Ms. Feiring in the Hollywood Reporter

WINE TALK
1

Anyone here get THR? There is an article about Farmer Fizz in it today by Alice Feiring. I’ve been told we are mentioned but have no subscription and am too busy to go buy one.

TIA for any info.

2

Her 15 minutes aren’t up yet?

3

Seems like a needless rim shot to me…

4

Won’t be the last . . .

5

Roberto,

Haven’t seen it, but I was a little dismayed when looking at the preview paragraph that is posted on-line. Alice states: “A maker of grower champagne might produce no more than 10,000 bottles a year, often much less.”

Since she uses the word “might”, I guess she is correct, but I’d love to know which producers she knows of that produce no more than 10,000 bottles a year; you can pretty much forget the “much less” comment. Yes, they exist, but most don’t hit the US and these folks almost solely sell by the cellar door if they sell at all. Most of the time they don’t bother if they can only make 10,000 bottles a year. That would be around 1ha of land and, in these instances, the grower normally sells off the grapes, uses the local co-op to get back who-knows-what, or only keeps a small amount to make a “family and friends cuvee”.

6

Yes, that IS puzzling. I DO remember Terry Thiese going on about one of his producers (Lallement?) that they had just over one hectare so you’d better get yours quick though.

7

Roberto,

Lallement has around 4 1/2 hectares of land, but sells half of it off. He keeps enough to make a little more than 20,000 bottles. That is teeny-tiny and still a heck of a lot more than 10,000.

8

I haven’t seen the final article because I don’t have a subscription either, but that should have been CASES not bottles, (though I do believe that Francoise Bedel and D. Leclapart make under 10,000 bottles.) Copy mistakes do indeed happen, as painful as they always are.

9

+1 . Lame comment. Pay no attention Alice. Please feel welcome here.

10

Ditto

11

Alice,

Gotcha- makes sense when you substitute cases; my guess was that maybe you meant to say bottles imported. I will also give you Leclapart as he is right around 10,000 bottles (I think he actually produces a bit more, but doesn’t always release 10,000 bottles a year). Bedel is a lot more than 10,000.

12

Ditto. Like her writing alot.

13

And hardly uncommon at The Hollywood Reporter; sadly.

14

Nick,

You give Ryans a bad name.

15

Here is the article…

16

Leah to the rescue. Thanks!!!

17

OK, I read the article (thanks to Leah for posting the link). While it’s not a bad article, it seems to have some flaws:

  1. Lack of focus. While the article purports to be about “grower Champagne,” two of the eleven “Champagnes” aren’t Champagne–a Cava (the #1 on the list) and a sparkling wine from Nantes (#8 on the list). If you’re not going to focus on “grower Champagne,” why not spend more time on Cava, Prosecco, and sparkling wines from elsewhere that cost less $$?
    The impression I get is that the writer went to a bunch of stores to get recommendations from staff, and put in the selections that met her fancy for whatever reason.

  2. 1988 Krug. #7 on the list, and an admitted “brand.” So what is it doing on this list, especially at a tariff of $500? I thought one of the purposes of the article was to focus on “grower Champagnes” that deliver more wine for a lower price.

  3. The writer comments that some merchants avoid stocking the big name Champagnes because: “this is not merely a small-is-beautiful aesthetic but also more of a shop philosophy: Why not pay less for a wine that can be heart-stoppingly beautiful?” While some of that philosophy may be true, the writer also neglected to mention another significant issue–margins. If you run a smaller wine store and try to sell the well-known Champagnes such as Veuve, you have to deal with the fact that those Champagnes are often on sale at Ralphs, Costco, and large wine stores during the holidays. By contrast, if you stock lesser-known Champagnes and sparkling wines, there is less price competition from large retailers and so the margins may be greater since a small retailer won’t have to compete with holiday discounting.

  4. Many of the tasting notes aren’t very helpful. While I realize that the target audience of the article isn’t wine geeks, I found some of the “descriptions” of the wines to be devoid of any reference to descriptors or even general style.

Overall, I think the idea for the article was very promising. Unfortunately, I don’t think the article delivered on the promise.

Bruce