Monthly Archives: October 2023

Unified Symposium XXX: Back to the Future for the Super Bowl of Wine Industry Meetings

October 31, 2023 By in Unified Wine & Grape Symposium, wine, wine history, wine markets 1 Comment

As harvest 2023 draws to a close, many of us are gearing up for the 2024 edition of the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento on January 23-25, 2024. The Unified is sort of the Super Bowl of North American wine industry events, so I’ve decided to follow Super Bowl practice and call this Unified XXX.

A lot has changed in the economy and the wine business since the first Unified Symposium was convened. The 1990s were a very different time. This was the era of “The End of History” as the collapse of Communism was said to close the era of ideological conflict and open a world of rising liberal democracy.

Surfing the Global Wave

The economy was expanding and markets were becoming more open and more global. Although Ross Perot claimed to hear a “giant sucking sound” of jobs being pulled to Mexico by the new NAFTA agreement, economic growth was remarkably robust. I recall that interest in university economics studies declined because there didn’t seem to be any big economic problems to solve.

As the 1990s moved ahead, the budget deficit in the United States shrank and then eventually actually achieved a surplus! The budget deficit for the last fiscal year was more than $1.5 trillion. What a difference!

The wine world was changing very rapidly in the 1990s, too. Wine surfed the globalization wave much to the benefit of Southern Hemisphere producers. This was the time when Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, and Chile wines became more widely available in the U.S. market, for example.

Wine’s Golden Age?

The U.S. wine market was growing and a Wine Business Monthly article published at the end of the decade provides useful context. “Demographic and Macroeconomic Factors Fueling Increased Wine Consumption” by research analyst Kristine Koerber identified four forces driving American wine: demographic trends, moderate wine consumption’s image as heart-healthy (think “60 Minutes” and the French Paradox story), rising wealth among consumers, and a successful generic marketing campaign (think Got Milk? but for wine).

Koerber concluded her report by saying, “We expect favorable trends to persist. The aging of the baby boomer will be the key demographic trend providing robust growth for the wine industry in the coming years. This demographic group has more disposable income and is reaching its peak spending years at 46.5 years of age, which should further facilitate the consumption of premium wines. High-quality wines with strong brand recognition such as Beringer and Mondavi are positioned to benefit from the growing premium wine market.”

Changing Times

An insightful forecast! But the situation today is pretty much the mirror image of that report. Demographic trends are widely seen to work against wine and alcoholic beverages generally today. Some consumers are wealthier but don’t necessarily feel that way because of pressure from inflation, rising interest rates, higher housing costs, and other factors such as student loan obligations.

Wine was the healthful choice in the 1990s but that tide has turned, too, with anti-alcohol initiatives gaining steam.  The wine industry’s response has been muted, creating what I call in my recent book Wine Wars II the wine identity crisis. Wine has a positive case, but consumers seem to have trouble hearing it.

Which brings me back to Unified XXX. The Unified Wine & Grape Symposium has become the place where the American wine industry comes together to think about, talk about, and form strategies regarding the challenges and opportunities of the day. (A lot of relationships are strengthened and business takes place on and off the trade show floor, too).

Unified I in Perspective

Now flash back to Unified I. That first event drew about 500 participants to the symposium sessions and to visit the 20 exhibitor tables (too small to call a trade show back then). Five hundred wine industry players is a lot and that attendance would be impressive for most meetings today. But Unified XXIX (the 2023 edition) was a lot bigger. About 12,000 people attended over three days, harvesting insights from the 96 speakers and doing business with the 879 exhibitors at the trade show. Unified XXX is on course to be bigger yet.

I have been involved with the Unified since 2012, mainly as moderator and/or speaker at the Wednesday morning State of the Industry session, the largest gathering of a three-day event. So I was interested to see what the equivalent program looked like at Unified I.

Jon Fredrikson was the lead-off speaker, giving a half-hour survey of market conditions. Knowing Jon, I’ll bet it was jam-packed with data and insights and that the audience hung on every word. Jon went on to be a featured speaker at almost every Unified meeting for the next 25 years until his retirement.

