New at Reason

Julian Sanchez | March 30, 2005

In Kerry Howley's column for today, I'm getting the faintest soupçon of, like, asparagus. And there's just a flutter of, like, a nutty Edam cheese. But what's that woody undertone? Ah, yes, just a hint of the shattered pretentions of antiglobalizers in the world wine market.

Reason needs your support. Please donate today!

Try Reason's award-winning print edition today! Your first issue is FREE if you are not completely satisfied.

← New at Reason | Main | Kyrgyz Girls Really Knock Me Out →

See all 44 comments | Leave a comment

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment or disable your ability to comment for any reason at any time.

|3.30.05 @ 11:12AM|#

Interesting article, but he misses the boat on "terroir." California has many examples. For example, Zinfandel can taste very different, depending upon the region, even when produced by the same vintner. There is no mistaking a Dry Creek Zin with one from Paso Robles. I've witnessed and experienced this repeatedly in blind tastings. It should be no surprise that variations in soil and climate will impact the flavor of an agricultural product. Even my orange juice changes flavor over the course of the year.

gaius marius|3.30.05 @ 11:20AM|#

publishers weekly on osborne's book:

By the last chapter, Osborne can't say exactly what Chateau Lafite Rothschild tasted like, and he has just encountered the foulest bottle of his life. But he also sounds strangely contented, because he's found the rare world where aesthetics still matter?even if the terminology and the people who employ it can be maddening.

i think what osborne feels in the end is why many people find the rise of american tastemaking awful. america represents the democratic and pragmatic -- the fucking wine box -- and democratic and pragmatic are the antithesis of aesthetic pretense.

before anyone pooh-poohs the need for pretense like a 14-year-old, consider that nothing in human perception is devoid of pretense -- even (perhaps especially) vaunted reason. the myth, the belief, the pretentious is entirely and fundamentally human. pretense is the seed of aspiration, the need to be better and exclusive and snobbish -- to be apart from the common.

fine wine is/was one of the few (it seems) remaining concepts where the antidemocratic and the antipragmatic remained defiant. change in wine is inevitable -- no one drinks now what any ancient roman would have considered wine -- and that is no sin and no question. what is lamentable is the kind of change: yet another devolution to the monochromatic utilitarianism of the lowest common denominator, not just in wine but in all things. for this reason, the wal-marting of the fine wine world is something to resist.

is it useful? it is democratic? it is empirical? is it utilitarian? gads yes!

but is it fulfilling of the very human need for pretense? utterly no. and so can it be called a renaissance? i think not, but in any case only with that heavy qualification.

this is what americanization of the wine world represents to discriminating tastes, and these people are far from crazy to resist it. pretense is fundamental to fine wine's *durable* appeal -- it is why people bother to travel to st emilion or greve, and why terrior (even if mythological) is a near-perfect understanding of what fine wine really is.

now everyone can belittle me for sinning against democracy and being an elitist -- but you all know even in your joycean souls, superficially celebrating the mundane, that you too strive to be apart. :)

|3.30.05 @ 11:22AM|#

A hint, perhaps, but your lead-in is much too presumptuous...perhaps even a bit disingenuous.

Kerry's piece, for the most part, fortunately puts as almost as much weight on the concept of terroir as it does on the concept of high wine sales=great wine.

The most disheartening statement, however, was, "Guibert's peasant pretensions are constructed around the myth that tradition and place can be tasted." If wine is mostly subjective, then, how can one put more weight on the commercial appeal of one style of winegrowing/winemaking, while dismissing another windely-accepted style as "myth"?

Yet, none of this, including but not limited to that famous tasting where Chateau Montelena beat out French White Burgundies, destroys the notion that wine can and should be extremely expressive of the place where it comes from. Terroir is not simply about expressing "tradition and place"; frankly, tradition is at best peripheral. It is about the soil, the rocks, the weather, the sky, the slope, the wind, the water, everything that is specific about that site, being expressed in the wine.

