Vinocalypse Now: The wine biz in California

September, 2021

As is seemingly the case with so many aspects of modern life - politics, economics, the environment/climate(!!), health and medicine, indeed societal organization itself - there is a non-trivial sense of foreboding; this sentiment has been most certainly shared lately by the wine business in my part of the world, the west coast of the U.S., as we try to figure out where we go from here.  The Pacific Northwest of the U.S. recently experienced high temperatures so anomalous that vineyardists and other resident sentient beings just totally freaked out.  In California and the southwest we are looking at the most frightening prospect of drought in recent memory, one likely not to relent any time soon.  As Gary Larson might well have said to the would-be dry-farmer in California (that would be me, amongst others), “Bummer of a birthmark, Hal.”*

The business challenges of small to mid-sized wineries have been documented elsewhere at great length, and mainly have to do with constrictions within the wholesale channel (disappearance of mid-sized and fine wine distributors) and more recently, the decimation of the hospitality industry due to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Even before the pandemic, it was obvious that the wine business was becoming very difficult.  While no wine lover cannot be in favor of a growth of wine awareness, it has come at a cost.  The world of wine is not as comfortable and intimate as it once was.  There is now a profusion of new wine styles, a discovery of emergent wine regions and even, albeit on a modest scale, the revivification of antique indigenous grape varieties, all wonderful developments for the consumer, but coming at a cost to the individual producer.  The international competition is unreal.  Some of us in the industry were fortunate enough to have had prosperous Baby Boomers as customers, who for all of their well-described deficits, had the laudable virtue of brand loyalty.  If one were fortunate enough to capture them as customers, they had the quaint habit of remaining loyal to your brand for many many years.

These Edenic conditions are no more.  The Boomers are getting older; they’re not replacing the drunk up bottles in their cellars; millennials and younger ‘uns show minimal interest in collecting, nor seem to have the behavioral characteristics of the unrelenting, obsessive wine geek. It’s now just too big a wine world to try to master, so why bother?  But, truly, is there any reason why wine lovers should limit themselves to a discreet repertoire and not be open to the greater vast, non-recurring universe of vinous possibility?

The issue that California faces is that, candidly, we don’t really deliver particularly good value nor produce “classic” irreplaceable wines.  Our wines are sunny and clean and have (despite the ridiculous challenges that we face) in general, a sort of slightly irrational exuberance, which makes them pleasant enough to drink but not complex enough to obsess upon.  Few of them touch our souls, haunt us, make us need to taste them over again.  I believe we small producers in California will have to learn how to make wines that can do this if we are to survive as self-proclaimed producers of “fine wine.”

I don’t yet know how I will manage to keep my customers if I'm fortunate enough to find them in the first place.  I think if I can show them up close what we do, have them walk, touch and smell an extraordinary vineyard (such as I just happen to conveniently own) I might be able to engender a real sense of connectivity.   But I will still  have to unlock the secret of producing compelling wine.  It is my deepest belief  that a compelling wine has to be more than a collection of favorable flavor characteristics.  It has to be about something, ideally about the place from where it is derived.  In some sense it has to inspire consumers, elevate them, make them believe that the universe is incrementally more wondrous than they had previously believed.

What gives one pause, of course, is the bewildering array of possibilities for those of us planting vineyards de novo.  What to grow?  How to grow it?  But, most importantly, where to grow it?  (And on which unique exposition?)  The terrible truth is that as much as we (mostly) technocratic grape growers imagine that the sum of our viticultural choices will be the most important determinant of grape quality, it is, I believe, the extraordinary element of luck (or inspiration) in our initial site selection that counts for most.  

With time, luck and greater understanding, we will continue to gradually discover some great sites for vineyards and despite alarming land prices, some viticultural progress will occur.  But, what is most compelling to me these days is the idea that, largely unfettered by restrictive regulation we can in California implement enormously creative planting initiatives - from “wilding” our vineyards with the introduction of (non-grape) companion plantations and creation of more complex polycultures, the use of certain soil supplements such as biochar to super-charge the soil biota,[2] to the use of new and potentially more complex planting material.  I am myself interesting in the idea of building greater complexity into my wines through the implementation of extreme genetic diversity, either through an array of self-crossed varieties selected for their unique qualities[3] or by the creation of an array of uniquely new varieties.[4]  Withal, in light of intense worldwide competition and the fact that the economics do not conduce to producing inexpensive quasi-commodity wines in the cooler, coastal climes of California, our mission must be to produce startlingly original wines of great and unique beauty 

I’m imagining that we in California will have to learn how to become first strong terroir detectors - that is to say, strongly attentive to unusually expressive sites.  But once a site has been identified, we need to expand our imaginations to create a methodology that will enable both unique site/soil characteristics to emerge as well as to provide a greater range of flavor characteristics.  We might not (or should not) be able to steer the course in a precise, determinant direction, but rather work out how to create a set of conditions that will insure an enormously interesting and fulfilling journey.  

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[1]  This particular Far Side cartoon is (or should be) pretty indelibly etched in the public consciousness, but it features a deer with a bulls-eye integument on its flank.

[2] The use of biochar might well be considered a sort of modification or deformation of terroir, but certainly a very benign one, and one that might more reasonably thought of fas a strategy for enhancing homeostasis in the vineyard and a re-enforcement of pre-existing soil characteristics, a terroir amplifier, if you will.

[3] The value of self-crossing extant varieties and working with seedlings is not entirely obvious, with the appearance of non-ideal recessive characteristics in the offspring and the problematic non-fertility of “male” and “female” vinifera as opposed to normal  (hermaphrodite) vinifera selections.  (With new DNA testing to rapidly determine the reproductive capacity of the seedlings, one can greatly streamline the selection process, but the project does carry a significant timeline.)  Where I’ve lately gotten to in my thinking is that while it may be theoretically possible to arrive at an “Uber-cépage,” i.e. one with obviously superior characteristics to its parent, or simply better adapted to its new environs than the parent - a selection of biotypes with slightly outré (as well as “classic”) characteristics could well impart unique complexity and distinction to a blend of biotypes.  The use of extreme “variants” might add complexity within a varietal family in a similar way that complex wines are fashioned from a heterodox encépagement.  Maybe one’s Uber-cépage is actually a composite of multiple biotypes, each with strong and distinctive characteristics; to paraphrase Hillary Clinton, “It takes a Village (wine).”

[4] The discovery/creation of a new genius grape variety is an immense long shot, to be sure. Similar to the work with the self-crosses, the real value in this exercise may not ultimately be the creation of a new and distinctive grape variety - there are plenty of brilliant grape varieties anxious for their moment - but rather, by making a wine blend of extreme genetic diversity, a) varietal expression will be suppressed, the better to allow the express the unique qualities of soil characteristics and b) the sheer eclectic nature of the blend will likely redound to unique flavor complexity.  We know that varieties that might be considered somewhat “neutral” in character, i.e. not themselves super-charged with dense flavor information (Chasselas, Pais, to consider but two) with a certain “openness” on the palate, are often ideal carriers for the expression of soil characteristics.

Vinocalypse now: the quest for uniqueness in California, Decanter, 9/7/21