There's more to wine than three varietals. There's more to wine than wood. There's more to wine than numeric ratings. There's more to wine than expensive "special occasion" bottles. There's Rick's Picks.
There's exciting French wine -
from places like Alsace, Bearn, Corbieres, Collioure, Gascony, Gigondas, Herault, Jurancon, Languedoc, Madiran, Minervois, Provence, Roussillon and Savennieres; made of grapes like Chenin Blanc, Grenache, Gros Manseng, Malbec, Mouvedre, Syrah, Tannat, Viognier, Cabernet Franc and yes, even Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, sometimes alone and sometimes in blends - usually without any detectable oak and very often selling for less than $10.
There's even exciting, yet afford able Burgundy and Bordeaux not to mention wines from the Rhone.
There's stunning Italian wine -
from places like Abbruzzo, Apulia, Campania, Emilia-Romagna, Fruili-Venetzia, Lombardy, Piedmont and Tuscany; made of grapes like Barbera, Montipulciano, Sangiovese, Tocai, Pinot Blanc and yes even Cabernet, Merlot and Chardonnay, also often selling for less than $10.
There's sensational Spanish wine -
from places like the Basque region, Galicia, La Mancha, Navarra, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Penedes and Valencia; made of grapes like Albarino, Black Mencia (aka Cabernet Franc), Tempranillo and Viura and most of them are under $10.
Another nice thing about Spanish wines is that they come from the winery ready to drink.
Take it home and pop the cork.
There's "jump-for-joy" wine from New Zealand - made of Sauvignon Blanc that is distinctly different from Sauvignon Blanc made anywhere else.
There's glorious wine -
from places like Argentina, Australia, Chile, Hungary, Germany, Greece and South Africa.
There's more wonderful wine in this world than I can list or you would care to read about.
So what's the problem?
Mass-marketing, numeric mumbo jumbo and the easy sell!
At the wholesale and retail level, its easy to sell and easy to buy what is "safe" and familiar, even when it is boring, unimaginative, mediocre and regardless of whether it is fairly priced.
At the low end of the market it must be available in unlimited quantities and at the high end the opposite must be true.
Quality is a peripheral issue. Marketing is the main issue.
Its easy to sell wine that someone rated 95 or 100 - in fact you don't have to sell it - people will break down the doors to buy it.
But what those numbers mean, how they were assigned and what happens to the wine that gets only an 89 is another story.
Suffice it to say that I have a palate that is extremely sensitive to taste and smell and I react to those sensations at an emotional level, but I am poorly equipped to translate my emotions in to numbers. Shades of the movie "Ten"
.
Marketing includes a practice that I, as a retailer, despise - some well-known wineries with "market muscle", require that as much as 80% of their wine be sold to restaurants, insuring that they are exposed to more affluent wine drinkers, but also that the wine will be in short supply at retail. I sell such wines - reluctantly if at all.
Marketing has recently made consumers aware of Merlot, which they have been drinking all along in French wines, and in a few Californian blends, without being aware of it, creating a demand that, in California, is outstripping supply. I can show you "Californian" Merlot that comes from France. Nothing wrong with that except I can offer you comparable, or maybe better, wine with a French label at two-thirds the price!
Mass-marketing needs uniformity - no surprises (and no excitment). Here, I must give Robert Mondavi credit - his regular Cabernet and Chardonnay are well-made, text book, restaurant wines - predictable - no surprises - vintage after vintage. Restaurants love them. His Reserve Reds (they're usually blends) have, over the years have been superb and, until recently, very fairly priced. I can understand his need to get a piece of the mass market, but why has he put his name on the "plonk" that comes in big bottles? Of course we need inexpensive wines in big bottles and while much of it regardless of whence it comes, is "plonk", there is good honest jug wine to be found.
There are hundreds, even thousands of wines from France, Spain, Italy and - yes - even California that have individuality - each distinct and different, but they do not move off the shelf - they are the "hand sells".
Marketing (and no doubt money) is the enormous problem faced by the small innovative producer. He or she can acquire a local following, but getting from there to the broader market is another matter. Enter "big money".
Big Money is gobbling up wineries large and small - much of the wine you drink is made by a hand-full of giant producers you never heard of. Look at the labels - they'll say "Cellared and Bottled by ..." whereas what you would prefer to see is "Estate Bottled by ..."
