Organoleptic Orgasm or just faking

This is an article I wrote a couple of years ago that I stumbled across. Though I disagree with some of the things I said in it now, I still think it might bring about some interesting discussion (amongst those brave enough to tackle the behometh). Can you tell harvest is busy and I do not have much time to write new things!?….

Organoleptic Orgasm or Just Faking: Origins and consequences of the American wine boom.

At my job recently, I was asked if my store carried biodynamically produced wines, particularly those made by Nicholas Joly in the Savennieres region of the Loire River Valley. For those of you with question mark foreheads and who-cares lips I could not agree with you more. Except. Except that this was not the first question like that of the day- it was not the ravings of one oenophilic lunatic feverishly asking for an esoteric wine simply because it was different and rare. Rather, this was a normal customer who had read an article in a trade magazine and was interested in trying a type of wine that fifteen years ago would have never sold or merited any interest.

In the last fifteen years or so demand for wine, not just rare and expensive wine, but all wine has increased throughout the United States. More and more people have put down their martini glasses, Jim Beam, and Budweiser and have opened bottles (not jugs or boxes) of wine. Those wines that were once the pinnacle of considered excellence have expanded. Wines made from previously unheard of varietals and regions have gained broader, and sometimes widespread, appeal. Along with this, a new phenomenon has begun to take hold- the expansion of the meaning of the cult wine. All of these things are part and parcel of wines broadening appeal and meaning to society. Why did this boom take off in the last fifteen years? Why has wine, and different types of wine, gained the popularity is has? The answer lies somewhere in the confluence of increased economic affluence, the parodying of upper-class taste, the creation of a more vocal and widespread wine press shaping and normalizing tastes, and a softening of the temperance impulse inherent in American society. What is also fascinating is the direction that wine is taking organoleptically (that is, the summation of smell, taste, and texture) as a result of the wine boom as more and more parts of the world attempt to gain traction in the expanded marketplace.

Part 1. The Smarting-up of the American Consumer

Some anecdotal tales to the get the paper rolling. A while ago I was having a conversation with Paul Greico, the sommelier and co-owner of Hearth Restaurant in the East Village. Paul is both a result and progenitor of the oenophilic daring recently gripping consumers. One page of his rather extensive wine list is devoted solely to the Austrian grape Gruner Veltliner. For those of you who know what Gruner Veltliner is, congratulations. Here is a refresher for those with knit eyebrows: Gruner Veltliner is the most widely planted grape varietal in all of Austria and is particularly important in those areas to the north and west of Vienna- the Wachau and Kamptal regions. It produces rich, nearly dry to dry, white wines that, like fine Riesling, reflect beautifully the types of minerality found in the soils from which it grows. It will give a fragrance of dry honey, acacia, fresh black-eyed peas, and fresh herbs. It is a truly singular wine, so singular in fact, that up until about three years ago it was damn near impossible to sell. A decade ago, a wine list featuring such wines would have been sommelierite suicide- a vinous equivalent to hari-kari. Today though, Paul does well with his panoply of GruVees.

Another type of wine that would seem to have a relatively static demand curve has also seen changes- that shimmering, beautiful stuff that Kate Moss has purportedly bathed in- champagne. Interestingly though, Kate was rumored to have bathed in Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label- a move that would be considered rather gauche by an increasing number of people today. The large houses that for so many decades dominated the market share (think Veuve Clicquot, Moet and Chandon, and Louis Roederer) are being turned away from for smaller houses and recoltant-manipulant (grower) champagnes boasting greater singularity. Though there is no doubt that the brand recognition of Clicquot cannot be beat due to its incredibly widespread marketing campaign, underneath this is a secondary revolution in the champagne market-place. Clicquot imports nearly four million cases a year of champagne specifically made to the specifications of the American market- aka, sweeter, more forward, and in a snobs terms (mine), obvious. Five years ago, the main three houses of champagne (Clicquot, Moet, and Perrier-Jouet) dominated 88% of the entire market-share of champagne in the United States. Today, that number has fallen several percentage points, while the market share of smaller houses (think Gosset, Jacques Selosse, Lenoble, Ployez-Jacquemart, etc.) and grower champagnes have jumped up considerably. Grower champagnes, only a few years ago represented .067% of the market, while today that number has expanded to just over 2%. Though seemingly small in the overall context, this represents a nearly four-fold increase in less than half a decade. Consumers have begun asking different questions other than the old questions relating to house style. For instance, I have been asked in the last month about the dosage level of champagne, the vineyards it is sourced from (Premier Cru, Grand Gru, and village), varietal percentages (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, or Pinot Meunier), and vintage percentages in non-vintage labellings. These questions are absolutely extraordinary, and were unheard of except by champagne experts only a few years ago. Five years ago people were still calling any sparkling wine from any part of the world champagne: today they can tell the difference between Pierre Moncuit Grand Cru Le Mesnil-sur-Oger Blanc de Blancs Non-Vintage and Guy Larmandier Grand Cru Cramant Blanc de Blancs 1998.

