arête wine project

Baby Tastes Post Script

In my previous post I spoke a bit about the book Wine Trials. I know this is old news but it still gets to me a little. This book brings to light two glaring factors that must change in order for us to begin to move away from the bastardization and homogenization of wine. The first is that we must change the way we as consumers approach wine. Find producers who are picking for balance, striving to let the land speak, and then let the wine choose its own course. Once you have found these wines approach the wine as a student seeking to understand the tastes and flavors, even if they are at first difficult to appreciate and comprehend.The whole point of terrior is that all wines should taste different. This means that there will be wines you like as well as wines you dislike, but that does not mean the wine you like is a good wine and the wine you dislike a bad wine...it is simply a DIFFERENT wine. That was the main point of my last column.

The second point is that there is no longer a correlation between price and quality. There is a symbiotic relationship between the consumer and the winemaker. This relationship over the years has been damaged by greedy men and corporations seeking to produce the next "cult" wine and rape the American wine consumer to fatten their own pocket. If this rift is ever going to be repaired winemakers must start charging reasonable prices for their wines. Below is a great article I discovered that breaks down exactly what it costs to make a $100 bottle of wine. Taken from the website Vine Sugar I would like to thank Brendan for this truth.

Baby Tastes

Over the course of the last year I have read several blogs that have written about a new book that has been published. The name of the book is Wine Trials and the premise involves 100 wines under $15 that when brown bagged and placed in front of normal everyday people they preferred them to $50 and $150 wines. I know that several people have written on this already, but none of them seem to understand why this represents all that is wrong with the majority view of wine in this country, and our approach to understanding. I have to admit that I have not read the book and may be speaking out of my arse, and if that is the case someone please let me know, but I do not really think that I need to read it. I am pretty sure I know what it is going to say, first that normal everyday people prefer cheap wine and second that there is no correlation between price and quality. Shocker...I could have told you that without writing a book. We are all missing the bigger picture.

Momentary Setback

The train has derailed.

 I started this little project because I wanted to write and because I enjoy writing about wine. My intention was never to change the world, or dethrone Parker, or even to make money. I write because I enjoy it. I enjoy learning and I enjoy sharing the knowledge I gain with others. I love wine and what it can and should mean in our lives. It is a work of art not because of anything man does, but what the vine and grape achieve by way of yeasts through the fermentation process. Man gets the privilege of helping, but that work is in the farming. How dare we ever consider it OUR work of art. The vine was there for us, not the other way around. Pruning and nurturing the vine to achieve it fullest potential in a beautiful dance between the farmer, the soil, and mother nature should be our role. We are lucky enough to be entrusted to help along the way, but should be wary of taking credit.

The finished work of art is then presented to us as a gift to enjoy this life. It is not to be enjoyed selfishly or tucked away as some trophy to show off to people you are trying to impress. It is to glorify the vine by being enjoyed with friends as a celebration of life! This is the beauty of wine and this is the Arete of Wine.

I do not matter. My philosophies do not matter. What matters is the vine. The beautiful vine. Without it all of this would simply be an afterthought. I will simply continue to learn and continue to write.

Gary Vaynerchuk and the Bandwagoneers

Sounds like a cool band, but I for one am tired of the same old tune. I do not like the noise they are making and just wonder why people are so attached to points and meaningless descriptors. I was reading Alice Feiring's blog earlier this week and I noticed something that she wrote about the blogger's conference last week. What caught my attention was the fact that Gary Vaynerchuk  stated if a blog was not making 6 figures from its site than it was not successful. I guess its time to wrap this little project up because according to the almighty dollar and master Gary I am a failure. I have to say that over the last 6 months of writing I have felt like a failure at times, but that is because I feel like the only person in this country that cares about the authenticity of wine. By authentic I mean real, and by real I mean balanced, food-friendly, elegant, complex and made with nothing more than grapes, yeast, bacteria, minimal SO2, and a storage vessel.

I DO NOT want to be a wine critic

I have to say that a recent post by Steve Heimoff confirmed my desire to never be called or considered a wine critic. His attitude and the attitude of his fellow "journalists", such as Jancis Robinson  and others are that of spoiled, insecure, arrogant children.  Furthermore anyone who is trying to follow in their footsteps is disillusioned and simply trying to imitate a flawed system whether they know it or not. A point system is a point system is a point system. It matters not whether that point system is made up of 100 points, 89 points, 29 points, or 5 points, it is still useless to properly describe and help people understand wine. There are so many wonderful drinkable wines to be discovered that it seems useless to rank and quibble over scores.

Its not about YOU Jancis

I came across this article the other day and it floored me. Here is a link to SF Gate if you would like to read the full article. This was written by Jancis Robinson who is an English wine critic.

On my last trip to California, I was given a lift by Screaming Eagle's
vivacious vineyard manager Annie Favia. She had already told me with
some pride that she also made her own range of wines, Favia Wines,
presumably advised by her winemaker husband Andy Erickson, who happens
to be the winemaker at Screaming Eagle.

This sounded like a pretty tempting background for a label that was new
to me, so I asked whether there was any chance of tasting them or
reading any reviews of them. Annie looked almost shocked, and explained
that she hadn't sent out samples. "I wouldn't dream of letting someone
taste my wines unless I was there to tell them about them," she
explained, "and anyway we seem to be able to sell everything without
reviews anyway."

I probably looked a bit shocked at that point, too. The idea that I
could taste a wine only with its maker at my elbow fills me with dismay,
not to say incredulity. If I adopted this approach I couldn't possibly
sustain my current tasting average of several hundreds of wines a week.
It would be a physical impossibility to ship myself to the makers or to
invite the makers over my doorstep in London in time for their (five
minute?) rendezvous with me.