Wine Industry Grapples with Being Something Only Boomers Like

WINE TALK
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Good thougts, and I pretty much agree.

Regardless of how original the first producers choosing a “natural” aesthetic were, Joe Dressner opened the seas for demand for the style much more rapidly than the first producers could ever keep up with. Most niches for wine production are already full with well established producers so it takes a large amount of respurces to “become a winemaker”.

Demand for natural wines opened the door for many people lacking a 7-8 figure budget to follow a dream. But it is relatively orthodox, and since demand is driving the bus as much as history, producers are living up to expectations as much as they alcreating or innovating.

That’s NOT a slam on natural producers-almost no one in winemaking is actually creating or innovating. 7000 years later this industry is more Ecclesiastes than Genesis…

Sadly, there is a section of wine production, natural and conventional, that promotes cellar over vineyard…it’s horse poop but they can say what they like. And if you have a newish small producer with a cellar and no vineyard, he’s more likely to say that the cellar is dominant because he sees the magic of ferment and also how much of an impact his decisions have. Growers are often the same but in reverse.

I feel lucky that I’ve seen the difference that the vineyard itself makes. But I was only looking because I drank Burgundy.

That said, I enjoy Fevre and Bouchard. Weirdly, my father’s cousin is married to one of the Bouchard family. He enjoys the older wines but feels the wines are better after the family sold the production to the current owners.

But while Bouchard and Fevre make excellent wines, neither have ever really captured my fancy. At a certain size, harvest is too compressed to be handled in any way but efficiency first. Which leads too straightforward for me (much better than Kombucha though). And too be fair, small producers can be undercapitalized leading to opportunities missed and mistakes from overwork. But at $150, I doubt too many millinials will jump in the game even for a solid Burgundy producer. I’m lucky, I can drink Violin, Vincent, and Walter Scott for considerably less, scratch my unique itch and keep the quality up as well. But we’ve never codified vineyards in Oregon or even had a comprehensive reference text published for the vineyards.

P.S. I worry about Lassaigne a bit. I love the wines, though Oregon sees none of them except the Le Vins de Montguex. But high VA levels come from microbial issues, and each time a wine builds signifocant VA the population grows. And then becomes a bigger challenge. Un-bottled sparkling wines are low sulfur by nature, they need to referment under harsh circumstances, so adding much sulfur before bottling is challenging. Once a Kombucha brewer…always a Kombucha brewer (maybe not that dire but you get what I mean).

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Most people in the industry have opinions, positive and negative, about wines. Some of the critiques are harsh.

I don’t think I know many people who critique the person who drinks those wines. It’s definitely a different thing.

I think Coors Light sucks. Same for Barefoot. I don’t think negatively of anyone buying them. Their life is their life and I respect them making the choice that suits them.

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Well, at nearly 50 I am not sure which group I belong to, since I was raised with computers and social media, though obviously not to the extent of the current crop of people who are recently of legal drinking age, but I think I understand why these wines appeal to younger people.

In my opinion, it’s because many younger people have been conditioned to purchase products based on how they are marketed rather than how good they are. Story is more important than actual quality to people who are constantly bombarded with hip new trends. Tell a story that clearly pits your product “against the norm” and you will definitely attract younger consumers who see themselves (ironically?) as “those who go against the grain.”

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Sounds like the young Marcus Goodfellow would have loved natural wines LOL!

