Salvador Dali's Wine Bible

This is a link to read about the recently republished Wine Bible by Salvador Dali, and the illustrations in it are remarkable, terrifying, and related to the world of wine. I'm genuinely not sure what else to say about this, beyond how much it would make a wonderful present for Professor Rapp if she doesn't already own it. I was trying to think of my next blog post and came across the existence of this book and absolutely had to share those photos with you all.

Wine Subjectivity

I found this recent article in Wine Spectator written by a guy named Matt Kramer (not to be confused with the Matt Kremer in our class) in which he argues for the inherent subjectivity of wine being quite reasonable and makes a somewhat compelling case that you should embrace the notion of subjectivity when it comes to assessing quality of something like wine or music, because it's totally plausible that you can't point to an objective argument and yet still perceive a quality difference between items. The math person in me is a bit bothered by the argument (especially given that the end result in the example he highlights actually did come down to an objective fact, just one that was unknown at the point). But, setting that aside, I found the point quite compelling.

It reminded me of a somewhat slightly different (but super related) subject that briefly came in one of the last class sessions when Weids highlighted this question of the existence of an objective idea of "quality" and it's a subject I really struggle to answer but think about a lot when it comes to film.

On the one hand, I recognize that "objective quality" is really difficult to assess because you can't really point to objective metrics as to what makes a great movie, great piece of literature, great song, or great wine exactly. You can highlight attributes that the piece has and note that you generally like those attributes and yet I would contend that (A) Nobody has a specific litmus test of "If X has Y, Z, and A qualities I will perceive it as good" and (B) Two different people (even those both with expert status, whatever that means) will disagree as to level of quality that a work has.

Is Citizen Kane an objectively great movie? Hamlet an objectively great play? Lafite an objectively great wine? If I say no to any of those questions, at least somebody might think I have bad taste or that perhaps my opinion is incorrect. But are varied opinions on these questions always correct for that person? There's an inherent bias where all of us want to say "Absolutely!" to that question and yet I've never met somebody who doesn't sometimes judge another's taste in quality. If I tell you that I truly think a McDonald's Cheeseburger is better than a fine steak, you're likely going to think "Devin has terrible taste in food", not "Devin's opinion is equally valuable and reasonable to mine." I do the same thing all the time with film - Despite claiming to believe that subjective paradigms of quality are equally valid, I can't help but get bothered when people complain about how boring a film is that I think is great, whereas they think Michael Bay's Transformers films are all worth seeing.

It's a difficult line to draw and I tend to try to force a line by noting that any choice of an artistic work being quality is valid as long as the work is truly a piece of art, not simply a capitalist attempt to generate a profit - In that way, I tend to be dismissive of works like Bay's where I can point to the blatant product placement which gets in the way of the film, or could be dismissive of cheap wine which is mass produced. Of course, what I'm doing is arbitrarily self-serving in that I'm pretending I have some magic wand I can wave and say "that's art" and "that's not art" as if that's even objective in and of itself. It's totally cheating giving an actual answer by just giving an answer I want to be the answer. That said, it's the closest I have come to fitting an answer that is in line with how I perceive the world.

I really enjoyed our session last week on the whisky industry, especially when the conversation turned to Balcones Distilling. Balcones is located near my hometown in Waco, TX, so I have been fortunate to follow their story from the very beginning--and even sample their now infamous Single Malt before it exploded in popularity. 

Martin Daraz pressed us on Friday to think about how a distiller can cut through the noise in an increasingly crowded industry. Balcones managed to do it. What lead to their success? Even after some tumultuous times that resulted in the founder being kicked out of his own company, Balcones is a shining success in the craft distilling industry. I think their success boils down to three factors:

1. International recognition. In 2012, Balcones won the "Best in Glass" competition in the UK, competing head to head with established single malts from Scotland and around the world. This moment has often been compared to the 1976 "Judgement of Paris" that put Napa on the map. Overnight, Balcones became backordered for over a year on their single malt and become a must have for whisky connoisseurs. 

2. Consistent quality. From time to time brands are going to win competitions, but I think what happens next is just as important. Whoever spends the money and waits over a year for an expensive craft whisky better be happy with what the get. Thanks to distiller Chip Tate's fanatic push for quality, customers who sampled the Single Malt after the awards found the same high quality spirit that won the competition. 

3. Differentiated products. For a few years, it became nearly impossible for customers to get their hands on the Single Malt, so customers turned to Balcones other whiskys. Balcones offers about a half dozen other varieties and they are not afraid to be bold. One whisky, my personal favorite, the Brimstone, is unbelievably smokier than any other whisky I have ever sampled. When I did a tasting at the distillery last summer, our guide told us that 4/5 people hate it, but for 1/5 people it is their favorite whisky. I am one of the 1/5, and Brimstone has been the whisky I have purchased the last three times I bought a bottle. The lesson here for a craft distiller is to be bold. More sales will be driven if you are 20% of customers #1 choice than if you are just likeable by most drinkers. In an increasingly saturated space, boldness is rewarded. 

Wine Advent Calendar?

I really enjoyed getting to taste a wide variety of wines in this class. I was wondering about how to incorporate wine tasting into my life and how to push myself to continue to try different wines. I found one solution that is very season appropriate - Wine Advent Calendars.

Town and Country magazine put together a list of alcoholic advent calendars, including affordable options from Aldi and Virgin.

