Dr Vino's wine blog

“I wouldn’t wash the family dog with it,” said the New England innkeeper where Mrs. Vino and I had our wedding reception. Cava, the object of his condescension, is a sparkling white wine from Spain. Although sparkling white wine and champagne are essentially the same thing why are they different in the innkeeper’s mind? Is it worth paying through the nose for champagne?

People in the wine industry love the last quarter of the year. That’s because we love to drink wine at our celebrations. Almost three-quarters of the year’s sales occur in the last three months. While Thanksgiving and Christmas may be limited by country or religion, New Year’s Eve is a global bash and champagne dominates it. “If everyone in the world had just one glass of champagne…” Or so the logic went for the millennium when sales were brisk and rumors spread about a potential champagne shortage. In the end, the shortage did not occur and the millennium left the producers with a hangover.

Champagne, as in the stuff that James Bond drinks, comes from the Champagne region just east of Paris. In 1911 residents of several communities excluded from the official growing area staged an angry protest and troops had to be brought in to quell the demonstrations. Although those residents’ zones were ultimately included in Champagne, they were the first of many groups worldwide who would try to crack into the prestige of the term. The Champagne producers have been able to rebuff other worldwide producers of the bubbly stuff through their exclusive claims to their origins in the Champagne region. As a result we are left with Cava, Sekt, spumante, and sparkling white wine from the rest of the world.

Champagne producers obscure the varietals that they use, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. “Blanc de blanc” means it is made from Chardonnay grapes while “blanc de noir” means Pinot Noir has been included. The producers also obscure vintages as the majority of champagne comes in a non-vintage form. As a result, the champagne houses are the very model of the corporate brand that so many New World producers seek to emulate. Just give them a couple of centuries and they’re bound to catch up.

Paying through the nose is common for champagnes but not always necessary. Yes, the likes of Cristal, vintage Dom Perignon and Pol Roger are wonderful, but they are well in excess of $100 a bottle. From California, Domaine Chandon (the US arm of Moët & Chandon, part of the LVMH luxury goods empire) and Pacific Echo (now owned by Clicquot, another part of LVMH) both offer good sparklers around $12. From Spain, Louis de Vernier has a good dry Cava for $9, but Cava uses the local grape varietals that some people, such as my innkeeper, find objectionable. However, the Brits have grown to love Cava over the past decade. In the highly competitive UK market, Cava now accounts for 47% of sparkling wine sales, up from only 7% in 1991 according to a recent report on winebusiness.com.

If you feel the need to get your bubbly from Champagne itself, good values are available around $25. Look for the non-vintage brut (dry) wines from Piper-Heidsieck, Louis Roederer, and Lansonfor a particularly good price to quality ratio.

Two main vocabularies have emerged in worldwide wine production to indicate quality. The first, common in the New World countries (basically the world ex-Europe), indicates the grape varietal on the label. The second, common in Old World countries (Europe), indicates the growing area. Fluency in each vocabulary is essential as both are on the rise.

In Europe, particularly France, quality has been traditionally been rooted in place. Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and the Rhone have all indicated quality wine for centuries. The English and Dutch middle classes that imported Bordeaux wines in the 19th century, for example, knew them mainly as quality wines and wines from Bordeaux. What the place name disguised, however, was the component parts of what makes Bordeaux, namely, the grape varietals of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc.

In the United States, quality production came quite late. Only in the late 1960s did American growers and wine makers start a wholehearted focus on quality. While they were acquiring winemaking skills through trial and error as well as scientific research at the University of California (Davis) they lacked a vocabulary for transmitting that quality. Some winemakers took the place names from France making “hearty burgundy” or “champagne.” However, the French producers cracked down on these pale imitations through asserting their right to the name claims.

The 1980s solidified the American approach to varietal labeling. Kendall-Jackson, among others, started a line of Chardonnays in the $4-7 per bottle range. These “fighting varietals,” as they came to be known, were made in a clean, contemporary style and in vast quantities. They soon had a wide following, which reinforced consumer preferences for varietals not necessarily tied to a place.

