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February 13 2010
More odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass …
The Omnipotent Wine Lover
It all makes sense now. Less fussy wine enthusiasts have long wondered about the elitist, testosterone-fueled appeal of the eRobert Parker message board: How is it that an audience of 99% men, mostly cloaked in anonymity, going on and on with arduous conviction about wines that 99% of the populace will never taste based on expense, production or a combination of both, hold an appeal for anybody?
Likewise, what kind of person argues with empirical certainty about something subjective?
At least in politics you can argue ideology, but how, exactly, do you argue nose and taste buds? A recent thread at eRobertParker about the 1997 Harlan Estates Cab, volatile acidity and how good the wine is – a wine that retails for at least $1000 a bottle—is a prime example.
Yet, we now have our answer – using wine as the backdrop, researchers at the University of New Hampshire, as published in the Journal of Consumer Marketing, have come to the conclusion that:
“… women are more likely turn to interpersonal relationships such as friends and family for information about purchases. On the other hand, men prefer to gather information from impersonal and published materials.”
This is validation that - yes - men don’t ask for driving directions!
It’s also validation for the “pulled down boxers and exposed male anatomy with measuring stick” that makes up a lot of wine publishing and dialogue.
The study continues:
“Three key findings emerge from this research … males are less comfortable with personal interaction in making life decisions.”
A-ha!
So, women talk to friends and family for wine recommendations while men go about their information gathering in a monastic (onanistic?) singular pursuit ala eBob and its ilk.
Makes sense … I think.
The research summary goes on to say:
“Overall, the men surveyed viewed themselves as much more knowledgeable about wine than the women (Ed Note: little surprise). And while men were more likely, in general, to turn to impersonal sources for information, when it come to buying wine as a gift, they valued the input from retail clerks, friends and family just as much as women.”
The research concludes by stating:
“Therefore, in order to capture the male wine consuming market, increase market share, and establish a loyal following from male consumers, wine producers, retailers, hoteliers and restaurants must consider educating their staff to better handle male customers’ needs.
This could be accomplished through staff engagement of male consumers in open discussion, creating an environment where it is acceptable to ask questions and exchange ideas and comments about wine. Possibly more important to wine producers is the creation of promotional material directed at attracting males as a potential wine consuming group and thereby creating brand loyalty and expanding the overall wine market. This could be accomplished by creating a ‘masculine’ image for wine.”
According to Nelson Barber, the research author, “This understanding will lead to a more critical look at marketing strategies aimed at establishing relationships, particularly with male customers and particularly given they are an untapped and potentially large market.”
Within the context of this study, they note that as much as 80% of wine is purchased by women making men a large target for growth. God help us all if wine begins marketing with a more “masculine” image. Can we expect to be approached with marketing materials, retailer and Sommelier training in which the blowhards and boors are catered to coupled with a greater emphasis on masculinity? I can only imagine the advertising campaigns that would result … Kendall-Jackson meets the Marlboro Man … and more validation that somehow eBob has it right.
To read the entire research report titled, “Gender Difference in Information Search: Implications for Retailing” click here (initiates a PDF download).
On the other hand …
If 80% of wine is purchased by women then you have to believe that most of them are either Mom’s or soon-to-be Mom’s.
Enter, “Moms Who Need Wine” a web site and Facebook fan page with over 92,000 members.
The web site says:
“If you’re not sure you could survive motherhood without a stockpile of your favorite Red—then you’ve come to the right place! Let’s face it, we all LOVE being Moms. There’s not a better, more rewarding job in the world. But sometimes, enough is enough! And there’s nothing better to bring you down than a little sip from a nice piece of stemware (or the closest sippy cup.)”
According to AdRants, an advertising industry-related web site and email newsletter, the “Moms Who Need Wine” founder, Marile Borden, says, “We’re looking at it as a new sort of publishing model—with new kinds of opportunities for ‘media’ buys. In addition to blog ads, we’re working with sponsors on ways to leverage the whole FB audience—with things like sponsored blog posts (that get sent via the feed), coupons (on our coupons tab), sponsored virtual wine events hosted on FB, market research panels, etc.”
Summary
Taken together, these two snippets of information make me realize that the beautiful chaos that is the wine world isn’t going to get any simpler any time soon.
Second, I realize that vis-à-vis wine, while men busy themselves with being “right” most of the time women are busy figuring out how to get it done.
