Asimov in the NYT: NOCAL Locavore restaurants are Globalvore wine slingers

WINE TALK
1

I largely find this article pretty f*&^ing irritating. This is not a criticism of Asimov but of the restaurants.

Examples:

“We recognize that it’s a tricky thing, and it’s a little hypocritical, but we also recognize there’s a certain style and authenticity that you can’t get anywhere else,” said Chris Deegan, the wine director at Nopa



In the judgment of many Bay Area sommeliers, they make for less-than-ideal partners on the table

This suggests two things:

  1. California wines come in one style (“heavy and more powerful”) and none have that “je ne sais quoi”
  2. Only the old world makes authentic wine

I can understand that CA does not have a wealth of wines made from Italian grapes and the variety of Rieslings in a Germanic style is limited (the latter in reference to matching Asian cuisine). That will affect some wine lists though the idea that only Italian made Brunello, Sangiovese and Barbera go with Italian dishes simply means that the wine buyer isn’t trying hard enough or has his/her nose way up in the air.

Then John Conover, the managing partner of Plumpjack, manages to insult anyone outside of SF and NYC by saying:

(Conover) suggested that San Francisco shared with New York a sort of European outlook, and therefore gravitated to European wines. In > Los Angeles and San Diego, where tastes may not be as adventurous> , he said, California wines dominate the lists in restaurants.

So it’s adventurous to buy a Bordeaux, Burgundy or Barolo but not to find a small west coast producer making alternatives? Yeah, I was going way out on a limb when I ordered that Chateau Montrose!

2

This thread should be two pages by tonight. [basic-smile.gif]
Interesting article.
Provocative perhaps.

3

Find me the California equivalent of one of Dressner’s $15 11% ABV and DELICIOUS Muscadets and I will buy it AND tell all my restaurant biz friends to stock it.

Ditto something like a Schiava or Vinho Verde (and it is HOT as HELL in Portugal).

4

Roberto,

I don’t suggest that locavore restaurants only stock local wines. There are wines that are very distinctive to their place and match better (in most cases and to many palates) with certain dishes. I love Vino Verde and high acid Italian wines. But the idea that only old world and authentic (what an insulting phrase) works is absurd.

5

So Cali producers by and large rode the riper is better craze. They were happy when people were rating their wines highly and buying the crap out of them because of the high points. We were told that of course 17% ABV wines can be balanced and fresh…

And now they have the reputation of being high alcohol, ultraripe wines and so aren’t considered for lists where subtlety and complexity is desired. I’m not sure I see that the industry has much room to whine. They cultivated a particular reputation - deal with it.

6

Kind of like a Heavy Metal band wondering why they can’t get wedding gigs Rick?

[rofl.gif] neener [soap.gif]

7

He doesn’t do anything specifically like Muscadet or Vinho Verde, but what Steve Edmunds does, he does in an honest, low alcohol fashion that’s pretty atypical for California. http://www.edmundsstjohn.com/

8

Yes, re ESJ and I was an early supporter when I was in the restaurant biz. It’s WHITES and especially Rosés where it is almost impossible to get something comparable to Euro styles.

9

Well, there you go, Melissa, that’s the rub. In general, and again, this is a GENERALITY (so no one get your panties in a bunch) many CA wines are not food-friendly, especially if the food is more on the delicate side (obviously, a hunk of BBQ’d beef is another matter). Ripe, sweet fruit, low acid, high alcohol do not translate to things one wants to drink with a meal. They tend to overpower most dishes. And don’t get me started on the liberal use (abuse?) of oak.

Most (not all) European wines are not as big and brutish and their acidity lends itself to food much more easily than CA wines. So I can understand why many CA restaurant lists have these wines.

I am not saying CA wines are bad, just that they don’t match with food as readily as European wines do. Someone once told me, CA wines are for cocktails, European wines for dinner. And I can understand why he said that.

10

The Bone Jolly by ESJ makes me smile.

(waiting for the bone joke…)

11

I’m the choir, Michel, but that was an excellent sermon [wink.gif]

12

If Joe Heitz could make what he often called “my favorite wine” (his Grignolino rose, 12% or so and pale in color) in Napa, why can’t anyone else? And, it they can make Vinho Verde in Portugal’s heat, why not something like that here?

13

it would be cool if CA wines could add sugar additives like europe

14

bad bussiness in the US? super sweet rose like sqn are super popular

15

Charlie, we don’t sell ANY chaptalized wine and none of our producers make any.

One of the HOTTEST categories here in LA this summer at most retailers was DRY Spanish, French and Italian Rosado / Rosé / Rosato

16

17

By definition, there isn’t enough of ANY SQN wine for it to be “super popular”…

18

The NOCAL locavore restaurants don’t need many California wines. They need enough CA wines to flesh out a wine list. (I think going to the other extreme and only buying local wines is a bit silly. I generally want a wine list with variety – varietal, style, country, continent.) No one forces them to buy “ripe, sweet fruit, low acid, high alcohol” (wow sounds like 2007 southern Rhone Grenache to me) from CA. Me I just love drinking unripe wines with my meals! :wink:

The restaurants/wine consultants quoted are in the middle of America’s wine wonderland. They have access to most anything produced in California. Do you really suggest that there are no CA wines, white and red, that are food friendly? (Of course you don’t. ) Maybe the majority of CA wines (let’s stick to the premium end) are “ripe, sweet fruit, low acid, high alcohol” – probably a pretty good bet. But if even 5% of the premium wineries in CA make more restrained styles of wine that leaves the wine buyers with hundreds and hundreds of options.

A restaurant in NOCAL that claims to be locavore and then claims they can’t find decent local, food friendly wines they are either 1) lazy, 2) pretentious, or 3) simply selling what makes money. I find 3 to be unlikely – at least a fair percentage of their customers would buy local/regional wine.

My point is not about the general one you raise and which I am in basic agreement – it is specific to the claims of the restaurants discussed in Asimov’s article.

19

Chris, on this I agree. I am sure there are lots of producers making more European-styled wines, but they are also probably produced in small lots and thus hard to find or source. They may also lack distribution, which would make it less likely that restaurant buyers could find them and place them on their lists. For very small wineries, this is a major problem.

20

I think you are overdoing it there. There are entire districts in CA that tend to produce those wines. It’s not that hard to find wines from Mendocino, Santa Cruz Mtns, parts of Sonoma and the Sta Rita Hills, hell even mountain vineyards in Napa that produce more elegant wines.

But what about the “elegant” Old World? DO you mean Bordeaux, parts of Italy or the Rhone? They’re producing tons of wines with higher alcohol, tons of extraction and significant oak treatments. The idea that only CA and Australia produce the heavy handed wines I assume these restaurants are avoiding is just flat out wrong. Hell there are even a decent number of CA producers of good Riesling.

And for these restaurants to automatically jump across the pond when Oregon is a few hundred miles away (if not local) with boatloads of cool climate elegant wines shows a great lack of creativity. They’re just not working hard enough at it. It ain’t that difficult. They can go to the trouble of finding all local meats, oils, nuts, spices, fruits and vegetables but not wine? I think it’s pure unadulterated snobbery.