I read an article a couple days ago about wine. Not surprising, I guess, since as we all know, I love wine.
I have never fallen for all the hype of wine. I have had some amazing $4 bottles and some pretty crappy $40 bottles of wine. I’ve drank from the cellar of one of the state’s wine pioneers, enjoying every drop of experimental varietals that the world never got to see.
I still have trouble pronouncing Viognier, but hey, I took Spanish, not French. And quite frankly, I will go for Pinot Grigio over Viognier any day, if for no other reason than I wanted to name my son Pinot, figuring that everyone would assume he was actually Italian and in his later years, he’d be able to get laid easier.
I have never fallen for all the stupid names that are out on the market these days, the ones that designed to entice chicks to buy them. Things like Cupcake, Mommy’s Time Out, you know the ones.
So it comes as quite a pleasant shock that all that marketing really works. Not only does it convince the average wine drinker to buy it, but even an experienced wine aficionado will fall for the ploy, paying up to $2 a bottle more for a fancy name that intrigues them and dupes them into believing that the wine is something more fantastic than it really is.
As a marketing guy, I’ve always known this was the case, but now studies are beginning to prove it. It was a story on NPR, no less. Now, I’m not a big NPR fan, I can take it or leave it. I did listen to NPR once but found out that Saturday Night Live’s Schweddy Balls routine wasn’t that far off from the truth. Once I found out that NPR wasn’t actually trying to be an ongoing comedy routine, I tuned out and turned off.
The story (in case you’re too lazy to click on the link above), tells of Christopher Tracy, the winemaker at Channing Daughters Winery in the Hamptons. Before I go too far into his ruse, I must admit I didn’t know that anyone made wine in the Hamptons, largely because anyone who lives there or holds lavish fundraising parties with the Koch brothers, doesn’t seem to need or have a job, only oodles of money.
Perhaps that’s why they are so anxious to belly up to the bar and plunk down extra coin for a bottle of Blaufrankisch. Now, Tracy isn’t trying to suck your pockets or palette dry with this almost unpronounceable name. At least he says he’s not trying to do that. Instead, it’s supposedly the grape’s true name. If means blue Frankish grape in German.
Not that anyone knows what a Frankish grape is or does. Personally, I try to avoid any foods that have a man’s name in them. If you need a reason, refer back to the Schweddy Balls routine.
A bottle of Channing Daughter wine will set you back $20 to $40. That’s a chunk of change. If you were to choose volume over quality, you could buy a case of Two Buck Chuck in Washington State for less than a single top end bottle of Blaufrankisch or Refosco del Peduncolo Rosso, another Channing wine.
Yes, savvy wine drinkers get duped all the time into buying the wine. In fact, the more they say they know about wine, the more likely they are to eschew a lower priced wine and buy the pricier ones instead, if only because of the name or the labeling.
Boy, do I know some people like this. Me, I treasure the challenge of finding rock bottom wines that are surprisingly good. It’s a game to me. As I’ve said, I’ve put a $40 bottle next to a $10 bottle and had friends do a blind taste test. While the $40 clearly won out on many occasions, it was often bested by the cheaper bottle. It’s a lot of fun to do the unveiling (removing the paper wrapper on the bottle, OK, paper bag) to reveal the winner.
I admit that finding the right candidates can take a lot of work and research. I mean, it’s not easy to find something that can go up against a product of the Hamptons, with all its out of touch grapes. We all know that these aren’t working class grapes. They don’t know what it’s like to do any real ripening work. Instead, they are coddled from birth and raised in the lap of luxury.
They live a life of relative leisure compared to the hard working grapes of some grape growing region in the former Soviet bloc countries, such as the Yammameister grapes that grow on the rugged hillsides of south Croatia. It is here that wine growing and vinting families like the Bužančić’s toil away in their vineyards, eeking out a meager living, producing wines not for mass market, but for the love of it.
If you’re lucky enough to find Bužančić Yammameister on the market, pick up a bottle. It’s not $40 or even $20, and you have to do a bit of homework to locate it, but believe me, it is well worth it. The vines are centuries old, reaching back to the times of the Romans. The flavor is round and deep, the tannin will dance on the back of your mouth, and those wonderful berry, tobacco and earth nuances of the wine will give you a oralgasm.
Do yourself a favor and pass by the Bookwalter, Channing Daughters and even the Menage a Tois. I will go for the Bužančić every time.
Perhaps that’s why it’s so hard to find in stores. I just can’t get enough of it.
In the Emerald City, and yes, I can market anything, even non-existent wines from Croatia,
– Robb