This time of year in Napa Valley the landscape is dominated by vines seemingly finished; denuded of leaves, browned and blackened by cold; heaving downward with the weight of the raining season on their canes; apparently dead and done. It's all a head fake toward a spiritual and physical reality that all creatures succumb to. But then the vines return to life in the spring...as though it all never happened. It's magic.
Looking at vines this time of year in Napa with the knowledge that they are merely dormant rather than dead has the potential to mess with the cold, hard, existential teachings of the cycle of life: Those that we love most won't find rebirth and not even the perennial nature of Napa Valley's landscape can overcome this reality.
Yesterday my beautiful Kathy made the courageous and compassionate decision to put down her long time companion, Emmebird, a gorgeous Italian Greyhound of 13 years. Emme's not coming back.
Kathy's gentle, blue-coated Emme with the entitled grin and svelt profile has been a part of my life over the past 20 months every bit as much as Kathy has. Where I found Kathy, I'd find Emmebird. Kathy treated Emme like she did everyone else, with the expectation that if she was loving, engaged and honest with them, they'd return the favor with love and friendship. Emme's reaction to Kathy was predictable. The little, lean and bright Italian Greyhound never missed a chance to let Kathy know she had a friend willing to give and give and give.
The irony (and it makes you shake your head when you hear it) is that Emme died of an enlarged heart. Of course she did. What else could this amazingly loving pup succumb to?
The hard part is walking around a home where Emme was once everywhere and knowing now that it's only her memories that fill up the place now and not her. I used to regularly trip over this little fawn-like, covert creature that seemed always to find a way to know the path I was about to take before I did.
The great fellow travellers and important companions in our lives are not like the vines in the vineyards. They don't return after a rest as the vines do. All the more reason to appreciate all these vines as the source of magic and fantasy that they really are.
He probably knows more about the chemical composition of great wine than anyone else alive and he puts this information to use through his consulting firm, Enologix. He is also a keen observer of market condition in the wine industry. He's also a very creative man with a variety of fascinating notions.
Recently McCloskey issued a press release that did not get the attention it deserved. In the November press release, McCloskey outlined the coming comoditization of Cabernet Sauvignon. Essentially, he points out that much more Cabernet is being planted around the world. In addition, worldwide winemakers know how to make good wine from this variety. The result is that so much Cabernet Sauvignon is continually being produced around the world that eventually this varietal, like Chardonnay before it, will beome a commodity. When that happens prices go down. We've seen this with Chardonnay and, as McCloskey points out, we innevitably will see it with Cabernet Sauvignon.
While not a bad thing for consumers, this downard price pressure on Cabernet Sauvignon wines is a decidedly bad thing for Napa Valley producers, particularly those producing wine in the up to $75 or so category. Napa producers have much higher fixed costs than producers in Chile, Australia and even Sonoma and Temecula. That means the potential for decidedly lower margins for Napa Valley producers.
Those in Napa able to sell through their $150+ Cabernets may not have the same problems. They've established themselves, for one reason or another, as justifying these unusually high prices.
So, what is Napa Valley to do about this semi-apocolyptic change in the marketplace for its #1 wine?
Buried at the very end of McCloskey's press release was the answer. And it is a fascinating proposition:
"Worldwide over-planting creates an oversupply, resulting in a downward trend of lower prices that cannot be avoided without classification or regulation of the type found in Europe."
"CLASSIFICATION OR REGULATION"!
Let's be clear what is being suggested here. Classification is another word for "Ranking", as in "This is of a higher order than that". This notion of classification is hardly unknown in the world of winemaking and grapegrowing. There is the classification of producers (such as in Bordeaux), the classification of vineyards (such as in Burgundy and the Douro) and the classification of regions.
It's important to note that no where in the United States is there any official quality-based ranking or classification going on where wine is concerned, despite the fact that the Old World winemaking regions, often the model for American winemaking practices and procedure, have embraced the idea of rankings, classifications, and regulation of production methods.
I am fascinated by both the idea of classifying Napa Valley in some way and by the fact that it will never happen in any official or semi-official way.
That an official or semi-official ranking of Napa Valley Cabernet will never happen is not simply a matter of being too busy to have gotten to it yet that there has never been any kind of quality classification of vineyards, producers or appellations in America, let alone Napa Valley. It's a matter of Americans being generally opposed to state-imposed or official hierarchy.
