The Six People You Want to Avoid in the Wine Business

Everyone has advice for whom you should know in the wine business. Article after article on the subject have appeared in online publications. And each one is self-serving crap, a way to say I already know all these people, I’m basically one of them, and if you play your cards right one day you might be important, too. Believe me when I tell you that you don’t need to know Raj Parr or Charles Banks or Alice Feiring, not for any reason. Really. Google these people. You think you want to know them? That this is critical to your wine career? Oh, boy, you know less about life than you know about wine. Send them fan letters! Invite them to your next wine tasting when you explore the wonder that is Pinot Grigio. Your chances will be the only thing thinner than the wines.

Such a tease. If you want to know the six people to avoid, you'll have to jump over to Tim Atkin's site. It's HoseMaster Monday! in Great Britain, and you won't want to miss out. And feel free to leave a witty comment there, or compete with my witless remarks here.


TIM ATKIN M.W.

My brother-in-law sent me a link to the New York Times article about the Hill Wine Company scandal, asking if I knew anyone involved. I don’t. But the article made me laugh out loud repeatedly. Man, there are a lot of idiots writing about wine besides me. The assertion, discussed quite a bit over at STEVE!, from a quote from a MASTER SOMMELIER! (so it has to be true), “…that even top tasters like himself would find it nearly impossible to discern the true geographic origin of a well-made cabernet.” is disingenuously humble and funny. We’re not talking about top tasters, we’re talking about rubes stopping at Hill Wine Company’s tasting room at 4:30 on a Saturday. They also can’t tell the difference between the floor and the toilet bowl. It’s a quote that’s misleading on so many levels, but plays into most of the audience’s view that people who buy Napa Valley Cabernet are suckers—not just because the wines are expensive, but also because the wine buyers are ignorant and unable to tell a Napa cab from a Lake County cab. This is certainly true of some folks, but is not at all true in general. It’s a FOX News kind of assertion. “Hey, this Mexican is here illegally, so they must all be here illegally!” Mr. Kemiji, MS! concludes his point about Cabernets from different appellations with, “A lot of guys would be embarrassed.” If I’m the Lake County Winegrowers Association, this becomes our motto--“Lake County—Buy Our Wines! Embarrass Your Asshole Friends.”

The New York Times reporter got a belly laugh out of me with this quote, “Mr. Hill didn’t fit the stereotype of a natty winemaker in the most famous wine region in America.” Natty winemaker? In Napa Valley? Name one natty winemaker in Napa Valley. That’s like not fitting the stereotype of the meth addict with the perfect smile. 

Finally, just to cut this short, the whole article was fall-down funny, I had a luscious bit of schadenfreude reading how Mr. Hill had fleeced Dave Del Dotto of Del Dotto Winery out of a bunch of money. There’s the old switcheroo. Del Dotto made his fortune fleecing folks as a television pitchman back in the ‘90’s. Here’s a quote from the Seattle Times of August 14, 1998:

“Del Dotto, a former drywall hanger who says he has made a fortune in real estate, has given four seminars in the Seattle area this week, telling audiences they can qualify to buy homes even if they have no cash, no income and bad credit.

Most of the information Del Dotto gives out is "worthless," according to Cal Scott, director of the nonprofit Washington Community Housing Network. "It's old, reprinted manuals on foreclosures, information on HUD foreclosures that doesn't even apply any more, Xeroxes of old government forms."

And later in the article:

“Horn said Del Dotto misrepresents himself "as a successful, self-made millionaire" when, in fact, his record is littered with bankruptcies, foreclosures and "numerous enforcement actions" by state and federal agencies.”

Funny, even top cynics like myself would find it nearly impossible to tell the true geographic origin of a fast-talking con man.

Here’s the link to the entire Seattle Times article:

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19980814&slug=2766453

The entire New York Times article, writers and subjects, is filled with shitheads. It's a great time to be alive and a satirist.

