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April 15 2007
There’s an old saying along the lines of, “Nobody should watch sausage or legislation being made.”
The wine industry is experiencing a little roiling debate about the sausage-making and incidentally it falls down party lines ala a political battle.
Wine & Spirits magazine has an excellent article in the April 2007 issue about wine technology pioneer Clark Smith and his company Vinovation (perhaps one of the finest profile pieces I’ve ever read in a general consumer wine magazine. Unfortunately, you can’t find the article online, just the excerpt here.)
Irrespective of the content being online, this is an article worthy of purchasing the magazine because it is acting as a lightening rod for debate around a simmering technological ideology war in the world of wine. Speaking of war, ironically enough, the lead of the story says,
“Perhaps the most telling characterization one can make of Clark Smith is that, despite his reputation as a visionary, he found out about Hurricane Katrina after George W. Bush did.”
The story goes on to elaborate that Smith is something a detached brainiac, oblivious to his surroundings. According to Mark Lyon of Sebastiani Vineyards, “He’s like a horse with blinders on. He’s not looking at the periphery—he’s just going for the race.”
That sounds familiar.
Perhaps that sounds too familiar, but the more apt and direct analogy might be that Clark Smith is something akin to George W. Bush straight away without the glancing Katrina comparison. Bush doesn’t know that you can’t win an ideological battle and apparently neither does Smith. He is a pariah in a blue state; with many in the wine industry turning their coats conservative and “anti-manipulation” regardless of the sensibility.
Unfortunately for Clark he’s using a knife in a gun fight and he doesn’t have Karl Rove to craft his message. As the Wine & Spirits article notes, “his ego and his rhetorical style can leave listeners drowning in his wake.”
Maybe the Bush comparison isn’t as apt as I thought …
In no less than a span of six weeks, Smith has been prominently featured in at least four media outlets fighting the ideological battle between intervention and supposedly “natural” winemaking.
Essentially it boils down to two camps—the first camp are those that decry wine manipulation in the form of 1) de-alcoholization, 2) The removal of acetic acid which occasionally occurs with the removal of water that isn’t returned to the wine, increasing concentration and 3) micro-oxygenation—the practice of introducing oxygen to wine to soften tannins and create a gentler mouth feel, good for wines drunk in their youth. The second camp is those, primarily Smith, who believe technology can help express terroir. Smith is alone in this fight because most of his customers prefer that they remain confidential.
Can you imagine? Outing the Vinovation customer list would be like the beltway madam whose black book makes its way into the journalist’s hands.
The wineries want confidentiality because all of these technological applications are dirty secrets the wine industry prefers that the greater consuming public not be privy too, lest they ruin the mystique for wine at higher price points. Nobody wants to get painted with the “corporate wine” brush, particularly at higher price points. Speculation indicates that as much as 50% of the wine industry might manipulate in some manner.
Eric Asimov picked up on the Wine & Spirits article and touched on Vinovation in what will become a legendary post that spawned about 30 pages of comments by my printer page count. And, Asimov posted a follow-up that can be found here that picks up the same general thread and follows up on some threads from the user comments.
Elsehwhere, Smith is featured in a Wines & Vines article touting the use of oak alternatives—another dirty secret that most wineries would prefer to keep as a detail not discussed in polite company.
Finally, I took the bait and read the article referenced by Roger Dial from Appellation America in his email in trying to drive debate at the newly posted Clark Smith interview at Appellation America—including excerpted quotes to whet the appetite before the clickover.
The AA article includes such molotov cocktails like the below broadside, which is really a backhanded defense of the use of his technology, which he does by invoking Nazi Germany as the real pioneers of wine technology.
“I’m telling you, the wine industry went right down the toilet when electricity and stainless steel and all of this hyper-technology came in,” he begins. “Because we took how to make wine like that (without the use of technology) and threw it out the window. We took everybody who knew how to make wine without SO2 (sulphur dioxide used as a preservative), and shot ‘em in the head because great German technology was going to save us.
“The Germans won World War II you know, in the wine industry, because they came up with a wonderful way of making beautiful, soulless Rieslings. They divided it into two kinds of wine – the beautiful and the sexy. With stainless steel, sterile filtration, inert gas, packaged microbes and the application of electricity, they came up with a whole new way to make wine which basically freezes its development.
“…They convinced the French to adopt far more reductive winemaking practices than is appropriate for Cabernet,” he goes on. “And Riesling and Cabernet are not the same thing. … And now we’re making wine like this (un-soulful) instead. That’s fucked up. Everybody thinks stainless steel, electricity and refrigeration are all perfectly fine because they have them in their kitchens. They grew up with them and they don’t understand the impact that it had on traditional winemaking.”
