Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

Modesty Takes a Holiday

I don't usually take time to use this blog to say nice things about myself or the blog itself or to highlight what others have said about me or this blog. Modesty is a virtue, said the PR Guy.

In fact, I've always said, if my name shows up in the media it's because I'm not doing the job I should for my clients because it's their names and their efforts that are supposed to be of interest to commentators and reporters.

Yet, I used to work at PR agency where myself and 5 or 6 other "associates" busily carried out the work of our winery clients. Every now and then our names would show up in the media a la, "Joe Smith, a spokesperson for XYZ Winery, said...." We used to keep score. Who would have their name show up in the media most between January and December? The person with the most mentions had dinner of their choice paid for by the other associates. I always was buying the dinner.

That said, it sure was nice to see FERMENTATION show up on Typepad's "Featured Blogs" page today. I've never actually seen a review of FERMENTATION before. So, it was interesting to read. Granted, these nice folks are concerned about how some is using their blogging platform as much as focusing on the work of the blogger. Still....

"Tom Wark is a communications specialist in the wine industry, providing strategy for wineries and wine-related firms. So it's no surprise that Tom is passionate about the wine world. But it's the fact that he's an obsessed media junkie that makes him a vintage blogger. Fermentation is a must-read for anyone in the wine business. This is not the place to go if you're looking for someone to tell you what bottle of red you should serve at your dinner party Friday night, but perusing any of 130+ "Wine Blogs You Need To Read" in the right nav bar might give you some ideas. Tom makes good use of his categories. Those interested in the business side of the wine world can go directly to Wine Business and Public Relations and Wine, while those interested in sipping this blog can get a more digestible range of topics from 10 ThingsWine Education. Tom has 17 years of experience under his belt and has been blogging on Fermentation since 2004. Read the whole thing and you could train a sommelier afterward -- or start your own label."

CAVEAT: We don't recommend anyone use Fermentation as a training manual for sommeliers. No one likes a partially cynical, self-indulgent, media-obsessed person pouring their wines for them.

Is Drinking Wine Ethical?

Nearly any topic, once explored, can lead an inquisitive mind into the realm of philosophy as topic eventually leads to issues of truth. Wine in particular strikes me as quite ripe a topic for philosophical exploration. It strikes State Professor Emeritus of Philosophy Kent Bach this way too.

Dr. Kent is the philosopher behind the 2nd "Philosophy of Wine" conference at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco on April 4.

Among the varied topics that will be covered by speakers from the wine industry and the world of philosophy are:

"Wine: Consistency of Perception, Variation in Interpretation”
“Do We Taste the Wine?”
“Real Value in Wine” Wine, Aesthetics, and Critical Communication”

Clearly wine here is being used to explore larger issues that occupy the philosopher's thoughts: How we perceive, ethics, the nature of what is good, logic. It's all there.

It would be interesting, for example, to do a survey of the various philosophical approaches to the question: "Is drinking wine moral or good?" I'd be fascinated to know, for example how Kant's Categorical Imperative could be applied to this question? What would be the consequences of willing the drinking of wine universally?

It's in the area of perception and Empiricism where I think wine is most useful for the philosopher. How do we experience wine and what kind of knowledge is gained by doing so and in what way?

If you are inclined to think about wine in ways that go beyond it's cost and if you are in SF on April 4, you should attend the conference on the Philosophy of Wine. You can find more information on the even HERE  while the program for the day's events are HERE.

The Two Faces of Wine

Here's a little trick for evaluating the true concerns of an organization associated with wine: compare the things they like to talk about VERSUS those things they DON'T talk about.

Take the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association as an example.

The other day they issued a press release that breathlessly and near hysterically denounced all on-line retailers for the way they sell wine. The organization's president Craig Wolf said this:

"On-line retailers are playing fast and loose with alcohol laws -- shipping beer, wine and liquor with no fear of being caught doing something illegal -- including selling to kids."

Their press release came in response to a media sting that caught an out-of-state retailer shipping into Iowa where retailers are prohibited from shipping (it's OK for wineries to ship into Iowa).

What's interesting is that the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers Association doesn't issue  press releases condemning brick & mortar retailers  for the far, far more common occurrence of brick and mortar retailers selling wine to minors.

In fact, WSWA is on record suggesting that direct shipping out to be outlawed by states because it's just too easy, they say, for minors to use the on-line channel to get their hands on alcohol. Yet we all know that minors get alcohol far more often via the brick and mortar retailer. Yet, we here no call for brick and mortar alcohol sales to be shut down.

