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The Bias Against "Local" Wines


dmwine

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Interesting old thread.

I cannot say that I go out of my way to buy and drink local wines. While there are some good tasting local wines (I include everything outside of CA, OR, and WA as 'local' - haha), I tend to find that the price asked for delivered quality is not always so great. That said, I've had some good MD wines, good NY wines and few random other ones over the years. Same goes for some of the wines from the Niagara peninsula.

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I was at 701 recently and they have Barboursville Viognier on the by the glass list ($14 a glass, retails in the low $20 range).  The week before we had had a bottle of the 2014 and it was wonderful.  So I started asking the Som about it and he said he can barely sell it...maybe 2 or 3 glasses a week.  

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It's important to distinguish between "bias" and "prejudice." Without going to Google ...

"Bias" means you're leaning towards believing something (in this case that local wines are a poor QPR), but if you aren't prejudiced, your final judgment will be the same as if you weren't biased.

"Prejudice" means that no matter what the wines are like, you'll come away thinking they're bad QPR (quality-price ratio, btw).

I haven't looked back to when Dave began this thread, but my guess is "about 8-10 years ago."

Personally, I have bias most times I walk into a restaurant. I expect certain things, and think certain things will be true. Fortunately for whomever reads me, I *never* let prejudice get the best of me - if I have a great chicken sandwich at TGIFridays, I'll say so; the fact that I don't think I will, going into the meal, means I'm biased.

With local wine - at *this* point (2018 as opposed to 2005), I'm biased against wines from Maryland vis-a-vis Virginia. This is based on past, albeit not *recent past*, experience. Twelve-years ago, I was biased against both, but Virginia has won me over to the point where I've lost my bias.

I think there's a certain inertia that takes place when beliefs are instilled early, and held for a long period of time (look at all the older racists in this country, who are prejudiced to the point that only death will cure their prejudice), and it seems that if something is true, that makes it doubly hard to reverse a belief system (and it was true that both MD and VA wines were pretty awful for a long time) - Dave is a total wine nerd, and he was on the vanguard of realizing that VA had made sufficient progress to be taken seriously - I distinctly remember having several conversations with him about this: He was perhaps Virginia's earliest champion, because he was open-minded, and had sufficient experience to realize that VA wines having a poor QPR was becoming a false belief.

Add to the mix the *massive* amount of marketing that California puts into their wines - PR is lethal to open-minded judgment, and savvy publicists know this - and you have the "Big, alcoholic reds with 200% new oak are best" mentality. (PS: Can you tell I have a bias against California reds? I believe that, in the general case, the weather is too warm, and grapes become overripe - this is, of course, not always true.)

Don't forget that Europe has been producing and polishing the art of winemaking for, what, a couple of millenia? There still exists the "Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and Nothing Else" crowd. It is my opinion that Bordeaux, in general, is not what it was 20-30 years ago (due to California-style-minded consultants, global warming, and quite frankly, Robert Parker's palate). Believe it or not, among wine losers (that would be me), there's actually a term - "spoofulated" - to describe a wine that has been gussied up by the winemaker, ending up bigger, more alcoholic, and with lower perceived acidity.

So that's why.

Tweaked, it wasn't that long ago (perhaps even in 2005) when there were, I believe, exactly two Viogniers made in Virginia. Viognier is an expensive wine to make, so whether it's from Virginia, or Condrieu, they aren't going to be cheap - add to that the lychee-like aromas, and you have a wine with somewhat of a limited utility with food (that, too, is a biased statement - I remember arranging a tasting menu with Gerard Pangaud when he was at the Pentagon City Ritz (Mount Rushmore of DC-area restaurants, btw) - he built a course around a Condrieu, and it was pretty cutting edge at the time (1990 perhaps?)).

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20 hours ago, Tweaked said:

Interesting Don, my wine knowledge is limited (but expanding!) and I've enjoyed most  viogniers that I have sampled.  $20 -ish is around my upper limit for what I want to pay for a bottle of wine.  I was impressed by the Barboursville. 

If you want to try a classic viognier, Georges Vernay produces a generic Northern Rhone viognier. He is the master who brought the grape back from obscurity. French viognier, unlike domestic, is delicate, floral and light. I personally find domestic viognier to be oily, heavy, overoaked and downright unpleasant. Personal taste.

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I spent quite a bit of time tasting VA wines in...2006-08 and they weren't that great. The exception was Barboursville and the Kluge Estate. Now I am prejudiced against VA wines based on experience. Yet, I am willing to open my mind to them...I also like driving around and spending time outside so win-win!

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Two things:

1)  In my 15 years or so of tasting Virginia (and to a much lesser extent, Maryland) wine, there is a lot of product that doesn't justify the cost.  That being said, there are wines I will buy; and

2) I don't know the about the politics, bureaucracy, or demand (and I believe the latter could be a big thing), but the VA ABC stores at least in the Arlington/Alexandria area have a very limited selection of VA wines.  I know they need to get stuff sold so they likely go for the dependable sellers and just enough varietals, but I wonder if the selection changes based where you are in the state.  But I'm a bit doubtful about that.

