During my career I sold lots of grapes to Navarro Vineyards Winery. They are by far one of the most successful stories in an otherwise unexciting wine producing area. They have been way ahead on direct sales dating back to the early 80’s. When I was at Eaglepoint we sold them Cabernet at first, then everything from Sangiovese, Zin and Syrah.
When I took over Ordways Valley Foothills in 2010…a big property that borders Navarro, my relationship continued. I can’t remember how long ago it was when I got my picture and name in their catalog but it was pretty exciting for a young guy.
At Ordways we supplied Gewurtz, Chard, Pinot Gris, Reisling and Gruner Veltliner. The winemaker Jim would occasionally call and say they wanted to bring a photographer over and snap some pics for the upcoming issue. Navarro would mention Valley Foothills often in print saying that a particular wine had a certain percentage of Valley Foothills fruit in it. They never bottled a vineyard designate wine ever, even when the Cabernet they bottled us usually 100% from Eaglepoint.
I was pretty shocked this week to read about the recent vintage of Gruner. They said “our vines are just hitting their stride after a few years in the ground.”. Basically saying they planted the vines, when I took the risk of planting a new variety without a planting contract on a hunch. Pretty disappointing. I obviously don’t know who wrote the copy for the catalog, but they are a small family run business that a few people had to sign off before going to print. Anyway after having a relationship with these guys for 40 years I was saddened to see them take such liberties.
I’ve been gone a few years now, but I think it’s not an exclusive deal but it’s possible it’s a long term agreement. Heck a winery is allowed to say whatever they want, but with such a history of acknowledging their growers, this one stinks a bit.
Wineries and winemakers are always implicitly taking the credit for the work of farmers and viticulturists. It’s one of my least favorite things about this industry. I think that, in part, they do this to feed into the myth of the estate - a smallholding vigneron tending to the land and delicately coaxing something transparent and real out of the vines.
Of course, there are plenty of estate vineyards even in California, plenty of wineries small and large that do farm their own vineyards. But there are a lot of boutiquey places that use all grower fruit and have an extremely limited role in the vineyard, yet write marketing copy that makes you imagine they are the decision-makers out there.
This isn’t helped by the other persistent myth that great winemaking is completely hands-off, just letting the fruit speak for itself. If you’re a talented winemaker but you have to pretend you’re not doing anything outside the vineyard, then you have to pretend you’re doing something in the vineyard.
As I have transitioned from wine retail into wine production I am ashamed at how much BS I used to spout, granted I didn’t realize at the time. I’d argue that 90% of all information given about wines is useless fluff. This is also one of my biggest issues with Somms, they seem to really play into that surface level marketing (obviously there are some good ones out there). I think anyone who is serious about expanding their wine knowledge should learn the production side and skip all the WSET, Somm and MW exams. It is much easier to cut through the crap and get to the core of what a wine actually is.
All this being said, the industry wouldn’t exist as it does now without all that marketing magic
Yeah, but what % of somms’ customers (diners) actually want to hear, or care, about more than the surface level wine info? Those that do can ask, but I’d bet most diners would rather get back to talk to their fellow diners.
Somms get at least a sentence or two before they loose the attention of the customer. There are many different perspectives you can give about a wine in 2 sentences. I was mostly talking about wine enthusiasts learning on their own time at home. I see a lot of people just memorizing what grapes are grown where and what wines from certain regions are ‘supposed’ to taste like.