Now, you can dismiss this as hogwash, you can invoke a famous tasting where American wine beat out french wine. But terrior can and is tasted everywhere wine is grown---America is no exception.

But, you could also return to the capitalist notion of consumer demand to prove my own point: that terroir is not just a myth. Take, for example, the Cote de Nuits of Burgundy. Pinot Noir is grown on a site there called "La Romanee Conti", by a producer, Domaine La Romanee Conti. This wine is some of the most saught-after and expensive wine in the world, commanding more than $1000/bottle. But, take a drive a mile south of Romanee Conti, and plant the very same Pinot Noir grapes. Prune them the same, pick them the same, take the exact same yields, and turn the graps into wine in the exact same manner---and those very same consumers would pay no more than $40 for a bottle. Some of this, admittedly, would have to do with label pretentions. But, even tasting blind, any experienced wine consumer would instantly know the difference between La Romanee Conti, and a Bourgogne from a mile down the valley.

If terroir were a "myth", as Kerry posits, then Pinot grown on La Romanee Conti, and Pinot grown in Sonoma's RRV, would taste identical---and even someone who's never had wine before knows the difference there.

And even Mondavi will admit to you that, even if he went over to Chateau Latour, bought the winemaker, bought the vines, and transported them back to Napa Valley, he could never, ever reproduce a genuine Latour. So, then, how is the idea that place influences wine to be considered a "myth"?

|3.30.05 @ 11:35AM|#

Bubba:

Dismissing terroir as "myth" has long been a way for wine globalization proponents to shoot down the idea that wine from one place might have an inherent quality that cannot be reproduced anywhere else, and to assert that sales figures are the final word on wine.

Kerry (& Mondovino) mention Bob Parker, (who, contrary to what the column asserts, does give a damn about terroir), but they do not mention someone like Alan Meadows of Burghound---another wine critic, who specializes in Burgundian libations. He does pay alot of heed to terroir.

The problem, though, is that many people like Kerry think that the notion of "terroir" is defined as: simply that there are objectively evident qualities in wines that one can always taste (Kerry talks about "tasting the fields of france"). This is a strawman of sorts, a misrepresentation of what "terroir" is about. Nobody I've heard asserts that terroir is objective; but simply that, yes, there is a difference between burgundian pinot and oregonian pinot, and that this difference comes from the difference in "place". Where else could it come from?

I think the problem with French wine snobs is that they believe that no other place's terroir can match their own. Since wine is subjective, this is absurdity---but, at the same time, it is also absurd to say that people who put worth in terroir are predicated on a "myth".

|3.30.05 @ 11:39AM|#

So, where did MD 20/20 come out in the tasting?

The Wine Commonsewer|3.30.05 @ 11:40AM|#

Good stuff and exactly why I AM the Wine Commonsewer rather than the French word from which 'commonsewer' is extrapolated.

There are just a few rules for enjoying wine.

1. If you like the wine screw everyone else.

2. Friends don't let friends drink White Zin, which is a ghastly Yuppie invention birthed by baby boomers as they indulged in disco and coke while longing for the old days of seven-up mixed with Tyrolia and Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill.

3. Lips that touch white wine shall never touch mine. A big relief to all of my straight friends (and my gay friends) and their wives.

4. Red wine is what all wine would be if it had a choice.

I'm afraid there is a bit of truth in both positions. The wine snobs are right, there is something to terroir. Otherwise Thomas Jefferson's Monticello wine would be fabulous instead of barely drinkable--actually it isn't drinkable at all, it's gawdawful. Why? Primarily because the heavy red clay soil of Virginia is worthless for wine grapes.

OTOH, there is some subjectivity to any tasting process. Years ago we emptied my roommate's bottle of VO and secretly replaced the whiskey with cheap store brand rotgut (yes, we were bastards). He'd come home from work and enjoy that stuff same as the VO. He sure was pissed when he found out.

More to the point. Try this at home. Have a glass or two of forgettable cabernet. Follow that with a glass of good middle-of-the-road cabernet. More often than not you will be stunned at how good it tastes, often far better than it really tastes or if it was the first glass of the evening.

