I found this fascinating and it resonated. Among wine’s great democratisers there’s an irony though. Demystification for thee, but not for me. The people who tell us loudest that wine must be made simple and “accessible” are also the keenest to tell us they have the “prestigious WSET diploma”. In truth, it’s Redemptive Elitism – “we will rescue you from the exclusivity of the old order by insisting you follow us instead.” These people claim to dismantle hierarchy. But they’re just re-inscribing it with themselves at the top.
Yes, the cult-like new wave of wine marketing youngsters are selling us vapor. They have the solution to getting youthful drinkers to drink wine, but only if you dance on TikTok with a fresh 250ml can of Saumur-Champigny.
Nailed it, Bodhi! Anti-elitism is used by many people as a form of elitism, just like atheism is oftentimes used as a form of religion. Or how anti-genre art movements become genres themselves - e.g., Dada became dadaism. I guess the old adage applies: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
It's the comparison to the beer, bourbon, mezcal, tequila lovers it's a culture, ecosystem, geekery.
Two comparisons:
Baseball. I remember the quote, "inside baseball". It's about stat geeks, knowing the history, the moment, maybe a single pitch, keeping score on a pad at MLB game. It's American history and it isn't the NFL. Baseball still has insiders and die hards that remember where they were when their team did X or Y.
Star Trek. Not Star Wars fans, Trek fans. That's another level. Shatner on SNL and the skit that made fun of what made him famous turned into a multi-million dollar industry of conventions around the world. Leaning into Geekery, their own language, conventions, cosplay, all of it.
The wine world is full of geeks, cork dorks, Somms, winemakers who can totally geek out on stuff. Or not. Show us your collection of corks, wine keys, trophy bottles. Just don't be a jerk about it.
Smartphones are available and accessible to most people in the world, even in some of the most rural and under-resourced communities. People can use phones to communicate with each other, play games, have fun - without needing a lot of special training, a new "language", or qualifications. Just like wine.
However, if you are a computer nerd, or technophile, or someone who enjoys delving deeper, you will most probably need some special training, or you will need to understand (and use!) the language of smartphone developers, designers and power users. Otherwise it will become cumbersome for you to communicate even the simplest idea to fellow geeks and technophiles. Just like wine geeks.
There's a place in the world for all kinds of creatures 😁
Great piece, JS. You nailed the paradox—by making wine more ordinary, facets of industry (not the entire entity) have stripped away the very mystique that gave it much of what we value and seek out. Complexity and heritage aren’t barriers, they’re the invitations that make wine worth treasuring both in the glass and as intellectual pursuits.
Jim, this is only the second article I've read by you... and very much enjoy your perspectives.
I'd argue that there's more to it than either elitism or egalitarianism... that it has something to do with relevance. What we call "wine" is largely a colonial export from Europe. As such, it embodies many of the values and ideas of colonization... and not in a good way. As it occurs outside of Europe it is an imitation and upholding of these values. The history and culture and implicit values that we expect people around the world to learn and admire in order to enjoy wine is not theirs, or is not a happy part of their culture and history, or is a very narrow part, usually. Until we can redefine and reimagine wine in a way that allows it to be different than what I refer to as "Vinifera Culture"... should we continue to expect Americans and Asians and anyone else outside of Europe to continue to embrace the colonization of their local wine cultures by a European grape wine culture, which most often overlooks and devalues indigenous grapes and fermentation cultures everywhere? Personally, even as an American who fell in love with wine via this dominant culture, I've lost interest. I don't find my culture and story represented in it. I'm tired of drinking imitations of European wines grown and made in America, talking about terroir.
And I suspect, even if they don't think about it as much as I do, that many others have lost interest for the same reasons.
Thank you for the very kind words. I admire your work immensely. But allow me to push back a bit on the premise of your comment, especially "What we call 'wine' is largely a colonial export from Europe. As such, it embodies many of the values and ideas of colonization... and not in a good way. As it occurs outside of Europe it is an imitation and upholding of these values."
