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November 8 2008
A couple of weeks back I was contacted by a reporter from the Wall Street Journal who found my blog and was doing a piece on consumers who were paring back in our current economic conditions.
The reporter found a post I wrote about $5 wines.
Now, mind you, normally, I do not get very excited about these sorts of things, but this was the Wall Street Journal.
The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are the beacons of print journalism. I think most everybody wants to be quoted in the WSJ. Then, when interviewing with the reporter, I made a critical goof – as I am wont to do, I started giving my wife credit in the interview about how we recycle, we conserve energy, we watch our pennies, she does the Martha Stewart canning thing, etc., etc.
Like any good husband, I acknowledge that my life would come to a quick, grinding halt were it not for my wife. Before I knew it, the reporter wanted to talk to my wife and not me.
Alas, my wife was quoted in an article in the Wall Street Journal. My kernels of wisdom did not make it past the editor’s red pen. You can see the Wall Street Journal article here.
This humorous episode does bring up an interesting point, as does a post that Deb from Good Wine Under $20 wrote at Serious Eats – people are retreating from the luxury consumer economy – in droves.
The Wall Street Journal article ties together the economic climate with the green movement, while underscoring frugality.
The same thing is true for the U.S. wine industry that has spent the last couple of years going upmarket in pricing while emphasizing organic and natural winemaking. The only problem is there is not the underlying frugality in regards to pricing.
About a month ago, I was at a Notre Dame Football game. My friends and I gather at least once per season in my hometown, South Bend, to tailgate (i.e. drink too much beer on a Saturday afternoon) and watch the Fighting Irish (hopefully win).
One of my good friends, in town from Denver, CO happened to be dressed somewhat trendily, or at least a cut above the post-preppy suburban Midwestern garb the rest of us were decked out in. A female student from Notre Dame, who was tailgating next to us, asked my friend, “Excuse me, I don’t mean to be rude, but we were wondering if you were from New York, or California?”
“I’m from Denver,” my friend said.
Flummoxed, the one girl said, “Oh. Okay. We couldn’t tell if the clothes you are wearing are Kohl’s or couture.”
The implication was they could not tell if his t-shirt was $125 from a boutique or $11 from Kohl’s department store. Ditto for his coat and jeans.
The answer is, as a family man with three kids, the clothes were from Kohl’s, Target or another value department store.
The point here, translated to wine, is clear. In this economy, buying a $125 bottle of wine seems completely absurd. Buying an $11 bottle of wine seems like a simple, affordable luxury.
I fear for the financial ramifications that our current economy may have for the CA wine industry. Oregon and Washington, less engendered to national distribution, should be fine. However, California wines – those in the $25 + category might be in for some real and tangible pain.
Upmarket pricing and the green movement? From a wine consumer perspective, is it Kohl’s or Couture? Kohl’s for sure. I hope that wineries will figure out a sales strategy that allows me to feel green while I am forsaking conspicuous consumption because the shelves at the wine shop do not seem to indicate that to me these days.
November 6 2008
Last weekend I traveled to Dallas, TX to visit my Mom and Grandma for my Grandmother’s 100th birthday. My brother and sister and their families were also there creating a lot of fun (and noise) with four kids under the age of five.
Like any good family wine (so-called) expert, I was called on to pick out some wine. My Mom and I went to the store on Friday afternoon to pick out some wines for the weekend of food—Texas chili, roasted pork tenderloin and a low – country boil.
Now, mind you, my family is very much like your family – holidays and special events all tend to be similar in nature—low-key, centered on food, and in our case, the football games on television, along side some perpetual conversation.
The wines I chose at a wine shop and a liquor store were – The White Knight Viognier (Don & Son’s), Dry Creek Vineyard Chenin Blanc, Oyster Bay Sauvignon Blanc (New Zealand), Becker Vineyards Claret (Texas winery) and a Rosenblum Vintners Cuvee Zinfandel.
I, personally, like Viognier and the Dry Creek Chenin, I heard the Oyster Bay is a good value wine, I wanted to try a Texas wine and Rosenblum has a little sugar, which would appeal to my Mom. None of these wines spoke of the land, or “terroir.”
