Dr Vino's wine blog

Documentaries analyze social reality. If you want hard core social (or political or economic) analysis—you know, with data and theory—turn to academia. Even though they have nowhere near the amount of viewers as feature films, documentaries do however attract a larger audience than academia while being a similar sort of endeavor. So it was with great relish that I went to see Mondovino, the controversial new documentary about globalization in the wine world that opened in March in New York and rolls out in small movie houses across the country over the next few weeks.

If the film were a paper from one of my political science students, I would have returned it with lots of red ink in the margins. “AWK” (awkward!), “elaborate further,” “need stronger intro,” “redundant” might be things that I would scrawl. I will save my grade for the end of this review.
Though the documentary has some wonderfully candid moments of wine world luminaries, it remains scattershot in its argument and jiggly in its camerawork thanks to the camera’s midriff location on the cameraman. Though this film has been compared to Michael Moore’s documentaries for the similar styles of pamphleteering, Moore remains light years ahead of director Jonathan Nossiter in terms of coherence, presentation of argument, use of music and overall rhythm—not to mention humor.

If Nossiter could have clearly articulated his argument it would have run something like this: greater globalization in the wine trade, including corporations, critics and traveling consultants, has lead to a homogenization of wines that robs them of a sense of place. In short, brand equals bland. A voiceover narrative would have helped articulate this more clearly but instead Nossiter relies on suggestion, the fast edit, or worse, vague innuendo, to merely suggest his thesis.

It is the great fear of all wine geeks that we will be banished forever to a future of bland wines. But there is also the possibility that corporations with deep pockets will use profits from low-end wines to subsidize the production of profound high-end wines. Or that committed enthusiasts will start small, craft wineries. Certainly Champagne houses have shown that brands are not necessarily bland and can work very well at the high-end. Premium wines are the fastest growing category in the drinks business after all and competition is fierce.

The evidence that Nossiter provides to support his claim fits about as well as 12 bulky bottles of Turley fit in a regular wine case. To start, the Mondavi Corporation serves as the main lens for his tale of the perils of globalization. This is problematic because Robert Mondavi has done much more good than harm for the California wine industry-and the creation of a wine and food culture in America, soon to be the largest market for wine consumption in the world. Further, the corporation’s financial and management problems brought it to its own demise as an indepdenent entity when Constellation bought the company last fall.

Similarly, Robert Parker and Michel Rolland have contributed to globalization in their roles as all-powerful wine critic and “flying winemaker” respectively. But the wines that they advocate are “hedonistic fruit bombs” – anything but bland! Sure, some could quip that Parker’s palate is tired or Rolland’s apparent obsession with the one-size-fits-all solution of “micro-oxygenization” is too much, but net-net these global players have done a lot to raise the quality of wine around the world, not to lower it.

Certainly if one were crudely carving up the wine world into good and evil, American wine wholesalers would be an easy target even though they do not figure in the film. Consolidation of this middle tier of distribution means that the players become more focused on the products of big companies (to wit, Diageo, the largest drinks firm in the world now insists that its wholesalers have exclusive sales teams dedicated to their products). Do wine consumers in, say, Florida have access to the wines of Nossiter’s folk heroes, from Sicily or Guibert from Languedoc? Possibly not. In this light, Parker and his ratings are entirely optional; whether a wine is available at the local store is not.

In the end, all papers must get a grade and I give this movie a C-. (For those of you who finished your formal education long ago, grade inflation has made C- the new F.) Nossiter appears to have many raw talents such as his ability to conduct interviews in idiomatic English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese. The topic is fascinating and important and very amenable to the camera lens. And even the argument may be salvageable with more thorough evidence and less repetition. I’ll consider this a rough draft.

Mrs. Vino and I recently dined with some friends at Chicago’s fashionable restaurant, Green Zebra, when I admitted to booking a ticket on Southwest Airlines. Our dining companions looked aghast. Had I committed a social faux pas among the trendy diners by confessing budget-mindedness? “Don’t fly Southwest,” one dining companion blurted out. “They give to Republicans.”

With Americans still feeling the election’s split into red states and blue states, many consumers follow the money that flows from places they shop into politics. Wine enthusiasts, a bunch with inquiring minds, might also want to know similar information. Thanks to the Center for Responsive Politics, such an undertaking is now an easy proposition.

