For Christmas I was given a subscription to Wine Spectator. I can't say I've ever really read a wine magazine before. Sure, I've glanced through them from time to time, but I've never sat down and read one. Last week I was blessed with not one, but two - TWO issues of Wine Spectator: Top 100 wines of 2012 (Dec / Jan) and Editors Picks (Jan / Feb), and after reading the Editors Picks issue I had what they referred to in the magazine as an "AHA MOMENT" of my own: You wine people are assholes.
I've often wondered why beer is gaining so much strength in the market and suddenly commanding prices that match or exceed that of wine. I've wondered why people are collecting and cellaring, and trading bottles of beer online. Why is it that die hard beer enthusiasts range from under 21 to well over 65, why are they equally men and woman, why is it that political views, economical standing, religion or skin color have nothing to do with the equation? Well, it seems the answer to my questions were right there in the pages of the January / February issue of the 2013 Wine Spectator - Editors Picks.
Wine people are horribly pretentious snobs. That's the difference right there. Wine people are huge fucking snobs to the level of being a stereotype. I've always known that wine people are pretentious and often tacky - that goes without saying - but I understand my own industry and the consumers who read this shit so much more now that it's as if a light bulb has gone off. An Ah-Ha with a PING! if-you-will.
As a wine enthusiast I've often debated with beer enthusiasts. Beer is a recipe, anyone with a good recipe can make good beer - a great recipe makes great beer - but if you don't make it, you don't have it. Wine, on the other hand, just sort of happens. A grape falls off a vine, splits open and soon enough yeast does it's thing and you've got wine. It might not be the best wine in the world, but you didn't have to do anything to make it either. If you wanted to control that natural process, then perhaps you'll have something worth drinking, but then again that's not always a guarantee. Wine is controlling what nature gives you, beer is following a recipe. So, that being said, why is beer getting more and more popular?
Here's why:
A grocery store clerk and a doctor can discuss beer to great extents offering valid points and tasting notes to one another. They can cook beer in their respective kitchens and trade information, recipes and sample bottles. A grocery store clerk and a doctor, however, can not discuss Napa cabernet sauvignon or left bank Bordeaux, or Meritage for that matter because a doctor will think: what does a grocery store clerk know about wine? People with money have wine cellars and belong to wine clubs from places they've visited on vacations, people without money don't have cellars, aren't in wine clubs and can't afford lavish trips to places like Napa. That's the difference.
I'm not wealthy. I'm not even comfortable. Hell, I'm riding the crest of the great poverty swell on a used surfboard, and I'm a wine enthusiast, which means I have the interest but not the means. And then I read something as smug and elitist as Wine Spectator. It's right here, next to me on my desk with eleven editor photos of pasty blue-bloods staring at me from the cover. These are the people who roll their R's when they say tor-r-r-rontes. These are the people who order big, and tip low. These are the people who won't let you merge in traffic and speed up when you put on your signal.
JAMES LAUBE Senior Editor: "You've heard from your accountant ... and the thought of organizing the paperwork for your tax return comes with this certainty: You'll be paying more in taxes this year than you have in a decade. And yes, you'll have less money free to play the wine game. Of course, that doesn't mean you'll abandon your favorite sport. None of you will. Wine lovers will cut and trim elsewhere before they stop buying wine. The wisest will set a reasonable budget per bottle (you can drink pretty well on $25 - $40 a bottle, often less) and do their damnedest to stick with it."
Holy Shit! Congratulations James Laube, you're a bit of a snob, but you're at the bottom of my list ... in a good way. You're smug - a republican no doubt - whom I'm sure hates the idea of health insurance for all and taxing the wealthy. But at least you don't have your head up your ass and you haven't lost touch.
