Category: OP-ED

We don’t do any of those year-end lists.  From our perspective, us telling our customers what already happened doesn’t seem like very valuable information.  But, since we study vintages and have tentative game plans on virtually every relevant wine region, we believe giving consumers an opportunity to get a feel for what is ahead is a valuable service. 

There are plenty of things to look forward to over the next few months as certain vintages come to market.  There are still a good number of releases from the 2019 vintage in the southern Rhone coming.  As we saw with the early arrivals of the Cotes du Rhones and some Chateauneufs, Gigondas, et. al., 2019 is a pretty fabulous and seductive vintage. 

Are we saying it’s another ‘vintage of the century’?  We try not to overdramatize but saying something like that wouldn’t be a stretch.  The 2019s are generally plush, fruit-driven, and uncommonly hedonistic, and rate among the top vintages since 2000, no small thing considering the great run of harvests they have had in that part of the world.

As an added bonus, though we realize appealing to a much smaller audience, the 2019s from the northern Rhone are rumored to be on a par with epic harvests like 2009, 2010, and 2015, which is serious business.  Again fruit is the watchword, and the 2019s have it in spades.  As it usually plays out, hard-core collectors will be chasing a handful of big-name, limited production stars that will command hefty prices.  But for the rest of us, there will be some sensational efforts from less famous (and much less expensive) names and we will be looking for hidden gems from places like St. Joseph and Crozes Hermitage that will benefit from the fortunate weather.

Snap up all of the 2019 Burgundies that you can.  This is an exceptionally delicious vintage, one of the most flattering we have ever tasted out of the gate.  We have reasonable supplies now and expect a few more things over the early part of 2022. But, beyond that, the watershed will start drying up. There are good words about the 2020s. But there is a caveat in that severe frost in 2021 destroyed a lot of the crop and will likely create upward pressure on prices.

It’s an exceptional time for Bordeaux as well.  The 2018s are mostly here and exceptional.  The 2019s will be arriving over the coming months and they are spectacular as well.   After that, the 2020s are no slouch either as we found when we tasted barrels samples earlier this year. So if you are new to the game, you can put together a pretty impressive matrix from those three vintages and have a solid core of a cellar.

As for domestic wines, this will be a rather challenging year.  If you recall, there were widespread wildfires up and down the state and in parts of Oregon.  The timing was terrible for the later ripening reds and there were large quantities of premium grapes affected by smoke taint.  In many cases, conscientious vintners made little or no wine at all from certain varietals, Cabernet perhaps the most notable.

So what does that mean for consumers? Simply less wine available and higher prices on what is.  Vintners, after losing a big chunk of an entire vintage to the effects of the wildfires, will all have creative ways to deal with it.  Many will release less into the market so they can sell it themselves, or try to stretch two vintages over three years.  Some of the staples will sell out quickly and be off the market for a while.

What that scenrio does do is make everything we do find more important.  You may have noticed that we have been advising folks to buy a little extra on some of the Cabernet offers we have sent out over the past year, specifically with an eye on this approaching situation.  Well, it is pretty much upon us over the next 18 months or so. 

Fortunately, 2018 and 2019 are very attractive vintages in California and will fill the bill nicely as long as they are around.  Stock up. As for 2021, all we have heard is that crop size was down some, the harvest was early, and, thankfully, there weren’t widespread wildfires though perhaps there will be some effects from the drought in some places.

Those are the significant ‘bullet points’ for this year.  Other areas will provide some excitement, and we will continue to ‘dig’ as we always do. Spain and Italy will no doubt make contributions, and there seems to be new things to find in South America and new places to explore (Greece, Georgia). But we don’t have any other ‘sweeping’ statements about any other regions in terms of historic harvests.  It will be more about discovering individual successes.

As to the bigger picture, global warming will continue to improve ‘marginal’ areas by giving them a bit more ripeness to work with.  Global warming has also changed some weather patterns and brought about freak hail and frost events that make viticulture much more difficult from a financial perspective in some regions.  Simply put, those kinds of occurrences can make it difficult for growers to make a living (see Loire, Chablis among others). 

Finally, there will still be pandemic-related issues that will continue to put unpredictable spins on all kinds of things from shipping to harvests to lord knows what.  It doesn’t appear any of those things are going to change any time soon.  Though we’d advise the ‘bird in the hand’ mentality for the next few months, there’s still plenty of great wine in the world. Happy New Year!

Typically at the start of the year we put out a little piece telling consumers what to be on the lookout for the coming months wine-wise. We hadn’t gotten to it yet, and not because we were remiss or lazy, but simply because the factors that will affect how this year plays out don’t actually have all that much to do specifically with wine itself and they’re kind of unpredictable in how they will play out.

The first issue didn’t exist when we wrote the last piece like this. That would be COVID. The pandemic hasn’t affected wine specifically. But it has impacted everything involved with getting wine harvested, made, shipped and delivered. It completely altered the the way wine was sold, had a huge negative impact on the restaurant industry, and greatly changed the fortunes of almost everyone in the distribution end of the business as a function of everything else that went on.

The second non-wine issue, combined with the first, dealt a serious blow to players at every level of the industry. That would be the levying of tariffs on agricultural products (like wine) from Europe in response to a flap about Airbus subsidies. By dropping immediate 25% price increases (due to tariffs) onto importers, price points on certain items became considerably less attractive, and huge, unexpected cash outlays were forced upon those who were unfortunate enough to have wines ‘on the water’ (in shipping containers) when it was decided to initiate the whole tariff program. Unexpected levies of six-figure sums can ruin your whole day, or your livelihood, but that didn’t seem to matter in the international poker game of the time.