This is a huge amount of information to learn and takes motivation. I have chosen these two examples but there are many others. I could have also pointed to the increased demand for Syrah from Paso Robles, Santa Ynez, and the Sonoma Coast in California; the interest in wines from Frances Languedoc-Roussillon; the Spanish wine revolution; or the new found fascination with funky indigenous grapes such as Nero DAvola, Negroamaro, and Aglianico from Sicily, Puglia, and Basilicata in Italys south! What accounts for this great expansion in demand and desire for different wines? Consumer tastes have changed and the availability of wines has changed accordingly.

The popularity of new varietals and new regions is something that goes hand in hand with other changes in the beverage market. Remember that boom of microbreweries that hit during the high points of the Clinton years (do not get teary-eyed and nostalgic like me). People who had previously spelled draught as draft moved away from aluminum cans to bottles of India Pale Ale (IPA), Amber Ale, Lagers, Oatmeal Stouts, and true pilsner beers. Recently, the number of specialty vodkas and small batch Bourbons in the marketplace has seemingly boomed without an end in sight. Though it could be that people are responding to political and social ennui (particularly in liberal parts of the country) by drinking more, there is certainly something else more deeply rooted in social change causing the dialectic relationship between producer and consumer to flourish so bountifully in these libational areas.

Silicon Valley to Napa Valley

The boom of Silicon Valley led to a spirit of economic jubilance manifested by a new generation of young millionaires. Notions of wealth changed, no longer were the expensive scotches and Bordeaux of older generations the venerated drink of the wealthy. A younger generation that had made money being on the cutting edge, looked elsewhere for their choices- namely to the valleys of Sonoma and Napa, a mere 70 miles north of the Silicon Valley Corridor.

In Napa and Sonoma, at the yearly wine auctions for charity, many of these newly minted nouveau-riche would show off their wealth by purchasing cult Cabernets for prices in the thousands of dollars. Names such as Screaming Eagle, Colgin, Bryant Family, and Marcassin have become irrevocably linked to stock-boom millionaires of the 1990s. Napa Cabernet, like the technology corridor, became symbolic vanguard of wealth in the United States, receiving huge amounts press and accolades.

Alcoholic beverages, since the earliest time periods of history have defined people. Wine has typically been the drink of the upper-class, particularly in America and England, so it is unsurprising that those with newly minted wealth should choose to purchase wine. The constant need to recreate the symbols of being high-class allowed for tiny production wines from California to be those sought after most. For instance, a Bordeaux that has for many decades been considered the pinnacle of fine wine is Chateau Lafite-Rothschild. In a typical year there will be up to 10,000 cases of the wine produced and sent all over the world. Harlan, Screaming Eagle, and Colgin, all make about 200-300 cases of wine- thus making it scarcer and making the lucky recipient of a bottle a bit more notable.It has been many years since the terms nobs and swells were coined to differentiate between the nouveau riche and their predecessors. The terms (nobs, for the older rich, later reverse pig-latined itself to snob) coined in the 1880s still applies today. Not to make history sound too cyclical, for that would be offend my Foucaultian heart, the garish preferences of the nouveau riche of present day have drastically changed the entire world of wine in a manner analogous to how the tastes of the Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Stanfords, and Huntingtons set trends over a hundred years ago. The willingness to pay enough for a down payment on a nice car for a bottle of wine in order to show off wealth receives ink- particularly in the pages of Wine Spectator, the magazine of choice among this generation- in the same manner that Chollie Knickerbocker and gossip columns spread the news of what was in many decades ago.