We see this peculiarly American tendency to avoid official hierarchy and its related notion of freedom of conscience on display throughout our history. So much of the early immigration to American shores was motivated by a stifling and official class system in England that prevented individuals from rising up beyond their class. We see it in Roger Williams' objection to the Massachusetts Bay Colony religious leadership's lack of tolerance for religious freedom and his insistence on freedom of conscience and separation of Church and State. We see it in American revolutionaries' objection to being dictated terms by the Mother Country's Parliament without access to representation. We see it in the U.S. Constitution's Senate, which puts all states, regardless of size on equal footing.
While Americanss general disposition against hierarchy is not universal as seen in its history of racial discrimination and the informal and formal hierarchies that supported it's long established race-based policies, this dichotomy of American inclinations where established hierarchy is concerned is part of the American character and traditions.
Where business is concerned, however, Americans have rarely stood for official statements of quality where subjectivity is at issue. Yes, we have classifications of beef and milk. But consider that the USDA Beef grading system stands on the nearly universally accepted notion that higher marbling in beef produces greater flavor. Plus, the USDA Beef Grading structure is voluntary. Milk is graded, but the notion of "Grade A" milk is built on objective standards that are motivated by health concerns. Furthermore, no specific milk or beef producers, nor any beef or milk producing regions have been officially singled out as better at it than their peers.
Where ranking is done in the world of American business and commerce, particularly where consumer products and aesthetic issues are concerned, it is almost always done outside of official channels. It is most commonly found in the world of art and is the realm of critics. In the world of wine, it is critics that have taken up rankings and classifications, most recently in the form of the 100 point scale.
It's not that Americans are opposed to ranking things. It's that they are opposed to official and particularly governmental quality rankings.
There is no current movement among consumers or within the wine industry to create any set of classifications, whether it is of producers, vineyards or appellations. Nor is there even a movement to regulate how wine is produced within any set of boundaries as there exists in many parts of Europe. Nor will there be as far as I can see. The very notion of government telling a winemaker in Sonoma Valley or Napa Valley how many tons per acre of Cabernet grapes they may produce and still be able to place "Sonoma Valley" or "Napa Valley on the label would be seen as an unprecedented intrusion into the natural freedoms the American grapegrower and winemaker has come to enjoy and take for granted.
If you think the uproar over the proposed federal law (HR 5034) to give alcohol wholesalers hyper control over the American wine marketplace has been severe inside the wine industry, try to tell an American winery owner they can't produce more than 6 tons of grapes per acre and still put "Napa Valley" on the label or that they are required to age their wine in oak barrels for a particular amount of time before calling it "Napa Valley or that their Napa Valley Cabernet is of a lesser quality than their neighbor's down the road. The outcry would be deafening.
All that said, the idea of how a classification system for Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon might be undertaken is a hugely fascinating notion that deserves exploration for the simple sake of slaking the thirst of wine lovers to examine wine in its every permutation.
What has to be understood upfront is that any classification of Napa Valley Cabernet is an exercise in assessing quality. Assessing quality is an objective activity only in the smallest part. For example, red table wine is not supposed to be oxidized and all browned up. That's bad wine. An over abundance of certain microbes in wine is equally understood to be bad. But both of these examples as well as others we can think of are pretty low bars over which winemakers need to jump to make palatable wine. Here we are talking about what characteristics amount to GREAT wine...wines that can obtain the highest classification. We are talking about subjectivity in quality analysis.
More than anyone, McCloskey understands the idea of quality analysis. Through his consulting firm, Enologix, Leo has been able to formulate various mathematical models and identify chemical characteristics that define highly rated wines by both national wine critics and winemakers. His service is and has been used by a collection of remarkably successful and well known wineries across the globe. In other words, McCloskey is well aware, as most wine lovers should be, that certain kinds of wine are more highly prized than others for the specific characteristics they deliver. While this is not to say that this currently accepted set of characteristics generally applied to "quality" wines will always remain the same in the future they are today, it is a fact that at this moment they are what they are.
