Sleaze and Wine

Tom Wark at Fermentation is once again holding their feet to the fire - that is the well heeled feet of the W.S.W.A., the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America. Take some time to read Tom’s latest exposé HERE

Tom clearly points out the evil in this organization by identifying the key personnel of the W.S.W.A. staff as former lobbyists of the National Rifle Association, Big Tobacco and Big Drugs. It’s hard to imagine a sleazier or more adept team and we should be afraid of them.

As many of you know, my real job is to produce and sell wine. Our wines are represented by distributors in nineteen states and not one of them belongs or has any interest in the W.S.W.A. - no wine distributor that really cares about the wines they sell is seriously involved with this organization primarily financed by vodka.

As a small wine producer, it would never occur to me to not work primarily with our distributor network. This has nothing to do with the mandated three tier system. I would work through our distributors anyway, as they do outstanding work on our behalf. They present our wines, educate consumers and trade on our philosophy and maintain an inventory of our wines to support their market. I would never consider not working with any distributor who does such fine work - with or without the three tier system.

So why is the W.S.W.A so paranoid? It’s because most of their members are incompetent when it comes to selling fine wine and only truly care about spirits - where the big bucks really are.

They should be afraid, because without three tier laws they would have no reason to exist for any fine wine producer. 

Iron Wine Critic

I suggested American Wine Idol and now Dave Brookes of the Vinosense Blog is proposing The Iron Wine Critic. I think we have a whole new television season ready to go for wine buffs. Check out Dave’s pilot and his excellent blog at the link below.

Vinosense » Iron Wine Critic.

American Wine Idol

The brouhaha over the botched attempt to recreate the Paris tasting of 1976, where Steve Spurrier pitted some California wines against some of France’s best and low-and-behold; the California wines won, shows how far we have sunk when it comes to appreciating wine. American bloggers are raging against what they see as the cowardly French, while ignoring the ego battles between the Americans.

We have finally reduced wine to a competition instead of a pleasure. Why not go all the way?

Fox Network should be working on what will be a hot new reality show: American Wine Idol. The formula is set already. You’ll need three celebrity judges just like the current American Idol show. I would propose the following three:

• For the sharp tongued Simon Cowell slot: Pierre Rovani
• For Paula Abdul’s role:  Andrea Immer Robinson
• For the affable Randy Jackson’s spot: we’re still looking for the wine critic to fill this role

Then, just like the singers, you bring the winemakers out on stage, whose wines are then tasted and ripped apart on national television by our celebrity panel. At the end, the viewers vote on which winemakers are given the boot. Finally, the winning wine gets a national distribution deal as a wine by the glass at all the Four Seasons Hotels and a guaranteed 95 point or higher score in The Wine Spectator for the next five vintages.

This is the direction we are taking wine appreciation. While everyone is bemoaning the fact that this contest was not recreated, they should be really asking themselves if this is how they want wines to be judged?

While hearing that great gentleman of wine, Michael Broadbent, speak at a seminar last summer, I was particularly struck by one of his comments. He recounted a conversation with the owner of Chateau Haut Brion, who was complaining of how wines are rated these days. That gentleman noted that he made his wine to go with food; not Chateau Latour. It’s true, we have become more obsessed with how wines taste with other wines than how they taste with the food on our plates.

Wine, Funny?

Humor is often all to rare when it comes to the snobby (yes I too confess to wine snobbery) world of wine. Jeff Lefevere of The Good Grape Blog (link below), is doing us all a favor by mixing in some of his own cartoons into his wine blog. Below you’ll find one of his recent efforts and I recommend frequent visits to his blog to see his latest work. I hope to see some of his cartoons in some of our print media wine publications, but perhaps they take themselves too seriously or maybe just lack a sense of humor. Fortunately for us, Jeff does have a sense of humor.

 Good Grape: A Wine Manifesto: New World.

The Forum is Back!

