After most of the week in NY for Italian events, and coming home to make a Bordeaux tasting, which I missed, I meditated over the relationship between the French and the Italians. Over and over, during the Italian events, I kept hearing the mantra, “We’re #1” as if making and selling more wine would automatically put any country over the top.The French, does anyone think they care about those kinds of declarations? I see their claim to fame is their careful cultivation of their image as a country of small gentrified farmers coddling the land and coaxing out the best from their beloved terroir. Marketing as a fable, having gone through malolactic.
And I am not writing here to beat up on the French farmers or winemakers. Or wine lovers. But the argument that positions one great country against another, to me is just meaningless. I am a bit surprised that professionals in the Italian wine trade get worked up over such matters, unless it is just some form of argument they use when trying to justify the Italians ascendancy on the world wine stage.OK, so the Italians had me at Buon Giorno. But along the way, tasting the different wines, I am struck more by how similar they are than their differences. Maybe it is my baseline from an early time being brought up drinking the local wines of my area (California) that makes the wines from Italy and France seem more alike than not. I don’t think I have a California palate, as I prefer the wines of Europe, generally.
But lately, as if to coax myself out of my stubborn preconceptions, I have been popping red and white wines from California. Last night we opened a 2005 Chateau St. Jean Les Cinq Cépages. Out of the bottle into a quick decanting, and straight into the glass. I was drawn into the seductive quality of the wine. Fleshy, woven with aromatic ripeness. I was 15 again and looking more at the young girls in bikini’s on the beach than the waves.Did the California wine take me back to my youth? I remark to my companion that this would make a fine $25 bottle of wine. The wine, though, sells for three times that in a store, $75. That would make it $150+ in a restaurant. And out of my league.
Not that France or Italy doesn’t have similar wines that seem to be overpriced for the current state of the world. But in agriculture, the planning of these wines is made in advance of any economic downturn. And once we get into these waters, what are the wine growers supposed to do?In the wholesale (and retail) business, if you can’t sell a product at the price you had planned on and if the product sits in a warehouse or on a shelve eventually one must make way for more viable products. Discounting, close-outs, bin-end specials. These are part of the toolbox that keeps the machine cranking along. Restaurants know this too. They have happy hours, special menus (we’re starting to see specials now that aren’t just overpriced entrees) and ways to fill seats.
One thing that doesn’t seem to be working: The overpriced wine dinner. When a restaurant tries to sell, let’s say, an Opus One dinner for $395 per person, I'm thinking the message is: We have too much inventory let’s make an “elite” wine dinner up and get our best customers (and investors) in to help us clear some of this stuff out. It’s an out-of-touch idea that suggests the establishment has run out of ideas. Makes me wonder about their food, too.Meanwhile the cycle of the vine begins in a new year. In quiet little towns all across Italy and France, people are preparing their vines and their cellars for the work to begin. From the greatest crus to the humblest plots, the love and the care for the land, that these people who care for them have been entrusted, makes me shudder. We have to go forward, the earth doesn’t stop. The cycle, the cycle, the cycle.
So, here we meet. A producer in the Côte d'Or, or Rabajà, over these cold dark nights, must consider how they are going to approach not only their land, but their clients across the world. Does one lower their price and compromise their stature? Does one march on ahead leaving their loyal supporters in search of newer and maybe more elusive ones? Or does one do nothing and hope the economic cycle moves eventually upward?To my way of looking at it, to do nothing is the height of the grand cruelty to the land. The land did not proclaim itself greater than another, that was something man has decreed. And as that assertion is more symbolic than substantive, to punish the land is to only repeat the endless sins against the earth that we earthlings have been perpetuating for many, many years.
I’ve been away from the home fires for a couple of days and seem to have landed in a Dantean Purgatory for journalists. As I mentioned to a friend earlier today, I am back in the Invisible Man character. Knowing I don’t live in NY any longer (not any longer than I had to), but when one meets a person a handful of times, you’d think they’d at least try to pretend to remember you. Give it the old Hollywood try. These are folks who are writing about wine and the hospitality business? Seems they could stand to take a cue and become a little more hospitable. Not to mention the benefits from actively working with contacts like we do mulch. The new network? Meh, a lot of these folks are from the dead tree school of writing.
We're sittting in a press conference. Basically a bunch of weary Italian speakers spouting banalities about Brunello and how great Italy is. Along the way a writer (one whose book on Italian wine up to this moment I had recommended to everybody) asks the panel a question. No one on the panel answered that person. So I decided to open up my “no good deed goes unpunished” toolbox and reached on in and tried and help this writer out. After all, we’re colleagues right? Oh wait, the PR firm didn’t get my request for the luncheon so they would allow me to come to the press conference but not to the press meal. I guess they only had so much swag to go around. Not to worry, the merchant’s luncheon was much more fun.