Over the years I've noticed that this doesn't work for some people. But for many it has amazing results. Others retain their sharp tasting ability. Still others lose the ability to distinguish good wine from bad after the first couple of glasses altogether.

|3.30.05 @ 11:54AM|#

TWC wrote:

"2. Friends don't let friends drink White Zin, which is a ghastly Yuppie invention birthed by baby boomers as they indulged in disco and coke while longing for the old days of seven-up mixed with Tyrolia and Boone's Farm Strawberry Hill."

The same applies for the hideous invention of "blush" wines. I'd rather drink Thunderbird.

By the way, there is a local winery here in Fort Myers that makes carambola (also known as star fruit) wine. It's really bad, too.

PS -- if you don't know what a carambola is, there a picture of one

|3.30.05 @ 12:15PM|#

White Zin is ghastly. White Merlot is worse.

However, don't be afraid to try the occasional Rose. So long as it is "Dry, like my martini."

Red wine is best, but white wine has its place. Especially at banquets, where the host's $5 will buy a much better white than red.

|3.30.05 @ 12:24PM|#

It all comes out as piss in the end, folks....

|3.30.05 @ 12:34PM|#

SPD--

But that doesn't mean it has to go in that way.

Doesn't affect me, anyway. My last alcoholic beverage was November 28, 2004. 9:45 pm. Not that I'm counting or anything.

|3.30.05 @ 12:44PM|#

Wow, another article addressing the same topic in essentially the same way. :)

|3.30.05 @ 12:56PM|#

I don't give two shits about the big dick contest that is wine snobbery--I'm a beer and bourbon guy.

BUT--the title of Howley's piece is easily the greatest ever to grace this website. In brings to mind an entire spring quarter (back when those still existed) spent with Kant's signature work as the sole subject under the 400-level philosophy class microscope.

My thanks to the party responsible.

|3.30.05 @ 1:05PM|#

Henry,

As opposed to beer snobbery? :)

|3.30.05 @ 1:15PM|#

"It all comes out as piss in the end, folks...."

Yeah, and we'll all end up as fertilizer in the end too. Doesn't mean we should have a shitty life because of this unavoidable foregone conclusion. I once had a roommate in college who would avoid doing anything, based on the fact that, eventually, his efforts would be obscured by time. "Why mow the lawn when it's just gonna grow back again?" or "Why clean the dishes when they're just gonna get dirty again?" I'm sure there's a psychological term for this state of mind, but not being learned in psychology, I wouldn't know its name.

|3.30.05 @ 1:22PM|#

"I don't give two shits about the big dick contest that is wine snobbery--I'm a beer and bourbon guy."

I tire of the tendency for people to dismiss any sort of higher appreciation for something as "snobbery". Surely, "wine snobbery" does exist, but just appreciating wine on a more involved level than that of the common pedestrian, does not constitute "snobbery".

Henry, the fact that you proclaim to be a "beer and bourbon guy" tells me that you might appreciate beer and bourbon on a more involved level than the typical indiscriminate college drunkard. But it is always the tendency of, say, beer and bourbon snobs, to look down on their wine counterparts, as if their own version of what they call "snobbery" is any better. Blah. I drink beer, wine, and bourbon. I work at a wine & beer shop, one could conceivably call me a snob if they so wished. But the last thing I'd do is look down my nose at someone who is a "snob" of another faction.

|3.30.05 @ 1:34PM|#

"4. Red wine is what all wine would be if it had a choice."

TWC, excellent points all, especially that one! It reminded me of Michael J. Totten's story of drinking with Christopher Hitchens. When ordering a bottle of wine, someone asks, "red or white" to which Hitchens responds, "Wine. Is. Red!"

My sentiments exactly!

|3.30.05 @ 1:42PM|#

Ha! Try a dry Chenin Blanc from Anjou...Savennieres perhaps...Coulee de Serrant perhaps.

Or anything from reknowned Alsatian Zind Humbrecht...

Or Cuvee Silex from Didier Dageneau...