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I think this is a very condescending view. Young people aren’t stupid. Setting aside the ability of people of any age to waste money, young people aren’t actively seeking to buy products which are bad, and they aren’t going to continue to purchase something they don’t enjoy. Are they susceptible to marketing? Sure, just like every generation before them. Marketing something as new and fresh and different has long been an effective strategy. The issue of “actual quality,” may have some merit, as today’s younger generations have been raised in a world of fast casual everything where nothing - from appliances to clothes to phones to computers - is made to last, and all is designed to be replaced in short order. But that doesn’t really apply to consumables. They still ultimately want something they enjoy. I doubt many of them drink something and say, “that was awful, but I like the marketing so I’ll keep buying it.” Like it or not, the more reasonable conclusion is that these people like these wines. Yes, even though this board in general is extreme hostile to natural wines it simply must be that people actually like them. (disclosure, I like some natural wines and find the antipathy on this board to be way OTT, but it is far from any significant portion of my consumption)

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Probably, but only until I discovered Burgundy :wink:

I think a lot of the wines back then were closer than one might think. Even now, most of the producers I know and buy from are closer to natural than they are to manufactured.

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You say this like there is not a ton of Natural wine made in Burgundy :slight_smile: In fact Burgundy is probably one of the hottest areas for young natural winemakers especially in some of the fringe areas.

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100%, and often made in a glou glou style.

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It’s also extremely fair to say that something farmed organically and made without interventions is actually a good thing (in a macro-view).

A bottle of wine that had glyphosate sprayed all around it may taste “good” but not necessarily be good.

My antipathy for natural wines is almost wholly based around two things:

  1. demonization of sulfur, which no natural winemaker has ever been able to explain to me beyond the idea that the wines have fresher fruit while they are in the cellar (this is mostly true). But that’s a short term reality, and it fails to look at what the wine will be like after travel and how long the wine needs to survive before the cork gets pulled. For however much the fruit may taste more intense in the cellar, I’ve had too many bottles that were oxidized and dead when I opened them.

  2. the lack of significant experience on the part of many of the local natural winemakers vs their willingness to “lay down the law” on what’s right in the cellar. While not really acknowledging the serious inconsistency of their own work.

If my reaction to that is OTT for you, my apologies. I have a friend that has shown me tremendous natural wines, but in the wider world there are too many really cute/cool labels and too few really good wines, too often pitched to me as something beyond others achievements in regions I have previously had great wines from.

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You were definitely not who I had in mind when I mentioned the OTT reactions. I find that basically any mention of natural wine on this board is met with an absolute flood of vitriol. This thread alone has a ton of it. It’s like everyone has to get in their two cents about it while patting themselves on the back for not having such flawed tastes. It gets boring quite quickly at the very least. In the context of this thread, I think it has served as a significant distraction from the more pertinent and interesting issues involved here.

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Unfortunately, I don’t buy much Burgundy anymore. While not a millinial, it’s price point is prohibitive for 90%+ of my favorite producers. (Starting the winery didn’t help and openly, neither does being immersed in what is good in Oregon. We have producers like Morgen Long, Martin Woods, Walter Scott, PGC, and Kelley Fox, so buying Burgundy isn’t as necessary as it used to be).

And flatly, I love traditional Burgundy. The new higher abv crushable in youth is not my thing-not at all.

If you have a recommendation for a couple of the new natural winemakers in Burgundy who fit that bill, I am all ears. I definitely respect your knowledge and would be happy to explore some of the people you suggest.

But I like vintages picked in October or late September over August or first of September picks. I’m happy to wait for a vintage with that type of picks as Burgundy has mostly been on a streak of warmer vintages.

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That’s fair and appreciated.

One of the biggest problems with modern media is that we all do want to get a thought in, and collectively the positive or negative aggregate weighs heavier than the true reality of the subject.

Though I also believe reactions on the board are stronger than most because most posters have had a wider than normal number of great wine experiences and the bar we measure things by is less forgiving. We’re used to not just consistency, but consistency at a very high level. And the inconsistencies in bottles is more acutely sensed here.

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I’m not the biggest fan of a lot of natural wines they serve at the SF and Oakland wine bars (though I like the more old-school natural wine producers like Lapierre, Clos Roche Blanche, Occhipinti, etc…), but I do agree with you that the vitriol surrounding it is over-the-top.