Jon’s lead-off presentation was followed by a teleconference that brought the voices of wine retailers into the room. This was not an easy thing to do in the landline era of the 1990s. Everyone wanted to know as much as they could about who was buying wine, who was selling it, and how the market looked for the future.

Globalization was obviously on everyone’s mind, too, as the next three sessions made clear, with a session on international trade effects, global perspectives, and how efforts to drain Europe’s wine lake might affect the American industry.

The Unified XXX State of the Industry lineup shows how the program has evolved to even more directly address the concerns of its wine industry audience.  Jeff Bitter and Danny Brager take deep dives into the trends and issues on the grower and consumer sides of the wine market respectively and Steve Fredricks analyzes the markets that connect them and the global market environment in which everything takes place. Susana Garcia Dolla, Director General of the Interprofesional del Vino de España, will provide an important international perspective, helping us understand how Spain’s wine sector has weathered the wine world’s storms and what lessons can be learned from their experience.

But Wait, There’s More!

There was a lot more going on at that first Unified meeting, of course. I am particularly struck by sessions titled “Monsters in the Closet: Major Issues Impacting Growers & Vintners” and “Government Landmines & Opportunities.” Monsters and landmines? Sounds like wine was a dangerous place! John Gillespie and Mike Boyd spoke on “Who’s Not Drinking Wine and Why?” — a question we are still asking today.

Unified XXX will feature a vast array of sessions (here is the complete schedule) that examine important issues in virtually every aspect of wine growing, production, distribution, regulation, and sales. Several sessions are offered in Spanish. It is quite a multi-discipline University of Wine.

A special treat this year is the Tuesday Keynote Luncheon. Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture, will be the featured speaker. Secretary Ross was President of the California Association of Wine Growers before taking her current job and in that role was instrumental in expanding the Unified into the impressive event it is today.

I am looking forward to hearing what Secretary Ross has to say about how the wine industry has adapted (and must continue to adapt) to the monsters and landmines that lurk around the corner. And to see everyone and learn as much as I can at Unified XXX.

Book Reviews: Wine Fraud, Klein Constantia, & Food Adventurers

October 24, 2023 By in book reviews, wine, wine fraud, wine history Leave a comment

Brief reviews of three new books that curious wine enthusiasts should consider.

Rebecca Gibb, Vintage Crime: A Short History of Wine Fraud (University of California Press). Reviewed by Sue Veseth.

As long as there had been wine, there has been fraud.  If there is money to be made, someone will figure out how to make it — and then how to make a little more, legitimately or not. Or, as Rebecca Gibb, MW, writes, “A splash of narcissism blended with greed makes for a toxic combination.” Gibb engagingly covers centuries of narcissism, greed, and wine fraud from ancient Greece and Rome to recent history, and efforts to root out and address fraud at all levels of the chain.

Gibb’s writing style reminded me in some ways of the style of another author and journalist I admire: Sarah Vowell. Gibb’s writing is light, breezy, and full of interesting content with contemporary references.

I started noting particular phrases from Gibb’s book that tickled me: a reference to Thomas Jefferson’s “inner wine nerd,” for example, and, in discussing Jefferson’s efforts to recover from a broken wrist, “… so he decided to do what we would all do when we are in pain: cross the Alps on the back of  a mule.” Another treat: using Bart Simpson to tell the story of Austria’s mid-1980s scandal involving diethylene glycol added to wine.

Make no mistake, however: behind the writing style is serious research, scholarship, and analysis. She digs into the numbers, sequences of events, historical context, and principal players. The chapter on the 1911 riots in Champagne — the subject of Gibb’s MW thesis —is particularly deep and wide.

No doubt, people will continue to commit wine crimes, likely with new technological tools, such as artificial intelligence. But, in the end, it all seems to come down to greed. The lesson from the 1983 movie Scarface may apply, as the character Frank Lopez (Robert Loggia) said, “Lesson  number one: don’t underestimate the other guy’s greed.”

