The conventional wisdom — and it was taken very seriously all the years I was coming up in wine — always was that a winery’s suggested retail price (SRP), which was determined by the producer, was going to be higher than the price consumers could find it at retail. That was because wineries did not want to compete with their own retail accounts by undercutting them on price. That rule was ironclad: thou shalt not undercut your own retail accounts!

I thought that still was the case until yesterday, when I ran into Marcus Graziano. He’s the owner of Capitol Cellars, a retail establishment in Roseville (Placer County). Marcus not only sells wine from his store, one of the best in the Sierra Foothills, he also supplies private buyers throughout the country with ultrapremium wine. And according to him, ever since the Recession, wineries are “destroying retail relationship” by undercutting prices on their websites, usually to their club members, by as much as 50% off SRP.

This really pisses Marcus off. The first thing he told me is that “The wine business is all about relationships.” That traditionally meant that wineries understood the role of retailers, which was not only to sell their wines, but to help promote them, and thus form over time a solid friendship based on mutual interest. The merchant hand-sold the wine, and made a little profit on it, while the winery was able to deplete merchandise through the store.

“But now, they’re screwing me!” Marcus says, passionately. “When Nickel & Nickel is giving more off on their website than I reasonably can, it makes me look like the bad guy.” Same with Rosenblum and Bighorn. “Grgich Hills’ sales guy stopped by to make an appointment to taste,” Marcus says. “I pulled up their website and saw a huge discount, so I told the guy, ‘I have no interest in working with you. I think you guys don’t care about my business.’” The same thing had happened with the Nickel & Nickel account. “I called them and talked to their hospitality person, and explained my situation. She completely understood — but she said she doesn’t write policy.”

Marcus estimates that up to 40% of wineries are massively discounting on their websites.

Marcus is frustrated. His business is still doing okay, because for every winery that he longer does business with, there are others “who still support us.” He mentions Ghost Block and Pahlmeyer, in particular, as producers “who get it. They don’t want to screw me or any of their producers by discounting their wine.”

Still, Marcus seems a little spooked by the times. Direct-to-consumer is the Holy Grail among producers these days, what with the distribution system impossibly choked and dominated by a few giant companies, consumers in a stingy mood, and the future bleakly uncertain for many. The light at the end of tunnel, wineries feel, is direct-to-consumer, especially club sales.

But Marcus warns that that light may be “a disaster.” Wineries need retailers and will for a long time, he asserts. Proprietors who think otherwise — who don’t want to take the time and energy to form and maintain retailer relationships — “are lazy. They don’t want to work with us. They’d make more money charging full retail to their clubs, instead of ruining us.”

Marcus sees his own light at the end of the tunnel. “At the higher end, which is where we work, consumers are returning to speciality wine shops, who appeal to their needs and tastes.”

I’ve tried to penetrate the conundrums on this one. One the one hand, I can understand why wineries would look to DTC as a way out. If you can heavily discount to stimulate your club sales, that must look awfully attractive to beleaguered owners. On the other hand, this discounting has to be hurting merchants, and merchants are a winery’s friend. Like Marcus says, it is all about relationships. So I’m not sure what the solution is. This seems to be just one more example of how topsy-turvy everything is in the wine industry these days. The old paradigms are disappearing, and what will replace them, nobody knows.

I went to Taste of Oakville a few days ago, the once-a-year big trade tasting where Everybody Who’s Anybody comes and schleps along their Cabernets for us to drink. And an issue has arisen that I want to discuss here.

I was one of the first ones in, and the line was long, but by the time I got to the Screaming Eagle table, there was no more wine left. It didn’t particularly bother me, because I’ve had Screaming Eagle before, and while it’s a good wine it’s not the best in Napa, not even close. Screaming Eagle is all about hype, and since I don’t particularly like hype, I don’t care if I taste it or not.

But that’s not the issue. The real issue arose from something I wrote on my Facebook page. I wrote: “Question: Why does Screaming Eagle even bother [to come], when they run out of wine in the first 30 mins? Memo to SE owner: Bring enough to serve everybody, or don’t come!”

