2007 Cab Franc Tasting, Tuesday, July 28, NYWCC, Part Two: There’s the Rub
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on August 5, 2009
The wines were great, the participants were friendly, and everyone appeared to have a good time. So what is there to criticize? Not much, actually. The tasting was conceived as an opportunity for winemakers, writers and bloggers, and retailers to assess the quality of the 2007 vintage Finger Lakes Cabernet Francs, compare these wines with Cab Francs from other wine-producing regions, and discuss the potential of the varietal for the Finger Lakes region. While the discussion never got around to this last question, the tasting established that Finger Lakes winemakers produce some very good, even excellent Cabernet Francs, and that their Cab Francs are regionally identifiable in comparison to French, and even to Long Island, Cab Francs. These are fundamentally important issues for anyone interested in the success of Finger Lakes wineries. From the perspective of what we intended to achieve, then, the tasting was largely a success.
That being said, by failing to consider the broader issue of Cabernet Franc’s potential, I think we missed an opportunity to bridge the gap between winemaking and marketing, and to forge a stronger sense of community and common purpose among regional winemakers and retailers. The discussions of balance and overcropping were interesting and important, and indicated, at least for the participating winemakers, that Cabernet Franc’s viticultural and enological potential are settled issues. From this perspective, the key concerns are not whether Cab Franc grows well in their vineyards, or ripens fully by fall crush, but whether individual winemakers are willing to restrict yields, forgoing quantity for quality, and to make the other hard decisions necessary to produce balanced, world-class wines. Retailers are keenly interested in these issues even if they lack a winemaker’s technical knowledge, because in today’s highly competitive market, where wines from well established regions compete for shelf space with up-and-coming regions and varietals, one or two poorly made wines are enough to forever turn off a customer to a particular varietal.
For retailers, accordingly, and perhaps for the writers and bloggers as well, Cabernet Franc’s potential remains an open question. As I noted at the tasting, wine shops are where the aromas meet the road, and where a wine succeeds or fails not simply because of its inherent quality, but also because of pricing, availability, public awareness, and successful marketing – had a good Carménère recently? How about a nice Torrontés? This is why I wish a winemaker had turned to a retailer during the discussion and asked, “So, what do you think? Can you sell this wine?” and why I am disappointed that we failed to consider market-oriented issues. Are Finger Lakes Cab Francs competitively good wines, and are they competitively priced? Is there sufficient public awareness of or interest in Finger Lakes Cabernet Francs for them to compete successfully in the marketplace? These are critically important issues, at least as important as whether winemakers can get away with four or more tons of Cabernet Franc per acre, and it is the retailers and writers who know the answers to these particular questions, not the winemakers.
I am not blaming the winemakers for this missed opportunity. Indeed, there were several moments when retailers could have jumped into the discussion, as when one winemaker denied that overcropping was an issue and asserted that retailers needed simply to sell more wine. This overly simplistic statement, along with the fact that the retailers remained silent even when directly challenged, is an indication that there is at present little sense of community or common purpose among Finger Lakes winemakers and regional retailers. And yet we are bound together not merely by economic interest, but to a degree that we fail to appreciate, by a shared history. This is nowhere more evident than in the controversial subject of sweet table wines, which are both an existential scourge and a financial godsend. The account books of more than a few Finger Lakes wineries end up in the black, I suspect, because of sweet wines, as do the ledgers of many regional wine shops. Even boutique wine shops like The Savvy Wine Cellar, where I work, blow through more cases of Red Cat than we care to admit. More is going on here than economic necessity. Historically, culturally, put it however you want, this region – its consumers, wineries, and retailers – grew up on sweet wines, and we can no more easily escape our past than we can evade death or taxes. We can and should, however, push back harder against this history.
This is why fostering a closer sense of community is so important: everyone has something at stake in the debate over the historically- and culturally-rooted production of sweet wines. One of the biggest surprises of moving to Central New York and getting involved in wine sales was seeing the strength of local demand for sweet wines, and how unapologetic consumers are about their preference for treacle despite the decades-long international trend towards dry table wines. I can’t tell you how many customers have come into the wine shop who tell me they grew up drinking Lake Niagara, switched in early adulthood to Red Cat, and have never moved beyond semi-sweet Rieslings, not even to semi-dry wines. No one at the tasting was shocked, accordingly, when Peter Bell of Fox Run Vineyards acknowledged that his best selling Cab Franc is a back-sweetened red wine blend called Sable. Nor did anyone need to point out the obvious: sweet wines sell well in tasting rooms and at local wine shops, which is why winemakers continue to produce and retailers continue stock these wines
In addition to Peter Bell, a handful of other winemakers who participated in the tasting also produce off-dry red wines. To be fair, these off-dry reds are not the real villains, but are rather reasonably well made, fruit-driven summer wines that compare well with the lower priced dry red blends produced by nearly all Finger Lakes wineries. I myself have enjoyed a chilled glass of Tony’s Red on a hot afternoon, and I neither burst into flames nor have I as yet been tormented by the offended spirits of wine critics past. But we need to be honest and admit a few simple truths. First, despite the progress made over the past 20 years, the Finger Lakes are still awash in sweet wines. More than a few local owners and winemakers suffer from what I call “Red Cat envy,” as evidenced when Dick Reno, the owner of Chateau Lafayette Reneau, told me earlier this summer, and in all seriousness, that Red Cat is the best red wine produced in New York State. Not the most successful red wine, the best red wine. Alternately, one need only visit a warehouse-style discount retailer like Liquor City in Syracuse to see how few fine wines from the Finger Lakes are inventoried in comparison to locally produced plonk.