A Master Sommelier Judges at a Wine Competition

I knew I shouldn’t have accepted. Isn’t life just like that? You always know when you’re about to do something stupid, like mistake a 100-Point Chateauneuf-du-Pape for Ruby Port when clearly a Ruby Port would be lower in alcohol (hey, I passed the exam anyway), but then you do it anyway. You insert your warm meat Coravin in the wrong spongy mass. You order wine by-the-glass at a Thai restaurant. You answer your phone at three in the morning even though you know it’s Alice and all she wants to do is ask you if your favorite sexual position is reverse osmosis, you asshole. You do it, and then you regret it, and swear you’ll never do it again; but you will. I did. And I’m Larry Anosmia, MS. I like to think of myself as better than human. I have the letters to prove it.

I was invited to be a judge for the Tim Fish Celebrity Wine Challenge and Sausage Fest. I’m not sure he knows what a “sausage fest” is. But, to be sure, most wine competitions are sausage fests. As far as judges go, men tend to outnumber women by a factor of five. And outweigh them by a factor of twenty. It’s a lot like the United States Supreme Court, only without any minorities. Mostly old white guys wearing robes and passing judgment. I don’t think I’ve ever seen an African American wine judge at a competition. Well, maybe once at a Hungarian Wine Competition, but I think he was basically a Tokay black judge. Anyhow, in a weak moment, I accepted the Fish bait. Stupid.

There’s nothing wrong with wine competitions. Except that there are other judges. Sometimes there can be as many as FOUR other judges on my panel. Remember that I’m a Master Sommelier, and there is no chance that any of the other judges will be Master Anygoddamthing. I might have to sit and judge wines with someone who buys wine for a grocery store! Do you know what kind of wine they buy for grocery stores? EVERY DAY wine! Believe me, you spend your life tasting EVERY DAY wine and you know what you actually know about wine? Which wineries have the best cardboard boxes, that’s about all you know about wine. You have a grocery store palate, which is like entering the Westminster Dog Show with a turd on a leash. Or I might have to judge with a wine writer, for God’s sake. Not a wine writer anyone’s ever heard of. Well, to be fair, there aren’t very many famous wine writers. There are probably more famous accordion players than famous wine writers. And you don’t want either one at your wedding. One squeezes everything he can get out of his meager instrument, and the other plays the polka. Wine writers make lousy wine judges. Most of the time they just steal the other judges’ ideas.

I was lucky that at the Tim Fish Celebrity Wine Challenge and Sausage Fest there were only three judges on each panel. All I had to do was use my superior and faultless wine knowledge to persuade one of the other two “judges” to agree with me and I could award as many, or as few, gold medals as I desired. Wine competitions that have lots of entries, or want lots of entries, love to have three-judge panels because then any wine entered only needs two votes for gold medal to be awarded a gold medal instead of the three votes it would need with a panel of four or five judges. Of course, the public doesn’t know how many judges are on a panel at any given competition. They just see Gold Medal and are impressed. Most of the time, winning a Gold Medal at a wine competition is akin to thinking you struck the hitter out with the bases loaded after strike two. You’ve really won nothing. But you certainly need two balls to brag about it. The panel next to us had five judges, and the one next door had four. If I’m submitting a wine to a wine competition, I want my wine judged by the three judge panel—I’d insist on it. But, hell, most wineries haven’t the slightest idea how wine competitions work either. They fork over the $85 entry fee, pull the arm, and hope the slots fill up with three cherries. Jackpot! Want to go again?

My two fellow “judges” (I’m being kind—like saying Dawn were Tony Orlando) were nice folks. And it certainly wasn’t their fault that no one had informed them that my opinions were final. But those letters after my name? I don’t have them tattooed around my nipples because that looks good on my Titter feed. I have a degree! I passed a test administered by some of the greatest wine experts on the planet—and Larry Stone. Why, after smelling and tasting a wine and making my decision, would I change my opinion based on someone else’s opinion? Does that make any sense to anyone? Some woman who buys wine for a grocery store? Sure. “The weimaraner, the French bulldog, and the turd on the leash—once more around the ring!” No, Larry Anosmia MS says Silver Medal, the damned Merlot is a Silver Medal. Why are we having this discussion? Because the wine writer thinks it’s a Gold Medal wine? Well, strap on your accordion and play “Lady of Spain” because then we’ll believe you have talent, but it’s still a Silver.