Afterwards, methinks you mightn't be so dismissive of whites. Problem is, most people's experience with white wine is dominated by overoaked fatassed cali chards, or featureless, bland italian Pinot Gris, or super-grapefruity new world Sauv Blanc. So they give white a bad rap in general. Again, try some of the stuff suggested above.

Warren|3.30.05 @ 2:01PM|#

WOW so much to say,
First of all AMEN! Grrreat article Kerry.

Evan,
You're full of shit... mostly. True enough, the grapes are flavored by the sun and soil they are grown in. However, THE point here, is that the flavor of the wine is engineered through science much more effectively than experience. AND good engineering will produce superior products to vast experience six days a week and twice on Sundays. AND they will do it at one-fifth the cost. What makes terroir a myth is that it resides completely in the label and not at all in the wine.

Re: All fine wine is red
I'm afraid I have to call bullshit on this one. The best wine, is the one that best compliments the situation, (usually the food) it is consumed with. Are you actually suggesting, that there is a Red that could accent without overpowering the flavor of say Orange Roughy as well as a chilled Sauvignon Blanc? I will however agree that White Zin is an abomination, and while I have tasted palatable Roses, there was always something else I would have preferred.

Tim Cavanaugh|3.30.05 @ 2:03PM|#

1. Here's the question I'd like answered: How did Robert Parker, who I assume is not the author of the Spenser novels, come to be the world-spanning gatekeeper of wine? It's as if the film industries of Hong Kong, Hollywood, Mumbai, and Alexandria were all competing to see who can get a thumbs up from Roger Ebert. How did this happen?

2. Was Trader Joe's the chicken or the egg? Until I started shopping TJ's, the idea of a decent red wine for $2 seemed crazy. I note that these tend to come from Chile, Australia, and other places where toilets flow backward, but you can occasionally find a California. So I can't tell whether they were the first to make such stuff available or just the first one I knew about.

3. Whatever the film says about terroir, if you take the Mondavi tour, they talk about terroir a lot-but they talk about it in Northern California terms, so that supposedly the wines grown near Bodega Bay produce a refreshing sea breeze taste, the ones in the hilly regions of Sonoma are filled with pure mountain goodnes, and so on. I assume, like everything connected to wine connoisseurship, it's a load of horse pucky, but they do make big claims about terroir (probably because their own lunch is on the verge of being eaten by the Chileans and Australians mentioned above, who are no doubt as capable of putting a $50 price tag on a bottle as a $2 price tag).

|3.30.05 @ 2:13PM|#

I think a significant fraction of what constitutes a good wine to many people is whether other people say it's good or not. A group of friends (20-25) get together from time to time to do blind 'wine tastings' - not the whole 'swish about, spit it out', but just a small glass of each. As an experiment, I got in early and placed a very high score in a given wines column, and a very low score in another, picked randomly. That trend was followed throughout the night, and the one I randomly picked high won, the low one finished last. We often get 2-3 bottles of the exact same wine (vinter, year, etc.) - invariably the variance in score for those 2-3 bottles is of order the variance of over the entire 20 bottle scores. I think it's observations like this that lead to the derision directed at lots of wine buffs and the accusations of 'snobbery'. There are certainly differences in taste amongst wines, but preference is so subjective that it doesn't really pay to say X is better than Y; and there's definitely no correlation twixt cost and my particular taste that I can find - and I would suspect that the $1000 price tag and the demand for Romanee Conti has more to do with people thinking they should really like it than with some objective standard. But that's just my NSHO.

The short of it - if you like it, drink it, even if it is white wine (I've a penchant for Ice Wines, mmm, yummy). The California Lodi Zin's are pretty tasty too.

|3.30.05 @ 2:15PM|#

Monkton, not Monkville. Where's the fact-checkers?

The title of this piece is, of course, not original as anyone familiar with Terry Thiese would know.

|3.30.05 @ 2:17PM|#

Fine wines are good, but nothing to compare to fine firearms. The connoisseurship involved in that particular hobby is beyond amazing.

|3.30.05 @ 2:49PM|#

I've been at enough tables with enough people who had a "higher appreciation" for wine to know big dickism when I see it, thanks anyway. Whatever gets you off is OK with me, and if paying hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine puts a knot in your pants fine, but I calls 'em as sees 'em.

