Winebits 727: The “Winestream Media is starting to sound too much like the WC” edition

This week’s wine news: Three major U.S. wine writers agree with the Wine Curmudgeon about what’s going on in wine – and how surreal is that?

• Bring on the ingredient labels! Writes Mitch Frank – a 17-year-employee of the Wine Spectator: “Frankly, why would younger consumers opt for wine? … If you walk through your favorite wine store, how is most wine marketed? Well, most of it comes in a 750ml bottle that is portioned to be drunk over dinner and requires a special device to open it.” And this: “Meanwhile, grab a can of White Claw and look at the back label, and you’ll find something almost no wine label has—nutritional information.” Stunning, yes? When did my rants become mainstream in the wine business? Which, honestly, is more than a little scary.

• Too many phony wine scores! Paul Gregutt, a former contributing editor to the Wine Enthusiast, is shocked at what’s going on with wine scores: “Even a casual walk through the wine section of your neighborhood Costco or supermarket will find it papered with ads for wines scoring 90 points and higher, including many priced well under $10. 95 point wines, which used to be a rare achievement, are more and more common.” So he is not going to use scores anymore. Which, of course, has long been the policy here, as well as the subject of more rants than most readers care to remember. And let’s not forget this, in which the blog took scores and crammed them into their proper place.

• Bring on the $10 wine! And if all of this isn’t surreal enough, Lettie Teague, writing in the Wall Street Journal (where the typical reader is worth $1.5 million), goes in search of quality $10 wine. She doesn’t have much luck, and doesn’t sound like she expected to, but does find three – all of which have been on the blog at one time or another. I’m particularly fond of the Dibon cava, though I haven’t seen it much in Texas lately. Teague would have done well to check out the blog’s Cheap Wine of the Year in January – she would have enjoyed the Scaia rose, as well as the always well done Scaia white.

Photo: Franz Kafka