The World of Wine in 2009
With 2009 drawing to a close, the GrapeRadio bunch thought it might be interesting to have a little round-table discussion about the changes that the past year brought to us – and there were plenty of changes! The economy certainly led the parade, and to a large extent directed many of the events that followed throughout the year. There were also environmental changes and adaptations of both growers and producers, as well as more than a few new medical studies about the benefits of wine – in moderation of course.
Join us, as we cover the high and low points of the year, and examine the interesting (sometimes obvious) trends. Plus, the year wouldn’t be compete without our thoughts on the current value of wine ratings. And, we’ll even throw in a few predictions about what we think the wine world has in store for us in 2010.
Sponsor: California Wine Club: www.cawineclub.com
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(1:00:28min 40MB)
I’ll load the show again but the first time was only 45 minutes and change before it cut out-right in the middle of a debate about scores and judges!
Thanks for the heads up. The issue has been resolved.
GrapeRadio
I was amused by the conversation regarding the “unworthy” revenuers on Cellar Tracker. My experience with CT comments has been pretty consistent. When taken as a group, they are seldom too far from the opinions of the pros. Are there outliers that are better ignored? Certainly. But the same is frequently true with those paid to swill and score wines.
Where I find CT to be really helpful is on the issue of readiness of a particular wine. Decant or not? Wait a bit longer or not? Parker or Laube both their place, but their methodologies both come with built in biases, limitations and the reality of their opinion wereprobably expressed years ago. This is not so helpful when deciding which bottle to pull from the cellar tonight.
Keep of the good work. Happy New Year, guys.
Oops. Not revenuers (somewhat Freudian, you think?) Reviewers was the intended word choice.
Great ramblings. Really good stuff. I liked how it went all over the place. How do global and national distribution compare to local wineries? North Carolina has 100 wineries and I wonder how buyers going to local wineries compared to buying at the retail stores vary. Does local versus global have any value? Many local wineries lean on “the story” “the experience” to get sales. Anyone do any study on that? I’d be interested as I see local wineries seem doing better as the glut of wine in the marketplace occurs. I can buy 2 buck Chuck, but when I visit a local winery – ah, the romance, I am part of the story, not just picking based on the label. no? Is the “terrior” only in the bottle? I wonder. or is it in the experience of tasting the wine – so a local winery has a huge draw. And if that is true, is that the next frontier. oh, does that make it difficult for wine experts to score, ugh? smile. social media changes things, and it will with the wine scoring. GR8 show. I learned and it expanded my thinking. thanks.
p.s. Syrah, Pinot? We need to expand to other grapes.
Hi Rick
You make a good point. With Cellar Tracker, you have to look at the summation of all the reviews and obtain an overall impression. A review with scoring from someone you don’t know taken by itself means nothing – ie, one person’s 88 may be another person’s 90. I think you are better off reading into the comments, such as drinkability now as you mentioned, and forget the scores.