Karen MacNeil, author of the renowned Wine Bible gave a talk recently at the Mondavi Institute at UC Davis entitled “Nothing Left to Say? The End of Wine Writing.” Last week she posted a transcript of the talk on her blog WineSpeed. She prefaces her remarks:
I have been a wine writer for nearly 40 years. And yet, for the first time in my career, I’m worried. Despondent even. Wine writing as a profession, a craft, even sometimes an art, is disappearing. And it’s not clear what, if anything, will replace it.
Her despair is captured by a few basic facts:
Does anyone know the number one, best-selling wine introduced last year? It was Stella Rosa Pineapple and Chili Wine.
Does anyone know the volume of RTDs (Ready to Drink Cocktails) now being sold? The answer is 36.6 million 9-liter cases. That’s more than the total volume of all wine sold in the U.S. In fact the leading RTD—Gallo’s High Noon—which was introduced just five years ago—sold 21.4 million cases last year.
64% of drinking age adults report that they are cutting back on alcohol consumption. The medical establishment has deemed any amount of alcohol to be a health risk. The well documented decline in wine sales is not limited to the U.S. as the French are busy pulling up vines in the face of reduced demand.
Who then can tell the story of wine amidst this peril?
Only two newspapers in the U.S. have someone on staff who covers wine. They have been replaced by unpaid wine bloggers who often lack the skills, resources, or inclination to do proper editing and fact checking.
So who else can speak to wines’ “beauty, awe, and wonder?” Winemakers and viticulturists have the responsibility to do so, but MacNeil argues too many are buried in technical details and lack the ability or inclination to discuss the “historical, cultural, philosophical, and emotion role wine plays in society.”
One thing is true: writers cannot write moving stories—can’t emotionally touch readers-—unless winemakers and viticulturists have something moving to say.
And any winemaker who thinks that’s the role of the marketing person has abdicated his or her power. “Why is wine important?” is not a marketing question. It’s a question that relates to the very existence of our collective profession.
And then there are the wine influencers who are paid hefty sums by wineries to promote their product. But their position is threatened by the emergence of AI which can write soulless, banal promotional copy more quickly and efficiently than an army of humans.
When and if AI becomes the dominant form of wine writing, wine communications will truly become an elliptical feedback loop of innocuous information that means nothing to anyone. A feedback loop so devoid of creativity, so lacking in thinking, that wine itself may lose its meaning.
Wine—so rich, so soulful—so capable of stirring passion—will become just another beverage. And just like that, 8,000 years of beauty, awe, and wonder will slip away.
This is a grim tale but it is no fairy tale. The facts speak for themselves. But I think it is too pessimistic. And in fact so does MacNeil.
I know you won’t believe this, but I’m actually a happy, glass-half-full kind of person. I believe in wine. I believe in its ability to bring people together. I believe that it is a good and true thing. That it is the silent music of Nature.
I share MacNeil’s belief that wine is a good and true thing. But I think what survives will be smaller, leaner, and more focused on what is “good and true” about wine.
One way of characterizing the past three decades in wine is that the industry was attempting to sell wine as a populist beverage, a beverage almost anyone had reason to prefer. Lighter and more interesting than beer and much lower in alcohol than spirits, wine was the perfect beverage for consuming with food or conversing with friends. And there was some evidence that it was good for you when consumed in moderation. But there was an aspirational dimension to wines’ popularity. As I wrote in a post a few months ago:
The emergence of wine as a popular, “aspirational” beverage in which quality increasingly mattered cannot be disentangled from the food revolution in the U.S. and elsewhere. Both were brought about by soldiers returning from WWII, the availability of safe, efficient, affordable flights to Europe, European market integration, and the resulting emergence of Europe as the prime vacation destination for well-heeled American tourists. The French/Italian/Spanish love for food and wine deeply influenced the boomer generation as a key component in our ideal of a good life.
But we are no longer living in that world. Immigration patterns now include people from cultures with no deep connection to wine. Travel destinations are no longer focused on Europe but are global and our eating and dining habits have changed accordingly. We often eat food that doesn’t especially pair well with wine.
Without that ballast of a widely accepted vision of a good life that includes wine at its center, I don’t think wine can become that populist beverage that the industry has been striving for (albeit sometimes ineptly.) Not only is it an inefficient and relatively expensive alcohol delivery system, but to be appreciated on its own, wine requires attention, practice, and knowledge. You have to pay attention to what you’re drinking, note differences, and gain some understanding of how those differences are created and why they are important. The more systematic you are in your approach to wine, the quicker you will learn. It doesn’t require formal training necessarily, but it does require self-training and that is not for everyone. Most people want their alcohol without the lessons unless those lessons lead to social status or cultural capital.
Thus, I suspect we will return to the days when wine was the playground of enthusiasts. As MacNeil says, wine will not lose its nuances, its connection to nature, or its ability to bring people together. It will always appeal to people who seek beauty and mystery in their beverage and are willing to go through the process of learning to appreciate it. And of course many people will still be inspired by the romance of La Dolce Vita. It is a worthy romance to be sure.
The future wine community may be considerably smaller than it is today but hopefully more committed to its core values—the pursuit of variation and beauty.
Exploring the Philosophy of Food and Wine 