The Wine Success Paradox

My wife and I get together with a few other couples once a month to drink wine.  It’s good, clean fun with each of us taking monthly turns hosting and selecting the monthly theme for our “wine club.”  Every month, inevitably, in the midst of our Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot, Riesling, or Cab, we end up talking about sensory evaluation – what the heck are we tasting in the glass? 

On Friday night, there were looks of dumfounded incredulity when I said I thought the Road 31 Pinot Noir we were drinking was showing “mushrooms soaked in cherry coke with some tar on the edges” on the nose.  This observation led to a conversation with one of the members of our club who, again, talked about the difficulty of learning about wine.  He’s a CPA who runs his own business and specializes in tax accounting with a special expertise in parsing the U.S. tax code for small businesses.  I have to note, I find it mighty odd when a guy who intimately understands our tax code has a hard time understanding what he is tasting, and I don’t blame him for this shortcoming.

I’m reminded what the wine world too often forgets about or takes for granted – the number of “wine enthusiasts” pales in comparison to the “wine interested” and it’s the job of everybody who has made their way down the learning curve to ensure that the wine interested stay interested and turn into enthusiasts.

Marketers use the AIDA model – Attention, Interest, Desire, Action – as a means to convey the cycle through which people traverse to consummating action.  To me, at least related to engaging in a new pursuit, it’s an incomplete analogy, because “success” isn’t accounted for.

When I first got into wine, I took up golf at the same time, making a very conscious decision to tease out the truths of both.  Plain and simple, my interest in golf waned and got lost quicker than a 3-pack of balls caused by my physics-defying 7-Iron slice.  I was bad at golf and my ability to get better didn’t look very good, at least relative to wine where I was really enjoying myself and learning, and growing.  I gave up golf, putting my clubs in the corner of the garage.

In wine terms, I’m inclined to revise the AIDA model to be inclusive of the following:

Attention—Interest—Desire—Action—Understanding—Success = Passion

Just like my golf game, I think it’s easy to forget that virtually no one has made their way down the path to wine enthusiasm, beyond wine interest, if they haven’t had a measure of success.  And, you can’t have success without understanding.

To me, the two biggest qualifiers to wine success are seeing the industry beyond the “lifestyle” that is perpetuated as marketing shtick and understanding what you are drinking.  In doing so, consumers get a more holistic view of the wine world and they understand what they are putting in their mouth.  It seems so simple, right?

There are a lot of folks who couldn’t care less about French wine classification, but everybody needs to understand industry environmental factors and what they taste in order to graduate down the path of wine success.  It is core to wine appreciation to have context and to be able to stick your nose in the glass and smell some nuance.

Just a thought, but the unspoken paradox in the world of wine is that knowledge, in and of itself, is important.  To me, all the wine 101 books in the world don’t mean a thing if somebody has an interest in, but cannot identify flavor components in wine and they don’t have the appropriate context to place the wine situationally.

I gave up on golf because it looked too hard to get to a level of competency.  Fixing my slice was too daunting.  How many “wine interested” people have given up on wine because they couldn’t get to a level of competency, sensory or otherwise?

… Speaking of Wine Enthusiasm

Two weeks ago I wrote two posts with suggestions for improvement for Wine Enthusiast magazine.  Amongst many suggestions, I elaborated on what I perceive to be a need to ratchet down the “lifestyle” and provide more context for how the industry operates. 

Over the course of the nearly four years of writing this blog, I’ve taken a fair number of shots at a fair number of targets, liberally sprinkling in constructive criticism. In doing so I’ve received my fair share of return criticism from people who didn’t appreciate or disagreed with what I had to say.

Of the numerous nasty grams I have received, one that I might have expected that never came would be from Adam Strum from Wine Enthusiast.

Instead, Strum, bar none, has been the one person who took the feedback with a spirit of professionalism and open-mindedness.  Having shared several emails privately with Adam in the midst of and after writing the posts, I was dumbfounded that he was not only receptive to my suggestions, but he was going to review them for potential action.

To wit, last week Strum wrote a post at the Wine Enthusiast blog soliciting feedback on the appropriate mix of lifestyle content in Wine Enthusiast magazine, titling his post, “Wine as a Passion/Wine as a Business.”

In brief, I think our wine media fails most wine enthusiasts and I’m not alone.  If you’re interested in adding your opinion to the matter and giving it to somebody who is listening, mosey over to the Wine Enthusiast blog here.

Liquid Memory

Mike Steinberger, the wine columnist for Slate magazine, wrote a book this year called, Au Revoir to All That: Food, Wine, and the End of France.  Despite his book being good, presumably, he knows what it’s like to receive a crushingly bad book review.  Because of this it makes his recent review of Liquid Memory by Jonathan Nossiter all the more credible (and interesting).

I’m an information hound and consume massive amounts of media.  I cannot recall, ever, one author calling another authors work “execrable,” as Steinberger did in his October 30th column.

I’ve only made my way about 20 pages into the stultifyingly boring book, “Liquid Memory,” but you can be sure I’ll read it through just to see if I find it as wretched and “deserving to be execrated,” as Steinberger and Merriam-Webster notes. 

In good form, the comments from that post exceeded the length of the post by a measure of 3:1 with some interesting thoughts about why “Champagne” should only come from the Champagne region of France.

