New Wineries to Watch Fail

There are too many fucking wineries. Why do we need so many wineries? Really. All of you who are planning to start a winery some day, or your own label, DON’T! You’re not that good at making wine. I know you think you are, but you’re not. Sorry. Somebody had to tell you. The world does not need your take on single-vineyard, own-rooted Mondeuse. No one cares about your dedication to rescuing obscure varieties from the trash heap. Wow, you discovered Abouriou! Goody for you. Just leave it where it is. Let it go. Walk away. You’re not an artisan. Really. You’re not. Winemaking is not an art. Sculpture is an art. Ballet is an art. Balloon animals—art! Winemaking is an art about as much as vacuuming is an art. It may seem creative to the person doing it, but, really, it’s just about attachments and sucking. How is it an art? You take grapes, ferment them, stay out of the way (minimal intervention is how all the great wines are made, right?), do a bunch of lab work and the bottle the stuff. If that’s art, then so is cooking meth. At least people who are lousy at cooking meth eventually blow themselves sky high. Man, if only every new lousy winemaker did the same.

I’m not just talking about California here. The whole damn world has too many goddam wineries. STOP! Just stop. It’s getting ridiculous. Who’s going to buy all this crap? Yes, sure, there are a lot more stupid sommeliers than ever before, but not THAT many. Importers! Stop bringing in more and more wineries from Corsica, or the Canary Islands, or any other foreign countries like Idaho. We don’t want them. Really. Listan Prieto? No! Alicante Bouschet? Why? Don’t make me choose. Listan vs. Ali? Not exactly heavyweights.

So why not start eliminating wineries? Every wine publication has an article every year with a title like, “New Wineries to Watch.” Fuck. I hate those articles. Look back at those articles from five or ten years ago. Those wineries were not worth watching! I have enough wineries to watch. I can’t find the time to drink the wines from wineries with track records hundreds of years old. I don’t want any New Wineries to Watch. Know what I want? New Wineries to Watch Fail! That’s an article I want to read. I go to wine tastings. I taste wines from lots of new wineries. Most of them should fail! Really. I mean it. And everyone knows it. They don’t have a damned clue how to make good wine. So who told them they could? Oh, but winemaking is an art, and art has room for everything! No, it fucking doesn’t. Your wine isn’t Rembrandt, it’s Dogs Playing Poker. Stop opening new wineries! Start a brew pub, or a make cider, just like all the other idiots. Just not wine. Please.

I took the time to select a few new wineries that should be eliminated. Every big project begins with a few small steps. With a little effort and a lot of determination, in just a few years we will have a more manageable wine scene. Fewer wineries equals better wines. Here are a few of the wineries I’d like to see fail. This is just the first cut. Let’s see how cleanly we can make it.

Champagne En Les Derrières
Just what the world needs. Another Grower Champagne. For the love of God, stop bringing in more Grower Champagnes. There’s too many already! Look, I’m as sick of all the Grandes Marques as you are. Mumm, Moët, Zeppo, Gummo, Chico… And what about Veuve Clicquot? Is there a worse Champagne? It’s like drinking sparkling Lemon Pledge. Or lightly flavored fart water. So, yes, bring on the Grower Champagnes. But there are enough here already! More than enough! How different are they really? Not very. Oh yes, for years this Domaine sold their grapes to the top Champagne houses, but now you can taste the wines they make for themselves! I don’t want to. Really. I don’t. Just because a guy used to sell his oats to make Cheerios doesn’t mean I want to taste his breakfast. Champagnes are hard to tell apart. We don’t need a hundred of them, any more than we need a hundred different waffles. Let’s hope that Champagne En Les Derrières will be a New Winery to Watch Fail!

A Donkey, A Goat, A Chimp, and A Stoat
Fuck. No more wineries that sound like the beginning of a joke. And, really, seriously, no more domestic wineries making Natural Wines. We don’t even know what that is! Nobody knows. It’s buried beneath all the goddam shit from lactating cows. Let’s be clear. Natural wines are not better wines. And we don’t need any more! I’m not kidding. We really don’t. You just got out of UC Davis, you can barely make bulk wine, and now you’re going to show the world what wine should taste like? Bury it in the ground like qvevri other asshole. And stop telling me it’s better for the planet. Or for my health. That’s stupid. Sulfites won’t kill you. Gum arabic won’t kill you. Nothing added to wine will kill you. The goddam alcohol will kill you! Lower alcohols don’t help! It’s like eating only small orders of McDonald’s french fries to lose weight. And better for the planet? Listen, do me a favor. Stop driving hundreds of miles to tend those natural, organic vineyards in your gas guzzling, piece of shit Ford F-150. Please, don’t ship me yet another fucked-up, faulty, Natural Wine from the Jura on a refrigerated container ship spewing endless pollutants into the ocean, that’s dropped off in a harbor, trucked in another climate-ruining vehicle to a warehouse, that is then featured in the newsletter of the local “Feel Better About Yourself” wine bar for the local wine bozo to order by the glass. Enough. It’s a charade. Nothing about wine is natural. Humans make it! Fuck. So let’s see if A Donkey, A Goat, A Chimp and A Stoat can be our New Winery to Watch Fail!

Prick Family Vineyards
Just what the world needs. Another $200 Cabernet. Well, it’s actually a $40 Cabernet that sells for $200, but you get the idea. When Rich Prick, and his wife Lady Ima, decided to move to Napa Valley and start yet another cult winery, they had dreams of being the next Harlan Estate. Which is like moving to Hollywood to be the next Rudolph Valentino—you’re eighty years too late, for fuck’s sake. Who’s buying ridiculously expensive Napa Valley Cabernet? Sommeliers with daddy issues? The ones who have seven different Cakebread Cabernets on their list and still wet the bed? Nobody wants expensive Napa Cabernet anymore. And there’s too freakin’ many of them as it is! There are too many Rich Pricks in the wine world, we don’t need any more. What’s next? The founder of Tesla making $200 Elon Muscadet? Amazon’s founder making fucking Mencia that’s $250 under the Jeff Bierzos label? Christ, like the FaceBook CEO says, there’s a Zucker berg every minute. I’m sick of it. I hope every Cabernet over $200 fails, but let’s start with the new Prick Family. Though, damn the luck, I think they’re serving it at most of the White House dinners.