Food For Thought
Intermittent Ideas From The Wine World
Who Do We Write For?
We don't just throw this together you know!
Before I continue, I've put these images on the page to make you smile and hopefully to return you to a time when wine was more about social fun than social climbing.
About three months ago, I was at an event that was packed with producers and wine experts, and one topic that seemed to dominate a lot of the conversations was the epidemic of people moving away from wine, and the numerous theories about why. I'd just like to add a brief paragraph or three on the subject.
For me, I feel that a lot of it has to do with the role of the writer, or foghorn for the industry, and the conversations we have with a general public we should be enthusing, but might be helping to distance.
This in turn, along with chats with other wine writers, has made me wonder just who do wine writers think they are writing for, what agendas might be being pushed, and what sort of conversations should we really be having.
At the beginning of most of these conversations are a youth market that is slipping away, and for who it might be too late. It seems to be agreed that they are searching for something else, something that is nothing like the drinks that entertained their parents, or that they just can't afford to afford to embrace like a long-lost friend. Instead of Chardonnay and Champagne, they now find 'their people' amongst the cocktail set, the seltzer seekers, the cannabis consumers, or one of plentiful diversions that easily grab their attention.
In the conversations about the shrinking wine market, the price point is never far away from a lot of people, not just the young, and the worry is that high price points make sampling anything with more than a slight taste of alcoholic grape juice so exorbitant that most people just cannot contemplate a voyage of wine discovery that might lead to a life long enthusiasm, besides, the wine writers they try and read seem buried in an obscurity that seems smug and self-serving.
Finally, we come to those who like the idea of wine, think it a fun beverage, a great way to share a moment, be it a celebration or something to be shared amongst friends, but who have constantly been frightened away by the minefield of making a faux-pas when choosing a wine by a vocabulary they can't understand when it comes to buying a simple bottle of wine!
They are often turned off before they start, because the notion of paying high prices for magazines, books, or courses leaves them cold when they want to share the warmth of friendship over a glass of simple alcohol, and if they think about acquiring more in-depth knowledge, the many paths seem to take more time than they are willing to give, and the end point stretches out before them in such a long-winded manner that it makes the US Presidential election process seem like a sprint.
Wow! Tell me more, but without the bullshit!
Often, in print, on television, radio and online, these people look for help, but I feel that it is how we, as wine writers, talk about our world that needs to be addressed, taken apart, and examined, because we're often culpable of blinding with science, snobbery and oneupmanship (or oneuppersonship as we might say)
Amongst a lot of wine writers I've met, there motivations vary. Some do it to continue to appeal to 'their people'. There are others who do it because it might be part of a grand plan to achieve an academic qualification, while some write because they are generally in love with the facts and figures that haunt the business like Banquo's ghost
For me, the worst are a dangerous vanguard who have been around for so long they've probably forgotten how exciting it was to taste that first glass of wine. They often cling on to their positions and reputation, and only support each other, and rarely acknowledging newcomers with an enthusiasm to explore the world of wine.
As I read their critiques, their descriptors, their knowing assumptions, and their constant tales of obscure bottles they have tried (but that aren't available to the rest of us) I find a sense of self-aggrandisement, where writing about wine in such a ratified atmosphere is only for like-minded souls who know the language and the wine names to drop.
It's a narrow world that readily promotes obscurity and ignores the seeker who is hoping to find a way to enjoy and discover wine. Often they write for publications that are only read by those already in the know, or they publish weighty tomes that sit gathering dust on shelves in anonymous libraries.
Too many times I've been to vineyards with groups, and their questions always lead me to wonder just who they are writing for, because it sure isn't the layperson when it comes to wine? How does knowing the residual sugar of a bottle of wine help bring new business into the market, unless it's a sugar obsessive? Most people who buy wine are interested in the taste, the affordability, and how it relates to what situation they are buying it for, and not always in that order.
I'd like a wine that tastes more of fruit and fun than snobbery
The youth market aren't interested in terroir because most of them haven't been to the terroir you're talking about, and the relationship between what's in their glass and the place it's grown is such a distant relationship to them that it tells them little. Mention a wine being typically Bordeaux and you might as well be talking about Burgundy, Provence, or the moon for all they know. More about this in the next edition.
