As a consumer, I think this is definitely a great time to be alive and pursuing pleasure in a glass. It is simply a matter of consistency, of technology, of the yin/yang of a “global marketplace.” When I started in the wine business in the mid-80s, the shelves of the average liquor store-wine shop were a minefield of possibilities. There was a lot of badly made or flawed wine on the shelves. I find it much harder today to find a “bad” or flawed wine. I do find it easy today to find a boring wine or a “mass produced” manipulated wine where excellence is not something to aspire after. I find a movement universally to produce a product that is unoffensive, palatable at best, and not flawed. California has learned to view wine in many instances as a manufactured product, a commodity, a consistent (if boring) condiment to the table. When you’re producing 5000, 10000, 25000 cases a year for the marketplace, you can’t afford to have a bad vintage or worse, two bad vintages in a row. You can’t afford to take chances. I don’t believe anyone starts out trying to make lessor quality wine…you do, however, start out trying to make wine that sells, is unoffensive, that flies toward depletion. I do think the market is harder to navigate…it requires more of the purchaser…you have to do your homework. Do you want to drink mass-produced wine dumbed down for consumer groups…or do you want to drink wines produced by artists/artisans who struggle every single vintage to produce wine that reflects a growing season, a place, a philosophy that tries to make the best wine they can every single time and make a thousand decisions a year based on this desire to excel. We, as consumers, have a myriad of choices lining the shelves of our stores and our cellars. I find it a fascinating time to be alive and chasing the dragon of the good, the better, the best. Drink what you like…support those producers that make it and share the news of your latest “find” with those others of us who find life to short to drink boring wine,
You are “preaching to the choir” at the Stewart household, Reverend Mike. And can I get an Amen!
I hear that a lot and I think it’s not totally true (or not anymore, maybe 10 years ago). More wineries and winemakers did catch up with the best Chateauxs and the latest in technology and science, vines got older and the world middle class grew exponentially, bringing more consumers to the table and more profits (and hence investment capacity) to the wineries. That improved the quality a lot and on a broad scale. So what your “wines are more generic” could in turn be just there are less bad wines and vintages, more wines that did catch up with the best of their region, less faults and imperfections - and often people confuse these faults with character. But looking at the best wines from the past, those wines who are still famous today, these legendary wines from legendary vintages, these are all the wines which don’t have these imperfections. So I’m quite confident that the quality today is better than ever.
But I agree that in many regions the wines today tend to be richer and more intense which is a problem. But with some research you can avoid the largest pitfalls (focus more on 2016 Bordeaux than 2015 or 2018, choose those with lower alcohol levels, etc.).
Regions I’m interested in, comparing 80s to today:
Red Burgundy: Golden age currently. Combination of climate change, better viticulture and better winemaking.
White Burgundy: Premox issues, better in 80s.
Red Bordeaux: Better in 80s, due to better climate and non-international winemaking.
Champagne: Golden age. Plethora of great producers. Money is spent on viticulture and wine making than silly band/house marketing.
Riesling (Germany/ Austria): Golden age. Primarily due to global warming. Unlike some, I do adore the GGs!
Barolo: Golden age. The traditionalists have lost their rusticity and “modernists” have dialed down/ eliminated on the oak.
Galicia: Wonderful discovery! Making fabulous wines of both colors. Thanks to wine makers like Raul Perez, Luis Rodriguez…
Etna: Another area that has surfaced. Great set of wines that’s hard to replicate elsewhere.
CDP: Better in 80s, climate change hasn’t been beneficial to southern Rhone.
In sum, I agree with OP. It truly is a golden age for wines now.
One thing that really is not being focused on at all in this thread is PRICE. In the 1980s and 1990s, I could buy most of the greatest wines in the world for less than $100 a bottle. As late as 1990, Bordeaux future prices for first growths were $60 a bottle. Many top quality German Kabinetts from 1990 were about $10 a bottle. Given the prices today, I find it hard to call this a golden age for wine.
I was just sent an offer in which the second wine of Beychevelle was going for double what I paid for the first wine in 2001. Wine prices have far outstripped wage inflation.
True, perhaps. But most successful professionals’ salaries have also outstripped inflation. Aren’t you more able to buy Lynch Bages today than you were in 1992/93 when the most excellent 1990 vintage was $40 per bottle?
sure it is, Howard. You now need gold to buy the wines we like.
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The futures price was probably well less than $40. I paid less than $30 for LLC and Montrose.
