Recently, while tasting an old vine cinsault from Chile it occurred to me that the moments I enjoyed most about this delicate wine were those that I could not easily grasp. A long time ago, I realized I want some space in my wines. Space for me. Many wines fill all those spaces and leave nothing left to your imagination. They fill every space with their own noise leaving nothing for you to think about. I don't want a wine to complete my sentences for me.

That seems to be the goal of so many wines these days. They want to take all the work of tasting away from you. Of course, in the process, they take most of the pleasure away. This is the season for "top 100" lists from all the major media. Heck, one is even making top 100 lists by country. You can be sure that these lists are chock full of wines that require little participation on your part. Just cough up the big bucks to buy them, pull the cork, pour into the right Riedel, take a sip, and the rest is all taken care of for you. Thoughtless winemaking creates wines that require no thought. It is an easy recipe.

Of course, most of the winemakers that make these loud wines are far from thoughtless as it takes substantial technical skill to execute the manipulations required to make these wines. Oddly, it requires serious technical skills to make all highly manipulated wines be they mass-produced million case brands or highly allocated unicorns, costing hundreds of dollars a bottle. It is surprising how similar the winemaking process is for these two extremes of the wine marketing world. Obviously, the cheaper wines come from lesser vineyards with much higher yields per acre, but the farming itself and the extensive use of cultured yeasts and a myriad of other additives makes them soul mates.

The other thing they have in common is they require little of your attention. For inexpensive wines, this is a well-deserved point of pride – take a gulp and enjoy your dinner. With expensive wines it is more paternalistic – they know what makes a wine great so you don't need to worry about it. They've punched all the buttons – new oak, big fruit, heavy bottles – so just take a gulp and enjoy your dinner. These wines remind me of what the doctor said to the woman about to give birth in Monty Python's Meaning of Life skit "The Miracle of Birth." When she asks what she should do, he replies, "nothing, you're not qualified."

Overwhelming your senses is not art. If you are listening to Mozart and keep turning up the volume eventually, the beauty of the music is lost and just becomes more noise.

The wines that are most interesting to drink are not seamless. It is in those seams that the compelling moments live. Those spaces make the experience of wine your own. I feel cheated by wines that take those spaces away from me by insisting on filling in all the blanks themselves.

“Music is the space between the notes,” said French composer Claude Debussy. In the spaces of a wine are the notes that make it unique.