Archive for the 'Industry Issues' Category

Many beloved cocktails have earned their place in our hearts with thanks due to the incredible, edible egg. Classic drinks like the Ramos Gin Fizz get their special frothy texture and creamy meringue flavor from egg whites. So I was floored when I read in the New York Times, that the New York City Department of Health had been cracking down on the use of egg whites in drinks at popular cocktail establishments. While raw egg whites may make some precious sippers squeamish, the drinks simply wouldn’t be the same without them.

The issue occurred at Pegu Club, which serves a drink called the “Earl Grey MarTEAni” made with earl grey-infused gin, lemon juice, simple syrup and raw egg white. The ingredients are clearly listed on the menu, with a warning. Nevertheless, the Department of Health issued Pegu a violation requiring a court appearance, because the bartender failed to explicitly inform the customer about the raw egg whites. Pegu immediately stopped serving a drink they’d served for years, though nobody had ever gotten sick. Other bartenders chimed in with the same reports of serving egg-white- laden drinks for years, with nary a sick patron.

I’d prefer to have laws of full disclosure than to have these beloved concoctions banned entirely. But are they necessary?  How would you feel if you consumed raw egg without your knowledge? The stats say that only 1 in every 20,000 eggs is contaminated with salmonella and some argue that the alcohol in the drink knocks it out before it could cause harm. And it’s not just drinks that use raw egg whites, plenty of sauces do too. What’s next, a hollandaise hysteria?

The issue at Pegu Club made me think about some of the proposed new laws regarding wine labels.  New labeling laws may require wineries to disclose the products used in fining be they egg whites, bentonite, animal gelatin or anything else. This is already the case in Australia, where all allergens are listed on the label.

On the one hand, transparency is a good thing. People with dietary restrictions appreciate having the knowledge to make an informed buying decision. On the other hand, I sympathize with the winemaker who resists sharing too much. Wine is confusing enough to consumers, do we want to scare them away? Plus, changing the labels is expensive.

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I imagine the issue is here to stay. Where do you side? The more info, the better? Or is ignorance bliss?

Wine is one of the few subjects where the story behind the product is as fascinating as the wine itself. Intriguing visionaries, brave business choices, a breakneck pace of dynamic action—the world of wine business is both inspiring and sometimes unbelievable.

Wine itself inspires passion: people love to talk about it, sometimes they travel specifically to learn or experience more, often they immerse themselves in it and often participate in some form as amateurs, whether tasting, making it, or discussing it with friends. But the stories of what goes on beyond the glass can be as integral a part of the enjoyment of wine as what we drink.

Wine Enthusiast Magazine attempts to bridge the gap between pure enthusiasm for wine as a delicious drink and accompaniment to food and the added interest in the wine industry’s news and developments. Sometimes in planning our editorial calendar, the editors and I ask ourselves: are we covering the subject matter well enough by providing our readers with enough direction and information to make informed decisions about what to drink, where to visit and who to see? To what degree are our readers interested in hearing about changes in the wine business world such as acquisitions and mergers or new laws relating to appellations and people in wine?  Is the business of wine as important to our readers as their passion for wine itself? Should we be covering more trade-related subject matter such as Vanity Fair or Sports Illustrated does with their subject matter?

Magazines that are designed to satisfy readers’ wine passion will devote portions of their editorial not only to the nuances and joys of the subject matter but to the behind-the-scenes business aspects of these industries.  It is obvious what fascinates people about these subjects and turns them into fans, but what is it that creates the desire to learn more about the business aspects of the industries?

With a printed magazine we have limited space so we have to pick and choose what we emphasize. I am curious as to what is more important to you when you receive the magazine: the passion for wine (wine recommendations and regional profiles, tastings, food pairing suggestions etc.) or the business of wine?  Should our magazine be hypothetically, 65% consumer- oriented and 35% trade- oriented?

What do you think would be the best balance for our coverage?

There are not many negatives commonly associated with the job of wine reviewer. Sure, we often walk around with red wine-stained teeth, may develop terrible manners like spitting in front of just about anyone while tasting and perhaps could be a bit of a wine snob on occasion (you’re all thinking, “Me? A wine snob? Never!”… but you know deep down I’m right). But truthfully, the less-than-awesome aspects of the occupation are frequently far outweighed by the delicious, creative and immensely pleasurable task of tasting.

