Wine Shop Owner’s New Book Discusses New York Wine Industry
“The perfect solution would seem to be to buy local. If only New York wines were worth it.”
That is the opening salvo from wine shop owner Marco Pasanella, who has written a popular new book called Uncorked: My Journey Through the Crazy World of Wine. Pasanella tells the story of how he built a successful wine shop from scratch in Manhattan. He writes about which wines sell, which don’t, and how he waded through bureacracy to finally build a thriving retail store.
It’s an interesting read, if flawed, and my full review of the book will be up on Palate Press. In this space, I want to address what Pasanella writes about his decision not to carry New York wines.
Now, I’m a bit unfair to Pasanella by leaving the earlier quote hanging. He follows that comment with this:
Before you start screaming at the page, let me explain. Despite its fundamentally unfriendly wine-growing environment (too damn cold), New York makes some decent wines. They just tend to cost too much. At $20 per bottle, the shopper has a lot of choices that deliver more bangs for the buck. For example, a Loire Valley Cabernet Franc, made where this varietal has been grown for hundreds of years, generally knocks the socks off a similarly priced Long Island Cabernet Franc. New York Rieslings, vinified from a grape that seems to fare better than most varietals in cold climes, are likewise disadvantaged. From Germany, I can source whites of similar quality for 40 percent less than the Long Island versions.
First of all, one wonders if Pasanella simply made a typo when he seemed to say that the best New York riesling comes from Long Island; I’m wondering why he didn’t discuss the viability of Finger Lakes riesling compared to German counterparts. And a typo seems likely; the book suffers from a handful of glaring factual errors and the near-constant misuse of the word “varietal.”
Regarding Long Island, I’m curious to know what customers and wine industry professionals say about this. It’s kind of an old argument, and yet it comes back anew in these pages. This book is selling very well; a lot of people will be reading this.
Pasanella concludes his section on New York wines with the following:
Of course, there are many who would disagree with me. New York growers often complain that the large distributors, who make no money on wine that can be sold directly from local producers, freeze them out of the market. According to the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, we do not see more New York wines on the shelves of New York wines on the shelves of New York stores because Southern and their ilk use their muscle to keep them out.
These allegations about hardball marketing may be true, although no distributor who saw New York wines on our shelves has ever threatened me. The most intimidating thing about New York wines remains that they are too expensive, espeically for products that have eliminated the importer and distributor middlemen.
These passages read like a wine shop owner who has simply never invested much time in New York wine. I open the floor for comments.
The author is both right and wrong at the same time in his characterisation of NY state wines. It is very, very hard for a local winery to compete in the $20 range when large scale producers from countries like France, Germany, and Australia can make the same wine but with the benefit of a greater “pedigree” and/or a larger marketing budget/access to favourable spots in “prestigious” wine magazines.
Where he is obviously wrong is in his failure to understand NY as a wine region in its totality.
In the end I personally don’t think the cost of NY wines is too high, at the top end at least. I’d rather spend my money in a “local” setting where I can meet the producers than give that same money to a negociant to get a 3rd growth Bordeaux.
In all fairness, Evan, I’m not sure that Pasanella is talking about riesling from Long Island; the cab franc of which he speaks is clearly identified as such, but of the rieslings he just says “New York,” and I’d be surprised if he wasn’t referring to the state and not the city. And perhaps for Pasanella (and I wouldn’t know since I haven’t read the book) drinking “local” means sourcing “New York” wines from downstate specifically since he’s in NYC and downstate is more local than the Finger Lakes. Still, I see your point. Judging NY wines based on Long Island would be a bit like judging Oregon wines based on the OR side of the Walla Walla AVA and ignoring everything that happens in the Willamette valley.
Erika -
Check the last line of the first block quote. He’s talking about comparing German white wines against Long Island white wines.
It’s too bad that many of his loyal customers are missing out on some fantastic wines. I get tired of hearing how much better other regions wines are. You would think that individuals who really appreciate wine would want to be open to all that the worlds terroir has to offer. So what if this cab does not taste like that cab, or does not taste like a cab should. Are we really the ones who should be saying what a wine should taste like? Or should we let the grape and terroir do the talking? I guess he and his customers will be missing out on expanding their palates.