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12 minutes ago, lovehockey said:

Two things:

1)  In my 15 years or so of tasting Virginia (and to a much lesser extent, Maryland) wine, there is a lot of product that doesn't justify the cost.  That being said, there are wines I will buy; and

2) I don't know the about the politics, bureaucracy, or demand (and I believe the latter could be a big thing), but the VA ABC stores at least in the Arlington/Alexandria area have a very limited selection of VA wines.  I know they need to get stuff sold so they likely go for the dependable sellers and just enough varietals, but I wonder if the selection changes based where you are in the state.  But I'm a bit doubtful about that.

It does.  There's a VA sparkling wine that I very much enjoyed at a lunch in Middleburg.  Went looking for it in Middleburg and Charlottesville (where it's produced) and found it at a reasonable price ($20-25 if I recall).  In the DC area of VA it was scarce or $15 more, which made it fall off the QPR (thanks Don for that term!) for me.  But I'm happy to drink it when I go back to central VA.

For what it's worth, I enjoy 5-10 VA vineyards.  I can find a wine or two I like at more, but my measure if 50%+ that I enjoy to merit my return.  Haven't found a MD one I like yet, but I've heard good things about Black Ankle and that's really shame on me for not getting there yet.  For what it's worth, I'm not a fan of big, hearty reds, preferring lighter reds and more acidic whites, which may drive my own biases.

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To me, from my tastes, Virginia wine has gotten a lot better.  AND I actually, not knowing at first, drank a Maryland wine two weekends ago that I would drink again, and that is just crazy talk to me. (I am from Maryland, and I am biased against our wine.)  I often go for local when I dine out, but I also taste a lot of Virginia wine, it is just something our friend group and my in laws like to do.  The bottle prices may be a little bit higher than perfectly acceptable California wine still, but I don't mind paying a few extra dollars to support my local economies.  Just like in California though, there is a lot of bad wine.  I think the hard thing is a lot of the good wine in Virginia is of a very limited production, and many of those wineries have gone member only, or are not as open to the public, while the wines that I don't think represent Virginia as well are often visible from the road, with big signs and all sorts of bells and whistles to pull you in.  I realize why there aren't more places that have local wine, exactly what this thread has stated, but I do hope that slowly changes... 

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On 2/25/2018 at 10:36 PM, Mark Slater said:

If you want to try a classic viognier, Georges Vernay produces a generic Northern Rhone viognier. He is the master who brought the grape back from obscurity. French viognier, unlike domestic, is delicate, floral and light. I personally find domestic viognier to be oily, heavy, overoaked and downright unpleasant. Personal taste.

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark. Have you tried Peay's viognier? I like it.

On 2/27/2018 at 10:54 AM, ktmoomau said:

To me, from my tastes, Virginia wine has gotten a lot better.  AND I actually, not knowing at first, drank a Maryland wine two weekends ago that I would drink again, and that is just crazy talk to me. (I am from Maryland, and I am biased against our wine.)  I often go for local when I dine out, but I also taste a lot of Virginia wine, it is just something our friend group and my in laws like to do.  The bottle prices may be a little bit higher than perfectly acceptable California wine still, but I don't mind paying a few extra dollars to support my local economies.  Just like in California though, there is a lot of bad wine.  I think the hard thing is a lot of the good wine in Virginia is of a very limited production, and many of those wineries have gone member only, or are not as open to the public, while the wines that I don't think represent Virginia as well are often visible from the road, with big signs and all sorts of bells and whistles to pull you in.  I realize why there aren't more places that have local wine, exactly what this thread has stated, but I do hope that slowly changes... 

Ditto. I liked stuff from Black Ankle (though their prices are too high IMHO) and Serpent Ridge had an offering I liked a few years ago.

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1 hour ago, Pool Boy said:

Thanks for the suggestion, Mark. Have you tried Peay's viognier? I like it.

Ditto. I liked stuff from Black Ankle (though their prices are too high IMHO) and Serpent Ridge had an offering I liked a few years ago.

I'm a big fan of Peay. Their Sonoma Coast Chardonnay has beautiful smoky oak texture. Have you tried their line called Cep? Very high quality at half the price of Peay.

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17 hours ago, Mark Slater said:

I'm a big fan of Peay. Their Sonoma Coast Chardonnay has beautiful smoky oak texture. Have you tried their line called Cep? Very high quality at half the price of Peay.

We had a bottle of their Cep several years ago and were not really impressed. Generally we buy their Syrah, Chardonnay, Viognier and Pinot Noir in that order of priority. It's a beautiful place they have out there - I remember helping Nick dive head first in to his bit of a mess storage room filled with wine so he could share a bottle when we visited out there in 2005. Good times.

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After visiting many wine regions in France, Spain and Italy,  Napa and Sonoma are still at the start of their Journey.  The local wines have a lot of group to catch up. Memories of a man whose only job at Muga in Rioja was to separate egg whites and yolks.  The whites are used to fine their wines.  Same method has been used for 300-400 years.

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