One of the most frequently voiced assertions, said almost unthinkingly, is that “wine is art.” It’s not, and it never has been. What’s more, it never can be, no matter how great the wine or – and I use this word advisedly – “artistic” the wine-maker.

The reason is as simple: Art is creation. Great wine comes from something; art comes from nothing except thought. It comes from a blank canvas and a richly embroidered mind. You can’t say, a la Descartes, “I think, therefore I make great wine,” because it must already be in the grape package. If it’s not, no amount of wine-making hocus-pocus will summon the great-wine genie from vineyard banality.

With wine, we eavesdrop on the murmurings of the earth. It requires not one plant, but two: the grapevine and yeasts. Grape juice alone is nearly mute. I’ve tasted the unfermented grape juice of some of Burgundy’s greatest pinot noirs and, knowing the singularity of some of these sites, it’s shocking to discover how little can be comprehended about these vineyards prior to fermentation.

Of course, the hand of man or woman matters.You have to plant the right grape variety in the right place – and then refine that by selecting, over generations, the most rewarding strains of that same vine, which further amplifies the goodness. Then there are the innumerable choices and nuances of wine-making.

Rigor plays a major role everywhere, from winter pruning to throwing excess clusters on the ground in midsummer to eliminating lesser batches of young wine before creating the final blend.

This is why some wine lovers – most prominently in America and Australia – are more inclined to see the wine-making as more influential than where the grape is grown. It’s a seductive notion. A winemaker can indeed do many things to improve a wine. But no wine-maker anywhere, no matter how talented, can infuse a wine with a character – call it terroir if you like – that it didn’t already have.

As Michelangelo said, “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

HERE’S THE (CHARACTERFUL) DEAL

ROUTAS “COTEAUX VAROIS EN PROVENCE” ROSE 2005 Can a rose have character? Sure it can. Granted, it’s not going to vault into the ranks occupied by the great reds, but to see rose as intrinsically vacuous is a mistake.

Yes, it’s true that too many roses are little more than sweetish swill. Let’s set that unfortunately large group aside.

Really good roses can be persuasively, subtly substantial. Chateau Routas, about 30 miles east of Aix-en-Provence in southern France, delivers just such a rose.

A blend of grenache (40%), syrah (30%), and cinsault (30%), the 2005 vintage Routas rose is an exemplar of what a rose can – and should – be. It offers just the right delicate tint, devoid of the flamingo fluorescence that signals lesser, more commercial, rose. Its lovely berryish color is enhanced by what might be called a flavor hum of wild herbs. Not least, this is a rose that’s bracingly dry. Less characterful roses use the distraction of added sweetness, a kind of wine decolletage. Routas Rose 2005, on the other hand, is serious pleasure. $10.95

BARBARESCO 2002, PRODUTTORI DEL BARBARESCO Recently, the famous Burgundy winegrower Lalou Bize-Leroy created a stir among Burgundy fanatics by declassifying the difficult 2004 vintage of Domaine Leroy into a grouping of just a few categories.

Mme. Bize-Leroy took wines from her grands and premiers crus vineyards and added them to her less-exalted wines, selling the unprecedented blends under humble appellations such as mere Bourgogne or with village names such as Chambolle-Musigny. Prices range from $100 for the Bourgogne to $350 to village-designated wines, making them the most expensive wines ever sold under such modest designations.

I mention this because it’s an (expensive) example of a confluence of human rigor and the innate goodness that only great sites can impart. But it’s not the only such instance. There’s another that’s equally impressive and, thankfully, far more affordable.

The great winegrowers’ cooperative, the Produttori del Barbaresco did the same thing in the 2002 vintage. The Produttori’s 65 or so growers collectively own about 40% of the best vineyards in the small Barbaresco zone.

Now the 2002 vintage was, to put it kindly, difficult. There was rain, hail in some parts and unseasonably cold weather. None of this makes for a great harvest. Yet the Produttori del Barbaresco made an uncommonly fine Barbaresco that year.

“It’s really very simple,” the director of the Produttori del Barbaresco, Aldo Vacca, said. “We took all the grapes that would normally be used for our more expensive single-vineyard bottlings – Rabaja, Pora, Asili, Montestefano, Moccagatta, Rio Sordo, Ovello, Paje, and Montefico – and added them to the regular Barbaresco bottling.”

That’ll do it. This is a roll call of what amounts to some of Barbaresco’s greatest vineyards, the ones with the most perfect exposures and lowest yields. In a vintage like 2002, grapes from such exceptional sites are overachievers.

This 2002 Barbaresco is a dense, rich red wine delivering a full measure of nebbiolo’s signature flavor profile of berries, earth, a touch of tar with a wafting scent, and a lingering, surprisingly intense finish.

Here’s the best part: The price is $27.95 a bottle. For a wine this characterful and profoundly good, you have to wonder why. Now you know. Serve this with a grilled steak or lamb chop and I promise you’ll be planning a trip to Piedmont before the meal is over.