"Great people talk about ideas, average people talk about things, and small people talk about wine."--Fran Lebowitz
Monday, April 29, 2013
Lo Hai Qu on What Marsupials Want From Wine
Lo Hai Qu has been bugging me to let her write another post on HoseMaster of Wine™. Three days a week, she’s here at Clos du Hose cataloging the pallets of wine I receive as samples, answering my fan mail (you can’t believe how much ricin I go through), and organizing my panty drawer. Qu does this simply to sit at my feet and absorb my wine wisdom. I think of her as Human Depends. But every now and then I give in and allow her to voice her opinion in this prestigious space. Qu is representative of the generation known as Millennials, so named because they grew up around the year 2000. I’m part of the generation known as the Boomers, so named for the hot, fetid gas we explosively propel from our butts, which we refer to as “wisdom.”
So here is Lo Hai Qu on What Millennials Want From Wine.
I think about wine, like, a lot. Me and my friends think it’s the coolest way to get drunk. Other people my age (I hate that “Millennials” tag, it sounds like we’re insects) like to get buzzed on craft beer. Fucking craft beer! Isn’t that some kind of oxymoron? This guy I know, he’s one of my Friends with Benefits, though I’m thinking of upping his co-pay, is all proud that he knows a lot about beer. Who cares? It’s beer. Like he’s some kind of beermelier, all snobby and shit about beer. Beer is lame. I mean, horses drink it, what does that tell you? That beer only tastes good with fucking hay.
The HoseMaster wanted me to write about what Millipedes want when it comes to wine. He’s an asshole. Thinks he’s all funny and smart, but, actually, he’s old and boring and smells like he drank Ann Coulter’s leg bag. But he lets me taste the wines, and I’ve learned a lot. Mostly that there’s a lot of crappy-ass wine out there, and a lot of it is expensive.
OK, first of all, so what my friends and me want is wine that’s authentic. You know what they say about authentic, right? That if you have to say you’re authentic, you’re probably not. So it’s like saying you’re sober. Which you never are. So it’s the same with wine, it’s almost never authentic. But that’s what we want anyway. See, I think about this, like, a lot. And what we Monarchs actually want is to be convinced that a wine is authentic. It doesn’t really have to be. Duh. We just need to think it’s authentic, and then it is. This is how we roll. We have 578 Friends on FaceBook, and 2500 Followers on Twitter. We don’t care if they are actually our friends or followers. “Friends” is a meaningless concept to us. Our only real friend is our iPhone. It actually talks to you, and not all judgmental like your parents do.
Wine experts, and they’re all dead to me, like every time I see that awesome show “ The Walking Dead” I think it’s all James Laube and Robert Parker and Steve Heimoff come to suck my brains out and I’d like to kill them but they just won’t die (which is what wineries think too), anyway, wine experts like to think they know authentic wines. As if knowledge is the only way to know stuff. We don’t need knowledge, we have Google. Besides, me and my Mealybug friends can tell from the label. If it’s got some fancy looking chateau on the label, or if the label is kind of boring and just has a bunch of fancy script-type writing on it, no pictures, or if it’s from some place that our parents buy a lot of wine from, it’s not authentic. Authentic wine has cool names. And it’s not stacked up in Safeway. It has to be stacked up in Whole Foods. Or one of our friends put a picture of the label on their FaceBook page and it has like 120 likes. Then it’s probably authentic.
Anyway, we can take our best friend out of our pants and look it up. Because one of the other things we Mantises want is a story. We buy wines with good stories. Like the winemaker really cares about the land. That’s a good story. We know it's just a bogus story, but it's real. I read that story a lot when I read about wine. Or another good one is, the winery makes the best wine they can that expresses the place it’s from. See, that’s what I want. I want wine to express where it’s from, though I haven’t the faintest fucking idea what that means unless I look the appellation up on Wikipedia. If a wine expresses where it’s from and the winemaker cares about the Earth, and he doesn’t do all this chemical, modern, technical manipulation of it, it’s going to be real and authentic. And that’s what I want; and I’ll use my iPhone to Google it and get GPS to the nearest Whole Foods that sells it. I want it to be natural. I mean, really, how hard is that to understand?
And I guess we have to talk about price. Marsupials (those are insects, right?) don’t have a lot of money, mostly. I mean, I went to a good college, so I’m in debt up to my blowhole. The minute I read about a wine I want to try and it costs more than $20 my eyes glaze over like I’m watching porn with my dog. I see the prices on all these samples that overflow at Clos du Hose and I’m wondering, like, who buys this shit? First of all, how can “real” wine be expensive? Look at food. OK, so how much does an organically grown peach cost? Like two bucks tops? But Peach Melba at some stupid restaurant? Like $15. Which is more authentic? Millennials (those are insects, right?) aren’t really asking for much. What’s all the fuss?
