Regional wine, and what comes next

Those of us who pay attention to regional wine know two things: First, that most consumers aren’t aware of regional wine, and those that are know that it stinks -- and they don’t even have to taste it to tell you so. Second, that the regional wine business is, for practical purposes, just two decades old, and yet it is being held to quality standards set in places like California, with some 100 years of experience, and France, with 500 years. So of course it’s going to suffer in comparison.

Yet there it is, this feisty little scrapper, which has somehow rooted itself in all 50 states -- even though it often uses grapes that hardly anyone has ever heard of, and even though it's made quite often by people who are just a couple of years removed from crushing grapes in their garage.

The question, then, should not be, "Why isn’t regional wine better?" It should be, “How did this happen, and what does it mean for the wine business?" More, after the jump:

Is some regional wine poorly made, too sweet, or both? Of course it is. But white zinfandel has been a cash cow in California for 30 years, and no one seems so hold that against producers like Beringer and their $100 wines. Is some regional wine overpriced and a poor value? Of course it is. But so are many California wines, whether they cost $10 or $100 (and we won't even get into the Bordeaux first-growth pricing issue, where the cost of the wine has as much relation to value as I do to big, over-oaked, too fruity red wines).

As my pal Todd Kliman notes: "If wine quality was the only consideration for restaurant wine lists, half the wines on most lists wouldn't be there."

Does regional wine taste like it came from Burgundy or Napa? Of course not -- but it’s not supposed to. It's supposed to taste like it came from Texas or Virginia, which is part of its appeal. I've never been able to understand why consumers want regional wine to taste like California wine, and it's even more baffling why so many regional producers play to that conceit. Why make a knockoff of California wine -- often with California grapes -- when the California wine made in California is usually better and cheaper?

Yet, despite all of these problems, regional wine isn't going away. It's only getting more popular -- 220 wineries in Texas, 300-plus wineries in New York, more than 150 in Ohio. In fact, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Illinois have about 500 wineries between them. That, more than anything, should make the wine world take notice of what's going on.

Regional wine, in fact, may well lead to the thing that the wine business fears most -- democratization, in which consumers drink whatever wine they like from wherever they like, without interference from the wine magazines, wine retailers, and the three-tier system. Every person who buys an Indiana traminette or a Missouri chambourcin or a New York baco noir is reducing the power and the importance of the oligarchies that have run the wine business in the United States for 40 years.

And who thinks that's a bad thing?

Comments

[Tom Johnson]

I think people should only drink wines that I'm not interested in, so that the wine I am interested in get really cheap.

[Norman Gary]

I recently came across this in a wine class taught by a sommelier. He badmouthed Texas wines and didn't know much about NY wines. I have tried both and have found some very nice wines, including a Texas "Claret" that compares very nicely with California Meritages and a Finger Lakes riesling that's as nice as any US made and some pretty fair German ones.

[Jeff Siegel]

Sadly, Norman, this happens all too often. The Finger lakes makes some of the best rieslings in the world, and how someone who professes to know about wine is ignorant of that fact is embarrassing.

[Kaisermjk]

Jeff, good post. Thanks for being a proponent for the industry.

Michael Kaiser
WineAmerica