I disagree. Wine is not a colonial export, nor does it embody the values of colonization. The Italian immigrants who settled in Northern California in the 1800s were not colonizers (in that sense) and did not insist on a wine culture when they planted their vineyards, for example. The American soldiers who retook Sicily, Italy, and then France from the German invaders in WW2 were not colonizing when they developed a fondness for the local drink during their time overseas, and brought that home. No, I'm afraid that imported grape (varieties) are no more colonizers than Daft Punk, novels, universities, democracy, pasta, or almost any other food.
California (e.g.) does not export a wine culture (per se), nor do we expect people to conform, learn, or admire anything - rather, I see this as a choice made by the receiver. Take it or leave it, there's no rule - that's an oppression that doesn't exist really. CA does not impose its will on TX, yet TX consumes 1/3 of all Napa Cabernet produced (that's true). No one forces them.
Colonization of the local cultures (writ large) by the European grape wine culture to the detriment of indigenous grapes? C'mon now. I worked in the NYS wine industry for 10 years. There's a pretty good reason why Catawba doesn't roll off (or onto) people's tongues as often as does Chardonnay. No one is oppressing the wine-curious farmers of the east, except Mother Nature, and yet, they manage to succeed often.
You say, "I'm tired of drinking imitations of European wines grown and made in America, talking about terroir." - Now we're on the same page. I'm totally sympathetic to this, because I love wine but write about the wine business. You'll see a common thread in my writing: I love wine (all of it) more than the wine business, but the wine business is what drives the trends, makes the money, determines the plantings, and takes 'terroir' under advisement only.
As I said in the original post: What is ordinary is rarely treasured. People aren't alienated by the European origins of wine; they're alienated by the homogenization of the wine industry's produce. Wine remains, though, a specific cultural object with memory, lineage, history, and continuity. I disagree with assigning colonial "guilt" to wine (or beer, or cheese, or bread) which should be saved instead for sugar, rubber, and cotton.
Thanks, Jim. And honestly, I was hoping for some push-back. But let me clarify... I agree with you, in some ways, that we didn't force Italian immigrants to make the wine that they loved when they got here (by here I mean CA, or the USA generally)... But that's because they were part of the process of colonization. What I mean is a bigger look at our (again US) culture, as a product of European (specifically, mostly English) colonization. So the tastes and values of those who brought vinifera were already culturally informed by the colonizing cultures... because they were from them. The spread of vinifera wine mirrors the spread of European colonization for a reason, and is why in places like China that were not colonized there are many other, more popular wine grapes, often with indigenous genetics. (And I would argue that the way the Chinese embraced vinifera culture over the last couple decades, until recently, had as much or more to do with wealth and status than with falling in love with the flavors... but that would be hard for me to prove other than anecdotally.)
The difference between Daft Punk, democracy, etc and Vitis vinifera is that the former are ecologically viable cultural elements... Vinifera Wine is an agricultural product that has been stagnant since at least the 19th century, and only kept viable since globalization by using rootstock (from America) and chemicals (also, often, from America). Also, France didn't make Daft Punk nor democracy illegal in the 20th century... something they did with every non-vinifera grape, which also informed our current attitudes and preferences. In other words, wine has some unique hang-ups.
And I really like your Catawba v Chardonnay comparison. Catawba was of course not allowed in European viticulture since the mid 20th century. But in the mid-19th, wine made from it was the most popular wine in the US. And personally, I'll drink a Catawba any day over Chardonnay. If you haven't had the Pariah from North American Press in Sonoma (sparkling Catawba), I highly recommend it... delicious, fun, delightful. And it's grown without any pesticides or fungicides.... something that you can't do with Chardonnay in Sonoma. And I've had too many less than exciting Chardonnays. Out of hundreds (or more) of Chardonnays that I've tasted in my life, probably 4 or 5 stand out as memorable to my tastes. I've only had a handful of Catawbas and already have tasted a stand-out memorable one... so those are pretty good, or at least even, odds. Maybe you'd disagree, but my point is that tastes and values differ widely from person to person, and especially from culture to culture... but when we only allow one taste-value culture to be considered to be "fine wine" we create a self-reinforcing bias in taste. So I don't buy the "vinifera is inherently superior to all other types of wine and that's why it's dominant" argument... it sounds like an argument that would arise from a colonized wine culture. It's very easy to equate familiarity with quality, but that doesn't make it true.