Well, that was just me, ranting. But the followup comments were fascinating. One person wrote that SE running out of wine so fast “Creates a sense of rarity and exclusivity.” True, that. But then an interlocutor (I’ll call him “Ted”) rose up to defend SE. In his first comment, he wrote, “The Screaming Eagle non- issue has been debated before… What is the difference if you taste it or not? Others ran out too or didn’t show, where is the outrage?” I replied, “Outrage is maybe too strong a word. But if you’re going to present at a tasting that lasts from “x” to “y” hour, you should bring enough wine to last to the end.” To which he replied, “That just won’t work, Steve. If you have 400 people and they all want to taste the same wine you could bring 2 cases and it wouldn’t be enough. As a portion of their production they brought a lot more than Groth (for instance) On the other hand, I’m sure there were other tables that wished people had stopped by so they COULD pour what they had brought. There were several tables that got no attention (from me as well as others).”

And this is what I want to blog about today, the whole concept of these big tastings. First of all, I understand their necessity. The trade (restaurateurs, distributors, merchants, ink-stained wretches like me, corporate wine educators) wants to taste these rare and expensive wines. I don’t suppose that any of us are in a position to buy them, though (I’m certainly not). Do you think anybody is going to go to Taste of Oakville to making buying decisions? I don’t, at least not at the Screaming Eagle, Harlan, BOND level. I can’t imagine distributor “X” is going to taste Screaming Eagle and then decide, “Wow, that’s so good, I’ll buy 50 cases.” Doesn’t work that way.

Then why does the trade go to events like Taste of Oakville? These are not good venues to properly evaluate wine. As I’ve written before, none of these gigantic tastings are appropriate for that. They’re too crowded, too loud, too jostly. There’s no place to sit and concentrate, much less write. So I don’t think the trade goes to T.O.O. to evaluate wine at all.

The reason they go, I think (besides tasting the wines), is because there’s a sense of exclusivity being invited. The public can’t possibly go. You must be asked in, like the Bohemian Club or something like that. And there’s a certain satisfaction at being important enough to be invited. This is, I’m sure, well understood by the Oakville winegrowers, who cater to it, and who perhaps feel that, after all, it doesn’t hurt to be nice to the people who buy and sell their region’s wine.

On the other hand, it’s difficult for me to think that most of the people who pour find much pleasure in doing so. There they are, proud of their wines and all the hard work that went into making them, and here come the thirsty multitudes, chugging it down like they’re at a county fair beer stand, either not saying a word or else asking some question about toast levels. I saw winemakers pouring who looked totally bored, like they would much rather have been back at the winery than pouring. And I don’t blame them.

“Ted’s” point seems to be that lots of wineries bring only a little wine. They know they’re going to run out, and we — the attendees — just have to accept it. But that’s not fair to people who don’t show up in the first 30 minutes, and who want to taste as eagerly as do the early arrivers. Can’t the authorities who run these tastings tell wineries they have to be prepared to pour for (whatever the number of expected guests is), otherwise they needn’t bother coming? That way, the wineries can make up their own minds if it’s worth it to come, or not. Maybe each guest could get a ticket with the names of the wineries, and when they tasted a wine, the pourer would mark the ticket so they couldn’t come back again for a second or third taste.

As for those wineries (in “Ted’s” words) “that wished people had stopped by so they COULD pour,” he’s right about that. You see that at every big tasting, whether it’s for trade or the public. My heart always goes out to the lonely ones whom nobody wants to taste. I know rejection; I don’t like it, and I empathize with people who suffer its bitterness. Believe me, there were tables at T.O.O. that had not much traffic. It’s sad that so many people bee-lined to Screaming Eagle “just because,” while some wonderful wines were shunned.

It’s raining again here in cloudy, wet Oakland, as it is in most of California from the Central Coast northward. It seems like this has been a really rainy winter, and it doesn’t want to stop. Not that I’m complaining. Well, maybe I am, a little — but the most common phrase this year has been “We need the water.” And we do, “we” being not just us humans, who consume it in the form of melted snowpack from the High Sierra mostly, but also the grapevines. Several winemakers have told me over the last two weeks that, despite all the rain, they were wishing for one or two more storms. Well, they’re getting what they asked for.

The season started out rainy and never stopped. Oakland got a record 3.86 inches back last Oct. 13, the “storm from hell” that sparked the infamous question, “Did you pick before or after the rains?” (For the record, Napa got 3.65 inches in that storm, while 3.16 inches poured down on the Sonoma County Airport.) In November, things dried out, but December turned wickedly cold and wet, a trend that has lasted until now.

By the time April comes to Northern California, your mind and body are prepared for Spring. Every flowering tree is in full bloom, the wildflowers lend a riot of color to the fields and hills, the robins are back, and even the fruit flies make their first appearance of the season. (Where do they live during the winter?) April holds the promise of six months of warm, sunny weather; April is the threshold of Paradise.

