If you give someone a piece of paper and some paint or crayons and they draw a picture – does this make them an artist?

If you gave me a few bottles of fermented grape juice and I mixed them together into something that was at least drinkable, would that make me a winemaker?

If I drank it and survived at least a few days afterwards, I would probably claim, if only to myself, that I had made wine, and therefore qualified, albeit at the most rudimentary level, as a winemaker.

So what is it that changes someone who can draw or paint into an artist; someone who can mix wines into a winemaker?

I suppose one of the minimum criteria must be some sort of recognition by one's intended audience or peers.  History must be littered with artists who failed to find an appreciative audience of even 1, and probably winemakers who failed to sell a single case of what to them was the vinous equivalent of nectar.

Perhaps a definition of an artist is someone who is able to transform an object that on its own has little intrinsic value (a tin of paint, a piece of stone) into something that has a material value as an object of desire – in other words, the artist has added value to that object.  A chef adds value to his raw ingredients in producing a meal, an architect adds value to bricks, cement, glass in creating a building, a winemaker adds value to grape juice and barrels in producing wines of desire.
(I don't think there is much artistry in mass-produced meals, warehouses, cars, box wines etc – these are items of necessity rather than desire!)

And so it is that the winemaker becomes an artist as a result of his ability to blend the components with which he has to work.  Even a wine consisting of just one varietal, Cabernet Sauvignon for example, could be a blend of a few of the best barrels that are available, the others perhaps being blended into a secondary label.

Interestingly, winemakers themselves are divided as to whether their best examples of any given wine should be kept for a blend or remain as a single varietal.  Take Kanonkop and Rust en Vrede for example, where their very best samples are kept for their Paul Sauer and Estate blends respectively, whereas Boekenhoutskloof's best Shiraz is kept as a single varietal, with the remainder going into the Chocolate Block blend.

Either way, it is this ability, whether it is in-born or learned through experience, to create an object of desire, as opposed to an object of necessity, that sets apart the artist from the artisan.  A Toyota will get you from A to B, a photo will cover a space on your wall, a glass of plonk will satisfy your thirst, but none of them satisfies your desire as only a work of art can; a Ferrari, a Van Gogh, a Chateau Lafitte – that is the difference an artist makes – blending ordinary components into the extraordinary.

For further examples of the work of our vinicultural artists, or any other aspect of wine, please contact your nearest Manuka Fine Wine Boutique.

Stephen Digby
Manuka @ Southeys