I definitely don't make this argument to incentivize guilt, though. I do agree that what we make too ordinary we risk devaluing, and I definitely agree that the homogenization of wine is a huge turn off... I think a global vinifera monoculture (of mostly around 10 cultivars) is extremely homogenous. But I don't think "wine" gets to be owned by vinifera culture. I think it can be, and needs to be, re-defined. I think it's a container that can be filled with whatever indigenous fermentation culture fits into it. I think it's a turn-off for a new potential wine drinker to walk into a BevMo or grocery store wine aisle and be confronted by a wall of products in a language other than the one they speak. That kind of wine isn't ecologically viable, and I don't think that kind of wine is relevant anymore in the 21st century to people who no longer fetishize the products of their colonial parents.
Wine cannot be elitist. It’s a thing. Wine producers, wine retailers, restaurant and bar staff, and wine writers are all human beings and they can be elitist. They can seek to exclude people with their nerdy secret language jargon like alcoholic D&D players. But if they do that then they alienate a lot of people and they can’t complain if people drink things that don’t require a PhD as cost of entry.
I know a fair bit about wine and enjoy a good nerd out with my fellow nerds. But mostly I dial it down and just make a rec suitable for the occasion (“hey, we’re noshing Italian, let’s get a Chianti Classico”).
Thanks for the interesting article, it’s a very interesting new world take. I will vehemently disagree with the below quote:
The irony is that wine’s supposed “barriers” were in fact its deepest strengths. Complexity creates meaning. Mystery creates value. Other categories—bourbon, tequila, craft beer—flourished precisely because they leaned into their insider culture and heritage, not because they simplified themselves into banality.
Thus, the uncomfortable truth: wine is not dying because it is too elitist. It’s dying because it made itself ordinary.
Very interesting perspective. Wine’s mystique, history, and cultural depth have always been its greatest strengths. That said, I think some brands still need to figure out how to connect with younger generations without stripping away that richness.
I don't feel this is about chasing a particular generation, rather it's about connecting with 'mindsets'. Plenty of younger drinkers are drawn to wine's mystique and history, others to the values of discovery, or sustainability. Understanding these motivations is more powerful than sorting people by age. In my book I espouse the idea that psycographics are a more critical way to segment your customers than just demographics.
Your diagnosis may well be plausible, wine has lost its mysticism, it has been replaced by mechanistic analysis. There’s no wonder in wine, as the fruit salad rules OK. However, it’s replacement of one elitism with another.
As I can’t smell all those Moroccan vanillas or crushed stones on the shores of Ethiopia, I am bound to wonder whether wine is for me. The elitism of mysticism has been replaced by the elitism of SAT. So, yes, elitism is a problem.
@joe fattorini is right about the faux democratisation of wine, so the sooner wine understands that it must help me discover it, the better. I don’t owe wine anything and certainly I don’t owe it any courses or learning the ‚language of wine’. If wine wants me to engage with, I must be able to do it as I am, not as wine would like me be.
I don’t agree at all. The idea that wine has simply swapped one “elitism” for another misunderstands both how people actually drink wine and what drives its appeal. Most wine isn’t discussed in SAT terms, nor was it ever wrapped in mysticism for the vast majority of drinkers. Consumers buy it, open it, and enjoy it, often with food, family, or friends, without reference to somm-speak or mythical “wonder.”
The real democratization of wine has already happened: never in history have so many people, at so many price points, had access to well-made wines. The language of wine is a tool or an aid, not a locked gate. It gives those who want to go deeper a way to do so, while the rest of the market happily drinks on without it. To suggest that the very existence of descriptors or training is inherently elitist is like saying music theory makes enjoying a pop song impossible. Wine doesn’t demand you become someone else to enjoy it. Discover it or don't, that's entirely up to you.
I found this fascinating and it resonated. Among wine’s great democratisers there’s an irony though. Demystification for thee, but not for me. The people who tell us loudest that wine must be made simple and “accessible” are also the keenest to tell us they have the “prestigious WSET diploma”. In truth, it’s Redemptive Elitism – “we will rescue you from the exclusivity of the old order by insisting you follow us instead.” These people claim to dismantle hierarchy. But they’re just re-inscribing it with themselves at the top.
