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April 15 2008

It Gives Me Great Pleasure to Introduce You to Mr. William Chong

You would think that a seemingly innocuous speech by financier Bill Price at a recent North Bay Business Journal wine industry conference would be much ado about nothing.

You would be wrong, however.

A more flippant lead to this post would surely start with a quote from “Sympathy for the Devil” by the Rolling Stones, or, perhaps, Tony Montana from Scarface.

“Please allow me to introduce myself …”

Or,

“Say hello to my little friend …”

While not above it at other times, in this instance I will roll with the straight facts.

I’ve seen reference to Price’ comments in at least three different places, and while I get around, I do not read that much.

In a nutshell, Price said, as excerpted from a coverage piece by the North Bay Business Journal:

The wine business is approaching a historic period in which 1,000 to 2,000 of the 2,400 wineries in California could be for sale in the next 10 years, Bill Price told the audience of nearly 300 at the BUSINESS JOURNAL’s Wine Industry Conference at the Vintners Inn. He was citing a Silicon Valley Bank/Scion Advisors study on winery ownership succession released earlier this year.

“In a growing or consolidating industry, it generally pays to sell early or late,” he said, regarding timing in relation to the trend. “If you sell in the middle, there generally are compressed multiples.”

That’s because there are few properties for sale at the beginning, so buyers are paying higher multiples of earnings before taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) than they would after a few years, when neighbors see the high multiples and put their businesses on the market, according to Mr. Price.

Frankly, seeing this blurb in several different spots reminded me of political coverage where the slightest sound bite is blown up, spun and covered unmercilessly by talking heads. Surely, it cannot be that big of a deal, right?

Maybe it is a big deal. Could it be that for all of the advocating that bloggers do online about small wine, terroir, and other high brow, nuanced wine-related thought-leadership types of things that we are really in the midst of the halcyon days? In 10 years time will we look back wistfully at the good old days, the pre-2008 era in wine?

Separately, I have been managing the Wine Business Network group that I started at the professional networking site LinkedIN. Slowly, surely, and without effort, it has grown to 275 members in two months time. It has folks of all stripes from the wine industry—big wineries, little wineries, distributors, retailers, the whole gamut. Likewise, I have rejected membership for a fair number of folks that did not fit the criteria for “Wine Business.” Recruiters, oddball vendors and the like have been politely rejected for membership. I’ve been trying to keep it for wine folks.

Today, however, I received a request from a Mr. William Chong. Mr. Chong is the Head of Alternative Fund Services at HSBC.
HSBC is the world’s largest bank. HSBC is also based in China. I hear the Chinese are taking a liking to wine.

Alternative Fund Services at HSBC, based on my own cursory review, provides fund administration services to customers that might include hedge fund managers, funds of hedge fund managers, absolute return fund managers and private equity partners.

Perhaps, it is not so coincidental that Bill Price founded Texas Pacific Group, a private equity firm. He knows that which he speaks, particularly, it would seem, about winery sell-offs and acquisitions.

I find it curious that unexpectedly I would see a notation about a winery sell-off and all of a sudden and out of the blue somebody from the world’s largest bank that supports hedge funds and private equity would want to be a part of the Wine Business Network.

Perhaps I am being hyperbolic, as I am wont to do. Perhaps, not. Nonetheless, I approved Mr. Wong’s membership, contrary to my own previous arbitration about who gets in.

Dear Wine Industry: Please allow me to introduce you to Mr. William Chong. He works for a bank with a lot of money. I hear that some of you guys may have your winery up for sale in the next decade. Some folks say you might want to do it sooner, rather than later.

If you want to join the Wine Business Network at LinkedIn, you must have a profile and you can request membership at this link. I will not be taking any finders fees, a case of wine will suffice. I am sure you will have Sympathy for the Devil.

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April 9 2008

Vin de Napkin and the Art of Missing the Boat

Cue Elton John and the soundtrack to “The Lion King.” I now feel like, at least from a book publishing perspective, I have seen the trifecta and completed the “Circle of Life.”

For a Generation X’er like me, first came the eponymously named book by Douglas Coupland. Then, as I crept into my thirties, a slacker-turned-adult manifesto called, “The Day I Turned Uncool” by Dan Zevin was published. Now, finally, comes the triumphant and celebratory book called, “X Saves the World.”

Damn right.

In my mind, there is a clear line of delineation between my generation, Generation X, the small band of brothers nestled between the Baby Boomer’s and Generation Y, those in their twenties. However, to read Alan Goldfarb’s column in Appellation America, he would have you believe that anybody not a Boomer, and, God forbid, under the age of 40, is the downfall of Western Civilization, or at least wines of distinction and, based on omission of fact, entirely the same generation of people.

He grinds the axe, singing an old saw, but, unfortunately, comes off as only glancingly provocative.

