Nurse the Hate: Arguing with Podcasts

 On Sunday morning I give the bassets a longer walk than normal.  They are old and creaky now, so the walk isn’t focused on destination or distance like in the past.  Whereas most people walk their dogs “around the pond” or on “the big loop around the neighborhood”, my walk is now strictly for time.  On Sunday, especially if the weather is good, I will go for 45 minutes to an hour.  We go as far or as short a distance as they want.  They just sort of sniff around.  Meanwhile I try to maximize the time as much as possible and listen to wine podcasts to attempt to cram more information into my skull.  Krusty told me about when he was in grad school that a joke amongst students was “unless you are reading in the shower, you are falling behind”.  I totally identify.

 

I listened to a SommTV podcast this morning that rotated into my playlist after the one with the UK husband/wife MW team that gets a bit too Pure English for me despite my spending almost every waking moment with an English woman who spends her time telling me to “get my jumper” or to put something “in the boot”.  I think it’s their regular use of the phrase “isn’t it?” that wears on me.  That’s this English move where they say something that could theoretically be up for debate but gets presented as certainty.  Example:  “There’s nothing like going out to the bar with your mates and having a Stroh’s.  Stroh’s is the best beer, isn’t it?”.  No sir, it is not.  In fact, I have an episode that immediately pops into my head where I had to shit by a pine tree like a filthy animal because Stroh’s unexpectedly went through me like a freight train.  Yet, the power of that “isn’t it?” suggests that even though you have a different opinion than what the speaker just offered, it is implied that WE ALL FEEL THIS WAY, so it requires great confidence to even question whatever assertion was just made.  Do you want to argue with this English MW bloke that seems dead certain on the collective’s attitude about Stroh’s?  You’d better run a quick cost/benefit analysis before you hop into that fray.  That whole goddamn island pulls this stunt.  You can see the kind of thoughts I wrestle with walking these dogs.   

 

Anyway, I start listening to this Somm TV podcast about what the hosts like/don’t like about wine in 2022.  The items were divided into two columns.  Things they want to go away was one, and things they want to continue was the other.  After feeling pointlessly argumentative after listening to the first podcast, this immediately made me want to offer up differing opinions on the points the hosts casually tossed out.  Since the bassets didn’t care one way or the other, I decided to write it out here.

 

Beaujolais Nouveau should go away.  This is a consistent wine hipster pet peeve.  In the 1960s the Beaujolais region came up with an idea to sell their light frothy new wines by creating “Beaujolais Nouveau Day” on a designated date in November.  It is the “first wine of the vintage” as the use of carbonic maceration on the fruit forward/low tannin gamay grapes makes for a pleasant, easy drinking wine.  Essentially, they pick the grapes, ferment it, let it settle and bottle it in 2-3 months in an incredibly quick turnaround.  The producer Georges DeBeouf sold almost 1.2 million cases of this wine in the United States per year during the high water mark for the product in the 1980s.  That’s a lot of wine.

 

The hosts took a position that it was a shame that these wonderful gamay grapes were being used for this frivolous wine when it could be used for more noble and “serious” bottles like Grand Cru or even Village level bottlings.  Their point was that the Nouveau style was not worthy of the grape, as if grapes had feelings or ambitions.  This is essentially arguing that tomatoes shouldn’t be used for ketchup when they would be better used as part of a magnificent caprese salad in an upscale Italian restaurant.

 

I would counter their argument by saying that Beaujolais Nouveau accounts for 30% of the region’s total sales and to have that “go away” would be a death blow to the economy of Beaujolais.  This wine is an incredible product for the growers.  Think about a producer of grower champagne that harvests, makes a base wine, lets it age for three years, gets rid of the lees, pops in a dosage for a second fermentation, and then has to let the bottle age.  It takes at least four years to get paid on the grapes you brought in.  Meanwhile the Beaujolais producer has cash in hand 3 months after picking their fruit, and has no continuous storage costs month after month, year after year. 

