How The Wine World Was Set On The Path Of Homogenization
My Thoughts
By now I think I've made my opinion perfectly clear on wine writers and the idea of describing and rating wines. The brief couple of sentences dedicated to a wine do very little in the way of informing the consumer about what they can expect once they've opened a bottle. What are the wines acidity levels, how firm are the tannins, are the alcohol levels in balance with the rest of the wine, what dish would you pair with the wine? Saying a wine has notes of lemon does very little for someone who's never had a lemon before.
In regards to the numerical rating system, while a score of 89 points versus a score of 90 points is only a one point difference in any other setting, it can literally destroy the future of a winery. I've seen it too many times to count. An otherwise okay selling wine will score a 90 point rating one vintage, buyers will buy pallets of it, literally not able to get enough of it and then, when the next vintage is released and it receives a paltry 89 points, those very same buyers will completely drop the wine, despite the fact that they sold tons of it the year before. All because it lost one measly point and there's another 90 Point wine ready to take its place. In the retail setting, it's far easier to sell a wine based on a numerical value than it is to sell a wine with anything resembling passion.
Consumers have been trained to equate 90 points to good and 89 points to bad. They are literally resistant to buy a wine that is rated under 90 points. When you boil down something as subjective as wine to a simple number, everyone starts chasing the score. Consumers, buyers, and, eventually, winemakers.
Winemakers manipulate their wines either through over-ripening, the selection of specialty yeasts, micro oxidation, reverse osmosis, extended oak aging, or any other technique developed to achieve maximum extraction, flavor, and alcohol levels. When one of the most influential wine critics has a particular style that he's partial to, winemakers learn to give said wine critic what he desires; wines high in alcohol, tannin, and flavor showing very little in the way of restraint.
At one point in my history of wine sales, buyers would taste wines and evaluate them based on their merit. The buyers would ask themselves is the wine worthy of being added to their shelf? When there is precious little shelf space to waste, a wine that doesn’t deliver is either not going to be brought in for sale or will quickly be relegated to the dustbin of close out wines. The trust built between the wine buyers and their customers allowed them to sell wine based on personal recommendations. Now, with the proliferation of wine ratings, buyers buy based on the score the wine receives, in some instances regardless of which publication actually rated the wine. So long as someone, somewhere gave it 90 points, it’ll make it on the shelf along with a little tag declaring this wine a "90+ Pointer".
And consumers who would otherwise take a risk on a relatively unheard of wine now ask if the wine has a rating. If it doesn’t have the ubiquitous score, they move on to a “safer” choice, one that has at least 90 points. One that they can be sure will be looked upon with approval when they present it to their friends in their tasting clubs. And when they are asked the inevitable question “How many points did Spectator give it?,” they can answer with confidence, “Oh I made sure it received at least 90 points, I'm not an amateur.”
The logical conclusion of this “arms race for a rating” is the globalization of wine styles; it’s simple cause and effect. Winemakers the world over have figured out the formula to achieve the score that wine buyers need in order to sell to a consumer that has little to no confidence to make a wine buying decision on their own. And now we're in a world where you can’t differentiate between a Malbec from the south of France compared to one from the Uco Valley or a Chardonnay from Sonoma Coast compared to one from Chablis. We've lost all sense of “terroir,” that magical word that once conveyed a sense of place; the confluence of soil and sun and land.
To be fair, there are several boutique shops throughout the state that I would highly recommend you seek out and support. These shops are where the passion is still found. As soon as you cross their thresholds, you can instantly sense that these are places where wine is loved and appreciated.
This list is by no means exhaustive and I would love to hear any recommendation that you yourself have found. Post in the comments or feel free to send me an email.
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