This expert writer now scowls at me. “I am not talking about anthocyanins; everybody can get that kind of information.” At this point I am really regretting being a nice person from The West who was raised to be polite to everybody, even those afflicted with foot-in-mouth disease. I drop-kick the punt. “It appears you don’t want my information to provide you with the answer. But even if that is not what you are looking for, that is the answer.” And I turn 180 degrees and remove this person from my field of sight.
We have folks in a dying or dead industry. Journalism and book publishing. And we are attempting to exchange ideas, bring them up to speed. Remember? I am the Invisible Man, I don’t exist.
My point? Other than the endless frustration with the old school media who I have to keep reintroducing myself to at seminars (a very humbling and tedious ritual for a normally shy person like me), I think it is that you think you are going to engage in some brainstorming with fellow colleagues and what you have really done is to have landed yourself in the cockfighting ring. And for some reason, it seems to be worse with females. Maybe they have had to scratch through all those glass ceilings all those years and they are just wary of another white middle-aged male. If that’s all they see, I pity them for their apprehension. I’m not a threat. I have a day job. I don’t want their gig or their assignment or their spotlight.
Change. Yeah, everybody’s talking about it. From what I’ve seen and heard this week, though, my takeaway is this: Everybody wants everything around them to change, as long as they don’t need to be doing any of the changing themselves.
A while back I wrote that I was scaling back to 
The V.P.'s and general sales managers have been streaming out of the office to California for the end of year sales and performance reviews with the wineries, and some of them have been coming back saying we here in Texas have been showing the rest of the country how important tenacity is in these times. Having lived here all these years, I’m not sure if it is just plain stubbornness or perhaps not buying into the bicoastal American dream. You know, lots of credit, other people’s money, buy low, sell high. Or don’t even buy, just take the money and tell folks how great everything is, and don’t invest a penny. Well, we here in flyover country probably have a retinue of sins, venial and mortal on our bloodied hands, but for the time it looks like we made it through the year with only flesh wounds. We’re talking sales now folks. But 2009 is barreling past us and things are s.l.o.w.i.n.g. d.o.w.n. Duh.
I don’t mean to rant, but last week I was in two steakhouses and two Asian restaurants. The Asian places had food that seemed to be more serious. Smaller portions (and prices) higher sourcing and quality. I had a Carbonara at one of them that was better than any Italian place nearby. And I had a Bolognese at an Italian-inclined (?) concept that had nothing to do with Bolognese. So, go figure. I’m crazy. Hey, while my Austinopoli co-conspirator wants to make the world safe for Italian wine, I just want to serve man. With as little salt and garlic as possible.
I had a Petite Sirah from 
It was Tuesday at 11:50AM, Eastern Time. I got a call from someone wanting to know about a place to stay in Italy. I asked them if I could call them back after the new president took his oath and gave his speech. “What you’re listening to that used car salesman?” was the reply from the other end of the phone line.
Yesterday in the office, I was overhearing conversation after conversation with our programmers (folks who deal directly with the wineries and importers about their mutual business). I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We just finished a very difficult quarter for sales and January is traditionally a slow time. A time to catch our breath. To analyze our year and to plan our new year. But no, these well-rested (and well-tanned) winery folks wouldn’t have anything to do with that. They wanted to send palate after palate of overpriced wine into already bulging warehouses. As if they have been taking a siesta these last six months and think things are just as they have been. Business as usual. What a rude awakening they are in for.
The blatant reality is out in the streets. For two nights this week I have been in high-dollar Texas steak houses. And they have been empty. No one is picking up $150 Napa Cabs. They just aren’t. Sorry folks, but if you were to get away from your computer screen and go out and see for yourself, we wouldn’t have to push back so often.
Yes we do. But no we cant. Not right away. Not this time. If those same folks who were mocking the events in our nation’s capital had been listening that day, they would have heard that we all are going to have to make sacrifices. All of us. Well, the end of the line consumer already is making sacrifices and they still want to drink wine. But they want to be able to afford to pay for it. What is so wrong with that and why as marketers, do some of our colleagues not “get it?”
Or else what? They’ll take their products to another house? As if the conditions on the other side of the road are any different? Large or small, these times are calling for new ideas, for folks willing to sacrifice their margins, or their pride, and get on with the show. Make ‘em laugh.
Or else what? You’ll surprise all of us with an original idea? You’ll come down, off your lofty perch, and get on the dance floor? You’ll actually talk to a front-line retailer or one of those struggling steakhouses and make them see the sense of your argument? The evil of their ways?
Or the Tuscan producer whose basic Chianti Classico has been designed to sell for $25? Now it’s not selling so well. But of course it is the fault of us here in America for not understanding the value of their product. Value is not the driving force. Money is. And money has dried up. Disappeared.
When my father and his sister were born in Dallas, it wasn’t too much later that the family moved to Los Angeles. My sisters and I were born in Southern California and they still live there, as does most of my father’s family. Most of my family in California have very good business and are in good shape for the future.
