September 12 2006
On Bordeaux, Cult Cabs, Wine Tastings and Fantasy Football
Weekone of my Fantasy Football league wrapped up last night with a bitter 1 pointloss to my brother-in-law. Myquarterback, Jake Delhomme from the Carolina Panthers, had a horrible game onSunday otherwise I likely would have won the game.
Forthe uninitiated, fantasy football is easily the greatest value you can get for$75 bucks based on the five months of pleasure it gives. The deal is you get enoughof your buddies together to form a league with 10, 12 or 16 teams and then youdraft players by position—a quarterback, a couple of running backs, some widereceivers, a tight end, and on and on until you have a “team” of players andsome guys on a hypothetical “bench” that can be substituted in week to week.
Youplay games weekly with your team’s outcome determined by the collectiveindividual performances of the NFL players you drafted for your team measuredagainst your opponents’ team of individual performers.
Forexample, you could have Peyton Manning from the Indianapolis Colts atquarterback and Edgerrin James, the running back for the Arizona Cardinals, allon your “team” playing against Marvin Harrison, the wide receiver for the Colts,and Alex Smith the quarterback for the 49’ers.
It’sa lot of fun for not a lot of money out of pocket.
And,increasingly, it’s big business, too. Alot of the web sites that run fantasy leagues have all types of advertising andsponsorships. Somebody is making money off of Joe Six-Pack being a football fan.
FantasyFootball got me thinking about the Judgment of Paris, the famed 1976 winetasting in which French wines were pitted against American wines.
Whatif somebody started an online Fantasy Wine League--The FWL, for our purposes.
Ateam of participants would pick from a selected group of wines from, say, thelast five years from California and France—this wouldn’t be the universe ofwines, it would be maybe 500 total wines from selected producers—the wineriesacting as the equivalent of NFL teams and the actual wines acting as theplayers.
Rosterslots would be picked to include varietals as the equivalent of footballpositions. A Cabernet or Bordeaux is your QB, a Pinot or a Burgundy is a Wide Receiver,Chardonnay or a White Burgundy is a tight end, Merlot could be your kicker and on down the line until you’ve drafted afull team of players, er, wine.
Teamsin each wine FWL league would draft their “team” based on research theydid, just like in Fantasy Football. If you wanted to select a young wine, akinto a rookie in the NFL, that would be your decision. One person’s astringentand tannic bomb is all upside potential to another team member. One team may elect to go with all four andfive year old wines, with a bit more “experience” to them.
Nowthat people have their “teams” of wines selected based on their research intohistorical scores, terroir, chateau or winery reputation, viticulturaltechniques, etc roaming blind tastings would be set-up in major metros withwine affinity groups.
Allof the wines would be blind tasted and scored. Week 14 could be in Indianapolis with the Indy WineEnthusiasts group.
Ona weekly basis your team would win or lose based on the aggregate scoring ofthe wines on your “team.” Eventually, asthe playoffs near, the teams with the best records move forward with the winesthat scored the most consistently until there is a league champion.
Wineriesand those charged with consumer marketing for wines could provide sponsorshipdollars and the league champion could win a mixed case of the wines from hisselected team.
Tome, this is like a wine competition that appeals to consumers on a massscale. Instead of yelling at thereferees on TV, we could actually yell at Bob in Temecula that has a palatebias towards Chateauneuf-de-pape based on his scoring at the enthusiast’s blindtastings.
Ifany winery wants to be the title sponsor, drop me a line. I’ll get the inaugural campaign set-up.
Crazierthings have happened … who would have thought we’d have poker games on TV everynight of the week?
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Weekone of my Fantasy Football league wrapped up last night with a bitter 1 pointloss to my brother-in-law. Myquarterback, Jake Delhomme from the Carolina Panthers, had a horrible game onSunday otherwise I likely would have won the game. 
