Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

On Five Years of Wine Blogging

Time is the enemy.

Time always moves faster than we think it will and in the end it more than anything else is responsible for dashing hopes, destroying lives, ending strong bids and shutting the door on alternatives.

But what makes Time that really sneaky devil dressed in a cool white dress is that for a while it is the primary source of wonderful developments. I don't have to describe how this might be where wine is concerned do I? While the enemy will ultimately destroy a wine, it first lifts it to new heights.

And where FERMENTATION: The Daily Wine Blog is concerned, today Time is a friend.

Today marks the 5th Anniversary of this blog.

What does this mean? Nominally, it means:

1,961 posts (more than one post for every day of its existence)

-11,600+ comments-

Over 100,000 references on the Internet

-An estimated 58,000 minutes writing blog posts

-Three Years of  American Wine Blog Awards

In the Time span of five years, FERMENTATION has grown into something I never expected it to become: A vessel that held the content that would redefine (or, simply, define) Tom Wark in my eyes and in the eyes of many in the wine industry. But five years of wine blogging has done more than that for me. It has introduced me to people I never would have known otherwise. It has opened doors to educational experiences. It has given me the chance to promote causes and people in much more positive and active ways, and it helped play an important roll in staying smoke free. It has been, in a word, a blessing.

And yet even after 1.074 posts per day for five years, wine blogging remains primarily a hobby. The vast majority of my professional life is focused on serving the communication and marketing needs of my clients via a practice I founded 15 years ago when Wark Communications opened its doors. Wark Communications pays nearly all my bills, provides me with all my opportunity and is likely to be the source of my professional identity for many years to come.

And yet, on this fifth anniversary of pursuing a hobby, I have fantasies of my hobby becoming a profession. Nearly every time I sit and craft a blog post, in the back of my mind I imagine making a living as a wine blogger; I imagine generating six figures worth of income by blogging about wine. The fantasy has at times been so intense that I've spent good chunks of time examining various models that might allow this fantasy to come true. Alas, I've yet to find the model or circumstances that would make this happen without an infusion of serious investment funds.

Be that as it may, today, while Time has not yet taken a severe toll on me or this blog, I celebrate five years of wine blogging. It is an accomplishment of sorts. I'm proud of it. And I hope to one, unfortunately all too soon, celebrate a decade of blogging at FERMENTATION.

The Little Annoying Wine Club

As some of my readers may know, I founded the American Wine Blog Awards. For three years I administered the awards program that attempted to identify the best blogs in a variety of categories and honor them for their contributions and efforts. After the third year, I gifted the Awards to the OpenWine Consortium.

Well, I'm starting a new awards program: THE MOST ANNOYING INTERNET WINE PROMOTION AWARDS. Or...the MAIWPA.

There can be no question as to what Internet Wine Promotion gets the inaugural award: THE WALL STREET JOURNAL WINE CLUB PROMOTION!

I've counted. In the past two weeks alone, I've received 65 emails, all exactly the same, each asking me to buy "A Dozen Magnificent Reds For only $69.99—SAVE $120" and to join the WSJ wine club.

Sixty-Five Emails! Keep in mind that twice I've asked that my name be taken off their mailing list. And twice I've been told that I've been removed, but that more emails may arrive because they are already cued up. 

In a word, this is extremely A N N O Y I N G !!!!

For some reason I expect the Wall Street Journal to not allow their marketing folks or surrogates to engage in spam email marketing. What was I thinking?  Don't get me wrong, I think it's just great that the venerable WSJ, with its impressive demographics, would get into the wine club business. But for the Love of Conservatism Editorial Policy and al that is otherwise holy, can they please act respectably?

I have to believe that their repeated and numerous emails to me are some sort of a mistake. Could they really believe that somewhere around the 61st or 76th email, I'd finally bite? Maybe there is some marketing lore out there that says, "Get the message in front of the prospect 60some-odd-times and the chances of them biting goes up 40%. I don't know. All I know is that I'm a little annoyed at the Wall Street Journal.

