If I had a buck for every time I have said and thought this over the last decade I could be retired by now. YES. It has played a big role. For an opposite example, I had a Seghesio Sangiovese this week that brought me right back to 2001, I was living with a house full of roommates in SF and Seghesio wines were our affordable red wine go-to found at the corner market, first winery in Healdsburg I ever visited and that sip this week, wow, it was a gorgeous wine one. No wonder I fell hard for fine wine in my 20s! -Ali
Excelllent piece Tom. It reminded me of a seminar I once attended where a winemake was giving a talk on using "native yeast" in his chardonnay fermentations as a small trial. He liked it so much that he declared that he would do all of the following vintage using the "native" yeast. As you can imagine, the following vintage didn't work out as planned (a nasty mix of ethyl acetate & Brett.) and he was canned from his place of employment.
Having first entered the wine biz in 1972, this wasn't the first case of someone doing something stupid as a winemaker but it certainly was the most egregious. I'm always amazed when I hear stories like this, especially with well trained winemakers.
I work in a natural wine shop although my background is in conventional wines (yes, I feel like I'm undercover). The natural wine drinker is drawn to cartoonish & simple labels. The wine lingo on conventional labels have no meaning to them but the infographic-style of natural wine labels speaks volumes to them. They can't even name varietals but who cares with all that skin-contact? Orange wine is the natural wine drinker's buttery chardonnay.
I digress, anyhow, I don't even know if you can call it rejection if you've never been included. Perhaps the wine industry's outreach has been too low. I'm mainly talking about the Court of MS, and that this might be a trickle-down of their uber-exclusive culture.
Great insight, I would love to see more articles like this.
If I had a buck for every time I have said and thought this over the last decade I could be retired by now. YES. It has played a big role. For an opposite example, I had a Seghesio Sangiovese this week that brought me right back to 2001, I was living with a house full of roommates in SF and Seghesio wines were our affordable red wine go-to found at the corner market, first winery in Healdsburg I ever visited and that sip this week, wow, it was a gorgeous wine one. No wonder I fell hard for fine wine in my 20s! -Ali
What a great piece!! No tiptoeing around the obvious.
Excelllent piece Tom. It reminded me of a seminar I once attended where a winemake was giving a talk on using "native yeast" in his chardonnay fermentations as a small trial. He liked it so much that he declared that he would do all of the following vintage using the "native" yeast. As you can imagine, the following vintage didn't work out as planned (a nasty mix of ethyl acetate & Brett.) and he was canned from his place of employment.
Having first entered the wine biz in 1972, this wasn't the first case of someone doing something stupid as a winemaker but it certainly was the most egregious. I'm always amazed when I hear stories like this, especially with well trained winemakers.
I work in a natural wine shop although my background is in conventional wines (yes, I feel like I'm undercover). The natural wine drinker is drawn to cartoonish & simple labels. The wine lingo on conventional labels have no meaning to them but the infographic-style of natural wine labels speaks volumes to them. They can't even name varietals but who cares with all that skin-contact? Orange wine is the natural wine drinker's buttery chardonnay.
I digress, anyhow, I don't even know if you can call it rejection if you've never been included. Perhaps the wine industry's outreach has been too low. I'm mainly talking about the Court of MS, and that this might be a trickle-down of their uber-exclusive culture.
Great insight, I would love to see more articles like this.