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Breakfast of Champions!
Well, this is fun. The Austrian government has come down on wine producers for an ad promoting the leading wine of the country, Grüner Veltliner. I’m not so sure about government intervention and I don’t pretend to have formal education in marketing, but you gotta wonder how people who do have the education came up with a misguided campaign like this. Were they mainlining G.V. when they came up with this stuff? 
I guess being delicious just isn’t enough these days. Its supposed attributes include being an “anti-depressant ideal against the usual Monday-morning blues.” Does this mean we’re supposed to have a belt of Grüner Veltliner with our Cheerios, or maybe Muesli, before we hit the Monday morning commute? Maybe it’s better to stick with giving away T-shirts.
And when the industry came under fire for being such knuckleheads they promptly shot themselves in the foot again by coming out with a position paper “Admitting the necessity of responsible approach to the subject: and “went to great lengths pointing out the positive effects of moderate wine consumption, the important role of wine in Austrian cuisine and culture” – so far, so good – “and its significance as an icon of a hedonistic lifestyle.” Boom!! Ouch! Perhaps something was lost in translation here, or these marketing geniuses should be looking for a job.
I don’t know about you, but when I think of hedonism I think of wild-eyed Romans rolling around on the floor and the fall of the empire, like this definition from Dictionary.com:
1. the doctrine that pleasure or happiness is the highest good.
2. devotion to pleasure as a way of life: The later Roman emperors were notorious for their hedonism.
Synonyms: sensualism, libertinism, debauchery, dissipation, carousal.
Antonyms: puritanism, asceticism, abstemiousness, self-denial.
Maybe the Austrian version is tamed down a bit like this one from WordNet:
1. the pursuit of pleasure as a matter of ethical principle
2. an ethical system that evaluates the pursuit of pleasure as the highest good
In either case this is a most unorthodox way to lend credibility to their stated goals of promoting responsible marketing and moderate consumption.
I’ll admit to using “hedonistic” as a wine descriptor on very rare occasion – you know – for one of those wines that is so good that you need to go to confession after indulging in just a taste? Ah…
Anyway, I guess these guys are just doing what we humans seem to do best: putting our foot in it only to find out it’s quicksand. I think we should all go out and buy a bottle of Austrian Grüner Veltliner. A nice, cool glass of G.V. sounds awfully good right now and we can hope they do the same for us when it’s our turn to look like our industry is chaired by graduates of clown college. Prosit!
What’s in a Name?
I caught myself being cynical/complacent when I read this article. It’s just the way of the world, right? Sigh…
But really, why is this necessary? It’s very sad that the tiny brand known as Inman Family Wines in the Russian River Valley has had to knuckle-under to power-house Grange without even putting up a fight. The bottom line is that it makes good business sense. Why throw away legal fees fighting against a titan who is destined to win through sheer force of dollars?
Grange is a limited-release wine, yes? Why such a Goliath? Because Grange is really Penfolds, which is really Foster’s (as in lager), one of the biggest beverage companies on the planet. How is the Inman family, which produces about 1,500 cases total of Pinot Noir and Pinot Gris to even begin to combat such a giant? It’s pointless.
So, what’s the deal? The word “grange” is the issue. Penfolds has sued the Inmans to get them to stop using that word on their front label which, up to now, referred to the Olivet Grange Vineyard, their estate in Russian River. So, they’ve decided their best option is to simply use an acronym, OGV, and hope that their customers can figure it out.
Why am I making a stink? Penfolds Grange was there first, right? Well, it turns out that the term “grange” commonly refers to a farm in England and Australia. Kathleen Inman said “It means a small farm with out-buildings.” No surprise that the Inmans chose to call their new vineyard in Sonoma County a “grange” having relocated there from an 11-acre grange in England. And evidently Penfolds has strong-armed numerous Aussie producers away from using the term on their labels.
But, a trademark is a trademark. Penfolds has the right and they’re using it. We certainly don’t want to confuse people. So this tiny, virtually unknown California producer is trying to pass off their $42.00 Pinot Noir, called “Olivet Grange Vineyard”, for a world-renowned Shiraz that’s simply called “Grange” Yeah, that’s pretty hard to keep straight. I wonder if Fosters thinks that the folks in the northern Rhone should have taken issue in the old days when Grange was called Grange Hermitage? I wonder if they think that was confusing?