To be honest, it’s not a subject that I’ve spent a lot of time studying.  I don’t drink much Champagne (or sparkling wine for that matter) and I’ve never had a sparkler (Champagne or otherwise) that I’ve found revelatory.  Call me an ambivalent Champagne observer, like most of America, whose interest in the subject was piqued by a press release from The Champagne Bureau.

When I write an op-ed piece I approach it like a journalist would approach any subject – first understand concepts and then understand facts on both sides in order to get to the essential truth.  This post was no different.

The essential truth for me was the fact that the Comite Interprofessionel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) has their head in the sand about contemporary marketing practices and are stubbornly clinging to a sensibility that has them beating consumers over the head with negativity – “Only Champagne comes from Champagne.  Don’t be fooled by marauders” (my words not theirs).  To me, it’s a flawed way of going about communicating value.

So, it was with interest that I received two emails after I published my post – one was from a regular reader asking, with a sigh, why I opened this can of worms – the Champagne folks have protected their name for decades and it has been an issue that has been vetted ad nauseum over the years.  The second email was from a PR representative of The Champagne Bureau who said that I misrepresented the point of the protectionist nature by the CIVC folks and The Champagne Bureau, the US arm. 

In response to the first question, I have to ask rhetorically, have you ever purchased a used car and somebody says, “Hey did you get a new car?”  To this, you reply, “It’s not a new car, but it’s new to me.” Well, this Champagne silliness is new to me after I made my way onto a PR distribution list. In response to the second inquiry, the misrepresentation issue, well, I’m not so dogmatic as to have an opinion and to hold onto that opinion without doing further investigation, especially when pushed to reconsider.

So, I started doing more digging.  In particular, I happened across a fascinating and well-written 25-page paper from 2003 written for a Harvard law class that acts as a survey of the last 100 years of Champagne regulation.

In sum, the paper is about, “(the French are taking) great efforts to capitalize on the Champagne name throughout the world and aims to ensure that the French wine region receives these benefits exclusively.”  It’s a nice piece of work and something I would recommend reading to anybody who wants a breezy overview report on one hundred years of Champagne history.

At the same time, I received another press release that indicated that The Champagne Bureau was awarding Schramsberg and Beringer with the First Annual Truth-in-Labeling Award of Excellence for leadership is accurate wine labeling.

I then followed up with The Champagne Bureau in an effort to have them elaborate on their position, and the suggestion the PR person had made to me privately that said, “The U.S. currently provides (consumers) with virtually no protection when it comes to sourcing the grapes used in the wine and accurately indicating its place of origin … let me know if you have any questions concerning the extent of this problem and its impact on U.S. consumers …”

In response to my inquiry I didn’t receive statistics about the alleged deceit that dupes the U.S. consumers.  Instead, I got marketing one-pagers on protecting wine place names and Champagne as the only “true” Champagne.

Unfortunately, I’m still not getting it.

The crux of my original post was simple – if Champagne is used as the catch-all phrase for sparkling wine, like “Google” is for searching the Internet or “Jell-O” is for gelatin, then why not roll with the punches and tell a back-story about Champagne as a point of differentiation and let consumers divine the truth, while forsaking the “watchdog” aspect of their marketing which is, frankly, a bit of a turn-off.

The unfortunate reality in this examination of Champagne vs. sparkling wine is the fact that the majority (the vast majority) of U.S. consumers call all sparkling wine “Champagne.”  In addition, I would posit, most U.S. consumers don’t give it a second thought because they associate Champagne and sparkling wine with special occasions – weddings, promotions, New Year’s Eve – it’s not a part of the wine stream of consciousness.

If the CIVC and The Champagne Bureau want to truly actuate a greater acceptance of true Champagne in the U.S., protecting their market share and stemming sliding sales, unfortunately, my position remains the same:  spend your time actually marketing in new ways that create interest instead of playing campaign politics by focusing on attacking your opponents. 

Perhaps my greatest takeaway, by analogy, is the fact that if an African-American with a name that harkens to Muslim origins (in the age of global terrorism) can win a presidential election by inspirationally leading with “Hope” and “Change” while not getting dragged down in attack mud-slinging, engendering respect on the world stage leading to a Nobel Peace Prize then that might be a page from the marketing playbook that would work for the Champagne folks.

A high-road approach engenders goodwill.  And, perhaps in doing so, somebody will open a bottle of Champagne to celebrate more frequently instead of grabbing a sparkling wine like the new President enjoyed upon his win.

In fact, the ’06 Rockaway, as beguiling as the ‘05, if not slightly more pensive, is smartly being released to market in February ‘10, allowing for some bottle age and integration.  Upon my opening, it was hot, uncoordinated, and awkward – like a first kiss at a Prom after-party.  After sufficient time in the decanter (forget about an hour – the Rockaway needs at least two hours of vigorous oxygen to start to show), it rounds into form and turns into a delicious, massive wine that belies its 15.4% alcohol.

The Brothers Ridge, for its part, a new release to market with the release of the ‘06 vintage, is also an Alexander Valley Cabernet at the same price point as the Rockaway—$75.  However, the Brothers Ridge comes from vineyards east of Cloverdale, a northerly vineyard to Rockaway and the warmest spot in Sonoma County.  Both wines were provided to me by the winery.