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IMPORTANT UPDATE: The original post was uploaded at 5:07pm. The next email from the WSJ came at 5:10pm.

The Truth About Wine and Thanksgiving

No wine "GOES" with Thanksgiving Dinner. Give up the ghost. Don't try to match a wine with this stupendous meal. The task is without reward.

Sure, they'll tell you the wine to serve is Gewerztraminer because it's spicy character will work well with the roast turkey and maybe even with that stuffing. It might.

Some will tell you to go with the Pinot Noir. This wine, not being to big and massive and having any number of aromas and flavors associated with it, can be said to pair up nicely not only with the Bird and stuffing but maybe even with the Cranberry sauce. Whatever.

See, the problem is this: If you are serving a traditional American Thanksgiving Dinner you are going to have so many different dishes on the table there's no way one wine will work with everything, including the Turkey, stuffing of many different types, the mashed potatoes, the green beans, the cranberry sauce, the rolls, the Brussels sprouts, the salads of various historic appellation and who know what else.

And what the hell are you going to serve to go with that "fantasia" mix of marshmallow, little oranges, coconut and God knows what else?

But it's all good and here's why:

Because no one wine truly works with this meal, you are at liberty to pull out ANY WINE YOU WANT, serve it and make it work! That means the wine can match the mood, the people, the season...anything. It means you can pull out that wine you've been saving to impress your new boyfriend or the wine you want to pawn off on the unsuspected.

Bottom line: Thanksgiving is the Black Hole of wine...EVERYTHING CAN GET SUCKED DOWN INTO ITS CULINARY VORTEX!

Me? I'll be serving a Mayo Family Winery Cabernet, a 2002 Failla Pinot and Chardonnay and a Bucklin Old Hill Ranch Grenache (very rare!!). Besides these highly coveted bottlings, I suspect we'll be sampling Wiliam Selyem Pinots, and chards, an Adrian Fog Pinot or two a few Napa Cabs, a Port or two and who knows what else. And the good thing is that it's just not possible that whatever wine is being poured won't match with something that is on the Thanksgiving table.

And for those of you wondering, the answer is "YES". Cocktails are perfectly suited for this Holiday. My recommendation, however, is to do what I do: as soon as the guest arrives ask them, specifically, "what cocktail can I mix for you?"

I tend to think the Bloody Mary is a nice mid afternoon/Pre-Feast drink. The Sazerac, being an American concoction and having two my favorite spirits among its ingredients, is also a fine choice. But really, any cocktail will do. There's nothing wrong with with assuring your guests have a tiny little buzz on as they enjoy this wonderful holiday and it's lovely traditions.

So there is is. Don't waste any time trying to match the wine to the food. It won't go well. Choose the wine based on what you want to drink.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!

Napa Considering Its Future

If you ever doubted the veracity of the idiom, "Necessity is the mother of invention" then just read what the powers that be are considering in Napa.

After 20 years of living under the Winery Definition Ordinance that banned anything but "Appointment only Tastings" and weddings at wineries founded after 1989, there is consideration now of loosening those restrictions. Why? The economy sucks and many who previously saw no need to tempt a "Disneyland-like environment that many see as the natural outgrowth of easy tastings and weddings, are now thinking maybe we need to loosen restrictions on wineries to help them survive this downturn.

This is a very contentious issue in Napa Valley and Napa County. Many in and out of the wine industry fear that allowing too much "marketing" activity in agricultural zones will serve to threaten the agricultural nature of the Valley by encouraging development as well as by clogging the roads with even more cars filled with travelers who are only seeking their next taste of wine.

But then, again, the economy sucks!

From a political perspective, the question seems to be can the anti-development/pro-agriculture crowd come to terms with the pro-winery/pro-commercial group over how to allow greater commercial activity in ag zones.

The point is made by some that without unshackling the wineries so that they may be allowed to do more "marketing" on their land and in their winery, they may not survive. The point made by others is "give the wineries an inch and their lawyers will take a mile."