To be fair, let me add that Big Money doesn't always mean Bad. We have some delicious, fairly priced wines whose labels say "Cellared and Bottled by...", made by companies whose names never appear on a label - but I watch them like a hawk!
When I think of Big money, I immediately think of Benziger who sold, to Heublein, the enormously successful mass-market Glen Ellen brand, which they built from scratch. They are now producing stunning wines at fair prices under their Benziger label. Particularly exciting are the wines in their Imagery Series.
Washington based Chateau St Michelle, owned by a giant conglomerate, is another. All of their wines, whether under the popular priced Columbia Crest label, or the Chateau St Michelle label are well-made, affordable and enjoyable, but the Chateau St Michelle single-vineyard Cabs, Merlots, and Cab Franc wines are in my opinion the equal of almost any domestic reds and they are still priced under $30.
Marketing hype generates demand for top-rated wines despite ever increasing prices - $150 a bottle for Diamond Creek! - owner Al Broustein admits that he will keep upping the price as long as people buy - and they do. But do they ever drink the stuff? I have '78 Diamond Creek. Paid about $16 in '80. Nice wine but the current vintages are no better. I cannot sell those wines. With few exceptions you, my customers, will not spend that kind of money and you tend to drink wine rather than keep it. Perhaps that's my fault, but then I have trouble selling what I would not buy. I don't sell many bottles of any wine over $30. I sell a fair amount in the twenties and even more in the teens but the overwhelming volume at MWS is under ten.
My observations concern not only California but France, Italy, Chile, Spain - there is no lack of highly visible wines of mediocre quality (my opinion), that are no bargains - whether priced at $6 or $60.
But I do not lament because there's my opportunity. All I have to do is buy what I would drink. And do I have fun doing it!
As I write madness is over-taking the market for Classified Bordeaux - the top 85 producers of some 8500 in Bordeaux. It started with the '95 futures market. The vintage has been highly rated in the press and by critics. Futures were snapped up as fast as they were offered. Another wave was released and snapped up at higher prices. This has been going on since April. Mouton was offered at $90 then. Now it is $140, if you can find it, and I cannot. I was able to buy, in total, no more than a case or two of First Growth Bordeaux (Mouton, Lafite, Margaux, Latour, Haut Brion) and now I would not buy them even if I could.
The madness has spread to earlier vintages - I am reviewing my pricing every couple of weeks and even then I cannot keep up. I was offering '90 Latour for $160 early this year - its now worth $575. Where will it end? I worry! Where is all that wine? Who is holding it? The Bordeaux market like all other markets can go down just as fast as it can go up.
Keep one thing in mind regarding Bordeaux - I have been told that there are more than 8000 producers in Bordeaux - of which only 65 comprise the infamous 1855 Classification of First through Fifth Growths; another 100 include the top wines of Pomerol, St. Emillion and Graves which were excluded from the 1885 Classification, and perhaps another 200 to 300 that have been classified, one way or another in what are loosely called Petits Chateau. All of these are the upscale Bordeaux wines that are sought after, offered as futures and collected. And yes, I can offer you a selection of these top Bordeaux wines from good and great vintages and for the most part you don't have to cellar them - I have done it for you - just take them home and drink them.
In aggregate though, they are a tiny portion of my total Bordeaux sales as they are of the total red Bordeaux production which, as best I can determine, is between 30 and 50 million cases per year!! That would be 2 bottles for each and every American!
There is a veritable ocean of Bordeaux Superior, Cru Bourgeois and plain Bordeaux and I can show you that, among them, good, even great, wine can be found at affordable prices. If you are not label hunting, we can offer you very good to excellent red Bordeaux for as little as $9.99. We have a stunning '95 for $9.99 and many excellent '94's, '90's and earlier vintages for less than $20. And we have so much fun finding them.
And what is true of Bordeaux is true throughout the world of wine. There's no shortage of wine and there are hundreds - no, thousands, of exciting, affordable wines waiting to be discovered. It is also true of domestic wines - the upscale heavily promoted wines are in short supply and/or pricey, but I can set you up on "blind dates" with Californian and Washington State wines that may cost you under $10 - and you may just fall in love!
My aim - a bottle of wine on every dinner table and a different one every night
My message -
forget name brands -
forget those "RP" and "WS" numbers -
come to the Madison Wine Shop wine tastings -
come with an open mind and keep your wallet closed until your palate tells you otherwise.