People buying a bottle for that special occasion, or even for an evening of good company aren't going to be swayed by talk of ABV or trellising methods. They're buying the wine because they equate it with a good time, not taking an exam with a multitude of facts and figures, and that's probably one reason why Champagne still owns the ball in the sparkling wine game.
Keep it simple most of the time, because to the majority you want to woo back, Sherry is for Christmas, and French wine equates with sophistication for no other reason than, for the majority of wine drinkers, it's always been that way. Play to what they know, not what you think they should know. Talking down to the majority never gets you anything but a patronising reputation. Just ask the Democrats after Trump's victory in the last election.
The market we want, the one that is drifting away are frightened by the unknown, by difference, by what their parents recommend, and elitism, and those are the areas that a lot of wine writers have been continuing to peddle for decades now.
They ask their lofty questions, they write their exclusive prose, and are happy to do this for others who nod sagely at the lofty questions and exclusive prose, because they are happy to belong on the inside where everybody speaks the language, and all who sip wine act as though they will be letting down the side if they appeal to the those outside the tent with friendly language, common denominators, and fun descriptions that entertain and make people want to be part of this great show.
When I was a kid, on a council estate in Manchester, I wasn't born with a silver tastevin in the mouth, and a wine bottle was usually from Chianti, covered in a fiasco and contained a candle in case of a power cut. Our cellar was used for coal, not vintages of wine, and it wasn't reading books about wine growing methods, visits to vineyards or lofty dinner chats where producer comparisons were rife that started my interest in wine. What got me into wine, what has always appealed to me about wine, and what I've continued to look for with this most celebratory of drinks is simple fun, the sharing, and a bloody good story, and for me this started with a marvellous show we watched called Food and Drink. It was hosted by the chummy Chris Kelly, and I loved those effusively wonderful descriptions of cheeky wines and naughty bouquets delivered by Oz Clarke and the legend that is Jilly Goolden. Their easy to understand descriptions, their playful banter, and their sense of having a good time made wine a world where I wanted to play.
You're getting expensive, you're getting pretension, you're getting excluded!
I think we're missing that fun world, and I think that people are tired of knowing prose, rather than vibrant phrases that paint wine pictures that draw the reader/listener in.
Of course a discussion of residual sugar has its place, but it won't grab the attention as much as the tale I heard at a Champagne house of the time when the owner's grandmother caught a cork in the eye because she wasn't paying attention when opening it. That's fun, informative, and also teaches you to be careful opening a bottle.
The elevation of vineyards will never grab the public in the way stories of spies smuggled out in Loire barrels will, and at the end of the day, who doesn't like a good story that we can all understand?
I'm not saying that we should just be flippant, forget our WSET descriptors, or totally move away from what we have learned. I'm saying that what wine writers need to do is to play their part in trying to draw in a much-needed audience, one that doesn't want to hear about great wines always being the most expensive and hard to come by.
So, instead of rhapsodising about that rare vintage you acquired at this year's en primeur, why not tell them about that satisfyingly cheap bottle of adequate red you picked up at a local supermarket, because if they are engaged by your writing and not scared off, they might just come back for more, stick with you, and be all ears when you do lead them somewhere more niche.
This is a long path, but I'm launching a call to arms that I hope will think about the people we write for, the people we want to write for, and our part in drawing them into this wonderful world, because if we continue in our complacent ways, the market will shrink through age, or rejection of how the wine world seems, even when it isn't.
I could have written a book about this, I might still do, but I'd rather write silly descriptions, entertain, and open the door to those who are standing on the outside waiting to come in, but who are scared of the ossified language from the huffers and puffers inside. I'm not saying that I've been above some of the detrimental wine writing paths I've mentioned above, and if you look at what I've written, including in this edition of Winefullness Magazine, you'll find evidence of it in spades, but hopefully, you'll also find enough writing that is geared to including all areas of the wine community, especially the fresh-faced seekers.
So, to finish this all too short a piece, I do believe that wine writers should question who they write for, and they should constantly question why they are write in the way they are, because if they are pulling up the drawbridge with their sentences, if their words are barriers instead of welcome mats, then they are surely not helping, and that is such a great shame for us all.
How can I say the wine is good in less than fifty words? I can't!