The crux of his argument is that this one giant mass of “kids” does not drink wine with food, therefore missing out on nuanced wine, though he somehow overlooks the fact that folks in their 30s are executing the majority of fine dining. It is a young man’s game. Any issue of Food & Wine will verify this. He also overlooks the complete revolution with Sommeliers in their twenties, driving international trends.

Ah, we have to talk about something and, I guess, this is as good as the next topic and certainly better than arguing about BioD.

Vin de Napkin—inspired by this article at Appellation America.

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March 24 2008

Oh, Dyngus Day and Drinking with the Prez!

What do an obscure post-Easter holiday, festive libations and Bill Clinton have in common? Could be the set-up to a punch line, huh? The answer is not a bacchanalian party with interns, either.

Before doing a quick Google search, I would have sworn that South Bend, a northern Indiana border town, a region referred to as Michiana, on the south bend of the St. Joseph river, in the shadow of our lady’s golden dome, my hometown, was the only place in the U.S. that celebrated a peculiar and festive Polish holiday the Monday after Easter called Dyngus Day.

What did we do before Wikipedia and Google?

Alas, because of Wikipedia, I now know that Buffalo, NY and pockets of New York also celebrate Dyngus Day, this most joyous of celebrations. Welcome to the party, fellas. I made it 35 years thinking this goofy slice of Eastern European- cum-Americana was unique to South Bend. Selfishly, it is somewhat nice to be in on something local, and, well, kooky. Kind of like that hidden gem of a wine made in absurdly small quantities by the crackpot winemaker.

Dyngus Day is, frankly, an excuse to party, a hump holiday after St. Patrick’s Day and before late spring weather roars to life. It is a day of beer, polish sausage, boiled eggs, and city-county council members slapping backs and kissing babies at VFW lodges throughout town.

Undoubtedly, there is some vino being served, too--perhaps some Hungarian vino from Tokaj or a lightly tannic German red wine, something to pair with the food. Polish sausage, in particular, a zesty sausage that is on our dinner table every Easter, pairs well with a peppery Syrah, even if a Pinot is best for the Easter table.

Besides South Bend being a legacy town with a huge enclave of polish folks and a place where being called a “Polack” is not viewed as an ethnic slur, it is also a town that hosted the former President of the U.S. today. Indiana, for once, is in the thick of current politics and a primary coming up on May 5th.

From MSNBC:

Meanwhile, Bill and Chelsea hit Indiana all day today. They will be there for something called Dyngus Day. According to one Google search, Dyngus Day is a day where guys get to drench gals in water; apparently tomorrow, gals get to throw dishes at the guys. It’s a Polish holiday. Of course, what part of Dyngus Day will Bill Clinton take part in?

That excerpt leads me to the somewhat loosely tied point of this post. What living president would you want to party with, er, enjoy a glass of wine with?

For my money, out of Jimmy Carter, G.H. Bush, Clinton, and G.W. Bush, you are almost forced into a no-brainer decision. My personal politics aside, which straddle the middle of the road, when I’m not fantasizing about being a beatnik or a farmer of organic produce on the margins of society, I would definitely choose Clinton.

I think I would pull a Washington state red blend out for him—something with brisk acidity, complexity and abundant fruit.

Dyngus Day aside, which President would you drink with and what would you have?

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February 26 2008

Are you an Agrarian or an Opulent?

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to a very simple premise related to people’s fascination with wine.

I believe that most people that crossover from being drinkers of wine to having general wine enthusiasm just before turning into a full-on wine elitist go through a sub-conscious process akin to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

In this process, you realize that there is something about wine that transcends what is merely in the glass. It is the whole shooting match that goes with wine, particularly an orientation to lifestyle. Like the hierarchy of needs, we eventually actualize and project our self-image outward and into wine as a vehicle for how we see ourselves.

So, here is what I have been thinking about: Do we think that wine and its associated lifestyle is more appealing from an agricultural perspective, or from a luxury perspective?

Oh, there is a huge difference.

Do wine enthusiasts fantasize more about a winery as a cultured farm, or living the high life as a gracious ambassador to customers?

The difference is really the image of Dover Canyon versus, say, Ferrari Carano.

I know which way I lean, and it is not related to Fumé Blanc.

Maybe my preference for the rural activities is related simply to my own background. I am only a generation removed from the farm.

Perhaps others who had a different upbringing are more predisposed to the bon vivant lifestyle associated in pockets of the industry.

What do you think? And, more importantly, are you an Agrarian or an Opulent?

On a separate, but related note, please check out a beautiful post from Mark at winecanine.com. He is a fellow Hoosier wine blogger and has written an elegy to rural Indiana that everybody can appreciate.

The gist of it is, our version of agrarian, not wine-related, but instead a maple sugar farm, had a tragic fire in the last week.

