Tag Archives: wine rants

Contradictions? We don’t need no stinkin’ contradictions!

1+1=3 on chalkboard
“Oh, yeah. That’s what it is. Synergy.”

Or, one more reason why writing about the wine business is so much fun

Two recent wine business news headlines:

“California wines set for increased global market share”

“Price of imported wine in Japan hits new high due to weak Yen”

Because only in wine do two contradictions equal a trend; call it the wine equivalent of 1+1=3. How are California wine exports going to increase if prices are rising in key markets?

Oh that’s right. Rising prices do not cut sales, the law of supply and demand does not apply to wine, and the road goes on forever and the party never ends.

In this, the wine business is full of contradictions. One of my favorites, as noted recently, is the “horrible harvest/great vintage” paradox. Sometime during the first several months of a new growing season, the Winestream Media will report, in terror-bemoaning terms, that plague, hail, and locusts have destroyed the vines in a specific region. Then, after harvest is done, magically and mysteriously, all is well, and the region has produced another excellent vintage. I kid you not. This happens all the time.

The export stories are almost that much fun. To begin with, it’s not like California exports a lot of wine; one of its biggest customers is Norway, which has fewer people than Los Angeles. So the world is hardly clamoring for California wine, even without higher prices. In addition, the dollar is at or near historical highs against a variety of currencies besides the Yen, which means it’s just not the Japanese who are going to pay more money.

And none of this takes into account any pandemic-related supply chain problems. So even if someone is willing to pay more money for California wine, how is the wine going to get there with a shipping shortage?

But not to worry. Because 1+1=3, and the road goes on forever and the party never ends. (And the WC should mention here that Joe Ely also appreciates Texas wine.)

Premiumization strikes again

woman looking st wine glass
“Bleech. Why didn’t I listen to the WC?!?!”

Two $15 wines that aren’t worth $15 and don’t taste like much of anything, either

The Wine Curmudgeon rants a lot about premiumization and how it’s killing the wine business. Now, I have two more examples, $15 wines that are not worth what they cost, don’t taste like the wines they claim to be, and were apparently conceived for no other reason than to cost $15.

In this, it’s worth noting that these kinds of wines know no geographical boundaries or varietal. They can come from anywhere in the world and be made with any grape. Which, of course, is the point of premiumization – all wine should cost more money and taste the same.

The first: A French picpoul. To quote my tasting notes: “Welcome to the post-modern wine world — too much money for ordinary wine (at best). Thin in the back, with very little picpoul character.” In other words, made with cheaper grapes, missing the classic picpoul tartness, and seems to be made to taste like supermarket pinot grigio.

The second: A French Beaujolais that tastes neither French nor like Beaujolais. Rather (again, from my notes): “Heavy-ish and not especially Beaujolais. Some berry fruit and spice, but mostly just sits in the glass and stares back at you.” This red, with 14.5 percent alcohol, tastes like a California merlot that was made to taste like California cabernet sauvignon.

But WC, some of you may be asking, what difference does this make? Aren’t you here to warn about these wines?

I am. But, sadly, not enough of the wine world has the WC to rely on. (Not that I haven’t tried to make it otherwise.)

Rather, it’s the idea that an unsuspecting wine drinker will walk into a wine shop, think that $15 constitutes quality, and buy this crap. Which I did, and they even fooled me.

Then, when they get it home, they’ll taste it, go, “Bleech (or whatever the generation-equivalent expression is),” and never buy wine again.

And wine, which has enough trouble keeping customers, will have lost another one.

Thanks again, premiumization.

Photo: “Tasting wines.” by adactio is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

 

 

Win the Powerball lottery jackpot — save the wine business

Students looking at computer
“Wow. Give the WC a billion dollars and look what he’ll do.”

The WC’s very modest plan to use $1 billion to fix some of what’s broken in wine

The Wine Curmudgeon does not buy lottery tickets, even when the jackpot is $1 billion. I’d rather take my chance on a $10 bottle of wine; the odds that I will enjoy the wine are much, much better than the odds I’ll win any lottery prize.

Having said that, this week’s Powerball jackpot was in the billions. Which made me wonder: What would I do if I won the lottery and had enough money to force the wine business to change some of the ways it did things? Since, of course, not even a billion dollars can end premimuization or get us ingredient and nutrition labels.

So, perhaps:

• Require all sweet red wines to say sweet red wine on the label, no matter how much they cost.

• Require that every bottle of wine list the wholesaler markup; that is, a price tag with the retail price — $12 – and that it includes $3 for the wholesaler. That will get rid of three-tier, won’t it?