Another term of that time, Veblen’s “conspicuous consumption” clearly applies as well. Though I disagree with Bourdieu, and I dislike his tone and structuralist mentality, I think that he has struck upon something unfortunate. People of the middling and lower classes do attempt to emulate the wealthy, particularly in a capitalist economy such as America that is rife with notions that everyone some day may become a millionaire. And, since everyone some day may be a millionaire, everyone seems to want to have millionaire tastes to the best of their ability. Expressionless and unemotional Napa Valley Cabernet in the ten to thirty dollar price range began to sell like hotcakes all over the country. Along with this, other wines that merited huge scores from the critical press, from varietals such as Zinfandel and Merlot became collector items. Wineries were able to tap into this interest. All over the north coast of California wineries seemed to emerge overnight. Those wineries already there perhaps profited the most.

Here, I will insert a little personal anecdote about a winery called Ravenswood.Ravenswood was founded in 1976 by my father, Joel Peterson, who expressed the belief that California Zinfandel could make wines that were among the greatest in the world. Living by this dream, he worked two jobs for fifteen years in order to support the winery and our family. Total production of the winery going into the final decade of the century was a little under 15,000 cases. Then, in 1991, something amazing happened. The convergence of critical press and the economy pulled Ravenswood into the upper-echelons of a wave of wine that swept across the country. Robert Parker gave my fathers Dickerson Vineyard Zinfandel the highest score ever given to the varietal (95 points) and called it the Mouton Rothschild of Zins. For the next four years or so we could not make enough upper-end wine to address demand. In fact, it fit exactly into what a cult wine should be, it was clouded in supply problems, retailers could horde it behind counters and sell it at huge mark-ups to their best customers, and it was critically highly praised.

Gradually, the sheen of the Ravenswood star faded a little as new Zinfandel producers such as Turley and Martinelli changed their style to make even bigger, higher alcohol wines that matched Parkers tastes a little more. Luckily for us though, another line of wines were out: County series wines (made from slightly lower quality grapes from different counties in California), and Vintners Blend (nicknamed Chateau Cashe-Fleau around the winery) an inexpensive but quality wine. By the year 2000, Vintners Blend accounted for a total production of 750,000 cases and close to 60% of the total market share for Zinfandel in the world.

Also aiding in this was the 1992 report by the 60 Minutes television show on the French paradox, i.e. how the French have one of the worlds richest diets and one of the lowest incidences of heart-disease. Though the quality of the wine had something to do with it for sure, the creation of the lower end wines played perfectly to the Bourdieu-ian impulse inherent in American society. Specifically, it allowed access for those of lower income to something previously only accessible to the wealthy. Somehow Ravenswood found itself at a crossroads and profited from it. Brand recognition has become huge. The size of the winery now puts off the wealthy collectors for they feel it to be a common wine lacking panache. However, all across the country many, many more people crack a bottle of the wine because it represents something solid and good.

The story can be repeated about any number of wineries on a varying degree of scales (from Kendall Jackson and Gallo to small wineries such as Matanzas Creek or Havens Wine Cellars).

Part 2. Critical Reviews and Press

Like almost all things in the wine industry it is impossible to tell what came first when it comes to the expanded wine press of the last two decades. Did Marvin Shankens Wine Spectator and Robert Parkers Wine Advocate act as pied pipers of Hamelin or were their ratings and reviews a natural off-shoot of a demand by early wine intelligentsia for more information.

In all likelihood it was and still is a dialectic relationship between the two.

In any case, it is almost impossible to overstate the influence wine press has had on the industry. It has decided, to a large degree, the wines highly valued, the wines sought after, and the wines not sought after. Robert Parker is so influential that a poor score from him can lead to the firing of a winemaker, or even worse, the bankruptcy of a winery. Though there had always been some publications out there for wine connoisseurs, they never had the widespread readership so enjoyed by todays critics and magazines. The basic principle responsible for these publications success has been the creation of the 100-point scale. Using this scale, wines are given a score in a manner akin to the way that we receive grades in school. Americans ease of understanding of this system has allowed it to gain great traction.

