In honor of Alice Fiering’s recent call to dump the whole of California’s wine production down the nearest sewer pipe, I thought it might be fitting to look back in time to a period where France didn’t have a defender as vocal and virtuous as Alice.
A time when the headlines screamed disarray for the French, and when their sole loyal defender was the New York Times erudite wine columnist, Eric Asimov.
The date: Thursday, July 6th 2006. The post: Eric Asimov to the Rescue!
What Eric that day began, Alice has finished.
As we solemnly begin the work of grafting over to Thompson Seedless at Rebecca’s Vineyard, join us won’t you, as we all pour our California wines into the commode together, and celebrate with a synchronized flush.
She should consider moving to France on a permanent basis. You should call and tell her this, Josh!
Richard
There’s a great quote in that article: “She has never followed the fashion; she has stayed true to her mission. There aren’t many like her around.”. Yes there are, Alice. It’s just that you’re not going to find them at a big New York wine tasting.
Last night I was at a dinner where we poured around a dozen Pinots made by the late Duane Cronin. A magnum of 1980 from the Ventana vineyard in Monterey county was excellent. A magnum of 1995 Santa Cruz Mountains Pinot had yet to reach its peak. Ripe (but not overripe) fruit, good acidity, lower alcohol and judicious use of oak. It’s not rocket science. Lots of people in the Santa Cruz Mountains are doing it, and elsewhere too.
But you have to come to them, they won’t come to you. If Ms Feiring spent half as much time looking for good wines from California as she seems to do from France she’d soon change her tune.
Thanks for linking back to the Asimov post–hilarious! Good luck with the table grape crop (damn those claymation raisins and their synonymousness with California)!
Sweet Alice. Trying to hit flies with a baseball bat again. If she spent a little time actually studying the California wine-market instead of trying to find bottles of cloudy Clos Roche Blanche Pineau D’Aunis, she might see the examples of winemakers making more and more finely tempered wines. Palmina, Copain, Peay, are just three that quickly jump to mind.
And for all of her reductionist arguments regarding technology in California (no pun intended), she quickly forgets that Bordeaux and Burgundy are two of the greatest offenders when it comes to manipulative wine techniques. Vacuum-drum concentrators and RO machines have become standard at the great estates in Bordeaux since the early 90’s. Burgundians have been playing the trick-trade since the beginning of time.
It is a shame because that “ocean of wine” that she feels is awful might contain some pleasant suprises if her mindset went a little beyond her fifth story perch in a Manhattan walk-up.
How nice of you to actually read what Alice has to say. I find her irrelevant and annoying and as such I no longer read her drivel.
That said, if you did switch to Thompson Seedless I have a feeling you’d produce some of the best table grapes in California.
One fears that Alice is merely another relentless self-promoter cum gigantic ego. But I’d be the first to say that if she doesn’t like California wines, she shouldn’t drink them. She will miss a fair number of memorable wines, but I too miss a fair number of memorable wines by not trying too hard to fine the wheat amongst the 92% chaff in many, many French and other categories. The first rule of wine tasting is: “if you like it, it’s good.” Necessarily, the first corollary is that if you don’t care for it, drink something else.
I read this article and was just floored. Was she looking for some type of odd-delivered publicity? What a nut.
Alice Feiring was a terrible writer at the NY Times, where she violated about every journalistic ethic one can think of. Ever wonder why she doesn’t work there any longer? Her small-minded incendiarism reflects a superficial acquaintance with wines of the world in the hands of a zealot. Rejecting whole appellations, vintages, techniques, whole categories of anything is the role of first-time writers. I suggest ignoring her drivel and those who praise it.
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