Fortunately, Foster’s cannot stop them from using the term grange on the back label or in their literature. This is one way the Inmans and their winery contractors can hope to assure their customers that the grapes are, indeed, coming from the same vineyard – only the name has changed.
Drat! Perhaps I was being provincial or rationalizing when I was in favor of the Napa Valley Vintners when they fought Fred Franzia over the use of the term “Napa” in the branding of the wine. But, in that case it seems to me there was a genuine risk of confusion, plus you had deep pockets fighting deep pockets. It was a fair fight.
I know, I know, all you lawyers are going to respond that Penfolds had to do this to send a message to anyone who might like to try to mislead. But it still looks like they’re doing this just because they can. I wish I could react more like Alder, and get all energized, but in truth, it makes me tired. All of this must be quite ironic for Simon Inman, who is a business attorney, Goosecross being among his many clients.
So, best of luck to the Inman family. Being another very small, virtually unknown fish in a big, increasingly competitive pond we completely empathize and hope that this bit of publicity from these various sources may result in some new friends and customers for Inman Family Wines.
Millennials, Gen X and “Rich, Old White People”
There were a couple of articles this week – one on the demise of Wine X magazine and the other on the purchasing habits of the Millennials– that seemed to be sending the same message in very different ways.
Of course, theories abound as to why Wine X folded after 10 years. Wine X founder and editor, Darryl Roberts, was quoted as saying ‘The wine industry says it’s interested in young adults but spends all of its ad and promo money targeting the same people it’s been targeting for the past 30 years – rich, old white people.’
While no one would accuse Wine X of marketing to that demographic description, I wonder how well they were reaching today’s up and coming wine drinkers, the Millennials. Perhaps this Gen-Xer has failed to speak meaningfully to his intended market. I think we’re all guilty of thinking that we’re cool enough and smart enough to know how to communicate with and market to younger generations, but we’re probably fooling ourselves. It may be a hard realization for Roberts, but getting old is hell. Ten years have gone by and perhaps he and his staff failed to reach their target group because their leader must be looking at 40 candles here pretty soon and his world view is somewhat different than that of his intended readers.
He certainly evidenced a glaring blind spot by focusing on glossy print media to reach out to this generation. Of course there’s a website, but it has the look of something that’s trying to promote the hard copy. I like to think that these wine-intrigued 20-somethings are reading this blog right now instead.
The evidence indicates that as a generation the Millennials like wine and they’re curious about it. That’s good. But we Californians better wake up and smell the Zinfandel, and soon, because evidently these folks are far more inclined to shop around in other parts of the world for their wine than prior generations. That’s potentially bad. The San Francisco Chronicle stated that “Twelve percent of both Baby Boomer and Generation X wine drinkers bought imports, compared with 32 percent for the Millennial generation…” and added that there are 70 million Millennials in the United States, compared with 44 million Gen Xers and 77 million Boomers.
Now, we can assume that this has something to do with price. The Boomers and increasingly Gen-X will spend more per bottle than the average Millennial because most of us have long since finished paying off student loans and are established in our careers. But attitudes and habits that are developed now are likely to persist as time goes by. If we want these new consumers to shop for fine wine from California in the future we’d better gain their loyalty by offering them a good value and do our homework on how to market and package it right now. My hat’s off to Don Sebastiani and Sons for leading the charge in the under $15.00 range. And Three Thieves has a new brand with a page on MySpace.
Regarding marketing, Karen Ross of the California Association of Winegrape Growers said that “Every major wine-producing country has an aggressive program in the United States, and California needs to make sure there is a California message out there.” She said the association is launching a public relations campaign focused on “informing U.S. wine consumers and wine trade media of the vineyard practices that add value to California wines.” Sounds pretty sexy, huh? Hmmm. We haven’t been very good at this in the past. Can we possibly come up with the wine equivalent of “got milk”?
