DAN'S PAPERS, October 10, 2008 Page 46 www.danshamptons.com
Special Section:
Wine Guide
Recession (Red, White and) Blues By Christopher S. Miller So you pulled the corks on a couple of 1982 Lafites because you thought the world was ending. But the next day you woke up, maybe with some great memories and a slight hangover, and the sun rose, albeit on a very different economy. Now what will you drink? An awful lot of smart money people are searching for answers these last couple of weeks as to exactly what has happened on Wall Street and Main Street. This leaves me wondering how the collective markets’ wine palate will react. Looking backwards is easy, and in some cases a bit scary. I’m not so sure anymore that remortgaging the house to invest in Bordeaux futures was a great idea, but it’s too late for remorse. Let’s look forward instead. Some questions I am as clueless about as those discussing financial issues in DC and on Wall Street. Will the wine industry bubble pop? My guess is that Bordeaux’s Chateau Petrus and Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanee Conti and their ilk will always have more demand than product, so they will continue to demand crazy high prices. Chateau Petrus is only 28.17 acres as compared to California’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, which has a total of 229 acres under cultivation. La Romanee Conti vineyard is all of 4.47 acres and La Tache (another rarified Burgundian property) is 14.97 acres. The logical conclusion is that a slowing economy will affect the demand of Stag’s Leap wines more than those of Petrus or DRC. So for those of you whose “golden parachute� has some holes, you might want to cancel those Bordeaux and Burgundy orders and look for some alternative wines to consume till the recession (or whatever the pundits decide it is) subsides. If, however, your parachute is still in good order and has
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Christopher Miller
Some Market Speculators Awash in First Growths, But What Will the Rest of Us Drink Now?
a promising future, stop reading this and give me a call. I may be willing to part with some wine from my cellar – to pay the mortgage, of course. (Visit Hamptonswineshoppe.com. You may e-mail Chris from the site.) For the rest of you (i.e. most of us) here are some thoughts on how the current economic meltdown may affect wine consumers on normal budgets. The recent, drastic increase in interest in wine generally has done both wonderful and bad things to the industry. I would put the increase in ego and arrogance on the negative side. By that I mean producers, importers, distributors, sommeliers and wine store owners who feel the customer is fair game for them to dupe into spending more and more money on pricey wines. It boggles my mind to ponder all the wines I’ve tasted for business purposes over the past five years about which I have thought, gee, that’s a nice wine for 30 dollars only to find the actual price to be many times that because of some rating or prestigious vineyard site that doesn’t really affect the actual wine. On the plus side, a positive thing has happened to the wine industry as a result of this increased interest, and it is precisely what will help keep our wine habit afloat during an economic realignment. I refer to the great thirst that our wine geeks, sommeliers and other wine professionals have for discovering and exploring the next hot wine region, grape or wine style. This thirst has driven the quality up in regions such as Southern Italy, Austria, South Africa and Argentina, to name just a few. The difference in the wines available in most wine
stores and restaurants between 1987 or even 2001 (our last couple of serious economic adjustments) and today has vastly expanded. Today we have Gruner Veltliner from Austria, Negroamaro from Puglia, Lagrein from Alto-Adige, Malbec from Mendoza and plenty of others. In 1987 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc was just starting to be planted in Marlborough. Today it is not only widely available but also highly popular with consumers. In the wine world it has indeed been a very exciting 20 years since Black Friday. When we’re flush with cash we don’t need to be too imaginative. We can buy all the famous and expensive wines we can get our greedy little hands on, such as 1982 Chateau Petrus or 1995 Romanee-Conti. Anyone with a fat bank account can buy these showy stars. But lesser economic times demand creativity in wine purchasing. It is during these times that our knowledge and inquisitiveness about wine will serve us well. A few weeks ago Eric Asimov, of The New York Times, wrote about the values that can be found in French wines. While I agree totally, France is not the only great wine country where values can be found. Unfortunately, I have been around wine for so long that when I taste a really fine wine that is a very good value today, I still remember when the same wine was 20, 30 or even 50 percent less expensive. In this case I am thinking of a wine I had the other day, a Terre Negroamaro from the Puglia region in the heel of Italy. Negroamaro is a little (continued on next page)