Enough With the Haters: An STBNY Mini-Screed
It’s been quite a week. I had surgery on Tuesday (everything’s fine) and have spent the past 6 days in and out of a Percoset-induced haze. During my more lucid moments, I’ve been reading wine blogs. A LOT of wine blogs. This has not been as good for my health as I would have hoped. That there’s some dumb and mediocre stuff out there hasn’t surprised me. Hell, I’m not in love with everything I write. But what has shocked me is how mean-spirited and dismissive some wine bloggers can be about the most important person in the wine business: You. Without the consumer, there is no wine industry. Some bloggers and wine folk I’ve met over the years think of the consumer as an icky afterthought, the unpleasant cost of doing business, where “doing business” means swapping stories about the most obscure/expensive wines they’ve ever had (“and then we had the most incredible 1957 Andorran late-harvest Müller-Thurgau — you are familiar with the wines of Andorra, aren’t you?”) and complaining about Robert Parker.
I don’t get it. First of all, it’s rude. Second of all, it’s bad business. An unsophisticated wine consumer isn’t an insult — it’s an opportunity. People are much, much more willing to try new things than we give them credit for, and if you take the time to educate them about what they’re drinking, they’ll respond.* I did a class for a friend once where I poured a Torrontés from Argentina. She fell in love with it, abandoned her insipid and overpriced Pinot Grigio of choice, and spread the gospel to her friends and family. She hadn’t been drinking Pinot Grigio to that point because she had “bad taste” or no imagination — she had been drinking it because she didn’t know what her options were. No wine seller or waiter or sommelier had ever said to her “you know, here’s another wine in a similar style you might like instead. Taste it and tell me what you think.”
She’s now incredibly loyal to Torrontés (you’re welcome, Wines of Argentina) and at this point probably knows more about it than I do. She discovered something new and was delighted to share it. This is a common theme I’ve seen time and again, and every single time it thrills me to help someone make this discovery. I’d rather share a well-made $15 red from the Languedoc with a new and curious wine drinker and help her learn something than drink a First-Growth Bordeaux with a few of the wine bloggers I’ve been reading lately. (Of course, best case scenario is to drink the First-Growth Bordeaux with the new and curious wine drinker.)
All of this to say, there’s a lively community of kind, curious, generous and knowledgeable bloggers out there, too. I want to continue to be a member in good standing of this happy crew, so please, I want to hear from you if I’m being intolerant, confusing, or unhelpful.
And in the name of being generous, I’d like to share some blogs I do enjoy. There are many, but here’s a recent sample. I really like 1WineDude and SilenesCellar, both written by new acquaintances from last weekend’s TasteCamp. (Where anti-consumer sentiment was thin on the ground, thankfully.) I also came across this awesome entry from French wine blogger Miss Glou Glou (translated: Miss Glug Glug) on how to spit wine with elegance. Yes, it’s in French, but you can get a lot of it from context. It’s genius.
*Of course, there are exceptions. When I worked in wine retail I got a few mind-boggling questions. My favorite: a customer I had never met before held up two bottles in front of my face and asked: “which of these will I like better?” These folks always seemed a bit unhinged overall, so I’m guessing their eccentricities applied to all areas of their lives, not just wine.
Right on. I think that in fairness to those of us who write about what is, at the end of the day, essentially just grape juice (I’m very happy to no longer be an official one of them), it’s pretty easy to get blinded by our indulgencies, particularly now in this age of anyone-who-has-a-computer-can-be-an-”expert”. It’s easy to fall into the you’re-only-as-good-as-your-last-outrageous-bottle times. Are we (you guys) writing for each other or for the consumer, the person in the chain who actually ends up as the point of all of this? I keep in mind the very sage question posed by my primary editor/critic during my 10-year writing career every single time I floated an idea for a column or story: Why should the consumer care? Indeed. One might proffer the same question to any of us, regardless of where we fall in the chain, from winegrower to distributor, restaurateur to sommelier, editor to blogger. If not for them, then for whom? And if it’s not obvious, we need to recalibrate or get out.
Hey, Thank you so much!
I am astonished to see how open-minded american people are about wine. We French are often too posh.
I’ll try to translate the video You’re talking about, but infortunately I am far from being fluent.
Thank you again!
Miss GloGlou
I actually find most people in the wine business quite welcoming, almost evangelical in their desire to spread the joy of wine. I’m not in the business myself, but I have a blog, and I sometimes think that we delve too deeply, too quickly into the complexity of wine. Most people are just looking for a simple, pleasant drink. An example of that is our preoccupation with wine and food matching. We can make it sound so complicated, implying horrible humiliation if something goes wrong.
Your story about the Torrontes is exactly right. I find a lot of people settle into a safe Chardonnay without ever exploring other possibilities. It seems to me the underlying thing we should stress is that wine is an exploration and there are no wrong steps. Try something. If it’s bad, that’s not a disgrace. It’s a lesson learned and move on to something else.
Smart editor! I do think that kind of “why does the consumer care?” discipline is the biggest thing we as wine bloggers (myself included) lack. We lose out, the consumer loses out, and so does the wine business overall. While we’re underdeveloped as far as wine drinking/culture goes, Americans are great, and often very smart, consumers. Parker, love him or hate him, understands this, and has been very smart about talking to wine consumers on their own terms. People are willing to try new stuff. We just need to make a compelling case for why they should.
You’re welcome! I’ll try to come up with some English subtitles for you, maybe sometime next month? A little testament to l’amitié franco-américaine oenologique…
There are definitely some truly great people in the wine business too, and I didn’t mean to give them short shrift. That’s why the disconnect in the blogosphere seems so extreme sometimes. People in person are so kind and generous with their time, opinions, etc. Totally agree that wine = exploration is the right way to go.
Sasha,
Thanks for saying you have read my blog and actually liked it! Kinda made me blush. I hope to never come across as a hater, but I have pet peeves like everyone, and I have done my share of “Oh, I just had a great bottle of wine that you may or may not be able to find or afford, but let me tell you about it anyway.” My intention is not to rub it in, but to share my thoughts, and I generally only want to share these thoughts when I am excited about the wine or experience. I’m not sure if people reading me, or anyone else, get that.
I honestly, don’t read many blogs. I wish you had listed a few of these haters so I could get a better understanding of their approach. I am, however, probably not missing anything.
I completely agree with you; “An unsophisticated wine consumer isn’t an insult — it’s an opportunity.” Help the curious yet cautious wine drinker expand their minds and palates. I never worry about the consequences, after suggesting a wine to a friend or customer that they have never tried. I have recommended some really esoteric juice. After talking to them, feeling them out, you get a sense of what they might be comfortable with. You have to listen to what they are saying. They will give you hints as to what they like and don’t like. It is about listening and not letting your ego overrule sensitivity.
And finally, I have a running list of wine-customerisms and I will share one with you. “I had a wine last night at a restaurant. It began with the letter A. Do you have that one?” ….and on that note… Cheers!
Great post. I think all too often we talk to ourselves when we talk about wine. I went from a mission of making wine approachable in every blog post, tweet, and tv segment, to talking about Biodynamic preparation 500 and not understanding why people gave me blank stares.
It’s great to get back on track, and I started that a few months ago. Posts like yours keep me on track!
Thanks
Matt
Thanks so much. And yes, definitely feels like an echo chamber sometimes. If I ever go into painful detail about biodynamic preparations on this blog, let me have it, OK?! Thanks for reading!