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Joanne Gibson and Malu Lambert, Klein Constantia: The Home of Vin de Constance. (First Press Editions, distributed by Academie du Vin Library). Reviewed by Mike Veseth.

Wine is good, but wine and a story is better, so wineries everywhere love to tell their stories, often in the form of lavishly illustrated books. Sue and I have a love-hate relationship with winery books. We love to read them and look at the beautiful illustrations, but when we are on the road we fear that our winery hosts will give us copies of their books, which are typically large format, heavy from the glossy stock they are printed on, and nearly impossible to pack.

This new book about South Africa’s most famous winery conveniently arrived in the mail from the Academie du Vin Libaray and we were very happy to receive it. It is beautiful, of course, and tells this winery’s fascinating story with panache. Joanne Gibson focuses on the winery’s rich history while co-author Malu Lambert brings things up-to-date, showing the winery’s recent transformation into both a world-class producer and a wine tourism destination. A final chapter provided by the winery itself looks at the road ahead.

In a way Klein Constantia has grown into the reputation that its wines first established in the 17th century and that persisted through centuries. Once upon a time this signature wine was held in great esteem as one of the most desired wines in the world (and priced accordingly). The Constantia name rings in literature to signify opoulence, taste, luxury.

But, like South African wine in general, Klein Constania suffered from deep decline before rising again in the last 30 years. I was especially pleased to see the contributions of Duggie Jooste, who essentially resserected the winery and put it on the path back to prominence, and viticulturalist Ernst le Roux and winemaker Ross Gower who worked so closely with him. I had the pleasure of meeting Duggie’s son Lowell Jooste and Adam Mason, the winemaker who continued Gower’s work, on my first visit to South Africa. Both are prominently mentioned here.

Duggie Jooste and his team are the heroes of this fascinating story of rise, fall, and eventual rebirth spanning more than three centuries. Eventually the Jooste family realized they lacked the capital to take the winery to the next level and sold to the current owners, who have indeed taken that step and given us a wine, a place, and now this beautiful book that warmly honors its unique history.

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Daniel E Bender, The Food Adventurers: How around-the-world travel changed the way we eat (Reaktion Books).  Reviewed by Mike Veseth.

I am pre-disposed to like books that take a global perspective (I guess that’s why I wrote Around the World in 80 Wines!) and I enjoy thinking outside the box, and trying to learn about wine by studying related fields.

So I could not resist Daniel E. Bender’s new book that looks at how around-the-world travel (think Jules Verne) changed the way we think about food. If travel could change food, maybe it could change wine? I was curious to start the adventure.

At first glance, the story is a bit discouraging. You want to hear that, if travel is broadening, then global travel is positively enlightening. But many of the early tourist circumnavigators, whether traveling over land or by ship, seem to become more parochial as the miles accumulate. Foreign food? Disgusting and sometimes even dangerous (don’t drink the water).

There are exceptions to the general rule that global travel tends to reinforce local prejudices about food in these pages. Ristafel, the Dutch-Indonesian colonial feast, always got high marks from travellers, we learn, although more for the elaborate service than for the food itself. And, zooming ahead to the jet age, the fake Polynesian experience of Trader Vic’s restaurants in Hilton hotel around the worlds was both ridiculous and ridiculously popular.  Both the ristafel and Trader Vic’s get full-chapter treatment.

Travel and exposure to foreign food, according to the accounts that form the base of Bender’s book, both open minds and palates and shut them tightly closed, which nicely illustrates Thomas Friedman’s theory that globalization is “everything and its opposite.”

Bender focuses on how these global tourists encounter foreign food, but wine appears frequently in the travel accounts. Not foreign wine, but the familiar European wines (and spirits) that the travelers brought with them. Indeed, alcohol seems to have fueled the commercial around-the-world travel industry. The Franconia, a tourist steamer with 356 passengers, typically left home port with 4000 bottles of whiskey, 4000 bottles of wine, 2800 bottles of Champagne, and 49,000 bottles of beer to be consumed during the circumnavigation.

