Wine writing, the wine business, and "Grape-a-hol"

Mark Feldman: "Some wine writers were afraid to review our book."

Are some wine writers afraid to write certain things because they don’t want to offend the powerful in the wine business? Are they sometimes manipulated by the same people they don’t want to offend?

Two recent developments make this newsworthy: First, a blog post by British wine writer Jamie Good, noting that he comes “across people trying to control the media all the time. …  Many companies clearly have a policy that no communication is released to journalists without being manicured and censored by the comms people.”

The second came during an interview with Mark Feldman, the co-author of “Grape-a-hol: How Big Business is Subverting Artisan Winemaking and the Future of Fine Wine.” The book pulls no punches, describing the wine made by the world’s biggest wine companies – the wine that most of us drink – as little better than bathtub swill.

It’s an intriguing thesis, but one very few people have heard about. Feldman says that’s because many of the writers he approached to review the book were afraid to. They told him they agreed with what Feldman and Michael Spratt wrote, but didn’t want to offend the wine companies that the book criticizes. The writers relied on those companies for samples, interview access, consulting jobs, and the like, they told him; hence, no review.

More, after the jump:

Goode’s post doesn’t describe anything earth-shattering; I’ve been butting heads with PR people since I started writing professionally. The only thing that’s changed in the past 30 years is that PR people are more brazen. They want to approve quotes and edit stories before they’re published, something they wanted in the old days but didn’t know how to ask for.

Feldman’s story did surprise me. The book’s thesis, though hard-hitting, isn’t a revelation. The increasingly popularity of mass-produced wine is one reason why we have natural wine, and why every sample and news release I get from a winery that isn’t a multi-national uses the adjective artisan to describe its product, even if they aren't especally artisan. The backlash against these kinds of wines is not new, even if “Grape-a-hol” is. Besides, why would anyone think that companies with billions and billions of dollars of revenue would care about what someone like me wrote in a book review?

But, apparently, they do. The wine business, though huge and worldwide in scope, is still very incestuous. And that means that the people involved often take criticism personally, with all of the consequences that entails (even without approving quotes). Call my grocery store wine crappy, huh? See if I ever speak to you again.

Having said that, it doesn’t excuse people from not reviewing the book for those reasons. If you don’t do book reviews, that’s one thing. But we have an obligation to write about the world, and not the world that we want.

“Grape-a-hol” describes the real world. Mike Veseth at The Wine Economist, apparently one of the few people to review it, wrote “I was prepared not to like this book because of the in-your-face (Big Business Subverts!) attitude of the subtitle. But it won me over.”

Because the authors, who own artisanal New Zealand winery Destiny Bay, make many valid points. Much industrial wine is little better than grape juice, and too many of the companies that make it are cynical at best and hypocrites at worst. See so many of the new sweet red wines. Consolidation, especially among distributors, reduces consumer choice and may well decrease quality, since big distributors want wines that sell – which may not be the same thing as quality wines.

What Feldman and Spratt overlook is that price is not the dividing line it once was. They argue that cheap wine is only good for getting drunk, and don’t realize how much cheap wine has improved in the past two decades. Not all cheap wine tastes like $10 Central Coast merlot with a cute label, and a lot of $50 wine made by small producers chasing scores isn’t much better.

The other question that goes unanswered: What do those of us drink who can’t afford $25 or more for a bottle? Do we give up wine? Do we cut back from drinking every day to two or three times a week? How does the industry attract new wine drinkers without an entry-priced product?

That's what everyone who didn’t review the book could have asked.

Comments

[Mike Spratt]

As one of the authors of Grape-a-hol, I want to thank Jeff for his candid review of the book. Also I want to comment on his remark that we "argue that cheap wine is only good for getting drunk, and don’t realize how much cheap wine has improved in the past two decades."

While it is true that we are tough on factory producers of mass market wines, we also acknowledge that these beverages have a place.

As we state at the end of the first chapter "There is nothing wrong or immoral about inexpensive, good quality, Grape-a-hol as long as it's not represented as something that it is not". And later, in the last chapter we note that "the overall quality of Grape-a-hol is at an all-time high compared to the "jug wine" choices of the past. Artisan winemakers frequently drink and occasionally enjoy it precisely for the the purposes mentioned above. From the standpoint of value for money, there is no more economical or sophisticated standard drink on the market than Grape-a-hol".

However, even though I also am a fan of Tang and I patronize McDonald's, I don't consider the former to be orange juice or the latter to be a fine dining experience. Our grievance is not with Grape-a-hol per se, but with producers who encroach on the fine wine product category by reinforcing a misleading narrative. They argue that most people can't tell the difference between the wine equivalent of "Tang" and "Orange Juice" and therefore shouldn't spend the extra money for the real thing.

There is a difference, people can tell the difference, and there is plenty of room in the marketplace for both products.

[Chris Miller]

Glad that people are starting to talk about this issue.

Risk vs. Reward is one of the biggest barriers to enjoying wine and one of the places this is most obvious is in the wines of Burgundy. How many times have we spent $30+ on a mediocre Pinot from Burgundy? Grape ahol has diminished the risk in wine, but also leave those looking for a bit of regional character wanting. Is $25 really too much to spend on a bottle? It is when that bottle doesn't taste any better than the $15 commercially made wine. There is a big silent battle in wine between the low risk commercial wines that are tasty but don't have any regional character and 'artisnal' wineries that have to charge according to their economic scale.

And wine buyers are being pressured by the big (consolidated) distributors as much or more than the wine media. The bruises I take from the sales teams are numerous, all because I won't put certain wines on restaurant wine lists. The big guys don't like no. I have two groups I am beholden to as a wine buyer; the guest and the owner. The big distributors want me beholden to them only.