Throughout this debate, I’m left scratching my head thinking three things:
1) Anybody in on this debate that is not an uber-wine industry insider shouldn’t have an opinion because they haven’t had the wherewithal of full disclosure to discern the differences in between wines that are clients of Smiths and those that are allegedly not manipulated. To alleviate this one for myself, I’m going to buy some of Smith’s vino in order to taste the technology. You can buy some here.
2) I want to hire a marketer/p.r. guy to help out Clark Smith because he’s not helping his own cause out.
This guy needs a handler and a marketer in the worst way starting with his wonkish way of abstractly trying to explain what he does, his mention of Nazi Germany and his whole positioning of “Practicing GrapeCraft” –bringing in the specter of technological witchcraft is not a very good association nor is the shameless treacle in his positioning statement of, “The Practical art of connecting the human soul to the soul of a place by rendering its grapes into liquid music.”
3) Everybody loves a good bratwurst, but nobody wants to know how they are made
I have a hunch that he is only now beginning to bare his academic chops and circuitous logic in defending himself in a fight that can’t be won. As Rick Jones from UC Davis is quoted in the Wine & Spirits article in reference to an anecdote of Smith as a student, he says:
“I remember feeling a mixture of envy and embarrassment—he was so guileless, but he had such balls. I think a lot of people in the wine business have a mixture of emotions about Clark.”
I’m not sure if he’s from Texas, but it looks like he’s got some spurs on his boots and is willing to dig in. Pop some popcorn; this ideological war should be a good one. Check out The Grapecraft blog to watch it unfold. You might buy some of his wine to quaff, too. You know, for reference sake.
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April 6 2007
Oddly, food and wine are intrinsically linked and natural complements, but on the Internet you have two distinct camps and never do the rivers really meet. Sure you have Fork & Bottle and a couple of other good blogs that cover territory in both the edible and quaffing arts, but for the most part people stick to either being a foodie blogger or a wine blogger.
Actually I guess the same is true for mass media like Food Network. They don’t have a single damn show about wine.
It seems like kind of a slight, actually.
Taking a cue from popular media must be the reason there really aren’t *any* blogs period marrying food and wine by, say, a professional like a Sommelier that talks with intelligence, wit and verve about pairings and life on his/her feet working in white table cloth restaurant.
If there are blogs like this that I’m missing, please leave a comment and point them out to me.
I’d really like to see a blog that covers food and wine from the perspective of a Wine Director or a Sommelier—not a snarky, ‘too cool for school’ blog, but one that really tells it like it is from the trenches—stories of the distributor reps., and the boorish patrons and the annual junkets and the egoist chef that wants to pair Pinot with everything.
There are blogs certainly like this in virtually every micro-niche category:
• When I want to get the between the lines good stuff in sports, I read the blog Deadspin.
• When I want to get celebrity gossip (which isn’t that often, actually) I read Perez Hilton.
• When I want to get the straight skinny on what’s happening in the world of wine distribution, I read Fermentation
• When I want the straight dope on all things food and the restaurant business related I read Michael Ruhlman’s blog.
Michael Ruhlman, surprisingly, has incredible chops having written three books that make up something of a set of must-read books for those in the food know—The Soul of a Chef, The Reach of a Chef and The Making of a Chef.
Anthony Bourdain, he of the Travel Channel and an author in his own right with the must-read Kitchen Confidential, is a guest blogger on the site and pulls no punches. He wrote a hilariously scathing post in February about Food Network personalities that made its way into the internet jetstream and also received a mention on Dr. Vino’s site (found here).
But, the really curious thing is, if you watch the Food Network as I do and in the quantity that I do then you know all of the personalities … personalities that Bourdain doesn’t so much eviscerate (okay he does eviscerate Sandra Lee, but she deserves it), but merely point out foibles in their handling as food personalities.
Somehow missing in action in all of this Bourdain commentary is the one guy that could be the food and wine bridge for Food Network, blogs, and, well, mankind. I’m speaking of Michael Chiarello.
Bourdain completely passes over Michael Chiarello, the guy with the perpetual dinner party of “friends” that act like they have never met before, on his cooking show, Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello.
Chiarello is the one guy with wine roots. Filmed on location in Napa at Trefethen winery, his show is the only show on the Food Network that is remotely close to wine. In fact, Chiarello has his own vineyard and makes a pretty darn good bottle of juice, too—if the reviews are accurate. AND, he is a former Chef at the Napa restaurant Tra Vigne, too.