What's also interesting is that the general assessment of today's critics as to which type of wines are of a higher quality tend to be the same wines that winemakers will identify as those of a higher quality. Again, McCloskey knows this. He regularly gathers together winemakers from specific regions to blindly assess the quality of a collection of wines hailing from the winemakers' same region. He'll tell you that the winemakers favorites tend to match up with the favorites of the national critics.
The point is that if we start to go down the path of allowing critics to create a classification of Napa Valley's best Cabernet producers and if folks object to giving national critics this power, you are likely to wind up with a similar classification even if you give the job over to winemakers.
Of course the key to creating any kind of classification of producers or vineyards in Napa Valley is objectivity by those making up the classification. McCloskey has an interesting idea about this. He has outlined them at the 2007 TASTE3 Conference at which he spoke about this issue and that can be watched here on YouTube.
However, in a wide ranging conversation with me, McCloskey threw out the possibility of a Think Tank comprised of Emeritus Wine Trade Individuals. Imagine an organization that has the overall mission of bringing together winemakers, vineyardists, marketers and others who, after having worked in the wine industry for many years and now find themselves either at the end of their career or in retirement, are granted a chair at this Think Tank where they work to bring members of the industry together, share ideas, and generally promote cooperation within the industry.
As McCloskey points out, there really is nothing quite like this in the wine industry, even while many other industries have such bodies. And in McCloskey's view, this just might be the kind of organization that could put an objective and well reasoned spin on a classification of vineyards or producers in Napa Valley that, if well promoted and adopted by members of the industry, could help prop up Napa Valley Cabernet in the face of price pressure brought on by commoditization of the variety.
Now, of course this would not be an official or government sanctioned kind of classification. But, were it supported by the majority of Napa Valley winemakers, by the Napa Valley Vintners, by the Napa Valley Grapegrowers, and by the media, it would likely be supported, most importantly, by consumers. Plus, it would deliver the added benefit of creating a new and vital area of discussion for wine lovers—as though they don't have enough already.
Whether a body of old and accomplished fuddy duddies or another type of body that determines a classification system and goes about the business of doing the classifying, the important issue is how a ranking of the best Napa Cabernet producers or vineyards is accomplished. Let's be clear that their is no objective criteria that delivers a verdict on what wine is better than another.
Price based classifications measure the supply and demand curve.
Quality Assessment classifications measure the palates of a specific group
Assessments of vineyards based on terroir characteristics such as in the Duoro amount to subjective determinations of what style of wine is most desirable since certain terroir characteristics (Elevation, vine density, wind, temperature) deemed to be favorable will tend to promote a particular character of wine.
And so, since any classification of quality is subjective, I wonder why we don't just give over the business of classifying wines to to those folks who are doing it anyway and who appear not to be slowing down in their willingness to grade wines and who dont' seem to be losing any measurable audience where the grading of wines is concerned: The Critics.
Here's what I'd like to see. I want to see McCloskey's Wine Industry Emeritus Think Tank created. It's a damn good idea all on its own whether they are involved in the business of ranking and classification or not. But instead of this Committee of Elders doing the ranking and working of classifying producers or vineyards, they are charged with selecting an anonymous collection of wine critics to have the honors. What's critical in all this is that the critics chosen by the Committee of Elders is kept anonymous. Once any member of the Critics Classification Circle is confirmed by a member of the circle or an elder, that critic is removed from the process.
Anonymity is important for all the reasons you think it is, not the least of which is the matter of outside influence. Most important, however, is that the Wine Industry Elders that select the Critics are trusted. This trust is only created by seeing the vast majority of the Napa Valley wine industry give their vocal support to the Committee of Elders.
Once this happens, and once the Elder can go about outlining the parameters that ought to be used to assess quality (ex: years making wine, volume criteria, quality, etc), the Critics can go about announcing their classification and issuing updates on an annual or basis or such.
It's all quite fun and and interesting to think about, particular for wine geeks, despite the fact that it will never come to pass. And this brings us back to the point of McCloskey's press release: commoditization of Cabernet is coming and with it the downward price pressure on Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. Recall that keen observer McCloskey noted that without some sort of classification system or sent of production regulations, there is little the Napa Valley can do to stop this downward price pressure that is coming.
There is a limited audience for a 250+ page state government report on the history, success, problems, legality and politics of the direct shipment of wine to consumers. Turns out I'm part of that fairly small audience. So, I read with great interests Maryland Comptroller Peter Franchot's report on this subject released on Tuesday.
