We can all taste wine. But actually writing something meaningful and entertaining about it is another matter entirely. That is precisely why the Gert Crum Wine Writing Prize was established: to encourage writing about wine in Dutch.
Text: Fela de Wit | Image: Gert Crum Wine Writing Prize
The prize is named after Gert Crum, one of the Netherlands’ best-known wine writers and a long-standing lecturer on the Vinologists’ Course at the Wine Academy. It is therefore a fitting name for a prize that centres on the art of telling stories about wine.
No fewer than 46 entries were received for the first edition. From these, a panel of experts selected five stories. One of these will ultimately be declared the winner. But before the winner is announced, let’s first meet the five nominees. The first is Marc Goudzwaard. You can read his entry below.
BURGUNDY
Memoirs of a Terroir
Author: Marc Goudzwaard
I am older than the names people have given me.
Long before anyone spoke of appellations, classifications or prestige, I was here: the sea receding, limestone remaining, fault lines shaping me. My slopes were born of turmoil deep within the earth. Limestone became memory. Soil became an archive.
When humankind first appeared, they did not understand me straight away. They ploughed, planted and harvested, but did not yet listen. That changed in the silence of monasteries. Monks set foot on my slopes, not as conquerors, but as observers. They noticed that wine from one plot spoke differently from wine from another. That even the slightest difference in aspect, in the depth of limestone, in shelter from the wind, produced a different character.
They gave me names. Not to possess me, but to remember me. That is how my climats came into being: small fragments of earth, defined by attention. I learnt that difference was no coincidence, but carried meaning. That identity lies not in the grape alone, but also in place. Pinot Noir became my voice, Chardonnay my breath, yet they remain merely vessels of my memory.
There were dukes who preferred my wines to others. They banned what they held in low regard and protected what they deemed worthy of their name. Power and taste became intertwined. My name travelled to courts and cities. But even then, my strength lay in nuance. Those who reduced me to mere prestige heard only the echo of my potential.
Centuries passed. Vineyards were divided, redivided, and fragmented into narrow strips of land. What once seemed like a whole became a mosaic. Heirs drew boundaries that were barely visible to the eye, but unmistakable to the palate. My identity was not weakened by this fragmentation; it simply became more precise. Each piece of land acquired its own voice.
When phylloxera struck, my memory was interrupted. Roots died, slopes fell silent. What generations had built up seemed lost. But even destruction did not make me disappear. People replanted, but chose more carefully. They realised that recovery was not a return to the past, but a renewed interpretation of what had been. Thus I learnt that I am not stagnation. I change, but within my limits. What shapes me does not change. My slopes retain their direction. What changes is how I am interpreted.
In the twentieth century, people tried to define me in terms of rules and hierarchies. Grand cru, premier cru, village. Attempts to organise my voice, to make it comprehensible to those who stood further afield. Necessary, but never complete. For what I am cannot be fully classified. Every vintage adds a new nuance. In every cellar, I am interpreted anew.
The greatest winemakers realised that they must not drown me out. They learnt restraint. When one speaks too loudly, the whisper of the soil fades away. My true nature cannot be forced. It reveals itself through attention.
Now it is getting warmer. My fruits ripen sooner, my acids change in tone. What we take for granted seeks a new balance. Some wonder whether I am still the same. But this, too, is a chapter in my memoirs. I have been shaped by the sea, by fault lines, by the hands of monks. I have known war, illness; I have been replanted. Change is nothing new to me. What matters is whether people continue to listen. For I ask not for control, but for understanding.
Whoever tastes me sees colour and smells fruit. But whoever pays truly close attention tastes time. One tastes traces of centuries, stored in roots that wind their way through limestone. One tastes a slope that catches the morning sun and retains the evening cool. One tastes choices: to pick or to wait, to intervene or to let go.
I am not a flavour profile or a brand. I am a memory that is recalled time and time again. Sometimes I am stern, sometimes seductive. Sometimes closed, sometimes open. But I always carry my origins with me. Even when circumstances change, my value fluctuates or my presence becomes scarcer, what defines me remains unchanged. My voice.
In a world that rewards uniformity, I champion nuance. I exist by virtue of small deviations: a few degrees of incline, a thin layer of marl, a trace of iron in limestone. What elsewhere may seem like a mere detail forms my identity.
Perhaps this is my true memoir: identity lies not in grand gestures, but in the accumulation of small, almost imperceptible choices. A place takes on meaning when one truly sees it. Wine is more than what appears in the glass.
Anyone who wants to understand me won’t ask what the wine tastes like here, but what this place has left behind.
As long as people are willing to listen, I will carry on speaking.
Fancy finding out who the nominees are? The shortlist has now been announced and can be viewed at GertCrumwijnschrijfprijs.nl. You can also cast your vote.
Did you know that WINLIFE 102 is now available? Shop it here.
Don't want to miss a single edition? Subscribe then subscribe to WINELIFE Magazine now!
Want to stay up to date with the best articles? Follow WINELIFE magazine on Instagram, Facebook and sign up for our fortnightly newsletter.
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Deutsch