I look around and I see a lot of wine-related business, businesses that form the core of the economy in this region, hurting like they never have before. Many are being bought up by larger concerns. Others are going into bankruptcy. If there is not a way to give wineries more latitude to market in a way that encourages more sales and economic activity and to do so in a way that satisfies the pro-ag/anti-development crowd, then both sides ought to be ashamed of themselves. In an economy like this, where many people's livelihood and futures on the line, this is not the time to put your back against the wall and insist on the purity of your position.

I'm Thankful For...

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. In addition to providing the opportunity to pull out those "special occasion" wines I tend to look forward to opening, it is also the holiday best suited to my temperment, belief structure and inclinations toward feasting.

More importantly, it provides a symbolic pause in life's advance that enables me to formally and publicly give thanks. And there is a great deal for PR Guy and blogger to be thankful for.

I'M THANKFUL FOR...

...Having people in my life to share wine with

...Living a life that anyone would call blessed.

...Having enough talent to never fall prey to the dread that is dependency.

...Kathy

...Having this blog, though which I can explore my relationship with wine, culture, politics and myself.

...Every client Wark Communications has ever served

...Still being able to pull a few tap dancing moves out of my hat after all these years

...Being reminded that love is not just something at which cynics scoff.

...Karen and Alverna

...Cindy, Don, Jane, Jeff, Kevin, Lisa, Michelle, Robert, Sarah and Stewart, and Tori.

...Bucklin Old Hill Ranch Zinfandel.

...Getting my nose back after abusing it for 20 years

...the New Yorker Magazine

...Authentic Country Hams

...Modern medical miracles

...The comfort and bliss that comes with giving and receiving real affection

...Possessing much less concern today about what others think.

...Possessing the kind of hope necessary to continue to cheer for the San Francisco Giants

...Dark movie theaters, warm popcorn and a projector

...the memories I have of my parents.

...The readership of this blog

I Should Have Drunk Bad Wine

I think it's one thing for America's alcohol wholesalers to selfishly and arrogantly take control of state legislatures and cripple consumers' beliefs that their demand is honestly assessed by suppliers and met for the sake of consistency with basic economic laws, all for the sake of multiplying their power, wealth and control of a huge swatch of the American economy. After all, that's business...of a sort.

But no matter how ugly the state-mandated three tier system can get, it's not nearly as ugly and damaging and immoral as the work of America's entertainment industry who cravenly produce things like "2012", a full blown slasher movie on a gigantic scale masquerading as a film about human resilience. 

In my desire to do good work for the Specialty Wine Retailers Association and in feeling compelled to call out the blatant absurdity of a system that hurts more than it helps, I'm told by some that I ought to be more moderate in the way I attack these personal and professional pursuits.

I can live with that critique of my approach.

But what's really difficult to live with is that I contributed my person coin to purveyors of artless filth who are best defined by their furious and giddy delight in slathering mud and feces all over that most precious thing called human life, all for the sake of making money and indulging their own sadistic nature. I used to think that slasher films, where the flaying of human flesh is used to evoke surprise and fear, was just about the worst thing a moviemaker could do with the trust and money they are given. I learned it wasn't. In "2012", a collection of "filmmakers" and actors upped the ante by fantasizing not just about the killing of a human being with sharp objects, but about the torture of all humanity while all humanity watches. That's sick.

Life is short and final.

That's just one of the reasons it's so precious. That's just one of the reasons we should expect ourselves and anyone else not infected by diseases of the mind to treat it with respect. That's just one of the reasons those of us in the wine business, whether aligned with producers or wholesalers or retailers, appreciate that we get to work around a man made product that primarily gives people pleasure. That, having been reminded of it in profound ways over the past year and a half, is why I'm positive I need to pursue those things that leave a real positive mark on my and others lives.

It's also why I need to be much more careful about spending money in support of smut like "2012" and instead spending it on something better, like time drinking the worst wine I've ever tasted.