Wait a second … didn’t we already know this?
Restaurant wine illustration credit: Hemispheres magazine
February 11 2010
Every wine enthusiast should have five excellent, small wineries that nobody else has ever heard of at the ready to recommend to an inquiring friend.
It’s similar to the stockbroker having an obscure stock pick queued up for a lunchtime query, a doctor carrying a prescription pad to the Saturday afternoon social and an Uncle having an awe-inducing card trick intended for a five year-old.
Kimmel Vineyards in Mendocino, with just a Chardonnay and Merlot in their offering, and a minuscule total production of 556 cases, have made their way into my mental rolodex for small winery recommendation.
My criterion for this is principally based on the wines, of course. The wine has to be good and it has to be small production and reasonably obscure and it has to be priced at a level that is within reach as an “I deserve it” luxury. The recommendation is even better if there is a good story associated with it, there isn’t a public tasting room and the principals at the winery are reachable by email or phone.
All of this builds into a mélange of recommendation magic – good wine that is affordable, people that you can exchange an email with, and the glowing pride of below the radar insider-ishness.
Kimmel wins on every count.
Their entry into my “love it” recommendation file started with their Chardonnay, a wine so delicious my tongue wanted to make love to my tonsils. Made in the classic California style, but with a restraint that could create its own category, the Chard sees a combination of new and old French oak along with partial ML on the wine lot – the result is a crisp, vibrant, lushly tropical wine that carries a mouth-filling creaminess, but forsakes being “over-oaked”—a hallmark of lesser Chardonnays. At $32 and 285 total cases of production, it’s worth every penny.
According to Jim Kimmel, who, true to my criteria, was very accessible via email, the winery is experimenting with an unoaked Chardonnay, as well. While reluctant to “chase trends” for a winery of their size, they are using steel for a portion of their 2009 Chardonnay. In his words, “As long as our oak is not ‘too oaky,’ we hope to produce an elegant, traditional Chardonnay and seek to be the best in our price range.”
They are well on their way.
Another fascinating aspect of Kimmel Vineyards that makes for a good “story factor” for peer recommendation includes the fact that they are in Mendocino – the next Paso Robles in California wine. And, they have history as an 1100 acre ranch that converted to about 37 acres of grapes in the mid-eighties while their work at creating a winery started just a couple years with the 2007 harvest.
Small and earnest equals good.
Particularly amusing for me is how people answer dumb questions. I didn’t ask a dumb question on purpose, but I think my tongue was making love to my tonsils at that point, temporarily putting me into a swoon. I asked Jim, “Mendocino bills itself as, ‘America’s greenest wine region’ is there anything Kimmel does to support green business practices?” Graciously, very graciously, Jim responded something along the lines of (paraphrased), “Well, we have 1100 acres and we farm about 3% of that and you can see all kinds of crazy wildlife in their natural habitat. That counts for as much or more than a solar panel array, right?”
Point taken.
Next year a Sauvignon Blanc will be available to bring total production to around 1000 cases and there are plans for a Cabernet, as well – delayed for a year after they elected not to harvest the fruit this year – one of the tough vagaries of truly being a farmer.
Kimmel Vineyards gets my highest recommendation. You can check them out at their web site or, feel free to shoot Jim an email (jim -at- kimmelvineyards.com). He’ll respond, and quickly.
As a part of an email exchange and interview, below are excerpts from my conversation with Jim Kimmel, a glimpse into the values that he and his siblings put into their project.
Good Grape: How tired are you of people making a reference to Jimmy Kimmel the comedian and late night talk show host?
Jim Kimmel: I was “Jimmy Kimmel” long before the comedian was Jimmy. My friends call me Jimmy in fun and obvious reference to the more well known personality. I do not tire to the reference although it does not get me preferential treatment at restaurants and hotels.
Good Grape: What’s your favorite golf course?
Jim Kimmel: Pebble Beach. Like Jack Nicklaus, if I only have one course to play before I die, it is Pebble Beach.
Good Grape: Which of the Seven Deadly Sins are you most guilty of?
Jim Kimmel: Pride.
Good Grape: What is your biggest pet peeve?
Jim Kimmel: That people do not try to do their very best in anything they do.
Good Grape: What do you drink when you’re not drinking wine?
Jim Kimmel: Single malt scotch.
Good Grape:In what era would you live if you transport yourself?