At the same time American producers were carving out the varietal niche, there were signs of mutual learning and comprehension between the two vocabularies. The Americans introduced a framework in the late 1970s for region with American Viticultural Areas. Although not as strong as French appellations, the AVAs were a first step toward emphasizing the growing area. Terms such as “Napa Valley” hence had legal meaning. In a dual strategy, varietals could accompany growing areas on the label (although neither claim had to be completely fulfilled as producers were allowed 5 – 25% of the grapes used to come from other varietals or growing areas).

The French appellation winemakers have not implemented a dual strategy as varietals are prohibited on appellation labels. While this may work for the top growing areas such as Bordeaux or Burgundy, the proliferation of appellations (they have more than doubled to more than 400 over the past 30 years) means that the less well-known appellations have had an uphill struggle to build their identities. An indicator that it is working, however, is that appellation vineyard land can easily sell for three times the price of non-appellation land in Languedoc, an area where appellations have increased over the last two decades.

The French also adopted a dual strategy but not for the appellation wines. The class of vin de pays (literally, “country wine”) identifies both the region and the varietal. This category has had tremendous success since its creation two decades ago and now accounts for 25% of French annual production. While the regional claims are diffuse (the pays d’oc, a leading area, is vast) the varietal claims are strong. A Chardonnay must be 100% Chardonnay.

The corporate brand can be a third indicator of quality, but as a vocabulary, the brand is much more limited. I will save a discussion of brands for a future posting.

Thus it is clear that space remains for both vocabularies. A Sauvignon Blanc from New Zealand tastes quite different than a white Bordeaux, which is likely to have a lot of Sauvignon Blanc.

America is known for having a free market economy. But there is one area where markets aren’t so free and that is the shipment of wines. In fact, California producers can only ship to 11 states that have “reciprocal” trade. This makes for headaches for small producers and limited access for many consumers.

The production, distribution, and sale of wine—along with beer and distilled spirits—were outlawed during Prohibition. But Prohibition spanned much longer than just the 14 years (1919-1933) at the national level. As early as the 1851 Maine Law, states implemented their own state level prohibitions.

Similarly, when the passage of the 21st Amendment repealed national Prohibition, many of the states won what amounted to “opt-out” clauses and set their own state policy. As a result, some state prohibitions continued into the 1960s. Many county and municipal level controls still exist. Even for those consumers who don’t live in directly affected area, the sediment of prohibition still covers the map.

This patchwork repeal maintained state controls over production, distribution, and sale of wine and other alcoholic beverages. For most states, not as viticulturally endowed as California, this meant concerning themselves with distribution and retail. This right has generally been given to private firms within each state but some states, notably Pennsylvania, maintain state ownership over distribution and retail. All of this means that—unlike books or electronics—simply getting quality wine from producers to consumers is tightly controlled.

Pressures are mounting for this situation to change. Some hail technology as the force that tears down these barriers. As internet usage increases, consumers will become more informed (by reading drvino.net for example!), compelling firms to offer wine sales over the internet. But it is actually increased airline security that has led to the first legal loosening. Last week, Congress passed a bill that allows out-of-state tourists to west coast wineries to ship their purchases home. Although this affects only a handful of states and an even smaller percentage of wine consumers, it is a sign that the winds of change are blowing.

As tantalizing as the prospect of change might be, it is unlikely to occur quickly for several reasons. First, many of the firms that aspired to sell wine over the internet have failed. Second, states and local authorities collect significant revenue from wine (and beer and spirits) that they would lose through direct shipments. Third, the political weight of distributors is significant both at the local and state level where they are large political contributors as well as at the national level where their industry organization is on the Republican Party’s “Team 100” of top political donors.

It is a paradoxical situation that a country that prides itself on free trade has such restrictions on shipping quality wine but one that unfortunately looks likely to endure.