So, here’s my gauntlet—somebody needs to start writing a wine and food blog with some insider authority and a professional bent, or Anthony Bourdain needs to start calling out all of the Food Network chefs so the one guy that has a link to the wine industry can get his proper due (or even skewering). Or, Michael Chiarello is going to have sidestep all of this nonsense and simply start his own blog with his own initiative and write about the ins and outs of food and wine, his restaurant experience and the challenges in running a wine lifestyle business.
No less than an information hungry online public demands it.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
March 30 2007
A quick post today—fitting for a warm Spring day ...
Mary at Dover Canyon had a recent post on wine scoring worksheets and resources to get started on doing group wine evaluation ... Liz at Inertia Beverage Group has some tips for using video, and especially wineries using video via YouTube.
Taken together, here’s a YouTube video of Borat doing a wine tasting in Jackson, Mississippi. Ah, the Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
Borat Wine Tasting (WARNING: This is at least PG-13):
If Borat isn’t your speed, here’s a video of country music legend Merle Haggard singing, “Little Ole Wine Drinker Me” a song that starts with, “I’m praying for rain in California
So the grapes can grow and they can make more wine…”
Need to kill an hour or three? Search “wine” or a similar variation on YouTube. Better yet, don’t do that. Open a bottle of vino and head outside. It is Spring after all.
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March 29 2007
The “Law of Three” posits that “every whole phenomenon is composed of three separate sources, which are Active, Passive and Reconciling or Neutral. This law applies to everything in the universe and humanity, as well as all the structures and processes,” so sayeth Wikipedia.
I don’t disagree. It does seem as if things come in threes, including celebrity deaths.
Just the same, I have never thought about wine and flying in conjunction with each other, as I’m usually asking for the third cup of water instead of another 187 ml bottle of bad wine. So, benignly, I read Lenn Thompson’s post yesterday about American Airlines including wines of New York on transcontinental (i.e. coast-to-coast) flights. Press release found here.
Interesting, I thought to myself, airlines are actually doing something that could be considered a value-add. Travelers haven’t seen that in a while, and wine has almost been an afterthought for airlines for years.
Then, today, I get an email from United Airlines with a wine offer, the 2nd of presumably three airline/wine related things coming my way. Hartwick & Grove, an online wine retailer with uncertain bricks and mortar provenance, have an offer for United Mileage Plus members that pays 25 frequent flyer miles for every $1 dollar spent at the online retailer. The come-on in the email indicates (and it’s not a bad deal, actually) I can get the ’02 Mondavi Reserve Cab for a 30% discount priced at $87.50 AND receive 2,188 miles per bottle! That’s not a bad deal. A case of wine would yield me a free ticket at the 25K mile mark.
Finally, as the final airline/wine oddity in our troika, I received another email today from Southwest airlines sent out for the express purpose of telling me that prices are going up to $4 across the board for beer and wine and that the new drink coupon book for Rapid Reward members is getting a new look and will “definitely give (me) something to talk about with (my) seatmate!”
If you’re interested in the American transcontinental flights, like New York to San Francisco, to perhaps do a little domestic Michel Rolland-like consulting there is a job opening available for (potentially) a California winemaker in New York City, found at this link.
A new venture called City Winery is starting up in NYC and has something of a Crushpad Wine business model, but less immersive—perfect for the high-end wine lover that thinks that pumpovers and punchdowns is either a name for a very, um, male-centric bar or a kind of guys high school bullying activity.
City Winery
By offering a fractional (barrel) ownership program, City Winery enables wine enthusiasts at many levels to enjoy the unique pleasures of the wine making experience. The opportunity to make and bottle your own wine caters to the natural progression of interest for an upscale wine consumer and aficionado.
City Winery will capture the mystique and pleasures of a winery, with a 250 person capacity central tasting bar and event space surrounded by the wooden barrels, stainless steel tanks and apparatus of wine making. It will combine a hands-on wine making experience in a modern facility with a hip and trendy wine bar to establish a unique and popular venue.
Likewise, if you’re a New York City native, AND you do want that pumpover action with your barrel of wine, Crushpad has the answer for you and they will be in New York City at the end of April to try some of the current barrel samples for current members and interested enthusiastic potential customers.
At the very least have a glass of vino on your five hour flight to or from New York—all the better if it’s actually wine from New York State—that would make Lenn happy, too.
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March 13 2007
In a very short time I’ve become a convert to Wine Library TV. I say convert instead of fan because in this day and age of hyper-content while living in the age of irony and I think it’s fair to say that most of us come at things with a healthy dose of skepticism. Thus, I was initially skeptical and now I’m a convert, capably side-stepping the unprotected warm and fuzzies of being an initial “fan.”
I don’t get disappointed as often. Trust me, its easier this way.
