Time for my Friday morning rant afore my espresso:
1. 7%: AlderYarrow as a nice review on the 7% Solution tasting in TheCite:
7%SolutionTasting
This is a group of winemakers who specialize in making wines from lesser-known/forlorn-hope grapes. The 8 major grapes constitute 93% of the vnyd acreage in Calif. This group focuses the 7% of the acreage devoted to minor grapes. A lot of my favorite folks are featured in Alder's writeup.
But it should be pointed that this group is nothing but a marketing scam. These folks just get together to self-promote their wines to unknowing consumers. Led by KevinWardell of Healdsburg's BergamotAlley.
The recent NYTimes "The Wrath of Grapes" provoked the very predictable response across the entire wine blogosphere, attacking poor ole RajParr and the entire IPoB movement/revolution. That is so...so....yesterday. They've (the bloggers) have beaten to death the same ole/same ole topics of high alcohol in wines, the demise and marginalization of RobertParker, the death of the 100-pt scale, natural wines (SweetAlice is what we call in epee.."easy target"), IPoB, the rise of social media and its importance in the wine world....yada/yada/yada. These so very tiresome discussions seem to spread like a disease from one blogger to the next. These bloggers seem to have nary an original idea in their tiny/tiny minds.
So.....I think it's time for these tedious bloggers to forget all these topics and set their sights on the next target....the 7% Solution group. These guys are nothing but shysters promoting their own wines made from obscure varieties. They're an easy target. There is no earthly need for a $25 RibollaGialla from Calif when you can get a perfectly good Gravner Amfora RG for $90. There is no earthly need for a $35 SantaCruzMtn Nebbiolo when you can get a great Conterno Monfortino for $300. For a $65 Calif Gruner in loo of a $15 Austrian Gruner.
I think this 7% organization should be taken down and the blogs of Charlie & Steve are exactly the ones who should lead the charge.
2. IPoC: The IPoB group is so/so yesterday. This blatant marketing group, led by RajParr, is going to fade into the sunset, though not quietly. In a few yrs, the IPoB crowd will not even exist, I predict. To promulgate a marketing group based solely on the nebulous concept of "balance" in wine is only for fuzzy thinkers. Why in a recent wine board post attacking the IPoB crowd, the discussion rapidly devolved into an exchange on BarryManilow and canned tuna, for gawd's sake. Pitiful.
So...I think it's time to move on. I think it's time for the creation of IPoC...In Pursuit of Complexity. Who's with me on this one?? There's only one problem, though. We don't have a charismatic leader to get us to drink the KoolAid. Anybody have any suggestions?? There are precious few wines being made in Calif that have any complexity..and it sometimes takes many yrs of development in the btl to show any complexity. But we need a leader to lead us into battle for the next big thing.
So....off to get my espresso.
Tom [stir-the-pot.gif]