I don’t know Marco personally or professionally — the copy of his book that I received a while back is my only exposure to him, but I’m not sure that he knows New York (or even Long Island) wines that well.
He certainly cannot be picking riesling to discuss if he was still talking about Long Island. Erika may be right there, btw.
What I think gets lost in a LOT of the discussions about pricing and value on Long Island is this — why is $15 or $20 the only price range discussed when it comes to value? While it’s true that New York rarely competes at the low end (typically dominated by warmer regions where farming is less costly and yields much higher), there are values at all price ranges and taking a closer look, you can find many values being made across New York.
There is also so much more that goes into the buying decisions for at least some customers. For me, finding something new, local and not-the-same is important. I’ll gladly pay a bit more for that. If I were only going to buy wines at $20 and under, I’d never drink Barolo, CdP, good Champagne, etc.
@Lenn $20 and under is a value used because it’s a common amount that people are willing to spend on a bottle to drink that night when they go into a wine store. Given that a very high percentage of all wine is drunk the day of purchase. Being able to capture that market gives a vineyard a lot of flexibility.
NY certainly has value across the range, something Marco obviously doesn’t want to take the time to educate himself and hence his customer base.
Ha! I interviewed for a position at said wine store - and needless to say - I was not hired. He also was not aware of affordable Spanish wines from importer Jorge Ordonez at the time either. How did he publish a book again?
I think we need to be careful; the goal of this post was not to bash Marco Pasanella for saying that he doesn’t find value in NY wine. He owns the shop; he has to decide what he can sell and what he can not. Also, he got a book deal because he writes well and has an interesting story.
I’m not out to bash Marco, either. BUT — and it’s a big but — to your point in the post, people are going to be reading this book. And because he has a book about wine, he’s going to be seen as a wine expert. So, his opinions are going to be taken by many as factual — and I question his expertise in New York wine.
Sticking to the cab franc argument…I’ve had a lot of mediocre (or worse) Chinon for $20 in my life too. Or, if we expand it into the German rieslings — who hasn’t had cheap, boring German riesling?
It’s difficult to paint with the wide strokes he is here. It’s not a good idea.
Just a couple of thoughts here – I have no doubt at all Marco loves his work and believes what he says. Naturally I’m inclined to be irritated by the comments made by the book’s author - if only I wasn’t so used to it. Ongoing ignorance of the NY wine industry and all of its very positive growth and development still persist as urban legends. This is especially true in the highly insulated NYC business where retailers very rarely have the time to travel and continue their educations about our products because they are very busy running their businesses. Some, you can imagine, don’t get out much, but I’m not surprised.
Urban legends like “too damn (sic) cold” continue to persist. I know if it were me, I’d take a moment to look up information like the average temperature in the Loire: The Rochester/FLX area is on average 2 degrees warmer than the Loire’s average low temps and 3-5 degrees warmer than Loire’s average high temps (in Celsius) during the growing season. Long Island is even warmer than that – warmer than Bordeaux and nearly as warm as Calistoga. Further, the FLX are about half a degree warmer than the Mosel (in Germany) on average in July. These are minor points, but they are grounded in fact and not myth.
The peculiar allegations about the distributors confuse me too. The notions that there are machinations forcing NY wineries from the market through “hardball marketing”, distributors “making no money” on NY wine, and that NY wines cut out the “importer and middlemen” so-they-should-be-cheapr, seem very much like idle over-the-counter gossip with little grounding in today’s broad and competitive marketplace. The truth and the numbers that make up wine production would be jarring, and too difficult to condense here, but these comments are a little silly. And I don’t know for this for certain but I’m pretty sure the NYW&GF wouldn’t say such things about Southern or any other distributor, not publicly, not privately, and not to this gentleman, especially given that company’s support of NY wines today and historically.