But this April has been a cruel tease. We had a day or two in the high 70s. But here are random notes from my Vintage Diary:

April 4: Cold, wet and windy.
April 7: More very cold weather, very wet and rainy.
April 10: The month continues to be very cold and wet.
April 22: The rain continues. Very, very cold.
April 28: Two consecutive days of rain.

The Oakland Airport weather station has had 19.75 inches of rain since last July 1 through today, which is 115% of the normal rainfall, 17.11 inches. The average precipitation for the season (which runs from July 1-June 30 every year) is 22.94 inches, so even though it feels like it’s been raining forever, we’re more than three inches below average. But we still have May to get through, a tricky month; the average precipitation here in May is less than an inch, but last May was very rainy, especially in the North Coast. We had big storms the first week of May, 2009, with totals up to 5 inches, and June was no picnic. My local weatherman called June, 2009 “the coldest June in 15 years.”

I’ve been noting ever since 2005 that the weather here in coastal California seems cooler than normal. That seems to be continuing. It may be that the Great Interior Basin (around the Four Corners of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado) is heating up, as well as California’s Central Valley. That would create a lower pressure gradient that would suck in air from over the eastern Pacific, where the water temperature is always cold, cooling the coast before the air warmed up again on its way inland. Whatever the reason for our cooler weather along the coast, it’s good for the grapes and wine (unless you get hit by mold or rain or a frost). Cooler temps = longer hangtime = ripeness at lower brix = more flavor with lower alcohol. At least, that’s the theory.

Anyway the forecast for today is continued showers and even the possibility of thunderstorms. The longer range forecast calls for clearing and warmer after today. But Springtime in California, like I said, can be a tease.

There you go again: California-bashing

1WineDude wrote in yesterday, “I spent the better part of this past weekend tasting / celebrating with friends, and the majority of that group openly despised the New World, CA Cab style.” Later, he added, “It was odd being the lone dissenter.” Welcome to the club, young dude. I experience this California-bashing all the time, sometimes even from my fellow Wine Enthusiast editors, but more often from Europhiles. It makes me think: If I, who love California wines, can also love European wines, then why can’t people who love European wines also love California wines? Could it be that I lack aEdit type of snobbism that Bordeauxphiles possess in the extreme?

Think about it. You will never, ever hear a California winemaker bash French or Italian wines. But you hear European winemakers bash California wines all the time. Too ripe! Too obvious! Too oaky! Too fruity! Too Tammy Faye Bakker! Yet every time they have a good vintage — look at the 2009 Bordeaux — they celebrate their wines’ ripeness and alcohol levels (as they did in 1947). Why is that?

I do think there’s a certain self-superior smugness among the A.B.C. (Anything But California) crowd. I can’t explain it for sure, but it’s something I feel. Look, California makes really great wine, and if you can’t acknowledge that, you should re-examine your own self.

Fritz Maytag sells Anchor Brewing

Editor’s note: In an earlier edition of this story, I incorrectly wrote that Fritz Maytag passed away. He did not, and I sincerely regret my error.

You may not have heard of Mr. Maytag (even if your mom had a Maytag washing machine in the basement), but Fritz was and is a Big Man in San Francisco. He owned (from 1965) and resurrected the Anchor Brewing Company, on Potrero Hill, producer of Anchor Steam Beer, which historians regard as America’s first microbrewery. He has now sold it, and it should continue in business for a long time.

More importantly, from a wine point of view, he owned the York Creek Vineyard, which I believe he bought and expanded in 1968, up on Spring Mountain.

Ridge used to bottle a York Creek Cabernet (so did Freemark Abbey). (Fritz Maytag had actually roomed with Paul Draper, at Stanford.) That Ridge bottling was an early example of a cult wine, not as important as, say, Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, but still very much in demand. Although my friend Jim Laube rated it only a Fourth Growth in his 1989 book, California’s Great Cabernets, other critics liked it better, and some of the old Ridge York Creek Petite Sirahs were über-famous. I remember, in the mid-1980s, going to the Safeway store out in Pacifica, where they always had a barrel of discontinued wines. I plucked three bottles of 1978 Ridge York Creek Cab out, for $2 each, and felt I’d hit the jackpot.

