Oh, hi! Did my headline get your attention? Everyone loves a good rant, right?
Here’s a better question though: is your view of my credibility as a writer improved, or has it suffered due to my use of the sensational headline above?
Now what if I told you that while I believe the above to be true (I don’t) I’m really not qualified to give a definitive opinion since I haven’t read and interviewed most, or even many, American wine critics. How would you view my credibility now?
It’s an interesting question I think, especially after attending a book reading by Alice Feiring last night.
I went with Patrick and Genevieve of Iridesse Wines after an OWC meetup at Bovolo for a couple beers. We ambled over to the Healdsburg library, listened to Alice give a reading from her recent book and enjoyed a little Q&A with her after. To her credit, she took quite a bit of time to engage and the give-and-take was one of good humor from both Alice and the audience. She was charming and sweet and her writing is undeniably good.
Surprisingly, as far as wine goes, there are actually a few areas where Alice and I (and probably many Sonoma vintners as well) agree. It’s just that it’s extremely hard to find a middle ground with a person who would deign to write an article telling everyone to flush their California wine down the nearest commode, as Alice did in the LA Times earlier this year.
Alice claims that she just wants to make sure that the style of wine she prefers (lighter, less ripe, more transparent) shall not perish from the earth. It’s a laudable goal.
As I wrote in a previous post a year ago entitled “Bashing the 100 point scale”, if you decide to make a wine in a style that the market doesn’t want, you really only have two choices: you can either go broke, or you have to somehow create a market for your preferred style. Alice’s book is her attempt to help her favored producers (mostly French) do the latter.
In Alice’s more sober moments, when she isn’t marketing her book with a ferocity normally reserved for a new world brand manager, she’ll describe her mission by way of a question: “Isn’t the world big enough for more than just one style of wine?”
I’ll stipulate that it’s pretty clear the answer is “yes”. But how exactly does the inclusive, forward-thinking philosophy encapsulated in that pointed question about wine homogenization co-exist with the narrow-minded, hyperbolic view that nearly all California wine is undrinkable and you should throw it out?
That’s the basic question I had for Alice. So, when I asked her if she regretted writing the infamous LA Times piece, I was surprised at her response.
“No,” she answered, and gave as her grounds the reasoning that it was good marketing for her book and for her message. “It got people talking,” she said.
I suggested that such a position wasn’t all that different from a new world producer creating extracted, fruit laden wines so that they would stand out in a blind tastings. Aren’t winemakers also just trying to make an impression by “going big”? Aren’t they also just trying to get more people talking and buying their wines by making their juice as tasty and over the top as possible? Sadly my riposte didn’t seem to make much of an impression.
Still I’m left wondering: why do the marketing ends justify the means in one case, for writers, but not the other? And aren’t the New World producers on higher ethical ground in such a discussion, since at least they aren’t trying to proscribe one style of wine to the market at the expense of another, but are instead simply serving folks what they say they want?
I feel that if you’re serious about wanting to change people’s hearts and minds on anything, the best way to do so isn’t to tear someone (Parker) or something (a wine style) down. It isn’t to demean. It isn’t to insult.
The preferred way, the better way, the way that leads to lasting change in tastes and preferences, is to educate. Champion producers who hew to your way of thinking. Raise up the few that meet your standards at every opportunity and push hard to make them a success. Their success will encourage others to join them. And you’ll all be big winners.
Josh, that’s a great post, and it should get people talking, too. Your last two paragraphs say it all for me.
Excellent job Josh! Funny that in my (still unposted) interview with Alice, I raised much the same question about her LA Times article, to the point of “why did you write that?”
And I secretly hope (but don’t expect) that Alice might take on the mantle of “champion of natural wine” in the U.S., something she seems suited to do (being as passionate as she is about that style of wine and winemaking); Somehow, I get the feeling she doesn’t think that anyone (or very few, in any case) in California cares or agrees with her.
Also, it’s not a zero-sum game; Just because “artisanal” wineries go spoofulated, doesn’t mean that they couldn’t also have a light/delicate/herbaceous/vegetative/minerally offering as well. Just that they choose not to.