What of this urban legend about value? A $20 Loire Valley Cabernet Franc (no matter how good or mediocre) has $6.66 of retailer mark up in it, and $5.33 of distributor mark-up in it, and $1.60 of importer mark up in it, about $1.00 of overland and oversea transportation cost, and about $1.00 of packaging costs. That makes it a $4.41 bottle of wine you pay twenty dollars for. That’s quite a value…
These New York wines are made here at home by your friends, your family, your neighbors and people you know and see and they are made in our own backyards. Sometimes they are carried by your distributors, and sometimes they aren’t - that’s a business decision made by people who know stuff about the wine business. Most retailers in New York understand this and are very, very supportive of their neighbor wineries - as much as they can be. And that’s not even the reason to buy them – it’s the quality and value that are there and continually overlooked by people, retailers and authors alike – and I sympathize.
I haven’t read this book, but it seems like it (this part) might have been written in a different time. But I’d still like to read all of it and know Marco’s story – I’ll bet it’s fascinating at least.
“What of this urban legend about value? A $20 Loire Valley Cabernet Franc (no matter how good or mediocre) has $6.66 of retailer mark up in it, and $5.33 of distributor mark-up in it, and $1.60 of importer mark up in it, about $1.00 of overland and oversea transportation cost, and about $1.00 of packaging costs. That makes it a $4.41 bottle of wine you pay twenty dollars for. That’s quite a value… ”
Such a great point.
Indeed it is.
“The trouble ain’t that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain’t distributed right.”
- Mark Twain
For those interested in Evan’s full review of the book:
http://palatepress.com/2012/07/wine/uncorked-the-many-journeys-in-wine-of-marco-pasanella/
1) There are good and bad wines from every wine region in the world. that is fact.
2) Value is not equivalent to price, it’s about price relative to perceived quality. Using this measure, NY wines tend not to offer great value compared to their counterparts in other regions of the wine world. This dilemma will never be completely overcome by pushing the ‘local’ aspect of the wines. In the end people only care so much. They are only willing to spend so much on a bottle, and will not buy a lower quality wine because it is local.
I understand the costs involved, the economies of scale, the living wage paid to workers in NY, the investment in the land, etc. It doesn’t fly. NY is the only region I know of (besides Greece) that retailers have to say, ‘well, they’re all small producers, that’s why they cost what they cost,’ instead of saying, ‘it’s really great wine, that’s why it costs what it costs’.
There is a lot of great wine in NY, and much of it doesn’t see the NYC metro market. The wineries do not work together for the common good of the industry and refuse to see that they need to market their products better. They often choose to keep their best wines for their tasting rooms where they can make retail or above retail profits. This is understandable as they are running a business, but they cannot then turn around and wonder why their wines do not have greater exposure in nyc.
A small anecdote: a couple of years ago i attended a Merliance tasting, pitting 13 merlot based wines from NY, France, and CA against each other, all tasted blind. When the results came out, the #1 wine was from long island. There wasn’t another NY wine in the top 5 or even, if memory serves, in the top 7.
The Merliance was proud of the victory. I was not. Why? EVERY wine in the tasting EXCEPT the #1 wine was around $30-$35 per bottle retail. The #1 (NY) wine was $100, and it won by less than a tenth of a point. Any consumer (or retailer) would be nuts to buy 1 btl (or 1 case) of the #1 wine instead of 3 btls (or 3 cases) of the #2 or #3 wine.
Thanks for the comment, Ben. I actually had the same reaction to the Merliance tasting. That said, I think there are some $35ish merlots that could have done nearly as well. Merliance only represents a small fraction of the region’s producers, after all.
I suppose I will step up and defend my beloved industry from these unkind and misleading statements above. Forgive me for copying in the text, it was easier to address each unique point. Allow me to retort:
“There are good and bad wines from every wine region in the world. that is fact.”
“Value is not equivalent to price; it’s about price relative to perceived quality. Using this measure, NY wines tend not to offer great value compared to their counterparts in other regions of the wine world.”
“This dilemma will never be completely overcome by pushing the ‘local’ aspect of the wines. In the end people only care so much.”
“They are only willing to spend so much on a bottle, and will not buy a lower quality wine because it is local.”