All told, I think I spent about $71 on wine, or about $14.00 per bottle. Both shops were heavily California and New World focused with a limited, almost non-existent Old World selection.
This wine buying is all well and good and unremarkable for what it is. We had a pleasant weekend; my Grandma is freakin’ a 100 years old and still very much “with it” and it was a blessed time.
However, here is the dissenting part to this preamble – I was at the Wine Blogger Conference two weeks ago and I watched Alice Feiring, author of The Battle for Wine and Love or How I Saved the World from Parkerization, give a charming keynote address.
In person, I found Alice very beguiling and I was a little regretful for having taken a couple of pokes at her earlier this year on Good Grape. My make-good to Alice was to finish reading her book, which I did over the weekend. It is a delightful read, not entirely cohesive, and not entirely convincing as a treatise on natural winemaking, but a delightful read nonetheless.
Chapter 8 – called “My Date with Bob” in which she discusses interviewing Robert Parker is good and carries the weight of the book, frankly.
I book-ended Alice’s book (no pun intended) with another book that covers similar territory as a quasi- first person memoir and an antediluvian manifesto on traditional winemaking from France and Italy – Reflections of a Wine Merchant by Neal Rosenthal.
Rosenthal, you may recall, had a cameo appearance in Mondovino. Since Rosenthal describes one producer in his book as having a horse-like face and legs like a country table, I have no problem noting that the gin blossoms on Neal’s nose in Mondovino invite some questions about how much spitting he does when he tastes, but that’s a separate post …
I enjoyed Rosenthal’s book significantly less than Feiring’s. Reflections of a Wine Merchant is not an insightful book, the writing is stilted and all of the characters are rendered monochromatically, including the author. His partner, Kerry Madigan, merits no single anecdote and, perhaps, three mentions in the book. Not only that, but Rosenthal goes to the egregious trouble of justifying the reasons why some relationships did not go well (Becky Wasserman and Kermit Lynch) without going to the trouble of giving any back-story … basically it is a bad, boring read and not recommended, at all.
Taken together, these books implore natural winemaking and decry the movement towards homogenous “New World” style wines that are made to appease the palate of critics – Parker and Wine Spectator.
Here is my trouble with this ongoing argument: On the surface, I get what they are saying, and, in fact, I do not necessarily disagree. Unfortunately, there are three key problems with their opinions:
#1) The Ship Has Sailed
This anachronistic “launch bromides” at Parker story is over with. As a Gen X’er, I have had the good fortune to have to have been around for the move from albums to 8 tracks, 8 tracks to cassettes, cassettes to CD’s and CD’s to digital music. You cannot stop progress and while there are aficionados of albums and 8 tracks, those passionate lovers are against the grain for current times. Wine is no different. Sure, we all wish everybody would appreciate a stinky, vegetal, Brett-laced Burgundy that costs $70 a bottle, but …
#2) There is not enough Old World wine to satisfy demand
Even if Alice Feiring and Neal Rosenthal were able to persuade a nation of wine lovers to see their POV, there isn’t enough wine to satisfy the demand, distribution of said wines is severely limited to spot markets centered on the East Coast and prices are already too high.
#3) Feiring and Rosenthal’s opinions rank as elitism of the highest order
I get weary of the Parker-bashing when, in fact, another opinion is held up for its empirical correctness. Natural winemaking, terroir, non-intervention, non-technology, Old World nuance, etc.
This is classic politics, one opinion versus the other and akin to the parent telling the child, “I remember when I walked to school in 18 inches of snow, up hill, both ways.”
My overall point here is that listening to this argument is tiring and more than a little like whistling in the wind. For my family, when I recently bought wine, I purchased a negociant-style Viognier, a nationally distributed Chenin blanc, a NZ Sav. Blanc, a Texas wine and a ripe California Zinfandel. All were enjoyable, all were inexpensive, all were New World-style and all of them, collectively, cost about as much as one bottle of small production Burgundy. None of these, however, had a mineral character or anything resembling “terroir.”
