The Wine Savant: A Guide to the New Wine Culture

by Michael Steinberger

  The sweet spot these days is in the $15–$25 range. You can drink very happily never spending more than $25 on a bottle. Drinking well for under $15 is a tougher proposition; there is just not a lot of compelling stuff to choose from below $15. I realize that that might not sit well with some people. A powerful strain of reverse snobbery runs through the wine world. This school of nonthought holds that big-ticket wines are mostly a lot of hype, that the qualitative difference between a $30 bottle of wine and a $5 bottle of wine is negligible, and that anyone who claims otherwise is just drinking the label.

  A while back, Slate ran a piece by another writer saying that anyone who spends more than $3 on a bottle of wine is a sucker. The author suggested that there is no relationship between quality and price—that the difference between a $3 wine and a $30 wine is completely illusory. He cited studies “proving that our appreciation of a wine depends on how much we think it costs.” He mentioned other studies showing that “laymen actually prefer cheaper wines.” He said that critics might be able to distinguish expensive wines from cheap ones in blind tastings, but that’s only because they have “gotten very good at sniffing out the traits that the wine industry thinks entitle them [sic] to more money.” Yep, and there’s no difference between a supermarket tomato and a locally grown heirloom, no difference between a McDonald’s hamburger and a Lobel’s porterhouse, no difference between Bud Light and Dogfish Head 60 Minute IPA. Interestingly, the author of the article pointedly refused to recommend any $3 wines, which I took to be an acknowledgment that he knew he was peddling poppycock.

  He observed that sales of wines costing $3 and under have dropped sharply since 1995, while sales of wines costing $14 and over have increased dramatically, and suggested that this was proof that the public had been duped into believing that there is a connection between quality and price. No, the obvious explanation for these trends is that millions of Americans have become oenophiles in the past two decades, have scaled up as they have gotten deeper into wine, and have discovered that up to a certain point, the more you spend, the better you drink. People who become serious about cycling inevitably gravitate to pricier, better-made bikes; the same is true with wine. The sad reality is that there is no such thing as a great Burgundy or a great Bordeaux for under $20. The good news, however, is that many really compelling wines from many other regions can be had for $15 to $25 these days.

  With most consumer goods, it is considered self-evident that price bears some relationship to quality—the more you are willing to spend, the better the product you’ll get. If you are willing to spend $45,000 on a car instead of $25,000, chances are you going to get a superior set of wheels. Only with wine is the relationship between price and quality relentlessly questioned—not by wine geeks, mind you, but usually by people who have zero interest in wine and who are contemptuous of oenophiles. These are also people who are completely ignorant about winemaking, because if they knew anything about it, they would know that producing a seriously good wine requires a serious investment of money. Good vineyards are expensive, high-quality equipment is pricey, and it also costs a lot of money to farm with the kind of meticulousness that yields excellent wines. So up to a point, the more you are willing to spend, the better you are going to drink. I say up to a point because there is a point at which this ceases to be true. Where that point is found is a personal judgment—a matter of taste. Château d’Yquem, the most celebrated Sauternes, generally sells for five or six times the cost of Château Climens and Château Rieussec, the next-greatest Sauternes. But in my experience, Yquem does not deliver five or six times the pleasure that I derive from Climens and Rieussec, so there’s no reason for me to pay that premium. (This is, of course, purely an academic point. I couldn’t afford Yquem even if I did think the premium was justified!) But the idea that there is no qualitative difference between a $5 wine and a $50 wine is nonsense. Not all $50 wines are necessarily going to be to your liking, but in almost every case they will be a big step up in quality from a $5 bottle.

  Regrettably, none of those regions are found in California. While a great many inexpensive wines are made in California, the overwhelming majority of them stink. This is a source of frustration for me and many other consumers; it should also be a major source of concern for the California wine industry. A lot of younger Americans are honing their palates on inexpensive imports; they have little, if any, exposure to good California wines because they can’t afford the good stuff, and as a consequence, other regions are winning their allegiance. They see California just as they see Bordeaux: as a place whose best wines are meant for rich people. In offering so little in the way of good-quality value wines, California is cutting itself off from its natural constituency, from the consumer base that it is going to need in the future.