Researching the topic online, I was surprised to find that most options for wine advent calendars focused on affordable wine. There were no options for premium wine.

I would guess that this might be because many premium wine producers 1) do not produce 24 SKUS and 2) do not readily produce small advent calendar sized bottles. 

I wonder if there is space for a third party to curate a premium wine advent calendar at a 100 to 200 dollar price point. 

 

Wine in Lebanon

Coming from Lebanon, one area of interest of mine is Lebanese wine. Growing up (well, after the age of 18) local wine was something that I became quite familiar with. I had always thought that local wine was a new concept that was not entirely authentic to Lebanese culture, and only recently did some research about it...

I was surprised to learn that Lebanon is supposed to be one of the world's oldest wine regions, particularly the Bekaa valley (shown below)with a temple dedicated to Baachus, the Roman God of wine, agriculture and fertility.


Chateau Ksara and Kefraya are the two biggest wine houses, producing a variety of wines including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Rhone varietals. The 'Chateau' in the name is no surprise given Lebanon's close relationship to the French.

Wine tourism was experiencing some increased popularity, especially locally, but given the Bekaa valley's proximity to Syria and danger zones, wine tourism currently doesn't realize it's full potential in Lebanon.

Winning as a wine retailer

The past two weeks was a great education on the business and overall trends of the wine industry. In particular, we had a close up look at the various choices and paths that wine producers could take. While we did not go into as much detail on retail, I have always contemplated opening my own wine retail in the future. When I started drinking wines 14 years ago, there were still not many wine shops in Singapore. Many have since popped up all over the island. Most have come and gone as it is a highly competitive business. If I were to start a wine retail business, I would model it against K&L wines, as I think they have created a nice niche for themselves.

First, K&L wines offers a highly curated consumer experience. It starts with the small store space, just about 2000 square feet, which makes wine browsing a  manageable and enjoyable experience. The staff are highly passionate and knowledgeable about wines. I also trust the wines sold by K&L. I've almost never been disappointed by any wine I bought there. They also have a reliable supply of popular and unique small production wines. This means, however, that K&L needs to manage their relationships with a whole host of wine producers and distributors.

Second, K&L is focusing on a sustainable business. Despite its strong branding, nation-wide repute and growth potential, it has limited its presence to key cities in the West Coast and kept to 3 stores in San Francisco, Hollywood and (thankfully) Redwood City, as well as an online store. They have built a strong business targeting high net-worth consumers in the Bay Area and LA. While it is tempting to expand to the East Coast, there are several incumbent retailers there hat have their own loyal customer base. It would be more astute to bank on their strong reputation and grow their online presence to ship to other states.

Third, K&L offers value-added services such as wine cellaring. This creates complementarity and lock-in as premium customers are more inclined to go through K&L to order low availability premium wines and have K&L directly store the wines in their personal lockers. Customers would also be inclined to fill up the lockers and buy more wines. For those of us thinking it might be a tough business given the pricey real estate, they are likely making great money. Having done some rough calculations, at full capacity, their wine locker business would yield revenues of $20 per sq foot. Assuming storehouse rent in Redwood City to be $5 per sq foot, even after factoring operating costs their gross profit margin could be somewhere between 200 to 250%. 

There’s always room for improvement and K&L could start by revamping their online store. While I find K&L’s website good, it is setup like a translation of their physical store to the online space. They would need to modernize their online platform to be more approachable for newer consumers and actively court the younger millennials in the Bay area.

Wine Tasting for Dummies (Hint: We're All Dummies)

I really enjoyed the visit from our guest speaker/wine blogger, Alder Yarrow. I was expecting someone who has tried thousands of wines and blogs about them on a daily basis to come across as much more...snooty. Instead, he made wine tasting an enjoyable and approachable concept. I particularly liked his and Alyssa's point that wine tasting takes practice because humans generally experience difficulty with verbally expressing the inputs to their olfactory systems. This is why practice is so necessary for refining one's wine palace--we're all kind of wine dummies to begin with. This is especially encouraging for a novice like myself, who really enjoys wine, but often slurps it down without considering whether it smells like cat piss on a gooseberry bush or tar and roses.

I thought the most helpful tip Alder gave was using aroma cards or the AromaApp to practice identifying aromas and flavors when tasting wine. Doing so will likely make the process of identifying wine tasting notes less nebulous and will also help build out one's tasting note lexicon. Having the AromaApp handy would have been particularly helpful when Alder shared a Willamette Valley Pinot Noir with the class. He described it as having notes of vanilla, blueberry, and mocha. I described it as smelling like a muffin. I think we were basically picking up on the same things, yet he sounded like a sommelier, and I sounded like an unrefined ogre. I am going to download the AromaApp as soon as I finish this blog post.

Another piece of Alder's session that I found enlightening was his insistence upon finding wine critics whose tastes and perceptions align most closely with my own. I had previously assumed that all wine critics were i) roughly in agreement with their assessment of various wines' tasting notes and ii) right. It was interesting to learn just how individualized taste is (especially in light of the studies we read that show that most people have a really difficult time even discerning whether two wines are the same or different!). Thus, I really liked the idea that some wine critics share a similar palate and perceive tastes and smells the way I do, and those are the wine critics whose advice I may benefit from the most.

Lastly, what really resonated with me from Friday's session was the following concept: We like what we like, and at the end of the day, who really cares what the wine critics have to say?

Cheers!