You can read his post here and see associated pictures here.

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February 11 2008

The Brillat-Savarin of Our Times?

Nineteenth century gastronome and author of the influential “Physiology of Taste” famously said, “Tell me what you eat and I’ll tell you who you are.” What if somebody also told you, “Tell me what you drink and I’ll tell you who you are?”

For a wine lover, that becomes a mildly controversial proposition.

Nobody is going to define me by my drinking patterns, because it is an ever-evolving scenario. For the love of all things vinous, I just had my first Marsanne just the other day (tasty wine, too). I think most wine lovers, righteously, would bristle in self-defense—such is our wanton ways, not wanting to define our palates (or ourselves) while still reserving the right to pass empirical quality markers on wine.

It is kind of like the soothsayer telling me when I will die. Please do not, I would prefer not to know, I will simply take the journey. So it is with wine lovers and our palates, too—I will simply take the journey.

However, Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, formerly of restaurant wine consultancy WineQuest, and currently a co-founder of Napa Seasoning Co. and a proponent of taste bud categorization with a development process underway called the “Budometer” might change our perception of ourselves and our wine consumption, regardless of our trenchant wishes.

Sometimes change is good.

The Bourgeoisie Meets the Masses

Never before has the wine bourgeoisie been on the precipice of such egalitarianism.

I have read a couple of recent articles on Tim Hanni, Master of Wine, and very subtly you see the potential seeds of some radical potential change in the way we approach wine. This is change on the order of defining wine drinkers based on their God-given taste buds and, at the same time, balancing out the notion of food and wine pairings to a true state of, “drink what you like, with what you like.”

The Wall Street Journal had a recent personality profile on Hanni, even if it was a half-baked article shedding light on neither the man nor his passions and, likewise, a recent Wines & Vines article featured the implementation of the Budometer system engineered by Hanni at the upcoming Lodi International Wine Awards.

Simply, Hanni has a couple of credentials that bear, to paraphrase Janis Joplin, “great social and political import.”

First, he IS a Master of Wine. Second, he has already exerted great influence into the wine drinking landscape by working with a great number of casual dining restaurants across the company to help them categorize their wine lists by taste intensity and third he is working on a so-called Budometer that categorize wine drinker preferences based on the number of taste buds they have in a simple blue-dye test.

Wine Judging Formats Are Tweaked

From the Wines & Vines article (authored by freelance writer and wine blogger Tina Caputo):

(In reference to the Lodi International Wine Awards) … the competition will divide judges into panels according to their palate sensitivity. This will be determined by painting their tongues blue with food coloring, then counting their taste buds to see if they are “tolerant,” “sensitive” or “hyper-sensitive” tasters.

The categories are defined as follows:
• Tolerant--those who tend to favor dry, high-intensity, assertive wines
• Sensitive--the median group with a broad range of preferences
• Hyper-sensitive--those who tend to have an aversion to bitterness, and favor delicacy over intensity. They often prefer some degree of sweetness in their wines.

You can also do a simple online quiz to check your tolerance level by going here for the original web site and a special test put together by the Wall Street Journal. According to both sites, I am a “Sensitive” taster.

The other interesting thing that the Wines & Vines article pointed out that is completely separate, but somewhat related to Tim Hanni, is a wine competition in Iowa that is doing food pairing as a part of the judging component:

We think that all wine competitions ought to consider food affinity when selecting wines for acclaim.”

A group of 30 wines will be selected to participate in the food and wine judging. Wineries will then choose one food item per wine from a list of available dishes that will be prepared by local chefs. Frost and competition director Bob Foster will help vintners choose the best pairings, if necessary.

A Sprinkle of This, a Dash of That to Pair Your Wine Dish

This is an interesting development, but Hanni, in fact, is trying to democratize the wine pairing process with his Napa Seasoning Co.—a concept that utilizes a technique called “flavor balancing” rejects the notion that wine and food pairing is a pseudo-science. According to him, any wine can be paired with any wine by adjusting the salt, acidity and sweetness in a dish.

His new product from the Napa Seasoning Company is called Vignon and it is in a spice shaker combining a number of ingredients including salt, lemon juice and other ingredients like soy sauce that are high in umami. A couple of dashes and supposedly you can enjoy that red wine and fish.

This is all fascinating stuff and typically the sort of thing that sneaks up on us as a society. Rarely do we watch these developments and understand the ramifications in context; it is usually after they become accepted prevailing wisdom that we ponder the way things used to be.

It won’t be a complete upsetting of the apple cart, but if you want to think about the future of wine differently, think about the possibilities presented by Hanni—the potential Brillat-Savarin of our times-- and the potential change that can come if every wine drinker is categorized based on God-given taste buds and the ability to sprinkle a combination of spices on a steak in order to pleasurably drink it with a white wine.

For More Reading:

Supertasters

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