“I understand the costs involved, the economies of scale, the living wage paid to workers in NY, the investment in the land, etc. It doesn’t fly. NY is the only region I know of (besides Greece) that retailers have to say, ‘well, they’re all small producers, that’s why they cost what they cost,’ instead of saying, ‘it’s really great wine, that’s why it costs what it costs’.”
“There is a lot of great wine in NY, and much of it doesn’t see the NYC metro market.”
“ The wineries do not work together for the common good of the industry and refuse to see that they need to market their products better.”
“They often choose to keep their best wines for their tasting rooms where they can make retail or above retail profits. This is understandable as they are running a business, but they cannot then turn around and wonder why their wines do not have greater exposure in nyc.”
“A small anecdote: a couple of years ago i attended a Merliance tasting, pitting 13 merlot based wines from NY, France, and CA against each other, all tasted blind. When the results came out, the #1 wine was from long island. There wasn’t another NY wine in the top 5 or even, if memory serves, in the top 7.
The Merliance was proud of the victory. I was not. Why? EVERY wine in the tasting EXCEPT the #1 wine was around $30-$35 per bottle retail. The #1 (NY) wine was $100, and it won by less than a tenth of a point. Any consumer (or retailer) would be nuts to buy 1 btl (or 1 case) of the #1 wine instead of 3 btls (or 3 cases) of the #2 or #3 wine.”
It is tiresome to read these exhausted old wives’ tales bandied about again and again, especially from those outside looking in. If I had a nickel for every comment I’ve read where speculation of what the industry is thinking, what a winemaker was intending to do, why a wine tastes like it does, or what motivates average consumers was written as if it was a fact, I’d have enough for a case of DRC.
Jim,
Thanks for taking the time to write such a wonderful response, well done! I look forward to seeing you in the Finger Lakes sooner than later or perhaps the next time I am in Long Island I will do a better job scheduling my time so I can see both you and Lenn as I’m sure we could figure out a few things to talk about.
RR
Jim,
I too appreciate the response, and would like to clarify a few points
My position is based on my own experience, which is different than yours and everyone else’s, but they are real experiences nonetheless. does that make them fact or opinion? Not sure, but perhaps I stated my own experience as too much like the norm, when it is obviously not.
I LIKE NY wine. A lot of it. And I don’t like a lot of it.
But to re-retort some of your points:
“The whole notion of value is based solely on the individual’s opinion”
I agree, hence the term ‘perceived’ quality.
“If all we drank were great values you’d be bored to tears.”
I disagree. If we can agree that value equates to a low price compared to perceived quality, it’s incredibly exciting when I taste a $10 wine that tastes (to me) like it should cost $20, or a $20 wine that tastes like it should cost $35. Recently I tasted a $17 beaujolais blanc that (to me) was just as good quality as a $50 mersault we carry. that’s not boring!
“Is that so? Our research and our sales data is completely opposite this opinion.”
I’d like to see the data that shows consumers taste a wine, say they dislike it, but buy it anyway simply because it’s local. Yes, people want to buy local. I live in brooklyn for crying out loud, i get it. My point is we all know a wine from NY is local. How about highlighting a wine because it’s GOOD.
“Who are “they” and how do we know what “they” are thinking? “They” are buying 2 million cases of New York wine every year. Maybe it’s some other “they” we are thinking of?”
They are the customers that come to the retail shop i manage in Brooklyn and the customers I met while doing 100 or so in-store tastings of NY state wine when i was a wholesale rep. I see what they buy and I talk to them about what they want and why.
“Again, where is this coming from? Metro NY is where almost ALL of the wholesale goes, especially for the top tier wineries.”
What percentage of NY wine is sold wholesale to nyc, and how much is sold from the tasting room and to restaurants and retail shops within 20 miles of the winery?
“Actually, that’s what misinformed retailers say. Better retailers sell wine on its merit regardless of its origins or even its value.”
if a wine costs more than it’s worth to someone, what’s it’s merit? And by extension, define “better retailers” Are better retailers the ones who sell the DRC you covet? Do you think DRC is worth what it costs? to spend that kind of money on a bottle of wine is what is ignorant to my mind. I would never buy it, I would never want to sell it. bad bad value.