I suppose the Franconia’s passengers were as suspicious of foreign drinks as they were of the disgusting, dangerous foods they encountered. No wonder they hurried back on board the ship each evening to eat and drink the familiar foods of home (as many cruise ship passengers do today!).

My reading of Bender’s book is that travel hasn’t made as much of a difference in food and drink as I might have hoped. Perhaps travel is too much of a surface phenomenon in most cases? Maybe migration is the more significant source of change?

It seems that the spread of food and wine cultures depends on personal experiences and relationships; the deeper those connections, the more significant the effects. Worth reflecting upon this as you contemplate your next foreign adventure.

Bolgheri and the Native vs Traditional Grape Variety Debate

October 17, 2023 By in Italian wine, wine, wine history, wine markets 3 Comments

There are hundreds of native grape varietals around the world. Italy has enough for Ian D’Agata to fill two substantial volumes:  Italy’s Native Wine Grape Terroirs and Native Wine Grapes of Italy.  Sometimes I think you could spend a lifetime enjoying just Italy’s native grape wines and never reach the end of the list.

Native grape varieties are almost everywhere threatened by invaders. “International” grape varieties such as Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Sauvignon Blanc, are thought to be easier to sell than native varieties with unfamiliar names. We tend to side with the underdogs in this fight, favoring native varieties that might otherwise fade from the scene. What a loss!

But that doesn’t mean that native grapes are the end of the story. Even in Friuli, home to so many indigenous grapes, there is a third category that are often called “traditional” grape varieties, such as Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Franc, which make excellent and even distinctive wines and have been planted locally for decades. Not native, to be sure, but no longer foreign, either.

Should we favor the native grape varieties because many of them are found only in a single place? Or is that unfair to the traditional grape varieties, which may have been planted locally for generations?

(I think I remember reading that there are a few wine regions in Europe where French-American hybrid grapes, which were introduced more than 100 years ago during the Phylloxera plague, are considered part of the traditional wine culture.)

A Waste of Time?

The native versus traditional grape variety question flared up a few months ago when Sue and I met up with a press group near Lake Garda in Northern Italy. All was quiet when we visited Lugana DOC wineries. Their distinctive wines were all made from Turbiana, a local variant of the native Trebbiano grape. But then we stopped at a couple of wineries in the Garda DOC, where several traditional “international” grape varieties are approved, and things changed a bit.

“This is a waste of time,” a journalist from Northern Europe proclaimed as he stared into his glass, which contained a very nice Chardonnay. My readers don’t care about Italian Chardonnay, he said, they only want to know about what is unique to this place, the native grapes.

I didn’t think it was a waste of time because learning about nice wines is almost always a good thing, but I admit I sometimes fall into a less extreme variant of this point of view, favoring native over traditional or international much of the time. But his strong reaction made me think. The vines for this wine had been planted by the winemaker’s grandfather and had helped support three generations of his family.  That seems pretty well rooted in terroir, don’t you think?

Bordeaux in Bolgheri

I am reconsidering this question right now because Sue and I have been sampling some red wines from Bolgheri. Bolgheri is located on the Tuscan coast in the under-appreciated Maremma region. The wines are the San Felice Bell’Aja Bolgheri Superiore and Podere Sapaio Volpolo Bolgheri. Coming from Tuscany, you would imagine red wines to be Sangiovese or even a “super Tuscan” Sangiovese blend.  But the Bell’Aja is 95 percent Merlot and 5 percent Cabernet Sauvignon. The Volpolo is 70 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 15 percent each Petit Verdot and Merlot.

The wines were very different from each other (just look at the blends!) but the threads that connected them were intensity and elegance from bright acidity. If you are not familiar with Bolgheri wines, these blends will come as a surprise. How did this happen? And what should we make of them? (I won’t ask what my European journalist friend would have said!)

