Sat 9 May 2009
>I am sick and tired of bland wines with manufactured flavors and engineered mellowness.
>I am sick and tired of organically- and biodynamically-produced wines whose sole justification is the smugness of their back-label texts.
>I am sick and tired of gimmicks and devices and diversions, of PR ploys and marketing skirmishes and industry trends, of cuteness and wackiness and self-satisfied back-stories, anything that detracts from the wine and does not let the wine speak for itself.
> I am sick and tired of producers that apply oak to their wines as if on automatic pilot, whose attitude is “If this is wine, there must be oak; if this is a reserve wine, there must be more oak.”
>I am sick and tired of cheap wines that all taste the same and expensive wines that all taste the same.
>I am sick and tired of the lip-service paid to varietal and regional qualities in wines that display no varietal or regional character.
>I am sick and tired of the lack of individuality in winemaking, of the tendency toward the lowest common denominator, of the implication that wine consumers don’t give a damn what they drink, that all producers have to do is get together a whole bunch of grapes from “California” or “North Coast” or “South Eastern Australia” or “Navarra,” make the wine, slap a critter label on the bottle and send it out there.
And, hey, have a great weekend!
May 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
I stumbled upon your blog via The Pour (but recall reading your articles when I vacationed in Georgia via the AJC). Anyway, one of my favorite “games” to play with my friends is to sit around a table with drinks and start naming the things you hate. I bet your list, nestled undernearth a Kierkegaardian title, of things that make you sick would be even better.
Enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing the crust recipe.
Trav
May 9th, 2009 at 11:32 am
FK, are are my curmudgeonly hero.
Your litany also reminds me of that great Ferlinghetti poem…whose damned title I can’t remember. But it was great!
May 9th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
A Darkness More Than Night. But what do we do about it? How about some reviews of bad versus good distributors? How about focusing on distributors that don’t play the game you talk about–Eric Solomon and Kermit Lynch are two that I have faith in. I find myself buying their wines without knowing anything about the individual wines and am almost always happy with the results.
Bruce B.
Hendersonville, NC