Jim Kimmel: Anytime in the past because then I would know the future.
Good Grape: What is the best wine-related book you’ve read?
Jim Kimmel: The Official Guide to Wine Snobbery by Leonard Bernstein.
Good Grape: Are you always early or terminally late?
Jim Kimmel: Early. It lessens anxiety.
Good Grape: Who would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
Jim Kimmel: Sean Connery
Good Grape: What super-power would you most like to have, and why?
Jim Kimmel: Mind reading because I do not understand most people and how they think.
Good Grape: You are moving and can only take three or four articles with you—what do you grab?
Jim Kimmel: Wedding album, collection of 1927 NY Yankee game bats, computer, reading glasses.
Good Grape: Where and what was the last great meal you had?
Jim Kimmel: Bone in rib-eye at the Tap Room at Pebble Beach
Good Grape: What is the best compliment you have ever received?
Jim Kimmel: Anything dealing with honesty.
February 9 2010
In the midst of the turmoil in the wine industry about the long-term ramifications of the “trading down” phenomenon, I’m reminded that everybody should have a dear friend who is a non-materially oriented (read: Buddhist-light for the western palate) career California lifeguard, a world traveler and an educated wine enthusiast.
It does a lot to keep you grounded, with eyes open, while also reinforcing that there are a lot of smart palates out there that never “traded up” to begin with. This “new normal” we hear about is actually the “old normal” for a lot of people.
This is a prelude to say: I took my semi-annual trip out to San Diego last weekend to visit my friends Ed and Jen and their two kids.
After 20 + years of an itinerant life as a lifeguard for the State of California, working the coasts north and south, Ed finally settled down about seven years ago as a Peace Officer and Lifeguard at Torrey Pines State Park in La Jolla.
One of the significant benefits of his job is the opportunity to live in and act as caretaker for the Guy Fleming house at Torrey Pines. The two bedroom adobe bungalow, built in 1927 by its namesake, is complete with a million dollar view of the Pacific Ocean. And, if the views are worth a million dollars, the sunsets are priceless.
I’ve mentioned Ed (or “Easy” as he was known on the road with a backpack) on several occasions; he is somebody I consider a wine mentor and he certainly is principally responsible for sparking my passion for wine. Ed has turned me onto countless wines, most of them gems, and he has a fantastic palate. Visiting once or twice a year is always a good way for me to decompress and recalibrate – it’s always a hedonic weekend couched in a lifestyle that doesn’t sweat the need for the trappings of wealth.
I shipped some wines out ahead of time, a barter for the free frequent flier ticket I flew out on, and we picked up a couple of additional bottles while picking up provisions for dinner – a gigantic, rich ML monster in the Murphy-Goode Island Block Chardonnay ($12) and a Rabbit Ridge Zin ($9). With enough wine to last a month of Sunday’s (and a nice sourdough loaf to soak it all up), we headed back to the house to make dinner.
Fascinating for a landlocked Midwesterner like me, Ed free dives off the beach at Torrey during lobster season. He hand catches enough of the crustaceans to stockpile the freezer for their frequent guests.
I was to be the lucky recipient of two lobster tails for dinner.
Drinking the Murphy-Goode along with an inexpensive Pinot, Ed made Lobster Thermidor as we talked, shared, and laughed. The dulcet tones of West Coast Jazz pioneer Chet Baker wafted in the background intermingled with the giggles of his 4-year old daughter who was crescendoing before bed time.
Outside, the light was making its way from orange watercolor to the dark of night.
My belly now full from an indulgence in lobster, begging off dessert, we continued to talk and embellish the same stories over again for a couple of more hours until the pauses lengthened, the glow of the wine waned and the yawns increased.
As I retired for the evening, polishing off the last swallow of wine, Ed emptying the coffee mug that holds virtually every ounce of wine he drinks, I thought about him, his wife and beautiful kids, the small and charming Guy Fleming house, the fabulous dinner (hand caught lobster?!) and the blessings I have.
Ed isn’t a wealthy man by bank account, never has been. He’s smart with his money, he doesn’t buy things he doesn’t need and he buys wine that is reasonably priced, not quite understanding how a onetime consumable could possibly be worth $40.
The one thing Ed is, though: He is rich in life.
