The Wine Curmudgeon

The 2012 Curmudgies

Anyone can give out year-end awards, honor best wines and the like. Only the Wine Curmudgeon can hand out the Curmudgies, presented annually (we hope) to the people who did their best in 2012 to make sure that wine remained confusing, difficult to understand, and something reserved for only the haughtiest among us. Plus, a tip 'o the Curmudgeon's fedora to someone more people need to listen to.

This is a work in progress, so any thoughts are welcome. The categories could change in the future, I could give out spiffy trophies, and even design a logo -- or a lawyer could send me a cease and desist letter. Until then, the Curmudgie goes to. ...

The Internet loves Barefoot and Cupcake wine

Dec. 24 update: The blog has been going crazy for a week, thanks to Barefoot and Cupcake. Six of the top 15 days ever have come since Dec. 18, as people search the Internet for Barefoot and Cupcake reviews. If I'm getting numbers like this, imagine how much wine Gallo and The Wine Group are selling -- and imagine how little they care what wine writers think of their products.

The blog has had four of its top 10 days ever in the last week, mostly because wine drinkers are looking for reviews of Cupcake and Barefoot for the holidays. And, as we well know, there aren't a lot of places to find those reviews in the cyber-ether.

Almost 10 percent of the visitors yesterday -- the seventh-best day ever -- used the search terms Barefoot or Cupcake to get to the blog. Which, if I understand how this stuff works, is an impressive figure, especially for a one-man operation like this.

The other thing worth noting: The people who visit the blog are much better educated and make a lot more money than the typical Internet user, according to Quantcast. And they're searching for cheap, grocery store wine. What does that say about the wine business?

And, because the Wine Curmudgeon is always eager to boost traffic, here are links to the most recent Cupcake and Barefoot reviews.

Big wine companies and wine quality, part II

This is the second of two parts looking at consolidation in the wine business and the rise of the giant producer --  a handful of which dominate the U.S. wine business. Today, advice on how to tell which multi-national made the wine you drink. The first part, which ran on Dec. 13, looked at company size and why it matters.

What do the Barefoot, Cupcake and Two-buck Chuck wines have in common? Each are labels owned by one of the largest wine companies in the country, but you can’t tell that by looking at the label.

Nowhere does it say that E&J Gallo owns Barefoot, perhaps the best-selling wine in the U.S. Or that The Wine Group makes Cupcake through its Underdog division. Or that Two-buck Chuck, the Charles Shaw wine sold at Trader Joe’s, is one of dozens of labels produced by Bronco.

That’s because there is no legal requirement to do so, and most wine companies aren’t interested in that sort of thing. So what’s a curious consumer to do? Googling the wine while standing in the store aisle isn’t the most efficient use of time. Rather, look for clues on the back label – details of which are after the jump.

Big wine companies and wine quality, part I

Godzilla: "What's so bad about big?"

This is the first of two parts looking at consolidation in the wine business and the rise of the giant producer --  a smattering of which dominate the U.S. wine business. Today, a look at size and why it matters.  Part II, posted on Dec. 14, offered advice on how to tell which multi-national made the wine you like.

A handful of giant companies produce as much as 90 percent of the wine sold in the U.S., contrary to what most of us think. We still believe that wine is made by families and small companies, fighting the good fight, and the wine business has been perfectly happy to let us enjoy that myth.

That’s one reason why the biggest producers, like E&J Gallo, The Wine Group, Bronco, and Constellation, rarely put their names on their various brands, even though the practice is quite common among other consumer goods companies. S.C. Johnson, for instance, labels its cleaning products (which include Glade, Shout and Pledge) with the slogan, “SCJohnson, a Family Company.”

Is big bad in wine? The answer requires ducking insults and dodging hyperbole, and even then it’s not necessarily clear. I may drink more grocery store wine – the staple of the big producers – than anyone in the world, and I’m grateful that it is better made and of a higher technical quality than ever before. But does that mean it’s "quality" wine, or that big is better?

More, after the jump:

The new CellarTracker -- improved and easier to use

CellarTracker, the on-line wine management and inventory tool, has long been the most effective way to record my wine drinking. It was straightforward, it was flexible (I could use it for my purposes, which are not quite the same as most wine drinkers), and it was free. What more could the Wine Curmudgeon ask for?

That’s why I was not happy when CellarTracker impressario Eric LeVine released the new, upgraded version and everyone had to switch  Yes, the original CellarTracker had its flaws and could be clunky, but it worked. And my experiments with the beta of the new version always left me unfulfilled.

Fortunately, my fears were overblown. The new CellarTracker does what what the old one did, and does much of it better. Meanwhile, its new emphasis on social media and sharing reviews with other wine drinkers doesn’t get in the way of its basic function, which had been a concern. More, after the jump:

Those damned wine writers are up to no good again

In which we’re attacking each other, announcing the end of wine writing, and doing all those other things that we do that no one else especially cares about but that generate comment after comment on wine blogs (though not, of course, on this one, because it’s not really a wine blog – and that's a good thing):

The Hosemaster of Wine, best described as the Wine Curmudgeon on an especially bad day, wrote a very nice bit that I wish I had written:

Much of what bothers me about wine writing is how uncritical it is. I love wine as much as anyone I know, but I also really dislike boring wines, stupid wines, and what I think of as fatuous wines. And there are lots of them. I see them getting 91 points, or A-, or somewhere between 9 and 9.5 (so, 9.23567?) from people with the qualifications of a raccoon.

Which, at last count, had almost four dozen comments in agreement -- an irony I can’t even begin to understand.

Meanwhile, yet another expert – this time, a big deal British wine writer who most Americans have never heard of – announced the death of wine writing. This elicited the usual sort of hand wringing from the wine writing community; how will the world survive? Want to know how? Read the always sensible Mike Dunne’s take:

Very few wine writers ever have made a living with their wine writing alone. For every Robert M. Parker Jr., Jancis Robinson and Eric Asimov, who look to be supporting themselves through their wine writing alone, dozens of other practitioners of the craft, many of them highly influential and every bit as insightful as Parker, Robinson and Asimov, supplement their writing with other gigs, sometimes related to wine, sometimes not. [He] might better have said, ‘This is the way it is, kids, so get used to it.’

And, of course, It didn’t stop organizers from asking for $625 to attend the ninth annual Symposium for Professional Wine Writers at Meadowood Napa Valley.

Winebits 259: Holiday gifts

Some suggestions from around the cyber-ether for wine-related holiday gifts:

• Less than $25: From the Reverse Wine Snob, who nicely mixes the practical -- the always sensible Vacuvin gift set, which has shown up here in years past -- with the silly. How about a life preserver for wine bottles?

• Less than $20: The legendary Sandy Silfven offers seven wines that provide quality and value, including a Tasca d’Almerita nero d’avola from Sicily, and we know how the Wine Curmudgeon feels about Sicilian wines. Best yet, she pairs the wines with holiday entrees.

• Not especially cheap at all: But anyone who ever watched the classic BBC comedy “The Good Life” will appreciate a Fortnum & Mason Christmas wine hamper. That’s what Margo would have done, of course.