Where the Fine Wine Market is Growing (Going)

Americans shouldn’t put off buying fine wine

Like vines growing wild, the fine wine market is spreading to all the corners of the globe. I would hate to turn a fun topic like wine into a historic economic lesson; however, the fine wine market is becoming just that. While I’m certainly not old enough to remember the late ‘70s, I’m also a student of wine and I’m reminded of that time period when the English had a stronghold on the fine wine market. Most auctions took place in London, and the majority of collectors were buying from local merchants or direct from estates in France. (Most fine wine came from France in those days.) Then in the ‘80s, Robert Parker’s ‘82 Bordeaux came along and jacked up the fine wine market in the United States. It wasn’t until 1990 that the US surpassed England as the number one auction country, and US consumers found they were blessed with higher allocations of fine wines because domestic auctions seemed to make available all the greats. This blessing however, is seemingly changing.

I’m giving you this history lesson because so often American consumers tell me that they expect the pricing on the top wines to decline—the thought is that a global recession should bring down the price of all wines. I find this idea surprising. I understand some price correction, but a major decline in pricing won’t happen. In most cases some might call me crazy for making this assertion; however, the demand for fine wine is actually growing right now. In addition, US collectors are putting off recent vintages of certain wines because Parker didn’t give those wines 100 points. The sad thing is that by not buying these wines now, consumers are actually hurting any chance that these wines will be available in the future.

All of these factors add up to one giant caution: don’t be fooled into believing that your favorite Super Tuscans, Barolos, Bordeaux, and Burgundies are going to come down too far in price.

As I told a client a few days ago, the fine wine market is expanding on a global level, and that growth doesn’t seem to be slowing. Almost all the great auction houses are auctioning wines in Hong Kong and fetching big money for sought after wines like DRC, Screaming Eagle, and older Sassicaias. And guess what? Most of these Asian collectors aren’t throwing the wines in cellars for their grandkids. They are drinking ‘em right away! What this Asian buying frenzy means is that what once were wines allocated to US importers and domestic auctions are wines now heading elsewhere—usually East, my friend.

In addition, it’s important to bear in mind many new businesses are emerging whose sole function is to redirect those US allocations to cellars overseas. What used to come to the US is now going to other countries like China, South America and, believe it or not, the Middle East. There seems to be a huge thirst growing for the top wines in the world. The numbers may not be staggering, but I can assure you these new wine cognoscenti in areas of the globe not traditionally known for their love of wine are making a dent in the world’s wine market.

The real nightmare scenario is what could happen to fine wine pricing and allocations should China’s billion-plus citizens start to develop a thirst for fine wine. Most US importers will then have to battle a country that can theoretically consume four times the amount of wine (China’s population is 1.4 billion, compared to the US’s 300 million). Recently, I received a call from an Indian company who wanted to go into business with me and send fine wines to India. With deep roots in English tradition, education and a growing middle class, India’s thirst will eventually come into play too. It’s staggering, really.

I don’t mean to be the harbinger of ill tidings, but I do mean to impart an important lesson: Consumers, please don’t put off buying wines that might not have garnered the holy grail of Parker’s 100 points. Great wines are being made in all vintages, at many price points, in a range of styles, and you should appreciate them for their originality of place and distinct moment in time. If we continue to be finicky and not respect each vintage, we’ll find that these wines will go elsewhere. Be smart and buy right, but understand that the unique stuff will leave us. I would hate to see American consumers lose out on the best the wine world has to offer.

Brewer-Clifton Wines

Steve Clifton Visits IWM

Working at Italian Wine Merchants certainly has its perks, and one that I enjoy is meeting different producers and trying their wines. Of course, I still enjoy researching and reading about wines, but having the producers physically here and getting their personal insight makes the entire experience come alive. I am much more of a visual learner, so the impact of a conversation and the actual taste of the wine sticks with me so much better. Moreover, the producers themselves are so passionate about their work that it’s hard not to be entranced by their stories.

Thursday we had the pleasure of hosting Steve Clifton from Brewer-Clifton in the Santa Rita Hills appellation of Santa Barbara, California. Estate owners Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton base their winemaking on creating pure expressions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from individual vineyard sites. Whenever possible, they use organic methods and try to get the essence of each vineyard into the wine. In addition to these single vineyard bottlings, they also produce blends, which is what we tasted. Steve explained that when creating a blend they try to include grapes from all different areas with different exposures in order to create a well-rounded wine that embodies their appellation and style.

Below are my notes from the tasting of the two Brewer-Clifton blends, one a Chardonnay blend and the other a Pinot Noir.

2008 Sta. Rita Hills Chardonnay

According to the website, this Chardonnay shows the following descriptors: “Aromas of lemon peel, white sage and beeswax followed by flavors of kamfir leaf, sudachi and brine. Broad on the palate while maintaining tremendous focus.” When I tasted it, the flavors that jumped out the most were definitely the citrus notes. The wine was very crisp and fresh with no oak flavors, a result of the cool climate and use of aged oak barrels. Even though it was very high in alcohol, the wine was so balanced you wouldn’t know it.