In older wine publications greater weight would be placed on the description of a wine and many times no score could be given. For instance, a description of an older Volnay (a red burgundy from the Cote de Beaune) by Clive Coates (a well thought of old-school English critic) might read as follows:Dark-garnet to light pink rim. Very fine nose of great elegance with intimation of bing cherry, cedar, damp forest floor, and vanilla. Elegant and weighty on palate. Very fine indeed.

Compare that to a Wine Spectator review
88 points. Ramey, Chardonnay Napa Valley Carneros, Hudson Vineyard, $56. A bit racy, with zesty citrus, ripe pear, spice and hazelnut that are elegant and refined, with a complex aftertaste that echoes citrus, pear, and cedar. Drink Now.

Looking at the two descriptions it would seem that the point system is telling you much more about the wine, it is telling the consumer when to drink it, and its flavor profiles. Yet, it is also leaving out some things. For instance, one does not know if the scorer, in this case James Laube, is a tough scorer or not. From simply reading the description one would think that the wine is great and would merit a score even higher. Also, something that is commonly done is for one to think that the advertisements that abound throughout the glossy pages of the publication have no effect on the scores given. Were the points given in a double-blind environment? What about Laubes proclivity towards wines of opulent fruitiness and loads of oak? The other subtext is that Spectator has rung a death-knell for Ramey because it is an expensive wine that did not cross over the magical 90 point barrier.

It is proven that wines meriting scores of 90 or over sell easily while wines garnering anything less, and it matters little whether the score is 85 or 89, sell at a far more lethargic rate. Thomas Kellner, writing for Forbes Magazine about Robert Parker notes, “This former Maryland lawyer, who has his nose insured for $1 million, is the self-appointed custodian of American wine taste. Since the US is the biggest wine importer, his 100-point rating scale effectually makes the world wine market.”

Luckily for David Ramey, his wines scored in the low-90s from the other two widely read critics, Robert Parker and Stephen Tanzer. The 100-point system though has transformed the ease with which consumers look at wine. Reading the description of the wine has become secondary to looking at the score. Oftentimes stores will simply put a note on a wine saying it received however many points from one particular critic without the description, like the way a student looks at his or her grade on a paper without reading the comments.

This, as has been pointed out in the previous paragraph, has its ups and downs. Consumers are more willing to try wines from unknown regions once it has received a good score from a publication they rely on. A wine, such as a 2003 Heidi Schrock Furmint from Burgenland in Austria, is made a hell of a lot less intimidating when Spectator garners it with a 90 point score. The system is a gateway for consumers to try new wines. However, by not reviewing certain areas of the world or wines by certain producers Spectator and others can affectively control tastes. It is in their best interest to make sure consumers are reading a lot about wines made by larger corporations such as Mondavi, Constellation Brands, Frescobaldi, Jaboulet, and Dubouef because smaller producers are not the ones who pay for advertising.

On a gut level as well, the 100-point system is repugnant to many winemakers and others because it effectively treats wine, which many producers consider to be an art form based on years of training, as too much of commodity. When a traditionalist French winemaker grumbles about the influence of Robert Parker (reknowned for his love of highly concentrated, alcoholic, and modern wines) it is because a fundamental philosophy divides them. Wine, to the producer, is something that tells a story about a particular vineyard in a particular year made lovingly by a particular person. It is NOT a simple commodity to be placed on display, tongued, and graded.

A great article in the New Yorker, and I wish I could remember the date and author, states that wines should be viewed from a more humanistic perspective and offers an analogy:

A person who sleeps with many people may be fine. Yet, a person who sleeps with twenty people and then grades them on a numeric scale is a cad.

Like this, one does not love a wine any less if it is a little tannic one year or a little thin in another in the same manner that one should not love ones partner any less when time and gravity (or children) have affected certain physical attributes, or they are simply having a gassy day.

