Terry Thiese says this and I say this. Who is right?

WINE TALK
21

Still makes no sense based on other things he has said in the recent past. Odd.

22

David,

It seems he is serving his own interests, which I am also guilty of, but again, how can one, who has such a deep knowledge of German wines, dismiss new any growers from possibly unfashionable regions like Franken, Baden, Wurrtemberg and the dry wine revolution of Nahe/Pfalz/Northern Mosel/Rhenhessen?

It is clearly self-serving.

23

so take it up with terry and apologize to lyle for making it seem like he was cherry picking the quote to advance some alleged narrative that only exists in your head.

24

I speciafically said I didn’t think Lyle made it up. I question the Wine Searcher interview. Sorry if you can’t understand me, but that’s not my problem.

25

[popcorn.gif]

26

Lyle,

There is virtually nobody worthy in any of those countries who doesn’t have an American importer.

This statement could be parsed another way:

Many American importers besides the old guard ones scour the countries and are bringing in new, worthy producers.

Use it in your ads.

27

I’m with Terry. If I don’t already know about it, I’m sure it’s crap.

28

This thread skews a little close to the line of self-promotion, no? You’re basically posting negative advertising about a competitor. (None of which takes away from your point, which is that the quote is ridiculous. )

29

I will only be able to answer this question when shipping season hits.

30

Better yet, go twice. Also go to Vivant (among others). Both have lotsa interesting wines on their lists. That aren’t imported to the US.

31

In some context, everything everyone does in business is self-promotion. I’m not slamming Terry’s wines. I think that statements like this are very misleading and do a disservice to the wine buying public. At a minimum, it’s an interesting thing to discuss.

32

I hate to attempt to make common ground, Lyle, but if you represent them, aren’t they represented in the United States. I don’t think Terry was limiting this to just him and Rudi Weist.

Terry is speaking in usual overblown Terry fashion, but Terry is generally correct. When he started, his portfolio was revolutionary. There were some great German wines in the US like Prum and von Schubert and there were a lot of the overrated big-name Rheingau estates, but there was a lot that was not here. He really did have his pick of the litter. Now, there is an awful lot more interest in bringing into the US small German estates. It has to be a lot harder to put together a portfolio of German estates than it was. People like you are looking for any one they can find.

If Terry had said something like if someone is good, they will soon be represented in the US, then he would have been correct (of course if he said something that rational, he would not be Terry), but I think he is more correct than incorrect and it is because of people like you, not denegrating people like you.

33

I was not even talking about my portfolio. As fond as I am of my own palate, I would not say that I have discovered and imported every great winemaker in Germany at this point. Not even close.

There are many unrepresented great producers in Germany. There are lots of good and very good/great ones in France.

34

[popcorn.gif]

35

Lyle & Terry both have a vested interest & it behooves both of them to have customers behind their product. It is in Terry’s best interest to convince people that he was a trailblazing pioneer for the wines from Germany, Austria & Champagne & that there is now “virtually nobody worthy in any of those countries who doesn’t have an American importer.” It is in Lyle’s best interest to have customers believe that there are undiscovered gems waiting out there for him to bring them into the US. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

36

So, Todd, the actual truth of the matter doesn’t matter?

37

It is a very obvious fact to anyone that there is fine wine out there in Germany, Austria and Champagne that exists and that is in fact not imported. Even If I did not have an import company, and say, was a doctor, plumber, etc I would still think what Terry said is at best obtuse.

38

Wine is made by winemakers. Great winemakers are born and they die and, if they have a successful estate, they are generally replaced by someone who may or may not be a great winemaker.

All of this is fairly obvious in the wine business, or any other business. People matter and skill is not distributed equally across members of our species. Product quality varies over the years.

With all due respect to Mr. Thiese, to argue otherwise seems to me to be misguided.

A related question is what do you do as an importer if a great winemaker passes on and their heirs start making mediocre wine? You have a ton in your warehouse. You are selling it at a good clip and making money because it has a great brand name. Do you dump the winery? This happens in tv programming all the time. Great network execs kill the programs before they hit rock bottom and replace them with new shows.

39

Matt, we had exactly that situation with an Italian cantina we had a VERY close relationship with and we stopped working with them immediately. The heirs had fired the cellarmaster of 20 years AND were announcing a doubling of production.

40

I didn’t say that.

Terry routinely uses hyperbole & this is another example. Maybe he believes that virtually all the great producers have been discovered & have importers (and, depending on your definition of virtually, he may be correct- if < 5% of all German winemakers are great winemakers who don’t have importers, is that “virtually none”?).

I would wager, that virtually (there’s that word again!) everyone, myself included, would read that statement of Terrry’s to mean that finding great producers without importers was once the wine equivalent of shooting fish in a barrel. It is no longer that easy. Try as I might, I can’t make much more of it than that.