“This is baseless and contradictory. Another appearance by “they,” where “they” are wondering about exposure in NYC and “they” are making retail profits off “their” best wines.”
“They” are several NYS producers that I sold wine for for a period. “They” gave us older vintages and held back wines we wanted to sell and then wondered why more people weren’t buying. “They” sold direct to accounts to make a couple more cents instead of passing leads on to us so that we could bring their wines as well as other NYS wines to said accounts. rising tide lifts all boats, forrest for the trees, whatever you like.
“It is outrageous to paint the entire NY wine industry as a picture of poor business decisions and greedy provincialism, whose players are ignorant of conditions in their own home market. I’d be offended if I hadn’t heard it all before.”
You are correct, I absolutely did not mean to paint the entire industry. Nor do I think the business decisions are necessarily bad (it’s hard to argue that earning a higher margin on a bottle sold from a tasting room is bad for the bottom line). These are strictly from my (limited but real) experiences.
I did once attend a roundtable to discuss the marketing of NY wines. At my table were a prominent winery owner from LI and another from the Hudson Valley. When I commented that there are large numbers of people living in NYC that don’t even know there is wine made in NYS, the two winery owners told me I was wrong and that it’s a couple of ignorant people at most. It’s not wrong, it’s based on about 100 in-store tastings all around manhattan and brooklyn over the course of 2 years. These, to me, are examples of players ignorant of conditions in their own home market. But their research and sales data from their tasting rooms must have shown otherwise.
“This small-producers argument is an over-simplified one-size-fits-all explanation of a complex issue lots of people know very little about.”
Educate me then. That’s why we’re here, no?
“Like me for instance – I think NY wines offer outstanding value. Across-the-board value.”
I’m sure that you do. I’ve read this blog long enough (I AM a NY wine lover!) to see the same dozen or so commenters discuss how you’re all right and everyone else is wrong. You can ignore my opinions and experiences as well as other’s like Mr. Pasanella and write them off as ignorant because you know how it really works. But all that does is rob you of an opportunity to learn a different and just as real perspective. After all (and I mean this tongue in cheek, in the LEAST combative way possible), at our stores, you are the ones on the outside looking in.
thanks, Ben for your qualified and reasoned OPINION….i share most of your perspective verbatim….PERCEPTIONS of quality, value and comparisons are(always) subjective of course…..
at this time,in marketplaces everywhere wines are selling on their individual MERITS-be that price point, varietal truthfulness, food pairing exactitude, contrast with competitor offerings, wholesale/retail market “push” , etc. I have seen many NY stores with large NY wine sections, and indeed a few of them sell a good amount of said NY wines.
MY experience, since 1968, has not yet found sufficient evidence on any continuous basis to regularly purchase NY wines….@ their respective price points. Give me ANY NY wine at a particular price point/range and i will provide 5-10 alternates from various world locations that will (double blind, mind you….) come out better in tastings-by even NY wine producers as part of that tasting group…. out of reply room here, i remain Ralph
Ralph, it sounds to me like we might need to put together this tasting — if you’re serious and will follow through with it. Please email me and we’ll see if we can set something up for this winter.
I’m up for that
There are lots of great value wines from NY, many in the 12-15 range with the higher end wines in the 20-30 range. This is obvious to anyone reading the NYCR, but the question is how to communicate this to the larger markets so the perceptions of value can be overcome?
I was part of a sales event where our own wines were described as value for the $15 price, “pricey” for the reserve at $25 (as in “this one is pricey, but really good”) and then a Brunello was “a steal” at $42. Everyone fawned over that one. By “pricey”, the sales rep meant “more difficult to sell” because NY’s reputation for quality is lagging the actual high quality being produced (which is normal). The sales people have these engrained perceptions, which leads to the resellers perceptions. Often time sales opinions are formed based on the incentives on products for that month (which can add to the distributor’s bottom line in Jim’s analysis above). So again the question remains of how best to communicate and demonstrate to shop owners and restauranteurs how much value there is in NY wine today, because there is more value than they are aware of.
More and more I believe that focusing efforts on retailers is not the answer. The consumer needs to drive the demand. Market to the consumer, the retailers and restaurants will carry what the consumers demand
It is both for sure.
