Aug27More Thoughts on Wine Competitions
The folks at the New York Cork Report had a recent posting about their position on wine competitions the other day. It's been a long time since I've read something from someone in our industry that has fired me up so much in a good way. Here's the link to the article. Please read it now before going on.....
My takeaway from this is that they have opened their eyes and had the guts to put out publicly what most of us--meaning me and maybe a couple others--have been thinking and saying for years!
Full disclosure: Allegro does not enter medal competitions. We do enter the local Pennsylvania Wine Society Tasting since a lot of the members are our customers. Other than that, no other competitions.
Before me, John and Tim Crouch (founders of Allegro) did enter competitions for a while, but even they soured on them, recognizing them for being thinly-veiled games of chance.
The main point of the article that got me was when they pointed out the Emperor's new clothes: that there should be transparency and clarity in the wine business. And, it seems, hardly anyone knows what medals are worth. Or do they? I know who knows.....the wine competitions. They are worth entry fees to keep the competitions in business. But for the consumer or the media there is no transparency nor clarity on what these competitions actually accomplish.
As someone who has judged thousands of wine, I can't begin to tell you how subjective a process it it. Do I even like the wine? Is it flawed? Is it winemaking or grape-growing that made it this way? It is my style? Did I just have chocolate for dessert? Did I brush my teeth? Are my allergies bothering me? Did I drink too much last night? Do I need to impress the judge across from me? Is he a pompous ass? Am I a pompous ass for thinking this? All these questions play into it.
(As an aside, I think wine critics are of a different ilk, but that's for a different post.)
Bottom-line, wineries like competitions because it's easy to get medals and medals sell wine because no one truly knows what a medal is worth. It's a fake outside endorsement. Thanks, New York Cork Report, for calling it like it is.
Lastly, for those of you who don't get it, I'll be starting my own wine competition soon. Feel free to send me 3 bottles of your wine along with a $50 entry fee. Tell me the price of your commercially-available wine, and I will send you correspondingly-colored medals. $0 to $10 gets no medal, $11 to $15 gets bronze, $16 to $20 gets silver, and $21 and up gets gold.
In other words let the market determine the quality. It's the core value that our country was founded on.
Posted on Fri 27 Aug 2010 05:30:00 PDT
Aug27Thoughts on a Rename
Those of you who have followed this blog for a while will notice two things (at least.) One is that I haven't been very good at updating it in the past couple months. No really good reason for that. Just that the vineyard has been almost two weeks ahead of normal. And I tried to take the first real family vacation with Kris and the boys. So, basically I've just been goofing off.....
The other thing is I changed the title. "Life at Allegro" is a boring name, so I changed it. The new name is more boring but just a slight bit cleverer. For those of you who need a refresher course on your Greek, Latin, and German:
vitis - the scientific genus classification of grapes sophia - love philo - wisdom enology - winemaking
And it's all German due to their tendencies to smash words together to make new ones.
Thought I'd post a quick video I made out in the vineyard to describe what the year is looking like so far. Not sure how much I like the video format, but it may mean I can keep up with things better. Let me know what you think, if you'd like. Negative votes may not apply....
There was always going to be a time when I stumbled on the blog, when I spent more time doing what I love rather than reflecting on it. So, maybe it's obvious--based on the summer we're having--but we're sitting on one of the most unique, remarkable, quintessentially different vintage that I can remember. The one that comes closest to this would be 2002.
2002 also had a warm spell in January, had a warm time in April that caused an early budbreak, and was borderline drought conditions with heat waves and cool waves. OK, so it has lots in common with 2002, just more so. It's all been amplified. Where 2002 was hot, this is hotter. Where 2002 was dry, this is drier. This is the "-er" year if there ever was one.
Now, I hate to actually put this in writing--for fear that my boys may someday read this and think that I was going nuts at an early age or perhaps taking in too much of the vinous vintage--but I actually think we maybe could use a little of the wet stuff. Now they say, be careful what you wish for. And I'm sure in this climate of overdoneness that if I asked for a shower I'd meet a deluge. But the leaves are starting to curl, they're starting to lose their gloss, and the grass crunches beneath my feet. It's hot and dry. If it wasn't so damn humid I'd think I was back in Kansas. (Not a bad thing, but you're not me.)
This phenomenal year had had me back on my heels since day one (April 7), reeling to keep up with its twists and turns. Now, after fruit set, I wonder if the vines will make it. Will we somehow be able to pull off the vintage of the century with adequate rainfall and protection from hurricanes? Or will we finally succumb to the power that was 2009 and sink into the depths of a debilitatingly tough and rough vintage due to the carnage of drought-like conditions and lose half of our venerable vines in our vineyard to the stresses of extreme climate change?
Again, for all of you who don't know me, you can now see why I don't play the lottery. This is a poker of the soul. Can we or can we not stare down the deck for an inside straight, run the table on the vines? Or will we pull up short, fold, throw in the junk and give up?
It's too soon to tell. Here we are in July. We still need to get through veraison, get nets on, build sugars, soften skins, ripen tannins. I'll see you in October, or maybe in September. I'll be the one with the grape goo on my hands.
Posted on Wed 07 Jul 2010 18:13:00 PDT
Jun30Too Busy
Man, has it been busy. I always knew there would come a time when I didn't have time to post blogs. For a long time. Sorry. At least it's better than the alternative.