Green, schmeen

Speaking of Spring Mountain, I’m speaking at a “green” panel this Thursday up at Spring Mountain Vineyard, where I think I’m to play the role of Chief Debunker (as usual), in the sense that I don’t believe that calling yourself “green” results in better sales for a wine (although it may send the winery owner straight to Heaven). I’m not alone in this dubiousness. Check out this article, from Reuters via Yahoo! News. It says, “Organic, biodynamic and sustainable are words being used to describe wines but the eco-sounding terms have little impact on wine lovers.” One winemaker, an Aussie, said, “It’s [i.e., green] definitely a niche market, but 99.9 percent (of wine drinkers) didn’t respond to having organic on the label.” Ouch. On the other hand, going green can’t hurt.

And finally, “Don’t count me out” — Parker

The Great One makes “a rare appearance in Asia” in May, for a three-day “Ultimate Parker in Asia” in Singapore. “Parker is god,” somebody by the name of Arnaud Compas told Reuters; Compas founded a London firm called Hermitage, which sells rare and expensive wines (and obviously has a vested interest in anointing Parker to Deity status, since every time Parker blesses an Angelus, Dom or Cote Rotie, the price skyrockets, and Arnaud’s bank account swells). Okay, okay, so I’m jealous. Parker does Ultimate Asia, I get a few days in Paso Robles. But I’m not complaining. After all, I like California wine!

Off to Napa Valley later this morning for the annual Taste of Oakville, where dozens of that AVA’s top wineries pour for the trade. Groth, Harlan, Dalla Valle, Atalon, Opus One, Screaming Eagle, Vine Cliff, Rudd, PlumpJack, you name it, they’ll all be there in Mondavi’s Tokalon building, with their proprietors and winemakers (i.e., not tasting room staff) doing the meeting and greeting. I know of no tasting in California that manages to roster up so many stellar luminaries under one roof.

TOO has been going for years now, through good times and bad, and right now is as bad as Napa’s seen in decades. It’s going to be interesting to connect with folks and see how they’re faring. We know anecdotally that the high end has been hurt, and Oakville is as high end as California wine gets, so we have to assume that there’s pain in the little appellation.

It used to be that owners of cult wineries could more or less sit back and rest on their laurels. These wines were so coveted, there were far more people who wanted them than there were bottles available, and so the stuff practically sold itself. There were mailing lists, and waiting lists to get on the mailing lists, and even if you were lucky enough to score a bottle or two, chances are you either (a) were too scared to open anything so expensive, or (b) re-sold it on the aftermarket, at a healthy profit. But the Great Recession has changed everything. Many people who used to be able to afford $400 or $500 for a bottle of wine no longer can. As for the aftermarket, well, check out this article from Yahoo! Finance. Called “How to make a million,” it advised ambitious investors that wine was “ripe for picking.” But look at that pub date: Oct. 10, 2008. That was exactly three weeks after Lehman Brothers collapsed. Now, the article’s title looks like a bad joke. Today, it would be called “How to lose a million.”

So even millionaire owners of cult wineries have to get out there and sell. Even the 2009 Bordeaux are likely to face an uphill battle if they get too costly, with merchants and restaurateurs expressing doubt that the top wines will be scooped up despite the hyped vintage, according to this article in today’s Wine Business Online, reprinted from Decanter. If Leoville Las Cases and Angelus are hard to move, it’s difficult to see Kelham and Futo sailing out the door. Although the retail value of California wine sold in 2009 was down only three percent, according to the Wine Institute, that number is misleading, because it’s skewed toward high-volume producers. The higher the retail price on a bottle, the further the price fell. I did a little Internet search comparing the suggested retail prices on Napa Cabs sent to me versus what they’re selling for online. Here’s a partial list:

Trefethen 2005 Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon: SRP $100. $70 online
Continuum 2007, $140 vs. $100
Hestan 2006, $100 vs. $46
Flora Springs 2007 Hillside Reserve, $100 vs. $85
Parallel 2006, $125 vs. $53
David Arthur 2007, $95 vs. $79

On the other hand, a few wines are actually exceeding their SRP. Pride Mountain’s 2006 Reserve Claret was released at $125; I couldn’t fine it anywhere for less than $145, and in some places it topped $200. Ditto for Colgin’s 2006 IX Estate Red Blend. Released at $290 SRP, it’s now available online for $400 and up. What this tells me is that consumers are being very fussy about their “cults.” Pride Mountain and Bob Foley may be bulletproof. Colgin, too, given its history and pedigree. But many others aren’t. For one reason or another, the brand loses luster. Consumers, when they’re spending lots of money on discretionary things, need to be excited. Rightly or wrongly, many expensive Napa wines no longer thrill. I think I’m going to see some of them today at Taste of Oakville.