The table below shows the political contributions of the big liquor interests. The original data were sorted by amount but I sorted by strength of party contribution to help those consumers who view their wines as red or blue identify the political color of their wine more quickly.

The wine, beer, and liquor industry still remains a relatively small player in terms of political contributions: many industries such as lawyers, real estate, and oil, greatly outstripped the whole drinks industry in the 2004 election cycle (about $11 million). The political color of the donations, now 63% “red,” has tilted toward Republicans over the past fifteen years, although there is also a tendency toward favoring incumbents.

Traditionally, this category has been a small political donor because the range of issues has been narrowly focused on alcohol taxes and regulations. However, the National Beer Distributors has recently increased their donations and shifted the focus toward making the repeal of the estate tax permanent. Their members include family-owned distributorships.

While this data captures information from some wine makers as well as some distributors of beer and wine, the Center for Responsive Politics does not provide easy information on retailers. The retail end of wine sales had been consolidating too: Costco and Sam’s Club account for about a third of all wine sold in the US. Although polarized, there is some equality among the two big retailers since Costco executives give heavily to Democrats while Wal-Mart (which owns Sam’s Club) executives give mostly to Republicans.

Source: Center for Responsive Politics

Korbel does nobody any service when they state “champagne” on the label. It raises the expectations of the consumer and then demolishes the reputation of Champagne producers, on whom they free ride.

The WTO ruled in favor of the EU in a dispute over the protected place names. The US was not a signatory to the 19th century Madrid convention and thus has opted out, allowing use of the word champagne (not to mention “hearty Burgundy”).

This would be a welcome move.

It’s good to be back in action after a brief hiatus. Cheers.

Chicago, Feb. 18

Strict rules governing French wine labels will change to allow the optional placement of the grape varietal alongside the region said Robert Beynat yesterday in Chicago. The chief executive of VinExpo, the biennial trade show in Bordeaux, said that the changes will be officially announced during the June trade event as the appellation system celebrates its 70th anniversary.

An effort to attract more consumers in foreign markets is motivating the change to a marketing style more in line with wines produced in non-European countries. Beynat presented data from a VinExpo/IWSR 2005 study that showed sales of French wines, once the most imported wines in America, have now slipped to third place behind Italy and Australia. The rapid rise of Australian wines has relied not only on an accessible style of wine but also successful marketing that includes grape varietals, such as shiraz or chardonnay, as well as brands.

“The challenge for France today is to make the wine that the consumer wants,” said Beynat. “We need to concentrate and simplify our offer.”
Thus the prospect of consumers being able to select a syrah from the Chateauneuf-de-Pape region is not far off. The only question is whether it would be labeled under the Australian name for the grape, a shiraz?

With declining consumption in the domestic market, often attributed to tougher enforcement of laws against drunken driving, French wine makers are taking exports seriously. Although the French still export the most wine worldwide by volume and by value, their proverbial glass is decidedly half-empty and industry-wide efforts to reform are gaining speed.
Is there shiraz in your Chateauneuf?

The American market is crucial since the VinExpo study shows that a sharp rise in wine consumption will make the US the largest market for wine consumption in the world by 2008. The study forecasts 26% rise in consumption in the five years to 2008.

Supermarkets account for over half the wine sales in America and almost 80% in Britain, the other fast-growing market for wine consumption. While supermarket consumers may know their cabernet from their chardonnay they may not understand the intricacies of the 466 French wine appellations. Thus the decades-old French system is assuming a New World twist.

Placing the grape varietal on the label will remain optional and it is unlikely that many of the best known producers in Bordeaux or Champagne will enact the change. But their exports are already strong. The reform is aimed at helping the lesser-known producers in the competitive $5 – $15 price category. Wine that cannot be sold as wine in France is regularly distilled into alcohol. But for the first time an equivalent of 22 million cases of appellation wine, much of it from Bordeaux, was announced last month. This underscores the extent of the crisis now facing the French wine trade.

The grape varietal has been allowed on wines classified as vin de pays since the 1980s but not on appellation wines, which generally fetch a premium in the market and account for 55% of French wine production. Rene Renou, the head of the wine branch of the National Institute of Appellations (INAO) has championed this plan since last year.

