by Al Drinkle
Wine's age of innocence is over. Admittedly, I'm too young to have experienced it, but I caught enough glimpses of it early in my career to recognize its continuing decline. I long for simpler times, and embrace every facet of wine—as a drink and an industry—that reinforces its beauty and integrity.
Having just returned from a trip to meet with several of our Spanish producers, my level of stimulation for this industry is more or less at its apex. A tasty glass of wine is a wonderful thing, but learning how it embodies the place that it grew and the sun whose season it ripened under; hearing about the challenges that had to be bested for it to exist; and bonding with the stalwart people who ushered it from plant to bottle instills it with immeasurable meaning. Being a farmer has never been easy, but over the last several years, the tribulations of a changing climate and increasing external pressures have made the job ever more daunting. I don't know a single winegrower who's in denial of the increasing unpredictability of their growing seasons, or who doesn't begrudge the additional responsibilities of doing business in the 2020s.
Over the last few weeks I met with many people who are bravely forging ahead. Each of them are imposing further challenges upon themselves by working in a way that's respectful to the planet. Happily, a peripheral benefit of this is that these pursuits bring winegrowers closer to their vines, which inevitably results in better wines. I met with a cooperative whose evocative history should be the subject of a Billy Bragg song. Recently, a century after their inception, all of their 100 members have converted to organic viticulture—even those who are full-time mechanics, butchers, or whatever, and merely tend a few rows of vines in their spare time. I met with winegrowing life partners who are struggling to piece together a tiny estate in a region where, like all regions, corporate monoliths hold all the cards when it comes to land acquisitions. From their tiny collection of vineyards, they're making soulful wine while raising three children... and while one of them battles cancer. I met with veritable outsiders who are resurrecting intimidating, historical vineyard sites, and have eschewed mechanization in their land in favour of horses, geese, chickens and old-fashioned hard work. I visited an estate that had undergone a recent generational change, and in addition to the implementation of organic farming and progressive stylistic pursuits, the present proprietor must sustain endless criticism from his less-open-minded and not-quite-retired father. All of these people love the land that they work, and want it to be represented as honestly as possible in their wines.
From Al's Travels in Spain - Left: Jordi from Celler Jordi Llorens in Tarragona. Centre: Oscar Alegre from Alegre Valgañón in Rioja. Right: Melanie Hickman and David Sampedro from Bodegas Bhilar in Rioja.
There was a time when this would have been enough to keep one awake at night. Nowadays, winegrowers also have to manage websites and Instagram accounts (or they must hire somebody to do it). If they sell their wine online, they'll need to have meetings about virtual shopfronts and they'll need to consider cyber insurance. They're required to create detailed fact sheets for the increasingly inquisitive wine trade who erroneously think it matters what size baskets were used to harvest the fruit, how many bars of pressure the grapes were pressed at, and how many parts per million of sulphur the bottled wine harbours. (I'm sometimes guilty of my own curiosity about such things). Winegrowers these days see themselves vilified on the internet for making difficult farming decisions in order to save their crops from certain decimation—decisions that enable their businesses to perpetuate and their families be fed for another season. They need to harden their hearts against wine critics and journalists, whose conjectures tend to reduce an entire year's work and sacrifice into a point score. Almost anybody who's making palatable wine in an artisanal fashion should be charging more money, but part of the balance is establishing a price that's fair and respectful to the consumer.
Speaking of which, I want to reimbue the word “consumer” with integrity. At its core, it should refer to somebody who consumes something, in this case, wine. And what's wine for, if not consuming? Sadly, the most sought-after bottles, even those that are brought to fruition by the least commercially-minded farmers, have become more of an investment than a beverage. Too often, the mysterious and alluring dialogue between grape, place and fermentation remains imprisoned in bottles that are endlessly and avariciously traded through “grey” markets and auction houses. The legendary wine-writer, Hugh Johnson, quotes an unnamed friend in saying, “fine wine used to be for the worthy, but now it's for the wealthy". In other words, there was once a time when wine knowledge was an advantage, and could lead you to the best bottles—for which you would inevitably have to pay a small premium. But now the demand for such products have catapulted their pricetags into stratospheric realms. There are still many incredible, singular wines that fly somewhat under the radar (just ask us next time you're in the shop!), but certainly First Growth Bordeaux and Grand Cru Burgundy are untenable considerations for the vast majority of wine lovers.