And, really, should it take more than five minutes to judge a dozen wines? We only have 175 wines to judge today. Alder Yarrow can do that in two hours with his ego tied behind his back. You need all damned day? These wineries should know better. No one who makes wine worthy of a Gold Medal enters a wine competition to win a Gold Medal, so why are we awarding Gold Medals? You won’t catch Larry Anosmia MS giving any Gold Fish Awards! And you won’t catch any MS worthy of his string of initials after his name changing his vote. We’re Master Sommeliers, goddamit. We don’t make mistakes. We point them out.

I knew it was a mistake to judge the Tim Fish Celebrity Wine Challenge and Sausage Fest. For one thing, I was the only celebrity there. I was told a Kardashian would be there, but I don’t even know where Kardashia is. And the judges weren’t even given an honorarium. Though I will treasure the souvenir Talking Tim Fish you mount on your wall. It’s cool. You clap, and he moves his lips and randomly awards scores! It’s eerily lifelike.

I’ve been drinking a lot of 2012 Chablis, and mostly the cheaper stuff. One of the first great white wines I ever purchased for cellaring was a Raveneau Chablis. I had no idea what it was at the time, and bought it for the simple reason that the guy at my local wine shop, who knew that I was completely hooked on wine, told me to. I knew Chablis was Chardonnay, which was fine, it was in an era long ago when Americans were in love with Chardonnay, a time when Chateau St. Jean could produce ten different vineyard-designated Chardonnays and people would flock to a tasting just to taste them all. So I knew that Raveneau was Chardonnay, but I had no idea Chardonnay could be Raveneau. I get cold sweats just picking up a bottle of Raveneau, like the kind of nerves you get the first time you undress a new lover, though it’s considered bad form to then put that new lover into a cold cellar for ten years. 2012 seems to be a remarkable vintage in Chablis, and the wines I’ve consumed, all of them under $25, have been sensational. Piuze, Domaine des Melandes, Domaine des Bois d’Yver, William Févre—all of the 12’s have that purity and power, that razor’s edge of acidity, that kind of verve that vibrates on your palate, that I associate with Chablis, and only Chablis. These are insanely underpriced wines.

My oldest love is for baseball. I don’t care at all about other sports, though women’s roller derby is kinda hot. So when I heard the news that the great Ernie Banks had died, I was sad. You know you’ve been a success in life when the word “great” easily attaches to your name. (I’m not holding my breath for the great HoseMaster.) And Ernie Banks was a great baseball player. The very first baseball game I attended was in 1959, when the Los Angeles Dodgers played in the LA Memorial Coliseum. I went with my Cub Scout troop, and we watched a game between the Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. The Dodgers won the game 4-2, but Banks hit a beautiful, majestic home run over the very close, but very high, left field screen—it was but 250 feet from home plate to the screen, but it stood 40 feet high. Very few home runs were hit over that screen—I read a statistic that in 1958 only 9 homes runs were hit at the Coliseum in 77 games! So I loved Ernie Banks for hitting that amazing home run, the left fielder for the Dodgers, the wonderfully named Wally Moon, staring high into the sky to watch it soar over the screen—a rare occurrence. The Dodgers won the World Series that year, beating the Cubs’ crosstown rivals, the White Sox. But it was Ernie Banks who was the League MVP that year. Excuse me, it was the great Ernie Banks who was the League MVP that year.

Was there ever a more optimistic person in sports than Banks? I loved Ernie Banks. But, then, if you play for the Cubs for 19 years, you’d better be optimistic. I heard Banks interviewed a few years ago on NPR, and what I remember him saying was, and I’m quoting him from memory, “I loved winning, but the thing I loved more than winning was making friends.” As famous and as remarkable a ballplayer as he was, he never charged for an autograph, like the talented but despicable Pete Rose. He spent hours and hours after games talking to kids, making friends. On the diamond, he was talent and joy rolled into one graceful shortstop. I’m sure he would say he had a great life playing the game of baseball. But Ernie Banks wasn’t lucky he found baseball--baseball was. It was a gorgeous day here today, Ernie. Let’s play two.