For all of good things in the works from the wine world this year, everything we talk about depends on those two factors in terms of`how they will sort out. You’ve got to have people drive the trucks, load and unload the boat, and all of the other physical things it takes to move goods through the system.

Perhaps more significant is the tariff issue and removal thereof. Nobody wants to bring in imports that are going to be 25% higher priced than they should be, or even worse have tariffed inventory on hand when the levies (hopefully) come off. This whole situation stagnates the flow of the market until everything is resolved. We could go into a whole tirade about how taxing wine imports hurt American wine importers and merchants considerably more than anyone else, but the point now is to get it fixed.

Speaking of imports, there is a lot to like when they do arrive. As we have alluded to in other pieces, the 2019s from Germany and Austria are special based on the reviews and the few things we have tasted thus far. The 2019s from northeast Italy and Galicia have been consistently impressive, too. White from Burgundy and the Rhone, while not necessarily ‘epic’, are quite serviceable.

There are lots of happy places in Europe for reds. You’ve got 2018 and 2019 Bordeaux, the 2018s pretty serious though remarkably juicy and friendly for the genre, and 2019s are even more promising, ‘vintage-of-the-century’ type stuff. Rhones (both north and south) are impressive again in 2019 and can hang with prior top vintages from those areas. Beaujolais and Burgundy both hit the mark as well, with 2019s perhaps not with as much fruit packed in as the 2015, but rounder, more open, and often as seductive as that very appealing vintage.

This will be a good run for Cabernet lovers as 2018 and 2019 appear to be back-to-back winners. Antonio Galloni put a good spin on it, saying of 2018, “What the 2018s don’t quite have is the visceral thrill factor of the truly great recent vintages such as 2013 and 2016, but they come very close. Improvements in farming and winemaking elevate many 2018s into the stratosphere. There are so many 2018s that are simply mind-blowing. But what stands out most about the 2018s is their consistency. It is very hard to go wrong with a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. “

Our observation of 2018 Cabernets, etc. thus far is that they may not be the biggest or most structured, but they are lavish, creamy, and enormously likable as a group. The ‘hit ratio’ has soared above 2017 and the continuity and front-to-back harmony, with supple texture and ripe, well-meshed tannins with the 2018s is impressive even within the context of a pretty serious run of vintages.

We should start seeing 2019s later in the year and the early word is they are maybe even better. We heard happy noises out of Napa not long after the 2019 harvest was completed. A quick take from Galloni. “…the 2019s I have tasted so far are fabulous. The wines feel like they have a little more energy, power and depth than the 2018s. I imagine much of that has to do with smaller berries and higher skin-to-juice ratios. That extra kick of late heat seems to have given the wines just enough added concentration to fill out their frames. Acidities, though, are on the lower side, so the perception is of wines that are both rich and energetic. In some ways, 2019 reminds me of 2010, but not as extreme. Winemakers generally describe the wines as extracting easily, the sign of a vintage that has a lot of natural richness.”

While there are no tariffs here (though one could argue that tariffs on the imports make them less competitive and allow domestic producers to justify higher prices), there’s a caveat to remember. Prices and availability. We don’t know how much the disastrous fires of 2020 in California and Oregon will affect the overall market. Wineries can do a number of things to make up for what is generally considered a missing vintage because so much of the 2020 harvest suffered from smoke taint.

Wineries can raise prices (even more!) to slow down sales or drag out releases to maintain some sort of perceived ‘availability’. Neither of those are consumer-friendly but we are pretty sure that some version of that will occur. Also, as an adjunct, we have heard that large sized wine concerns have been looking up and down the state for quality juice to buy. This will likely put the squeeze on a number of those cool under-the-radar labels that have been finding very good surplus juice to create value labels from.

There are a lot of moving factors that will have an effect on what we see this year. But the point is that there is plenty of good juice to look forward to provided we can get the goods here and people can afford to buy them (the U.S. Dollar is a bit lower against the euro as well). Having plenty of good wine to enjoy should not be a problem!

Tis the season for our traditional Thanksgiving message.  We realize that this year’s celebration will be quite different for a lot of people and there are folks that have the Thanksgiving holiday all planned with respect to ‘wine service.  But there are also folks who treat this ‘family’ holiday differently than they would a dinner or event with their ‘wine and food’ friends. Ours is neither to judge, nor comment on prices, because that is up to everyone’s discretion and based on their individual needs. 

Truth be told some people don’t think about the food pairing thing at all and just serve things that they like.  Nothing wrong with that.  We are merely here to offer guidelines within the context of that Thanksgiving bird from a symbiotic food and wine perspective.   Isn’t it the same stuff every year?  To a point, yes.  Same bird, same wine categories to choose from. 

The ‘basics’ still apply.  No matter how the turkey is cooked, our agenda is to provide our ‘best bets’ for the wine service.  Turkey is still generally a fowl that tolerates a wide range of wine choices fro fruity whites to lighter or medium-biodied reds.  As we see it, choices are less about the bird itself and more about the stuffing and other accoutrements in determining which wine choices might prove most complimentary.

Every year is different wine-wise as well.  There are some categories hitting a high note this year, and others that are at a nadir.  For the most part this year offers more potential choices in what we feel are the ‘right’ categories.  Our rule of thumb is that, given the varied goodies that will be on the holiday table, whites should have good acidity, bright flavors, and little or no oak.  Again, given the ‘fixins’, it  is a fine spot for something with a little residual sugar like a German Riesling, Vouvray, or Pinot Gris from Alsace. 