First impression:
First impression:
SCORE: James Laube, 80
Prickly and pompous with notes of intestinal mercaptans on the nose. The fact that he suggests one might be able to stomach a bottle of wine under $25 insinuates that his inflated ego might dissipate if someone gave him a good racking. All though, the fact that in his Editor's Pick "Pet Peeve"(page 39) he says:"...critics forget what it's like to be a consumer, especially when it comes to pricing. Those in the position of recommending wines should remember what it's like to be the one paying for them," shows he has a little horse sense. He then goes on to say that too many people connect price to quality, although the average price for a bottle of the top 100 wines is $46, and he seems to believe that's reasonable. But he also says the more one pays for wine the less satisfying it can be, and I couldn't agree more. Finally, he makes note that too many people judge a wine by its score and don't trust their own taste. Bravo for being a person in your position of influence saying it, Mr. Laube. Perhaps it's time to consider an open panel for your scoring decisions, or at the very least, writing that these scores are simply your opinions and have no relevance whatsoever on the actual quality or life of the wine being reviewed.
SCORE:KIM MARCUS Managing Editor: "Without a doubt my biggest complaint is the pricing of wine in restaurants. I've heard all the reasons: Inventory is expensive to keep, servers need to be trained, rare bottlings are costly and difficult to find. Yet it's still hard to swallow blatant overpricing. To relegate pricing to a simple multiple, with the minimum being two or even three times retail, is greed run amok. ... Also ridiculous is the price of wine by the glass. I was recently in a local Italian restaurant and a basic Montepulciano red was priced at $8 a glass. Bizarrely, it was only $20 a bottle on the wine list. And retail price: just $4 a bottle. (Needless to say, my wife and I decided to share a bottle.) Despite all the improvements in restaurant wine service in the past decade or so, pricing remains in the Dark Ages for most."
I was going to give Kim Marcus a 96 because of his love of southern French wines that aren't in the mainstream. But you know what? So what if he likes the same wines as me, he's still a perfect asshole.
Okay Kim Marcus, you pink-faced fucker, since you've obviously never really earned a living working in a restaurant serving people like you, I'm going to start by passing on an urban legend heard by every restaurant employee at one time or another.
As the story goes: An asshole walks into a restaurant and orders his entree but argues over the price of a bottle of wine (a red Montepulciano, perhaps). He says "how can you charge $20 for this bottle of wine? I can get this bottle for $4 at my local grocery store. I want this bottle of wine, and I'm only going to pay $4!" The server gets the manager, the manager explains to the asshole that this is what the restaurant charges for that particular bottle. The asshole argues his case to the manager, demands the bottle and assures that he'll only pay $4. The manager concedes to the asshole, but before the asshole's entree and bottle of wine are served, he has the table cleared of stemware, flatware, candle, dishes and tablecloth. He delivers the entree on a paper plate with plastic flatware, a paper cup, and then delivers the bottle of wine unopened. When the asshole complains, the manager explains that he was only doing as the asshole asked: he demanded a $4 bottle of wine, and that's what he got.
Let me explain a few things to you, asshole:
1. Standard markup for any bottle of wine being sold at retail i.e. grocery store, wine shop, winery or internet, is anywhere from 30% - 50% give-or-take depending on the retailer. Retail margin is the retail price, less wholesale price, divided by retail price, multiplied by 100. In other words, if you can buy a bottle of wine for $4 at your local Trader Joe's or Whole Food's Market, and they're making about a 40% margin, then that bottle wholesale is only $2.40. And then you have to consider that there's a bottling fee, labeling fee (because it is most likely privately labeled), shipping fee, storage fee, and distributors fee. Everyone in that line has made money on your $4 Montepulciano which you probably purchased from your local Whole Food's Market in Manhattan.
2. Restaurant markup is different. A restaurant marks up several ways, although not by margin, but by percentage. The average markup is 300% - 500% again, give-or-take depending on the venue. Another way a restaurant marks up is dictated by the market itself, meaning why should your favorite Italian restaurant only charge you $12 bucks for your favorite Montepulciano, when the place next door is charging $20? If that's what people will pay, then that's what they'll charge. Also, when people like yourself give a $4 Montepulciano 90 points for no understandable reason, again the price will go up (in both your local restaurant and your local Whole Food's Market in Manhattan - although your restaurant cares less about the score than WFM, obviously).