The Wine Camp Blog Forum is back up-and-running! You can access the forum with the link at the upper right of each page of Wine Camp. Thanks for your patience as I worked out a few technical issues.

Wine Sediments - Feds acknowledge myth of underage drinking in direct-shipping debate

Wine Sediments - Feds acknowledge myth of under-age drinking in direct-shipping debate.

Wine Journalist Mark Fisher (and I really mean journalist) reports on minors buying wine over the Internet. I always thought the concept of teenagers, motivated by instant gratification, would have the patience to try to illegally buy wine over the Internet was ridiculous. Now here is some research to back that up.

A Well Fed Network

Its great to see the continual expansion of high quality food and wine blogs. There can be no doubt the nature of culinary conversation is changing. Thank God. The recent issue of Bon Appetit features the following fine cooking advice on preparing a platter of fresh fruit for a spring party, “Make things really easy by everything ready the night before or – even simpler – by buying prepared fruit from the deli section of the supermarket.” So much for the concept of “fresh”

The explosion of alternative ideas brought by Bloggers are making culinary information fresher than ever. On excellent new source is The Well-fed Network (http://www.wellfed.net), which is a group effort featuring contributions from a wide range of food bloggers. On the wine side of things the Wine Sediments section of The Well-fed Network offers entries from such thoughtful writers as Tom Wark (Fermentations), Andrew Barrow (Spittoons), Lenn Thompson (LENNDEVOURS) and Mark Fisher (Uncorked) among other fine writers.

An example of the anti-Bon Appetit cutting corners approach is The Terroirista post by Tom Wark linked below:

Wine Sediments - The Terroirista.

Élevage

Written words can be such beautiful things. Artfully used, they can communicate the emotions we feel inside of us. Wine is an emotional experience for many of us, but so often words about wine are only presented in a sterile textbook style or in the combative debate fashion of the wine forums. Every once in a while a writer succeeds in conveying the pleasure that the appreciation of wine brings to so many. This experience, which wine somehow brings to us, is lovingly described by Vincent Fritzsche, a Portland Oregon educator, in his charming wine blog, Élevage. (http://elevage.blogspot.com)

Fritzsche describes his blogging in this way, “Élevage is French for breeding or upbringing. It also refers to the maturing or raising of young wine until bottling. Élevage is also sometimes described as the educating of a wine, which got me thinking about my own education of wine. And so this blog, updated when I'm able. There's much more to write than I make time for.”

True, he does not post everyday, but when he does it is well worth reading. Best of all, reading of his experiences bring a reflective moment to your day to ponder your own experience with wine. I highly recommend visiting Élevage.

Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog: Memo to French Wine Industry: CHANGE!!

"Call me old fashioned, but I just don't get he idea of causing havoc as a way to address the fact that the world is changing when it comes to economic and marketing models that govern the French wine industry." Tom Wark
Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog: Memo to French Wine Industry: CHANGE!!.

While Tom gets a lot of things, he clearly does not get the French, or, perhaps Europeans in general. First of all, Tom lives in the heart of California wine country doing PR for wineries. While that is clearly a respectable profession, California wine culture and politics has little to do with the life of the average European wine farmer. Let’s face it, California wineries for the most part have buckets of money. Small boutique wineries are often owned by mega-bucks owners who made fortunes in other industries. Then there are the giant corporations like Constellation, Vincor and others who make wine with the passion of your average Vodka producer, the ethics of Enron and financial resources of Exxon.

What Tom does not take into account that all those radical Frenchmen taking to the street to fight for their rights, actually need those rights to stay in business. It not the Drouhins or Rothchilds tossing up the barricades, but small farmers just trying to get by who are taking this fight to the streets.

No, these small farmers can’t afford the professional PR skills of a Tom Wark and they don’t know they need to put funny pictures of animals on their labels in order to sell their wines to the sophisticated Americans. All they know is their farms are on the edge of failure.