Josh - I echo Winehikers comments about your last two paragraphs…well put. It has never made sense to me why some people identify a certain wine style as being “right” and any other as “wrong”. Wine styles just don’t work that way. But then again if you’re trying to get a voice, be heard, and sell a product - whether it’s wine or a wine book - a little extra hyperbole is often what is needed.
Russ,
Thanks for the comment and the kind words!
Randy,
Your second point first: I totally agree. I enjoy both styles (and I’d argue that there is even a third way for most varieties between the two extremes).
How cool would it be to make a barrel of wine in a style different from your norm and taste people on both to educate and gauge their preferences. It could be tasting room only. If the wine sold, make 2 barrels the next year. Become an educational resource for your visitors and you can create your own market niche.
As for Alice, I think it is probably too late for her to lead any kind of mass revolution in California. She’s insulted too many people.
The sad thing is California is her best chance to enact the change she so badly wants to see. But if market preferences do eventually change, she can legitimately take a measure of credit. She’d have to share it with Dan Berger, Allen Meadows, and a score of other critics though.
Thanks for the comment Randy!
Yeah, she blew it. Maybe if she lays low for a couple of years, takes a sabbatical in say, Argentina and eventually finding herself immersed in gaucho culture and saddle sore, has an epiphany one night while watching something beefy bubble in a dutch oven over a wood fire: “There is a place for big wines in the world. My fears were ungrounded. Delicate wines could no more be displaced by big wines than orange juice could be displaced by Pepsi.” Then maybe California would be ready to embrace a more well-rounded Alice and vice versa.
That’s the basic question I had for Alice. So, when I asked her if she regretted writing the infamous LA Times piece, I was surprised at her response.
“No,” she answered, and gave as her grounds the reasoning that it was good marketing for her book and for her message. “It got people talking,” she said.
That just blows me away. I speechless. If she said that it undermines her entire credibility.
Great post. So much information and food for thought in one article! I think we could all do with being more open about wine. I think Gary Vaynerchuk is the champion for trying all kinds of wines and not being closed off to any particular style. We could all enjoy wine much better with that attitude.
You’re too level headed, Josh. I think a case can be made that confronting a major force in any field (trying to kill the giant) is much more interesting to the reading public than, in this instance, describing why elegance or finesse are more or as important in winemaking. She’s got to sell those books as several folks noted. But indirectly she is supporting those vintners who are succeeding in controlling the New World weather and other components of terroir that ramp up those wines.
The much more interesting question to me is how someone like John Alban, for example, can create so much intensity and richness without ever going over the top.
Good read. Your right, she is acting no different about selling her book than us wine folks do to sell our wines. The difference is when our wines get a bad score or are given critical write ups, it turns folks off and we lose sales. When someone talks bad about her or her book, it creates publicity and that sells books!
This might sound bad, but oh well. There was a Daily Show episode a few years ago when things started getting bad in Iraq and the Pentagon accused the media of being overly negative and not focusing on the positives in Iraq. John Stewart said something like “the media never focuses on the bus that didn’t get bombed.” Sorry, I forgot the punch line, but I guess my point is that if you don’t ruffle some feathers, you are less likely to get blogged about and to get other PR. That said, I just started reading Wine Politics and don’t intend to read Fearing’s book whose title I am too lazy to type.
I agree that the high road is to educate, but a lot of people, Mooks, and Midriffs just don’t want to be educated… (for more on Mooks see http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/). Education is not part of cool, and cool sells.
Finally, to Orion Slayer… Gary Vaynerchuk is the champion of teaching you to shop at the Wine Library, where you can always find something new you haven’t tried. Gary is very entertaining.
epicuria and Dr. Horowitz,
Points well taken! People should be allowed to be controversial to sell books. But controversial DOES NOT equal credible. And that’s the entire point.
If you are going to base the sales of your book on unsubtle, “look at me” marketing, then isn’t it disingenuous to at the same time criticize winemakers for making unsubtle “look at me wines”?
[...] made a pretty impassioned plea a couple posts back arguing that educating consumers is the key to driving demand for wine. Sounds [...]
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