I mean, the OP isn’t even about natural wine, and its not like the boomers in the SVB report who prefer wine are drinking Dujac and Latour – they are consuming $10 wines they picked up at Trader Joe’s or Safeway.

Tbh, some of the natural wine vitriol seems to be just an excuse to hammer younger people for their supposed moral deficiencies. There are more posts in this thread about housing prices and the financial irresponsibility of the young than there are posts about the OP.

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Greg,

You make a lot of points, many of which I agree with. However you do not need $300 million to get into the wine business. Please think how many successful producers started, literally, in garages, with purchased grapes. I’ll name two hugely successful complete opposites: Dave Phinney and Mike Officer. I can also name a small, modestly successful producer whose initial vineyard was purchased for 5 figures: That would be me.

On another important point raised by many, there is a real dichotomy. On the one hand, many of us see an almost desperate need to simplify wine for new consumers. OTOH, there are well over a million different wines bottled for sale every year and the same people yearning to make it simple for noobs don’t want to do anything do lessen the diversity of wine.

Yes, cost has become a factor. Like Anton, there was a time when I could afford to buy a few bottles of DRC without worrying about the mortgage (unlike him, I drank them all, dammit). Even Premier Cru Burgundies from the better towns and Bordeaux classifieds below the 1sts now usually cost over $100. The flip side is that the overall quality of wine has improved so much that (along with climate change), sites that were considered not worthy of attention by geeks are now producing far better wines for more palatable prices.

How to get the message across and cut through the clutter?

Dan Kravitz

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I love Oregon and have been really going deep because one I love the wines and two of the price differential with Burgundy.

I had a sunning Les Horees Coteaux Bourguignons that I would recommend if the secondary market U.S. pricing was not so silly. If you see one of them in Europe I would recommend it. And not a new producer but these days I really love the natural wines of Julien Guillot, particularly the 910 bottling. I will bring some natural Burgundy to Oregon on my next trip. I visited the Mosel in December and did an Oregon tasting for a group of winemakers! The wines were a big hit!

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Frankly, I believe the “patting themselves on the back for not having such flawed tastes” is part & parcel of the problem with millennials and wines. Wine is seen as a super snobby and elitist thing to know much about and that is not wrong! The amount of time and money I invested to become knowledgeable about wine is not insignificant and not a single person in my life cares to make that kind of investment on their own - they are happy with me bringing them bottles I think they will enjoy.

If you are a young person in NY/SF/LA, the only wine bars around are those that talk up their natural wine lists. The restaurants getting written about in the press are those with natural-heavy wine lists at decent markups. The retailers with the best reviews are those that stock trendier and, yes, natural wines. Natural wine is today’s gateway to get the average young adult with disposable income in a HCOL area on board with wine. And when someone who likes these wines hears about or reads that these wines are bad and the only wines worth drinking are from Burgundy, it is an immediate turnoff to the larger industry. I love Burgundy but the first time I wanted to try a Burgundy and went to my favorite store to find a bottle, the prices were shocking and I didn’t even like the wine I ended up picking (it was an Aloxe Corton from a bad vintage, which I know now was priced accordingly).

More inclusivity among connoisseurs and better marketing of wine itself and the stories behind the growers would go a long way, imo.

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Again and again, the millennial I sold our place to in 2020 got the same place for 315k with 12k out of pocket and total monthly pymt of $2100. And I was a licensed seller or mortgages for 7 years too…

An individual or couple does not need a 2BR in a mid-large city. Millennials can buy something and buy wine, but they go out and spend a lot on other stuff.

She was making 2020 income, and picking out the highest mortgage rates since 2007 as a reference is cherry picking a negative scenario.

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That would be lovely. I’m sorry we missed the Rieslingstudy you hosted at Hi-Fi, we were in the middle of a set of big days prepping for bottling.

I’m glad to hear the tasting for Mosel winemakers was a hit too! I feel like international winemakers often enjoy Oregon wines, much as we do theirs.

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Same.

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Judgement of TikTok?