Following my tradition of reading these sorts of things so you don't have to, allow me to summarize the results of the report:
The claims of economic disruption, drunk children and destruction of the three tier system that have been claimed by opponents of direct shipping have not come to pass where direct shipping is allowed and will not come to pass if direct shipping is allowed in Maryland. Recommendation: Pass direct shipping law that bans Marylanders from buying wine from out of state retailers, but let wineries ship into the state.
Retailers across the country should be accustomed to watching laws be passed that see them shut out of states while wineries are allowed to ship. But what rarely happens as this kind of blatant discrimination occurs or is suggested is the presentation of an official document that provides no basis in fact for the reasons given for the discriminatory ban on out-of-state retailer shipping into a state.
"A determination is made that direct wine shipment by out-of-state retailers to Maryland consumers would have a negative effect on in-state licensees, because purchases from retailers are primarily motivated by “price.”
Let's be clear, nothing in this report actually supports this conclusion. Nothing. Let me repeat, Nothing. It is a conclusion drawn out of thin air. Consumer respondents to a survey by the Comptroller's office indicated that the primary reasons for buying wine online were, in order of importance: 1) Not available at a local retailer, 2) Wanting to buy directly from a winery, 3) Convenience of Delivery and finally, 4) Price.
There is nothing in this report that demonstrates or explains why those that buy from online retailers are motivated primarily by price. Nothing. In fact, the report properly uncovers the fact that those consumers that buy online tend to be "connoisseurs" who are driven by issues beyond price, who value the availability of and access to wine that online sales provide and how tend to spend much more on a bottle of wine than the average wine buyer. There is no evidence in this report or any other report that those that have wine shipped to them from out of state wineries or out of state retailers have motivations for their actions that differ any any way.
"While the report is fact-based, some of its conclusions are not. The most glaring of which is an observation that legalizing direct shipment from out-of-state retailers would do damage to Maryland-based retailers and wholesalers.
That’s absurd. If the ban on out-of-state retail shipment is maintained, that means a Maryland resident who wants to order a gift wine basket or join a wine-of-the-month club or order an imported wine could well be out of luck. Those services are commonly provided by retailers based in places like California or New York.
Consumers can’t very well order wine from a vineyard in Italy or France. The shipping costs would be astronomical. But they might order an imported bottle not available on Maryland store shelves through an out-of-state specialty retailer."
So, how does this happen? How does a completely bogus conclusion find its way into an otherwise impressive report that has to be described as prudent, thoughtful, and thorough? The answer is lobbying, money and influence.
Among the strongest statements that Comptroller Peter Franchot made about the issue of direct shipping upon announcing it to the press was this:
"It's crucial to the passage of this bill that we not open up all of our wonderful Maryland retail establishments to just incredibly aggressive marketing by out-of-state retailers that are undercutting them on price. That is not a good component."
This is the exact same position taken by the Maryland Licensed Beverage Association, a collection of Maryland retailers, whose lobbyist, J. Steven Wise, who, according to a Baltimore Sun Report, "appreciated that the report frowned on the idea of letting out-of-state retailers — as opposed to wineries — ship wine directly to consumers."
It should be noted that this report will pave the way for successful legislation in Maryland in 2011 that will finally allow direct shipment of wine for residents of that state. The report dispels many of the concerns that have been voiced over the years when the issue has been debated, such as direct shipping allowing minors to obtain wine and the notion that direct shipping will hurt the in-state beverage alcohol industry. These and other claims are debunked in the report.
When I testified earlier this year in Annapolis on behalf of Specialty Wine Retailers Association I saw legislators sit quietly, for the most part, as members of the Maryland retailer and wholesaler community threw out bogus claims of how direct shipping will harm children and put Maryland retailers and wholesalers out of business. Those two arguments won't carry so much weight when the next bill is introduced in January and the hearings occur all over again.
This year, the Comptroller's office will be grilled extensively on the claim that out-of-state retailers need to be shut out of the state while out-of-state wineries are allowed to retail their wines into the state. The Comptroller's representatives will have to explain upon what basis Maryland consumers should be shut out from ordering imported wines, collectible wines, rare wines, auctioned wines and wine-of-the-month-club wines—all of which only originate from retailers. They will have to explain why in the survey they took that underlies their study Maryland consumers, Maryland retailers, Maryland wineries, Maryland Wholesalers, Maryland regulators, out-of-state wineries, and out-of-state regulators were invited to take the survey, but out-of-state retailers were not.