  The contrast with Europe is striking. Not only do countries such as France, Spain, and Italy offer lots of high-quality value wines; quite a few of these wines come from acclaimed vintners. For instance, Jean-Louis Chave produces Hermitages that sell for hundreds of dollars a bottle, but he also makes a delicious Côtes du Rhône that retails for about $18. Erni Loosen has an excellent $10 Riesling. Aubert de Villaine of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Christian Moueix of Château Pétrus, and Dominique Lafon of Domaine des Comtes Lafon, venerated names all, produce wines that are within reach of the budget-conscious. Nor is this trend confined to the Old World; Torbreck, one of Australia’s finest, puts out a handful of $20 wines.

  On these shores, the great Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards has one such wine: Ridge’s Sonoma County Three Valleys, an excellent Zinfandel. But he’s very much an exception when it comes to top California winemakers. What’s particularly strange is that now would seem like an ideal moment for an acclaimed California winemaker to emulate the likes of Chave and Loosen (or Draper, for that matter) and come out with a stellar bargain wine—something in the $15–$25 range. Producing a wine in that price range would be a shrewd way for a superstar California vintner to earn goodwill and cultivate a following among people who in the future might be willing buy the pricier stuff.

  So why has no one done that? This question was the subject of a Slate column I wrote several years ago. Among those to whom I put the question was Manfred Krankl, whose Central Coast winery, Sine Qua Non, specializes in Rhône grape varieties and receives gushing praise (“totally profound”) and monster scores from Robert Parker. Krankl suggested that one reason the Europeans were better at value wines is that they were often working in vineyards that had been family-owned for generations and that were paid down long ago. By contrast, many of the better vineyards in California were developed or acquired fairly recently, and land in California is expensive. According to Krankl, an acre of prime vineyard on the Central Coast would cost a minimum of $25,000 and more likely closer to $50,000. When you factor in planting, farming, and labor costs, the road to profitability grows even longer. A $20-or-under wine would really be economically feasible, Krankl said, only if it could be made in large volumes. For this reason, the bargain end of the U.S. market is dominated by big players like Gallo, while boutique wineries like Sin Qua Non focused on higher-end offerings.

  Krankl also said that European vintners such as Jean-Louis Chave and Dominique Lafon were in a very different position from his. Heirs to long winemaking traditions, they didn’t have to build reputations from scratch; they just had to prove that they were worthy successors to their fathers. Once they did that, they were free to moonlight—to take on side projects and to carve out identities distinct from the ones bequeathed them. Sine Qua Non, by contrast, had existed only since 1994, and Krankl said his sole objective was to establish a track record of great wines—wines that could match the best of Chave or Lafon. Given the financial realities, he wouldn’t be able to achieve that kind of quality in a $20 Grenache or Syrah, and it was therefore of no interest to him.

  I also spoke with Ehren Jordan, one of California’s most talented and versatile winemakers (full disclosure: he’s an old friend)
. Over the years he has shown a knack for making full-throated Zinfandels but also earthy Pinot Noirs and Syrahs. Jordan pointed out that the value wines made by people like Chave and Lafon tend to come from relative backwaters; Lafon, for example, makes his cheaper stuff in the Mâcon region, not Burgundy proper. To turn out a seriously good $20 artisanal wine in California, Jordan said, would require something similar. Napa and Sonoma were prohibitively expensive; according to Jordan, an acre of choice vineyard in either county ran $100,000 to $200,000, and grape prices were also exorbitant. But there also just wasn’t much interest in Napa and Sonoma in producing lower-priced wines.

  Jordan noted that in recent decades, Napa (and to a lesser extent Sonoma) had seen an influx of people who earned fortunes in other fields and who had come to wine country with a trophy-hunting mentality (my phrase, not his). Their aim was to craft luxury cuvées that would get big scores and become collector’s items. By buying up prime vineyards and hiring fancy consultants adept at pleasing critics like Parker, quite a few of them succeeded. Among this new Napa elite, bargain wines were just not part of the equation.