The one hundred-point scale is wielded in a manner that simultaneously expands the number of wines people will try but urges winemakers to make wines in a more homogenous manner that meets a particular flavor profile looked for by todays wine critics. On a macro scale the publication of wine related magazines and reviews has no doubt led to greater interest in the wine industry and to a greater level of overall success. Individuals come into stores brandishing the Wine Spectator or The Wine Advocate and attempt to look up the rating of any wine laid before them. It gives the consumer a feeling of confidence and power in a world of wine that is incredibly complicated and intimidating for even some seasoned buyers. It is easier for the American mentality to grasp wine as a commodity graded on a point system akin to Consumer Reports because it narrows and eases the attainment of knowledge requisite for purchasing wine. Though the wine marketplace would perhaps be even more interesting if people followed their own palates rather than those of others (there by creating different demand curves for wines) it also would never attain the mass appeal that it enjoys now.

But.

In the same manner that a student changes his approach and writing style to match a teachers grading method, winemakers are forced to change their style to merit better scores from critics. By classifying wine in a codified system publications are normalizing wine. Staying with the student analogy, if one goes to college some normalization, no matter what, is going to take place. In fact, one goes to college in order to be institutionalized to a certain extent (this is not a Kesey novel, I swear). For instance, I carry the hallmarks of a Vassar College graduate- I am intellectual, quasi-gay though straight, liberal and highly skeptical of anything anywhere unless it is Foucault, Sigur Ros, or a Godard film (and Foucault even gets a little criticism from time-to-time). Most students, through a combination of choosing where to apply and luck in acceptance to school, are given some choice as to how they are going to be normalized in a setting- whether it be Bob Jones University or Barnard.

Wineries are not given much of a choice (varietal really, and that depends on location) and are given slim margins to make wines that differ from the accepted form. In some ways, the guidelines for how wines should taste is decided by a rather fascist institutionalized wine press that offer little breadth in the overall scheme of taste. Why are fruit wines so looked down upon? Is it because they are bad, or is it because they are not accepted forms. Imagine if they were socially constructed as being good taste, a Spectator review might look as follows: 88 Points. Kanunga Creek Fruit Wine: Made exclusively from parcels of the lowest cropped tamarinds and star fruit grown in the Wicka Hills of Papua New Guinea. A wonderful fruit bomb with elements of Captain Hooks tobacco, and a dust covered first edition of Robert Louis Stevenson. Could perhaps use more guava? Drink Now.

To a certain degree the role of wine writers, from Pliny the Elder (who preferred wine that tasted like Elderberries), to Frank Schoonmaker, to Robert Parker, has always been about normalizing the tastes of their readers. The difference is that until the 1990s the wine press was a relatively small and independent group from all over the world. Now it is dominated by The Wine Spectator (or as many call it, the Wine Speculator) and its California specialist James Laube (Osama Bin Laube), and Robert Parkers Wine Advocate.

Part 3: The Use of Technology in Wine

Micro-oxygenation, reverse osmosis, spinning cone, and flavor concentrates- Some wine-makers refer to them as the dark arts, (a little insertion of Hogwarts into wine-making vernacular) while others begrudgingly acknowledge their necessity, still others are quick to defend their use.

What is just beginning to be known is their widespread use in the winemaking process- particularly in California. Interestingly, it is rumored that one of the great cult wines of California came about by using some of these technological short-cuts in a year it got a perfect score from Parker. The pressure and tastes of the wine press for wines made in an international style have led to a system by which wines made on the cheap and then altered substantially using artificial means are increasingly consumed on a broad-scale- if they can garner a high score. Even upper-end wines, pressured to succeed, are using these practices on a unprecedented scale. Leo McCloskey, at Oenologix, even claims that he can predict the score that Parker will give a wine and adjust the wine accordingly- a sexy offer to anyone trying to sell an expensive bottle of wine (more on this later).

You may have tasted one of the commodity wines. New ones come out every month. Some are D.O.A. (Papio and Duo); while others take flight. Just filling the distribution pipeline can be a 50 - 100,000 case project. What do they have in common?

As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, Califo “There is no there there.”

Gallo has started a number of these brands. Redwood Creek, Indigo Hills, Anapamu, Rancho Zabaco, Gossamer Bay and Turning Leaf all trying to seem like something other than Gallo. They are all trying to look like ultra premium wines.Even deeper in this mire is Bronco Wine Co. The company buys the rights to names of fine wineries in respectable grape growing locations, develop a bottling line at that location and trucks cheap wine produced in the Central Valley to be bottled at the prestigious address. It looks as if these are wines of the place but in reality they are doctored alternatives Hacienda, Charles Shaw (2 Buck Chuck), Forest Glen and Napa Ridge are among them. There are many others Talus and Vendange for example. Or from the Australians who seem intent on going the Californians one better with a legion of these. Yellow Tail, Amaroo, Cudgee Creek are all examples of wines that lack terroir and origin, are mass-produced, and then sold at inexpensive prices.