Bordeaux grape varieties came to the Maremma region on the Tuscan coast in the 1930s, according to Joe Bastianich’s account in his book Grandi Vini. That was about the same time that the swamps and marshes thereabouts were drained to fight malaria. Marchese Mario Incisa della Rocchetta saw similarities with Graves in Bordeaux in terms of maritime climactic influence and rocky soil, so a small amount of Cabernet was planted. The wines were meant for family and friends only, but word spread about a unique wine from a vineyard called Sassicia.

The family finally offered a small amount of the wine for sale in 1968 and Sassicia proclaimed the first “Super Tuscan,” which took the world by storm, inspiring winemakers in Tuscany and beyond to both raise standards and experiment with exciting new blends.

What is Tradition?

Sassicia was designated a simple vino da tavola because no appellation existed in Maremma for a wine with Bordeaux grape varieties. Indeed, when a Bolgheri DOC was first established in 1983 it designated white and rosé wines only. Red wines remained vino da tavola until 1994 when the DOC was amended to accommodate the sort of wines that define it today.

Bolgheri and its Bordeaux-blend wines are famous today and the best of them are treasured and collected.  I am not sure anyone would tell Bolgheri producers that it was a mistake to embrace Cabernet when the native Sangiovese was available.

Obviously, these wines don’t rely upon native grapes, but would you call Cabernet and Merlot “traditional” grape varieties here, or is it too soon? The first wines were planted about 90 years ago, the first commercial wines were made a little over 50 years ago, and a DOC was enacted for them less than 30 years ago. Italy is a land of long tradition. Bolgheri is young by comparison. Bolgheri’s timeline in this regard is more New World than Old World.

Perhaps, as Hobsbawm argued, tradition isn’t something that exists on its own. Maybe it is something we create to suit our needs.

Argentina Reconsidered: Malbec Red, Malbec White, & Exploring the Limits

October 10, 2023 By in Argentina, wine, wine magazines 3 Comments

A highlight of our first trip to Argentina in 2011 was a special lunch where we sampled wine after wine (paired with exquisite local cuisine), but none of the wines (until the very end) were Malbecs.

Our host, Andrés Rosberg, then President of the Association of Argentinean Sommeliers and a judge for the Decanter World Wine Awards, wanted to make a point. Argentina may be identified with Malbec wine. Malbec may be its signature wine grape variety. But Malbec doesn’t define Argentina.

I will paste the 2011 tasting menu at the bottom of this page so that you get a sense of the experience.

Argentina’s Many Faces

Sue and I have carried this lesson with us and we make every effort to spread the word when we can, highlighting the diversity of Argentina wines beyond Malbec and also the diversity of different Malbec wines, particularly the differences between higher- and lower-elevantion wines.

It would be impossible to recreate our experience in Buenos Aires, but we were able to reconsider stereotypes of Argentina wines recently thanks to sample wines from Grupo AVINEA , a leading Argentina producer. Grupo Avenia is probably best known here in the U.S. market for its popular-priced Bodega Argento Malbec, but in fact the group, like Argentina, has lots more to offer.

Our research extended over two evenings.  We make a point of tasting wine with meals because it is so much more realistic and, to us, revealing than the “sip, spit, and score” ritual of wine competitions.  Research assistants Bonnie and Richard joined us on the first evening for a series of three very surprising wines.

The first wine was the Artesano de Argento Organic White Malbec shown above. White Malbec? I think we were all afraid that it might be a sweetish blush wine like some White Zinfandels found on the market. But it was completely different. The grapes were picked early and the skins separated from the juice very quickly, resulting in a completely color-free wine that was crisp and refreshing.  The bottle was quickly drained. A hit!

Way South of the Border

The next two wines were from Grupo Avenia’s Bodega Otronia winery, which sources grapes from what is possibly the southern-most vineyard in the world at 45º 33′ S latitude. These are really extreme vineyards situated in the cold desert beside Lake Musters, in Chubut, Patagonia.

The 45 Rugientes Corte de Blancs was a fascinating blend of Gewurtztraminer, Pinot Gris, and Chardonnay, with layers of bright flavor and savory herbs. Sue and I have had blends like this from Northern Italy and they can be fantastic. A lot of attention was given to this wine. Hand harvested, fermented in concrete eggs and tanks, aged in a combination of oak and concrete. I really enjoyed it, but Richard prefered the White Malbec. Two very distinctive and unexpected white wines!