The Comptroller's Office will have no factual foundation for it's conclusion that those that buy from out-of-state retailers and out of state auction houses and out of state wine-of-the-month clubs are somehow motivated by price, while those that buy from out-of-state wineries are not. They'll have to explain why retailers across the country that ship outside their state find that the average price of the wines they ship across state lines are higher than those that are bought on their premises (something the Comptroller would have discovered had he surveyed out of state retailers and which would debunk the notion that consumers buy from out-of-state retailers based on price, not lack of availability from in-state retailers.)
The Comptrollers representative will have nothing more than "absurd" inferences to explain all this. Still, Maryland lawmakers are most likely to pass a law that bars Maryland consumers from access a huge swath of wines in the American marketplace based on.....Nothing.
Disputing the bogus and nearly incomprehensible claims about retailers and retail buyers in the report will be consumers guided by the Marylanders for Better Bear and Wine Laws who have pushed forward the direct shipping issue in Maryland. Also, enlightened Maryland retailers such as Gary Zorechak of Frederick Wine House will argue in favor of retailer shipping because, as he says, "As an owner, I don't really see it hurting any of us." Finally, I suspect that no wineries, either in Maryland or outside, will come to the defense of the Comptroller's recommendation that Marylanders only be given access wineries and not retailers.
As I mentioned earlier, specialty wine retailers across the country are accustomed to being treated like second class citizens where direct shipping is concerned. Since the Granholm v. Heald Supreme Court decision in 2005 that taught state-based discrimination against wine shippers is unconstitutional, the number of states where retailers may ship legally has decreased significantly. This has been a result primarily of the bogus conclusion that the Granholm case's reasoning not applying to retailers but only wineries and the fact that out-of-state retailers have little influence at the state legislative level where wholesalers have convinced lawmakers to ban retailer shipping, while at the same time out of state wineries have been given the right to ship so as to assure that in-state wineries may ship wine to state residents.
I believe despite the unfounded conclusions in the Comptroller's report and depsite Maryland consumers desire to have the right to buy wine from both out-of-state wineries and retailers, the coming Maryland wine shipping law will exclude out-of-state retailers.
I'm hoping again for the opportunity to testify in Annapolis again next year when this issue arises if only to assure that the record reflects the reality of the situation.
For twenty years now Americans have heard alcohol wholesalers and members of the prevention community explain how the direct shipping of wine will put minors in harms way; that minors will use the Internet to obtain alcohol and get all liquored up and hurt themselves and others. And for twenty years, the use of direct shipping has continued to increase as wine in particular—in its now numerous diverse forms—has caught the attention of American imbibers.
But what of those minors who, we have been told constantly, will use Internet sales and shipping to get their booze on? Well, there's this:
That's right. Despite the continued increase in direct shipment of wine, use of alcohol by teens has hit an all time low. Not only that, but teens who say that alcohol is "Fairly" or "Very" easy to get has hit an all time low. This important trend, reported by the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States after the release of the 2010 Monitoring the Future Survey that tracks these things, may make it harder for opponents of the direct shipment of wine to continue to make their case that the direct shipments of wine will lead to the total evaporation of all American minors. Perhaps, given the trend of fewer minors drinking and more direct shipping, we ought to make the argument that direct shipment of alcohol is the best way to assure minors DON'T get their hands on alcohol.
Still, let me remind you how the anti-shipping argument is made:
“We in the industry need to be careful. We try to be very responsible practitioners...if and when a kid buys online, gets drunk and goes and kills somebody, it’s not just that one direct shipper that is going to be tarred, it’s the entire industry that’s going to be tarred. We’ve worked so hard to show how responsible and caring we are that we don’t think that is a risk worth taking.” Craig Wolf, president and CEO of Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America quoted in Wine&Spirits Daily
Though we don't doubt the depth and breadth of caring for today's youth that wholesalers and Craig Wolf possess, we do doubt that the risk associated with direct shipping is such that an entire channel of commerce ought to shut down in order to mitigate this risk. Let's review what a minor must do in order to get their booze on via direct shipping:
