Tag Archives: Jamie Goode

Winebits 688: The “three more reasons why I worry about the future of the wine business” edition

coravin This week’s wine news: An argument about how to score wines closed with Coravin, plus another intellectual property lawsuit, and the dismal future of restaurant wine

• Dancing on the heal of a pin: Fair warning: British wine critic Jamie Goode considers me one of the people out to ruin the wine business, so some may see this as petty. But his latest complaint strikes me as worth noting, regardless. Should wine critics disclose if they’ve used the ultra-pricey Coravin opener when tasting a wine? The most common Coravin costs $300 – talk about taking wine drinking to a place where only the rich can afford it. Frankly, I’d rather buy 20 bottles of Domaine Tariquet. So no, I never use the Coravin when I taste my $10 wines.

• One more lawsuit: This lawsuit isn’t about wine, but it does involve a wine company. Big Beer’s AB InBev, has sued Constellation Brands because the latter used the Corona brand name for its new line of hard seltzer. This is one of those times when I almost wish I had taken my mother’s advice to go into the law, since the suit is incredibly complicated and I’m sure the billable hours will go on forever. That’s because AB InBev sold the Cornoa brand in the U.S. to Constellation in 2013, but kept the brand in Mexico and elsewhere. So, when Constellation decided to market Corona hard seltzer, one would have thought that this would have been settled beforehand. But apparently not (though, to be honest, the WC does appreciate intellectual property lawsuits where only the attorneys get rich.)

• Not good news: The full-service restaurant business, already devastated by the pandemic, may not be back to normal until 2024. And that, of course, is bad news for restaurant wine and the smaller producers, distributors, and importers that account for some of the most interesting restaurant wine lists. The assessment comes from the Rabobank consultancy, via Wine Industry Insight. Rabobank predicts that chains will reach their pre-pandemic level more quickly than independents, which may still be 10 or 15 percent below that mark in 2024.

Winebits 600: The Wine Curmudgeon has ulterior motives and is trying to destroy the wine business edition

Wine Curmudgeon
“Dude, you’re so not good for the wine business. Why are you trying to destroy it?”

This week’s wine news: The cyber-ether is ablaze in criticism of those of us, including the Wine Curmudgeon, who want people to enjoy drinking wine they can afford to buy. Because, of course, we’re up to no good.

July 3 update: Thank you for the kind words in the comments and your emails. Frankly, I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been. The blog’s readers have always supported what I do and are the reason I keep doing it even when too many in the wine business want me to sign off on selling $12 wine for $25.

• Take that, Curmudgeon: Dwight Furrow, writing on the Food and Wine Aesthetics website, wants to know where people like me get off offering wine advice. After all, all we want to do is destroy wine and make money in the process. He links to the Jamie Goode post I wrote about earlier this year, and agrees with Goode that people like me are part of some vast conspiracy that has it in for “wine experts.” We’ll ignore for a moment that I am incapable of evil mustache twirling and that the only conspiracy I believe in is that Microsoft tried to destroy Linux. What Furrow misses, as Goode did, is that wine criticism is seriously flawed, and that responsible, legitimate critics who aren’t so-called cheap wine slime like me (Eric Asimov, for one) think so. So let’s figure out a way to fix the problem instead of pronouncing judgment on everyone else.

• And this, too: I’ve been writing about wine and the three-tier system for more than 20 years, but I’ve never seen anything like a recent post in something called Alcohol Law Review. Apparently, those of us who oppose the three-tier system are lying scum who want to make money off the deaths of others. As near as I can tell, if we change the three-tier system in any way, we’ll end up with tourists dying after drinking tainted booze, as happened recently in the Dominican Republic. The enemy here is the same one as in Furrow’s post: “Various economic interests” who want to overthrow the system so they can get fat and rich. Who knew? I thought I just wanted to buy cheap wine more easily.

• And don’t forget this one, either: Jamie Goode is back at it, reminding those of us who like cheap wine that we’re not only wrecking the environment, but that our greed ruins the wine business: “The race to the bottom in terms of price points sucks life out of the wine category. It also sucks out all the profit.” I would argue that the £5 wines he’s talking about are Barefoot and their ilk in the U.S., and the last time I checked, Barefoot owner E&J Gallo was one of the richest and most profitable companies in wine. But what do I know? I’m trying to ruin the wine business and feather my already fat and corrupt nest.

Top British wine critic: Don’t trust the Wine Curmudgeon

Wine Curmudgeon
“Hmmm.. what should I write to ruin wine today?”

British wine critic Jamie Goode warns wine drinkers against people like the Wine Curmudgeon

The WC can’t be trusted. Or so says British wine critic Jamie Goode, one of the most respected voices in the wine world. Writes Goode: “Beware the consumer wine champion.” His cry has electroned its way way through the cyber-ether to hurrahs and huzzahs, and one U.S. blogger even called Goode’s stand “courageous.”

Who knew I was the problem bedeviling the wine business? I could have sworn it was overpriced, crappy wine. But no, writes Goode. His argument: That wine critics who do what I do are frauds, and that it’s wrong for us to say that any wine that someone likes is OK to drink. We’re full of “faux outrage” at the wine business and we have an insidious, unspoken goal — to foist simple, sweet wines on the consumer instead instead of interesting, complex ones.

Which I do all the time, of course, evilly twirling my mustache. (And I guess Goode didn’t see this rant.).

Goode doesn’t mention me by name, and I assume he has no idea who I am; we travel in completely different wine worlds. But his description of the threat to the future of wine is spot on with what I have done for 11 years on the blog. Hence this post, since I consider myself part of the solution — the problem is with those who insist that wine should be difficult to understand and require its users to practice medieval alchemy to drink it correctly. Besides, the closest I come to belonging to any international cabal is my enthusiasm for Linux. And we know how much good that has done.

I have no idea why someone as well-spoken and as intelligent as Goode would write this, which is more like the sort of blather that appears every so often in the Wine Spectator. I argue for interesting, complex wines all the time. I just want them to be fairly priced and to come without reams of winespeak. And it would be nice if they were generally available.

Goode even says wine critics shouldn’t review mass-produced wines, since restaurant reviewers don’t write about McDonald’s. Which doesn’t explain why movie critics review poorly-made slasher films and car magazines review pickup trucks.

A friend, who sent me the link to Goode’s post, said it was probably a dog whistle, and likely had more to do with internal British wine politics than anything I’ve written. And he may be right.

Still, it’s worth repeating the philosophy that has helped the blog earn its place in the wine world: First, I love wine and I want to share my passion with everyone who finds it confusing and who is afraid of it. Second, there is only one wine rule: Drink whatever you want — just be willing to try something different.