It seems to me that Wine X had the right concept: make it fun and informal. Lose the elitism and the snootiness. Perhaps they just lost their way. And perhaps there’s some truth to Roberts’ assertions that we’ve been overly attentive to those “rich, old white people” to the detriment of building a future with this new consumer base.
The market potential is there. The challenge is there. Let’s hope we can rise to the occasion.
Generic French Wine: Pourquoi Pas?
“Vignobles de France” This is big, if it happens. The French have proposed a new approach to wine labeling that will allow not only a varietal designation, but will permit producers to blend wines from different parts of France together to produce a style of wine that appeals to specific markets. And these specific markets, being mainly new-world markets, will actually be able to understand what’s on the label. That’s huge.
Picture this: some guy in Duluth, trying to impress his date with his savoir faire, can serve her a French wine (How do they maintain their snob appeal after all these years?), and yet he’ll also be able to select his grape variety of choice and feel that he knows what he’s buying. On top of that the flavor profile may well be targeted to his palate, for instance the Chardonnay may include grapes from the warmer parts of France in order to please the American preference for abundant fruit and soft acidity – probably agood kick of oak, too.
Just a few months ago I wrote about some conversations I had with French producers that indicated a possible move in this direction, but I don’t think too many of us thought something so major would come this quickly! It’s not a done-deal yet, but could be implemented as early as this spring.Of course, the producers in the Languedoc are vehemently opposed to the idea because, in tandem with a push to increase quality in the region, they pioneered the use of varietal designations on French labels. They want the Languedoc appellation to get to the place where it commands respect and view this potential for widespread varietal, appellation-free labeling as eroding their considerable efforts. Their marketing savvy has taken this region from one that drew sniffs of derision (the appellation still makes me nervous) to one that is second only to new-world producers (specifically Australia, Chile and the U.S.) as an exporter of wine with a varietal designation. It’s easy to understand their concern.
And others are against the concept because French wine has always been about terroir. But, do we really want or need the “terroir” of a $12.00 wine from a so-so growing region? I don’t think anyone expects to see a change in labeling practices among wines that come from noble regions. This will be used as a tool to move truck loads of moderately priced wines, not cases of the great stuff.You can see it as kind of meeting in the middle. After the repeal of prohibition California wine was reborn as mostly generic plonk and it’s only now, after decades and decades of study and trial and error blended with copious quantities of blood, sweat and tears, that we’ve evolved to the point where our best wines are indeed beginning to reflect a sense of place. And I don’t think our low-end “California” wines take anything away from our best vineyard designates any more than you’d think that our friend in Duluth has somehow hurt one of the great houses of Corton-Charlemagne by serving a $12.00 French wine called Chardonnay.
Anyway, it looks as if we might have the opportunity to purchase wine labeled “Vignobles de France,” which supplies about as much information as buying a wine with a “California” appellation. Maybe table wine for every day tastes better if it’s blended to combine the best of one region with another. I don’t know.
But I do know that this idea beats the heck out of converting French wine into something that heats their homes or runs their cars. Merde!!
When I wrote before, I said it would be interesting to fast-forward 10 or 15 years to see what happens. I guess I should have said 10 or 15 weeks. Germany is rapidly figuring out how to appeal to the new-world market (stand back!) even if they don’t get as much attention. Stay tuned…
Is Cork Taint on the Run?
Tom Wark has just whispered what you’d think the cork industry would be shouting: “I have to admit that of late it seems I’ve encountered far fewer “corked” wines than in the past. I’ve no solid, scientific evidence to know this. It just seems this way.” I like to think that this casual observation reflects a rapidly changing reality.
I did an interview with our cork supplier, Heinz Heidenreich of Cork Supply USA, for goosecross.com last summer and between what he said and what I’ve read since, it seems that cork taint may soon become a non-issue. Can you imagine?????As far as I can tell, there are 2 key things happening. One is that quality control has been massively improved. It used to be that we’d do a sensory evaluation on a relative handful of corks from a bale of 10,000. It was woefully inadequate because of the small sample size and the fallibility of the human senses.