Now, while some will decry the “bigness” of these wines as a source of polarization, I’m not one of them.  The alcohol can partially be explained by a quote attributed to Rodney Strong wine consultant David Ramey in the October 31st issue of Wine Spectator, he notes (not necessarily in regards to Rodney Strong specifically), “This issue of alcohol is overblown.  That’s where our grapes our ripe.  It’s California’s birthright.”

Who am I to disagree especially when the Rockaway, and its little brother, Brothers Ridge, straddle the line so well between ripe and “Californian” without crossing over into “hedonistic” territory, a connotation, to me, that has come to mean, “Australian cough syrup.”

Ironically, the Brothers Ridge, a straight varietal offering in contrast to the splash of Malbec and Petit Verdot (2% and 1% respectively) that made their way into the Rockaway blend, is more classically refined than its big brother.  Both are a part of a triumvirate that will be complete when an offering called “Alexander’s Crown” is released in the future.

It should be noted that 2009 is a big year for Rodney Strong.  Under the stewardship of owner Tom Klein, Rodney Strong continues to act as a pacesetter for the California wine industry, celebrating not just their 50th anniversary in 2009, but also celebrating, notably, the fact that they have become the first winery in Sonoma County to become carbon neutral.

While I vacillate on how I feel about the merits of being carbon neutral when it can be viewed in the same vein as checkbook philanthropy, I have to give credit to people and organizations that take the step forward instead of sitting on their hands.  And, significantly, Rodney Strong has demonstrated a commitment to sustainability over a period of years, dating to 2003 when they first installed solar panels.

Likewise, Rodney Strong the winery earns my admiration when 20 years after the purchase of the winery from Rod Strong the man, they still honor his legacy by making a sizable donation to the Wells Fargo Center in Santa Rosa based on a desire to support the arts and pay homage to the Rod who was a dancer and dance teacher, having danced internationally and on Broadway.

Critics, always ready to take potshots at PR efforts, will dub me a rube for buying into the perception of the largesse, but as a student of marketing, sustainability and good business, I have to note that Rodney Strong, with a multiplicity of efforts at greening, quality AND telling their story are hitting their stride.

2006 Rodney Strong Rockaway Cabernet Sauvignon

Not quite as lip-smackingly good as the ’05, this is still a very good effort that needs time in the bottle.  A nose of dark fruits – blackberry, black cherry, blueberry and cassis with hints of bay leaf, black olive juice and menthol gives way to plenty of stuffing on the palate with more dark fruit, menthol and black tea with a deep core of dark chocolate.  The finish isn’t as impressive as the ’05 and the tannins are a little chewier, but this a very nice wine with pedigree that will round into shape over the years to come.  90 points.

2006 Rodney Strong Brothers Ridge Cabernet Sauvignon

Big, bold black cherry juice with an earthier quality than the Rockaway.  There’s plenty of fruit on the nose with pleasing and complementary floral and earthy aromatics with hints of green bean.  The palate offers velvety blackberry, blueberry, menthol, and beet juice.  More classically refined and less decadent than the Rockaway, the finish lingers with the fruit and leather to go along with fine grained tannins.  91 points.

For two summers in college, circa 1993 and 1994, I moved furniture for a Mayflower affiliate in Mishawaka, IN.  At that time it was a well-paying summer job—$7.00 an hr with the occasional cash job earning $10 an hour when a driver came in from out of town. Those were the salad days.

The college students that worked during the summers were always welcome relief for the full-time guys – both in providing labor during the hottest time of the year and in being unwitting recipients of the old gags that had long lost their originality with the crew of regulars.

In my mind, however fanciful it may be, I imagine my furniture moving days as equivalent to being a part of a crew and working a grape harvest – back-breaking work in the elements, a mix of full-timers and newcomers with a need to be semi-skilled, and an important, time-sensitive job at hand.

I learned a lot those summers, some of which came in the form of sage advice from grizzled vets via 22 oz schooners of Bud Light at the watering hole down the street – ironically called “The Office” lounge. Spending an hour at “The Office” was a small reward after a long, hard day of work – similar to the old axiom, “It takes a lot of good beer to make great wine …”

Some of the advice passed down at “The Office” isn’t repeatable, at least not in polite company.  However, some of it is … thanks to Harry, Doug, Punkin’head (seriously!), Mark, Hob and a bunch of other guys that provided valuable lessons for a young, impressionable kid – on the job and at “The Office.”

Lesson #1: The job is bigger than you      
It’s not about you.  Scraping your arm or dinging an antique dresser going through a door threshold?  Choose wisely what is most important to you relative to what pays your bills … (skin grows back, if you need a hint).

Lesson #2: Show up, shut up and hold your end up
Be on time, don’t complain and carry your weight.

Lesson #3:  Respect those in front of you.
There is a pecking order and you are at the bottom.

Lesson #4:  Your day isn’t done until the job is done
It may be 5 o’clock somewhere but you don’t finish working until the job is done (and there isn’t a dinner break) …

Lesson #5: Leadership is everywhere.      
A good crew leader is essential to productivity. They keep the mood light, show up well to the customer, work you hard when needed, and are the first one to give you an “atta boy” for a job well done.

