Declassified

You might drink some exceptional wine from a highly-prized and highly-priced vineyard in Burgundy. But if you’re in the know or lucky, this vin might come labeled simply as “Bourgogne” and cost 10 euros instead of hundreds. The wine has been “declassified.” Sold as something more generic and less valuable that what it really is.

Government regulations in France and elsewhere stipulate how much can be produced and labeled from the most venerable appellations. With modern agriculture, there’s often a lot of great wine made at these properties, and then sold off or blended. I drank some of Anne Gros‘ plain “Bourgogne Rouge.” Wow!

Perhaps the quality of musical performance used to follow expectable patterns. Big city orchestra. Small university faculty quartet. A pianist playing at Carnegie Hall. A pianist with a degree from a western state university.

Now, there are so many exceptional musicians coming from everywhere — classical music performance has been declassified. Sometimes the really good stuff comes in a plain bottle. Sometimes the amazing musical communication is taking place in Northampton, or Ames.

Old assumptions don’t serve very well. It doesn’t mean the “grands crus” are not good anymore. It does mean that sometimes the same experience may be much more accessible to many more imbibers. We just need to get our senses, our receptors, our taste buds working and ready.