Fil Ronco's Big Question: Is taste in wine evolving...or not?

Filippo Ronco, who runs the interesting Italian blog Tigullio Vino, has raised a very good question: Is our wine taste changing with the whims of fashion, or is it truly evolving? 

Some of his Italian commenters seem to think that it is evolving.  They point to the increased quality of wines available for domestic consumption and the higher levels of interest and awareness that Italian winedrinkers have shown over the past few years or more.  They point to the taste for balanced wines made from native grape varieties as opposed to the "supertuscan" or other international-styled wines that prevailed there several years ago. 

Looking at the question from an American perspective, I have taken a somewhat more jaded view.  I think wine tastes are more a matter of fashion and what's pronounced to be hot by the leading critics, and I don't mean just the oft-reviled Mr. Parker.  My take is that, for the most part, Americans don't yet have a well-established winedrinking culture and so are subject to fads and ephemeral lifestyle considerations.  And the whole world knows how susceptible we are to marketing bombardments, which do change our ideas and behavior, even though we claim they don't.

I excepted most winedrinkers in New York and San Francisco from this condemnation, although even that may be too generous.

Well, anyway. What do you think?  Are wine tastes evolving in the US of A?  Or are they simply changing, willy-nilly, depending on what this critic or that newspaper says?  Or, worse yet, on what some marketing department or wine PR firm is telling us what's hot? 

Enquiring minds really do want to know.

Comments

[David]

Regarding the Italian commenters I have recently had a little discussion about quality over quantity. He also sustained that Italians were appreciating the blended or designer wines and while the people I know are moving toward the antique or heirloom wines. I think this article is tied in with your previous article. What is quality? and how is it measured?

While the experts evaluate wines on things that they have decided are important, my primary test for a wine is, does it give me a headache the morning after?

For me, quality is first defined by how geniune the product is. The worst fruit, matured on the tree and consumed directly, is better than the most marvelous looking fruit picked 3 weeks before maturation, covered with chemicals to stop the process, then washed and waxed just before arriving in the supermarket. Wine is the same for me. This test is not part of the Sommelier handbook.

The US is at a bit of a disadvantage in this discussion because the culture of wine, that is: wine and food in balance, is not well known or understood. Thus the US market is more likely to follow fads and wines of the moment.

To sum it up: If we are talking about the industry I do not believe it is progressing. While, I do meet more and more people who are trying to understand the culture of wine as part of a healthy lifestyle.

[Fredric Koeppel]

These complicated issues may be approached from several standpoints.
First, American wine consumers are easily swayed. Look at the tremendous influence an only fair-to-middling movie like "Sideways" had, actually depressing the market for merlot and raising sales of pinot noir tremendously. Look at the "French paradox" report on "60 Minutes" back in the '90s and how that turned millions of consumers toward red wine. Why do you think companies like Constellation keep bringing out sillier and sillier "critter" labels? (Three Blind Moose, Papio the musical monkey) Because they sell to a public eager to follow trends (because basically they don't know much about wine).
But let's look at the other side: What Italian wines receive all the hype and the critical attention? The so-called Super Tuscans and their ilk. What is the basis of these wines? Aging in small oak barrels (formerly never seen in Italy) and using non-indigenous grapes like cabernet sauvignon and merlot. What's the point? To appeal to palates conditioned to oak and ripe curranty flavors. Whose palates are those? American wine collectors. So, who are the followers of trends here? (Rhetorical question.)
On the other hand, all of these wines, the Big Names, the Bordeaux chateaux and Burgundy Grand Crus, the Californian and Australian cult wines etc.: they make up about five percent of the world's wine production. The rest is everyday drinking wine, the charming (or better) $10 and $12 wines we love to discover. When most Italians go out to lunch or dinner, do they order the latest "Super Tuscan"? No, they order a carafe of the vino rosso de la casa. The point is, in the real wine-drinking countries, that is where wine is anacknowledged as or is even an unconsious part of life, people never turned away from the natural, the regional, the familiar. They drink those wines all the time.

[Terry Hughes]

Excellent points, gentlemen.

Anybody else have a point of view to offer? Anyone wish to contradict or poo-poo?

[Alfonso Cevola]

Today's Thundebird drinker might be tomorrow's Monfortino drinker....it's been known to happen..point being...let's get 'em in , then we can move 'em on up the food (wine) chain...unless you want to lose them to beer or vodka...

yes they are evolving....all you have to do is read the history books on it, or ask some of the really old guys...

keep 'em engaged...daily vigilance..

[Terry Hughes]

Alfonso, I take it you're speaking autobiogaphically...
??

What's this about "losing" them (drinkers) to vodka or beer? It sounds like "losing" China, a failed policy or something. I ask you: does that really matter?