It is both indeed. I’ve pursued a strategy that runs towards the retailers because the retailer has such powerful influence on the consumer and what they buy, plus they see so many people.
If a retailer likes a wine and recommends it personally to the 25 people a day or a massive retailer recommends it (by case stacking it, or end-caps, or silent salesmen like that) to hundreds of people a day, that’s far, far more than I could ever reach.
Changing the minds of one person at a time is very time and resource consuming, I think.
Bingo. And, yes, “a rising tide lifts all boats”.
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt
I really like Ben’s direct response above. It shows a lot of his mettle and it demonstrates to me that we’re not at all that far apart in our thoughts.
I will only say that I’m not ignoring you or anyone else’s opinion, if I was I wouldn’t be commenting. Also, that I understand better than you might think the two experiences you had - the first with the winery owners who contradicted logic in the round table discussion, which can be a common thing, and secondly the selling of back vintages and the end-run around the distributor to sell direct. Let me address that:
I have railed publicly and privately for years against these practices. It is unfortunate that there are still wineries with old vintages but wholesale is NOT the place to DUMP that. It’s like advertising the worst and keeping what’s best a secret. Perhaps worse is aligning yourself with a distributor and then undermining their ability to sell - that’s just awful. Stuff like that happens, but it’s going away now, and its not something I do personally. Please take a look at an older Op-Ed I wrote here: http://newyorkcorkreport.com/op-ed-expectations-for-new-york-wine-are-higher-than-ever-are-we-ready-jim-silver-gm-peconic-bay-win-2/
Lastly, I think its kind of a leap to assume I covet DRC when all I did was make a joke about how expensive it was. I love the Beaujolais Blanc ($17) example though, tasting like a particular Meursault ($50) you carry. That’s always cool to find. But the example here isn’t that these lovely values are everywhere and we should be seeking them out (we should, I agree!) - it’s that the poor guy that makes the Beaujolais is suffering the same problem that NY is - in that no one is ready to put down $50 for a Beaujolais Blanc - if they were the wine would be $50 already. And if the Meursault was $17 you’d look cross-eyed at it.
DRC (and trophy wine like it) is not necessarily a bad value because someone, somewhere is willing to pay for it - and (my guess is) he does so for the experience. Sure, save a grand and buy de Vogue for a similar thrill, but I think people pay for the pursuit of character and intellectual gratification too, not just 100% hedonism all the time.
I’d like to meet you Ben - let me grab a handful of interesting wines I think are strong values from my winery and I’ll drive out there and we’ll have a drink. It’ll be a great conversation if nothing else. Send me an email!
Jim, I would have thought the better idea would be for Ben to visit ESC and see the “value” from around the region that Evan and his excellent staff are able to display to the public daily.
Rich - I agree wholeheartedly with Teddy, but he leaves out an important aspect. We need to learn from our mistakes and failures in order that we not fail again and again for the same reasons. To do so requires an open mind. Perhaps what seems an attack is actually constructive criticism. Perhaps there is a valid reason we hear the same criticism over and over.
Please remember the many men and women who struggle to maintain small neighborhood restaurants and retail shops every day. They are not simply ‘critics’, they too are in the arena, a different but related arena to yours, and many do their best to promote local wines, often taking lower margins to help them move and valuable shelf space that could be used for faster selling higher margin offerings.
Not all retailers can afford Ferraris, just as not all wine producers are entertainment moguls who don’t require that their wineries turn a profit ☺
Thank you Jim, and to be clear, it is sometimes difficult to not generalize when trying to make a point. I also dealt with some fantastic NY producers who where nothing but helpful and supportive and a pleasure to work with.
Of course the DRC comment was unfair. You left a hanging slider, so I swung my bat. But you’ll never convince me that it’s not a bad value. It offends me as a wine lover and wine drinker that a bottle costs that much. I wish a counterfeit on all those who purchase.
