By Liz Miller, West End Wine Manager
Mort Garson created songs for commercials and game shows, and even used a Moog synthesizer to create a piece that would become the soundtrack to the first television footage of the Apollo 11 crew walking on the moon. However, through decades of cult status from record collectors and gardeners alike, he is most well-known for his musical recording, Mother Earth’s Plantasia.
Mother Earth’s Plantasia arrived three years after the release of Peter Tompkins and Christopher Bird's book, The Secret Life of Plants. In The Secret Life of Plants, Tompkins and Bird recounted experiments conducted around the world that hypothetically proved the cosmically attuned complexities of plants as living beings. One of its central claims was that the health and productivity of plants could be affected not only by playing music for them, but by what kind of music was played for them. Even Stevie Wonder embraced these ideas at the end of his transcendent run of albums in the 1970s, resulting in Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants, his double-disc soundtrack for the documentary film version of Tompkins and Bird's book.
Exploring creative ways to aid plants in their journey to growth is nothing new, but the following vignerons take it a step further, by practicing musicology on their growing vines and aging wines.
Montes “Twins” red blend ‘21 - $17.99
Montes, in Chile, has been playing music in the cellars of their maturing wines since 2004. Nestled at the bottom of the rolling hills and green vineyards of Chile’s Colchagua Valley, the wines age to the hypnotic sound of Gregorian chants 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. “There are studies that prove that soft vibrations make the liquids perform a better aging than in silence or with strident music,” says Montes. Montes also believes that the Colchagua Valley is favored by angels. As the label’s angels would suggest, Twins acts as a balancing act between lighthearted Tempranillo and Carmenère, and the more serious Syrah and Cabernet Sauvignon. Twins is perfumed with aromas of ripe fig and blackcurrant, typical of the Cabernet Sauvignon from this area. The Syrah makes its presence felt with delicate aromas of exotic spice and leather, while Tempranillo and Carmenère lend their smooth, round tannins for a fresh and juicy sensation that lingers on the finish.
Schnaitmann Steinwiege Lemberger ‘19 - $30.99
Rainer Schnaitmann makes amazing organic and biodynamic wines in the Wurttemberg region, near Stuttgart in Germany. He gave up a career in architectural studies to continue a 600-year-old family tradition of growing grapes - specializing in Pinot Noir, Riesling, and Lemberger. Schnaitmann, like Montes, plays classical music by candlelight for his barrels of aging wine, to create a “harmonious” environment. Steinwiege Lemberger is juicy and powerful, yet elegant with stimulating acidity and ripe, dense tannins, embedded in a charming fruit forward body. This Lemberger lingers on the palate with notes of mushroom, wild herbs, undergrowth, sour cherry, and cooked plums.
Domaine Abbatucci “Faustine” ‘21 - $46.99
To “keep his vines happy”, Jean-Charles Abbatucci is known to drive his tractor out to his vineyards and play traditional Corsican polyphonic songs over loudspeakers for “their benefit”. After the harvest he'll treat his cellar to the same music as his grapes ferment and come of age. In this vintage he also treated the Sciaccarellu cuvèe with sea water. Eccentric, maybe - but given how good the wine tastes, it’s clearly working. Faustine is made primarily from Sciaccarellu, a grape whose name in Corsican refers to the way the berries, when ripe, crunch under one’s teeth. You feel a similar sensation while sipping on the crushed, fermented result of those same berries: this vibrant, resinous rouge is reminiscent of succulent, freshly harvested red berries and pomegranate seeds. Its freshness and light hue belie its impressive structure and density, which largely come from Sciaccarellu’s counterpart in the blend, Niellucciu.
Whether or not the music imparts better flavor to the wines, I do believe that this minute gesture of care for the vines and juice plays a larger role in the general life of the wine as a whole. By the time the wine reaches my lips, it has been cared for like a child, a friend, a lover - something that has been loved, and that is a feature to be admired.