Question for further reflection: will the USA ever be a true wine-drinking country like Italy or France or Argentina? Or for that matter Australia?

[David]

Terry, I think I agree with Alfonso, or as I call him John the Baptist of wine. We have several cooking buddies with whom we drink seriously. Box wine was their mainstay. Today they are able to easily identify traditional wines from the industrial stuff in blind tastings.

Does it matter? I think so, it is part of understanding quality of life. I have a hard time accepting that long term happiness can be accomplished by the McDonald's of the world, whether it be food, wine or other industries.

Our USA is filled with plastic this or fortified that. Obesity is rampant, people take more pills than they drink water thinking this is the solution to a long and happy existance. And not that drinking quality liquors is not the route but quality is the keyword.

We are so afraid our kids will get drunk that we do not teach them to drink and as soon as they can they really get wasted.

[Alfonso]

reality check....

http://www.winerockstar.com/2006/08/young-people-mix-it-up.html

this is the baseline...this is where they start.

this is many a young persons entry point, their "Blue Nun moment".

or in Wine Rock Star's words, "Because it is what Millennials are doing. It is buzz worthy. It is cool - to them."

hell yes, it matters, to me. If we will ever get to the 55 liters per capita annual wine usage (we're hovering @ 8 Liters) then we need more folks picking up the goblet than the rapidly aging be-bop boomers. Ever been to a wine tasting in a nursing home? It isn't pretty. It sure aint cool, (and the only thing buzzing is the hearing aids) ;}

Spirits and beer marketers understand this better than the more academically inclined wine community.

[Terry Hughes]

"the only thing buzzing is the hearing aids" -- I like that, it has a certain Leonard Cohen resonance to it.

Well, OK, points taken, lads. Good stuff.

But I have to ask WHY does it matter? To one of David's most cogent points, about binge drinking by kids and not only them -- that's been a trait of American society since at least the journey of M. De Tocqueville. Wine or no wine, this is something Yanks'll be doing for a long time to come.

If you view wine as a Greater Good, which I take it Alfonso does (and David too, I guess), then being the John the Baptist of wine makes some sense. There's a mission, a purpose, etc. But to make this a nation of winedrinkers requires a fundamental shift in the priorities and preferences of Americans, and that I am skeptical of.

More?

[Fredric Koeppel]

whoa, winerockstar is terrifying, typos, bad grammar, ATTITUDE and all. These are the people we expect to drink wine with curiosity and intellegence? There seems to be no connection. We're a country of puritans and heedless hedonists simultaneously. Terry's "fundamental shift in the priorities and preferences of Americans" seems a mild way to state the case. We're not a country of wine-drinkers; it's as simple as that. We -- I mean wineries, writers, marketers and so on -- can try our best, but this just ain't Spain or France or Italy, and wine consumption is falling in those countries too. It's enough to make me go cry in my Taittinger. Waiter, make it a double!

[Alfonso]

Sorry gents,
But if you spend any time on the circus floor, that's the kind of animal you'll find. You can rant against them, hate their tattoos and their piercings, and that kind of “attitude” will separate you from the future. History does show we are moving towards a wine drinking society, as we grow into our culture. But with the younguns, YOU have to make the connection, be the bridge builders; that comes with your experience and maturity. Not saying you have to like it (or the bad grammar and the typos), but to steal away to your cellar and act like it'll go away, well that's not where the battle will be won. And it's cold and lonely down there...come on up into the arena with the lions.

You were just joking around up there with that "intellegence" word, yes? That was a typo, right?

[Fredric Koeppel]

even I am not intellegence enough to lay a witty typo of a trap.

[Terry Hughes]

Look what happens when I'm off teaching the youth of America. I'm glad you boys played nice.

We've had a lot of position-taking, not sure it changes much of anything. Or maybe it does & maybe I'm not too susceptible to your excellent arguments because I'm just too tired.

Either way, I like the way this community (cough cough) is developing. Bravo to youse.

BTW, I really haven't got the stomach for winerockstar, sorry, Alfonso. I suspect Episcopalians are congenitally unevangelistic...

[Alfonso]

all in good fun, hope no one got offended..anyway I agree with you gents...most of the time..even if you are "congenitally unevangelistic".
On to my next link anyway,
The Jesuit Gourmet:
http://thejesuitgourmet.blogspot.com/

[Fredric Koeppel]

Holy Manna from Heaven, Batman, who knew there were so many Jesuit blogs!

[Alfonso]

I especially liked:
YOU DUPED ME LORD
~Further Adventures of a Thirtysomething Jesuit~
http://markmossasj.blogspot.com/

Episcopalian, indeed!