 As for reds, bright fruit, light to medium body, and not a lot of tannin or obvious wood work best.  A bit of underlying acidity and lift is a good thing.  Large framed, oaky, high alcohol wines can get tiresome over the course of the meal and can overwhelm some dishes and fight with others.  For those ‘big reds’(Cabernet, Bordeaux, Syrah), save them for hearty beef or lamb roasts.  Acidity is good, wood and tannins not so much with fowl.  As a general rule, we aren’t dogmatic.  But, if asked, we see turkeys that are roasted, fried or smoked as all being lighter red wine fare.  Here are our favorite red plays with the bird from a broad perspective, and a couple of specific suggestions. 

Pinot Noir-The fruit driven, bright fruit of a Pinot marries beautifully with roast, smoked, or fried bird.  There are plenty of choices from both California and Oregon, a number of them at greatly reduced prices courtesy of the panademic.   Most current vintage have an elegant, tender edge that makes them pretty serviceable.  Oregon has plenty of good stuff, too.  Burgundy?  Of course, if the budget allows, though there are a few things like Bourgogne that will play beautifully and not break the bank.  As a general rule, we see younger Pinots playing best.   Again given the widely varied menus of the holiday, some of the delicate nuance that is the bonus of older bottlings might get lost in the shuffle with strong flavors.

Beaujolais-This is also the ‘near perfect’ choice always and one we have been recommending for ages.  Noveau Beaujolais is not the play anymore, if it ever really was.  Tariffs still bump them into a little different price category, but they don’t start all that expensive and there has been a string of attractive vintages.  A little chill doesn’t hurt the presentation either.  As always we have a broad stock of Fleurie, Moulin-A-Vent, Brouilly, etc.

Rioja-Somehow you knew we’d get to Rioja, but the elegance, versatility, and the bottle age of reservas and gran reservas make them crowd-pleasing choices, plus they have a little more verve to stand up to dishes than, say, older Burgundy.  Spanish wine for an American holiday?  Claro que si.

Chianti- Sangiovese works nicely particularly on tables where the food choices have a more savory bent.  The selection isn’t as broad as in years past, and most of the 2016s are gone.  But are happy with the ones we have.   The classic cherry fruit, crisp acidity, and most tannin match well with roast bird, particularly with savory sides.

If Thanksgiving is a ‘white night’ for you, there are lots of options, though we don’t necessarily see that ‘usual suspects’ (Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc) as the best choices.  The keys we look for are fresh, bright flavors, lifted acidity, and little or no oak.  Again the choice has a lot to do with the sides because turkey itself is pretty versatile.   Spanish Albarinos or Godellos offer a delightful but distinct departure for the occasion as do a host of things from northeastern Italy (Kerner, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Bianco, Friulano, etc.).  Loire Chenin Blancs and  German Rieslings are particular favorites at our table. 

Riesling- Crowd pleasers and the kind of wines that far too many people deny even liking (until they taste it).  We are not fans of the new ‘trocken’ movement in Germany and find the majority of the examples either undernourished or over priced.  That being said, classic German Riesling at the kabinett (fruity) and halb-trocken or fienherb (medium dry) level are always lovely choices. If you want dry Riesling, the three A’s (Australia, Alsace, and Austria) do better work in the dry genre. 

Pinot Blanc- We are referring to the examples from Alsace rather than the bigger, often oaky California versions, though there are some Oregon efforts that will work also.  Pinot Blanc definitely plays well in a ‘supporting role’ and rarely calls attention to itself…until the bottle is empty. 

White Bordeaux-People are surely waiting for us to say Sauvignon Blanc or Sancerre.  Hey Sancerres are quite different than years ago thanks to global warming, and more expensive because of demand.  Also the sometimes pungent edge, while gorgeous with a plate full of oysters or mussels, can run afoul of some of the varied things on a lot of Thanksgiving tables.  The Bordeaux versions, tempered with Semillon and Muscadelle, play more to the melons and minerals profile with less of the lime/grapefruit edge.

We could go on, and certainly haven’t covered all the possibilities.  But this is where our heads will be spinning as we are out looking at the shelves for our own holiday plans.  It is a particularly bountiful year in some of our favorite categories for Thanksgiving service.  Of course, if you can’t decide, there is always Champagne, and Roses offer the perfect middle ground!  Happy holidays.

As we enter the new decade, we see a lot of nuanced changes that will have a big impact on the wine world and how people make buying decisions over the long haul.  There is a waning of the power of the wine media which, while it isn’t as much of a factor for us as some merchants, will definitely auger for adjustments in how wines are presented to the public.  If you go onto the internet, most merchants say nothing about the wine other than pasting up some third party media review. 

But the media itself has changed and expanded, and there are a lot more ‘wannabees’ crowding the field. Producers and purveyors are quoting an ever metastasizing group, always searching to find someone that will give them reviews that will help them sell wine. Also a lot of the ‘old guard’ review sources, seem much more interested in selling advertisements or events than truly being reliable consumer advocates.  What is a aficionado to do?

Accountability is one issue.  As an example, let’s take one of the publications largely responsible for the wine sales becoming so media-driven in the first place, The Wine Advocate.  In the beginning, there was just one guy, Robert Parker.  Whether you agreed with his assessment or not, you knew where he was coming from, that it was ‘from the heart’ and there was a consistency to the perspective.  For that reason, there was a certain trust that created loyal followers and, by association, empowered what the critic said about individual wines.  As the publication grew, there was still the feeling that the expanded group of reviewers reflected, in their own way, the general direction and intent of the publication as an unbiased source of wine information.