• Require that the Winestream Media take local wine seriously. Or I won’t let them use scores anymore.

• Screwcaps, baby!

• No more castles or chateaux on wine labels. The exception would be wineries that actually are in castles and chateaux. Since hardly any are.

• No more YouTube tasting videos with guys sitting around sniffing and swirling and talking like they came out of the wine movie that is not mentioned on the blog.

• No more high alcohol wines made not because growing conditions require high alcohol, but because the winemaker knows that’s the surest way to get 92 points. I mean it. Or else no more scores.

A hollow leg: How did Winston Churchill drink all that wine?

Winston Churchill statue
No,  I don’t own this. But it is kind of cool.

A look at the myths surrounding Churchill’s drinking

What better time to discuss Winston Churchill, as the British government and its ruling Conservative Party engage in a variety of face slaps, eye gouges and yuk yuks – none of which are even remotely funny,

Churchill, for all of his failings (and he had them, including a blind spot towards giving women the vote), usually realized his mistakes, rarely held a grudge, and rallied the world to stop Adolf Hitler. So yes, much more than a head of lettuce.

And, as we have noted on the blog, Churchill loved wine. This is worth writing about again because a couple of social media types recently tried to recreate a Churchill drinking day and got past sloppy. This was followed up Ayun Halliday on the Open Culture blog, who did a bit more research but came to the same conclusion: How could Churchill stop the Nazis when he was smashed all of the time?

Which, of course, he wasn’t. The point here is not to decide whether Churchill was an alcoholic; Andrew Roberts, a leading biographer, says he probably wasn’t, and medical opinion tends to agree. And this is not about making sport of the myth to get a few giggles.

Rather, it’s to note two things:

First, that we look at Churchill’s drinking through the prism of the last 20 years, when wine with dinner has been turned into binge drinking and when drinking any alcohol, according to the experts, is part of a “Reefer Madness” lifestyle. After all, don’t I suffer from “alcohol use disorder?” So anyone who has a cocktail before dinner, drinks wine with dinner, and then has brandy afterwards – as Churchill did routinely — must attend the nearest Alcoholics Anonymous meeting immediately. Or else.

Second, much of the evidence supporting Churchill’s mythic drinking is hardly convincing. Halliday quotes a prodigious liquor list from one day in March 1937. What she doesn’t seem to understand is that the tally comes from Chartwell, Churchill’s country residence, where he not only entertained but where several members of his family usually stayed with him. So to assume that he drank all of that booze is silly.

In addition, Churchill ate meals – courses and courses of them that took hours and hours. He grew up as an upper class Victorian, and that was what upper class Victorians did. Remember Mrs. Bridges? So drinking wine with dinner over two or three hours is much different than two glasses of 14.5 percent red with a 15-minute takeout sandwich – a popular 21st century American dinner.

So yes, Churchill drank. Who knew, all those years ago, that it would turn into such a big deal today?

Update: Cutting prices boosts sales, profits

Crowd in movie theater
“I never realized how much more I would like this movie when the tickets were half off.”

Movie theaters – hard hit by the pandemic – have discovered that discounts will bring customers back

A business hard-hit by the pandemic, changing demographics, and an indifferent product has discovered that cutting prices will bring customers back.

No, unfortunately, we’re not talking about wine.

The latest industry to recognize its problems is the move theater business, whose financial position is so precarious that one analysis says it has lost 8 percent of its customers forever. Which is even worse than wine’s shrinking market share.

So what did the industry’s trade group do? Cut prices, of course.

Are you listening, wine business?

The results were staggeringly good: A $3 movie ticket promotion in early September attracted 8.1 million customers, a nine percent increase from the previous week. And why did it work so well?

Because the No. 1 reason people are reluctant to return to movie theaters, according to one study, is not the pandemic, but the high cost of tickets – as much as $13 on average in New York City and even $12 in Omaha, Neb. To offer a little perspective, that’s almost twice the cost of a monthly subscription to Hulu and more or less what one month of Netflix costs.

It’s also worth noting that the high prices study found that almost two-thirds of movie-goers don’t go any more because “I’m not interested in films currently in theaters.”

Sound familiar, wine business?

We’ve written a lot on the blog about premiumization’s death grip on wine and how wine’s continuing decline in popularity can be linked to the steady increase of prices since the end of the recession. Which has happened despite the drop in demand and the seeming contradiction of one of the most basic laws of economics.