It dawned on me that for all this talk about the “new normal” for wine, it really isn’t about over $20 wines slowing in sales or over $50 wines tanking, it’s about people getting back to the fundamental things that are important – family, friends, good food, a laugh or two, nice music in the background, money in the bank and a decent wine to quaff alongside the story of life.
Coincidentally, this is the “lifestyle” of wine, but something went askew over the last 20 years with the amount of money necessary to enjoy these “simple” things.
To me, the “new normal” means that a “big and rich” lifestyle is just another way of saying you live a life gracefully, within your means with a sense about money and its hard-earned value.
It’s a lesson most of us are learning painfully, and a lesson that some wine lovers, already steeped in an under-$15 mindset, won’t have to make the adjustment for.
February 6 2010
Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass …
Super Bowl Sip
Normally, I’m the first person to mock the lifestyle articles that present mindless wine pairings around the holidays. These articles are now popping up like mushrooms after the rain because of the Super Bowl, an unofficially official national holiday. For some reason, perhaps because I live in Indianapolis, home of the Colts, I am benevolently ambivalent about these articles this year. I say, go forth and work on that Champagne or Riesling pairing with potato chips …whatever… just so long as you’re cheering for the Colts.
Should you want to support good wine with roots in Indiana, check out Buehler Vineyards or Kokomo wines – both have winemakers that are Indiana natives.
I Have to Manage Something Else?
I received my first invite to Foursquare yesterday.
Some quick background: Early in 2007, when Tim Elliott from Winecast and I were doing regular podcasts, the topic of Twitter was discussed. This was when Twitter was used by only the smallest slice of early adopters. At the time, we talked about using Twitter for tasting notes – tweeting notes on a wine from a restaurant, for example. I scoffed heartily while Tim was much more insightful in seeing Twitter’s usefulness. Of course, the rest is history as Twitter has become a cultural phenomenon and my lack of foresight is archived on the Internet for perpetuity.
Flash forward to today, and I still act as something of a technology curmudgeon despite making my living in technology and Internet marketing. So, when I received the invitation to Foursquare my immediate thought was to scoff again – another technology communication thingy that is hard to describe – “what the hell is it?” I thought – very similar to my first blush look at Twitter.
Foursquare IS hard to describe – a sort of mashup of mobile, sharing, and digital geocaching consumerism. Yet, something tells me there is something fun and interesting here … enough to check out ahead of curve of others, at the least.
Whether or not Foursquare leaps to mainstream cultural consciousness like Twitter is yet to be seen, but if I were a winery I would certainly check it out for early adoption.
Spring Wine Allocations Are Coming …
On the heels of receiving an allocation of Bond last year and an ongoing spot on the Williams Selyem list, I received my first ever allocation of Kosta Browne for the Spring of 2010. I love Kosta Browne.
Unfortunately, that ship has sailed, the horse has already left the barn, and the toothpaste is out of the tube … whatever phraseology you want to use. Allocations once held an allure. Now, they seem overpriced and a status relic, out-of-fashion for the times – like building a 4000 square foot house just because a mortgage company will give you the money …
On Advertising …
I read a recent research summary that said that advertising and marketing professionals were one of the least trusted groups of professional’s right after politicians.
Oh vey.
If nothing else, that adds a little bit of light on the mercurial importance of “authenticity” from a winery.
Gallo Wine Fraud
When I was a cub doing an internship at an advertising agency in Atlanta, GA, I worked with a former Brand Manager for Taco Bell. We started talking about an unsavory urban legend I had heard related to food handling at Taco Bell. Without knowing where I grew up specifically, she said that not only was she aware of the rumor, but that it originated in South Bend, IN (my hometown). I found that interesting—she knew where the rumor started and independently corroborated the myth that was making the rounds.
Now, Gallo and their French import brand Red Bicyclette are in a little bit of a PR gaffe over allegations of fraud because the negociants that sold them Pinot Noir supposedly included significant amounts of Merlot and Syrah.
I’m sure the Gallo folks are fretting; a scandal like this can bubble up and impact sales rather quickly even if they haven’t been involved in any wrongdoing, particularly when you deal in the volume that this brand does – 220,000 cases according to the M. Shanken Trade News blog and Impact Databank.
However, this Gallo tidbit prompted me to revisit Snopes.com – a web site that does urban legend de-bunking. There, a search for “wine” reveals a whole bunch of urban legends, including one piece of alleged truism that some wines from the Rhone are fined with dried oxblood.