The Wine Advocate was later purchased by a group in Singapore and, just recently, by Guide Michelin.  Nothing personal, but is the consumer ‘trust factor’ that accompanied those passionate individual(s) in the beginning going to be the same for a rating service owned by a highly visible multinational corporation?  Will the individual collector feel a connection to reviews from such a source?  Sure it has the same name. But, in truth, it isn’t quite the same thing.  Will the response to big scores be the same?  It has been steadily changing already.  As we have said elsewhere, 10-15 years ago we knew when one of the big reviewers came out, the phones would start ringing and ‘touted’ products that were on the website would vaporize.  It doesn’t happen that way anymore. 

Are we saying that’s a bad thing?  Not necessarily, but it is definitely a ‘thing’ and there will be a growing vacuum as to where consumers will get their wine information and guidance.  Some, perhaps many new options will evolve to fill the need for those folks that want more out of wine than what they see at the grocery store.

As to the grocery stores, the buying program is in part dictated by something called the ‘Nielson 300’, a service that publishes a list of the best selling ‘brands’).  That publication may be useful in making recommendations as to what sells in the marketplace to grocers seeking to minimize their inventory risks. It does not, however, make any qualitative assessments that we are aware of but has a great impact on what consumers get to see on the shelves.  Also, to be on a list that chronicles sales, there has to be a lot of wine produced by those wineries. That typically runs counter to the nuanced, place-driven kinds of bottlings that we think make wine truly interesting.

The corporate ‘big-brand’ approach plays right into that arena.  We have seen cellar manipulation and winemaking ‘tricks’ becoming more obvious and prevalent in a broader swath of wines as we move forward.  A decade or more ago, ‘blandness’ was the enemy. A lot of wineries expanded production to appeal to broader audiences at the expense of style.   Wines were overly filtered, acidified to within an inch of their lives, with the goal being not to ‘offend’. By depriving wines of any overt character, there was nothing to object to. Safety first. 

That protocol has changed to a more aggressive one.  These days, in the name of ‘brand-building’, wines are pumped up with concentrates, wood staves are floated in the tank to give an oak character, and residual sugar is left in the wine to give it more body. There are a host of other techniques we don’t even know about.  The object is to make the wine fit a broad audience by working as formulaic as possible, like a soft drink. That way it tastes similar every year, negating the effect of vintage and grape sourcing. 

From a marketing perspective, we get it, and a few early successes with such winemaking regimens at certain wineries inspired copycats. The practice has expanded not only to more wineries here but overseas as well.  To try and be objective, if that is what the people want, give it to them.  But we have a problem thinking of that stuff as wine, even if, chemically speaking, it is.  What’s more, we wonder where most people will have the opportunity to experience ‘real’ wine.  If all they have had is are these ‘doctored’ versions, will they even like the honest stuff?

So what’s the big deal? In a word, ‘homogenization’. If ‘control group’ wine production creates a world where everything starts to taste the same, and controlled marketing makes it difficult for anything that might not be mainstream to find an avenue to reach the market, diversity is stifled. What’s the fun in that?

As has been our tradition over the years, we like to kick off January by telling our loyal customers exactly how we see things moving forward.  As we have consistently said, we work for you.  But we consider that job being to find the best wines and the best deals out there.  The point of this piece is to let you know what to expect over the coming months which, in theory, might help you planning purchases over that time by going over important categories both here and upcoming.  As you all know, wine is like few other things in that, for the most part (with the few exceptions of things like solera sherries and ports and non-vintage Champagne) when something is gone, you just can’t make more. 

In the long view, for some categories your best choices aren’t necessarily ‘yet to come’.  They are already here and are beginning to disappear.  Take advantage of the 2016 Southern Rhones, 2016 Tuscans, 2015 and 2016 Bordeaux, and whatever scraps of 2015 red Burgundies and 2015 red Northern Rhones are still around.  They represent not only the best available player for the here and now, but for at least the next twelve months.   Those vintages all represent exceptionally successful harvests from a more historical perspective as well.

Things coming along that are of sweeping categorical importance are the 2015 Brunellos and 2016 Barolos.  These, again, represent distinctive harvests from a broader perspective, as in being among the best of their genre over the last decade or two.  There will be several exciting things coming out of both Argentina and Chile thanks to particularly successful vintages there in 2018 and 2019.  We also look forward to the continued arrival of more Rioja Gran Reservas from the great 2010 vintage plus early releases (Crianza and Reserva level stuff) from 2015 and 2016, excellent harvests in much of Spain. 

California has had a string of good vintages and there promises to be a number of noteworthy wines. For the most part, the only issue will be paying for them as vintners here still do not seem to believe their current price levels are unsustainable.  On the bright side, we expect to find a few more instances of surprising ‘domestic’ value bottlings as lots of higher quality juice will quietly ‘leak’ out the back door because fewer consumers are enamored with paying $50-60 and up for median quality bottlings.

It is going to be a year of exceptional individual efforts.   What we mean by that is that the coming year doesn’t boast the same number of compelling categories.  As an example, the 2017 southern Rhones are very good, and they would have been much more heralded in many other decades.  But the vintage ranks third behind 2010 and 2016 in recent times, and we would (and still will if given the opportunity) buy 2016s first.  In 2017, however, some regions enjoyed very successful harvests and the best examples will provide some ‘must have’ individual efforts that could hold their own in any company, even if the year itself couldn’t legitimately be called a ‘vintage of the century’.  The potential to excel is there but only for those who put forth an exceptional effort.

