Is there a real disconnect happening between what we mean by ‘local’ in food and ‘local’ in wine?
Over the past week, I came across a couple converging points:
First, in this week’s Wellington Times, Sommelier Jay Whiteley writes about the uniquely Ontario phenomena of pairing local foods with offshore wines. Surely it’s odd to “eat local while washing it down with a $15 Chilean Merlot”, no? Few other wine producing provinces do this to the same degree. It’s not even a Canadian thing. BC doesn’t do this. Quebec doesn’t do this. Nova Scotia doesn’t either. In the latter case they made a whole new category: Tidal Bay. And they own it and celebrate it!
Second, at last Saturday’s Judgement of Kingston, three County Pinots were pitted against three Oregon Pinots. The County Pinots were rated ahead of anything from Oregon — by the judges. The audience, on the other hand, chose an Oregon Pinot which was wildly away from the others. The Pinot in question was of a winery I had never heard of before. Curious, and after a bit of digging and it was in fact NOT a winery, but instead a brand developed by a winery in southern Oregon and made and marketed to be sold at 1/2 the price of the winery’s other offerings. Essentially a wine comprised of off-casts and likely bought or imported (California?) juice no-one wanted.
It was a pliant wine and I totally understand the appeal. But it also gave off manipulated, sweet oak notes, a bit of cinnamon (or was that supposed to be tannin?) and besides some alcohol (labelled 13%, but surely higher) not much else. The stated notes of acidity and freshness? Pure imagination.
In reality, it was a brand imported by an agent to be pushed through channels like the LCBO.
And THAT is the main converging point I can see. We in Ontario have had our palates conditioned to such a degree by the LCBO. The data says people like feigning sweetness? Check. Wood? Check. Fits a price point? Check. But is it good? Whatever, it fits the matrix!
And agents — driven in part by margins and the LCBOs targets on them —are only more than happy to supply the goods. None of that is sustainable. Pair that with staff training that is minimal and cheap is an easy option, however. Or have millions to spend on ads, and you’ll be fine. Cheap on one end; gold-guilded bottles on the other? They sell themselves: no-one asks questions. “It’s gold — of course it’s good, the best, the biggest…” How it gets here or what happens there, matters less. And all the wines in-between, where literally ALL the really interesting things are happening? Too much effort.
All this is to say, while small, local or lo-fi may be more expensive (and it should be), it’s not only relative to quality but also honesty of what is in the bottle. And we think connecting the two is just a more interesting place to be.
Cheers!
n.b. Obviously it’s not quite that simple and the Ontario wine industry has confused many and certainly made mis-steps — but this is universal. Just a couple examples: Austrian wineries added antifreeze which in turn went into German wines (In some cases a single bottle was lethal) — and this was exactly the same time Europe was arguing against the import of Canadian wines because of… you guessed it: ‘quality’. Huh. Then, much of French wine is likely Spanish or Italian and vice-versa. Wine is a complicated file! In many cases, it should be! Unlike… American milk. But that is another topic!