So, mainly for the retailers out there. If you read the below, would you buy this wine? What would you expect to find in the wine?
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Winemaker A, a former physician who trained under Winemaker B, manages his 3.5-hectare estate in Noizay with a rigorous focus on soil health and low-impact viticulture. His technical approach favors a slow, two-year elevage split between neutral demi-muids and stainless steel, allowing the Chenin Blanc to achieve a stable, reductive equilibrium without the need for high sulfur additions. This VdF bottling is sourced from 80-year-old vines rooted in *aubuis*—an iron-rich red clay over tuffeau limestone—which provides the thermal inertia and water retention necessary to produce wines of significant weight and architectural depth. In the solar 2020 vintage, these deep-rooted vines utilized the moisture of the clay to maintain physiological ripeness while preserving their natural nerve, resulting in a bone-dry profile where a broad, phenolic mid-palate is balanced by a high-toned, chalky acidity. The wine concludes with a fine-grained mineral tension and a persistent saline core, a direct outcome of Winemaker A’s commitment to dry-farmed precision and extended lees contact.
I really, really wonder how such verbiage makes a potential customer pull the trigger. I get there has to be a “story” or it’s more or less opaque to the potential buyer. But more and more I see this excess and think, wha? I think most “wine geeks” would be lost. Never mind the beginner into wine looking to explore. Sad thing here is this can’t even be blamed on AI.
These days there’s also a LOT of X but Y. A yet B. Like it has to be both ways always. You want X this is for you. Ho ho, you want Y? This is for you too!
I agree - it’s exhausting. My wine friends and I occasionally say something extra descriptive, but for the most part we find ourselves able to cut straight to the point. While I understand that you gotta sell the wine, but how about a real, understood description of the wine. If you smell elderflower, say so. From reading the above, I have no clue what that wine tastes like. I half expect it to smell like feet.
A retail email sent to anyone who signed up for email offers. No one special nor particularly geeky nor “wine educated”. Albeit there is an assumption that recipients of the offer are discerning wine buyers of the highest caliber. Or why would they sign up for offers from a carefully chosen, curated set of wines.
For the life of me I cannot fathom a recipient getting this and being keenly interested enough by the ponderous verbiage to jump on the offer.
That noted, in the age of AI (not saying necessarily the case here) expect more of this TO ME slop. Garbage in, garbage out.
I do not sign up for retailer email offers so have no idea how many offers are similar. I hope few.
I can see doing this for trade (the pretentious purple prose notwithstanding), but retail? That’s… a bold move, Cotton.
I’m currently writing the descriptions for our wine list and you can be assured that I will not be using the word “architectural,” Nor “phenolic,” despite the disproportionate number of PhDs who patronize our little establishment.
It’s really not that uncommon. I just picked this one but could have easily selected many others from a variety of retail store offers. Seems to be the norm. At least here in NYC. Ithaca don’t know, only place I know of is Cellar d’Or, think I dropped off their offer list years back (only so much wine I can afford albeit they have a very nice selection).
“Telling the story” seems mandatory. Less about what’s in the bottle but how it got there. Appears that’s what the youngins like. The Insta gen. Personally the story is a minor factor in a purchasing decision. Most of them are close shades of gray apart anyway.
What makes a sell for me is a sales rep or producer hitting the pavement and visiting in territory with a good bottle to pour as they tell the story and present a tech sheet. Final decision is on assessing the wine for flaws and fit into inventory.