1. Obtain a Credit Card
2. Obtain a Fake Identification Card
3. Order online and get past age verification services
4. Wait a week or so for their booze to be delivered
5. Be at home when the delivery is made
6. Convince the delivery person that they are over 21.
7. Hope their parents are not home or don't notice the huge package their kids are carrying around that says, "Contains Alcohol"
The fact of the matter is this: On-line sales and direct delivery of wine is probably the least likely way kids will get their hands on alcohol. Much more likely is the practice of taking it out of the liquor cabinets of their parents, using a fake ID in a brick and mortar store or having someone over 21 buy it for them. Oddly, you never hear the caring wine and spirit wholesaler call for the shutting down of brick and mortar alcohol sales or for mandatory locks on home liquor cabinets.
The fact that minor drinking is at historic lows is good. There's no doubting that. But there should be great doubting that the direct shipment of wine, which has been on the increase, has played any significant role in minors getting alcohol. Still, this continuing trend won't stop the discussion and debate concerning direct shipment fo wine. But let's hope that this trend can help us stop wasting time talking about phantom threats and start talking about the real issue: Reasonable Reform of Laws Governing Consumer Access to Wine.
I've written a lot of press releases in my day, but I don't think I've ever penned one that relies on "Humiliation Marketing" tactics.
Maybe I'm behind the times. Maybe I'm just not that creative. Maybe I have a conscience. But it's doubtful I'd ever advise issuing this type of release for a client:
"Beware the Holiday Party Faux Pas: Wine Topped With Artificial Stoppers"
"Her career looked so promising until she committed the ultimate yuletide faux pas: showing up at the annual company holiday party with a bottle of wine – dare we say it?! -- sealed with an artificial stopper.
Such is the sobering message from a video released recently at Party Faux Pas that depicts the sad tale of an office worker who fails to realize that artificial wine closures can undermine the environment. Not to mention the fact that metal and plastic wine closures are about as festive as moldy mistletoe."
Twice I've been approached by various folks to engage in the battle between cork producers and arificial closure producers. Twice I've passed. The primary reason I've passed is because I'm not a big fan of Degredation Public Relations, the act of promoting your product by denigrating a competitor. And that's exactly what the cork producers and the artificial stopper producers have, in part, relied upon since the battle over the top of the bottle began a couple decades ago.
But now it seems the effort has descended into Humiliation Marketing whereby the cork producers are attempting, again in a semi-comical fashion, to heap humiliation on those that might choose to kill all life on the planet by purchasing a wine that is not closed with cork.
American winemakers have always embraced a definition of terroir that takes into account the physical aspects of a plot of land and the characteristics of the climate where that land exists. Old World winemakers, while focusing on this notion of the idea, have also embraced another dimension: the culture and history of a wine growing region when defining "terroir".
I've found both concepts particularly foggy and not always so useful in helping to characterize a wine. But it's the Old World idea that incorporates much more than the physical to be of little use to me. I've simply not been able to get my arms around the conceptual nugget that allows a people to explain a wine not only by the land and climate that give a wine its character but by the the culture and history of the region from which it hails.
Yet I've seen the light.
Spending the past few days with the family of my fiance have helped clarify for me how wines, like people, are part and parcel of their total environment: including culture and tradtions.
First, some background.
I was adopted by my parents at birth and don't know the identity or anything else about my biological parents other than they are Caucasian. Still, I am a "Wark". However, both George and Alverna Wark were only children. I have no aunts, no uncles, no first cousins. And those more distant Wark relatives are either unknown to me or have been entirely inconsequential in my life. And, I am not an uncle. My beloved sister has no children.
Put another way, were you to purchase me at a specialty man store, I'd be wearing a label that carried no appellation, but merely a variety and vintage: "Caucasian: 1963. The back label would consist of merely a warning of the implications of imbibing me too generously and probably some sweet words with little meaning.
Now, this is not to say that my character comes with no explanation. Both George and Alverna provided me with various, identifiable characteristics that I still carry with me. But to really understand those characteristics you have to consume a lot of Tom Wark, 1963. There are no readily available sign posts that immediately explain my character; no appellation; no easily observed traditions of upbringing that help explain me; no other similar or related characters that might give you a hint of what to expect from a Tom Wark, 1963. I am a pretty label with little information.
