Category:Podcasts

Winecast 34: Dave McIntyre, Washington Post

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Dave McIntyre

Dave McIntyre

Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post says those of us who care about affordable, quality wine should be worried about the direction of the wine business. But he says we can fight back.

Dave McIntyre, the wine columnist for the Washington Post, has spent the past decade fighting for affordable, quality wine — no scores or winespeak, but intelligence and passion. He’s one of the best wine writers in the country, and I’d say that even if we weren’t friends who suffered through interminable wine trip bus rides and even longer Drink Local Wine conference calls.

Dave and I talked about the challenges of the wine business in the second decade of the 21st century and what those of us who care about quality and value can do to overcome those hurdles. Something is very wrong, Dave says, when the average bottle of Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon costs $67. But there is hope, as our experiences with drink local demonstrate. Consumers will buy interesting wines that don’t taste exactly like each other, which is the promise of the regional wine movement.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is almost 20 minutes long and takes up 7.2 megabytes (and that’s Dave’s dog, Ringo, chiming in at the end). The sound quality is very good to excellent; we used Skype’s new recording feature, which works surprisingly well for a Microsoft project.

Winecast 33: Andrew Stover, Siema Wines

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andrew stoverAndrew Stover has been fighting the good fight for Drink Local from inside the wine business, “importing” regional wine to the Washington, D.C., area

Andrew Stover has been one of the good guys for regional wine for a decade, “importing” local wine to the Washington, D.C., area. This is especially impressive since Andrew is a distributor, a part of the wine business that has not always been kind to drink local. He brings wine in from more than a dozen states and distributes it to some of the most prestigious restaurants and retailers in the D.C. area. Jose Andres, anyone?

I’ve known Andrew since the early days of Drink Local Wine, and he has always been passionate about local wine and supportive of the cause. We talked about how he got started with local wine, why it has suddenly become the darling of the Winestream Media, and what comes next.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 14 1/2 minutes long and takes up 11 megabytes. The sound quality is excellent; we recorded it with the Wine Curmudgeon’s Linux-compatible Fifine K669 microphone.

Winecast 32: James Gunter, Wines with Conviction

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james gunterLooking for wine value from Europe? Importer James Gunter’s advice: Don’t be afraid to try regions and varietals that you may not know

James Gunter started in the wine business standing behind a cash register. Today, he runs Wines with Conviction, a top-notch small importer that specializes in France. His wines are uniformly well made and well priced, whether it’s a $10 Gascon white or a high-end white Burgundy.

We talked about Gunter’s approach to finding great values: Look for producers who have been overlooked by the big companies; don’t be afraid to try wine that isn’t cabernet sauvignon or chardonnay; and especially don’t be afraid to try regions you’ve never hard of.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 10 1/2 minutes long and takes up 9 megabytes. The sound quality is excellent; we recorded it the Wine Curmudgeon’s new Linux-compatible Fifine K669 microphone.

Winecast 31: Rob McMillan, Silicon Valley Bank

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Rob McMillanSometime in the next several years, the pricing sweet spot for wine will be $15 to $25 a bottle, compared to $12 to $15 today.

Rob McMillan, the executive vice president and founder of Silicon Valley Bank in Napa, may know more about wine pricing — what will happen and why — than anyone else in the world. And he doesn’t see that cheap wine has much of a future.

Sometime in the next several years, the pricing sweet spot for wine will be $15 to $25 a bottle; today, it’s about $12 to $15 a bottle. In this, McMillan sees the increase as the next step in premiumization, the process he has identified as the gradual increase in the cost that wine drinkers are willing to pay for what they consider a quality bottle.

We talked about premiumization, as well as how difficult it is forecast wine prices given the lack of quality information — what McMillan calls the same sort of self-interest that the tobacco companies displayed when they were discussing the relationship between cigarettes and cancer.

Also, he said, don’t expect to see wine price increases in 2018. There are enough grapes in the world so that supply will be steady, while demand looks to be about what it has always been. In this, it will be easier to start a new brand at a higher price than to raise prices for and existing brand.

Finally, we had an intriguing discussion about Barefoot, the $7 wine that accounts for as much as five percent of U.S. wine sales, and how it fits into premiumization.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 21 minutes long and takes up 6 1/2 megabytes. The sound quality is good; we recorded it using Google Voice.

Winecast 30: Arty, the first artificial intelligence wine writer

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artificial intelligence

Arty, the first artificial intelligence wine writer

“Wine drinkers want to be reassured that what they are drinking is worth what they paid for it. That’s the goal of the post-modern wine business and premiumization, and I was created to do that.”

Computer-generated wine writing has arrived, if this interview is any indication. I talked to Arty, the world’s first artificial intelligence wine writer, for this edition of the podcast.

Arty and I discussed why he was created, his goal as a critic — “We’ll always need quality wine writing, human or otherwise. But I think I can offer consumers wine criticism that they can’t get anywhere else” — and why his kind may be the future.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 3 minutes long and takes up 2 1/2 megabytes. The sound quality is almost excellent.

A tip of the Curmudgeon’s fedora to the Mary Text to Speech system, which made it possible to create this interview. Maybe what I’m joking about is more possible than we know.

Winecast 29: Wally Plahutnik, wine retailer

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wally plahutnik

Wally Plahutnik

“Wine is supposed to be delicious,” says long-time retailer Wally Plahutnik. So why do we have such trouble finding delicious wine?

Wonder why you go to buy wine and can’t find anything you like? That’s been Wally Plahutnik’s question, too, as he watched wine retailing change over the past 27 years. Wine, he fears, is turning into a mass produced commodity where delicious and interesting — as well as price — don’t matter. Sounds like the Wine Curmudgeon’s kind of guy, yes?

Wally, who recently retired, is the kind of retailer we need more of — passionate, committed, and focused on helping wine drinkers find what they want, not what someone else says they should drink. We talked about the changes in the wine business over the past decades, as well as the troubles facing the independent retailer and where to find the best values.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 21 1/2 minutes long and takes up 10.1 megabytes. The sound quality is mostly good.

Winecast 28: Bret Thorn, Nation’s Restaurant News

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Bret Thorn

Bret Thorn

Restaurant wine prices are so high because restaurant costs keep going up. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they need to be so expensive, says one of the country’s top restaurant experts.

Bret Thorn, the senior food and beverage editor at Nation’s Restaurant News, knows more about the restaurant business than almost anyone in the country. So who better to ask why restaurant wine prices keep going up despite woeful sales?

We talked about that, as well as changes in the restaurant business that may alter the way we eat out — if we eat out at all in the coming decades — and are changes that the restaurant business still doesn’t completely understand.

To high wine prices, says Thorn, some restaurant operators see wine as a way to recoup increased costs, which include a higher minimum wage in some states and rising food prices. Those of us who buy wine in a restaurant may be shouldering more than our fair share of those rising costs.

But Thorn is an optimist, and says there are a lot of smart people in the restaurant business who might recognize an opportunity to sell more wine — especially if we let them know we think a four to one markup for a glass of $10 wine is too much. His suggestion? Politely and reasonably let the restaurant know you’d buy more wine if prices were more reasonable. And no, he said, a Twitter rant probably isn’t the best way to complain.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 16 1/2 minutes long and takes up 11.6 megabytes. The sound quality is mostly good, though I wasn’t able to get it to play on my Linux box. Windows is OK, though.