Law firm salaries for people today where I was in 1991 or 1992 are much higher than they were then, but I don’t think they have inflated to 5 times as much.
In the mid-1980s, I remember major law firm starting salaries being around $50,000 or so. I don’t remember what they were in the early 1990s, but probably more. I think major law firm starting salaries are still under $200,000, although my information is a couple of years old. So, I am guessing law firm starting salaries are about 3 times higher than starting salaries in the early 90s. Bordeaux futures have gone up more than that. Salaries in high tech have probably gone up more, salaries in other jobs have gone up less.
I didn’t mean it compared to new associates, but to that same lawyer, or professional, 28 years later.
It’s mixed. Terrible if you’re stuck in a rut. We also have a knowledge base, equipment and techniques that allow us to get the best out of a grape variety and site. I’m not talking about the goofy sameness wines. How about all the truly unique, distinctive grapes being brought back from near extinction in places like Italy? There are really exciting wines, some under $20.
People who complain about Napa - well, they’ve been a big hype machine. They have never, in any era, been the sole gold standard of CA Cab. Look at all those best CA Cab/wine you’ve ever had threads and you see some very respected veteran tasters listing examples from a few other regions.
The burden certainly is on the consumer, but we consumers have never had more information at our fingertips and resources to attain wines the way we can now. (Despite the efforts of some mega-producers and the distributors who carry them.)
There are 3,674 wineries in California. How many does that blanket statement apply to? Subtract those. Subtract the mediocre. What does that leave you with? Like 800 wineries that merit wine geek respect? Probably more.
Exactly. This is “the 5%” I was talking about earlier. But this is only for professionals in the top demand fields. Doesn’t apply to us left out of that curve, so yes indeed, those wines have become more expensive nominally AND inflation adjusted real pricing.
California has learned to view wine in many instances as a manufactured product, a commodity, a consistent (if boring) condiment to the table.
Do you want to drink mass-produced wine dumbed down for consumer groups…or do you want to drink wines produced by artists/artisans who struggle every single vintage to produce wine that reflects a growing season, a place, a philosophy that tries to make the best wine they can every single time and make a thousand decisions a year based on this desire to excel.
Steve - if you want to talk about a manufactured product or a commodity, while California produces some 240 million cases a year, I think France produces some two or three times that. Bordeaux alone puts out nearly 70 million cases of wine a year. Most of that isn’t really great stuff. And then there’s the entire south region still putting out lots of plonk comes from.
If you’re talking about putting out manufactured product, that would include virtually every wine-making country and region. Most wine in the world is NOT made by artisans. That’s a romantic notion a lot of Americans have, but it’s not reality. Moreover, Europe has no monopoly on artisans. In fact, a lot of those people are bound by tradition and custom, unlike people in the US, Australia, and most of the world outside of the older European regions, who are free to be as artisanal as they wish.
How does one figure out the 800 from the other 2800, esp. since most of both don’t leave the state. For me, I just buy wines from the older line wineries where I have more confidence in what I am getting and how it will age. And, I am getting too old to really age many Cabernet based reds anyway and have a pretty full cellar. I used to buy Ridge Monte Bello and Chateau Montelena every year but stopped a few years ago when I figured out how old I would be when they mature.
Price is extremely relative. Sure you can decry your favorite wine getting found and watching to price rise. But that’s just quality getting noticed.
Are all the wines really more expensive in terms of inflation or is our taste just less willing to settle for a new find over the tried and true.
You can still drink really really really well if you are want to stick under $50 and don’t have to drink scoreboard producers and regions.
Just throwing a number out there. There are tons of medium to tiny wineries here. Yes, even with the 120 or so Santa Cruz Mountains wineries, local to me, many are hard to find. I work with quite a few urban wineries, which I wouldn’t bother doing if the wines weren’t good. I taste quite a lot from other producers, both on my own explorations and being served bottles curated by people like Ken Zinns. Who tours and tastes more CA producers than him? Maybe 800 is a figurative exaggeration, maybe not, but I could make a very long list with the worthy producers I can recall, and be forgetting as many, and know that’s the tip of the iceberg. The blanket statement that the grocery store wines I pay no attention to, mostly made by a handful of conglomerations, fairly characterize what’s here is objectionable.
I have to disagree. With price out of the equation, maybe you are right but many of the Burgundies I like and have liked for 30 years now cost more per bottle than I used to pay for a case. And they aren’t 12 times better. I’d love to go back 20 years and buy even more than I did back then.
But only the big names?