The Big (wine) Lie

“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

JOSEPH GOEBBELS, Propaganda Minister Under Adolph Hitler

Collectively, American alcohol wholesalers act very much like Nazi leader Joseph Geobbels and certainly have adopted the strategy of the "Big Lie", described above as a means to deceive the people just long enough to assure that the consequences of the lie take their toll before the mortal enemy of the lie, truth, takes hold.

While the "Big Lie" that most alcohol wholesalers and many state alcohol regulators tell is that the three tier system of alcohol distribution is a great thing, the most important and damaging lies are those little ones that are more often told in support of the wholesaler monopoly.

THE BIG LIES

1. The Three Tier System Prevents Vertical Monopolies in the Alcohol Industry
Whether true or not, it is believed by most that the primary purpose of creating a three tier system at the end of Prohibition was to prevent vertical integration of the industry through cross ownerships between retailer and supplier. It is believed the three tier system was put in place to prevent retailers or restaurants from being "Tied" to large suppliers that could control them by virtue of ownership or influence. Fine. The big lie however is that a state mandated three tier system whereby alcohol must flow through wholesalers before getting to retailers, is necessary to prevent vertical integration or tied house influence. Simply passing a law that prohibits supplier ownership in restaurants and retail establishments would accomplish this. One need not give wholesalers a monopoly to prevent the abuses that allegedly took place prior to Prohibition

2. The Three Tier System Has Resulted In The Best Selection of Products of Any Marketplace in the World
Though the wholesalers claim this, the fact of the matter is that nothing about have a state-mandated three tier system contributes to providing a wide variety of products to consumers. In those markets where in fact consumers are lucky enough to find a variety of wine products that comes close to representing even 1/10th of the wines available in American, the fact that they have this kind of choice has nothing to do with the existence of the three tier system. Rather it has everything to do with the ingenuity of the producers and the retailers' acute awareness of consumer demand. The only reason wholesalers provide the small amount of choice in those markets that might seem to have greater choice of products is because there exists the number of producers to provide a larger choice and a savvy retailer class that demands the ability to meet consumer choice. Wholesalers, given their desires, would see as few brands as possible being distributed in markets. What truly gives consumers in any market real choice and selection is direct shipment rights by out-of-state wineries and retailers. And these rights are EXCEPTIONS to the strict rules of the three tier system.

3. The Tier System Prevents Sale of Alcohol To Minors
Goebbels would be proud of America's alcohol wholesalers for telling this lie. There is nothing about the existence of a state mandate that retailers buy their supply from wholesalers that has anything to do with minors attempting to obtain alcohol or actually obtaining it. Were wineries allowed to sell to wholesalers or directly to retailers as a matter of their own choice, you would see no difference whatsoever in the number of minors that drink alcohol or attempt to obtain alcohol. One has nothing to do with the other.

4. The Three Tier System Prevents Corruption and Coercion the Likes of Which Prompted the Original Adoption of the Three Tier System in the 1930s.
Any retailer or supplier playing in a market that has only 1 or 2 very large wholesalers that control those markets knows this is untrue. In fact, in those many states where two wholesalers dominate the industry, they control access to wine by the retailers and restaurants and they abuse that control through corrupt practices and by the natural corruption that results from monopolies. The wholesalers, in the most corrupt way, demands that retailers and restaurants buy a lot of wines they don't want in order to get the wines they do want. In addition there are many stories of the powerful wholesalers, upon hearing that a restaurant or retailer has begun buying wine from smaller upstart wholesalers, no longer services that account, leaving them without the majority of wines they need to buy. The only way this kind of power could be wielded and this kind of corruption could exist is if use of the wholesale tier was mandated by the state and made into a monopoly.

There are more "Big Lies", but these are among the worst and most often put forward by the proponents of the state-sponsored welfare for alcohol wholesalers known as the state mandated three tier system.

A Bad Wine Saga Ends!

  On October 15, 2005 more than 6 million bottles of wine stored at the Wine Central Warehouse in Vallejo were destroyed when Marc Anderson, a Sausalito, California business man set fire to the warehouse in order to destroy evidence of earlier crimes.