Damn, there is a lot of homoeroticism in this post! (unless I'm a woman, I suppose)

|3.30.05 @ 2:49PM|#

That Night Train's a mean wine.

|3.30.05 @ 3:25PM|#

Warren says, "You're full of shit... mostly. True enough, the grapes are flavored by the sun and soil they are grown in. However, THE point here, is that the flavor of the wine is engineered through science much more effectively than experience. AND good engineering will produce superior products to vast experience six days a week and twice on Sundays. AND they will do it at one-fifth the cost. "

Hmmmmm...so, Mr. Warren MUST be the final word on what constitutes a "superior product". Dang, well, looks like Parker, Meadows, Spectator, Tanzer, etc., have got some new competition in town. You say that I'm "full of shit", but you don't address any of the specific arguments I make.

The idea of "terroir" is that wine from a specific place may not be the "best" tasting or smelling wine, but it is, at least, unique. Wine that is mass produced by uber-technological factories loses this uniqueness. By proclaiming that factory wine can produce more consumer-friendly wine, you have not, in any way, even begun to address the idea of terroir-induced uniqueness. You took a big ol' swing for the fences, but you missed the ball by 2 feet. The argument is that diversity and uniqueness are just as important, if not moreso, than the profit margin. Even if a wine factory can produce millions of liters of the same stuff, that has no uniqueness, but gets a 100-point score from Bob Parker, that still has nothing to do with the idea of "the only place in the world where wine tastes and smells like this". Uniqueness and profit margins are two very separate modicums...yet, you proclaim that, since one is effective, the other is necessarily bullshit. That's not logically coherent, and just plain dishonest.

To be straight with you, I reside somewhere between "terroir uniqueness" and "deliciousness". They are not mutually exclusive. Certain winemakers go for all deliciousness, and no uniqueness. Others go for all uniqueness, and care nothing about deliciousness. Neither of these interest me very much. I want something that is unique, but also pleasant. This is the balance to strike. Technology can "produce" pleasantness, but it cannot "produce" uniqueness. Conversely, producers like Nicolas Joly put this uniqueness, this sense of place in the grape, above all else; he could care less if the wine is unpleasant.

So, why does it make me "full of shit", to assert that there are qualities in wine that no technological marvels could ever begin to reproduce?

"What makes terroir a myth is that it resides completely in the label and not at all in the wine."

Now this is a big ol' load of shit, Warren. Surely, some pretentions are built by labels...but this is why blind tastings are so much more educational. If your assertion was the least bit correct, that would mean that, tasting blind, one could not tell the difference between a Burgundian Pinot Noir and a Californian Pinot Noir. Different climates and soils produce vastly different fruit. Sometimes, it just pisses people off that they cannot recreate the musings of the earth with a synthetic process...so they are, as you are, led to dismiss terroir---all based on what? Profit margins? Hey, if consumers want mass-produced, taste-the-same, please-bob-parker wines, that are anything but unique, but are definitely pleasant, then fine. More power to them. This still does not disprove the idea of terroir.

|3.30.05 @ 3:29PM|#

"Whatever gets you off is OK with me, and if paying hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine puts a knot in your pants fine, but I calls 'em as sees 'em."

Paying hundreds of dollars for a bottle of wine (which I have never done) has no intrinsic value to me. It's not about the money, it's about the wine, and how much I likes it. If I someday find a wine that is worth, to me, spending hundreds of dollars on it, then perhaps I will. But, as it stands, I only pay for a wine what I think it is worth to me, and no more. This is, after all, the crux of the free market, is it not? One of the best bottles I've ever laid nose and lips on was no more than $30. Inversely, I've had free samples of wine that was upwards of $100 that I didn't care for.