What was driven home to me these past few days, surrounded as I was by the parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, close friends and even the departed family members of my fiance's clan, is that not only is our character and disposition a reflection of our familial and cultural background, but that an individual's identify is fully a reflection of the places and people with whom they are associated.
My beautiful wife-to-be is something very different from the many family members I met these past few days in San Antonio where a remarkable engagement party was the central reason for their reunion. And yet there she was, reflected in all their faces, their mannerisms, the lilt of their voices, their histories, their memories and their personalities.
I imagine that even that new breed of Garagiste Bordeaux, with its relatively new fangled intensity and density not on display in most previous renditions of Bordeaux going back centuries, still reflects its past and its heritage and it still reflects the character of Bordeaux bottlings now dead and buried. There is a lineage that can't be denied and it is not necessarily a lineal reflection born only of the soil and climate that has defined the Bordeaux growing region for centuries. There is something more, something cultural, that remains instilled in these newly fashionable wines.
There is a certain loneliness that comes with being a relatively blank label of a person. While this condition allows one to be creative in the construction of their personhood (and there is a real advantage to this), I can't stress enough how shocking it can sometimes be to have so few faces lurking behind you when you look upon yourself in a mirror.
I've never completely understood how so many people in my life could have cared enough to seem so worried that I did not have any inclination to seek out more information about my biological parents. And it's true that I've never really had a desire to seek out my birth parents. But so many others have seemed shocked when they've asked, "Don't you want to know where you came from?"
I understand this question a little better now, after this weekend, having been pulled so lovingly into the middle of a tightly knit clan. There is great comfort and joy in being part of a collective that knows its history and people and past and present and future. There is comfort in being embraced by the totality of a familial terroir.
There is something much more to be said for a wine that comes not only with its own individual characteristics born of specific soil and terroir, but also arises out of a past that delivers context and a commotion of meaning that goes beyond dirt and climate. I understand today how the "Terroir" of a wine can be defined by much more than the environment defined by a single growing season. I understand how a wine can be the understood by the winemakers and people that proceeded it.
The "Terroir of Kathy" is certainly defined by all she derived from Hank and Donna. But her make up and her meaning is also a reflection of Morrie, Cookie, Texas, France, immigration, Paul, Lawrence, Judaism, Benton, Andrew, Poland, and much more to which she is connected and many other members of her immediate and distant and current and departed family.
Just as the Bordelais can and have adopted the new fangled types of Bordeaux now lurking about that seem entirely different from past vintages, so too is my Fiance's family able to embrace a new person into their clan. And in many ways, this marks a new influence on the Terroir of Tom.
Dan Berger (Vintage Experience, Napa Valley Register, Other outlets, etc) Berger continues to issue insightful, well researched, contemplative essays on the business of wine, the evolution of the winemaking trade and consumer issues (particularly in his newsletter, "Vintage Experiences". He is a must read.
Alice Feiring (The Feiring Line) I don't always agree with Alice, but I sure do love reading her. She writes beautiful prose and does so with passion and poise. She deserves a place upon a pedestal where she can regularly be read by millions. (Hey, New Yorker....you reading this??)
Jeff Lefevere (The Good Grape) Jeff's take on wine/wine business/culture/trends is always intriguing. He writes long posts on his blog, The Good Grape, yet I always read them twice. Most importantly, his posts are always thought provoking...which is the highest praise I can give.
Matt Kramer (Wine Spectator, The Oregonian) Like most readers of the Wine Spectator, I find Kramer's column first and foremost because it provides opinion and analysis and good thinking. I'm always done before I know it.
2011: LOOKING FORWARD, LITERARILY...
Obtaining My iPad This will be a highlight for me in 2011, as it will mark a technological turning point in the way I consume wine media.
Wine Bloggers Conference 2011: Charlottesville, VA Moving to the East Coast, to Thomas Jefferson's backyard and to an outstanding winemaking state, the 2010 Wine Bloggers Conference will surely be a a 2011 literary highlight
Briefs Not the kind you wear, but the kind that get written in support of court cases. With some luck and with some help from the Gods, I'll be reading briefs written for the nine justices of the Supreme Court regarding a wine shipping case.