The difference, of course, is that wine wholesalers make money when a bottle of wine is sold out of a brick and mortar store to a minor, but they don't make money when a bottle of wine is shipped into a state.

The Specialty Wine Retailers Association, of which I am the executive director, made this point today in  a press release that went out nationwide, to wine bloggers and the national wine media.

Does this mean that the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association don't care about underage drinking? Probably not. However, you might conclude that they care a lot more about any kind of drinking their members don't make a profit on. After all, everyone has to rank their concerns in terms of priority. One way to get at that priority if you are an outsider is to look at what kind of folks they want to condemn and what kind of folks they want to coddle.

The Road To Justice

The man accussed of setting fire to a warehouse filled with great wine and causing well over $250,000,000 in damage pled not guilty yesterday in a Sacramento courtroom

It appears that Mark Anderson is using a public defender rather than a private defense attorney. Hmmm?

He has until April 6 to post a $500,000 bond.

This whole episode still makes me sick.

But on another point, a semantic one, I found it interesting how the Associated Press story on Anderson that ran in what seems like every paper in America yesterday identified Anderson as a "Wine Keeper".

I've never heard that term used before. I've heard "Bee Keeper" and "Keeper of the Watch and "Finder Keeper." But never "Wine Keeper". The story only identifies Anderson as a person who was "paid to store wine". Wouldn't that make him a "wine store" rather than a "wine keeper"? I always thought of a "wine keeper" as a 2004 Saintsbury Brown Ranch Pinot Noir or a 1974 Heitz Martha's Vineyard Cabernet.

Stick With Art

Mike Dunne of the Sacramento Bee has written a wonderful article on the Authentication Controversy swirling about the world of rare wine.

The controversy came to the surface when a gentleman who paid $500,000 for wine thought to once to have been in the collection of Thomas Jefferson claims the wines are fake. He filed a lawsuit  in Federal Court in New York claiming fraud. It's a pretty fascinating and complex story which can be found at Bloomberg HERE, while another take on the matter can be found at The Wine Collector Blog HERE.

Dunne gets to the heart of the the matter: How can we tell it's fraud? How can we tell, particularly by tasting the wine, that it's not the wine it's said to be?

Leaving aside the artificial elements of the wine (cork, glass, label), can one simply evaluate a wine and determine if it is what it is said to be? How experienced a taster would you have to be to determine this?

This is the question at the heart of Dunne's article and what drove him to speak to Allen Meadows, a Burgundy expert who writes The Burghound newsletter and who has been called in to authenticate wines in this manner before. When Dunne questioned Meadows about his claim that 3 of 17 wines he tasted at an authentication session were likely fakes the Burgundy expert responds this way:

"However, I can say that the wines in question were well outside of what I would have expected to find for wines from those specific vintages, from those specific vineyards and from that specific winemaker based on, if I may use the term without sounding ridiculously pompous, considerable experience," Meadows says. "Does that make my opinions infallible? Absolutely not. Does it call into reasonable doubt the authenticity? I believe that it does."

First, I'd be inclined to believe Meadow's assessment of the wines. But think about the kind of palate memory one would have to possess to say about any wine that it doesn't fit the profile of the vintage, vineyard and winemaker. Better yet, think about the confidence one would have to have in their palate to make this kind of judgment.

Now, I don't know what kind of dough Mr. Meadows makes in a year. But I know this. Given the rarity of that kind of ability it's a shame he doesn't make three times as much as he does. How many folks in the world would have the ability and the confidence in that ability to make this kind of judgment?

So here's the takeaway. If you want to get into the business of assessing value, stick with where the money is. It's not wine. The value of the wine Christie's and Sotheby's auction houses sell in a year is considerably less than they make in a one day auction of Contemporary art. Hell, one painting goes for far more than the entire value of their wine auction departments.

No More Wine Media

One of the requirements of my particular job is to consume media...lots of it, hourly, seven days a week. The requirement is dictated by the necessity I feel to have a grip on the general cultural and social atmosphere Wark Communication's clients are working within. There is an ever-changing context of ideas and trends that affects the way most people perceive ideas, products and activities. I feel like a good PR dude needs to have a grasp on this context and its various levels in order to properly represent his clients.