If this is wine snobbishness, then call me a snob.

|3.30.05 @ 3:33PM|#

Those wondering about Robert Parker's rise to the top of the wine world might be interested in an article about him in the December 2000 issue of Atlantic Monthly.

|3.30.05 @ 3:47PM|#

Evan, what I want to know is this:

How the hell did you get named after a bourbon (or adopt said name for the purposes of posting) if you are a freaking wine nazi? It just makes no sense.

PS: Pappy Van Winkle can kick your ass.

The Wine Commonsewer|3.30.05 @ 4:05PM|#

Brian, thanks. And I hadn't heard the Hitchens story.

Chuck, I couldn't get the link to work. Bummer.

Warren & Evan, my old friend Jim used to get after me about my white wine attitude. He would often respond to me when I was snobbing around about white wine by saying "I had no idea you were raised by wolves." However, when he died unexpectedly it turned out that he left me a $600.00 bottle of 82 Mouton Rothschild Bourdeaux, which is a RED wine (I rest my case).

Evan, agreed, the best two bottles of wine I've ever had were hundreds of dollars apart in price. One a mid-80's Beringer Private Reserve Cab that my wife picked up in LA some years ago for $40.00 and the other a Bryant Family Cab that a friend brought to share with me at ten times the Beringer PR.

|3.30.05 @ 4:06PM|#

The French had always said fine wine was primarily a function of place?and that place was France.

Isn't it just possible that there is such a thing as terroir and it also exists in places other than France? Like the Victoria/S. Australia border, the Napa valley etc.

It certainly does not exist in Florida.

|3.30.05 @ 4:08PM|#

Bubba, yes surprisingly there are some good Rose wines. At the risk of being crucified for saying so, when I was a yoot and you wanted to impress some chick with your wine acumen you would buy Mateus Rose. I actually had some recently at a party and it wasn't bad.

|3.30.05 @ 4:11PM|#

Issac, I think you have point about terroir existing in many places. There is a strong connection between wine and Medeterainian climates, which are found in Californicate, France, Italy, North & South Africa, Australia, and Chile to name the ones that come to mind.

|3.30.05 @ 4:25PM|#

I thought the New York Times review of the film most closely echoed my sentiments, at least regarding this film as an anti-globalization screed:

'An interview with Michael Broadbent, a London auctioneer with a chalk-striped suit and an accent out of P. G. Wodehouse, recalls that the prestige of first-growth French wine arose in an earlier era of marketing and international trade, albeit one that was much more restricted. One of the unexamined ironies of this smart, sincere and sloppy film is its assumption that the tastes of the imperial British aristocracy of the 19th century were not only superior to those of the 21st-century American middle class but also friendlier to the enduring values of civilization. I don't know much about wine, but to me that leaves a funny aftertaste. '

|3.30.05 @ 4:27PM|#

TWC

Exactly, aren't we really talking about the combination of soil and climate without which you won't get the righ mix of sugar content, flavor etc.?

Of course, without the right vintner's touch the foregoing is useless.

|3.30.05 @ 4:39PM|#

"no technological marvels could ever begin to reproduce."

Whatever. I drink wine regularly. I can usually tell the difference between a $6 bottle and a $20 bottle, but I usually cannot distinguish any benefit in buying the $40 wine.

Based on this data, I conclude that much wine conniseurship is posturing. The people I know who regularly buy expensive wines fall into three categories: "salesman on expense account", "more money than brains", or "thinks expensive tastes make him an intellectual".

|3.30.05 @ 4:40PM|#

TWC--

I think i know what I did wrong. Try this.

Warren|3.30.05 @ 5:06PM|#

Evan,
You are still fu... you are still wrong. There is more "uniqueness" now than ever before. Every thirty-acre plot of land on the planet seems to be sprouting a vineyard, and while most of what is bottled is mass-produced garbage, there is so much more these days that there is... well, More. More of everything, more good, more bad, more great, and more unique. In fact my wine-store sports dozens of boutique labels, all manner of weird grape combos etc. Wines from all corners of the globe. As for your claim that one can "tell the difference between a Burgundian Pinot Noir and a Californian Pinot Noir" in a blind tasting, I think you'll find that's only true if you already know what it taste like (i.e. last years vintage). California wines are repeatedly been mistaken for their French counterparts when the new vintage is first opened. You're assertion that "it just pisses people off that they cannot recreate the musings of the earth with a synthetic process" is false, because it can.

