Hidden Strengths

Tatler’s resident wine expert recommends five wines that are not only complex and delicious, but that celebrate the best of human resilience

- Sarah Heller MW

It’s easy to forget in the midst of this seemingly endless pandemic that while Covid will one day (we hope!) be old news, the greater threat of a changing climate still lurks. Viticulture is among the forms of agriculture most sensitive to climatic shifts, especially in European regions where growers are legally denied access to some basic techniques (such as irrigation) that other farmers rely on to stave off drought or heat. Beyond the general drying and warming that is being felt across the wine world, several wine regions are experiencing ever more frequent natural disasters—often with catastrophic results, at least for individual producers.

Yet, in the face of such turmoil, wineries around the globe are finding ways to manage the damage, while also taking steps to reduce their own climate impact. With skill, determination and usually a dash of luck, many growers and winemakers do still manage to snatch extraordinary wines from the jaws of fire, flood, frost and hail. Below I’ve shared a list of five wines to have in your glass while toasting human resilience; goodness knows we’ve all needed a lot of it these past few years.

CAIN FIVE 2016 (NAPA VALLEY, USA)