Lesson #6: Have a strategy before you start
Unless you’ve seen a 7,000 square foot house fit onto a 18-wheeler based on the spatial skills of a maestro, it’s hard to understand the strategic skill that goes into loading a truck.  The crew leader is often the guy that does the least amount of physical labor but he’s the guy that makes sure that everything fits and when and how it fits.  Trust me, there is strategy involved to making sure the project goes smoothly.

Lesson #7: Build a solid foundation
The surest way to ruin a load?  Build it on a bad foundation at the front of the truck.  45 minutes of bad work at the beginning of the day will create problems you will have to work around the rest of the day.  Do it right from the get-go and save yourself problems down the line

Lesson #8: If it doesn’t fit, try it from a different angle.
If something doesn’t seem like a good fit, try looking at it from a new or different perspective and see if that helps clarify the situation.  Changing your point-of-view can create fresh perspective and new solutions

Lesson #9:  Did I mention—always, hold up your end
It was the cardinal sin of sins to drop a piece. Bravado is for fools.  It’s better to beg off something you can’t carry than to not be able to finish a carry (see also Lesson #1)

Lesson #10 It’s easier to push than pull.
Work smarter not harder. Save the heroism for firefighters and Superman.  Work the path of least resistance.

Overall, it was an invaluable experience – some of the most fun I’ve had working.  The job had teamwork, camaraderie, and goal-oriented satisfaction.  And, while I think wine has given me lessons in graciousness and wisdom, these lessons wouldn’t be nearly as valuable without the lessons in hard work that came first. 

* Photo credit for the 1st photo
* This post was adapted from a post that originally ran at my brother’s blog, Jimlefevere.com. As college students, we both learned that “humping” meant working your tail off to move a house full of furniture.

What the heck is a Vook?

I read an article about a hybrid video/book concept called a “Vook.”  One of the first examples of this utilization is “Crush it” by Gary Vaynerchuk, a seemingly natural fit.
This video/text application with non-fiction books is pregnant, and, in my opinion, the combination of bringing alive words with visuals is particularly potent for the world of wine – not just books, or so-called “Vooks,” but general winery storytelling.

While it’s seemingly head-scratching in its no-brainer nature, we forget that text and visual-based storytelling haven’t converged to great effect on the Internet, still staying in their respective corners.  This fact becomes important as you consider the Kindle and other digital reading devices and where content may be heading with the decline of newspaper readership, et al.

This is a rapidly changing area with a lot of innovation.  If you’re interested in gaining more context, check out this article from Fast Company magazine and an op-ed piece from Newsweek on Apple’s forthcoming tablet computing.  Taken together, they provide a lot of insight into what the next couple of years will bring.

What they don’t tell you

Over the course of the last six months, I’ve tried to secure more original quotes for posts, getting them directly from the source as opposed to derivations.  For me, this is a natural evolution—the more people read, the more you owe in raising quality.  While I am a journalist by education, much of my knowledge hasn’t been practiced into wisdom, until now. That said, this has been enjoyable and gives me greater control over the direction of pieces, however what other writers don’t tell you when they excoriate blogs is this is damn hard work fraught with a lot of frustration.

Simply, I’ve run into: 

1) Message control – you can’t get somebody to answer the question, instead they give you a non-answer to a question you didn’t ask

2) Statements – sometimes they don’t even give you a non-answer – they give you a statement that says nothing to nobody

3) Pocket veto – sometimes they don’t answer or they’ll answer five days later with lame faux-politeness, “sorry I missed your timeline, I was really busy ...”

4) Not empowered – many PR people are not empowered to talk substantively on behalf of their clients.  Many clients are hard to track down and don’t respect their PR people

5) Rudeness – I had one winery marketing person respond to me with a dismissive, “what can I do for you” and then she proceeded to do absolutely nothing, including not responding to several follow-ups. 

Remind me – this is wine, right?  Based on some people’s reaction, you might think I was a narc infiltrating the Cosa Nostra.

Just a Thought

I’m nervous that people are going to think that because the recession is “officially” over that this bad dream is going to immediately fade to black.  Just as it will take a couple of years for our 401K’s to recover, so too will it take our economy a period of time to climb out of the hole.  This is a particularly important point for luxury wines.  Just because economic indicators are adjusting out of the abyss doesn’t mean that the hard work is over.

Back roads

Last weekend, as I drove home from a weekend at our family lake house, after having attended my 3rd Notre Dame game this season, I reflected on how blessed I am.  I am frequently guilty of looking at what I don’t have instead of what I do have … it’s a mistake.  Just the same, as I drove down state road 13 in the heart of rural Indiana, passing blurs of towns with names like, “Windfall,” “Leisure” and “Aroma,” I was brought back to the fact that if I had a “windfall,” I would surely seek a life of “leisure” filled with “aroma’s” – wine aroma’s.

Sure, the business of the wine business bleeds into the mainstream wine press occasionally, mostly around wine shipping laws, but consistent inside-out reporting is rarely seen.  Heck, even the wine column in BusinessWeek magazine betrays the inside-out reporting that is their hallmark and presents standard issue wine content.

Snooooooze.

Perhaps it’s this way for a reason – a wide swath of consumers wants the romanticized visage of a wine country lifestyle?  Despite this reality/possibility/eventuality, I maintain that the true democratizing nature of our shifting media habits has more to do with context, transparency and bi-directional communication then it has to do with the actual delivery vehicle.