Am I anti-farmer, anti-Old World, anit-terroir? No. I am, however, a pragmatist and realize that in wines ever spiraling fragmentation into niches, Old World wines are going into a very finite niche, the realm of the new rich Chinese, wine writers and guys that drive Mercedes, Bentley’s and Aston Martin’s.
November 3 2008
It’s November and right after election day what could be more American than the next item up on the media docket—Thanksgiving. And, what favorite topic amongst popular media including virtually every newspaper in America, is on tap for our reading pleasure? Wine pairings for Thanksgiving.
Yawn. Wake me when it’s over. It’s virtually the same article in every newspaper and the same recommendations, as well. They don’t change from year to year ... Since I’m feeling snarky, I’ll also note that Beaujolais has notes of banana—that too appears once a year in November.
As a short course and a link for all mainstream media, I offer Vin de Napkin—Thanksgiving wine recommendations; rinse and repeat.
November 1 2008
One of the interesting things that happened at the Wine Bloggers Conference last week is my receipt of the same question no less than three times over the course of the weekend – it went simply: “Tell me, how you got into wine, Jeff?”
This question normally followed the other question, “Tell me about your blog.”
I realized I need an elevator pitch for Good Grape, but that is a post for another day.
The question of how I got into wine is a normal question, I suppose. Everybody has his or her wine epiphany story—usually around a wine that was revelatory.
My story is a little more normal, though I do have my wine epiphany story, and not tailor made to engaging conversation. Frankly, I chose to get into wine. I made a conscious decision. When I graduated from college, I purposefully chose to invest time and interest in wine and golf.
A funny thing happened along the way, though. I realized two things—#1, I suck at golf. Not a little bit of suck, but a lot of suck. I defy the laws of physics with my slice; I am that bad. I lose 16 balls in a round of golf. I would rather have a midget in clown make-up punch me in the face and steal $65 out of my wallet then pay for a round of golf with a cart.
You see, golf takes physical ability and a natural proclivity, and I have demonstrated neither. It was a good summer this year; I managed to not play *any* golf.
Put three bottles of wine in the wine ledger based on greens fee savings.
The other thing I learned is this: wine ignites me mentally – if you have any type of intellectual capacity and a natural curiosity with some level of refined nature in your being, then you are likely predisposed to wine. I have all three, fortunately.
Normally what I say to people, though, when asked about wine is simple, “When I graduated from college I took up both golf and wine and I ended up liking wine more.”
The thing I find fascinating about wine is the endless learning that takes place. I know more know than I did a year ago, and that has been true for the last 10 years, yet I still feel like a relative neophyte in regards to wine knowledge. It is that perpetual quest for knowledge that drives me. I love reading and learning about wine – I have read dozens upon dozens of book on wine. Golf does not naturally lend itself to lifelong learning, at least not in the intellectual sense.
In addition to books, I read dozens and dozens of magazines. Literally. My wife did a count on monthly subscriptions and I have 44 magazine subscriptions; it is this knowledge that informs my cultural perspective and helps me write this blog with a diversity of perspective, filtered through the lense of wine.
A portion of those 44 subscriptions are wine magazines – Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Advocate, Wine & Spirits, Wine News, Quarterly Review of Wines, Wines & Vines, Wine Business Monthly, Food & Wine, and the list goes on.
However, just as I have acknowledged my limitations in the realm of golf, I am acknowledging the self-defeating purpose of taking in too much information.
I am going on an information diet and shedding some weight – the weight of burden to read that many damn magazines. I am paring back from 44 total magazines to just 10.
In that purge, out goes Wine Spectator, Wine Enthusiast, Wine Advocate, Wine News, Quarterly Review of Wines and a whole slew of other magazines.
I am paring back to the basics – Wine & Spirits, Food & Wine, Wines & Vines, Wine Business Monthly.
Just as I eliminated the lifestyle-oriented, but maddening game of golf, I am forsaking the lifestyle-oriented, but maddening game of crap wine magazines.
I am looking forward to my information diet and shedding the weight of superfluous wine related content.
My confession for today is this: most wine magazines suck; suck as bad as my golf game. I am not going to support them until the editorial speaks to real wine consumers who drink real wine in the real world. I might come back to these magazines when my slice straightens out off the tee box, but I am not counting on it.
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