3. Then there's the issue of a wine by the glass being $8 and bottle being $20. Here's the scoop with that one: A restaurant that is serving a wine by the glass wants one glass to pay for the bottle, or in the case of your Montepulciano, two bottles. Why? Because of the American wine drinking public. I'm willing to bet most Americans who read your column and think you're a brilliant wine writer, Mr. Kim Marcus, don't know a Montepulciano d'Abruzzo from a Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. Hell, they can't even pronounce Montepulciano, they know Chianti because they've been to Tuscany on vacation. Since an open bottle of wine isn't going to last more than a few days (especially a $4 bottle, or rather a $2.40 bottle at wholesale) the restaurant knows they're likely to be forced to dump each bottle opened down the drain. Why would they run the risk of charging $4 making only $1.40 on a $2.40 bottle of wine when they know the market will pay $8 a glass? That, and by charging $8 for a glass but only $20 for a bottle you're more likely to pay $20 for the bottle they bought for $2.40. Basically, you just did exactly what the restaurant wanted you to do you clueless arrogant prick.
QUESTION:
Kim Marcus, you're an editor in NYC for Wine Spectator Magazine, a national and well respected wine periodical, and lead taster of wines from Austria, Germany, Greece, Portugal and southern France; one can only assume you make a pretty penny compared to a lot of us out here in the real world. What on earth are you doing drinking a four-fucking-dollar Montepulciano ... and complaining about the inflated price?
Congratulations: You're A Perfect Asshole!
JAMES MOLESWORTH Senior Editor: PET PEEVE - Wines by the glass: "... your order is often brought to the table in just the glass itself, when in fact the server should present the bottle and allow the diner to sample it before pouring the glass, just as they would if you had ordered a bottle."SCORE: James Molesworth, 91
I have to begin by commending you, James Molesworth, for suggesting M. Chapoutier Cotes du Roussillon-Villages Les Vignes de Baila-Haut in your article on page 51. I could't agree with you more. A fantastic bottle for under $20, and it certainly is a little on the grumpy side and could benefit from some shuteye nestled cozily under the cork for a few more years. And thank you for pointing out that this is a food wine, not a heavily extracted, fleshy, fruit driven, high alcohol domestic cocktail wine. A bit of fatty cheese with a hint of stink, or some lighter savory proteins and this bottle sings.
That being said, lets talk about your pet peeve, shall we? With a name like James Molesworth I expected better etiquette from you. Really Molesy, tisk-tisk. It would seem that you, like your ol'pal Kim Marcus, have no idea how a restaurant works. But then again if you did you would be a restauranteur calling the shots, not an armchair quarterback screaming Come-On! every time you don't agree with, or understand why something is done a certain way.
History Lesson: Back in the days of yore, before laser printers, and photoshop, and labeling machines - long before Louis Pasteur - it was common practice among inn keepers to refill bottles of fine wine from barrels bought in bulk at auction. Bordeaux as you know is all about the house, so imagine how they must have felt to hear that their wine was being replaced with bulk wine and passed off to customers, thus lowering the perceived quality. It became practice in higher end restaurants to present the bottle to the head of the table so he could be certain he was getting the bottle he ordered. And then, he was offered the cork as a sign of authentication since corks were marked at the winery, thus confirming that the cork matched the label and the bottle was indeed both true, and previously unopened. Bottle flaws were more common then, so a sample was given to confirm the quality.
Today, the practice is very much the same. Sure, the bottle is brought table side so the consumer can confirm the bottle being opened is in fact the bottle ordered, but the cork being presented is more ceremonial. You can check the cork for seepage, or drying, or mold even; and you can smell the cork if you know what you're sniff'n for, whatever floats your yacht I suppose, but the proof is in the pudding - or rather in the glass. The taste you're being offered has nothing to do with your liking of the wine, you're being offered a sample so you can confirm you're not buying a flawed bottle. You know what I'm talking about Molesy, don't you? That's right, chemical compound 2,4,6, trichloroanisole, or TCA. You're smelling the wine to see if it's "corked."Or you're looking for excessive acetic acid, or ethyl acetate, or anything that's going to be at flaw levels in your wine.
That being said, you can see how I have a problem with you suggesting to all your readers that restaurants should be serving wines by the glass with table side presentation and offering samples so consumers can decided whether or not they like it. You're empowering people who are already obnoxious enough to be more so. Restaurants have already come up with a solution to your problem, they offer a wine flight. That way you can sample all the wines by the glass and decide what you'd like to drink with your meal, or as a cocktail. If you want to have your server go back and forth and give you table side presentation for each sample, as if you were at a very exclusive wine tasting, then go ahead, be that guy. You're an editor for Wine Spectator, Molsey, people would love to kiss up to your aristocratic pasty pucker, but don't encourage your readers to be like you. You should know better, they don't.