When you think about it, “Don’t talk AT me, talk TO me” and “Don’t tell me what time it is, tell me about the watch” has always been good policy, yet it’s only now coming around as it relates to the fourth estate, particularly the fourth estate known as the, “wine press.”

It’s for this reason that I’ve been a frequent and vocal critic of how the mainstream wine press (read: wine magazines) covers the industry – we need more wine information from a 360 degree perspective, and not a mouthpiece that maintains the façade of lifestyle artifice.

And while Wine & Spirits magazine, an exemplary example of wine magazine publishing, forsakes most of the “lifestyle” while hewing towards winery stories, there’s room in the market for a wine magazine that is center-trade as a counterbalance to Wine & Spirits center-consumer approach.

Given this, I continue to be impressed with the Sommelier Journal, a newer magazine launched in April 2008.

Straddling the gulf in between trade magazines like Santé, and Restaurant Wine and their consumer counterparts Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, the Sommelier Journal takes a smart, literate approach to wine content that treats their readers as a peer on the wine journey, not a steerage passenger looking forlornly at the revelers on their suite’ veranda.

When I caught up with Sommelier Journal Publisher David Vogels to talk shop, he noted, “When people refer to us as the most “serious” or “geeky” wine magazine out there, I like that because it means we’re getting our message across.”

Duly noted.

Based in Boulder, CO, Vogels started his wine publishing career as an outlet for his wine passions, first initiated in the mid-90s.  After taking the introductory course from the Court of Master Sommeliers and then moving on to the Culinary institute of America and their “wine immersion program,” Vogels realized the extent that education and certification serves as a career advancement tool for wine professionals.  Drawing on his professional experience in trade magazine publishing in another industry, Vogels started doing his due diligence, quickly realized the gap in the market, the delta between the various magazines where education and knowledge advancement is a seldom addressed concern, and launched the Sommelier Journal to fill this niche, noting:

Sommelier Journal is a magazine written by wine professionals for wine professionals. No pretentious ratings, no fluffy travelogues—Sommelier Journal presents the wonderfully complex world of wine in a lively format for both professionals and enophiles to enjoy.

Amen.  And, can I get a Hallelujah?

In response to my query about the presentation of straightforward, smart information with less “lifestyle” Vogels said, “That was part of our objective from the beginning.  We intentionally stay away from travel and lifestyle.  The consumers I’ve talked to who read Sommelier Journal feel that they’re getting an insider’s view of the wine world.”

It’s that insider’s view without the trappings, the real and authentic absent the vineyard dog, which makes for interesting reading with the Sommelier Journal – an emphasis on raising the bar in education without the draftiness of sunshine being pumped up the proverbial skirt.

Several other interesting aspects of how the Sommelier Journal is developing itself include two “in through the out door” differences from other wine media approaches– first, they have an editorial advisory board that provides counsel and direction on content to ensure that the magazine is relevant, an important factor when so many wine enthusiasts feel disenfranchised from the media that serves them.  Secondarily, they have a tasting methodology that doesn’t score wine so much as graph wine, using a 20-point scale on a box plot graph, to represent the disparity in opinion from their Tasting Panel members.  It’s an interesting and insightful approach that does much to act as a counterbalance to the empiricism of one palate.  In total, it makes for a refreshing change of pace for wine professionals and astute enthusiasts.

Vogels categorizes their readership in concentric circles similar to a bullseye—on-premise restaurant professionals (i.e. Sommeliers and Wine Directors) are the core audience with other on-premise staff making up a larger target outside of the core.  Next are trade professionals like importers, distributors, retailers, wineries and educators and, finally, the largest potential audience, making up the last circle, are consumers – enthusiasts, those that are deeply interested in wine.

Will Sommelier Journal ever become a leader in the wine publishing industry?  It’s doubtful, but that’s not a bad thing, all they have to do is become a leader in their carved out niche and continue to grow at a healthy clip. 

Understanding that many people don’t analyze wine, much less the wine information that serves them, there are still a significant number of people that think about the drink and want to know more.  Kudos to the Sommelier Journal for filling this niche because they have my attention and likely many other consumers who are looking for an insider’s view of the wine world heavy on knowledge, light on romance and that’s something we can all raise a glass to ...

The folks from Comite Interprofessional du Vin de Champagne (CIVC), the trade association that groups all the grape growers and houses of the Champagne region in France,  are radically cutting their production this vintage so as to not undercut their existing luxury pricing with too much inventory, they are floundering to figure out marketing and whether Champagne is a wine for celebration or for food (they wish it was considered a food wine, when in fact they should be doubling down on the celebration aspect—small acts of celebration that occur daily and weekly) and they are continuing to reinforce their ridiculous trademark protection.

This all adds up to a continuing bloodbath in Champagne with total volume down 20% (almost 6 million cases) since 2006.  And, winners are coming from, well, just about everywhere else – domestic sparklers, Cava from Spain, various Italian sparklers, Cap Classique from South Africa and even Georgian sparklers from producer Bagrationi, newly imported to the U.S.

I say bring them all on – especially if it’s at a price that is more fitting for “every day celebration” and less “the promotion of my career.”

Most U.S. consumers think about sparkling wine in one of two categories – “it tastes good,” or “it doesn’t taste good,” and this continuing assault on the sanctity of Champagne only coming from the Champagne region of France (at luxury pricing) has reached its weary nadir, at least in my book.

