You incorrectly discount the impact of the Franzia Bros + cousin on the wine world. Any reference to beer and Augie Busch is misplaced. You really should turn the beer/wine comparison on its head.

What Bronco did for expanding the reach of wine, Boston Lager did for microbrews. Brewsters needed to appreciate the difference between the King Kong of Beers and craft beers.

Conversely, the potential wine consumer needed to appreciate that decent vin ordinaire/vin de table could be produced in the U.S. that was a definite improvement on Inglenook and Almaden.

The Bronco stable of brands–couldn’t resist the pun–of under $10 wines, and especially two dollar wines, offers a tremendous value and has contributed significantly to boosting the appeal of vino to a beer drinking, tea drinking and booze drinking public.

Voting is now closed and major congratulations to Eric LeVine for taking home the trophy! I will post in the next day or three (given the holiday weekend) letting readers know.

On a related note, I was also glad that Paul Krugman referred to the 2000-2009 period as The Naughties! (Even if he opted for The Big Zero in the end–and based on his description, one might not exactly want to epitomize that decade.)

Eric is absolutely correct that GaryVee could have won this with 90% of the vote with a single ‘tweet’ or mention on his show. I’m not sure why he didn’t, especially since his Cork’d product is still attempting to compete with CellarTracker.

Playing Devil’s Advocate, the past decade has seen the explosion of the internet as a marketplace and, more recently, as a medium for social interaction and collaboration. I have no problem seeing the honor go to the person who has done the most to bring the world of wine together with the internet.

Eric has donated CellarTracker, its million+ reviews, its database 700,000+ wines, its wiki, its forums, and all its functionality to the world. I have never seen CellarTracker be about Eric himself, and for me, that’s what sold me on Eric vs. Gary or Bob who seem determined to make their name a household word.

“Miles” (Giamatti) and Theise have, IMHO, too narrow an influence and probably lack any long-term impact.

If the Wine Person of the Decade should be someone who advanced the culture of wine, voting in Casella or Franzia would have been like the voting in August Busch IV as “Beer Person of the Decade.” Pedaling a passable, mass-produced product doesn’t do a damn thing to expanding palates and growing the industry when everything that comes is just a slight variation on “red table wine.” At least with Tiger Woods being named Athlete of the Decade by ESPN, it acknowledged how he raised the GAME of golf and brought it mainstream. Golf is better because of Tiger; I wouldn’t say that Wine is better because of John or Fred.

For Shin & Yoko, the voting currently shows them with -1% of the vote cast. Clearly the math is a little wonky, but they don’t appear to be as well known outside of their market.

http://forums.winespectator.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/6826053161/m/991106196

Gary had Tweets and forum threads from all of his employees, one example on his own board: http://forums.winelibrary.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=29973

And GV probably can win with a single Tweet to his nearly 900,000 followers, but he opted not to.

Of course Gary and I have a clear advantage in any Internet driven poll somewhat by definition.

-Eric

You aren’t being quite straight with your comment. While I continue to support the use of CT to inform wine buying decisions for the public (not just for its members), you most certainly did solicit votes from CellarTrackers, which I don’t think GV did of Veyniacs (I think all the static he’s received of late might be making him pull in his horns a bit). You placed a boldfaced headline across your homepage indicating that there was a balloting occurring on Dr. Vino’s site tantamount soliciting votes, which is really OK. But it does support Blake’s comment that your forum gave you a distinct advantage in tabulating votes.

Love the new UI and the 10 minute video overview. I know we’ll see it in 2010.

TOM

Ahhhh, well, I guess the connoiseurs among this group greatly outnumber the rest in this contest. I will “try” CT (like Yellow Tail) to see if I like it.

DaveN, you are correct on decades. I now recall through the murky mist of my mind we “century snobs” had our ringing in of the 21st on Dec 31 2000. No whine before its time?

It’s only absurd that CT is leading if you continue to forget that the contest is about “epitomizing” the decade, not necessarily influencing or touching the most people. If cheap, mostly inferior wine epitomizes the decade for you, then Yellowtail is the obvious choice. And that’s not a slam, one can’t dismiss the value movement — especially these last couple of years.

My comment regarding Yellowtail vs CT was only made in response to the implication that Yellowtail led to the explosion of wine connoisseurs in the US and therefore to CT. If that were the case, Yellowtail would be more prevalent on CT. IMHO CT’s popularity has everything to do with the tens of thousands of us who cursed eBob’s crappy tracking offerings and found excel inefficient long before Yellowtail came on the scene. There was the classic case of a market just waiting for a solution.

But understand, most of the people that are drinking Yellow Tail don’t track their wine with Cellar Tracker. The consumers of Yellow Tail buy their wine to drink it with dinner that night.

That’s why I find it absurd that Eric and Cellar Tracker are leading this poll. Cellar Tracker touches me and you which is a very small minority of wine consumers. Don’t, for a minute, think that those who are reading and voting here or using Cellar Tracker are purchasing more than 1% of the wine sold around the world. We are the minority and it’s arrogant (snobbish maybe) to think otherwise.

Bob.

There’s no doubt that many Americans experience difficulty in appreciating the world beyond our borders but actually it appears that your bias is showing as much as any American-centric bias that may exist in this poll. First, other than being in English and begun by an American, how is CT American-centric? Outside of the language, there’s absolutely nothing about the site that promotes, favors, or in any way advantages Americans or American wines. In fact, some of the most active forum participants are from outside of the states (and Europe). The vast majority of the most popular bottles held and ratings are for French wines. With regard to Parker, sure he is American but obviously his impact and what he epitomizes (the advent of widely accepted ratings to help consumers through a very complex environment) extend well beyond America. Just ask the French producers who’ve pocketed all that extra profit.

Second, relative to your insult of American drinking habits, could it be that the move toward pinot noir, while made possible by a comment in a blockbuster movie, simply reflects greater awareness and preference for a varietal many had not tried? Malbec may be the fastest growing varietal now and I don’t recall it being mentioned in a movie so that would suggest to me that American consumers are just open to new experiences and values. (Yellowtail wasn’t mentioned in a movie either though I realize it’s popularity here may cause you to look further down your nose at us uneducated, unworthy slobs.) If anything, taken together, these examples show the kind of independent thought you demand. Should I be critical of the French for having such a lack of independent thought that they can barely stock American wines in their stores? No, there are a myriad of other factors in play that one can accept if you move beyond your biases.

So, take a look in the mirror. Yes, for better or worse we are a huge portion of the market and, therefore, at times the influence of American’s in virtually anything can seem out of whack. But to call it a bias is a knee-jerk reaction that reeks of the lack of thoughtfulness that you yourself bemoan.

Last, help me out. Which non-Americans would you nominate as epitomizing the decade? Maybe you have a valid point and I just can’t see it because of my perception of your bias.

But we’re not talking about a person’s age in decades (as people do have a year when they are age 0 as you say), but rather the calendar decades. As there was no “year zero” (the end of 1 BC/BCE was followed by 1 AD/CE, not by “0″), decades for the last ~2000 years would start on 1 and end on 0 (1AD-10AD), decades prior to that start on 0 and end on 1 (10BC-1BC).

Similarly, the 21st century technically began at year 2001, since the 1st century began at year 1.

I realize that the “decade” bit is largely ignored by society (or rather that most simply have not considered it and automatically think of calendar decades like personal age decades), but that doesn’t make it right.

Oh wait, we were supposed to discuss WINE? I thought it was “WHINE”, sorry!