Admittedly, there are those who are both wealthy and “worthy”, but this potential is minimized by humankind's propensity towards personal advancement, not to mention ever-increasing prices. After all, regardless of how much money you have, when, exactly, is the best time to open a bottle that costs thousands of dollars? Dishearteningly, if past is prologue, such a bottle will be worth thousands of more dollars in a few years, and thus it isn't so much bottled poetry as it is an unromantic investment. It will likely be sold and resold. To paraphrase a recent statement by Burgundy authority, Neal Martin, how in the world could a bottle of wine be worth $2000?!? Well, it can't be, unless of course you can flip it to somebody else for $3000!!! We're getting pretty far away from the idea of the independent farmer, valiantly defying myriad challenges in order to grow a delicious wine to enhance somebody's dinner, aren't we?
Metrovino works with many celebrated Burgundian winegrowers, and one in particular who has taken a militant stance against the resale of his wine. It's hard not to sympathize with his view, which is one that his colleagues tend to share. He takes on all the risk, puts in all the hard work, and bottles wines with such alluring properties that the entire world lusts over them. Why should he sell them for one (admittedly high) price, just to see them resold for five times that price a few months later? In establishing our retail pricing for these wines (in collaboration with the producer himself, by the way), we feel that it's our responsibility to be respectful to both the winegrower and the consumer. We strive to respect the hard work and talent of the former, while nurturing honest and fair relationships with the latter.
Through strict protocols, the Burgundian in question stipulates that we sell his wines to “consumers”, in the best sense of the word, in an attempt to keep the bottles out of the grey market. This is a tenet that we self-impose for all of our coveted and allocated wines, and yet every year—every single year—we fail so fucking miserably, often in surprising and heartbreaking ways. We're informed by the growers, or we discover ourselves, that we unknowingly fed some of the bottles into the rapacious investment cycle. Many who might have been appreciative of the chance to own and enjoy such wines were deprived of the opportunity, and our attempt to offer fair pricing has only opened up the door for others to make the money that we've left on the table. Furthermore, it jeopardizes our relationship with the producer in question. I never thought that my job of selling the wines that I love would consist of such pressures, and yet this has been my first order of business upon returning home.
I left a piece of my heart in Spain last week, and I'm glad that it remains there. It's safe and happy with the hard-working, visionaries who, against all odds, continue to make wines that stupefy our senses and offer us respite from our burdens. One of them said to me, albeit with a smile on her face, “winegrowing is misery", to which I replied, “life is misery, but the fruits of your struggles provide great consolation to others". She should take pride in that. Wines like hers can make these times seem more simple than they really are, even if it's just for an evening. They can help us to forget about cyber insurance, point scores, and the mistaking of beautiful natural products for investment opportunities. They can instill in us those untarnished, childlike emotions, when the right bottle at the right time is a cause for “rejoice and wonder”, to quote Johnson again.
Wine's age of innocence is over. However, I'm grateful to have been reminded that as long as there are talented, dedicated winegrowers working in accordance with nature, and curious, thirsty wine lovers to support their seemingly insane dedication, there's still hope. Please raise a glass with me to these heroes of wine, past, present and future. And if you feel the love and gratitude for authentic wine burning in your heart, you have every right to count yourself amongst the heroes.
More of our heroes - Left: Melanie Hickman and David Sampedro from Bodegas Bhilar in Rioja, Spain. Centre: Johannes Weber and Lars Carlberg from Hofgut Falkenstein in the Saar, Germany. Right: Frédéric Burrier from Château de Beauregard in Mâcon, France.