Seinfeld, the master of irony, is doing a comedy bit on his current tour about how things either are “Great” or they “Suck.” No middle ground.
“Hey, I heard that movie is great.”
“Nah, it sucked.”
“Okay” is for fans. Well, I think Wine Library TV is great.
I look forward to long solitary dog walks or drive time so I can listen through several episodes.
I like the infectiousness coupled with the indefatigable authority with which the host, Gary Vaynerchuk, operates.
One of the other things that I truly enjoy about the show is Vay-Ner-Chuk seems to have an incredible knack for marketing—a sense for community and a sense for doing things that will help him build the business. And, make no mistake, what Gary is selling to legions of Vayniacs is himself. That’s his business.
His schtick, for lack of a better word, all seems so familiar and comfortable, like your favorite pair of jeans.
One of the great hallmarks of great marketing is that marketers don’t think they have to invent the stuff. Use what works for other people. Gary does this brilliantly.
But, it wasn’t until this past Saturday when I was listening to a couple of episodes on a drive up to visit family, and it hit me like a ton of bricks—especially when Gary announced that he was doing fan meet and greets in Chicago and San Francisco over the course of next couple of months.
This die hard J-E-T-S —Jets, Jets, Jets—- fan is doing a tour stop. A tour stop like … like … Jim Rome.
Ding. Ding.
I get it now. If you listen to sports talk radio, like I do, you’ll quickly realize that Gary Vaynerchuk is modeling himself after nationally syndicated sports talk radio host Jim Rome.
It all makes perfect sense. And, really, it’s a small stroke of genius on his part.
If you’re not familiar with Jim Rome, then check out his 14 page Wikipedia entry to get yourself caught up to speed. If you are familiar with him then you’ll immediately have the revelation that I had.
Herewith, 10 stylistic similarities in between Gary Vaynerchuk and Jim Rome:
1) Create a persona around unyielding confidence in the subject matter, filtered through pop culture with a righteous social conscious. Jim Rome has “takes” that stand as mini-editorials on a matter of interest in the sports world. Vaynerchuk does tastings that act as mini-editorials on a wine of interest in the wine world.
2) Refer to yourself uniquely. Jim Rome refers to himself as “Van Smack” or “Pimp in the Box.” Gary refers to himself with the phonetic, “Gary Vay-ner-chuk.”
3) Name your fans: The Jim Rome Show fans are called “Clones.” Wine Library TV fans are called “Vayniacs”
4) Support your roots: The Jim Rome Show is undeniably “SoCal.” Wine Library TV is undeniably “Jersey.”
5) Create a nomenclature around subject matter that can be identified to its source: Jim Rome’s show is “The Jungle” a caller on the show gets a “vine” and has a “take,” etc. There are dozens of examples for Rome.
Gary Vaynerchuk gives a “Paszzz” to a wine, talks of a wine “Bringing the Thunder,” talks of wines that are a “double-bubble,” uses the familiar refrain of, “let’s move on,” speaks of his love for wines that are somewhat vegetal and frequently references “pickle juice” in wine. Others …
6) Omnipresent, but largely anonymous support staff. Rome has Jason Stewart and Travis Rodgers, always mentioned, and rarely heard from. Gary Vaynerchuk has his camera person “Eric?” and several others that are always mentioned, but always off camera
7) Have national meetings with fans. Jim Rome has “tour stops” in affiliate cities. Gary Vaynerchuk is planning Vayniac meet and greets in Chicago and San Francisco.
8) Encourage email interactivity with fans. Jim Rome frequently reads fan emails on air. Gary Vaynerchuk frequently references responding to emails, solicits show ideas from fans and responds to fans via email.
9) Create a “combacker” The classic comedians’ art of using a re-occurring theme for continuity and a humorous frame of reference. Jim Rome has many of these, including almost daily and repeated bashing of O.J. Simpson. Gary Vaynerchuk has the white board with frequent pithy or obscure items written on it.
10) Create an inclusive or exclusive signature for the show. Rome has the, “More of me, less of you (Clones) is better for the show.” Gary Vaynerchuk has the more charitable, “YOU. With a little bit of me … we’re changing the wine world.”
Somebody once told me that, ‘If somebody has what you want, do what they do, get what they got.” It’s a little tongue twister designed to remind you to model yourself after successful people. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Vaynerchuk and Wine Library TV could be doing a lot worse than modeling after the Jim Rome Show. I don’t know if a nationally syndicated talk radio show is in the cards for Gary, but I have to believe that if Dave Lieberman can be on the Food Network then surely there is a bigger spotlight for Vaynerchuk. And that wouldn’t suck. In fact, it might be great.
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