GUY ON SPACE AND GEOGRAPHY – 1

THE RELATIONSHIP

Geographies are many-dimensional. Each point in a given geography's framework is defined using many different measures. But while you might think that space is no more than just such a geographic dimension, you can also look at space much more completely. Space permeates, defines, and is defined by every one of a geography's dimensions. Space is meta-dimensional when it comes to geography.

The most accessible concept of geography is its original one, the description of the surface of the Earth. This description includes political, topographical, meteorological, and many other dimensions. Each, it seems almost absurd to say, is defined in spatial terms: nation X has such and such a shape, its capital city is so many kilometers from the western border, etc. We don't usually realize, though, that each dimension in turn defines space in some or in many ways. Nation Y's roads are such and such a standard width, so its buses must be so many meters wide, and therefore their seats tend to have this or that much room between them, or this or that shape.

This is how geography defines space, rather than just the other way round.

And as you can see, such considerations easily redound upon each other—one space causing another space causing another. The difference in rail gauge between Germany and Russia before World War I was a major consideration in German war planning – in the German Army's use of space; in the outcome of the war on the Eastern Front. And indeed, the Russians' use of space in war, or more technically speaking their use of geography, is legend in military history.

On a more intimate level, geographies have obvious and profound impacts on individual space. It takes only a moment of thinking about it to see that it's so. Ascending a high tor explodes your personal space exponentially (an overused word, but in this case quite literally correct). Enter a gorge or ravine and space becomes largely vertical, reaching to a perhaps distant sky above but hemmed in on either side. Or how about a little topography? A nice, average forest defines a restrictive space around you radically different from the heart-freeing air of a mere meadow.

So, if geography is defined by space, but space is also defined by geography, are they in a co-dependent relationship? Or are they just one?

LORRAINE ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY

THE GEOGRAPHY OF BEACHES

A beach is a beach a beach of course… not!

As I lay me down to sleep… instead of praying to not wake up dead (as Christian tradition dictates) I prefer to cast my mind around the globe to beaches I have known and loved. Instead of a journey of places, it becomes a journey of spaces in my mind… perhaps too many, perhaps too few of a certain design, but, with focus, I will find an ideal shore to suit my restive mind.

I dither among the options I know with the intention of landing upon the one I know for sure will jet me into dreamland.

But first, comes the magic of floating in space high above the human race. Where to go? Where to land, this moment? On the sand? Scotland, India, Italy? Or close to where I call my home?

To zoom from such a lofty height down onto a universe of sand. From tiny coves along North Tahoe’s shores where the water laps gently, yet so cold… brrr! To Stinson Beach’s wide expanse… golden, inviting (even in fog) and the whispered thrill of shark attacks! … mmh!

Bali beckons laced with exotic sands and local hands, kneading away Western cares, exploring spaces within my body… aah…

My hometown, Aberdeen, Scotland, with its glorious beach that stretches like a golden band as far as the eye can see facing north – if only the North Sea were less frigid… ouch!

Inevitably I land on Santorini – reputed to be Atlantis, the lost city. Along with which comes perhaps my favorite beach of all… not sand, but a shore of black lava smoothed by oceans of time into tiny pebbles that shuffle as the tide ebbs and flows, in and out, in and out, like the breath…

Om.

RO ON SPACE & GEOGRAPHY – 3

“RED SLATE. BLUE SLATE.”

“Man's relations to his environment are infinitely more numerous and complex than those of the most highly organized plant or animal.” Said Ellen Churchill Semple (with a Kentucky accent, perhaps?). In less enlightened ages, environmental determinism held that geographical influences such as altitude, fertility of the soil, and proximity to an ocean were closely related to the personality – and even looks – of a culture.

A bit narrowed, that thinking, but certainly true for Wine.

“Terroir” – the combination of geographical location, soil, weather conditions, aspect (or the angle of the slope) and the grapes themselves – is manifest in the specific personality of the wine.

The Riesling from Austria’s Kamptal displays different characteristics from the Riesling cultivated in Germany’s Middle Mösel, or the one from Australia’s Clare Valley. Even the same two Rieslings cultivated in the same estate with the same philosophy and vinified with the same methods, reveal different characteristics depending on whether they grew in Red Devonian Slate – or Blue. The Red Slate wines tend to be very mineral-driven even when young and dominated by primary fruit; whereas with the Blue Slate, citrus and white peach flavors predominate in the wine’s youth, turning to a pure expression of the mineral soil as they mature.

The personality of a Wine is not only the result of a “terroir” harnessed, but of winemaking savoir-faire as well. For instance, a wine matured in French oak from the forests of Limousin expresses different nuances from one barreled in white American oak from, say, Missouri. Several other factors such as cellar conditions and length of aging are also major influencers. Winemaker Stéphane Tissot in the Jura region of France goes so far as to believe that “… you can find in a wine the personality and the character of those who made it because each gesture, each operation, each decision has its importance”.

Consider the influence of Religion on Wine. It was monasteries that preserved viticulture in the Dark Ages of Europe. It was the Cistercian monks of Cîteaux who lovingly nurtured the vines at Clos de Vougeut in Burgundy since the Twelfth Century. And it was the sparkle in Dom Perignon’s eyes, which facilitated the fermentation process in the Champagne Method and contributed to his bubbly advocacy of organic winemaking.

What if we were to even touch upon the impact of Politics on Wine? Does the Roman Emperor forbidding the import of French wines to eliminate competition have a faint resonance with Parker's softness for Sonoma?

Let’s continue this discussion over a glass of complexity.