However, while receiving shipments of samples last week, I realized one significant downside that I have never noticed before… I fear that I have lost touch with being a wine consumer. Don’t get me wrong, I do my fair share of consuming, but I don’t buy wine the way that I used to out of sheer lack of necessity for it. Sure, I still buy the special bottle for cellaring here or there, and purchase specific labels for folks as gifts, but I don’t really shop the way that I used to. And I think, for me personally, I might be better off this way.

Wine marketing is something that never really made complete sense to me. It made me feel awkward inside, like a good episode of House or Twin Peaks or the concept of imaginary numbers in math (really… imaginary numbers??? How is that allowed in something as solid and fact-based as math!?!?!). Wine marketing, including packaging and labels, was something that always perplexed me and left me feeling confused and unsettled.

I mean, I get it, people are trying to sell specific products to a certain group of people, but whenever I looked at the products that I assumed I should be interested in, or were clearly directed at my demographic, it just turned me off more. It all just seemed so artificially forced. Take for instance Little Black Dress; the wine is absolutely solid and has even garnered some Best Buy awards from us, but the second I see the fem-centric label and dare to read the back blurb of women-centric verbiage, I can’t help but want to slam the bottle on the ground.

I know I’m not the only one who feels like this, but I also know that there are others who don’t share my nausea in such kitschy marketing. The wine still exists and sells well, right, so obviously people are buying it. But why? I wonder what turns people on to buying products like these; solely because the label says little black dress do women see it and think, “I own a little black dress, so I should like this wine”? Like the Sopranos wines, do people just purchase them because it bears the name of a show they liked? Or are they all just gangster wannabes, trying to get one step closer to being a part of the family and somehow this fulfilled that fantasy for them?

I also know sometimes clever works, because I have purchased those bottles before as well. Arrogant Frog totally makes me laugh at myself for any time even the smallest part of me was behaving like a wine-snob, and at every other stuck-up wino out there too who wouldn’t even dream of drinking such a silly wine with an upright frog in a beret on it (too bad for them – an excellent value wine perfect for company and large dinners). There’s also the Goats do Roam Wine Co, whose adorable plays on words (like Goat-Rotie as opposed to Côte-Rotie and Bored Doe for Bordeaux) are just so fun and clever they make a great choice for gifts or hanging out with friends.

What do you think? What attracts you to purchasing one bottle over another when shopping for wine? Do you like those directed marketing campaigns, or does it more often than not leave you unsettled like me?

Traveling to emerging wine regions such as South Africa, Greece and Cyprus and tasting wines in New York from everywhere from Hungary to Long Island, I’ve thought a lot about how an under-the-radar region can make its mark in a market flooded with wine choices. Consumers are already accustomed to finding good wines at reasonable prices, and from places they recognize. So how can a country or region perceived as exotic or “foreign” to Americans find a place on domestic tables?

To start, by perfecting and promoting their own unique varieties, and marketing them realistically. This sounds easy enough, but it’s quite a challenge on many levels. The first is financial: it’s tempting for wineries to plant familiar varieties like Cabernet or Chardonnay—wines they know sell in other markets—instead of upholding the indigenous tradition of a Pinotage or Furmint , no matter how noble or worthwhile an endeavor. In their minds, they know there’s a real chance those indigenous varieties won’t ever gain serious, bankable traction in the highly competitive international markets.

I would never fault a smaller winery for trying to make solid business decisions—money is a real issue for these producers and a few missteps could put them out of business quickly. But in general, I think it’s dangerous for emerging regions to jump into the huge pool that is international-style winemaking. I’m not denying that sometimes great mainstream wines come from unlikely places (just try a South African Chenin or Cypriot Syrah sometime) but the real strength of a rising star region lies in its native varieties.

These are the wines that are best suited to the soil and the climate of the region, that in many cases have been made for decades, even centuries, by local winemakers. Found nowhere else, they embody the essence of the place in which they are grown, offering a truly unique experience to wine drinkers often lost in a sea of commercial, homogenous-tasting wines.

Despite this cultural allure of the wines, how do wineries get the message out to the American public? That requires a difficult balance of “unique, but not too foreign.” Blending native wines with mainstream varieties is one way to introduce wine drinkers to an emerging region and its local grapes. Consumers are more likely to grab a bottle of Xinomavro and Merlot because at least one of those words is familiar to them and it feels less like a risk. Eventually, one hopes they will graduate to exploring single varietal Xinomavro and all of the diversity expert producers can offer, but let’s take it one step at a time.