So to that end I consume the delivery vehicle for cultural and social context: media. Once you have the tools on hand,  a good consumption infrastructure set up, and an efficient method for moving through information quickly you'd be surprised just how much information and media you can actually move through. On any given day I'll get through three newspapers in print, two or three print magazines, five different newspapers on-line, and we haven't even gotten to the information aggregators on-line.

Four or five times a day I'll go through my Yahoo homepage where headlines in 40 categories are regularly updates. Bloglines, my blog aggregator, delivers me headlines and partial content for more than 120 different blogs. I check that 2 or three times per day.  Then there are the Google Alerts. I have 26 of those set up that deliver to me constant updates on specific terms I want to follow. Some have to do with clients, others with ideas.

Then there is TV and Radio. TIVO has allowed me to really use this medium in a structured way. In a matter of 30 minutes I can move through 5 hours of news and topical shows before I even get to reruns of the Sopranos. I can find out what is scheduled to be put out over the airwaves concerning wine on any given day in a matter of seconds.

So what's the point?

I tried something this weekend. I went without media. No newspapers, no Internet, no radio, no Tivo, no magazines. It was sort of a toe-in-the-water kind of thing in preparation for a vacation coming up during which I will consume no media whatsoever.

What did I learn?

1. The withdrawal symptoms kick in very quickly.
2. They are easily overcome by maintaining a close proximity to your family and good jazz.
3. Wine tastes just as good (or bad) with or without having  current reports on it nearby.
4. It's true that the only way to give context to one's culture and society is by consuming its media.

I can't be sure what the totality of the impact of my massive consumption of media is on my life beyond knowing that it surely does impact it in important ways. I'm not worried about that only because I feel like I have no choice but to continue the consumption. For me the issue is how to consume this, and more, in the most efficient manner and whether or not I'm properly evaluating what I consume.

Looking only at the issue of how wine and wine drinkers and the wine industry is presented in the various media, I know that today it is much easy to have a broad understanding of these topics due to the Internet. I used to subscribe to six newspapers a day and every wine publication in the world, and read it all. The Internet not only allows me to continue to do this, but do it more quickly. But in addition, the Internet allows me inside the heads of a different group: those who's preoccupation is drinking the stuff rather than selling and writing about the stuff. This is new and a product of the Internet's chat rooms, blogs, bulletin boards and e-mail.

The picture one gets of the world of wine by combining attention to broad cultural and social trends with attention to expressions of wine's meaning in the media and among individuals is amazingly deep. I don't see how any marketer of wine can be anything but better at what they do by diving in to this currently changing whirlpool of ideas, notions, and trends.

What bothers me, however, is what a happy and uneventful weekend I experienced these last two days. It was a weekend like many others with the exception of their being no media consumed. I'll swear to the nearest God that I was brighter, lighter on my feet, more communicative, more wiling to laugh and heard things and people more clearly. Why is this? What are the implications of this?

Now, I don't recommend to anyone that they ever take a break from all their media consumption. At the very least it's imperative you check in and read FERMENTATION on a daily, even hourly basis.   This recommendation is for your own good. That said, I'm wondering what the result of cutting yourself off from all media for a period of two weeks will be. Will my perception of wine and the world of wine change drastically as a result? Would that be bad? Bad for business? Perhaps some of you have more experience with th effects of media withdrawal. I'd like to know what I'm about to get myself into.

Honesty, Virtue & Marketing in Wine Labeling

Honesty. It's perhaps the most important virtue any person can possess.

I've argued for some time that while American Viticultural Areas can have meaning related to the character of the wine inside them, their primary value is as a marketing tool. The Paso Robles wine folk have seen fit to be quite honest about this assessment in looking to pass a new labeling law.

American Viticultural Areas are lines on a map that are approved in Washington,D.C. The area inside these lines purport to have some similarity in climate and soil, which in theory should tell us something about the liquid in the bottle that has one of these AVAs (or "Appellations") on the bottle. This is rarely true. While certain AVAs such as Howell Mountain and Atlas Peak in Napa Valley, Green Valley in Sonoma County and Anderson Valley in Mendocino County, as well as a few others, do offer the consumer a hint of what the wine will taste and feel like, most AVAs don't describe an area well defined enough by soil and climate to really give the consumer this kind of Information about the wine they are contemplating.