The fact of the matter is that most European countries are far more democratic than the United States and that people, even small groups, are used to having their voices heard as a basic right of their freedom. Tom wants them to give up their freedoms and to fade quietly into history so that corporations that can afford the proper PR to sell their wines can take over the wine world.

For me, I’ll take the producer that hits the streets and has the courage to fight the system. These are the types of souls that have the passion and intensity required to make great wine. While obviously few of these protesters will ever make a great wine, their spirit is worthy of our respect and their problems are worthy of our understanding.

Whirlwinds

Whirlwinds of work and a nasty bout with the flu have kept me away from Wine Camp over the last weeks and it feels good to be back at the keyboard. These everyday realities remind one deeply about the time and mental commitment of creating a meaningful journal.

I an pleased to announce that the beginnings of the Wine Camp eMagazine are starting to take shape. What is planned to be a quarterly e-publication will have its premier this spring, but I invite you to watch and better yet, take part, in the creation of an new wine resource. Everyone is invited to submit articles for inclusion - the more-the-merrier. All topics related to wine, spirits, beer, cuisine and culinary travel are welcome.  If you have questions or an article to submit please write me at craigcamp@winecampblog.com. While blogs are focused on shorter pieces and thoughts, it is the goal of The Wine Camp eMagazine to feature longer, more in-depth features.

Please visit www.winecampblog.com to get a look at this work-in-progress. 

You Say Its Your Birthday?

Tom Wark, the indefatigable blogger that created Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog (http://fermentation.typepad.com), has become the cornerstone of the wine blogging community with links and feeds scattered far-and-wide across the Internet. His enthusiasm for wine blogging has expanded the public awareness of wine blogs and his selfless devotion to promoting all wine bloggers has set the tone for this virtual community. Yes, Tom is one of the grand old men of wine bogging and, as unbelievable as it may seem, today is only his first anniversary as a wine blogger. For those of us who follow Fermentation that is astounding. How can such a influential blog be only having its first birthday? It really brings home that wine blogging is a medium in its infancy.

What really sets Tom apart is the journalistic edge he brings to Fermentation. There are not only opinions there, but real reporting. I often feel like I’m reading the Op-Ed section of the wine industry. In particular Tom has led the charge on the direct shipping issue, even outing crooked state representatives.

The whole wine blogging community owes Tom much for his support, leadership and fine example. Happy Birthday Fermentation and many, many happy returns.

Reasons to be Cheerful - Part Three

Reasons to be Cheerful:

1. 2002 Coho Pinot Noir Russian River Valley
2. 2002 Coteaux du Layon Domaine des Baumard Clos de Sainte Catherine
3. 2002 ChinonDomaine Phillippe Alliet Coteau de Noire
4. 2003 Chinon Vielles Vignes Domaine Phillipe Alliet
5. 2004 Muscadet de Sevre-et-Maine sur Lie Domaine de la Pepiere, Clos des Briord Cuvee Vielles Vignes

Why are these reasons to be cheerful? Besides being very nice wines, it makes me very cheerful to know that someone is not only drinking them with pleasure, but taking the time to tell us about that pleasure. This is the power of Wine Blogging; the ability to greatly expand communication on wines beyond larger producers with advertising budgets and wine blogs stretch the envelope beyond the usual suspects. The list above are recommendations from a very fine Wine Blog, Catherine Granger's Purple Liquid. This is really a lovely Blog that marries well the experience of fine food and wine served at a passionate table. Catherine captures the experience of wine and food beautifully and I highly recommend passing on the link to her site to all your wine loving friends.  http://manageyourcellar.blogspot.com/

The Transition

I have changed sides. For the last 30 years I have been a critical consumer and wine trade professional. Now I am getting my hands sticky with freshly picked grapes and have spent a full year with vineyards I find I am transformed. Wine is no longer what it was before and I will try to communicate those issues to the readers of this blog. There is truly an "other side" to wine and I will try to bring an appreciation of wine as an agricultural art to my readers here.

So we start...