Yes, the cult-like new wave of wine marketing youngsters are selling us vapor. They have the solution to getting youthful drinkers to drink wine, but only if you dance on TikTok with a fresh 250ml can of Saumur-Champigny.
Anti-elitism has kind of become its own form of pretensiousness
Nailed it, Bodhi! Anti-elitism is used by many people as a form of elitism, just like atheism is oftentimes used as a form of religion. Or how anti-genre art movements become genres themselves - e.g., Dada became dadaism. I guess the old adage applies: the more things change, the more they stay the same.
so funny you say that. I wrote a longer piece where I make some art history analogies as well.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thirstbehavior/p/build-a-bigger-table-not-a-dumber?r=17gqi8&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=false
It's the comparison to the beer, bourbon, mezcal, tequila lovers it's a culture, ecosystem, geekery.
Two comparisons:
Baseball. I remember the quote, "inside baseball". It's about stat geeks, knowing the history, the moment, maybe a single pitch, keeping score on a pad at MLB game. It's American history and it isn't the NFL. Baseball still has insiders and die hards that remember where they were when their team did X or Y.
Star Trek. Not Star Wars fans, Trek fans. That's another level. Shatner on SNL and the skit that made fun of what made him famous turned into a multi-million dollar industry of conventions around the world. Leaning into Geekery, their own language, conventions, cosplay, all of it.
The wine world is full of geeks, cork dorks, Somms, winemakers who can totally geek out on stuff. Or not. Show us your collection of corks, wine keys, trophy bottles. Just don't be a jerk about it.
Such a good comment, David. You totally got the gist of this article.
Well, I picked two things I actually can geek out on! Baseball a little less these days, but I still love the game.
Good reply, Jim. To perhaps use an analogy:
Smartphones are available and accessible to most people in the world, even in some of the most rural and under-resourced communities. People can use phones to communicate with each other, play games, have fun - without needing a lot of special training, a new "language", or qualifications. Just like wine.
However, if you are a computer nerd, or technophile, or someone who enjoys delving deeper, you will most probably need some special training, or you will need to understand (and use!) the language of smartphone developers, designers and power users. Otherwise it will become cumbersome for you to communicate even the simplest idea to fellow geeks and technophiles. Just like wine geeks.
There's a place in the world for all kinds of creatures 😁
Great piece, JS. You nailed the paradox—by making wine more ordinary, facets of industry (not the entire entity) have stripped away the very mystique that gave it much of what we value and seek out. Complexity and heritage aren’t barriers, they’re the invitations that make wine worth treasuring both in the glass and as intellectual pursuits.
Not wrong.
Jim, this is only the second article I've read by you... and very much enjoy your perspectives.
I'd argue that there's more to it than either elitism or egalitarianism... that it has something to do with relevance. What we call "wine" is largely a colonial export from Europe. As such, it embodies many of the values and ideas of colonization... and not in a good way. As it occurs outside of Europe it is an imitation and upholding of these values. The history and culture and implicit values that we expect people around the world to learn and admire in order to enjoy wine is not theirs, or is not a happy part of their culture and history, or is a very narrow part, usually. Until we can redefine and reimagine wine in a way that allows it to be different than what I refer to as "Vinifera Culture"... should we continue to expect Americans and Asians and anyone else outside of Europe to continue to embrace the colonization of their local wine cultures by a European grape wine culture, which most often overlooks and devalues indigenous grapes and fermentation cultures everywhere? Personally, even as an American who fell in love with wine via this dominant culture, I've lost interest. I don't find my culture and story represented in it. I'm tired of drinking imitations of European wines grown and made in America, talking about terroir.
And I suspect, even if they don't think about it as much as I do, that many others have lost interest for the same reasons.
Thank you for the very kind words. I admire your work immensely. But allow me to push back a bit on the premise of your comment, especially "What we call 'wine' is largely a colonial export from Europe. As such, it embodies many of the values and ideas of colonization... and not in a good way. As it occurs outside of Europe it is an imitation and upholding of these values."