  Clearly American consumers are not suffering because so few good budget wines are being produced in California; the rest of the world is happily filling this void. But I think it’s a pity that California winemakers have completely ceded this category to foreign producers, and I think it’s particularly unfortunate that so few top American vintners dabble at the lower end of the market. Although millions of Americans are now oenophiles, wine hasn’t entirely shaken its elitist image, and the image persists in part because of the attitude that prevails in places like Napa. The fact that Aubert de Villaine, the codirector of Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, whose wines fetch thousands of dollars a bottle, also sells a $20 wine under his own label sends a powerful message: it says that fine wine is a democratic pleasure, accessible not merely to the affluent. It would be nice if a few prominent figures in California viticulture were sending the same message.

  FIFTY OF THE WORLD’S GREAT $25

  AND UNDER WINES

  • Selbach-Oster Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett (Germany)

  • Dönnhoff Nahe Estate Riesling (Germany)

  • Loosen Dr. L Riesling (Germany)

  • Albert Boxler Alsace Riesling (France)

  • Clos de la Roilette Fleurie Clos de la Roilette (France)

  • Jean-Paul Brun/Domaine des Terres Dorées Beaujolais l’Ancien (France)

  • Château Thivin Beaujolais Côte de Brouilly (France)

  • Domaine Jean-Louis Chave Côtes du Rhône Mon Coeur (France)

  • Eric Texier Côtes du Rhône Brézème (France)

  • Domaine la Bastide (Durand) Syrah Vieilles Vignes les Genets (France)

  • Domaine de la Pépière Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Clos des Briords (France)

  • Domaine Pierre Luneau-Papin Muscadet Sèvre et Maine Le L d’Or (France)

  • Domaine A. & P. de Villaine Bouzeron Aligoté (France)

  • Catherine et Pierre Breton Bourgueil Trinch (France)

  • Bernard Baudry Chinon Les Granges (France)

  • Château d’Epiré Savennières (France)

  • Closel/Château des Vaults Savennières La Jalousie (France)

  • Bernard Fouquet/Domaine d’Aubuisières Vouvray Cuvée de Silex (France)

  • Domaine Champalou Vouvray (France)

  • Avinyó Cava (Spain)

  • Señorio de P. Peciña Rioja Crianza (Spain)

  • Do Ferreiro Albariño (Spain)

  • Benito Santos Albariño Saiar (Spain)

  • Guimaro Godello (Spain)

  • A Coroa Godello (Spain)

  • Bodegas Marañones Vinos de Madrid Garnacha Labros (Spain)

  • Pena das Donas Almalarga Godello (Spain)

  • Ameztoi Getariako Txakolina Rubentis (Spain)

  • Sigalas Santorini Assyrtiko (Greece)

  • Argyros Santorini Assyrtiko (Greece)

  • De Forville Langhe Nebbiolo (Italy)

  • Produttori del Barbaresco Langhe Nebbiolo (Italy)

  • Vietti Langhe Nebbiolo Perbacco

  • Montesecondo Chianti Classico (Italy)

  • Montevertine Pian del Ciampolo (Italy)

  • Isole e Olena Chianti Classico (Italy)

  • Mastroberardino Fiano di Avellino Radici (Italy)

  • Morisfarms Morellino di Scansano (Italy)

  • Badenhorst Secateurs Chenin Blanc (South Africa)

  • Badenhorst Secateurs Red (South Africa)

  • Copain Pinot Noir Tous Ensemble (United States)

  • Copain Syrah Tous Ensemble (United States)

  • Saintsbury Carneros Pinot Noir (United States)

  • Roederer Estate Anderson Valley nonvintage Brut sparkling wine (California)

  • Tablas Creek Vineyard Paso Robles Patelin de Tablas (California)

  • Tablas Creek Vineyard Paso Robles Patelin de Tablas Blanc (California)

