This week in wine, food and beverage
I perused the world wide web this week to see if I could find any good juice to whet your whistle in anticipation of the Super Bowl on Sunday, in the way of wine, anyway. For me it is a” holiday” wholly dedicated to enjoying absolutely delicious beers, as you gear up for whatever main meal you may be dishing up (for me it will be homemade pizza, with roast chicken, fresh basil, mozzarella and pineapple). Maybe I’ll open a bottle of some exceptional vino to pair with my dinner, but more likely I’ll be digging into the Ommegang Abbey Ale – a wine lovers beer, in my humble opinion, because it offers such an intriguing, inviting nose, a round texture and layer upon layer of flavor.
What I found instead was some intriguing news about the world famous Ferran Adria, of Spain’s El Bulli. He’s taking a little break – and the “reason” up for grabs, according to the press.
I was also pleased to see some great thinking and posturing by a couple of folks I respect in the wine writing world:
Check out this post by Joe Roberts/1WineDude regarding a recent listing in the Sommelier Journal about top picks for 2009. He makes a great point about the price tag on these recommended wines, but I disagree with his conclusion that “the pros don’t find the experience delivered by those bargains to be all that memorable”. Given the audience of the Journal in particular, I have to imagine some of these folks are posturing among their peers. In addition, top restaurants operate on a completely different buying scale. I could go on, but the bottom line is I think if you asked a broader selection of Soms around the country the same question, the outcome would be changed. We might have to revisit this topic sometime…
Last but not least, I was happy to read Dr. Vino’s article on the up-and-coming Blaufrankish varietal (aka Lemberger). Check out his musings here.
Which beverage will be in hand for you this Sunday?
February 5th, 2010 at 7:17 pm
Glad you found the Dude’s post interesting, but I was sorry to see you accepted his premise about price, and I disagree about any “posturing” by our participants.
First, on price. We didn’t mention price at all in our instructions and you have to remember that for many of these folks, they get to try the wine without paying for it, so I don’t think QPR factors in as much as it would for someone who had to pay for the wine to consume any of it. Whether that is a flaw in the way we constructed this is certainly open for debate.
Now, on to stats. The Dude pointed out that there are only 11 wines under $30, or 28% of the total. I could say that there are 22 wines under $50, or 55%, or even better, 23 wines $50 or less, or 57%. So a cool $50 will get you more than half the wines on the list, at retail prices (very important to note this, so a restaurant markup is going to vary, but these prices are not what you’d pay in a restaurant, big point toward prices being “too high”). Now he also pointed out the average price is $97.18, the median price, however, is $43.50. So his post could have easily said, the $43.50 wine list and talked about how a cool $50 would have gotten you more than half of the wines on the list, despite the presence of some really high-priced wines.
His post is accurate, the average price is nearly $100 and there are 11 wines less that are less than $30. He also didn’t go for the retail/restaurant angle, which could have driven his point home even farther. But the complete statistical picture is that this “list” contains a bunch of wines under $50 retail, along with 8 wines over $100 and 3 wines over $500, with the plurality of wines falling in the $30-$50 range (11) and under $30 (11), then $50-$100 (10), then $100-180 (5), then over $500 (3). Note that the only 11 under $30 is tied for the most is this breakdown. You’d be hard-pressed to break down the list in a way that didn’t have under $30 as the highest category unless it’s under $30 and everything else, or $30-$100 or something similar.
Now, onto posturing. I think you actually have it a bit backwards. Professionals aren’t overly impressed by the fact that you’ve had an expensive wine because they have many many more opportunities to taste them then the average Joe. These added opportunities also increase the likelihood of some picking a really expensive wine because they thought it was really good.
My take on what impresses professionals is unknown wines or for lack of a better word, esoteric wines. So anyone looking to show off would have picked a wine from a lesser known region or a varietal from a region not known for doing it. That’s how you get “street cred” in the professional world. How many wine lists in the world would have 3 Chards (none from California) and 3 Cabs/Bordeaux varietals, and 3 wines from Portugal, none of which are dessert wines?
As to why they picked the wines they did, all we have to go on is their statements. The nice thing about asking for the most memorable wine is that everyone attaches a different meaning to the term “memorable.” Some clearly went for a more sales angle, some for personal gratification, some for what they know and taste the most often.