2008 Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir

Brewer-Clifton describes this wine as “Dark plum aromas are followed by cranberry and orange peel. Flavors of wild strawberry and fig are complemented by a finish of black walnut like tannin.” Right away, I noticed that the color in the glass was a beautiful bright red cherry, and I smelled dark fruit preserves and raspberries. The palate revealed deeper earth notes and less fresh fruit flavors. It was very full bodied, more than I would expect from a Pinot, but still maintained a good balance.

I was excited for the opportunity to learn more about Californian wines, and this was definitely an experience that I will remember for a long time. Overall, I enjoyed the wines very much, and I thought they were really approachable now, even though they can be aged for a significant period of time. If you get the opportunity to attend a tasting with a producer I would certainly urge you to take advantage. I’d also love to hear about any experiences that you’ve had with producer tastings in the comments. What producers have you met and how did meeting them make you understand their wines?

Presenting a Place in a Bottle

Nicolas Joly Visits IWM

This week at IWM we welcomed the esteemed Loire producer Nicolas Joly. Joly is famous within the wine community for his staunch promotion of the winegrowing and winemaking principles of biodynamics. Joly not only practices biodynamics in his vineyards and winery, but he also personally lives the principles. This effectively means that he believes in harnessing the “life forces” of the universe by first trying to understand, and then trying to provide for the natural needs of all things, his vines coming first and foremost. His goal is to express his appellation to its fullest extent in each bottle of his wine.

Nicolas Joly: Two Very Different Ways of Achieving a Wine from Inside IWM on Vimeo.

Joly claims, “It is not that the wine is in biodynamics that is it good,” and I appreciated his admission, especially phrased as it is in his charming English. I’ve heard many wine professionals and fanatics wax rhapsodic over how biodynamic wines are always better in quality, and I respectfully disagree. It may be true that if you look at the whole of the wine world and then at the whole of the biodynamic wine world, the greater percentage of higher quality wines certainly sits in the biodynamic camp. However, I’ve tasted more than a few biodynamic wines that are wanting in one way or another. (I’d further say that you can’t make an absolutely true blanket statement about wine.) Joly went on to explain that the holistic approach is what brings it all together. He observed that “When you are seeing the forces, pulling the right forces into place,” you naturally create quality. Perhaps Joly is right and perhaps he is not, but I do know that his life forces were seamlessly aligned when he created his 2007s. They are showing brilliantly!

In order to fully harness his appellation, Joly strictly avoids adding anything to the winegrowing and winemaking process that is not totally organic and naturally part of the appellation. He explains that when winegrowers don’t abide to this strict biodynamic code, the wine is no longer an honest reflection of its appellation. These additions could be oak chips, enzymes, or they could be the biggest enemy—yeasts, especially aromatic yeasts (mon Dieu!). Having heard some pretty extreme philosophies on this topic of additives from other producers, such as the protest that Rainer Lingenfelder launched at growers who trucked in water from a nearby lake to hydrate their vines during the persistent heat of 2003, I found Joly’s ideas pretty easy to accept.

Nicolas Joly: What Happens in the Cellar from Inside IWM on Vimeo.

Then his train of thought moved to sulfur additions, and I was pleasantly surprised that Joly was not completely against adding sulfur. He does, however, point out the sulfur must be natural and not a product from the oil industry, and I agree. First, small amounts of sulfur are naturally produced by yeast during the fermentation process. Second, as Joly points out, “If you ship far away, your wine should have it” because most wines without added sulfur don’t travel well. Joly recollected more than a few bottles he has opened that were not in good condition because the winemakers refused to add sulfur, and by doing so, denied their consumers a better bottle of wine.

But, enough of my “Cliffs Notes.” Click into our videos to hear from the man himself!

Of Wine and Women

Latest health research launches heated debate

Vinography: A Wine Blog has a really fascinating compendium of posts about the recent research that suggests a correlation between lowered obesity and light-to-moderate alcohol consumption. This study, based on research conducted by the Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and published on March 8, 2010 in the Archives of Internal Medicine had generated quite the impressive list of articles and blog posts by March 9, when Vinography put up its list of links. In fact, Vinography lists 86 articles on the subject. Which is, let’s face it, a lot.

As a woman, a drinker, and a feminist, I’m interested in what kinds of things make news about women and drinking. It’s always good news when studies, such as this one connecting women’s drinking and obesity, center specifically on women’s health. It’s a recent phenomenon to look at women’s health as something distinct from men’s health and important on its own right—and this change is excellent. However, not all the news is good, and I find the results of what comes up when you search for “women drinking wine” in Google News over time.

When you search “men drinking wine” for the years 2000-2009, you get a wide variety of results: wine increasing life spans, wine lowering heart disease risks, wine and blood pressure, even women drinking more wine. When, however, you search “women drinking wine” for the same time period, you get a very different range of results, and most of them are alarmist. For example, there’s less about wine adding to a woman’s lifespan and more about fears that women are drinking too much, too often and too competitively.

