Today, Housekeeping First
This week, September 9 to be exact, is the second anniversary of my first real post on this newsletter, titled Wine Nerd. Rereading it was a real blast from the past. I was registered for but hadn’t started my WSET Level 2 course. I was still working in my previous vocation and hadn’t seriously thought about leaving, even though the situation was pretty dire at that moment. I ended that post with the sentence, “You just never know where it (referring to the wine journey) might take you,” and yowza, I had no idea how true that was. To celebrate, I’m offering 20% off all paid subscriptions this week. That’s $4/month for the next twelve months or $40/year. I keep most of my content free for everyone, but paid subscribers do receive some special features like The Best Thing I Drank This Week and a weekly food and wine pairing, and their support is crucial to me being able to continue learning, writing, and surviving out here in California.
The News
Whiny Baby: wines directed at Gen Z, or at least the members of that generation who are old enough to drink them. My flannel and jeans-wearing, grunge listening, go away we’re doing the work Gen X brain just let out a deep, existential sigh and wondered if the kids don’t maybe feel this is just a tidge condescending? But then nostalgia arose for my Lisa Frank Trapper Keeper youth and the Boone’s Farm I bought in college with a fake ID. I don’t want those things back in my life - I’ll take my sleek burgundy day planner and an equally lean Loire Cab Franc, thanks - but if a new generation rises up with punchy marketing and fruit punchy-flavored wine, so be it. I’ll be glad to see them at the wine bar in a few years.
Admittedly, some folks have doubts about whether Whiny Baby will be the gateway to better wine. He has a point that cheap, sweet wines don’t always lead people toward better bottles, but the pearl clutching over lack of terroir and “How will the children come to know the whole history of wine?” tone here is a bit much.
Whiny Baby is just one recent attempt to attract Millennial and Gen Z consumers to wine, which is a larger industry conversation addressed this week in Decanter. The assumption I keep seeing in articles like this one is that younger generations are drinking less because they’re more health conscious and aware of statements on the dangers of alcohol consumption. That doesn’t jive at all with what I see anecdotally in the people I know in those generations. Not that they don’t care about their health, but I’m not seeing a lot of concern about the impact of alcohol. What I do see is that they have a huge range of options before they’ve already formed firm drinking preferences, and if they’re looking for something consciousness altering, cannabis is now an often legal and almost entirely socially acceptable option, which it was not for those of us who are older. Also, inflation is not awesome and people of all generations are a little short on expendable income. What are you all seeing? Is my social bubble just an outlier and the world is actually full of health-obsessed and eternally sober young people? Or are some of these articles just completely misreading the motivations and preferences of younger generations?
Meanwhile, the health affects of wine are an ever-shifting target anyway.
A couple of weeks ago in my Water into Wine section, I wrote about people using conversations over wine to discredit me, and how deeply betrayed I felt by their harmful use of the communal eating and drinking space. Well, it turns out I’m not the only one who attaches a sort of Circle of Trust to gatherings around alcohol. The Unreserved Wine Talk podcast is doing a series with Edward Slingerland on alcohol’s various positive affects on civilization, and this episode on innovation and group cohesion struck a chord with my experience - both positive and negative. In short, yes, you can use alcohol to oil the track a bit toward trust, cooperation, and creativity. But it really only works if that dynamic continues once you’re all sober.
Once upon a time, my long-time Circle of Trust traveled together to Virginia wine country. Things went awry, both in that trust and cooperation situation, and in the wine. I was not impressed, and negative experiences with Norton grapes and personal dynamics have left a bad taste in my mouth to this day. But I’m hearing better things about Virginia wines these days. I visited Chrysalis Vineyards, which is mentioned in the article, and remember it being by far the best of what I tried there…but still not great. However, these days many lesser-known wine regions are making better wine and getting much-deserved press for it, so I’ll give Virginia the benefit of the doubt until I get a chance to visit again.
When I was in retail, I once had a customer become irate with me because I couldn’t sell him a “non-vintage Dom Pérignon,” which he insisted he should be able to get for just over $100. I realize not everyone knows this, because he certainly didn’t: Dom Pérignon doesn’t produce non-vintage versions of its famous Champagne. You only get Dom from years that are worthy of producing a vintage, and I’m sad to tell you, 2023 won’t be one of them. So if you had a baby in 2023, you’ll have to find some other birth year vintage Champagne to tuck away for their twenty-first birthday (and you’ll have to get it in a few years, when that Champagne is actually released). Despite the gloomy tone of the article, it’s not that unusual for Dom to skip a vintage; if it were, the vintages that do exist wouldn’t be as special. I always guessed the unworthy stuff just went into Moët, since they’re the same company, but I could be wrong.
The Best Thing I Drank This Week
If you’ve been around Just a Smidge for a while, you may be aware that I’m obsessed with Chenin Blanc and Cabernet Franc, so when I heard there is a Napa Valley winery that produces only those varietals, you know I had to check it out post haste.
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