Also, as internet marketing changes the way wines are sold, selection will be one of the things that will suffer over the long run.  Buying has become much more targeted and the dynamic doesn’t encourage a lot of browsing.  Internet buyers, by and large, are much more specific in their searches, typically looking for an item of specific interest or responding to an item-targeted email.  People wander ‘off course’ considerably less.

It changes the game completely from the early days of the internet (the 90s) when most sales were still face-to-face.  It has swung greatly in the other direction.  The Orange store ran roughly 50-50 online versus in-store, the Santa Ana location is closer to 80% ‘etail’, though that may change as the new tasting program gets into full swing.  The bottom line, there are more great wines available than ever, and this year will be no different in that regard.  But, for the most part, they won’t come in ‘waves’ but rather one at a time. As always, we will be on top of it. More next time. Happy New Year.

We just republished a piece we did more than a year ago that we called ‘score wars’ that spoke of our concerns as merchants about how more reviewers were tossing more and bigger scores into the collective well and how that might adversely affect the public psyche moving forward. In other pieces we have tried to present balanced views of what a ‘score’ actually meant and how the process of evaluating wines en mass, as most of the writers do, can yield much different results than someone evaluating them one or two at a time.

We realize there is no perfect system. But the massive amounts of information that most of scribes have generated over the years is of definite benefit to the consumer in terms of education and guidance. We can still remember the days when most wine reviews came out in the local newspaper on a Thursday (usually as a part of a high-end lunch paid for by the purveyor) or as some adjunct list in a monthly non-wine publication (which were usually way too late for any real market relevance as many of the selections were long gone or blatantly commercial).

The current review environment that has served the industry and consumers reasonably well over the last couple of decades is however at something of a crossroads. Previously consumers had a narrower but more predictable group of reviewers to rely upon. There weren’t that many publications that had significant impact, and you knew the ‘players’.
Whether or not you agreed with, say, Robert Parker, you knew where he was coming from and could calibrate the information within your own tastes.

Nowadays there are many more voices hurling a wide and sometimes disparate range of scores. Also there are significantly greater numbers of wines coming to market, so the amount of information the consumer has to digest to be really informed is daunting. We can tell you this. A few years ago, we didn’t have to know when a publication was due to release a new report (though we usually did). The phones would tells us. Nowadays a publication coming out and causing the switchboard to light up are extremely rare. Why is that?

Granted a lot of publications have changed the personnel doing the reviews and there are more reviewers out there being quoted. That can certainly be numbing to the consumer, especially those that are just getting into it. We like to think we do a lot to parse that sea of info and present it in digestible nuggets. But there is so much. Also, thirty years ago a great friend and mentor told me that ‘great wine is like a bus…if you miss one another will be along.’ That has never been truer than right now. There is an astonishing amount of great wine out there now, and maybe the sense of urgency in light of that is ebbing a little.

We are still believers in the reviewer-based info simply because, for better or worse, you have a body of knowledge and a track record that provides a consistency. We are very specific when purveyors present us score that they show us in print. Far too many times the truth gets ‘lost in transmission’. In the end though, you find out who said it and can calibrate accordingly.

While we are still on board with reviews, however, there are some disturbing trends that could derail a publication’s relevance, particularly with new consumers. Elitism seems to be growing among the ranks of reviewers, particularly if you believe as we do that they are beholden to their subscribers. It is bad enough that the same few labels always seem to come out on top, and they are usually the rarest and most expensive. But lately the ‘historic tasting’ is on the rise. Just who exactly is an article like “Drink Your Idols: Roumier’s Musigny 1976-2008” supposed to appeal to? It’s a small group to be sure.

Another review site has been a little slow on posting their reviews because they are spending a great amount of energy hawking their ‘glamorous’, globetrotting wine shows. No offense but we subscribed to get wine reviews, not to get sold on some other agenda. As Bill Belichick might say, “Do your job.”

In the ‘old days’ competitions and fairs were more relevant. But you don’t know who the people judging the competition are so the ‘findings’ are somehow less significant. However if the reviewer ‘system’ continues to degrade or collapses altogether, what will people do? As we look at the world around us, and the current proliferation of the ‘public forum’ for everything from doctors to mechanics to restaurants, the prospects are a little chilling.

Things like ‘Yelp’, while we have some personal misgivings about the system overall, can be useful in finding certain things. Auto mechanics, for one. Someone can tell if their car runs correctly or not. It’s something everybody has some experience with. Allowing for the fact that the ‘naysayer’ types will respond disproportionately, the public forum may provide useful information in making a decision.

But when the subject is less black and white, and more subjective, the public opinions provided must be taken with a few grains of salt. Like those judges at the country fair wine competition, you have no idea who the people posting on a restaurant on Yelp-like sites are or what their experience/expertise is. A guy could bag on a place just because he didn’t get a free dessert, or say it is ‘hideously expensive’ because he usually eats at Olive Garden.

For all of the reasons we named, and many more we didn’t get into, it is quite possible that the world of ‘wine reviewers’ might not resonate with the next generation. It may well cease to be highly relevant with the current one if things continue as is. Then what? Wine reviews in the public forum where anyone with a keyboard can anonymously pass judgement whether they are knowledgeable or not? Vinous Yelp? Oy!

In January of last year we put out this piece, but we think the message is still relevant as well as a background for a couple of things we will be generating as the next chapter of this ‘story’.