In the case of Australia, there are so many of these wines that when people think of Australian wine they believe these caricatures are actually indicative of the place.

But how is the wine in the bottle? It doesn’t taste bad; in fact, these wines frequently do well with wine critics and in wine judging. The question then becomes, how can you take cheap, high production grapes from inferior growing regions and pass them off as something better?

By using technologies that overcome place. Let me list a few and mention their uses:

Ion exchange columns For adjusting pH to the perfect range for good flavored wine

Reverse Osmosis for removing water and alcohol for concentration and balance allows for the improvement of either over produced grapes or high sugar, over ripe grapes. Also for removing volatile acidity.

Spinning Cone can concentrate grape must can remove SO2 and alcohol can remove flavor from pomate and lees to be used to augment wine with flavor deficiency. Known euphemistically as “aroma delivery and flavor enhancement.”

Oak Alternatives. Oak barrels are expensive. Oak staves, oak chips, oak dust all graded and toasted accordingly to allow a high level of control over oak flavor.

Microxygenation. The very slow infusion of oxygen into wine. Allows for a rough approximation of barrel aging and wine development in large volume tanks.

Mega Red and Mega Purple. Highly concentrated polyphenol coloring compounds from grapes a 1-2% addition to a white wine will turn it red.

Grape tannin, grape concentrate and other grape based additions to adjust natural deficiencies in high volume grapes grown in less than optimal conditions.

Each technology is designed to address a specific problem or deficiency found in high volume, low quality grapes-pH adjustment concentration removal of undesirable characteristics alcohol modification, inexpensive oak additions (ever wonder how one of those inexpensive wines get all that oak flavor? it aint barrels), color adjustment, sweetness adjustment, tannin adjustment you can MAKE just about any wine profile you want.

I had a story recounted to me by one famous California winemaker regarding some of these technologies. When visiting an industrial style winery in the Central Valley of California he met with a wine engineer. The winemaker, looking to purchase bulk wine for his mass-produced base blend, inquired if the winery had any available juice of good quality- to maintain anonymity, let us say Zinfandel. The engineer told him to hold on one minute while he made a wine to the winemakers specifications.

Taking some neutral white wine, and several vials of flavor concentrates, he concocted a passable version of Zinfandel in less than five minutes- a little purple-17 here, a little oak lignin derived vanillin and voila- wine passable as Zinfandel. The winemaker in question, who views himself as an artist translating the fruits of the earth into wine, walked away half-disgusted and perhaps a bit disconsolate.

Wine, for centuries, has been place based. The reason why Chianti Classico tastes the way it does- the reason why wine experts are able to identify such wines blind- is because they are rooted in the grape varietal (Sangiovese), the types of soil inherent to the region, the weather conditions, and traditional style. Though modernization of certain techniques, i.e. the use of small oak barriques in lieu of traditional chestnut casks, fining with egg whites, and the use of sulphur to prevent infections of things such as bretannomyces and lactobacillus, are being seen, and have been for several decades, they have not had the effect of muting out a wines place- instead they intensify and focus it. This is the reason why industry experts can even identify clonal variation of the Sangiovese grape according to how is has adapted to a place over time, whether the clone is Brunello or Morellino.

An unfortunate consequence of the American wine revolution has been to increasingly urge wines, formerly of place, to taste more and more like the high fruit, high oak, low acid wines preferred by publications and critics. The wines that can naturally achieve these come from climates like Napa Valley and Australia, and even these are being spun down and passed through semi-permeable membranes. The result is that wineries from other regions either have to use these techniques as well or suffer the consequence of not being purchased.

It is now possible to make wines that appeal to collective tastes, molded by critics and magazines, in a cheap and abundant manner.