Millennials want wines that are authentic, that are unique expressions of interesting varieties grown by dedicated vintners who spare no labor or expense, who love the land and cherish the Earth and all its resources, who never, they swear to God, never manipulate the wines, who we feel a connection to because of their story so we want to support them, and, finally, the wines are also delicious and compelling, get you drunk, and don’t cost more than $15. Fucking simple.
And you douchebags think we’re spoiled.
Can I have her number?
ReplyDeleteSeriously though stories have been selling wine for a long, long time. Many people of all ages like a good story about their wine and will buy the same label for many years when a story hits them true.
2nd!
ReplyDeleteOK, the Walking Dead thing was really, really good...
How did you get close enough to Anne Coulter to find out?
ReplyDeleteexcellent! really loved the last paragraph.
ReplyDeletejust out of curiosity, how do you pronounce beermellier? I'm assuming it is "beer-muh-leer"
This was clearly not written by a Millennial. We all know that it takes 125 likes on FB for a wine to be considered authentic. Back me up on that Joe.
ReplyDeleteAs an aside, Joe, is that really a picture of you with a cork in your mouth? On the Hosemaster site? Brave.
- 'Knurd / Chris
Cris,
ReplyDeleteYup, stories have always sold wine. We're a story-telling animal. I don't have a problem with stories at all, but, the truth is, the vast majority of wine that's sold in the world, to Millennials and everyone else, is about price. Wine with good stories cost more. Somebody has to get paid to make them up.
Joe,
This piece was inspired by your recent post about your Argentine seminar focused on what Millennials want. I read it and knew Lo Hai Qu would want to chime in. The last paragraph, the one Gabe liked, is all about those five things you listed that Millennials want in wine. It's pretty silly. We want all that, and we want it for under $15. Yeah, you do. So do I. Good luck with that.
Marketing folks try to figure out every generation, stereotype the crap out of them, regardless of their sex, sexual orientation, or anything else. It's as stupid as astrology. And it's what leads to crap like Skinnygirl and Yellow Tail (Lo Hai Qu wouldn't touch that...) and similar crap. Marketing seminars are only about one thing. Money. The story, the "authenticity," it's what they SELL, not what they do. And so it goes.
Charlie,
Pretty obvious that there's plenty of room to get near Ann Coulter if one has the stomach for it.
Gabe,
Hey, I like your pronunciation of beermellier! Let's go with that. Remember to address your server that way on your next visit to a brewpub.
Chris,
My hunch is there are about a hundred things in this post that gives away it wasn't written by an actual Millennial. Or an actual human, for that matter.
Back in the 1970s, before Millennials (or almost anybody else for that matter), wines were coming in from Italy with back labels and/or hang tags that had stories. Somebody had apparently told the Italian wine industry that wines would sell if there was a reason for their existence (owners, winemakers, the wines themselves). Some were pretty good, but just about all suffered from fractured translations into English.
ReplyDeleteI knew it wasn't a real Millennial writing when the part about shopping at Whole Foods came in. Isn't the acronym Whole Paycheck popular? Love the zombie reference!
ReplyDeleteDean,
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're right, I remember those! They were worth reading just for the translation boners. Maybe there's a lesson in there for wineries. A story seems more authentic when it's poorly translated.
Stan,
Good point. Should have gone with Trader Joe's, but everyone knows there isn't a natural wine within 100 miles of a Trader Joe's.
Lo Hai Qu,
ReplyDeleteWine? You pay for wine? Me and my other Mallomar friends forage for fermented wild grapes behind Kroger. I guess real AUTHENTIC wine isn't for everyone.
Matt.
Matt,
ReplyDeleteSounds kinda dangerous what with all the homeless sommeliers doing the same thing. Isn't that where Sandhi is made?
Lo Hai Qu doesn't hang around Kroger's. She hangs around my basement, usually by her wrists.
I'm a little confused here. I thought the way to choose your wijne was by your astrological sign. I'm a Gemini, so i'm supposed to drink Cupcake ... right?
ReplyDeleteRon,
ReplyDeleteIt's a jungle back there. Our tribe has constructed a solera from pallet wood and semi truck tires where we age Sutter Home Pink Moscato along with ground llama teeth (in the traditional method). We label it Sherry and the homeless sommeliers flock to our alley and protect us.
I wish you wouldn't have said anything about Sandhi. We sold Parr that must as Rosemary's Baby Vineyard Chardonnay.
Webb,
ReplyDeleteIf you're a Gemini, you're supposed to drink Tang.
Matt,
Wow, sounds like Authentic Kroger's wine. I'm hoping you didn't add sulfites.