Then came the 45 Rugientes Pinot Noir, which was also delicious and unexpected. It was intense, with nice acidity and had a personality of its own, not Burgundy or Oregon or even Tasmania. Maybe it was the whole cluster fermentation that brought out extra fruit. Another hit.

There is actually quite of lot of Pinot Noir grown in Argentina, which might explain why Moët Chandon established its first New World sparkling wine outpost in Mendoza more than 60 years ago.

And Don’t Forget Malbec!

Later in the week Sue and I completed the project by pulling the cork on a bottle of Argento Malbec, but not the popular supermarket bottling. It was an Argento Single Vineyard Malbec from Finca Altamira. The wine was distinctive for its freshness and tart fruit, which in general sets apart our favorite Malbecs.

The bottom line from this research project? Argentina Malbec has a lot to offer and Argentina itself has much to offer beyond Malbec. Kinda makes you thirsty, doesn’t it? Thirsty to discover what’s next!

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2011 Tasting Menu

Breaded veal tongue stuffed with brie cheese & sundried tomatoes and piquillo peppers sauce paired with Chandon Cuvée Reserve Pinot Noir

Baby squid & pickled vegetables salad
Rutini Gewürztraminer 2009

Rabbit liver & spinach ravioli with mushroom stock
Ricardo Santos Sémillon 2010

White salmon with ajoblanco, almonds, roasted tomatoes, zucchinis & bean pods
Miguel Escorihuela Gascón Pequeñas Producciones Chardonnay 2009

Iced lullo, litchis, caramelized pumpkin seeds & yogurt foam
Rutini Vin Doux Naturel (Sémillon – Verdicchio) 2007

Allspice philo pastry, chocolate cream, apple, saffron ice cream & cardamom milk
Rutini Vino Dulce Encabezado de Malbec 2007

 

Will Success Spoil Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc?

October 3, 2023 By in New Zealand, wine, wine brands, wine markets 5 Comments

Will success spoil Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc? That is the question that haunts the 50+ winery members of Appellation Marlborough Wine (AMW). Sauvignon Blanc, as everyone knows, is New Zealand’s signature wine variety and Marlborough is world-famous for the distinctive wines made there. Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is one of the most powerful brands in the world of wine.

I have friends who don’t claim to know much about wine, but they know what they like. And what they like, they will tell you, is Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. No wonder exports of the wine grow year after year (except when short harvests intervene). Here in the United States, it is one of the few bright spots in the market and its success has invigorated the whole Sauvignon Blanc category.

Kiwi World Domination?

Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc isn’t the next big thing. It is the big thing right now and has been for some time. I charted the rise of this distinctive wine more than ten years ago in the first edition of my book Wine Wars and even hallucinated (that’s what they call it when an artificial intelligence robot makes stuff up) about Kiwi SB world domination in Wine Wars II, which came out last year.

World domination? No, not really. But it is quite a success story and, ironically, therefore a cause for nervousness for some Kiwi producers. That was already apparent way back in 2004 when Sue and I first visited New Zealand. Some winemakers were trying to diversify their sales away from such a heavy reliance on Sauvignon Blanc while others doubled down on their cash cow, even going so far as to question plantings of Pinot Noir for fear that it might dilute Brand NZ.

There is concern today about New Zealand’s great Sauvignon Blanc success, but it is a bit different than in the past. The focus is on control of the very valuable Marlborough Sauvignon brand. You might think that the issue is foreign control because so many important Kiwi wineries are owned by international wine companies, but the issue is a bit different.

New Zealand’s Global Reach

France’s LVMH owns icon Cloudy Bay, for example. And Pernod Ricard has Brancott Estate, Church Road, Deutz NZ, and Stoneleigh in its portfolio. Treasury Wine Estates owns Matua. Gallo owns Nobilo and part of Whitehaven according to my sources. Kim Crawford, Monkey Bay, and Selaks all belong to U.S.-based Constellation. International investment has driven the wine industry’s expansion and provided built-in global distribution systems. As I argued in my books, the New Zealand wine industry is a product of globalization.