Labeling is important too—the bottle should have character but be readable and distinguishable. And then of course there’s education—tastings at wine stores, articles in wine magazines like Wine Enthusiast, getting the wines on restaurant lists and inspiring servers to learn about them and promote them—all will help wine lovers embrace the unfamiliar. It’s not easy maintaining one’s cultural identity in a market so flooded with familiar, and in some ways easier, wine choices. But thinking strategically, producers can uphold the character and tradition of their own native wines, while at the same time staying in business. What do you think?

Hip…Or Just Tragic?
Decanter.com is reporting that Château d’Arche will be “bottling” the second label of its Sauternes in 100-ml test tube-like packages aimed at the nightclub market in the Far East. Are shots of Carruades de Lafite next?

Redefining Weekday Wine
Usually it’s an inexpensive bottle casually consumed alongside a family dinner—a nonevent. Why not make it an event by choosing a more elevated alternative? Monday evening I chose a 1999 Karl Lawrence Morisoli Vineyard Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon from the cellar, which turned a humdrum evening at home into a memorable night.

Dire Straits for Print Media?
As Appellation America found out, Internet readers balk at paying for content. Online advertising spending is growing, but evidently not fast enough to support all of the budding wine sites. As Tom Wark points out in his recent blog on the subject, print is where the money is—at least for the moment. Ultimately, people will pay for the best content and advertisers will pay to reach those audiences. Unlike in rock-and-roll, you can’t get “Money for nothing and your chicks for free” online.

Planning Ahead
Next week, our contributors will be gathering for our annual editorial conference, where we try to figure out what stories you’d like to read next year. But despite all that brainpower in one room, we inevitably overlook a few things. Write in below and let us know what you really want to read about.

How we taste Wine Enthusiast is a hot topic with many angles. One healthy debate I’ve had with numerous friends and acquaintances is whether we, tasting blind and essentially in a void (well, stark, controlled tasting room environment anyway), are really doing a service to consumers. Most wine drinkers enjoy wine in a completely different way, namely with food, in varied settings, with wafting restaurant smells surrounding them and outside stimulus galore coloring–and they believe–enhancing, their wine experience.

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I went into a wine shop this past weekend for the first time in a couple of months. I was out in the Hamptons (Long Island, New York) for a little rest and relaxation, and was thinking that the most appropriate purchase I could make would be a nice Long Island rosé. I’m always a big fan of Wölffer’s rosé, and to me nothing says Montauk more than relaxing by the beach with an immensely refreshing local wine from a vineyard that you pass on the way out to the end of the south fork.

While in the wine shop, like any curious wine lover and consumer, I browsed the aisles to see if anything new or interesting caught my eye.

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Even as the big corporates continue to slash their vineyard holdings and small growers find it increasingly difficult to sell their grapes at worthwhile prices, new avenues are being explored for getting more of Australia’s wine grapes to market.

One of them exploits the longstanding European tradition of distillation. For decades, the EU has paid grape growers–mainly huge cooperatives–to distill surplus wine into industrial alcohol. The Down Under twist to this story is that that their wine grapes are being turned into vodka. Although I am not sure what makes these products vodka rather than brandy, except the perceived sales potential, there’s no denying the handsome packaging and slick Web sites of Bombora and CooranBong.

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You think cooking is a cute job, eh? Like Mommy in the kitchen? Well, Mommy never had to face the dinner rush while the orders come flooding in . . . every second counts and you cannot be mommy. –Colette, Ratatouille (2007)

A lot has been written about sexism in the wine and food (specifically restaurant) industry; we tackled the topic ourselves in our October 2008 “Bottle of the Sexes” issue. It came up again for me last November in Philadelphia as I sat on a “Breaking Through the Cork Ceiling” panel discussion with influential women of the wine industry like Martine Saunier and Cristina Mariani-May.  The good news in the wine world at least? Most of us agreed that if you’re smart, hardworking, and take what you do seriously, you’ll get ahead, regardless of the occasional old-boy boneheads who scowl at you when you crash their Victorian frat parties.

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One of the hot-button topics in French winemaking circles right now is pending EU legislation that would allow European producers to make rosé wines by blending together red wines and white wines.

Like many efforts to “modernize” European wine regulations, it’s an attempt to allow Old World producers to emulate New World techniques. Since New World wines have captured plenty of market share in recent years, this plan makes sense to some bureaucrat MBAs sitting in Brussels trying to craft laws that will help their citizen-winemakers compete.

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