It wasn’t that long ago, in a place not so far away, that we expressed concern about what would happen to the wine world as the media continued to expand.  This was pretty much back when James Suckling left the Wine Spectator to set up his own shop, and our fear at the time was that there might be a certain rise in overall scoring as this new entity tried to garner a readership.  After all, it is axiomatic that consumers do not concern themselves with wines that get a B+ (89 point scores), so one of the ways to get your name in front of a new audience was to become more ‘quotable’.  How does one achieve that?  One way is to issue ‘enthusiastic’ scores on certain wines that would surely be quoted by those of us trying to sell said wine, which in turn would give a certain credibility to the reviewer.

Selling by third party endorsement became a growing industry tool back in the late 1980s as certain wine media sources, mainly the Wine Advocate and Wine Spectator, made inroads into consumer wine awareness by virtue of their easy to digest 100 point scales.  Yes there were words, too.  But the familiarity of the general populace with number grading because most experienced it in school, and the quick evaluation a consumer could make just by quickly looking up a number, embedded the system in the collective wine psyche.

It didn’t help that most merchants were lazy and quick to adapt to someone else providing sales avenues via published reviews.  Using third-party press relieved them of the responsibility of actually doing their own work and removed their liability in actually giving their customers their own opinions.  This indemnification made the retail trade the writers’ biggest fans and the constant attention that the majority of retailers gave to third party reviews gave the media tremendous power.

Remembering back however, what was different back then was that the scores themselves seemed to have honest intention on the part of the media to give the consumer the appropriate perspective.  Back in the day, a 93 point score was a pretty enthusiastic endorsement, a 95 was a must have, and ‘88’ and ‘89’ were still viewed as positive prose for wines that were value priced.  There were shockwaves in the industry when Robert Parker issues his first ‘100-point’ score for a domestic wine, the 1985 Groth Cabernet Reserve.  Such scores were quite rare then.

Fast forward a couple of decades, and the value of individual scores gradually depreciated.  Sadly after the turn of the century, no matter how glowing the prose, a 90 point score barely elicited a response from buyers and ‘92’ became the new ‘90’ for value wines.   Giving a wine ‘89’ these days is like a witness protection program…no one will find the wine because they won’t look that for down the list.  All kidding aside, this is what we have observed behaviorally for a while now.  But the worst it seems is not over. 

Part of it has been predictable given the way the James Suckling site established itself.  Suddenly however there are a lot more ‘players’ competing for consumer attention.  Antonio Galloni worked for Wine Advocate, then left to set up shop on his own, subsequently purchasing Stephan Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar and incorporating that writing team into the fold.  Most recently he hired away the Advocate Bordeaux specialist Neal Martin.

Jeb Dunnuck was brought on to Wine Advocate to focus on Rhones and then got other responsibilities on the domestic front.  Jeb left to set up his own service (or more correctly re-setup as he had his own service prior to his engagement with Wine Advocate), knowing full well that his own service would benefit from his exposure with wine’s most influential review source.  He just recently kicked off his own program.  Given the ‘defections’ and the fact that Robert Parker himself has greatly scaled back his post-sale involvement, editor Lisa Perotti-Brown, MW expanded her role in the Wine Advocate review writing.

So where are we now?  Well it is fair to say that previously there were two main review services being followed, 2.5 if you count the respected but not always ‘quotable’ Tanzer publication.  Now there are five that directly resulted from the initial two and a number of others that are at varied stages ‘market penetration’, but arguably have much less clout.  There are likely some ‘startups’ we haven’t even run across yet that are U.S. based.   All of them have plans to become, or in some cases retain a powerful voice among wine consumers.  Sadly, it appears that another dangerous score escalation may be in the offing.  It has been coming for a while.

A few years back, after the sale of the Advocate, Robert Parker did a ‘second look piece’ on 2002s from Napa Valley.  Now here was one of the most powerful critics of any kind, someone who had been generally judicious in handing out triple digit reviews (with the possible exception of elite Bordeaux and Guigal and Chapoutier  speicalty bottlings).  But in this particular issue in June, 2012, in one section, ‘The Bob’ handed out nineteen 100 point scores!  Now granted, one could argue that this was the beginning of Parker’s ‘farewell tour’ after a storied career and he was making friends.  One could also point to the lineup (Abreu, Harlan, Sloan, Schrader) as the Napa Cabernet version of the ’27 Yankees. So what’s a few 100s among friends.  That was unprecedented at the time and we saw it as a departure from the conscientiousness of Advocate’s prior history.

But it is what has been happening recently, with reviewers operating in new positions or trying to establish new services, really has us concerned.  Lisa Perotti-Brown’s first significant foray into the Napa Valley generated fifteen 100-point final scores and 32 that were either 99 or had a range score that touched perfection (98-100).  Perhaps a little surprising to some is that three Chardonnays were awarded triple digits.  Pretty rarified stuff.

Not to be outdone, there was plenty of firepower to Jeb Dunnuck’s opening report of the Napa Valley.  Now one of Robert Parker’s strengths was his enthusiasm which he could convey through the written word.  Jeb showed plenty of numerical excitement in his inaugural work, handing out no less than 31 ‘100s’ and a good slug of ‘99s’ (21 actually).   Thirty one ‘perfect’ wines?  In a single category? Really? Someone used the term ‘jumping the shark’ for this opening salvo/love fest.  More important, if the perfect score becomes commonplace, it also will seem less special and have less impact, not to mention how it undermines all of those poor souls that only got ‘96’ which, ‘back in the day’, was a very good review. 

