine drinker, what do you know!" All the things that are so clearly described in books and are actually easy to remember look quite different in nature. And I am amazed and astonished at what the winegrower - usually in a good mood - knows to say about the vines and his work in the vineyard: one time he cut out too little, the other time slightly too much, one time properly defoliated, the other time too little.

Careful harvesting accompanied by play: If I were Emperor of China!

And then the most important thing of all: the right time for the harvest. The Bündner-Herrschaft is - by Swiss standards - a large vineyard area, about 250 hectares in total, almost exclusively cultivated by "small businesses". Hobby winegrowers and professionals, ambitious and rather indifferent. The winegrower I work for year after year - the wages consist of full bottles - cultivates about 6 hectares. Their grapes have to go into the cave at exactly the right moment.

Today, when - after the weekend - we were already standing in the morning in the dew-soaked vineyard, our hands were getting clammy, our feet were slowly getting wet and the warming sun just didn't want to peek out, I no longer knew whether this was so right, whether this was really the "right" time for the harvest. But the winegrower is convinced that in the Herrschaft the grapes should be exposed to the warm Föhn (mountain wind) as long as possible. And we, the "Wimmler", only realise this when there are two wines to compare in one year: one harvested late and one harvested rather early.

But if I were "Emperor of China", I would only "make" good weather for the three weeks of grape harvest. But - not even the "Emperor of China" can order that. Because our winegrower is far below the "Emperor of China", we are now - almost the last ones - in the vineyard harvesting. A lively crowd of rather older ladies and gentlemen. At our lunch table today, we calculated an average age of 69. And another piece of statistics: so far we have done a total of about 250 woman-man hours of harvest work, or, to put it more graphically, a single person would need a whole year to pick the grapes for a single winegrower.

A group of "wimmlers" - average age 68 years

As "Emperor of China" I don't need to know all this and much more, I just have to give tough orders, bring all the knowledge and skills of the wine world into my kingdom, supervise everything down to the last detail, hire only the best people.

But because I am not the "Emperor of China", but a wine lover who tomorrow will again be sticking his nose critically into the glass, who quotes Parker notes and points with relish, who is proud of his taste buds and his experience of enjoyment, who claims to understand a lot about wine and winemaking, I still have a lot to learn. At the moment in the vineyard. Another time in the cellar, in the pressing, later in the ageing and finally perhaps even in the marketing. I don't just have to attend seminars and read good books (for example Hugh Johnson/James Halliday: "How a wine is made"), but I have to be there first hand, to be responsible for the quality of the wine.

Therefore: "If I were Emperor of China", I would make all wine lovers and especially wine critics line up for at least one year in the vineyards and in the cellar, for co-responsible work. Many of my wine friends are now glad that I am not the "Emperor of China", but that this is just a long-forgotten game from their carefree childhood.

CordiallyPeter
(Züllig), Emperor's
"
devoted" subject