Frankly, I would posit, as a consumer, that precious few wine consumers actually care where their sparkling wine comes from, mostly because nobody studies it as a thinking person’s drink – it’s an aid du jour for celebrations, big and small – not much more and frequently very less than even that. 

Because of this, it makes the vigilant French defense of Champagne as only coming from the Champagne region of France all the more head-scratching, you think they might see the handwriting on the wall, ease up off the dogmatism and focus on Champagne being the best and the original while inserting themselves into the “celebratory” drinking conversation with the rest of their brethren.

Consider this for a moment:  what if Google went after everybody who referenced they were going to “Google” something?  What if they demanded that in order to use the word “Google” it couldn’t be in the form of a “verb” it had to be used as a noun – “I am going to use the Google search engine to search for that bit of information” instead of “Google that.”  And, what if Google’s reason for doing so was they didn’t want their brand to become a generic catch-all for searching the Internet?

It would be mighty curious, right?  This day and age, one might ask the rightful question, “Why wouldn’t you want your company name to become the de facto standard reference point for searching the Internet?”

With the product launch of Google competitor Bing from Microsoft, the New York Times has an article that talks about the shift in thinking from legacy brand protection to the “verbing” of brand names, an article that the Champagne folks would do well to read.

As the article notes (excerpted):

“… the speed at which reputations are made and destroyed in the Internet age has changed the thinking about the danger of brand names’ becoming verbs. Better to get the market share when you can and worry later, when the brand becomes part of the popular vernacular and less distinctive in the process.

‘The risk of becoming generic is so low, and the benefits of being on the top of someone’s mind are so high,’ said Rebecca Tushnet, an expert on trademark law at Georgetown University.”

Why is this an important point to reinforce?  Because everybody calls it Champagne anyway – and they go out and buy Spanish Cava.

My frustration in this regard reached its peak last week when I received a press release from the US arm of the CIVC.  The release noted (excerpted):

This Halloween, don’t be “tricked” by misleading disguises pretending to be something they’re not. This includes wines at your local retailers and restaurants using the names of world class wine regions, like Champagne, even though the grapes used in the bottle do not come from those places. The tricks aren’t limited to Halloween: 50 percent of the U.S. sparkling wine market at any given moment is improperly masquerading as “Champagne.” 

On Halloween, leave the masks to the goblins, ghosts, and ghouls and make sure you’re not paying for sparkling wine disguised as Champagne. For more information about the name protection issue and to take a Champagne trivia quiz so you can know what is real and what is disguising itself as Champagne, visit http://www.Champagne.us

Now, to be fair, I’m not entirely laissez-faire on this “sense of place” protection.  I get that Napa wine should be from Napa wine, but what I am saying is that in this particular instance where Champagne is quite literally the catch-all equivalent of “Kleenex,” “Jello,” or “Google” (whereas Napa isn’t the catch-all for Cabernet, for example) the notion that they continue to spend pr and marketing effort on trade protection in a period of rapid decline indicates that they are so far removed from the vagaries of consumer wants and needs as to be rendered impotent.

Does the CIVC want to get the train back on the tracks; do they want to avert continued declines of 20% over the next three year period?  If so, they need to focus on Champagne being the original, focus on thought-leadership with the innumerable sparkling wines from around the world that use the classic méthode champenoise technique created and perfected in France, build up the lore and history, focus on Champagne being an accompaniment to everyday celebrations and ease off of the vigilance—ease up on the consumer watchdog aspect of their marketing that “warns” me of being “tricked.”  They need to do so before their bubbles go flat pounded by a $13 Spanish Cava that tastes good, which is about all most consumers care about anyway.

Sometimes the nose is muted, the finish is short, the fruit isn’t developed or perhaps there is a bit of heat, etc. 

Many of the TJ wines are like a beguiling woman on a first date – the package seems like the real deal – she’s beautiful, smart and sexy while not being high maintenance.  Anticipation is high!  Then, in the blink of an eye, upon uncorking, she goes into an anecdote about putting a restraining order on her ex-boyfriend from three days ago while she nervously and incessantly giggles with a laugh that is part rooting pig and part hyperventilating hyena.  Your fifteen minute flash love connection has been dashed at the 17 minute mark and you’re figuring out a graceful exit.  Such is life and so goes Trader Joe’s branded wines, too. 

In my ever present quest to unearth the perfect Trader Joe’s wine find, undaunted by wisdom, I picked up a bottle of the 2007 Trader Joe’s Yountville Grand Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon for $12.99.

I suppose it’s inevitable that high-end finished wine that is left unbottled (for any number of reasons) would hit the bulk wine market only to be bottled for TJ’s.  These days, in particular, you expect a high level of quality of juice to trickle down to the “deal” portion of the private-label market.

The TJ “Grand Reserve” is such a wine.  Sourced from “Hole in the Hedge Winery,” a winery that, apparently, exists only in name and a bottling line somewhere in Napa County, this wine shows incredible potential pedigree at price point, emphasis on “potential.”