Ironically, magazines and critics that purportedly stress difference in regions are also responsible for the homogenization of tastes on a lower priced level in the United States. An analogy can be made to the way in which women have been portrayed in mens magazines over the past few decades. If one views models from the 1960s and 70s in a publication like Playboy, one will notice that they actually look like real people. Today, between computer enhancement and paint brush blemish control, silicone and botox, popular taste dictates that women should look a way they never possibly canand God forbid they have hair or BO!

It seems wine is going through a period of McCarthyism.Jenny McCarthyism that is.

Wines produced using cheaper and cheaper practices, utilizing less and less labor- both primary and derivative labor (those who make barrels, those who own the oak trees, those who pick grapes (there are now automatic picking machines that shake the vine into giving up its fruit), those who work in the cellar), while relying heavily on technology to fill the gap have potentially strong effects on the long term viability of the industry as we know it.

It is the sort of change seen frequently throughout history as people have moved away from Fordist production models to more flexible accumulation models. Technology, and the wine presses acceptance and even veneration of wines made using advanced technology, have allowed for more and more wine to be produced from areas not previously believed suitable for the vinification of fine wine. Land previously used for growing mass-crops, like the California Central Valley, Chiles Central (Maipo and Casablanca) Valleys, and Australias numerous plains, are increasingly being used to make wines from grapevines that are flood-irrigated and over-cropped. The result from this mutually beneficial relationship between the wine press and these wines is that premium wine is losing the sense of being first and foremost place based and the product of human hands interacting with the earths riches- a notion that has been with us since Noah.

In the long term, if shapes can be molded to appreciate wines made in this manner- akin to the way that people appreciate American cheese and Twinkies- it brings down the price of wine production and changes the entire manner in which wine is judged. If place specificity can be left out of the rubric for wine judging it allows wine corporations to search out cheaper and cheaper methods of making wine while maintaining their economic viability.

Conclusion: Defining Taste in the Post-Modern World

Individuals are always seeking to create identities for themselves based on their consumption. For those millions of people turned onto wine in the last decade or so there is a search underway for things that are different. Many are happy to be drinkers of the much-maligned Merlot (our sales have dropped significantly since Sideways however, another indication of how people are worried about what is cool), but many others are striving to try new things. When the 2001 and 2002 vintages in Germany and Austria received huge press the sales of Riesling and Gruner Veltliner went through the roof. First to go were the upper-end gold cap auslese from small, hard to find producers such as Wiell and Von Schubert followed by the $10 and $15 Rieslings as more people caught on. For many, bringing one of these wines to a party when everyone else was still bringing California Chardonnay and to speak about it with some authority aka. Spectator gave it 94 points! is a matter of creating identity. Publications simultaneously construct and normalize taste while offering the added advantage of proffering the feeling of authority to the consumer.

The wine revolution of the last fifteen years is a complex, multi-faceted phenomenon to say the very least. At one end is the intersection of class and taste, of conspicuous consumption and upper class parody by those with thinner wallets (Bourdieu and Veblen eat your hearts at). There is the effect of wine publications and critics who work to simultaneously expand the market but limit the range in which wines are allowed to taste. There is technology, working as quickly as possible for those who can afford it to make wines that do not tell a story of place but appeal to critics and thus to many others (in effect, allowing those wanting to parody wealth to buy parody wines). Driving this is the need for many people to attempt uniqueness of taste in a world where the parameters of taste have, for a large part, already been set. It has yielded consumers who find it necessary to know more about wine, and be willing to try different things because they demand difference in what they taste. A similar impulse manifests in the demand for fusionist cuisine, different microbreweries, small batch bourbons, and special vodkas (Frank Gehry even designed the bottle for one). Though diversification of tastes generally leads to a more interesting sensory experience for the average consumer, it is cause for worry that the wine revolution has taken the shape of an oenophilic oligarchy dictating taste.

Earlier, R.L. Stevenson was jokingly referred to in a wine description, yet he too has an opinion on this subject. A longtime resident of Napa (pre-Disneyfication) he called the wines from the place “bottled poetry.” Though this paper speaks of somber things, to many people wine still speaks a cadenced language laden with ecological and humanistic meaning. It is, and should be, the poetry of place, of year, of the winemakers hands and feet, and all the micromacro penumbrations emanating from that particularly constructed world in which it was made- a world like Heraclitus fire or Parmenides stream, whose form may always be similar but can never be exactly the same.