And, as also noted many times, other industries – faced with the same problem – cut prices to stimulate demand. And it usually works, doesn’t it, Walmart?

But not wine. Which explains why I have to keep writing these reminders and why I’ll keep doing it until it makes a difference. I’m not the Wine Curmudgeon for nothing.

One more reason why wine scores are useless, 2022 explanation

Three reporters at typewriter
“I don’t care if the wine did taste sweet — don’t call it sweet. Or else.”

Sweet cabernet sauvignon? Give it 90 points!

How does this wine sound?

“Moderate tannins and a touch of crisp acidity add to its appeal. … 90 points.”

“Gentle tannins meld with spiced plum and powdery mocha in this easy drinking, uncomplicated red. … 89 points.”

In other words, value and quality – and especially for $15, which we haven’t seen much of in the past couple of years.

I wish.

The only thing those two blurbs shows is that wine scores remain useless — utterly and completely without merit.

This red is a California cabernet sauvignon and it’s sweet. It’s not white Zinfandel sweet, but closer to red blend sweet, so noticeable but not overwhelming. In fact, taste this wine, as I did a couple of weeks ago, and you’ll get that cotton candy feeling in the back of your mouth that shows residual sugar is lurking in the shadows.

So how does the wine get such good scores without anyone noting that it’s sweet and not especially cabernet-like? A wine that gets 90 points is supposed to be “Outstanding: a wine of superior character and style.” This wine? It’s about as ordinary as these things get, regardless of its sweetness and un-cabernet-ness.

Call it the Winestream Media’s wink and a nod that sweet exists and that sweet sells a lot of wine. There are a couple of keys here, though, for those of us who are paying attention. The phrases “adds to its appeal” in the first score and “easy drinking, uncomplicated” in the second. Call each winespeak for sweet when the reviewer doesn’t want to use the word “smooth.” Because this wine goes out of its way to be smooth – front, middle, and back.

Know, too, that this is not a rant against against sweet wines — red, white, pink, or otherwise. Everyone should be able to drink whatever they want, and my job is to point them in various directions so they can find what they like.

But the scores don’t do that. Let’s say I’m looking for a $15 cabernet that tastes like cabernet (which pains me to write, but I do recognize how the wine business works these days). I see 90 points and figure, “Wow, I’ve got a winner here.” So I buy it, get it home, take a sip, maybe wash it around my mouth. “Ooo.. what’s that?” and then I spit it out and get a beer. (Which is more less what happened.)

So wine notes, yes, as long as they contain a bit of directness. But wine scores? Never, and this is just one more reason why.

More about wine scores:
• Wine scores not only refuse to die, but seem to be increasing like the spawn of the devil
• Wine scores rant: Top-notch cava gets 86 points, about the same as a crummy supermarket wine
• Chateau Bonnet Blanc and why scores are useless

 

WC health alert: Beware the Pumpkin Spice Latte

Researcerhs standing at computer screens
“Oh my God, just as we feared — evidence of latte use disorder!”

Don’t the Neo-Prohibitionists know that the coffee drink could be even deadlier than wine with dinner?

Dear Neo-Prohibitionists:

Your argument, in trying to bring back abstinence, is that any amount of alcohol is unhealthy and that we’re addicted to booze as if it was heroin or Oxycontin – Mommy Juice and all of that.

So my question: If you’re so concerned about our health, why aren’t you doing studies and issuing warnings about something that is even deadlier than wine?

The return of the Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Because, frankly, that thing scares me to death:

• One serving contains 390 calories, about three times as much as a glass of wine.

• It also has almost half of the recommended daily allowance of saturated fat, about one-fifth of the cholesterol and carbohydrates, 1/10th of the sodium, and more than a third of a day’s safe intake of caffeine.

• Wine, by comparison, contains no fat, no cholesterol, no caffeine, and almost no carbohydrates.

And, since you are so concerned with health, I am sure you know that fat, cholesterol, sodium, and too much sugar (carbs!) are the quickest way to heart disease. Which, as I am also sure you know, is the leading cause of death in the U.S., some 700,000 people each year.

No doubt this has been an oversight on your part, and that we can soon expect studies that say drinking one Pumpkin Spice Latte is the equivalent of smoking a couple of cigarettes, or that two lattes a day is the equivalent of binge drinking. Perhaps you can even coin a term like latte use disorder, based on the wonderfully terrifying “alcohol use disorder.”

So please ponder this the next time you’re in the Starbucks drive-thru, engine idling (and killing the planet), waiting to order your Pumpkin Spice Latte.

Sincerely,
The Wine Curmudgeon