Within the last few years “solid-phase microextraction” has become available for identifying TCA. According to Heinz these tests can be conducted on the whole bale and can assure that the level is below 1 part per trillion TCA (human threshold is 4 to 8 parts per trillion for most of us according to the industry). Jim Laube, who seems to be obsessed with the topic, has said that he and others can detect levels as low as 1-2 ppt.)
The second thing is that methods of purging TCA and other off odors from the cork are being developed. We’ve known for awhile now that they can remove TCA from cork particles, for instance there’s the Diam technical (or agglomerated) cork by Sabat, the globe’s second largest cork producer, which “uses supercritical CO2 for selective extraction of volatile compounds from cork.” But, now Cork Supply says they’ve developed a system to remove the TCA from a solid piece of cork, not just the granules, called Innocork.
And Amorim, the world’s largest cork producer, and another proponent of solid phase microextration, has a system called Rosa to extract TCA.
Now, I know all this information is coming from sources that are anything but impartial, but taken all together it sends a message that the cork industry has finally gotten off of its keister to solve the whole cork taint issue. For me, the most amusing moment in the interview with Heinz was when he readily admitted that up to about 8 years ago, the cork industry really didn’t much care about our little problem with TCA. It was only when plastic corks and screw caps began to threaten their livelihood that they decided maybe they should get their act together. Ah, humans! Gotta love ‘em…
And all of this quality control and purging comes at a price. It seems to me that if a producer doesn’t want to pay for the extra quality control, they should use one of the many excellent alternatives to natural cork. Do us all a favor…
Anyway, like Tom, I just can’t remember pulling the cork on very many tainted bottles in the past year or so, and between work and play I open a whole lot of wine.Pretty ironic, huh, now that plastic corks and screw caps have become more acceptable to us by the day? Not to mention other options like the Zork and the glass stoppers.
These are truly marvelous developments because they mean that we’re on the threshold of being able to select the closure that best serves the wine or, alternatively, the one that we think will make our customers happy. Some producers think that the screw cap is absolutely the way to go with fresh, fruity whites and spritzy wines.
Most think that for the long haul, natural cork is still the best option in case this concern about screw caps and reduction is founded in reality.
Will there be a place for plastics when the cork dust settles? Hmmm.
How will we be sealing our wine 25 years from now? Anyone care to place a bet????
Are We All A Bunch Of Snobs?
I was skimming here and there and found this interesting post in “Life’s a Picnic”. Very enjoyable reading, but what really got my attention was Greg’s reluctance to visit a winery because he was convinced that the people would be “too serious and snobby.” And this from a foodie, if you take a look at his posts.
ARGHH!!!! Mortally wounded! After all these years in winery hospitality, at wineries big and small, reading that we’re so perceived makes me break out in a cold sweat. I have invested considerable effort in dispelling this “serious and snobby” thing over more years than I care to admit and, when I was in a position to influence others, I coached them to be unfailingly kind, helpful, informative and, most importantly, FUN! Wine is about a lot of things, but in the end it’s about fun, isn’t it?
Anyway, he was going, with some trepidation, to meet the winemaker at Periscope Cellars in Emeryville, CA. He observed that “The surroundings are certainly not like the palatial settings of the North Counties, more like a big old military bunker…”
And he was delighted to find out that the Winemaker was actually fun to be with. “While having serious credentials and experience he is far from snobby. Brian seems part guy next door, part artist and part mad scientist. He is generous to a fault with his time and seems extremely happy to be doing his wine thing.”
You know, that description fits a whole lot of winemakers I’ve known. I think what people forget when they see all the fancy architecture is that we’re still an agriculturally-based business, and that the work is physical! Sure, there are ivory-tower winemakers and high-flying consultants, but they’re much more the exception than the rule. Most of us in the wine industry are just ordinary people who choose to make our living in wine because we love it.
For those of you who like wine but believe as Greg does, I hope you’ll reconsider and hit the wine trail again. I’ll acknowledge that wine brings out the worst in some people, and those are the folks you want to avoid. And yes, you can find very formal situations with intimidating tasting rooms and astronomical tasting fees, but if you investigate a little, you can also find little places like ours that are off the beaten track. You may not find a grand villa, but you will find that lots of us are genuinely glad to see you, show you a good time and answer your questions without a hint of pretense. Plus, we’ll pour some seriously-fine wine (without taking it too seriously).
