Wine Profiling, What Should Really Matter.

I am sure we all know what profiling is; some people know of it first hand, targeted in airports or in towns and cities by local law enforcement. But what about wine profiling? Labels, grape varieties, places from where the grapes were grown and the wine was made, these are all signals to the buyer. These signals, for better or worse, promptly inform most people if they are interested in that particular wine or not. Sometimes this stems from trying hundreds or even thousands of wines and developing your palate. This reveals to you what you like and what you don't based on sensory evidence. It seems to me, however, that wine profiling by the majority of wine consumers, is the effect of one or two bad bottles of wine from a particular grape, or even an ugly label.

A couple of months ago a new sales rep was in the store showing me three of her company’s wines. None of them were exciting and two of them were nearly awful. She seemed pleasant and I wanted to like at least one of her wines or at least give her encouragement. I managed to say something generically nice about one wine but explained that I didn’t need a wine from that region and category in that price range. She started putting the bottles back into her rectangular black wine case, the kind with the long extending handles – easier to drag behind you, but always makes me think they are on their way to catch a plane to return the sampled bottles to the producer – “I can’t sell this crap!” She then turned to me with a thoughtful look in her eye and queried, “Do you like Zinfandels from old vines?” Surely this was an innocent enough question, perhaps too innocent, bordering on the inane? I had to pause before I answered.

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Later in the same day, a customer struck up a conversation with me. “How are sales,” she asked? This was August, infamously known as one of the slowest months in retail, unless you are in a tourist town. “Not too bad considering it is summer,” I replied. She told me she was still working on a bottle of Brokenwood Semillon I sold her. “What wines are you featuring this month,” she asked? I had chosen to feature four white wines in August for summer drinking and suggested she try one of the sampler packs. “Oh, that’s interesting,” she responded “but you don’t like white wine.” Why she thought she knew something about my likes and dislikes is beyond me. Again, I had to pause before I responded.

Where does the dismissal of a single grape or an entire wine region by someone stem from? In a word, ignorance. Ignorance is not a crime, if it was I would be doing some time.  Sure, some wine drinkers have, over the years, had a go at various styles of wine made from one grape or from various regions and have decided that it just doesn’t suit them, but the majority of consumers have made their mind up after one or two tries. They try KJ or YT Chardonnay and either swear off the grape entirely or buy stock in the company and drink only that for the rest of their lives, existing in a ho-hum mono-culture of wine drinking. Yes, I know, to each his or her own, but...

I can’t count how many times while pouring wine at a tasting, and this seems so much more frequent when Chardonnay is the grape, that the person shakes their head while extending hands with palms towards me and tells me, “Oh no, I don’t like ‘fill in the blank’.” “I don’t like Chardonnay or Riesling or Merlot (some remaining fallout from Sideways and the awful stuff pumped out by the majority of California producers) or Pinot Noir (also fallout from Sideways) or Syrah.” Then there are those who say with a straight face while clutching a Bordeaux or Chianti, “I don’t like blends.” Is this simply the effect of drinking one bad bottle of a particular grape, or is it from years of drinking the same wine every day to the point of contempt. I might get tired of drinking Montrachet every day of my life; I might. I guess it would depend on who made it. Honey, I am just going to run to Costco and grab another 5 cases of Kirkland Montrachet. Oh no, not that again!

So, back to the wine rep. Her question to me regarding old-vine Zinfandels was akin to asking if I liked cheese from France, lawyers, people named Joe, or pants. It depends! I answered her so: I don’t like or dislike old-vine Zinfandels. I have neutral feelings towards the category. I like well made, delicious wine, period. It’s not the label. It’s not the region. It’s not the variety or even the blend. It’s not even necessarily about the producer. It all comes down to what is in the bottle. If the wine inside the bottle is good then I’ll like it. If the wine in the bottle is awful then, perhaps I could politely say it is a matter of taste; or perhaps it truly is awful. Wines are like individuals, you can’t honestly judge them by appearance or if their name is Joe. You have to open them up and get to know them. You either like them or you don’t, and it’s not necessarily their fault if you don’t.

I found myself answering the customer who thought I didn’t like white wines, very much the same way. I love wine. I like well-made, balanced wine - red, white, rosé and yes, even sparkling. I asked her why she thought I didn’t like whites. She hadn’t a clue. Perhaps it was because I was a guy. I guess the reason I was so compelled to jot all this down is this. I am disheartened by those who lump wine into broad categories and either dismiss them or embrace them blithely; even more so when the person in question is in the wine trade. There is so much information out there about wine, probably too much, and yet there is still a shocking amount of ignorance not only at the consumer level but in the professional sphere as well.

I am not excluding myself from wine profiling or ignorance. I drink very little domestic wine at home. I have a very euro-centric palate that leans decidedly to French wine. But this arises from experimenting with wine for over 25 years. I rarely drink the same wine in a calendar year and I am willing, even excited, to try any new wine shown to me regardless of where it comes from or who made it. It is unimportant what the label looks like, what grape the wine is made from, or what country the wine stems from. A friend of mine queried on Twitter this morning, "Do you like field blends? Or would you rather know exactly what grapes & percentages are in your wine?" I responded, "@RichardPF It's always nice to know what is in the bottle, but all that really matters is how good the wine is." And that just about sums it up.