Which brings me to your AHA MOMENT -
"I've had many great experiences within the rubric of the wine lifestyle, ranging from drinking warm bag-in-box Pinotage after climbing a rocky hill in Kenya with my wife on our honeymoon to a magnum of '59 Chateau Margaux that truly brought a tear to my eye as I first smelled it." Then you went on to say "... I haven't yet found a perfect wine. I've often debated with producers and other writers about perfection in a wine. Can it even exist if humans are involved in the equation? I'm not sure. But I do hope at some point I'll taste a perfect wine. I figure that, like love, I'll know it when it happens."You'll have to excuse me while I stick my fingers down my throat and make a gagging sound at that last - oh so prophetic - line.
I applaud you, however, for your use of the word "rubric," but come on who says that? Someone's using his vocabulary word-of-the-day calendar, isn't he?
Do you realize that you just wrote in a national magazine that a great wine experience for you was on a safari honeymoon, climbing a hill in a third world country where nearly one half of the population is in rural poverty and there's an 85% mortality rate for children under five from dehydration, malnourishment and disease? And you roughed it, drinking a bag-in-box pinotage - warm, no less - not even at cellar temp. My God, you pompous fuck. You and Marie Antoinette, she said "let them eat cake" and you said: they have no clean drinking water? Well then let them drink bag-in-box pinotage! And then in the same sentence you discuss the tear evoked by drinking a six thousand dollar bottle of wine. I've got news for you, I'm getting a great big lump in my throat just thinking about how hard your life must have been. You're an inspiration to us all, James Molesworth. My only worry is that you might not have been able to fully appreciate a six thousand dollar bottle of wine to it's fullest with that silver spoon in your mouth.
Lastly, how can you tell people that you've never tasted a perfect wine? What is perfection? We're talking about rotten juice, here! How can you insinuate something rotten can be perfect anyway? And isn't that one of the greatest things about wine: the idea that it is purely subjective? Nearly all wine has a bit of acetic acid, or something like that. No wine is perfect, but that's what's so perfect about it. What might be perfect to me, might not be perfect to anyone else, and what's 100 points to you might only be only be frustrating, confusing and overpriced to Kim Marcus.
Don't you understand that by saying that no wine can be perfect if humans are involved, but then applying a score and writing a feature article about a winemaker is hypocritical? I think you just like to sound prophetic and deep, but you're not. I fear that might have been frozen out of your blue blood line when your ancestors were shivering in their staterooms on the Mayflower.
DANA NIGRO, Senior Editor: "At the top of my PEEVES list is that sad little "organic wine" shelf at too many retailers, stocked with only a familiar handful of inexpensive brands and a few wines aimed at people who want to avoid sulfites. With so many wines now organically, biodynamically or sustainably grown, such a display hardly represents the full spectrum or highest quality levels of what's happening in this segment of the market. In too many places, an interested consumer has to work at finding "green" wines, combing through the shelves or hoping that an available salesperson is well-versed in the subject. Where's the education? Entire specialty stores are devoted to this area, not to mention aisles of wine at the average Whole Foods; New York City shops from small to large do a fine job of highlighting the green wines in their inventory. Odds are, any given fine-wine store carries brands that practice environmentally friendly farming; with a little effort, they could categorize them, with brief explanations of each method, to stoke interest."
SCORE: Dana Nigro, 89
I'm sorry Dana for using your entire PET PEEVE section, but you're kinda clueless about this stuff, aren't you? You asked: "where's the education?" Here it is, sister:
The problem with sustainable, organic, biodynamic and sulfite free wines is YOU! You want to make these wines cool, well you're the damn media, do something about it. Educate the consumer! The problem is that all these certifications need to be separated by shelf. Certified organic wines can't share a shelf with merely organically grown grapes, which can't share a shelf with sustainable wines, because sustainable wines will offend the organic integrity of certified organic. It's like a class thing, you know what I'm talking about Dana, don't you? If you're not sure, ask your buddy James Molesworth.