I know that my Gloria Steinem panties bunch easily. I was raised with Ms Magazine by a woman who marched for women’s rights. I can’t help my feminist leanings, nor do I want to. And yet I can’t help but wonder if this apparent alarmism isn’t suggestive about our society’s fears that continue to surround women and drinking—that somehow it remains better, more acceptable and less frightening that men drink, and that women’s drinking is somehow, well, bad. Moreover, while I applaud and celebrate medical findings that suggest that it’s actually good for women to drink, I wonder if we really have to tie it to weight loss. Often what we study, how we study it, and why says a lot about what we value. There’s no denying we as a culture value skinny chicks.

In the meantime, however, I’m going to take a deep breath and talk myself down. I’m also going to relax with a glass of wine. Not because it’s good for me. Not because it’ll make me lose weight. But because I like it.

Diving into Passion

Chapters 1-4 of Passion on the Vine

IWM founder Sergio Esposito’s acclaimed autobiography, Passion on the Vine, starts out quite simply—a present-day retelling of one of his many wine-buying trips to Italy. Sal, Sergio’s brother and respected advisor, rides shotgun for the adventure. Sixty wineries in seven days, eating on the run, sleeping a minimal amount of hours, driving all over the boot and enjoying one too many multicourse meals does sound glamorous, but Sergio makes sure we all understand how draining, if wonderful, the whole process can be.

However, this particular trip was different from all the others; it became one of the most important and nerve-wracking of Sergio’s life when he buys an entire collection of wine from a mysterious winemaker and walks away hoping the whole thing hadn’t been a massive, impulsive mistake. The camaraderie and importance of the trip in the first chapter segues perfectly into Sergio’s childhood, where his love of food and wine first began.

In the second chapter called “Barra,” after his childhood hometown on the outskirts of Naples, Sergio describes his youth from a child’s point of view and paints an emotional picture of his childhood years in Italy. He describes his flamboyant and creative family with an endearing eye, expressing how they always had each other to rely on and describing the warm feeling of support forged from having an entire extended Italian family by his side. The description seems almost communal, a situation where the whole is much more important than each individual person. They seem to share everything: food, secrets, dirty jokes or favorite blue sweaters. Sergio’s most vivid memories seem to be of his mother in the kitchen or the marketplace, haggling over fresh products and cooking with seemingly no effort, and his descriptions of his daily cuisine would make anyone’s mouth water. He seemed to have everything a child could ask for. A life based on instinct, sensuality, love, family and food.

However, a fairy tale always has its downside, and Barra wasn’t necessarily the picturesque ideal of Italy. Sergio explains how his grandfather lost his fortune after World War II, how the economy was weak and how his father had a very hard time maintaining an income. He explains how his hometown had been ravaged by the mafia in the late 1800′s and later by the effects of the war. The poor condition of his home and the lack of available jobs forced his immediate family to pack up and head off to America.

As his family begrudgingly makes their move to the States, not only did they find they were some of the only Italians in Albany, New York, but they also discovered that there were no substitutes for the culture they had left behind. America seemed cold and austere, compared to their former existence. Over time, Sergio and his family adapt as much with the help of their aunt and uncle, Zia Rosetta and Zio Aldo. As Sergio’s father was forced to work two jobs to make ends meet, Zio Aldo became Sergio’s most prominent influence. He remembers enjoying wine with his uncle, and those cherished memories in time become the source of all his endeavors.

As Sergio gets older, after spending various summers venturing through Italy as a teenager and visiting many wineries, he decides to open a wine store with his father and brother Sal. They find it’s extremely difficult to stock the store with quality products, since Americans wouldn’t purchase wines over $3.99 or try a label they didn’t recognize. Sergio saves up to move to New York City, where all things seem possible. He began working as a salesman for a company that sells Burgundian wine because French wines were the wines with status in those days. Italian wines were considered wild, second rate or even downright disreputable. In New York, Sergio begins working as a Captain and Sommelier for San Domenico’s, a famous traditional Italian restaurant. He learns about maintaining tradition and how much precision and care it takes to do so.

He gains confidence and becomes an innovator, working for himself on the side, organizing clients’ cellars for a reduced price, which provides him access to tasting some of the best wines his clients owned. Here and there he would sneak in an exquisite Italian wine into their collection, and he slowly but surely transformed his clients’ minds about the value and the beauty of Italian wine. Sergio was determined to change the American mentality of puritanical restraint and food for nourishment only, and he was eager to show the world the emotional and philosophical ways in which the Italians view food and wine as an integral part of life, a way to enhance relationships, and energize the soul.

I too remember growing up in an Italian household, though mine didn’t have as many family members, and we too had a routine of extensive and enjoyable family dinners. The connection of food and family is an important one; I think it’s more important than our society cares to acknowledge. My family—like Sergio’s—made food and wine transcend their status as food and beverage and become something that neither science nor logic can express. I appreciate reading a book that mirrors the feeling, though not the exact experience, of my upbringing.

Moving forward in the book, we’ll see the growth of Sergio’s business ventures and encounter some very interesting wine characters. Their enthusiasm and artistry can potentially change our ideas of wine and life as we know it. I am excited to continue reviewing the book and sharing my experience as I read along with all of you!

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