A straight cab, it is inky garnet in the glass with a well-developed nose, an appealing first impression on the palate and a nice, high-quality finish.  However, like the incessant giggle that detracts from the whole of the package, this wine, made in a Bordeaux-style, is missing a little something – notably some stuffing to round out the mid-palate.  Showing an abundance of earthy complexity, nice mouth feel and depth, it seems to be a wine that was intended to go into a Bordeaux blend with a dash of Merlot, a smidgen of Cab Franc, and a pipette of Petit Verdot.

Alas, it was bottled as a straight varietal offering, which is too bad because a little artful blending could have made this $12.99 wine a deal of the century – major quality at a discount price … a $12.99 offering comparable at $50.  Seriously.

However, absent straight-line creative problem-solving by TJ’s (I’m on to you), evidenced by the fact that putting together a meal from the store requires nine purchases thereby transferring the success of the end product to the consumer (the Tikka Masala simmering sauce needs chicken, basmati rice, frozen peas and naan, at a minimum, and TJ’s otherwise low prices lulls me into a sense of bargain when I’m actually paying $21 for a meal for two—more than two all-you can-eat Indian buffets),  and consumers quite rightfully should make some adjustments to the wine.

I grabbed a 2002 Caparone Merlot from my stash, a Central Coast winery that stylistically produces rustic table wines with an Italian bent, and blended in a splash to give a boost to the mid-palate of the TJ’s Cab.  It worked.  The results were remarkable, despite the blending incongruence between a Bordeaux-style Cab and a vin da tavola-style wine.

Obviously, this is a clue that kitchen sink blending more artfully considered than my own could yield something even better.

Here’s my recommendation – run out to Trader Joe’s and pick up a bottle of the TJ’s Grand Reserve Cabernet from Yountville.  Likewise, pickup a bottle of Merlot.  Don’t overthink your Merlot choice, as long as it carries some fruit heft it’ll be fine.  The Grand Reserve has enough depth and finesse everywhere except for a thin mid-palate to carry the wine.  Add some Merlot at a 1:5 ratio and enjoy.

I think most wine enthusiasts view wine in a linear fashion – an end product that is what it is.  However, with more private-label wines coming to market and with Trader Joe’s wines, in particular, where costs are reasonable and risk is low, I’m finding that a dash of this and splish of that creates a more satisfactory whole experience.  Give your own kitchen sink blending experience a try and let me know which wines you used to create your own winning combination.

Umami

I’ve never felt completely comfortable with the “Parker’s Palate” globalization paint brush.  Parker has vigorously and consistently denied that winemaking has changed to a riper, more fruit forward style based on his palate.

While, it’s undeniable that this “Parkerization” theory has enough credibility that people have altered their style of winemaking, I still can’t quite wrap my head around Parker being a dictator of style to the extent that he has a created a cottage style, a phenomena that dates back to the late 80s and early 90s to present day.  The world just doesn’t work in such a tidy fashion.  It doesn’t work in a tidy fashion any more so than the mortgage industry collapsed as a result of Alan Greenspan economic policies – there are just too many moving parts to isolate a single point of failure.

Factor in that the wine world is more complex in disparity than other industry that I’ve been in and it’s consequently impossible for me to isolate a single factor that has led to a predominant style in richness.

While I would love to prove it (it would make for a fascinating non-fiction book or Master’s Thesis and I have plans for neither), something that I keep coming back to time and time again as a possible counter explanation to the development of richer, fuller wine styles is the notion of “Umami.”

Defined as the “fifth taste sense,” Umami means “delicious” in Japanese.  It’s exactly that deliciousness and richness that creates palate satisfaction.

If you think about big Aussie and California wines, they all have that mouth-filling savory quality.  The extractedness of a wine (another word like spoofulated and typicity that doesn’t live outside the world of wine) seems to be the same mouthfeel sense of fullness that food scientists have been developing since Umami was scientifically discovered in the mid-80s.

We’ve all seen the commercials and marketing for food that is “craveable.” It’s the sensation of umami that we crave in those foods, something really smart people and well-heeled restaurants and food manufacturers try to create in their menus and food.

In my mind, at a minimum, any movement over the course of the last 20 + years to a richer style of wine has to at least partially account for the movement in awareness of what creates happy taste buds, and that includes winemaking.  In fact, a search for the word “Umami” yields a first page search result from Kalin Cellars where they say:

Most modern wines are made for immediate consumption and evoke the taste sensations of sweet, salty, bitter and sour. These “Fast Wines” are well matched to the spectrum of flavors found in “Fast Food.”

They go on to say, “Kalin Cellars wines achieve Umami by the use of artisanal methods: barrel or (cuvee) fermentation, sur lies aging, malolactic fermentation, extended barrel development, bottling with no filtration, and aging in temperature and humidity controlled underground cellars.”

While it would take more research than a blog post can provide to make a credible case, anybody that gets on the stylistic Parker-bashing bus should at least pause for a second and look at the bigger picture – that Panera chicken salad sandwich is formulated to evoke a certain satisfaction and it’s highly likely, though perhaps more innocently executed, that winemakers are responding to our collective American palates and not just Robert Parker’s.

Man’s Search for Meaning

There are a raft of wine books that have been recently published or are getting ready to hit the market that try to use wine as context for understanding the human condition and the world around us.  Notable amongst these is the somewhat eponymous forthcoming book called, “Using Wine to Make Sense of the World” by Elliot Essman as well as “The Psychology of Wine” by Evan and Brian Mitchell. This is all interesting because those that are passionate about wine tend to look at life through the prism of the wine glass, gleaning profundity where possible.