Entire inventories of wineries productions were destroyed as almost 100 wineries kept their inventories in the warehouse. In some cases, historic library collections of important California wineries were destroyed by heat damage. For the Northern California wine industry, Anderson's self-serving, desperate act was a devastating loss.

Today, under a plea agreement involving a 19 count federal indictment, Anderson pled guilty to the crime.

Now, I don't mean to suggest that this crime of arson, because it was wine that was destroyed and because I love wine, is a particularly terrible crime. I don't mean to diminish the impact of other types of crimes where lives are taken, for example. I only mean to suggest that the 20 some odd years in prison that Anderson will likely get as a result of being convicted not only of arson but also of mail fraud and tax evasion, are simply not enough.

The problem is, I have no idea what kind of prison term would be appropriate. Luckily, I'm not a judge. If it were me, I'd probably flip a coin: Heads it's life, tails it's it only until he dies.

What was shocking about this case at the time was not just the extent of the loss as the mass loss of wine became known, but the fact that this kind of cross industry loss is not often seen in the wine industry. Sometimes we hear about trucks carrying grapes tipping over on the highway. Sometimes we hear about tankers with wine crashing spilling 1000s of gallons of wine onto the highway. And occasionally you hear about a fire at a winery. You just don't' hear about 6 million bottles of wlne being destroyed.

In any case, we'll not hear much more about this story. Anderson pled guilty, he'll go to jail and the wineries that lost so much have plodded forward and done what they had to.

I just hope that those who did lose so much of what they had worked so hard to produce and preserve gain a little bit of solace from the fact that for the next 20 years Anderson will spend time sharing a shower and soap with some of the nicest guys in California. But I doubt it.

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QUITTING SMOKING UPDATE—DAY 23

There's no question about it, I'm on the downslope of working through the cravings and oral fixation that has been so difficult to deal with over the past 3 weeks. Today the occasional craving to light up and inhale smoke into my lungs still over comes me. In fact, it happens at least 10 times a day. But the cravings are far less severe now and last only momentarily. In addition, when distracted, when not writing about quitting smoking but thinking about other things, I don't think about smoking at all. As I've written before, the aroma seeking nose is back. However, I'm still waiting on the flavor detecting ability of my palate to become more acute. Bottom line: with the help of drugs, patches, candy and the support of friends, readers and another very important person, I'm pretty sure I"m a non-smoker.

Integrity—Bloodied and Scarred

I tend to talk a loud game here at Fermentation about the corruption that surrounds the politics of wine distribution. I tend to accuse politicians of being in some people's pockets on the issue of the three tier system. But rarely do I have the opportunity to point my readers to an example of integrity so obviously bloodied and scarred by bald faced corruption. Allow me.

Late last year, the state of Michigan lost a court battle in which they vigorously defended their discrimination against out-of-state wine stores. Michigan allowed in-state wine stores to ship wine to Michiganders. It allow in-state wineries to ship wine to Michiganders. And it allow out-of-state wineries to ship to Michiganders. But out-of-state wine merchants? They were prohibited.

The Federal District Court Judge told both the state of Michigan and the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association that their arguments in favor of denying adult consumers access to the wines they want and denying out-of-state wine merchants the right to fulfill Michigan consumers' demands was unconstitutional. The Judge, predictably, cited the Supreme Court decision and reasoning of Granholm v. Heald.

It was no surprise that the state appealed this decision to Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals where, I'm sure the Michigan wholesalers knew, their arguments in favor of blatant, anti-consumer discriminatory laws would be shot down by an even higher court. The problem the Michigan wholesalers in particular had was that a decision in favor of retailer direct shipping from an Appeals Court is a very powerful slap to their face and would have advanced the goal of allowing wine merchants outside Michigan and other states to be treated fairly where wine shipping was concerned.

So what happened? Rather than play out the Appeal, the Michigan Wholesalers decided to go to their bench. They decided rather than get a bad decision in a higher court, they'd fix their problem of having to compete on only a slightly more level playing field by getting a law passed that, while seemingly fair, would make sure there would be no retailer shipping at all in Michigan.

The Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers went to Representative Barbara Farrah and asked her to introduce a bill they had themselves written that would have banned ALL direct shipment of wine in Michigan by both in-state and out-of-state retailers, an approach to Direct Shipping policy that incredibly anti-consumer and anti-business, is constitutional.

The wholesalers also asked Representative Farrah to introduce this bill into a committee and to arrange to have that committee "hear" the bill without giving any notice to its opponents. Essentially, the wholesalers wanted to ram it through the Legislature under cover of darkness.

Representative Farrah did everything the Wholesalers asked. Everything.

Now, it just so happens that Representative Farrah counted Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association, the folks that  wrote the anti-consumer bill that was successful in killing retailer to consumer shipping in Michigan, as her largest campaign contributors during her three terms as a state Representative.

This was one of her last acts as a state representative. It also turns out she was a lame duck. Term limited out of office. Needing no more support from the Wholesalers, she could have done the right thing and denied the Michigan Wholesalers her involvement in screwing the consumers of Michigan and her representatives by engaging in a seriously dirty end run around representative government.

So why didn't she do the right thing? Because there was a job waiting for her after she left office.

Today, former Representative Barbara Farrah works for the Lansing lobbying firm "Governmental Consultant Services Inc." Imagine who one of their largest clients is:

The Michigan Beer & Wine Wholesalers Association, the very people that were giving her money throughout her political career and the folks for whom she choose to assist by taking a sharp carving knife and sticking in the side of Integrity, leaving it bloodied and wounded next to the capital steps while she went down the street to take a six figure job that was one can only assume was promised her if she did the deed for their benefactors.

If you are even a little bit appalled by Ms. Farrah's blatant lack of integrity in the Michigan Direct Shipping debate, you should write her and tell her. I did.

Can I Beg A Dose of Common Sense?

The American legal system really is a mess. Whether it's the reluctance of the two parties in congress to address nominees for various federal courts or the constant tort claims, it seems that justice comes at an obscenely slow pace.

One of the reasons, however, that justice is often very slow in coming is due to the various lawsuits that are filed that truly seem meritless, a nuisance and meant merely to aggrandize the lawyers filing the complaint.

Take for instance this lawsuit recently filed against Beverages & More that claims their "5 Cent Sale" is deceiving. In the Wine Business Monthly article on the lawsuit we have this little revelation about the claim in question:

“This practice of using a fictitious, marked up, or otherwise misleading regular price" is a deceptive, unfair and illegal practice,” alleges the filing. Plaintiff Peter Gray Jr. of San Francisco seeks restitution, damages, injunctive relief, and attorneys' fees, claiming to have been “actually injured as a result of BevMo’s conduct in an amount not less than the difference between what he paid for the two “regular” price bottles of wine (a total of $17.98 plus tax) and what he should have paid if BevMo had sole the bottles at their actual regular prices (a total of $12.98 plus tax).”

If you read this closely, the plaintiff in the case is claiming he was "injured" to tune of at least $5.00.

I'll tell you what, Mr. Gray, give me a call and I'll shoot you a check for four times that amount if you choose to drop your lawsuit and give our legal system a small break. I'll consider it the completion of my civic duty for the day.

Gray claims that with some wines the "regular price" advertised is in fact a higher price than what would be considered "regular" prior to the 5 Cent Sale. BevMo claims the lower-than-regular prices Mr. Gray has seen on some wines actually represents their "Club Bev" prices on some wines.

Who Cares? Really. Who Cares?

There's no question about it. Americans are in desperate need of tort reform as well as a dose of common sense. And some Americans need to do something with the time they have on their hands besides filing seemingly ridiculous lawsuits. Tell you what, Mr. Gray, in addition to giving you a check for 4 times the the least amount you were supposedly injured by BevMo, I'll also throw in a beginners book on wine. Maybe that will occupy your time and save us Californians from footing the bill so you can retrieve your $5.00.