TWC,
I'm not saying that the best wine isn't red wine, just that it may not be the best in any given situation. Also I propose adding this to your list of wine rules:

Never drink wine from any European country other than France and then only if someone else is paying for it.

The Winecommonsewer|3.30.05 @ 6:01PM|#

Chuck that was scary. :-) Looks like some kind of a pepper.

Jimmy Beam, I went to my 18th birthday party with you. Do you remember it? I hit on everybody's girlfriend, blew up firecrackers in my hands, got a few cheap feels in the bedroom with Denise, and ended up in the back yard with the dog who kept licking the barf off my face. Boy was that fun. Taught me a lesson though.

For the most part I agree with you. There are quite a few really good wines to be had that aren't that expensive. I hate hearing chicks say stuff like "He paid a hundred dollars for THIS!" while I'm saying "shhhhhh" he's gonna hear you.

By and large of the expensive wines I've had I'd say a few are like drinking liquid velvet but most are just okay. For the money I'll take a Franciscan Merlot at 15-20 bucks anytime over wines costing double to triple.

And yes, I destest the plastic people on expense accounts as well. They drive up the price of decent wine and should go back to Bud lite and a doob.

Ah, Warren, I agree about letting them buy but I've had some awfully good wines from Italy (and some plain awful wines from Italy). In fact one of the best I ever had was some Italian table wine a client brought me directly from Italy in his suitcase.

Warren|3.30.05 @ 7:16PM|#

...one of the best I ever had was some Italian table wine ...

TWC,
I stand by my rule. In all of Europe there is no drinkable wine outside of France. Whatever respect I may have had for you is now lost.

|3.31.05 @ 8:07AM|#

Henry asks,

"How the hell did you get named after a bourbon (or adopt said name for the purposes of posting) if you are a freaking wine nazi? It just makes no sense."

I most certainly did not make it up for this silly comment thread. My last name is my father's family name. My first name came from a relative of his. Now, as a result, I get chuckles and ribs and uneasy attempts at jokes (like yours) whenever I show my ID to anyone who spends a bit of time roaming the aisles of the liquor store...they always act as if they're the first person to make the connection.

Secondly, I am no "wine nazi", you weirdo. Oh, god forbid, I know something about wine, so I am a "wine nazi"? I find it hilarious that whenever there's a thread about wine, anyone who knows a thing about it gets castigated.

I drink as much, if not more, beer. And yes, I like Evan Williams Single Barrel, I have a bottle or two in my cabinet right now, along with a beer cellar. I wish I weren't such a wine nazi though.

|3.31.05 @ 8:20AM|#

"You are still fu... you are still wrong. There is more "uniqueness" now than ever before. Every thirty-acre plot of land on the planet seems to be sprouting a vineyard, and while most of what is bottled is mass-produced garbage, there is so much more these days that there is... well, More. More of everything, more good, more bad, more great, and more unique."

Ahem, and somehow, this is supposed to disprove the idea of terroir? You keep taking big swings, but you're way, way off the ball.

"As for your claim that one can "tell the difference between a Burgundian Pinot Noir and a Californian Pinot Noir" in a blind tasting, I think you'll find that's only true if you already know what it taste like (i.e. last years vintage)."

Well, no fucking shit! If you've never eaten fois gras before, then I would guess it's pretty hard to identify fois gras in a blind tasting, would you not agree? This does not mean that, even if you've never had a glass of wine before in your life, that your nose and mouth could not tell that there is, indeed, a difference between burgundy and cali. No, you probably wouldn't be able to pick out which is which, because, as I said, how could you recall something if you've never had it before? But the difference is there.

"California wines are repeatedly been mistaken for their French counterparts when the new vintage is first opened."