The Paso Robles AVA in the Central Coast area of California is like this. This AVA encompasses a huge variety of climates, soil types, elevations and rainfall tendencies. In order to create a set of more meaningful area designations, a committee of Paso winemakers and growers have submitted to the Federal Government applications to carve up the Paso Robles AVA into twelve smaller, more well defined appellations that could be printed on labels to better pinpoint the location where the grapes were grown and theoretically better define the specific influences that affected the character of grapes grown in these areas. All this should help the consumer have a better idea of what the wine will taste like.

I think this is a great idea. The smaller the area designated by an AVA, the more likely the area will have specific characteristics, the more likely wines made from grapes grown in these smaller areas will have a consistent character based on the terroir. In other words, the smaller the area of an AVA the more meaningful it is.

Enter California Assembly Bill 87.

Cyril Penn, writing in the San Francisco Chronicle, describes AB 87 this way: "(It) would create a conjunctive labeling law to ensure the Paso Robles name is used on wine labels when subappellations within the region are approved."

In other words if one of these new 12 sub-appellations, such as the proposed "Adelaida District", is used on a bottle of wine—telling us that this is where the grapes for the wine were grown—the winery must also put the term "Paso Robles" on the label next to the words "Adelaida District".

Why?

"We're still driving and getting awareness for Paso Robles as a wine region," Paso Robles AVA Committee spokeswoman Stacie Jacob said. "That's where the conjunctive labeling comes in. It will help ensure Paso Robles remains the dominant AVA while the subappellations can truly tell the story."

So here's my question? Of what value to the consumer or wine drinker is there in keeping Paso Robles the "dominant AVA"?

I suppose it might give consumers unfamiliar with the Adelaida District some reference as to where that small sub appellation is located in California, assuming they know where Paso Robles is. It occurs to me though that it should be the winery that decides whether or not it WANTS to make that association. What happens if, heaven forbid, the reputation of  "Paso Robles" takes a nose dive while the Adelaida District comes to be perceived as a source of great wines? Why should the vintner be forced to hold on to the use of the "Paso Robles" designation on their label when the Adelaida District appellation not does more to market the wine but also better describes the actual location where the grapes were grown?

What's going on here is honesty.

The folks behind this legislation, The Paso Robles Wine Country Alliance, are protecting the investment they've made in promoting the idea of "Paso Robles". Although the appellation known as "Paso Robles" is so diverse one can make only limited assumptions about a wine bearing that appellation, a great deal of time and money has been invested in raising it's visibility among wine drinkers. This legislation helps assure that 1) the Paso Robles AVA won't get forgotten when all the other, better-defined and more useful, sub appellations are approved and 2) the money that has been invested in the promotion of the Paso Robles AVA won't go down the drain.

The legislation says that the term "Paso Robles" must appear "in direct conjunction" to any smaller appellation that is on the label. That means "right next to". The legislation also says that the term "Paso Robles" may not be more than 1mm smaller in size than the sub appellation listed on the bottle that it appears next to. In essence, all the newly proposed sub appellations are having additional words added to their name. It won't be the "Adelaida District". It will be "Adelaida District-Paso Robles".

I'm a big advocate of slicing up California's AVA into very tiny pieces mainly because I have this idea that consumers are better served when the geographic appellation on the bottle corresponds to well defined climatic and soil characteristics. Slicing things up smaller is the only way to achieve this. However, I don't favor forcing a winemaker to put another appellation on their label that only serves the purpose of letting the larger appellation suck up the prestige that the smaller appellation may have for the purpose of marketing.

It is already legal for a winery to put both the small sub appellation on the label as well as the name of the larger appellation inside of which the smaller one fits. For example, some wineries in the Atlas Peak region are labeled like this: "Atlas Peak - Napa Valley". This means the vast majority of the grapes that made this wine were grown in the Atlas Peak sub appellation of Napa Valley.

This new law would further degrade the meaning of American Viticultural Areas. However, it would virtue insofar as the folks behind it are being honest about their view of what they believe AVAs are for: marketing, not information.

Winery Vs. Retailer: What's the Difference?

Here's an interesting question:

When you buy a case of wine over the Internet from a winery website and when you buy a case of wine over the Internet from a wine shop website, are the two transactions different in any substantial way?

We are finding that both wine distributors and state alcohol regulators are attempting to make the case that they are substantially different transactions. In fact, according to these two groups, these two transaction are so different that the retailer transaction should be banned.