Somehow, thirty years ago, I decided to move back to Texas, one step closer to the Italian reality that my grandfather left 100 years ago. And while I doubt I’ll complete my grandfather’s circle and return to Italy permanently, I somehow am attached to Italy more than my grandfather. All of this through a period of change, revolutionary change. It seems the last 100 years has been one giant change machine. And it looks like more is on the way.
I look at the life we hold up and want to continue, but know it was never sustainable. The large fast cars and even larger houses, the piles of money needed to warm a 9,000 square foot home that houses two, maybe three people, those days are coming to a close. Maybe not in two or three years, but in the next 50, most likely that will all be a memory of a time when folks took more than they needed.
Just like the book, “The Leopard", by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, which chronicled the last days of an era that had outlived its purpose, so now we are living in a time when in order for us to keep an equilibrium in our lives we must be agents for change, embracing it and moving with it. I am ready for this. Looking forward to it. This is our destiny and it is an electrifying time.
And because of the comfort zone that some folks in the Italian wine business have arrogated, I feel Italy is unwilling to go forward in these times. Some of it from hubris and some from lack of hope. But the numbers don’t lie. If Italy does not get beyond personal self-gain and self-inflicted drama, the market will leave them behind. There is too much energy coming from places like Argentina and Australia and California, wines and people who will tap into their spirit of place and send creations that will commend our new era.
Two areas, dollars and cases. Important for both because of the fluctuation of the dollar/euro exchange in 2008. For the most part, dollars showed greater increases (when they did) than cases. More with less. I analyzed sales from Italy, France, Australia, California, Japan and the whole kit and caboodle, that being everything wine, beer, spirits. Interesting year, but I already said that. It bears repeating.
Australia and Italy were neck and neck in dollars this year. Impressive showing by Italy, seeing as the bulk of the sales of Australian wine are in the Yellow Tail price range. Foster’s wine sales in Australia have been lagging and that accounted in part for the Italian/Australian photo finish. Except Italy was trending up and Australia was trending down. The Italian market is in a bit of a sweet spot because the folks, who in the past would spring for a bottle of wine, say at $40-50 retail, are now looking to the $20-30 range. And there Italy has a great range of viable products. Not Brunello or Barolo maybe, but certainly a better than average Chianti Classico, an Aglianico, Barbera, plenty of options. And Italian culture is just hitting its stride here in America. What used to be a phenomenon on the coasts now is becoming more integrated in the developing cultural life of America and how she eats and drinks. That, along with a new political atmosphere, would be in most times a moment for a spike in growth. But seeing as we are still enveloped in the world financial meltdown, I remain optimistically cautious. This isn’t the year to gamble the dance contest on a newly learned tango. Maybe something like a waltz or a rumba. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but my inner editor let it get by.
I broke the analysis down to three areas of comparison: December 2008 vs. December 2007, 4th quarter 2008 vs. 4th quarter 2007 and all of 2008 vs. all of 2007. I was looking for patterns.
California was mixed. High dollar volume and cases, but there is resistance to the prices. $60 and up California wines are dormant for now. Italy is in a good position to take some of that business, as long as we don’t let the Brunello consortium steer the ship.
Pinot Grigio, by the way, showed growth in sales from production areas outside of Italy. That would be California, Oregon, Argentina and Australia. If the trend continues at the pace it is right now, in 3-5 years more Pinot Grigio will be sold from areas other than Italy. So a country that defined a category is threatened with losing the lion’s share of the business, out-hustled by California and Australia. Today I was in a retail store and saw California Pinot Grigio’s in the set with Italian Pinot Grigio’s. The 
We’re deep in the thick of winter now. The seersucker has been shoved to the back of the closet. Wool and other warm fabrics shelter us from the cold. And our wines? What comfort are we getting from them in these days?
For some reason a 1955 Biondi-Santi Brunello comes to mind. When I drank this wine we were profoundly ensconced in the 1980’s, a decade where velour was foundering. But the wine wasn’t. I remember the color as being this deep clay going towards the ripe crimson of an early morning sunrise. And the wine had some stuffing, real meat in the flavor, something you could wrap your palate around. Gorgeous, juicy, classic Sangiovese. And gift wrapped in velour.
In the heady days when California wines were styled as big immense reds, there were too many to recall on this post. I’d have to say a wine like Randy Dunn’s Howell Mountain Cabernet, in those early days, ran the plays for everybody on the valley floor. Now we have too many players on the field and those high price tags have a lot of them looking for an arena they can play in. The 4th quarter meltdown gave ‘em all a bit of a concussion.
Is there a plush red or two we can ride for the next six months or so and get on over it? Something you can get for a 
The Italian stays true to his roots. Milk is milk, sugar is sugar and velvet is power. Velour is recombinant command. These two pictures illustrate.