Here's how it breaks down: Those who are drinking sulfite free organic wine for health reasons are doing so because they think they're allergic to sulfites. These are the same people who think they're allergic to gluten, and carbohydrates and that's why they're fat. It's a disorder called orthorexia nervosa, which I believe is Latin for morons. Orthorexia nervosa is to the health conscious, what the off-center ponytail is to the international sign of stupidity. These people believe that if wine is organic, it must be better. And if there are no sulfites, then it must be better'er. The problem is that they don't understand that each shelf contradicts the next.
Eco-friendly wines are grown with some chemicals because the growers are thinking three steps ahead. What's worse: Belching fossil fuel emissions into the air because the grower needs run equipment throughout the vineyard four times as often because he isn't using any weed killer, or, using a natural, lab-made weed killer that is safe for the planet, the vine and the grapes, and cuts down on long-term atmospheric pollution? Why is something bad just because it's man made?
That brings us to the next shelf. Organically grown grapes are grapes grown with sulfites because sulfites are natural elements. The next shelf are certified organic wines, which means that the wines aren't made with ANY sulfites whatsoever, and are made with a minimum of 95% organically grown grapes, which as we just learned, are grown using sulfites. The other five percent can be ANYTHING! It could be two-buck-chuck, or leftover grapes from Smucker's jelly, or oxidized juice that has been preserved with ... sulfites! And don't even get me started on biodynamic - that's another whole category that, while it is something I believe in fully, nobody else knows what it means.
The bottom line is that producers that are in the market of producing organic wines are not producing them for wine drinkers, they're producing them for orthorexic idiots who think they're buying a better bottle when in actuality most organic wine sucks. I'll say it loud and proud: they suck!
And winemakers know this to be true, too. Lets take Grgich Hills for example. Grgich is organic, sustainable and is Demeter certified biodynamic. Do you think Mike Grgich wants to see his $70 dollar Napa chardonnay on the shelf next to Parducci sustainable white, or Frey chardonnay? No way. And that's because organic wines suck, wines that are naturally produced because it's the right way to do it are truly amazing. You boasted about Plump Jack in your snobbish rant on page 58 - do you think Plump Jack wants to see their wines on the same shelf as Our Daily Red? Ask them, and get back to me. Because if they don't mind, I can make it happen, at least for my customers.
Then there's the old world issue. Several old world practices are organic, sustainable and even biodynamic, but organic French wines aren't recognized by our government. Why is that?
So, before you throw your PET PEEVE out to the spectators, you first need to understand why things are the way they are, and if you still don't like it, you're the media. Fix it.
SCORE: Alison Napjus, 88
Alison, you're a liar.
You give me a twenty year old girl who is such a debutant that she's able to pontificate the delicate nuances of a fourteen year old bottle of Cristal, and has enough consumption experience and wine knowledge to actually have an awakening regarding vintage, and I'll give you one of three things:
1) A girl who is a liar with a trust fund.
2) A girl who is a one-dimensional phony.
3) A girl who is both 1 and 2.
Have you ever wondered, dear readers, whatever happened to those preppy rich kids in all of John Hughes movies of the 80's and 90's? What ever happened to the likes of Blane, and Steff, and Jake Ryan's blond haired girlfriend, and all of her friends? And what about all of Dan Aykroyd's friends from the firm of Duke & Duke in Trading Places? Well, it would seem they all ended up working for Wine Spectator.
Alison, obviously you've always been a preppy rich kid if your boyfriend was able to liberate a bottle of Cristal from Daddy's collection for you to suck down for your twentieth birthday, although I question what you're actually referring to when you write about the oh-so memorable "creamy texture" and "toasty notes of nut." It's no wonder this boy was a childhood fling who wasn't destine to be Mr. Miss snooty-pants, I mean how could he give you a bottle of his fathers 1983 Cristal? And what was his father doing with an '83 in his cellar anyway? Obviously that boy was not from quality stock. Although, I must say, I'm impressed that you swallowed it all. A normal girl of nineteen-come-twenty would have probably spit every little bit that got in her mouth.
... An '83, yuck.
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