 

Assuming that the hosts could successfully make Nouveau “go away”, how are producers going to make up a third of their business?  The marketing event of Beaujolais Nouveau is a double edged sword of bringing attention to the region but does focus on their lowest end product, therefore fixing in many consumer’s minds that the entire range of products are simple fruity wines as opposed to the complex and often quite serious Cru level of wines.  However, it’s not as if the grapes used for the Nouveau bottlings are being wasted on these less complex “new” wines.  Most of these grapes would likely be then destined for “Beaujolais” designated bottlings with some of the better ones maybe in “Beaujolais Villages”.  With 65% of the total Beaujolais production already being sold in France via well entrenched channels, the Beaujolais wine trade would have to figure out how to sell a third of their lowest designated wines via export without their signature marketing event.  Hmm.  Maybe it’s not a good idea to make Nouveau “go away”.  Disagree.

 

The wine trade should have greater emphasis on “sustainability”.  There are all sorts of conversations being held about sustainability in the wine trade.  I have a cynical view in that the American wine trade attracts a very lefty slanted group of people and that a good way to become a pariah in the California Wine Trade would be to show up at an industry event in a MAGA hat talking about how you are sick of talking about “this inclusiveness bullshit”.  They’d nail you up to a cross made of old wine barrels.  Yes, almost everyone in the wine trade in the Napa Valley drives an enormous SUV seventy miles a day commuting back and forth to work from their air conditioned house where they pick up their seven separate boxes of Amazon shit that got delivered that day, but for the love of God, make sure and mention sustainability as often as possible in all public relations events.  I can’t tell you how many invites I get to “sustainability webinars” from people that all agree with each other.  “Tom, I just want to say I agree with you when you agreed with Barbara, but I think we could do even more to address sustainability, don’t you agree?”  I guess it’s nice to get online to enthusiastically agree with each other and presumably pat yourselves on the back about it later on Instagram.  I prefer that “humble brag” technique where people pose something minor to focus on what they really want you to see.  Example:  Photo of butterfly.  “Look at this gorgeous monarch butterfly that unexpectedly attended the 2^nd Annual Sonoma Organic Sustainability Online Summit”.     

 

The same people that regale visitors to their tasting room about “lessening their carbon footprint” are also shipping $150 cabernets bottled in 17 pound thick glass bottles to impart the vibe that these are “serious” wines well worth three figures.  The winery owner that put in a windmill to lessen his reliance on fossil fuels then climbs into his private jet to fly to Cabo.  This is called a “zero sum gain”.  Ultimately, all this sustainability talk tends towards theater.  75% of all greenhouse gas on the planet comes from energy usage in industry, buildings, and transportation.  Until we as a planet quit burning fossil fuels, worrying about switching to a recycled cork closure might not be the one missing piece of the puzzle to planetary salvation.        

 

The podcast hosts talked about how growers shouldn’t be using pesticides and herbicides as it isn’t sustainable.  I think we are all on board with this conceptually.  The one thing I know from talking to viticulturists is that they want to use as little sprays and treatments as possible, but this is a business.  “Hey Bob, you know how you were expecting ten tons of cabernet grapes from me this Fall so you could hit your sales projections?  Well, I can only give you about four tons because we had this gray moth infestation and I didn’t want to impact the long term health of the vineyard by spraying shit on them to stop ‘em from eating the crop.  I’m going to need you to pay me like I gave you ten tons though.  Thanks man.”

 

Sustainability is like being pro-education.  Everyone is for it conceptually, but then when the vote comes up to increase everyone’s taxes two bucks a month for the overall societal benefit of a new school library, it’s a white knuckle result.  I agree with the hosts that being aware of and striving for sustainability makes sense, and I’m for it.  I also don’t have any skin in the game.  I think a 3000 case winery can try to lead by example, but I don’t think the concrete factory or BP are impressed.  Overall though, I agree.                     

      

It was at this point a guy with three dogs walked towards me.  They were all some kind of hunting dog, those working dogs I can never completely identify with names like “Springland Water Spaniel”.  The one dog was very excited and would bark every 20 seconds which made the man say “shuutup!”.  This cycle repeated four times as he approached me.  The bassets stared intently at the approaching dogs.  I asked, “Your dogs friendly?”  “No.” he responded with a scowl.  “Super.”  I latched up the bassets who stared at the dogs as they went past without moving an inch.  He grunted disdainfully at me as he passed.  The one dog barked.  “shuttup!”  The dogs pulled at their leashes.  Bark.  “shuttup!”. 

 

I turned the podcast off.  I had enough pointless arguing for the morning.  I had to get a bottle of Nouveau and get more sustainable.