ON THE BAR.

Silvio Rodriguez + Anders Frederik Steen

Hello PALS. Welcome to the sixth day of May, somehow. Thanks to all who came out for Big D’s big merch moment on Saturday—it was a real good time, and it’s nice to know y’all are down to ride the sustainability train with us.

We have a cute little Burgers + Burgundy patio hang happening tomorrow night with Matt from Southern Pines Diner Car! Matt is dragging his grill across the courtyard, we’re pouring Chandon de Briailles and Valette (and other good stuff) by the glass. Smash burgers will be eaten, joy will be had. Please join us, 4PM ‘til sold out (last time sold out was at 7:00 and that was a biblical flood-type day, and tomorrow is supposed to be a tropical paradise-type day, so prob get here early)! (There’s no link here because there are no tickets required!)

Other upcoming events to note include Thursday’s wine school: Alternative Fruit Wines, exploring the history of global fermentation, and why only fermented grapes are “allowed” to be wine (spoiler: because colonization). This is a very cool one that I’d suggest hopping on.

I also popped another Palate Progress blindfolded tasting up on the cal! It’s May 16th from 6-7pm at Wild Child. These have been really fun and have been selling out quickly! (If you’re unfamiliar, yes I really blindfold you and make you smell things.)

P.S. After getting into a little rhythm with this newsletter, the Monday edition will now be called “On The Bar,” and contain mostly what you’re seeing here today. Christian will be releasing “Heavy Rotation,” a roundup of what she’s digging on (recipes, playlists, and more reading).

WHAT WE’RE READING

The secretive strategy behind Napa Valley’s priciest wines — and why some think it needs to change, by Esther Mobley for The San Francisco Chronicle

This one is behind a paywall, so forgive me. But the general gist is, luxury wineries feel they need to keep their prices high to signal quality, and they’ll go to great lengths (including pulling their wines off the shelves of retailers pricing them below what they consider luxury) to protect their brand image. This is something I talk about A LOT when I teach my standard Natural Wine 101 class (and all the time, let’s be honest), especially as it applies to how we value wines from regions/grapes that aren’t “name brand.”

From the SF Chronicle article:

“There’s an art and science to pricing,” said Scott Becker, owner of Realm Cellars, whose least expensive wine costs $175. The science requires accounting for the cost of goods — extremely high for businesses that are buying multimillion-dollar vineyards, hiring famous winemakers and building designer tasting rooms. “It’s not just the cost to produce that single bottle, but the overall investment into the project,” he said. 

At the end of the day, bottled grape juice from the Auvergne that’s made the same way as bottled grape juice from Burgundy isn’t more affordable because it’s inferior; it’s more affordable because the land it grows on is cheaper. This makes entry-level regions more accessible to producers from non-dominant populations, who historically don’t have access to the kind of capital projects like the above-mentioned require. The natural wine world has embraced the regions on the outskirts; in fact, the farthest flung vineyards often carry more value than the name-brand ones.

There was one quote from the article I found particularly telling of the way these brand-name wineries think about basic market economics like scarcity, especially on the heels of all the recent harvest losses across Europe that I mentioned in last week’s newsletter:

Intricately tied to these bottles’ price is a sense of scarcity. A $300 price tag might be partially justified by the fact that only 500 cases were produced. “The moment people feel the product is easy to get at a discounted price, all of a sudden the rarity has evaporated,” said Dave Parker, CEO of rare-wine retailer Benchmark Wine Group in Napa.

As Williams put it, “You wouldn’t walk into a Rolex shop expecting to get a discount on a Rolex.”

This is funny to me, because of course a Napa winemaker is referencing luxury watches to prove his point, but also because Rolexes are made out of metal, and wines are made out of grapes. Rolexes are scarce because Rolex makes them scarce (in pursuit of quality, sure, but it is entirely possible to buy more metal and make more watches). Ostensibly, if wine is made from a raw product that relies on the natural world to come to fruition (sorry), wines should be scarce because they’re actually scarce. And while wineries can, in some cases, buy grapes not from their own land to increase production (and many luxury Napa wineries do, as they’re often owned by corporate umbrellas that move grapes around like disorganized weed dealers), they’re also limited by space (how many barrels or tanks are available) and relatively uncontrollable timelines (harvest dates, fermentation).

The point is, all these Napa producers are just telling on themselves. I should be happy about that, because it should make my job trying to support winemakers who are actually working within the limitations of nature easier, but I’m aware that many (many!) people want the thrill of false class alignment that accompanies wearing a Rolex/buying a bottle of Screaming Eagle, and there’s not much I can do about that. At least we have each other.

HAVE A LISTEN

To this interview in Not Drinking Poison with Anders Frederik Steen (and then come in on Wednesday and drink his ‘Hold Me Closer’ by the glass!). It’s apropos of the battle between the “market” and the natural world.

Also apropos of classism and resistance, I’ve been listening to a lot of Silvio Rodriguez lately. He’s a leftist Cuban folk musician who lead the Nueva Trova movement in Latin American music.

SPECIAL SAUCE

Monday (today!)—TBD bc I’m on the bar but am still writing from home! Prob Champagne because that’s the mood I’m on today.

Tuesday- Burgers + Burgundy: 2018 Vincent Ledy, Savigny-les-Beaune + more!!
Wednesday: 2022 Anders Frederik Steen 'Hold me closer,' Ardèche
Thursday: 2022 Guy Breton ‘Vieilles Vignes,’ Morgon
Friday: 2020 Fonterenza, Rosso di Montalcino
Saturday: 2022 Julien Altaber 'Po a Po,' Burgundy
Sunday: 2020 Domaine de L'Octavin 'Hip Hip J Chardonnay,' Jura

ONE MORE THING

We’re going to try out the Substack Chat feature tomorrow! Keep your eyes peeled tomorrow morning for an invitation to Pocket Somm—one hour of AMA-style Q&A with me and Christian. Wondering what to gift your grad? What to pair with Friday’s dinner? Hop in the chat and we’ll get down to it!