I completely agree with your assessment of the burgundy comparison, and perhaps that’s the issue confronting NY? Perhaps a good marketing plan would be to introduce a wine that “should” cost $50 at $17 and slowly increase the price as demand rises? I’m not sure the industry can afford that, and perhaps that’s the dilemma? I cannot and would not presume to tell someone how much to charge for their wine. I can, however, tell you how much I’ll be able to sell it for at my shop. When those prices are far apart, we have an issue.
You and I AREN’T that far apart, it just pains me to hear these same discussions over and over and they usually end the same way, which is why I chose to interject this time. There has to be a problem, otherwise it wouldn’t be the same thing over and over again. Perhaps I don’t know exactly what the problem is, but there is one, and I think it’s one that the industry has a hard time admitting to itself. And that, as we know, is the first step toward the solution.
We have met, very briefly, once at said roundtable above. And FYI, I do like Peconic Bay wines and I even remember some of them being good values. How about that!
If you’d like to get together, set up that tasting and I will gladly come out east with my coworker Amy Zavatto. We’ll bring the Meursault and Beauj Blanc!!
We’re going to set this tasting up — probably for post-harvest time this fall/winter.
Jim and I are already working on it.
“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a wide-spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible”
Bertrand Russell
My experience with NY wines is expanding, but so far I think it would be fair to say that values do exist and doing some searching to find them is required. As I have experienced 3-4 consecutive vintages from several different Finger Lakes producers, Weimer, Red Newt, Ravines to name a few, I have been impressed with the consistency of quality despite vintage variations due to weather. The prices I have been paying at the wineries for a range of styles has been reasonable, but I have had the benefit of tasting most of them first.
My exposure to the wines from elsewhere around the state is growing through the Empire State Cellars Wine Club. I will likely have more to say after a few more club shipments as tastings.
One of my biggest reasons to support NY wines is that having met some of the players I am personally interested in supporting what they are doing. Being able to connect with the people because of the wine being made locally AND that I find many I like is a winning combo for me. So it is a local thing to a degree. There just isn’t nearly as much opportunity for this level of interaction with wine from outside the region and even more so outside the US. Wine is made locally in NH where I live and I do patronize some of the wineries who I have found good wines at. The people are likewise personable and interesting, but there isn’t as much wine and not as much I like as from outside the region. NY is a more solid bet for me at the moment. I also make wine so I can be selective or exploratory with the wine I buy because there is plenty around to drink!
Jason
The simple fact is drink what you like and don’t get all caught up in what others write, think, say or promote. Be your own person.
Edward
Jim Silver - excellent points and rebuttals. You are so right. Rich - excellent and appropriate quotes. I’ll be interested to see what comes of the fall tasting and if Ben will see the light.
“If we’re always guided by other people’s thoughts, what’s the point in having our own?”
― Oscar Wilde
Since Ben has invoked my name (and volunteered my car and driving skills), I’m in. : )
This discussion is great, and very much worth having, and I’m very excited by how it is simultaneously reasonable and passionate. I don’t have much to add, except one point that’s sticking in my mind about distributors: This past winter, I took my first trek to the FLX and found much to love, as well as some things that were, honestly, very forgetable (and I believe, at this point in my career, I can say that, no surprise, this is the same in any wine region). There was one producer I visited whose wines I thought were well-made and very good — and, in the true quality/price-ratio sense of the word — honest to goodness value. They had a Pinot that I was especially excited about. When I went to try to find the wine, it was no where. Their distributor: Southern. The wine: buried. I don’t know that I believe that distrubutors push NY wines out (that implies something sinister and calculated, and what’s the point unless there’s an axe to grind? which I highly doubt in most instances).
But I do think there still exists ignorance, and that NY wines are still by and large a hand sell, and that’s the sticking point for a sales person who’s just trying to get in and get out. I’ve met some great sales people who are incredibly passionate and who will do that hand sell on a wine, be it from some dinky region in Italy, or difficult-to-pronounce Greek grape varietals, or NY. I’ve met others who obviously don’t give a fig and who are lazy and just spew nonsense and, sadly, sell wines based on popularity. (“Consumers just love this!”) Bleh.