It may mean getting off the main highways and onto the sideroads or up in the hills, but that just makes an ordinary outing more like an adventure. COME ON DOWN!
Kermit Lynch, Wine Merchant
As kind of a coda to my last posting, “Alternatives to Wine Ratings” in which I suggested you find a retailer you trust, I have to give a plug to one of my very favorite wine merchants, and he’s one I’ve actually never met.
Kermit Lynch has to be the best wine writer on the planet. Every month when his newsletter arrives, he makes me want to buy out his entire inventory. He even has me lusting after wines of a type I don’t generally care for because he describes them so vividly, and with genuine affection. And that helps me to become that more adventurous, independent consumer that I’m always talking about.
It takes more than great writing to create a loyal customer. Over the years, I’ve found that his descriptions, which are not accompanied by numerical ratings, are pretty darned close to what I experience once I pop the cork. He’s not sitting at his desk in Berkeley, ordering out of a catalogue. He and his staff hand-select the wines and buy them directly from the producers, so the quality of the wines is reliable. It was interesting that when Colleen, our proprietor, and I were in Provence and Chateauneuf-du-Pape last month (see post titled “Culinary Getaways a la Provencal ” the name Kermit Lynch was well known, and in one case, a producer asked if I knew how to get his attention. Who, me???
And there’s the bummer. Provence is his springboard for buying wines from all over France, with an occasional sprinkling of Italian wines. I prefer to buy local most of the time, but I can’t resist placing an occasional order with Kermit Lynch. I rationalize by reminding myself that tasting wines from outside my own back yard is important to my work.
Anyway, if for no other reason than a great read, you should subscribe to his newsletter. I tell ya, if I won the lottery, he’d have to buy another truck just to keep up with my deliveries!
Have You Tried Eponymous?
Have you tried Eponymous? Wow! Had it for the first time at a staff tasting a few months ago, and enjoyed it again last night, thanks to Colleen and David (my managers and the owners of Goosecross).
I can’t resist giving a plug to our good friend, Bob Pepi, who makes this marvelous wine.
Of course, I wouldn’t bother you with this unless there was a good story (and a good wine) behind it. In this case the “it” is in the name.
First of all, how do we know Bob? You might know Bob or know of him through Robert Pepi Winery. He and his father made wine there together until it was sold to Kendall-Jackson in 1994. In 1996 Bob began a consulting business and he consults for wineries all over the world, including Goosecross. Why do we need a consultant? We’re a small operation and our Winemaker, Geoff Gorsuch, is a one-man band, managing both the vineyards and the winery. It’s not smart to work in a vacuum. There’s a very real danger of developing tunnel vision or, horror-of-horrors, a house palate! So, Bob and his partner, Jeff Booth, are available as additional very-experienced intellects, points of view, noses and palates when the weather’s quirky during harvest (as it inevitably is), for early pressing vs. extended maceration choices, blending decisions, you name it.
Even with a busy consulting business, Bob manages to make one wine of his own: Cabernet Sauvignon. I think we can all agree that if Napa Valley was only permitted to make one wine, the choice is ridiculously obvious. This is one of the best places on the planet for the variety. Bob found a vineyard on the south-east side of the valley – a steep, rocky site with very poor soil that produces some pretty wonderful stuff. Full, rich, black fruit with a healthy dose of earthy minerality. It’s almost like those poor, starving vines pulled the character right out of the ground. Great, mouth-filling texture!
Now, what about the name? Think how many eponymous wineries you can name off the top of your head: Gallo, Duckhorn, Shafer, Dunn. Well, with the sale of the Robert Pepi brand to KJ, Bob can no longer use his own name. So, in place of releasing an eponymous wine, he whimsically names the wine, itself, Eponymous as a play on words by one who is unable to use his family name on his own bottle of wine…
Anyway, if you’re lucky enough to find some, give it a try! You taste a wine like that and you know it’s good to have someone like Bob on your team!