We could make a few, albeit less sensational examples to illustrate what we are talking about with respect to the current round of ‘score wars’, but it’s the overall impact that is the problem.  With more publications slinging around more 100s and other lofty marks, perspective goes out the window.  The consumer will start getting confused, even numbed (a number of the trade already have), and sensationalism will rule the day.  With so many more items pushed up against that finite ceiling (since you can’t have more than 100 points) separation becomes much less clear and it all starts to lose meaning. 

In the end, if this proliferation of over the moon scoring continues, where does it end?  People thinking the only way to get a decent bottle of wine is to pay $300-500 on somebody’s mailing list? Does ‘95’ become the new ‘89’?

Is there really that much perfection in the world or are all these writers trying to win friends and influence the marketplace for their own agenda?  It’s hard to say but it is clear we are entering dangerous territory. 

These publications are supposedly designed to help consumers sort through the myriad of wine choices out there.  Passing out big scores like Halloween candy might get the writer ‘in big’ with the wine elite.  It might help Andy Beckstoffer charge even more for his grapes. But we fail to see how it helps the consumer very much, and they, my dear reviewers, are the ones that pay your bills.  If, for whatever reason, your audience stops listening, it’s nearly impossible to get them back.

This tale is being told to demonstrate a point.  As it is an ongoing saga to this day, there may well be additional chapters moving forward.  It isn’t exactly like Game of Thrones, though the recurring theme of the ‘Big Box Bullies’ could be likened to dragons in that they have changed the landscape in the wine industry forever.

The story of Eli Callaway is an intriguing one.  Before he created the golf business that still bears his name, he pioneered the Temecula area, for better or worse, as a wine designation.  Eli was a great promoter who knew how to use the media opportunities.  Somehow, he got the wines from his maverick north winery into a situation where one was served at an east coast function involving the English Royals.

From Callaway winery’s own website,”On July 9, 1976, Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, and his Royal Highness, The Prince Duke of Edinburgh,   toasted the President of the United States at a luncheon at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City.  The   only wine served at this bicentennial event honoring the Royal couple’s visit to this country, was Callaway’s  estate bottled 1974 White Riesling. Her Majesty, not known to be a wine drinker, requested a second glass!   This was the first time in U.S. viticultural history that a dry table wine from Southern California was chosen to   be served on the east coast at an international diplomatic event.”

You can bet Eli made sure the word got out and, given the slower, perhaps ‘longer shelf life’ way that news worked back then, it turned out to be kind of a big deal for Callaway from a market awareness perspective.  Eli also had his own team of sales people, most of whom, probably ‘coincidentally’, were attractive younger woman.  While that is not something one can point at today (or even mention), at the time it was a pretty clear marketing tool.  From our small store in Glendale back around 1980, Callaway was a very successful brand.  Then something else happened that we think changed Callaway’s (the winery) fortunes forever.

A ‘big box bully’, noting the success of that particular brand, came calling.  If memory serves the company was called ‘Price Club’ at the time (they merged with Costco in 1993).  Suddenly we began hearing from customers that they were seeing the wine at substantially lower prices at these outlets, and our sales (and we are sure the sales of a number of other stores and restaurants as well) pretty much dried up.  Eli got paid (this is Amercia, by gum) by selling the now higher volume Callaway winery to a liquor company.   But the brand, nor the wine itself, was never quite the same.

From there Eli moved off to golf club world dominance (it should be mentioned that famous golfer Bobby Jones was Eli’s mother’s cousin).  As to the Callaway wines, they went from a hot commodity to little more than a footnote, we believe as a consequence of selling big drops to big box stores at super low prices.  While the term ‘brand destroying’ was not used until later (and occasionally hurled at us), that is precisely what happened.   Sure the immediate sales were great.  But the groundwork and enthusiasm that built the brand in the first place went by the wayside.

Our message is “How much do you hear about Callaway any more?”  Their wines are virtually unseen out in the marketplace.  Why?  Because the small retailers and restaurants that helped build the brand felt betrayed when they were undercut and blindsided.  The die was cast and the same thing has been happening repeatedly ever since.   Wineries/wholesalers sell their souls for that big volume moment, but can suffer in the long run because they upset their market ecosystem making concessions to get that ‘big deal’.

Who cares?  It’s always about getting the lowest price, right?  Well yes and no.  It’s hard to explain.  We know a number of consumers aren’t going to get past that ‘always the lowest price’ thing. That’s fine. It has worked prety well for us over the years as well.  But we’re going to try to explain the sometimes delicate balance that is the wine business and how there can be long term, negative effects from that one-time blowout scenario because of the high and continued visibility at such venues.

First we’ll start with the fact that big box and chain operations do virtually no brand building.  They come along well after all of the hard work has been done and a brand is established and entice purveyors or wineries with eye popping volume in exchange for substantial price concessions.  The ‘BBBs’, as we will call them, then turn around offer the now popular brands at substantial discounts, enhancing their image but possibly doing harm to the wine’s perception in the marketplace.  It can be a big sale, but at what cost.

Because the suppliers are willing to exchange heavy price incentives for essentially unheard of volume from the ‘BBBs’, it becomes an untenable competitive situation for virtually everyone else. The ‘BBBS’ will then ride the brand for as long as it suits them and then say ‘see ya later’ when it doesn’t.  At that point the high volume goes away for the purveyors, and the brand itself will have a hard time finding any new, or old friends to ‘play with’ moving forward.   As with our dragons, it often becomes a ‘scorched earth’ situation

We could generate pages of specific examples of these things happening to a variety of brands through the years, but suffice it to say that it is a very regular occurrence these days.  What is more important is the typical aftermath.  The ‘BBBs’ make the deal, and run off all of the competition because they got such a significant price reduction from the supplier.  This usually happens at the height of the brands popularity, which is why the ‘BBBs’ came around in the first place.  Lots of boxes get sold and someone on the supplier’s team probably gets a big volume ‘bonus’. But the company made a substantially lower profit by offering the massive discount on the volume, and were faced with the aftermath of that decision of dealing with an ‘injured’ or possibly  ‘dead’ brand.