I disagree. Wine is not a colonial export, nor does it embody the values of colonization. The Italian immigrants who settled in Northern California in the 1800s were not colonizers (in that sense) and did not insist on a wine culture when they planted their vineyards, for example. The American soldiers who retook Sicily, Italy, and then France from the German invaders in WW2 were not colonizing when they developed a fondness for the local drink during their time overseas, and brought that home. No, I'm afraid that imported grape (varieties) are no more colonizers than Daft Punk, novels, universities, democracy, pasta, or almost any other food.
California (e.g.) does not export a wine culture (per se), nor do we expect people to conform, learn, or admire anything - rather, I see this as a choice made by the receiver. Take it or leave it, there's no rule - that's an oppression that doesn't exist really. CA does not impose its will on TX, yet TX consumes 1/3 of all Napa Cabernet produced (that's true). No one forces them.
Colonization of the local cultures (writ large) by the European grape wine culture to the detriment of indigenous grapes? C'mon now. I worked in the NYS wine industry for 10 years. There's a pretty good reason why Catawba doesn't roll off (or onto) people's tongues as often as does Chardonnay. No one is oppressing the wine-curious farmers of the east, except Mother Nature, and yet, they manage to succeed often.
You say, "I'm tired of drinking imitations of European wines grown and made in America, talking about terroir." - Now we're on the same page. I'm totally sympathetic to this, because I love wine but write about the wine business. You'll see a common thread in my writing: I love wine (all of it) more than the wine business, but the wine business is what drives the trends, makes the money, determines the plantings, and takes 'terroir' under advisement only.
As I said in the original post: What is ordinary is rarely treasured. People aren't alienated by the European origins of wine; they're alienated by the homogenization of the wine industry's produce. Wine remains, though, a specific cultural object with memory, lineage, history, and continuity. I disagree with assigning colonial "guilt" to wine (or beer, or cheese, or bread) which should be saved instead for sugar, rubber, and cotton.
Thanks, Jim. And honestly, I was hoping for some push-back. But let me clarify... I agree with you, in some ways, that we didn't force Italian immigrants to make the wine that they loved when they got here (by here I mean CA, or the USA generally)... But that's because they were part of the process of colonization. What I mean is a bigger look at our (again US) culture, as a product of European (specifically, mostly English) colonization. So the tastes and values of those who brought vinifera were already culturally informed by the colonizing cultures... because they were from them. The spread of vinifera wine mirrors the spread of European colonization for a reason, and is why in places like China that were not colonized there are many other, more popular wine grapes, often with indigenous genetics. (And I would argue that the way the Chinese embraced vinifera culture over the last couple decades, until recently, had as much or more to do with wealth and status than with falling in love with the flavors... but that would be hard for me to prove other than anecdotally.)
The difference between Daft Punk, democracy, etc and Vitis vinifera is that the former are ecologically viable cultural elements... Vinifera Wine is an agricultural product that has been stagnant since at least the 19th century, and only kept viable since globalization by using rootstock (from America) and chemicals (also, often, from America). Also, France didn't make Daft Punk nor democracy illegal in the 20th century... something they did with every non-vinifera grape, which also informed our current attitudes and preferences. In other words, wine has some unique hang-ups.
And I really like your Catawba v Chardonnay comparison. Catawba was of course not allowed in European viticulture since the mid 20th century. But in the mid-19th, wine made from it was the most popular wine in the US. And personally, I'll drink a Catawba any day over Chardonnay. If you haven't had the Pariah from North American Press in Sonoma (sparkling Catawba), I highly recommend it... delicious, fun, delightful. And it's grown without any pesticides or fungicides.... something that you can't do with Chardonnay in Sonoma. And I've had too many less than exciting Chardonnays. Out of hundreds (or more) of Chardonnays that I've tasted in my life, probably 4 or 5 stand out as memorable to my tastes. I've only had a handful of Catawbas and already have tasted a stand-out memorable one... so those are pretty good, or at least even, odds. Maybe you'd disagree, but my point is that tastes and values differ widely from person to person, and especially from culture to culture... but when we only allow one taste-value culture to be considered to be "fine wine" we create a self-reinforcing bias in taste. So I don't buy the "vinifera is inherently superior to all other types of wine and that's why it's dominant" argument... it sounds like an argument that would arise from a colonized wine culture. It's very easy to equate familiarity with quality, but that doesn't make it true.
