The complaint was predictable. I had written about Heart's Delight, the premiere wine charity event in the Washington area – one of the premiere events in the country, an event that over the past decade has raised more than $8 million for the American Heart Association and its fight against coronary disease and stroke. The column combined elements of drama, or at least what passes for drama among wine lovers: The world's pre-eminent wine critic, his recent pronouncements on the surprisingly high quality of the 2008 Bordeaux vintage, the havoc the economy was playing with prices in Bordeaux, and how the turmoil is hurting one of D.C’s finest wine stores as it struggles to sell its inventory of previous vintages.
This is the stuff wine lovers eat up, even if they can't afford to drink it up. But all the drama couldn't satisfy a chatter on the Food section's Free Range online live discussion. “Arlington, Va” complained about the prices of the wines presented at the charity auction, which ranged in price from $30 to $180. “I understand, just like the car column has to review Rolls and Mercedes once in a while to keep things interesting, but when will your wine column review a selection of under $15 wines commonly available at Giant, Safeway or Trader Joe's? Isn't The Post's budget for buying wine for you to sample getting a little thin these days?” the chatter asked.
Food editor Joe Yonan was prepared to come to my defense, noting that I routinely recommend wines costing under $15 and that he expected the complaint because, unfortunately, “people don't seem to be able to remember wine recommendations from one week to the next.” He didn't ask me to respond, perhaps fearing I might get a little too testy.
So I decided to look at my previous columns for some perspective. In the five weeks before that May 20 column, I recommended a total of 37 wines. If you had bought one bottle of each of those at the retail price listed, you would have spent $611, or an average of $16.50 a bottle. Those included a $50 pinot noir from New Zealand and a $36 California fume blanc, but also 31 wines at $20 or less and eight at $10 or less.
I devoted a column in December to wines under $15, and another in March to the effects of the recession on our drinking habits. I have consistently included inexpensive, overperforming wines in my recommendations. I am fully aware that the average price paid for a standard-size bottle of wine in America is about $5. However, I am also aware that most wine at that price is boring at best and horrible at worst. That's why I recently started a monthly “Recession Busters” feature in which all wines recommended will be over-performers that cost around $10 or less.
A newspaper wine column should not be just about wines from Giant, Safeway or Trader Joe's. It should be about wines that offer value at any price – by which I mean wines that taste more expensive than they cost.
Those wines, frankly, will mostly be found in specialty wine stores, such as those listed in my articles. These retailers seek out value-performing wines. We are lucky to shop in a highly competitive market that has importers and distributors searching out great-value wines at all price ranges. Some of these wines are produced in the hundreds of cases, or thousands, but usually not in the hundreds of thousands. So they won't be available everywhere. Stores and distributors may run out of them, because they are not made by the boatload. Those are the wines I feature in my column.
Sometimes we might find one of them at a supermarket, and I have mentioned those in my store listings. But the wine column should find wines that overperform, not wines that speak to the least common denominator. I will continue to write for the entire spectrum of wine lovers: the collectors who might support a charity auction, as well as average readers worried about the recession who want to find a tasty wine for Wednesday dinner. (For the record, I belong to the latter group.)
And to “Arlington,” I would just say this: I can't persuade you to spend more for your wine, but I hope you will read my columns carefully and try some of the $10 and $15 gems I recommend. You might be surprised. And on those Wednesdays when my recommendations don't fall into your price range, please remember that wine is a bigger subject, even in these tough times. Take another sip of your budget find from last week's column, and remember that I'll have more for you in future columns.
This discussion was originally posted May 27 on The Washington Post’s Food section blog, “All We Can Eat.” It prompted several comments, most of which came to my defense. One commenter argued, however, that I should be “shown the door” because I haven’t covered local wines. Moi?
Having enjoyed these wines from Bordeaux many times, I believe it's important to share your opinion regardless of the price. I certainly understand we're having some challenges financially however that doesn't mean everyone is. Your opinion is about what tastes good and what you feel the reader would like to enjoy.
There are a lot of people including myself that like to learn about new wines regardless of the price. I haven't met anyone that writes a column for just one person. Keep up the great writing.
Posted by: David Keuhner | June 01, 2009 at 10:19 AM