I am certainly one of those people that believe that virtually every experience in life holds some thread that can tied back to wine in some form, heck, it’s a principle of my writing … that said, man does not live on wine alone.

Given that the last several years of my life have been a struggle in which I have not attained success at the caliber that I feel I am capable of or satisfied with (throw in some adversity, too), I recently bought Viktor Frankel’s world famous book,“Man’s Search for Meaning.”

Deemed by a survey jointly conducted by The Book-of the-Month Club and the Library of Congress as one of the 10 most influential books in the U.S., it has been on a sales tear throughout 2009, reaching its sales peak in late June of this year while significantly outpacing sales from the last three years.

The sales are obviously a response to the economic conditions we’re living in causing many people to rethink their life and the path they’re on.  And, the sales peak may too be an indicator of when the economy hit the bottom.

The main premise of the book is far too complex and personal to summarize in a sentence, but to say it provides enlightenment above and beyond the minutia of the moment is an understatement.

In general, this quote is an example of one piece of wisdom that resonates:

“It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life - daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”

“Man’s Search for Meaning” has nothing to do with wine whatsoever, but certainly makes for a happy companion to a glass of wine, preferably three of them.  Read the wine-related books after the fact, they require lucidity.

A scan of certification curriculum and a conversation with any number of Somms. will focus on deep, empirical knowledge of wine and its history—where is it from, does the wine act as a reflection of its terroir, what is the varietal typicity, and other bits of deep administrivia.

Sommelier experience and education also leads to expertise in front-of-house service, wine list-building, cellar management and other aspects of high-end wine appreciation.  However, have you ever wondered, as I have, that given that Sommeliers primarily exist within the realm of fine dining, why the heck there isn’t more of an educational focus on what should be core to the job—pairing wine with the food that we’re eating?

It’s curious for sure, particularly because Sommeliers are the unsung trendsetters in the wine world, sometimes unwittingly.

And, unfortunately, this lack of information at the very top of the pyramid isn’t available for a consumer trickledown effect.  Instead, what we have instead of food and wine pairing thought-leadership is a raft of information that bubbles up from the bottom, creating more difficulty in comprehension. 

However, there is simple hope, even if its self-administered. More on that in a moment …

For consumers, the fire lights and a passion for wine starts in any number of ways, but chief among those fire starting sparks is an exquisitely well-paired meal, the likes of which lives on in our memory bank next to other toe-curling moments in time when the stars align and something explosive occurs.

One of the finest meals I’ve enjoyed was a paired tasting menu at Esca in New York City.  Each course was better than the last and each wine was like the perfect dash of salt and pepper to the meal.  The food and wine offered an amazing experience that launched me into several new areas of exploration, including a mini wallet busting obsession with Barbaresco and the foods that go well with a bottle.

In fact, I submit that virtually all of my wine revelations have been in context with food, led by a Sommelier down a path I might not have normally taken.  It’s this food and wine knowledge that is powerful.  Likewise, it’s this food and wine LEADERSHIP that is very powerful, yet given short shrift in studied credentials and the type of knowledge that passes down as wisdom. 

Simply, while I know that Pinot and Riesling are flexible accompaniments and Syrah and Zin goes with the grill, a Cali Chard is good for fish in a beurre blanc sauce, I would suggest that most of us are mere wine and food pairing neophytes playing in Double A ball in our homes compared to what could be major league performances.

This lack of educational engagement in between bridging food and wine with Sommeliers is a significant weakness; it’s akin to a Doctor not learning how to address overall wellness and instead focusing on diagnosing and prescribing medicine to solve specific issues as if our cholesterol levels existed on an island, separate from other islands.  Wait, that’s another post entirely ... 

If food and wine are simpatico complements to each other it would seem that the sum of the wine education parts would be a greater focus of food and wine in concert with each other instead of culinary education being what it is and Somm. education being what it is.

Check out the reading list and the goals of the Master Sommelier exam– food and wine as accompaniments to each other is a micro-slice of the overall course requirements – and the Master Somm. exam is the gold standard for wine knowledge!

These sorts of things lead me to question not just the big issues in the wine world, but also the small issues as well.  If something that is so core to the world of wine, as food is, what else are we missing the boat on entirely in terms of how we focus on knowledge that leads to evolution (not to mention innovation)?

Fortunately, there are a couple of really handy resources to bridge this knowledge gap.

Most people in the know are familiar with a book called, “What to Eat with What you Drink.” It’s billed as the most comprehensive book ever written on food and drink pairing, with the core focus on food and wine.  It’s hard to argue with that statement, as well.  It’s a beautiful book and highly functional.

A little more neglected in awareness however is another book that came out last fall by the same authors – “The Flavor Bible.”  This book, while published later, is really a prequel to, “What to Eat with What You Drink” and is a compendium of foodstuffs that match with each other in flavor profile – things like beets and avocados, for example.  Who knew?

It seems to me, that anybody who gets in the kitchen is well-served by understanding the flavor combination’s that go well together.  And, with this foundation of knowledge from “The Flavor Bible” they can then graduate to, “What to Eat with What you Drink” finally putting to rest any unease they may have with creating the perfect meal, and experience, Sommelier and deficient Sommelier education not a concern.