When the next vintage vintage comes along, there are far fewer places willing to carry whatever the affected brand was.  So the supplier may have had to  go back, hat in hand, to the ‘BBBs’ and have to be in a position to offer them an even better deal so they could maintain some semblance of volume.  Otherwise ‘numbers’ will go down, nobody gets a bonus, and the talking heads from the upper hierarchy at the supplier’s place will start to squawk.  It is as predictable as sunrise in a majority of cases.

The ‘bullies’ aren’t going to do anything to promote the brand.  That’s not what they do.  So the supplier must sell and pray that the brand enjoys similar success with them in ‘year 2’, if indeed they get a shot at ‘year 2’ at all.  If the ‘tarnished’ brand is not as successful, the ‘bullies’ will often cancel the orders they committed to with no fear of reprisal, leaving the supplier with pallets of specially cut ‘warehouse display’ cases and not a lot of options as to what to do with them except heavily discounting to others which piles on the destructive process even more.

Ultimately the brand will cease to be exciting to many of the same consumers who relished the original price markdown.  The brand will be considerably less viable in the marketplace after burning so many bridges among those who were supporters before.  The ‘BBBs’ will move on to another item from the ‘next victim’.  The faces change, but the cycle does not.  We’ll come back to this later on.

 

From time to time we may republish some of our op-ed work because it is a window into how we see wine and, with readerships constantly in flux, it’s hard to know who has seen what.

“Einstein coined the phrase, and gave a very complex explanation for the ‘theory of relatively’ and how that space and time are relative, rather than absolute concepts.  If a bit of an arcane tangent, we have observed a similar relativity with wine.  It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the time/ space continuum, though the end results can depend on the bio-dynamic calendar and the barometric pressure on any given day.  What we are getting at is that we have observed a certain theory of relativity with respect to wines.

As we briefly mentioned earlier and in other pieces, how wines taste to you can be a varying experience based on a number of factors.  We are convinced that bio-dynamics can play a big part in the wine experience, an observation that has been confirmed on countless occasions.  For those not familiar with the bio-dynamic calendar, the basics are that there are four major aspects that are charted.  A day can be a ‘fruit’ day, ‘flower’ day, ‘leaf’ day, and ‘root’ day, with ‘fruit’ being the most conducive to tasting wine and each successive being a little less advantageous.

If it sounds like voodoo, that’s what we thought, too.  But time has taught us not to argue with Mother Nature.  Among those we know familiar with the concept of the biodynamic calendar, there are few that would dispute the validity. While we can’t explain the ‘vibes’, they are real.  There is also a pretty significant pattern with respect to barometric pressure, though because it is less ‘documented’ it is perhaps not as widely discussed.  In simple terms, wines can taste dramatically different when it’s bright, sunny, and clear outside and when it’s cloudy or even foggy.  Altitude?  Don’t even get us started.

All of these things add to the relativity of any tasting/drinking any wine at a given time, and can vary the experience of tasting same wine under different auspices.  Coupled with the fact that each bottle of the same wine might be slightly different anyway based on a host of factors (cork, age, storage, to name a few), the variation in experience can be rather extreme.  Yeah, we’re wine geeks and think about this kind of thing all the time.

Whacky as this may sound, our experience has taught us that this isn’t nonsense.  Variations in experience occur in relatively predictable patterns based on the phenomenon we have described. The same wine can taste vastly different on a ‘fruit day’ than on a ‘leaf day’, even within a relatively short time and for no other fathomable reason.  Also, we note that wines tend to under-perform when the air is heavier, as if they are affected by the barometric pressure.  Maybe it’s the wine, and maybe it’s the human.  Or a bit of both.  Or maybe we should just get out into the real world more often?

So every experience is to some extent affected by the individual bottle, the biodynamic aura, and the weather, not to mention your own frame of mind, palate experience within a given time frame, and perhaps even the amount of sleep you got the night before?  Yep.  But that’s not the end of it.  Now think about comparing notes with a friend, colleague, or that snotty sommelier at the wine bar.

There are different experiences based on a lot of things that you have no control over, both personally and in the big world around you.  You can have an entirely different opinion from someone else based on differences in palate experience and preference.  But also your ‘standard deviation’ is further increased/skewed by all those other factors we mentioned.  Person ‘A’ having ‘Wine A’ on a sunny, clear ‘fruit’ day can have a vastly different take away than the same person having the same wine on a foggy night that is in biodynamic ‘root’ mode.

Taking that all in, you have even more reason to question the review of a reviewer, particularly reviews on the lower side.  Today’s ‘87’ on a ‘leaf day’ where wines tend to lean a bit more savory in profile could be a 92 on a ‘fruit day’ from the same person because all the ‘good stuff’ is in array.  The ‘day’ doesn’t necessarily change what’s in the wine, only one’s perception of it.  Therein lays the relativity.

Too much to think about?  Yeah, we know.  We aren’t trying to scare anyone.  We’re just pointing out that a lot of factors are always in play that can affect the enjoyment of subjective things.  On a root day or a fruit day, one plus one still equals two.  But with the glass of Cabernet in your hand, it isn’t quite so black and white. “