I can’t imagine such a degree of foreign ownership anywhere else in the wine world, but that’s not the main issue. No, the problem, as I understand it, is that so much Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is exported in bulk, in those huge shipping container tanks. The wine is bottled in the receiving market. Much of it goes into private-label products that may or may not have the quality Kiwi producers desire. Some producers have written to me over the years that they feel they are losing control of their brand.

A case can certainly be made that bulk shipping makes sense for New Zealand wine. The carbon footprint of the wine is already there because of the long distance from the vineyard to the final buyer and this factor grows if the product is bottled in New Zealand before shipping. However, NZ bottling would be one way for local producers to better control the product chain and protect their brand.

Appellation Marlborough Wine

Appellation Marlborough Wine (AMW) is an association of Marlborough producers that was formed in 2018 “to safeguard Marlborough Wine, initially focused on Sauvignon Blanc, whose purity and flavour intensity has earned it a phenomenal global reputation,” according to the group website.

“With this global demand, comes the proliferation of players and a range of quality expectations, which can put this hard-earned reputation at risk. AMW has been established to safeguard Marlborough wine for future generations to enjoy and provide assurance to consumers who seek wines of provenance, authenticity and integrity.”

There are currently 53 AWM member wineries, including several of the “internationals” mentioned above such as Cloudy Bay and Whitehaven plus Clos Henri, Framingham, and others. It is an impressive list. The intent is to establish the AMW logo as an indicator of quality and authenticity that extends beyond the “Marlborough” geographic designation.

The criteria for the AMW designation include 100% Marlborough grapes, sustainability certification, and the requirement that the wines be bottled in New Zealand, which excludes the bulk-shipped, foreign-bottled wines discussed above, including private label products.

As I understand it, the concern is that the popular bulk-shipped products will define Brand Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc in a way that is detrimental to its long-term sustainability. This kind of threat always exists when a region is associated with a single “signature varietal,” and you can appreciate how the bulk shipping element adds to producer concerns.

A Tale of Four Bottles

I wonder if the AMW designation will catch on. The back labels on wine bottles are often very crowded with logos and certifications and a good deal of education effort is needed to make a new one like this an effective tool. This could be a hard sell. That said, I think Sue and I will be checking out the back labels of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc wines in the future because a recent research tasting persuaded us that there might be something to learn here.

Sue and I were joined by research assistants David and Terri for a dinner and tasting featuring the four wines shown in the photo above. Three of the wines — Lawson Dry Creek Sauvignon Blanc, Mahi Sauvignon Blanc, and Astrolabe Sauvignon Blanc — were provided by AMW as examples of member products. I added a fourth wine to the mix: Kirkland Signature Ti Point Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which sells for about $7.49 at Costco. It is an example of the sort of private-label wine that AMW is a reaction to. I have heard that it is Costco’s best-selling private-label wine. In any case, it probably defines Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc for many consumers.

What did we learn at our tasting? The Kirkland Signature was a bit less punchy than I remembered, but otherwise, it pretty well fit the popular notion of a Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. The three AMW wines, which sold for about three times the Costco price, were very different and very different from each other. There was subtlety and elegance and, to be honest, if you defined Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc by the characteristics of the private label wines (or the big brands like Kim Crawford), you might not have guessed they were the same grape variety or came from the same place at all!

A Plausible Hypothesis

Obviously, three wines cannot represent the more than four dozen member wineries and the Costco wine cannot represent all the different bulk-shipped products. So nothing was proved here, but I think we learned something. Certainly, there is a stereotype of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc that the big-volume brands embody. But there is more to Marlborough than that. More different grape varieties. More different styles of Sauvignon Blanc.

The AMW initiative is thus worthwhile. Will it succeed? It won’t be easy to persuade consumers to look for the AMW logo on the back label. I suspect consumers will be converted one glass at a time.