Times, They Are A-Changin’
As I wrote earlier in the Culinary Getaways a la Provencal entry (I know… when is this woman ever going to shut up about Provence, already??!!!), Colleen, our proprietor, and I have recently been slurping up as much wine (and food!) as we possibly could in the limited time we had in Provence and the southern Rhone. What a time…
In the course of events we had the opportunity to sit down with a few vintners over a way-indulgent meal and really get to talking. You just can’t beat sharing a meal for bringing out what people really want to talk about compared to the polite discourse of a winery visit.
Anyway, Colleen and I noticed that every owner, producer, distributor, whomever we talked to volunteered that the French really need to pull themselves out of the Dark Ages in terms of marketing and labeling. They believe that even the French find the labels too complicated to understand.
One vintner, Allan Wilson of Chateau St. Esteve de Neri, put it in terms that rang a very familiar bell with me. I was unaware that some quality producers have begun de-classifying themselves from the top-of-the-line AOC classification to “Vin de Pays” (three rungs down on the 4-rung French-classification ladder) in order to produce 100% varietal wines, or to blend as they please and very importantly, to put the varietal name on the label.
What this means, from a practical standpoint, is if they call the wine Cotes de Provence they are limited in their choice of grape varieties, viticultural and winemaking practices and may not put a varietal name on the label. So, they say “the heck with it” and de-classify either to express themselves artistically or have a fighting chance of selling it or both. They know that most new-world consumers, who they very much want as their customers, are going to walk in to their local retailers and ask for a Chardonnay or a Syrah and that it will be the exceptional consumer that asks for a Chateau d’I-can’t pronounce-this, from “Les-never-heard-of-it” vineyard.
The deal is, that unless you’re one of the top chateaux in whatever region, you’re probably having trouble moving your wine. It’s very ironic that the stratospheric price of 2005 Bordeaux futures from the top houses is the subject of outraged, incredulous debate while lesser known producers fight for shelf space and some AOC producers in Bordeaux are even having their wine converted into fuel. C’est terrible.
It’s complicated. The French are drinking less wine, for starters. The new world has flooded the market with attractive, well-made, very affordable wines and Spain and southern Italy are coming on strong as competitors. The dollar is weak compared to the euro making the competition yet more difficult.
I don’t think anyone believes it’s a quality issue. Every wine-producing region is guilty of putting out some yucky stuff, but the French no more than anyone else.
It seems the two main forces at work are government regulations regarding both production methods and labeling laws that may no longer serve the interest of the majority of French producers and complacence regarding marketing. Among some producers the attitude is that “it’s enough to be French” and that its reputation will carry the day.
That certainly wasn’t the opinion of any producers we met. If what we saw (and it was a handful of people) is a reflection of the general attitude among French vintners then you can expect to see big changes in the way French wine is marketed and perhaps labeled in the near future. I’m not talking about the great houses. But, there’s room for movement in the mid-price Vin de Pays, which make up a significant part of French production. The proposed changes will allow producers to be more responsive to their environment, consumer preference and market conditions.
Major problem: Some important regions, like Bordeaux and Burgundy don’t allow the Vin de Pays option. Probably a matter of pride. So, a war is brewing in an effort to change that. It’s not going to happen easily. And the INAO has promised to become more restrictive regarding labeling regulations, not less. If they have their way, you’ll be able to buy a wine called Chardonnay from the Languedoc, for instance, but not if it’s from Burgundy, it’s venerable home. Ouch! This makes my head hurt!
If the laws don’t change, you can bet the producers will. People always find a way. As Allan said, it’s already starting to happen. This whole de-classifying business sure brings to mind Tuscany in the 60s and 70s. Great producers like Antinori became frustrated with hand-tying DOC laws and just labeled their made-as-I-please wine Vino de Tavola. Of course, we now know them as Super-Tuscans and they get quite a premium for their “table wine.”
Some quality French producers have already gone that way. They source grapes, choose their varieties and blend almost as they see fit (within the Vin de Pays regulations for the region) and call it Vin de Pays or even Vin de Table. Of course, to get any kind of respect or remuneration for these wines the producer must have a fine reputation already. But these respected producers, as they were in Italy, are the trail blazers. Guess what’s happened in Italy since the Super-Tuscans came about? The laws have adjusted.