Again, your anecdotes prove nothing except that, yes, there is terroir in california just as there is terroir in france (something which I never disputed in the first place).

"You're [sic] assertion that "it just pisses people off that they cannot recreate the musings of the earth with a synthetic process" is false, because it can."

Now you're just being silly. "it can!" is supposed to be your argument? Because people mistake californian wine for french? As I said, there is terroir in california just as there is terroir in france. Just as there are wines from france that are made to show very little terroir (high yields, big interventionist winemaking techniques, high extraction, etc.).

You are attacking these false "strawman" arguments which I never made---I hope that makes you feel better. I never said that california could not produce terroir-expressive wines. I never said that all french wine was terroir-expressive. I never said that california couldn't make a wine that was similar to something from france. Yet, you doggedly rail against these arguments as if they were part of this debate. What are you trying to prove? That you're a master at strawman arguments?

Warren|3.31.05 @ 10:09AM|#

Evan,
From my perspective, it's you that's churning the air. Perhaps I can clarify the point I'm making. For roughly the past thirty years, Califoria (and now the whole world) has had the capabilities to produce wines that taste as much like last years Bordeaux as this years Bordeaux. If that is a "strawman" argument, then I can't fathom what your point is.

|3.31.05 @ 10:57AM|#

I'm with Evan on this, though i'm usually not a wine drinker, unless someone else is buying.
Quite apart from whether "terroir" is just primitive wine-making technology (it is, IMO), I wonder about all this indignant talk of wine snobbery. Basically, people are saying that there can't possibly be all that much of a wine culture or that Evan's "pallette" can't be better than theirs. And yet, on another thread you have people haughtily denouncing "The Eagles" and talking up their rarified tastes in music ie musicians who have not sold nearly as much as the Eagles. Last I checked music is a culture & music appreciation is subjective, too.

Let's get real, here - isn't this because wine snobbery is the province of the rich, whereas music snobbery (or literary snobbery, or TV snobbery etc, etc) is much cheaper and we can all indulge it ? I sense libertarian cognitive dissonance whenever the subject of wine comes up.

|4.4.05 @ 5:11PM|#

what is really horrible is the europeans (mainly french) insistence on perfect stasis in producing wine. there shall be no innovation, and everyone shall always use the grapes, methods, etc that have always been used in whatever neighbourhood they live. also, almost no one can buy vineyards (especially the evil foreigners) and inheritance laws mandate that everything be split up into ever more minuscule plots.

as for the only good wine being red... have some pouilly-fuisse... or a sauternes or... i love zins and cabs, etc, and hardly ever drink white, but there are so many excellent whites out there.

on terroir: there is a taste to a vineyard, or a part of a vineyard. but there is no taste to a country, and not all that much taste that is unique to a region (soil and climate control regional tastes, but these can be rather replicated in other similar places... france = chile = australia = california) outside of traditional practices and blends. it's hard / impossible to replicate a vineyard's taste, which is what most terroirists start on about. what gets annoying (especially with ze french) is when they get on a nationalist rant, when there is very little special to a country's taste that is not simply reproducible technique or grape variety.

there is tremondous irony about these historical posturings. wine as it currently is understood is a very recent invention. until the perfection of the cork seal, the younger wine was the better, as it spoiled easily behind less than tight seals. champagne, the 1er crus, etc, have little more than 100 years of tradition. hell, they're all planted on root stock perfected in california that is resistant to a pernicious root pest!

drink what you like, pay what you want, and don't hate on others for doing the same. as for doubting the benefits of spending money... buy a natural ice and a leffe blonde, buy a bottle of no name wishky and compare with a 15 year old balwhennie or macallan, and buy a bottle of two buck chuck and compare with beringer private reserve. with all, you'll notice that the more expensive is much more palatable to most people (palates are rather variable, but this is the broad majority of assessments). You can find many expensive libations that you don't like much, but there are so many varieties at the high end that you'll find something that you love if you look. at the low end, you have no choice, and you'll at best tolerate your choice of maybe 3 options.