I guess the moral of the story for Gallo is this: it could be a lot worse.
Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia
When I received a Kindle as a Christmas gift from my wife this year, I had high, high hopes for downloading a couple of wine encyclopedias and having a more portable reference than the nine pound tomes that currently weigh down my bookshelf. So, it was with disappointment that I found that there were scant few wine books available for the e-reader.
However, the Kindle does allow you to email documents to the Kindle for reading.
Enter Enobytes, who are giving away an entire 664 page copy of The Sotheby’s Wine Encyclopedia as a PDF document if you sign up for their email list.
My problem is solved. Still, for the 99.7% of the world that doesn’t have a Kindle, receiving the wine encyclopedia and using on your computer, or sending to print at Kinko’s is a pretty good value.
You can check out Enobytes here.
February 2 2010
No offense to Jon Bonné, wine writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, but the reader comments elicited by his recent Chronicle blog post entitled, “Why California Wines Aren’t Selling” are far more interesting and insightful than his rehash of Jon Fredrikson’s address at the Unified Symposium.
No offense to Jon Fredrikson either but his presentation, by most accounts, seems to be a recitation of what anybody who has read the news in the last year already knows – the upper-end of the domestic wine price spectrum is challenged.
I caveat the “no offense” part in regards to Mssrs. Bonné and Fredrikson because my point here isn’t an indictment on their work specifically – they happen to be the tableau; instead, I want to highlight what was a lengthy list of comments across a wide range of loosely related points that neatly typifies exactly what is going on in the mind of the consumer as it relates to the state of domestic wine sales.
Simply, when the source “food for thought” runs 640 words (as Jon Bonné‘s post did) and the responses run over 10,000 words, you better believe there is some wisdom to glean.
Net-net – there is a problem that all California wineries should pay heed to. The comments, for the most part, are a referendum on California wine (and value) with enough mentions of price, Chile and Argentina to make a California winery bean counter see red … for a long, long time.
Below are selected excerpts from the (at the time of posting) 175 comments – every attempt has been made to provide whole comments within their intended context and as they were presented chronologically. I have, however, cleaned up syntax and spelling errors as appropriate.
The comments stand by themselves so I have added no additional comment to the obvious.
The Wisdom of the Crowd
“Heavy competition from Chile and Argentina, offering many good wines that represent very good value. I like to support local industry, but the prices of decent Napa and Sonoma wines went into orbit long ago.”
“Prices (were) absurd even before the Great Recession. For example, Stag’s Leap single vineyard offerings were maybe worth (purchasing) at $40 a bottle, the price they were in the 90s. At $70 to $90 dollars today, (they’re) pretty easy to pass up. The wine didn’t get twice as good over the last 10 years.”
“With globalization and the exchange of knowledge in winemaking you are now able to get great wine from abroad (that scores around 90 points by the Wine Spectator) for less than $20. Why buy a comparable Californian wine for $40? I usually support local business, but when the price difference is so outrageous I’m sticking to getting a bang for my buck.”
“There is some subtle psychological resistance, perhaps even unconscious, that will not allow us to align ourselves with the wealthy … Napa and Sonoma types. It just doesn’t sit (or smell) right.”
“It’s pretty well established that there is not a strong correlation between price and quality in wine. If consumers learn this and buy wine with their palates rather than their egos, producers and consumers might end up better off.”
“There’s also a partial backlash against conspicuous consumption. I have friends at a winery that make (a) $45 Napa Cab that can go toe to toe with $80 Cab, but the winery has awful PR and never submits to wine writers, so unless people have tasted it, they are guaranteed to have never heard of it. They say customers who ‘graduated’ to more well known, more expensive wines are coming back to their winery to pick up the wine because they love it at the price, and are no longer trying to impress friends with expensive allocated wines. Instead, they’re trying to impress friends by finding well-priced obscure things that aren’t name dropper wines.”
“(California) wines are still the same quality as before, but we are getting better and better Argentinean / Chilean / Aus / NZ / Spanish wines at a better price point. Why pay more when you can get the same quality at a lower price?”
“There are plenty of good wines at $20 that can compete against wines that are in the range of $60 – $80…”
“It really shouldn’t have taken an industry conference for those in the wine biz to wake up and smell the must. As others point out, there are plenty of fabulous bottles from France, Spain, NZ, Argentina, and Chile to be had right now – for a lot less money than more expensive, lower quality California wines. And, many of those non-California wines even bring – horrors! – the joys of terroir with them.”
