Alice Feiring

[wildoates]

Ya know, I'm a free-market kind o' gal, and I firmly believe that mass marketing wine is a good thing for all involved. Most of us cannot afford to spend $500 on a bottle of free-range wine (so to speak), but with the de-mystification of wine so the common folk can both afford and appreciate it (even if it's not expensive or vintage wine), more people have started to drink the Yellow Tails of the wine world. This is only for the good, for a whole host of reasons:

• Vintners make money making an honest product for honest people who appreciate the taste and can afford to purchase it often enough to provide a tidy profit for the winemakers, however mass-produced and mass-marketed it is.
  
• Those vintners can therefore put out smaller batches of higher quality wine, which the profits of the lesser wines make possible (it takes longer to make them, and the revenue needs to keep coming in from somewhere).
  
• The average Joe and Jane get to enjoy eminently affordable and drinkable--if not of sterling vintage--wine with their fish and fowl and they are then introduced to, the idea at least, of the pleasures of wine, as well as what they like and do not like--and are more likely to eventually venture into the more expensive wine bracket once they are more comfortable with all the above and don't feel like they're risking their hard earned money on something that they don't like and isn't worth it to them.
  
• The middlemen and -women make money too, which is also a win.

If someone wants to drink only expensive wine, I say go for it, all the power to ya, etc. But don't look down on people who put out a product that other people appreciate, just because you think it's beneath your notice. And definitely don't turn your nose up at the people who enjoy that product.

 

[TheAlchemist]

I can't wait 'til Aaron and Ken take their Wine Tour Of The World...and write their memoir about it...now that's a book I'd pay to read!

As for Alice, I don't reckon I'll be investing in her tome...

 

[chiguire]

Thanks, Aaron, for your input. I think that you make good points in your synthesis. I completely read it as a memoir and not as anything else, and while she did infuriate me, I was totally taken in by the book. I hope the read does not turn out to be a complete waste of time.

Ya know, I'm a free-market kind o' gal, and I firmly believe that mass marketing wine is a good thing for all involved. Most of us cannot afford to spend $500 on a bottle of free-range wine (so to speak), but with the de-mystification of wine so the common folk can both afford and appreciate it (even if it's not expensive or vintage wine), more people have started to drink the Yellow Tails of the wine world. This is only for the good, for a whole host of reasons:

Feiring's message is not that the only good wine is wine that is impossible to find and impossibly expensive. She is an advocate of good price-points as well. I have nothing against the Yellow Tails of the world. I am a beer and wine snob, and while I do not regularly enjoy drinking Yellow Tails and Budweisers, I do recognize that there is a place and consumer for those things -- and I have been known to drink both if the setting is appropriate.

 

[chiguire]

As for Alice, I don't reckon I'll be investing in her tome...

It is not a tome. It is a short and light read...

 

[akueck]

I haven't been totally engrossed in the book, but I am nearly done at this point. (been kind of busy...)

I think my takeaway here is that it would be a blast to taste with this woman. But not being able to have an actual conversation with a printed book is rather frustrating. I think she'd be a lot more fun in person.

Also she needs to spend some time in the New World. Not all organic, biodynamic, wild yeast, "authentic" wines are made in western Europe. If she's interested, I'd gladly take her on a tour of some of our favorites back in CA.

 

[akueck]

All done! If someone else wants to read it, shoot me a PM and I'll mail it off.

 

[crowquill]

I'm coming in late to this discussion, but I read Feiring's book awhile ago and found it absolutely delightful. She's opinionated but there's also a sly sense of humor that I enjoyed even when I disagreed with her. I'm generally sympathetic to her view of wine, but I'm nowhere near as dogmatic. I even like a Parkerized fruit bomb now and again.

As to the biodynamic agriculture -- yeah, that stuff sounds wacky and I don't believe burying a cow horn is really helping the wine. But at the same time, I think the best sangiovese I ever tasted came from one of those growers. I'm happy to shrug my shoulders and take another sip when the topic comes up.

 

[chiguire]

I'm coming in late to this discussion, but I read Feiring's book awhile ago and found it absolutely delightful. She's opinionated but there's also a sly sense of humor that I enjoyed even when I disagreed with her. I'm generally sympathetic to her view of wine, but I'm nowhere near as dogmatic. I even like a Parkerized fruit bomb now and again.

