Tag Archives: wine

Oct 13 2013
17 Comments
Sunday read

Sunday Read: Can Wines Be Works of Art?

It’s been silent on this blog for way too long. We were traveling for an extended weekend last weekend, and then work caught up with me. Given that I spend most of my working days writing, and work had increased quite a bit, I was just tired and could not get myself to write any more…

Let me try to get back into the habit with this Sunday Read. Over the last weeks, I have thought about whether wines could be seen as works of art (mostly in the context of explaining why pricing can be so far away from actual production cost). It a matter of coincidence that I came across this post on the blog of Dwight Furrow. I was fortunate to come across his blog Edible Arts through my friend Tracy who has started a great series of introducing her readers and the ones she reads to each other (it’s a great post combined with soup recipes, so go check it out!).

Dwight takes the approach of comparing the definition of arts (hard enough, trust me, as a lawyer this is one of the more hilarious definitions you will ever come across) with wine making. He reports that many philosophers would disagree with the assessment that wines can be art. From there, he moves on to explain why he does believe they are pieces of art comparing wines to performance art, and I really liked that idea.

So, have a great Sunday, enjoy the sun as long as you can!!

Dwight Furrow: Can Wines Be Works of Art?

Tagged , , , , ,
Sep 26 2013
9 Comments
Something about wine...

Monthly Wine Writing Challenge 3: Time to vote

The third Monthly Wine Writing Challenge has come to a close, and there have been 15 entries. The theme for this month was “Possession”, and while everyone seemed to struggle with it, the outcome has been pretty great. I wrote about ownership structure in German vineyards (yeah, I know, way to go to not win a popularity contest), others approached it from the angle of owning wine, or how to handle your possessions, or wine glass possession-obsession, the field is wide open.

The voting has now begun over at Sally’s blog My Custard Pie. Head on over, if you haven’t, and help pick a winner…

Also, I really liked Sally’s introduction which she wrote because her blog is more set in the food blog scene, and I think she does a great job of explaining one of the differences between food and wine writing:

“With food writing, if the prose doesn’t get your attention, you usually have the addition of drool-worthy images to stimulate the imagination and the salivary glands. Wine writing has a whole different set of challenges and usually appeals only to a very distinct group of readers. How do you pitch your information so that you keep the attention of people who know very little about wine as well as wine geeks? Conveying the experience of tasting a wine so that it resonates without tipping over into wine bore pomposity is an art. Yes, wine writing as fraught with potential pitfalls and hurdles as an overgrown vineyard.”

Go vote until Saturday by following this link!

 

Tagged , , , , ,
Sep 22 2013
16 Comments
Sunday read

Sunday Read: When More is Less

My not-so-secret-anymore-crush Jancis Robinson published an article in the Financial Times recently exploring the pricing of wines, and its correlation – or not – to quality. A rather obvious non-correlation in my book (and it looks like hers as well), but she still takes on the topic from the perspective of newly emerging wineries that decide to go high-end price-wise right away. Yes, I understand that wine is a product and products are up for sale and that clever marketing can work miracles for some producers…Jancis’ point, as I read it, is that we need more education, and more educated wine drinkers to find out the difference between price and quality, a lesson that is as true for America as it is for Europe and Asia.

By taking Asia as an emerging wine consumer market, this also plays on a theme that came up in the discussion to the Reuscher-Haart article I posted.  My friend Ernest pointed out that he had watched the movie Red Obsession which details China’s rise as a wine consuming country and how it is distorting prices. My comment was that this is what the US market had done to Italian and French wines since the late 1970s and most importantly the 1980s…that this phenomenon is not exactly new, it is just a repetition of how some US buyers, who through Reaganomics were able to amass huge piles of money, distorted the market by paying incredibly high prices…

Most importantly, this struck me, because it rings true of what some of my winemaker friends in the steep hills of the Mosel have told me before:

“The joke is that wine is not very expensive to make. Production costs of even the grandest red bordeaux are rarely more than €10 a bottle, €30 at most if the château is run on bank borrowings.”

10 Euros, mind you, is $13. Many German Rieslings which are grown and harvested under extreme geographical conditions are produced for less than that, because they sell for 10 Euros in Germany…that is including a 19% sales tax.

Have a great Sunday!!

Jancis Robinson: When more is less

Tagged , , , , , , , ,
← Older posts
Newer posts →