  • Au Bon Climat Santa Barbara County Chardonnay (California)

  • Dashe Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel (California)

  • Ridge Vineyards Three Valleys Zinfandel (California)

  • Torbreck Woodcutter’s Shiraz (Australia)

  10

  Letting One Thousand

  Grapes Blossom

  A FEW YEARS AGO I experienced an epiphany sitting on a barstool at a Manhattan tapas joint. I’d gone there to meet a young importer of Spanish wines named José Pastor. The twentysomething Pastor was dressed in jeans, sneakers, and a baseball cap, and with his beard, he looked more like a graduate student than a wine flogger. In fact, my first question to him was, “You’re not missing class to do this, are you?” I was initially skeptical of Pastor—he looked disarmingly young, and before we started tasting, he told me that he was the ne’er-do-well of a family from Valencia and had come to the United States basically to get out of his family’s hair. A dilettante, I thought—until I tried his wines. For the better part of three hours, we sampled Pastor’s portfolio, and I was floored by what I tasted. The wines were all unknown to me, mostly came from unheralded parts of Spain, included some grapes that I’d never even heard of (Treixadura, anyone?), and were uniformly delicious. To say that tasting Pastor’s wines was a revelation would be an understatement. Not only had I discovered a brilliant new importer, I had discovered a side to Spanish wines that I never knew existed. In contrast to the big, oaky wines pouring out of Spain’s two main viticultural regions, Rioja and Ribera del Duero, many of which tasted as if they could have come from anywhere, these were earthy, elegant, utterly distinctive reds and whites. I walked out of the tapas joint feeling quite soggy—the restaurant didn’t have a bucket for us to use, so there was no spitting—but also woozy with pleasure.

  You often hear it said these days that there has never been a better time to be a wine enthusiast. That’s unquestionably true, and the main reason is that there have never been so many good and diverse wines to choose from. Diverse is the key point: the variety on offer now, in terms of both regions and grapes, is unprecedented. Wine stores are literally becoming miniature United Nations, their shelves filled with wines from once-obscure regions and previously unknown grapes. Some of those grapes have even caught the interest of American vintners and migrated across the Atlantic; alongside all the Cabernet and Chardonnay, esoteric varieties such as Ribolla Gialla and Albariño are now being cultivated in California. It’s not hard to envision a future in which grapes like Godello and Aglianico are nearly as prominent as old standards like Sauvignon Blanc and Syrah. That’s a very different future than many people imagined just a decade ago.

  A decade ago, all the talk was of globalization. To its critics, globalization inevitably led to homogenization—less diversity, less choice. That was a particularly acute fear among some wine aficionados, who worried that the world’s thirst for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, and Sauvignon Blanc would lead more and more producers to focus on these grapes to t
he exclusion of others. And certainly there are examples of winemakers uprooting less popular varieties and replacing them with Cabernet or Merlot. But many others seemed to understand that amid a worldwide glut of Cabernet and Merlot, standing out from the crowd, offering something a little different, made sense. Why become just another source of Sauvignon Blanc when you can make an amazing Assyrtiko and develop a devoted following in places like New York and Sydney? It turns out that the globalization of the wine market has actually promoted diversity, by giving producers an incentive to differentiate themselves and by making it so easy for wine to move across borders and oceans. This point should be obvious to anyone walking the aisles of a half-decent American wine shop these days and perusing the Txakolis from Spain, the Blaufränkisches from Austria, the Aglianicos from Italy, and the Trousseaus from France.

  Around the world we are seeing a renaissance of indigenous grape varieties, and it can largely be credited to globalization. Take Italy, for instance. Over the past two decades or so, grapes such as Fiano, Falanghina, Nero d’Avola, Negroamaro, Arneis, and the aforementioned Aglianico have made remarkable comebacks; they may not be household names yet, but they are headed in that direction. These are grapes that might well be extinct now but for globalization, which gave individual producers and entire regions both an incentive to distinguish themselves and the opportunity to reach consumers in distant markets.