In an interview yesterday, Beynat admitted that the plan had been delayed as the regional interests in French wine discussed the merits of the plan. The major appellation producing regions such as Bordeaux, Burgundy and Champagne support the plan but winegrowers in the Languedoc have seen the plan as a threat to the vin de pays system prevalent in the area since they can already state the grape varietal on the label. But according to Beynat, the minister of agriculture and INAO’s Renou will announce the reform on June 21 at VinExpo.

Changing the label is but one step in a helping the ailing French industry. Consolidation has been a major trend in the global wine industry and France has a fragmented industry. Bordeaux alone has over 10,000 growers while Australia has some 1,600 wineries and the US a total around 4,000.

Lingering anti-French sentiment from the diplomatic incidents surrounding the start of Iraq war may represent another obstacle in the American market. Although Juanita Duggan, president of the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers Association, declared last month in Paris that with the elections in Iraq, the diplomatic differences taken out on French wine remain largely relegated to the past.

The declining value of the dollar is another headwind for all exporters of wine to the US since it makes their products more expensive in dollar terms.

One of my Italian friends told me several years ago that “for export” on Italian foodstuffs generally means “lower quality.” Exaggeration to be sure, but his point was that nobody in Italy eats spinach pasta.

What are Americans dumping on the wine export markets? Why, Blossom Hill, Gallo, and Fetzer.

While the weak dollar policy has not yet tamed trade deficits for the economy at large, it is somehow working for the wine industry. Exports to Europe are up and total exports are at a high, now standing a mere 42% below the quantity of wine imported. (story)

Italy, which has one of the highest per capita consumption rates, has been developing a taste for American wine. With 33,000 cases of American wine imported in 2003, in the first 11 months of 2004 they have imported 638,000 cases. I’d better call my friend and see what “American wine” means in Italy.

What do you do if you have 250 million liters of extra wine lying around? Why burn it of course.

The wine cooperative organization CCVF and the FNSEA want to distill what they consider France’s excess wine and have requested €300m (US$390.8m) in public funds for it. While it is not unusual for such a prolific producer to siphon off a part of the national production, it is shocking that 200 million liters of that excess will be appellation (AOC) wines, about 8% of national AOC wine production. Usually that undignified fate is reserved for lowly table wines.

With 466 wine appellations right now in France, not only is it difficult for consumers to keep track of them but the AOC grade has clearly not saved the skin of many producers who make wine that has no commercial market. In a surprising development, this includes wine from Bordeaux.

The French regulatory body, INAO, has strict rules on what it takes to become an appellation. As they currently contemplate reform, considering what it takes to remove the appellation status if the terroir makes it commercially non-viable may be a logical next step.

Severely limited in advertising wine since 1991, French winemakers appear poised to be able to market their products more after a bill passed the French Senate.

The Loi Evin, has been the bete-noire of the French wine industry since its passage in 1991. It has been blamed for contributing to the decades-long decline in French wine consumption. Wine consumption among young French in their 20s has declined sharply and the thinking in the wine industry is that more marketing will better capture this generation that prefers the heavily marketed beer or soda.

However, supporters of the Loi Evin point to France’s high level of road fatalities, nearly twice that of the UK. Limiting alcohol is the best way to make the roads safer in their view (although one group in the south of France wanted to remove all the trees that so often line the roads in French departements.)

The campaign against drunken driving has taken its toll on the marginal and mainstream players in the wine industry. In a recent interview, a wine authority in Paris told me that, diners, limited to one drink if they intend to get behind the wheel, now choose to forgo the aperitif. As a result the makers of the sweet vin doux naturel, a common aperitif in France, are suffering. But the campaign has hurt consumption of other wines as well.

More marketing is not a panacea. To date, French wine ads even in America have been much more bland than their full-bodied wines. Better get the creative juices flowing and come up with a good ad campaign.

Or else start subsidizing the metro!

“Spanish wine producers are up in arms after the foreign minister said Bordeaux was his favourite wine,” writes Decanter.

The head of the Spanish wine producers’ association, FEV, encouraged Miguel Ángel Moratinos to “remedy his ignorance” about Spanish wines. Poor guy. He doesn’t know what he’s missing! Dipomacy starts at home!