In states across the country legislators are redefining their direct wine shipment laws as a result of the 2005 Supreme Court decision, "Granholm v. Heald". In most cases these states are creating "permit systems" by which an out of state entity wishing to ship to consumers in that state need to pay for a permit do do so, submit themselves to that state's jurisdiction, pay appropriate taxes and abide by a variety of laws.

Yet, there is a move to treat transactions different if the consumers is buying from a winery versus a retailer. In fact, there is a move among some in these states to bar the retail transaction all together.

Both Oregon and Illinois have bills being considered now that would allow out-of-state wineries to ship to folks in these states but prohibit out-of-state retailers to do the same.

Now, I'll admit upfront that I'm no genius. I get things wrong often. So I need someone to show me how a wine purchase from a winery isn't a RETAIL transaction in the same way it is a RETAIL transaction when it happens with a wine shop.

It's true that states issue different types of permits to wineries and retailers that confer different privileges upon these two sorts of businesses. In every state a retail permitee is not allowed to PRODUCE wine. And in many states a winery is not allowed to SELL wine to a retailer, but rather must sell their wine to a wholesaler.

But, when the winery and retailer sell wine direct to the consumer, whether at winery or wine shop or via the Internet the transactions are identical.

In some cases the opponents of retail to consumer, cross border wine sales have argued that allowing retailers from across the country to ship into a state will open floodgates. While the evidence from across the country doesn't prove this out, the question remains, OK....and that's a problem why?

If anyone is watching the direct shipping wars closely, they'll note that wineries seem to have won their battle: states are no longer attempting in any great measure to prevent out-of-state wineries from shipping. They may put up odd restrictions. But for the most part the move to prohibit such sales by wineries just isn't happening anymore.

Today the battle has shifted to two fronts: Winery direct sales to retailers and cross-border sales of retailer to consumer. Both these kinds of transactions are being fought tooth and nail by distributors almost everywhere and by regulators in many states.

In order to bar retailers from shipping into a state, distributors and alcohol regulators must make the case that a winery-to-consumer sale is substantially different than a retailer-to-consumer sale. I simply don't know how this argument is made. Yet, it is made.

Wine Blogging's Coming Out at the James Beard Awards

It's a big year for Tyler Colman of the Dr. Vino Wine Blog.

First he takes home Best Overall Wine Blog and Best Writing on a Wine Blog at the American Wine Blog Awards and now he finds his blog nominated in the "Best Website Focusing on Food, Beverage, Restaurant or Nutrition" at the prestigious James Beard Awards." (PDF)

A couple other nominations really pleased me. Wine & Spirits Magazine once again had one of its authors nominated. This time is was for Fiona Morrison's article, "Chambolle-Musigny" in the "Best Magazine Writing of Spirits, Wine or Beer" category.  Wine & Spirits seems to a consistent nominee at these awards.

It was also nice to see the San Francisco Chronicle 's Food & Wine section nominated in the "Best Newspaper Section" category. This is a nice achievement for Jon Bonne, the Wine Section's new editor who took over the wine section last year.

On a personal note, I was disappointed that AppellationAmerica.com did not receive any nominations. Yes, I work with them. But I think unarguable that some of the most progressive and insightful wine writing in 2006 came out of that site.

For wine bloggers and readers of wine blogs you've got to be happy for Tyler Colman of Dr. Vino not only because a really fantastic writer is getting recognition but also because it suggests that wine blogs are fully part of the wine writing establishment--something many of us have know for a long time--and their status is being recognized through this nomination. Congratulations to Tyler.

UPDATE
I'm not sure how I missed it but king of Wine Podcasts, GRAPE RADIO, was also nominated for a James Beard Award in the Best Webcast Category. It was a long list, so I'll give myself that out for not mentioning it. Congrats to Brian Clark and Jay Selman! The Wine Blogosphere is cooking.

Some "Scum of the Earth" With that Wine?

I'm not sure how much satisfaction will be gained by those who lost wine in the 2005 Vallejo warehouse fire that destroyed millions of dollars of old and new wine as a result of the news that a Sausalito, California man has been charged with arson in the case.

Nonetheless, if Mark Anderson is guilty as  charged and if he is forced to pay for his deeds that will be some measure of justice. It just won't bring back wineries' entire vintages or twenty years worth of library wines that were lot in the the 2005 blaze.

If guilty of all the charges against him then I think we can say in an objective manner that this person is "scum of the earth"....a technical term for...scum of the earth.

Images of what this act of arson resulted in can be found HERE.