I don’t know that there’s anything to be done about that - passion doesn’t necessarily feed a family or get you on vacation — but I am heartened by what I view is a big shift in some consumer’s attitudes (not all, of course). In my very, very unscientific observations — raised in eastern Long Island and seeing the wine industry get going, living in NYC for 20 some-odd years, writing about wine for 10 or so, et al — I see change that makes me believe we’re getting to the point where juding wines based on their own merit, as opposed to their merit as a NY wine, isn’t so far fetched.
And, oh, one more thing: I love NY wine. : )
The last time distributors were “brand builders” was 1985 or so. Today, if your wine is buried its because you let it get that way. Presence, communication, attention and assistance from the winery TO the distributor is how it gets done. I think a lot of wineries think that the distributor is doing the heavy lifting for them. In fact, in today’s market (especially given the consolidation) the salespeople have a thousand priorities every day - if you want to be one of them you need to actively support your brand - very actively.
the unfortunate epithet “good for new york” is bigoted shorthand that damns with faint praise. this idea like so much prejudice is lamentable whenever it occurs in wine or in life. for those of us passionate enough to have a bankable account of cultural currency, there is a responsibility to invest in what we love.
one of the delightful challenges of connoisseurship is to understand how something has value. this includes perception, history, terroir, flavor profile and every little morsel of poetry down to the name of the dog. it is here we must spend our cultural currency discovering and defining why a wine is good, great or lamentably terrible, while combating ignorant expectations that a wine should be what it is not.
new york wines have a profound diversity of value, from the interestingly saccharine entry level wines of bully hill and other semi-sweet wines that defy serious aficionados to take them seriously, yet offer unique opportunities to experience styles and varietals that simply do not exist anywhere else in the world but are instantly and passionately dismissed as plebeian, to humorlessly serious boutique wines that capture the magic of unique terror and the arts of viticulture and vinification that reach undeniably into the upper echelons of excellence.
as the region continues to discover it’s unique typicite and terror, i hope the factions, jaded by parkerization, who frequently complain that the reds are too thin, will allow a little space to learn from the vins de savoy east of the rhone, and the fragile, elegant wines that have no ambitions to be macconais. new york wines are frequently high in acidity and relatively subtle in their flavor profile, but that doesn’t necessarily make them weak, just because they lack the over extraction that kicks you in the palette and has become more lusted after than silicone implants.
there are of course wines that meet the challenge of heroic amplitude in new york. since many of you seem to be in touch with north fork, i would encourage you to indulge in the pindar mythology, and if you can find a bottle or make it to seneca lake, the silver thread blackbird.
wine is made in all fifty states these days and while many will compare unfavorably to wineries that benefit from economies of scale, in the minds of consumers with a myopic perception of what’s in the glass, they are all interesting in their own right if only for their description of place, regardless of their ability to neatly fit the procrustean bed of international style.
it is as reasonable to forgive the mass demographic for neglecting these priorities as it is to encourage them to explore or jump on the bandwagon. it is also important to forgive the mild charity of buying local for the prejudices that expect the sacrifice in perceived value.
some wines are better than others, and unique pallets squabble with expectations, but when we trouble ourselves with wondering if new york wines are as good as other regions, we should be mindful that other wines aren’t as new york, and cherish the delicious tapestry of wine from every corner of this round world of ours.
sven
I love this comment
Great discussion. I would have added to it, but came late and see that anything I had to say has been said. Jim Silver, you have done a particularly wonderful job with your responses.
Back to the quotes from the book: I’ve been around this biz for nearly 30 years; been a wine producer, a distributor sales rep, and a retailer-plus, been a wine writer with articles and books under my belt. It is not difficult for me to pick out ill-informed opinions. The quotes Evan provided are from an ill-informed perspective, but I will read the whole book to discover if the author is ill-informed across the board or only regarding New York wine.
Oh, I forgot to say one thing: in my opinion, LI Cabernet Franc should be compared with Bordeaux not with the Loire. Finger Lakes Cabernet Franc compares with the Loire.
Of course, i could also be ill-informed
Not ill informed at all, I’d say that’s pretty dead on.
I think if you’re going to generalize, this is a fair comment, Thomas.
Winery-to-winery style variations make that a tough generalization, but overall it’s hard to disagree.