Second, and of greater import, I believe the region as a whole faces a not-too-distant day of reckoning for this short-sighted pandering to local demand. Here again, we need to be honest. Continued production of so much second-class wine undermines the efforts of forward-thinking winemakers to move the Finger Lakes region beyond its provincial adolescence, to full maturity as a world-class appellation. It may even, eventually damage the reputation of Finger Lakes winemaking beyond repair. All the more reason, then, for the region’s winemakers, retailers, and writers to recognize their interdependence and common purpose, and to find more opportunities to discuss the full range of issues that surround Finger Lakes winemaking, including those market-oriented issues we failed to consider at the tasting, but which profoundly effect us all.
Comments
5 Responses to “2007 Cab Franc Tasting, Tuesday, July 28, NYWCC, Part Two: There’s the Rub”Leave a comment, and if you'd like your own picture to show up next to your comments, go get a gravatar!
Hi Neil:
Chiming in a little late here, but I love your analysis of the situation.
Personally, since I live close enough to lots of wineries
and because I like to visit them, I buy most of my local wines
at the wineries themselves (in bulk). In fact, it’s soon time
for me to reload.
Now, I enjoy all kinds of wine, and I do buy a lot of wine from
local retailers, but I just don’t often buy local wines,
especially if they are from Cayuga or Seneca. Maybe it’s
because I crave all the information that I can get about a wine
before I buy, and maybe I just want to taste everything before I buy.
Do you think my situation is unique?
Hi Tom,
Thanks for replying. I cannot speak for Ithaca, but my impression of folks from Syracuse, or at least folks from Syracuse who are regular customers at the wine shop, is that the Finger Lakes wineries are primarily a fun day trip to the tasting rooms rather than an alternative to local retailers. No doubt people also stock up on wine during these trips, but I think their visits supplement rather than supplant their purchases at local wine shops. I also think that your interest in all kinds of wines, and your craving for information, places you in a different situation than the average wine consumer. Although there is always a risk with generalizations, customers who enjoy and regularly purchase FLX wines at the wine shop seem to come in for a particular wine, such as a dry or semi-dry Riesling, with little interest in trying any of the other varietals produced by FLX winemakers, Very often they are willing to try wines from different wineries, but the extent of their interest consists in asking whether the wine is dry or sweet. You would be surprised how many customers come in asking for sweet wines, by which many of them really mean sweet, not off-dry or semi-sweet, who looking for a white wine other than Riesling or a red wine.
So if I read correctly between the lines of your comment, I do believe that local retailers have a lot to contribute to discussions about the direction and future of the Finger Lakes wine industry, as I think that local consumers purchase the bulk of their FLX wines from retailers rather than the wineries. You raise an interesting point, however, and I wonder if there are any available statistics that compare wines sales at local retailers versus wine sales at tasting rooms.
This is an evolution all emerging wine regions need to go through.
Remember that not long ago, California was known for French Colombard, Chenin Blanc and Mission grapes!
You are absolutely correct about the split personality that the Finger Lakes present to outsiders.
You do not need to read many wine books or talk to other people in our indistry to discover that no wine region has ever been able to establish a reputation with sweet wines, that do not meet international criteria.
Together with these challenges, the Finger Lakes also offer some unique opportunities. We have an opportunity to establish itself as the leading cool climate wine region on a continent dominated by warm to hot Mediterranean style growing cinditions.
Morten, thanks again for participating in this discussion. I agree that the Finger Lakes is still an emerging wine region, but my concern is that winemakers and writers can only make this claim for so long until it becomes an apology rather than an explanation. At some point, consumers and retailers who are tapped into the international market, rather than the local market of tasting rooms and regional wine shops, will simply turn their backs on the Finger Lakes if it does not complete the transition from its current adolescence or “split personality,” to a commercially mature or psychically whole wine producing region. Several of the hottest regions – Oregon, Argentina, Australia – were also emerging in the 1980s and 1990s, yet today they are more mature and better established in the international marketplace than Finger Lakes wines. What explains this difference? Why is the Finger Lakes still “emerging” while other regions are more fully developed? The answers, I believe, involve both winemaking and marketing. A sizable number of consumers seem to be moving away from Mediterranean-climate fruit bombs towards better structured and balanced, colder-climate wines, which potentially bodes well for Finger Lakes winemakers. Yet, other emerging and mature regions already seem better positioned to satisfy this demand – Washington State for its Riesling and red wines, New Zealand for its Sauvignon Blanc, not to mention Burgundy, Alsace, Mosel, etc. How long will this trend last? Will the Finger Lakes mature in time to take advantage of this shift in taste? Again, winemaking and marketing, I believe, are critically interrelated. In the not too distant future, “emerging” will either evolve into a story of success and maturity, or tragedy and “failed promise.” This is why I feel the need to play Jeremiah or Cassandra on this issue, the market is not going to wait forever for the Finger Lakes region to mature or resolve its split personality.
Neil,
Thank you for a great perspective on the state of winemaking in the Finger Lakes. As a hobbiest winemaker and one who enjoys FL “world class wines,” I think you’ve shed some light on the uphill struggle ahead for this appellation.