I definitely don't make this argument to incentivize guilt, though. I do agree that what we make too ordinary we risk devaluing, and I definitely agree that the homogenization of wine is a huge turn off... I think a global vinifera monoculture (of mostly around 10 cultivars) is extremely homogenous. But I don't think "wine" gets to be owned by vinifera culture. I think it can be, and needs to be, re-defined. I think it's a container that can be filled with whatever indigenous fermentation culture fits into it. I think it's a turn-off for a new potential wine drinker to walk into a BevMo or grocery store wine aisle and be confronted by a wall of products in a language other than the one they speak. That kind of wine isn't ecologically viable, and I don't think that kind of wine is relevant anymore in the 21st century to people who no longer fetishize the products of their colonial parents.
I think this conversation demands dinner and a couple bottles of decent wine.
I love that...agreed!
Strong disagree.
Wine cannot be elitist. It’s a thing. Wine producers, wine retailers, restaurant and bar staff, and wine writers are all human beings and they can be elitist. They can seek to exclude people with their nerdy secret language jargon like alcoholic D&D players. But if they do that then they alienate a lot of people and they can’t complain if people drink things that don’t require a PhD as cost of entry.
I know a fair bit about wine and enjoy a good nerd out with my fellow nerds. But mostly I dial it down and just make a rec suitable for the occasion (“hey, we’re noshing Italian, let’s get a Chianti Classico”).
It’s not the Blood of Christ. It’s a nice drink.
Hi Jim,
Thanks for the interesting article, it’s a very interesting new world take. I will vehemently disagree with the below quote:
The irony is that wine’s supposed “barriers” were in fact its deepest strengths. Complexity creates meaning. Mystery creates value. Other categories—bourbon, tequila, craft beer—flourished precisely because they leaned into their insider culture and heritage, not because they simplified themselves into banality.
Thus, the uncomfortable truth: wine is not dying because it is too elitist. It’s dying because it made itself ordinary.
Very interesting perspective. Wine’s mystique, history, and cultural depth have always been its greatest strengths. That said, I think some brands still need to figure out how to connect with younger generations without stripping away that richness.
I don't feel this is about chasing a particular generation, rather it's about connecting with 'mindsets'. Plenty of younger drinkers are drawn to wine's mystique and history, others to the values of discovery, or sustainability. Understanding these motivations is more powerful than sorting people by age. In my book I espouse the idea that psycographics are a more critical way to segment your customers than just demographics.
You’re making me want to read your book!
There is a place for premium in wine, but don't make it complicated.
Your diagnosis may well be plausible, wine has lost its mysticism, it has been replaced by mechanistic analysis. There’s no wonder in wine, as the fruit salad rules OK. However, it’s replacement of one elitism with another.
As I can’t smell all those Moroccan vanillas or crushed stones on the shores of Ethiopia, I am bound to wonder whether wine is for me. The elitism of mysticism has been replaced by the elitism of SAT. So, yes, elitism is a problem.
@joe fattorini is right about the faux democratisation of wine, so the sooner wine understands that it must help me discover it, the better. I don’t owe wine anything and certainly I don’t owe it any courses or learning the ‚language of wine’. If wine wants me to engage with, I must be able to do it as I am, not as wine would like me be.
I don’t agree at all. The idea that wine has simply swapped one “elitism” for another misunderstands both how people actually drink wine and what drives its appeal. Most wine isn’t discussed in SAT terms, nor was it ever wrapped in mysticism for the vast majority of drinkers. Consumers buy it, open it, and enjoy it, often with food, family, or friends, without reference to somm-speak or mythical “wonder.”
The real democratization of wine has already happened: never in history have so many people, at so many price points, had access to well-made wines. The language of wine is a tool or an aid, not a locked gate. It gives those who want to go deeper a way to do so, while the rest of the market happily drinks on without it. To suggest that the very existence of descriptors or training is inherently elitist is like saying music theory makes enjoying a pop song impossible. Wine doesn’t demand you become someone else to enjoy it. Discover it or don't, that's entirely up to you.