“No mention of the elephant in the room? Oregon and Washington wines are providing some very stiff competition. It is easier to do that when all the factors of production are less expensive in these other states.”
“We needed Fredrikson to tell us what we already knew 12-18 months ago? Any winery that is shocked at this news has been asleep for a while.”
“The problem with GOOD expensive wines is that they have to compete with mediocre expensive wines. Some wineries seem to almost declare themselves as high-end by just slapping on a fancy label and charging a high price. That worked in 2005, but not so much today.”
“I can get better deals on Chilean, Argentinean, French, South American and Australian wines …”
“Why are California wines not selling? It’s because you can get much better deals and interesting wines and much lower costs in anything that is NOT a California wine. They have simply priced themselves into redundancy.”
“There are simply too many tasty wines for the consumer to choose from today, this drives prices down. Except for some very famous French wineries, there are all competing for the consumer. Grapes can be grown almost anywhere, and the secret of making wine is no longer a secret. Result = huge supply worldwide. Think cotton t-shirts – they are all about the same, just some people who seek status will pay $50 for a designer t-shirt.”
“If you go to Costco and you can’t find a good wine for under $20 you are not trying. It does not have to be CA wine to be good, as we all know. Look to Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, Portugal, some Italian and, yes, even France for decent value under $20.”
“$13.99 - $15.99 is a great price point to get unique wine with quality and complexity to threaten the wines at $20 + that California is selling. The everyday values are Southern Hemisphere and unpretentious – hello Australia and Argentina.”
“If it is over $15 then make sure you are drinking someone else’s bottle. Do you say, ‘damn it’s only a grape so why so expensive,’ or do you say, ‘damn it’s only money and you can’t take it with you…’ What would Buddha say?”
“… Screw you JCrew farmer man. I’ll get my wine from France or Spain or Chile and get better character and flavor for half the price.”
“The California wine industry is in denial? HA! Of what? California built the Chilean, Australian and NZ wine industries. Our tax dollars paid for it – all straight out of UC Davis. Visit any winery in Argentina, Chile, etc. and ask how many have attended UC Davis – I guarantee you, you will meet someone EVERY time.”
“Mr. Fredrikson’s analytical work must always be looked at with a sharper set of eyes. The wine industry has scant in depth research and tends to paint each year’s data with broad strokes. Gallo has in-depth research, maybe the best in the industry, and knows what is happening, where, why, when, etc. and moves to capture opportunities. Few others do much besides go to gatherings, drink heartily and be amazed at everything. Read the article carefully and you will find that you learned little to nothing about the world of wine as a business which needs to show profits if it is to survive.”
“It took decades for people to realize that, ‘Wow, it’s not that bad’ is not the same as, ‘Wow, this is great.”
“The vast availability of very drinkable, inexpensive Australian, and Chilean wines is the reason I don’t buy much California wine. I would guess that for most people this decision is mostly economic, too. If California wines were more affordable fewer people would buy imports. The difference of course is that an acre of wine growing land in Australia or Chile is a fraction of the $50K an acre in Napa. California wines are more expensive because the cost of growing and processing grapes is higher than other countries. It’s a shame because California wines are as good or better than many imports. In tough economic times though, price means more than brand loyalty.”
“California wines didn’t just become unaffordable – they also became (for the most part) extremely unpleasant to drink. Way too much alcohol, tons of oak, massive fruit overwhelming any subtly or structure. I stopped buy CA wines a long time ago and focus on inexpensive Europeans – Italy most, but a fair amount of France, Spain and up-and-comers like Austria and Hungary. I’ve seen stories in the ag(riculture) press about CA winemakers that are getting the message, toning down the booze and fruit and actually trying to make structured, food-friendly wines again. If this takes off and prices come down, I’ll come home.”
“(California) wines seem to be extremely expensive compared to wines from places like Chile, South Africa, New Zealand, and Argentina. Even Italian and Spanish wines are usually a better value. Unfortunate. There are some great (California) wines, but, whew, they are not cheap!”
“A lot of the problem is many California wineries use ‘snob appeal’ as their marketing, then jack the price above reality. Why pay $60 bucks for a bottle of wine from a vineyard with attitude when you can get as good a wine from Europe, Washington, or Australia now for 1/3 the price and none of the B.S.?”
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