As to the biodynamic agriculture -- yeah, that stuff sounds wacky and I don't believe burying a cow horn is really helping the wine. But at the same time, I think the best sangiovese I ever tasted came from one of those growers. I'm happy to shrug my shoulders and take another sip when the topic comes up.

Thanks, crowquill, for chiming in!

 

[akueck]

I must agree, I'm actually aligned pretty well with a lot of her views. It's that "dogmatic" part you mention that gets me. She's really against Parker deciding what is "good" and what is "bad" in the wine world, but at the same time she is basically saying that it should be her who is the arbiter. To me, this is either hypocritical or due to a touch of mania. Perhaps you need to be manic to travel around Europe drinking tons of wine.

Also, why no mention of wine regions outside France, Spain, and Italy (except with derision)? If she's really trying to be worldly, there is a lot of world out there beside southwestern Europe. Heck, she lives in NYC but doesn't even give a nod to the local wines on Long Island. Admittedly, I've only had a few from there I like, but I'm not going to write off the whole region for not being French enough.

 

[chiguire]

I must agree, I'm actually aligned pretty well with a lot of her views. It's that "dogmatic" part you mention that gets me. She's really against Parker deciding what is "good" and what is "bad" in the wine world, but at the same time she is basically saying that it should be her who is the arbiter. To me, this is either hypocritical or due to a touch of mania. Perhaps you need to be manic to travel around Europe drinking tons of wine.

I totally agree with what you said, Aaron. To her credit (depending on your view), she avoids the 100 point scale. But you are right, she screams hypocrisy when she turns around and tells people what is good and bad.

In regards to the 100 point scale - I also, think it is bad for the wine market. I feel like if something gets VERY low (like less that 70), it can indicate something, but I feel like the difference between 85-95 points is often about personal preference; however, that may be on account of my lack of years-and-years-and-years of wine experience...

I feel like it introduces odd behavior in wine making, buying and pricing.

For example - I drank about 3 "90 point" wines in the last couple of weeks. All were pleasurable, to me. But there was one that clearly exited me more than all of the others (a Loire Valley red - 100% Cab Franc). So what does that 90 point value really mean...?

 

[akueck]

I think wine is too broad for the 100-point scale. You can judge beers on a scale, but that is highly standardized and you are comparing your beer-being-judged to a standard exemplar. (As in, there is actually a "calibration beer" you try beforehand so you know what you're looking for in the judging.) What is the standard for wine?

Growing conditions (weather, location, rainfall, etc) play such a huge role in wine, and then you layer in the effects of yeast (whether pitched or whatever is on the grape), fermentation methodology, use of oak, aging, blending, etc. I feel like a numerical scale is meaningless unless you know what the endpoints are. "Here is a wine that scores 0. Here is a wine that scores 100." But you never see a wine advertised as scoring less than 80-something (for obvious reasons), and I doubt many score less than 70. So what does a 70-to-100 scale mean? Kudos to Parker for distilling it all down to a number, I guess, but can even he tell us what those numbers are for? Is a 90 point wine 10% better than an 80 point one? Or is it twice as good?

 

[ken_schramm]

I think if you look at Parker's 100 point scale, he gives the first 50 points for showing up in a water-tight package with a closure. The next 50 points represent quality, and that would mean that a 90 point wine would be 20% better than an 80 point wine.

You don't see reviews (or shelf talkers) for wines that Parker or others rate below 85 points or so, because the WA/Spectator/W&S view a published score on a wine as a recommendation to buy. There are too many wines with scores of 86 or higher out there to waste time and ink on 78 point spitters.

Something I have always found perplexing is the question of whether a wine can be rated X number of points (95? 100?) based on an anticipated maturity that is 10, 15 or 20 years hence. There are so many variables that go into a wine's aging - reduction, cork quality, head space and oxygen levels, brett and other microbiota - that it seems an imperfect science at best. Are they 100's now? And if you are rating young wines that have enough unresolved tannin to rival rhubarb as 95 or 100 points, where do they go once they are properly aged?