It would be fun to fast forward 10 or 15 years, to see what happens, but it should be interesting in the meantime. Stay tuned…
“Great Wine” by the Numbers?
I was thinking about an interview I did with my friend Jeff Booth, of Pepi-Booth Consulting (they consult for Goosecross and have clients as far away as China!). It was for an upcoming episode on our podcast, Napa Valley Wine Radio, and one of the questions I asked him was if he thought the day would ever come when great wine could be made in a lab. He didn’t exactly answer my question; he just replied with “That would be a drag” and went on to talk about the joys of working with nature and how formulaic winemaking would take all the fun and surprise out of it.
I suspect he was probably sidestepping the issue because he didn’t want to get into talking about things like the techniques used by a company called Enologix – that’s fodder for a whole episode of its own! I read about them awhile back, and it’s pretty interesting stuff. They use software developed in-house to measure things far beyond the usual sugar, acid, pH and alcohol in a quest to match the profile of wines that get 100 point scores from Parker or the Wine Spectator. And tasting? How quaint. Why bother? It appears to be all about the numbers. The owner of Enologix, Leo McCloskey, says he’s identified about 100 chemical compounds that can affect our perception and uses them to compute a “quality index” for the wine. It kind of boils down to analyzing wines that have received the high scores for their chemical breakdown and then advising winemakers regarding when to pick, when to press, etc, based upon his analysis in order to create a wine of similar structure. He claims that winemakers can improve their scores by 5-6 points in one year by using his system. Evidently, he can even take a vineyard that’s naturally disposed to produce a restrained style and can time the pressing and blend in order to produce that unctuous, 99-point style that’s currently in vogue. His market is mainly high-end Cabs.
Who wouldn’t want 99 points? You can’t blame a businessman for trying to make a product that sells. As long as there’s been commercial winemaking there’s been that push and pull between the drive to bottle a unique artistic expression and keeping food on the table. But you’ve got to have a killer vineyard to even begin approaching these scores (I don’t think they’ve figured out a way to fake the fruit yet – stay tuned). It may be an antiquated concept, but would that vineyard make more interesting wine if the winemaker simply attuned himself to it by walking it frequently and making harvest decisions by tasting as well as testing? And used the same approach to winemaking? One of McCloskey’s clients referred to “babysitting the fermentation tank”. Well, conscientious winemakers should be doing that anyway.
And how does that producer feel if he’s made a wine of distinction that languishes on the shelf because it got an 87 from the Wine Spectator? Wine as art/wine as business. What a dilemma!
Critics of McCloskey and proponents of terroir say his methods erase the sense of place and the charming quirkiness that has been inherent to wine. The objection is that they offer us only one style: the highly extracted, so-called fruit-bombs and that we may as well make a box of Cheerios if we’re going to go by the numbers. I think McCloskey would probably say that he’s giving his clients and their customers what they want.
I just keep wondering if the industry and we, as consumers, are going through a phase. Last night I had a glass of Dolcetto with my pasta and it was 14% alcohol (no, it wasn’t a 2003). That can’t be the historic norm for Dolcetto. Sure, I enjoyed it, and it still had that nice little zing of acid you expect, but it’s kind of too bad when a producer in Piemonte feels he has to mimic the California style in order to survive. I’m waiting for the backlash when we all get tired of the huge reds just the way we got tired of fat, over-oaked, overwrought Chardonnays.
If we do, operations like McCloskey’s can simply adjust their parameters. Science marches on. And science has done a whole lot to improve wine over the years. But I think I agree with my buddy, Jeff. If I want a glass of white Burgundy, I want that unmistakable minerality, bright acidity and hint of soy you don’t find in most Napa Valley Chardonnays. If I’m in the mood for a glass of Napa Valley Cab, I want the ripe, luscious black fruit that isn’t (or wasn’t) so evident in a typical Bordeaux equivalent. It would truly be a drag if science and globalization blur the lines beyond recognition.
To read about a great man who was diametrically opposed to Enologix in his approach to winemaking, and still managed to make rich, satisfying wine that also reflects the local terroir, read about Henri Jayer, may he rest in peace.
