SFChron: Bonne On PinotGate

Nicely done article & summary by JonBonne in today’s SFChron on PinotGate:
SFChron: BonneOnPinotgate

Apparently, Constellation got caught up in the scandal (if you call it that…I find it a tempest in a teapot). Gallo defends itself by stating that you can’t test the wine for varietal purity (which I believe is correct…DNA testing cannot be used on wine itself…as I understand). Constellation asserts they did test the wine (but fails to claim they verified its purity).
Gawd…didn’t anybody just taste the friggin’ stuff!!???
I liked Jon’s simple solution to the problem: “there’s an easy solution: Stop drinking cheap Pinot.”
Tom

Tom,
Scandalous but it is interesting. I wonder if the wine had been labelled Red wine blend with the varieties lists rather than labelled pinot would it tank sales or would the quality of what was in the bottle (assuming the blended product had quality) simply just result in happy drinkers and good sales. It would be neat to do an experiment. I guess I am wondering if the perceived “hip-ness” of what is on the label is really what majority of buyers are after or are they just looking for good, cheap vino to pour in their gullets. I can’t comment because I don’t think I fit the category.

Scott,
My guess, being that PinotNoir is hot since SideWays, that the sales of “RedBlend” would not be as strong.
My feeling is that anybody spending $8 for a PinotNoir, no matter where it’s from, probably deserves what they get…
an $8 red wine w/ little, if any, Pinot character.
Tom

Tom,
I understand what you’re saying. I guess what I am thinking is this. Take the Languedoc or SE Oz for example, I would guess there is a ton of quality fruit available right now at darned attractive prices covering a number of grape varieties. Maybe even enough to put out a blended wine, at a very low price relative to the quality, in quantities vast enough to produce an attractive line of low end wines as yet unseen. (The world economic woes have to have some sort of a silver lining don’t they.) Sure it won’t have any variety character but, as you say, what $8 wine does? Based on your response, you believe, the buying public, for that type of wine, has been absorbed by the variety system, be it through fad or long time labelling practices highlighting the variety. (Correct where I have gone “head in bum” there ) Your probably right and, after some thought, I would agree. Sad though. I would think there should be an opportunity to make blends, even non-vintage, that could produce a line analogous to NV champagne.

Wasn’t Gallo getting more “pinot” than was possible to produce in the entire area? This alone should have clued them in that something was amiss.

Kind of a 47 Lafleur in magnum thing … yeah that should have been a dead give away if true.

With the volume they were buying, Gallo had to have known that it wasn’t all Pinot. Their version of “don’t ask, don’t tell”.
Tom

Gallo also has a Pinot Noir in its Twin Valley brand that is in most any supermarket. I was looking at it the other day and it looked like it did not say where the wine was from. All their other labels were very easy to read. The print for where it was sourced is pretty tiny but the color blends into the label that you have to tip the bottle just the right way to read the print. Try it the next time you are shopping and you will see what I mean.

Maybe Gallo should just relabel the product “Extra, Hearty Burgandy”

Rather than point the finger of stern rectitude at Gallo, saying “how could they have not known”, or accusing them outright of dishonesty (think of what that means in terms of what is at stake for them here, and what little they have to gain in comparison) I lean more toward Jon Bonne’s statement in the middle of the article.

Perhaps no one called foul on the faux Pinot because plenty of real, cheap Pinot doesn’t have much Pinot character.

Having been involved, in a previous incarnation, in sampling and commenting on some d’Oc Pinot Noir being imported into the US, I commented that “it’s okay; but it doesn’t taste particularly like Pinot Noir.”

I was asked for clarification, and gave it, describing why it didn’t taste like Pinot Noir—and indeed had little discernible varietal character of any sort.

Mind you, I knew the supplier, and had no reason to suspect that this wine was not in truth Pinot Noir from young vines from the Languedoc.

I was told, by marketing people (who had, by the way, already approved the wine and made the decision to import it, designed the bottles and labels, and set in place the marketing and distribution campaign) that I was “too much of a wine geek” to be a good judge. Also that I judged everything “by Burgundian standards.” And finally, that “your palate is just too good!” and “It doesn’t really matter what you think; you’re not the target market.”

There’s an old quotation from Upton Sinclair: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.”

Since I sell wine for a living I get to taste lots of wines. I taste many inexpensive wines labeled as Pinot Noir but they just don’t taste or smell like Pinot. I can like the flavors and the wine as such. I just will not recommend it as a Pinot. It does not really matter where it is from. I remember someone bringing by a wine to try blind. I liked the wine and it was very well priced for the quality.
My comment was it was a very enjoyable Syrah but it was Pinot from Chile.