Grape Juice

Following on our discussion of staff and atmosphere and the impact of those factors on a tasting experience, it’s equally important to discuss the wines themselves. Not in terms of quality mind you; it goes without saying that a quality wine will win you fans, but more in terms of the way that they are offered and showcased at the tasting bar.

Vineyard visits are all about the experience really. Otherwise, why not order the wine online and have them delivered to your front door, or visit your local wine boutique to fill out your rack? No, consumers want an immersive experience. They want the wind-in-their-hair feeling of driving from spot to spot, and they want to be impressed in one way or another, by each and every visit. This experiental burden, coupled with the explosion of wine and wine tours as a hobby, has placed the responsibility squarely at the feet of the vineyard to provide more bang for the consumer buck. Vineyards are forced to meld a sharp business savvy with strong wine-making skills.

Variety Is The Spice Of Life

The more wines you have open for tasting the better an opportunity your visitors will have to find one they like, and to contribute to your coffers. If your Private Reserve isn’t tastable, why on earth would I blow fifty dollars on it if I’m not sure I like it? If I do like it enough after tasting, I’ll wage a minor battle against my conscience but usually walk out clutching the bottle giddily. My tummy rules my wallet as far as food and wine goes and I have no reservations about treating myself if I think something is worthwhile. Closing off your high end wines from the tasting list is like telling a visitor that they are not elite enough to try the wine and expecting them to buy it blindly on your recommendation is just about the stupidest thing I’ve heard.
Even with everyday table wines, less, in the case of tasting, is not more. I may think your Riesling stinks to the high heavens, but if you also have your Chardonnay on the go, you at least have a chance at redemption. So open up, show off, and to quote the eternal Pat Benetar “hit me with your best shot”. The wines we bought were from small places that spent time with us, let us try as much as we wanted, and made recommendations. Bottles upon bottles came home with us, even though we swore that the second day of tasting would be purchase free. Why? Because once we tried and liked, it’s very hard not to buy. We invariably walked out with one or two bottles from tasting list promiscuous folks; the vineyards with 3-5 available to try? Nada. Mainly because the wines they were showcasing weren’t varietals, or styles that either of us enjoys. Did they have other wines that we would have loved to try? Absolutely. We even asked if we could sample some offlist ones at various places and were told ‘no those aren’t available for tasting’ in every place but one. In that one place, our inquiry was met with a cheeky grin from the staffer, who admitted to having ‘accidently’ opened a bottle of each of the offlist wines we were curious about the previous day. Apparently he has difficulty reading the labels. The vineyard? Well it was one of our favourite stops of the entire trip.

Reasonable Price Per Tasting

One issue sure to remain contentious on both sides of the fence is the tasting fee. Me? I’m of the opinion that they’re perfectly acceptable as long as they’re reigned in by some lingering notion of reality. I acknowledge the fact that there are people who come in, sample every bottle available, and then leave without a second glance, but then there are people like me, who do try every on the list that piques my curiousity but who has a strong interest in actually buying wine. For me it’s not about as much free wine as possible, but about retrying old favourites, finding new treasures, and rounding out my ‘must have’ list for the next trip. It’s important to me to make sure I’m buying the best wine that a vineyard has to offer (according to personal tastes). I am not a wealthy person, I’m just out of graduate school, and every penny spent is painstakingly measured and weighed. I’ll blow a pile of cash on an outstanding bottle, but not if I haven’t tried it, and not if I had to carefully pick and choose between wines to try because the fees required mid-denomination bills and not change.

Better yet, why not talk free? Maybe it’s the greedy consumerist in me, or maybe I’m just not understanding enough about the plight of the winemaker, but the more I have to pay for a sample the less likely I am to try the wine, the fewer wines I’m liable to try and the fewer I’m likely to walk out the door with.

The odd thing seems to be that the smaller vineyards, who seemingly would be more in need of a little extra revenue, tend to be the ones who like to chat with you, and so long as you’re not guzzling down freebies on some sort of bender, they tend also to waive the tasting fees. Generosity is not restricted solely to the little guys mind you. Case in point was Royal de Maria, who just give you a free pour of everything they’ve got to showcase their product and help you to find one that you really like. They’re not exactly a minor player in the wine arena either; Royal deMaria is nothing to sneeze at in the icewine world. Further on them in a future post, but allow me to say here that I believe it was upwards of 8 samples we were treated to by a vineyard with 2 world wine records, and per bottle prices that seldom see the underside of a hundred dollars.

Those that do insist that you pay charge generally from fifty cents to a dollar for 1-2 ounces of wine. Really not that bad when it comes down to it, and I don’t mind tossing some change if the staff was good and the wines warranted a fee. A buck here or there isn’t asking too much in the grand scheme of things, especially if it allowed me to taste as many wines as I was interested in and find one that tickled my fancy.

I really, really, really have to object though, to vineyards that suffer from the unfortunate malady of MPS*. For those of you unfamiliar with this horrible disease, it basically amounts to someone trying to cover severe shortcomings in one area by beefing up on bravado, ego, and utter ridiculousness.

A certain vineyard, which will remain nameless, managed to pull off the single worst tasting experience I have ever had. Not only were they the aforementioned Wal-Mart chair sitters, but they also charged $2 for every single taste of their wine. Michelle and I were about to walk out, seeing that they didn’t have anything we were dying to try (see Variety below), when we figured heck, let’s give one of the two Rieslings a shot. We share samples all the time, to save us some money, and also because we really don’t need a whole sample to ourselves to decide whether or not we like a wine. So one Riesling. Two bucks. At this point I realize I’ve left my change purse in the car, and run out to get it. Upon my return I find Michelle glowering over the counter of the tasting bar at me and the staff paying absolutely no attention to her. In front of her sat two glasses. Four dollars. Our next stop was supposed to be a bank machine because we were running low on coin, could we afford this? I scramble to count my change. Including dimes I can just scrape by.

The wines? Average. The service? Wretched. The fee? Well apparently we were supposed to be happy to pay that much because they ‘give 2 oz. so that enthusiasts can fully experience the flavour of [their] wines’. Not only did I not want 2 oz., I also only wanted to try one of the Rieslings, not both. Their other wines were $3 per sample, enough said. Looking back at the hasty tasting note that was scribbled, it consists of only one word: “Shitheads”.
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And there you have it folks. This isn’t an exhaustive list by far, but it was based solely on our last trip to the Niagara region and some of the encounters we had. These four categories are very simplistic and don’t even touch upon tours, availability and the quality of the wines themselves.

It seems like every time we head down to Niagara to do some tastings, there are some vineyards that impress, and some that we swear we’ll never spend another of our hard-earned pennies at. This last trip was no different and in fact provided several prime examples of the sorts of chivalry and chicanery that can make or break a tasting.

A-Plus Staff

Although this might seem like a bit of a no-brainer, you would be surprised at how diverse a customer experience can be had. I believe we visited upwards of 16 vineyards in two days and thus had a pretty good feel for what was average, what was exceptional, and what was downright rotten.

First and foremost is that old McDonald’s adage: smiles are free. I feel almost depressed typing this because it’s the hallmark of good retail everywhere, but it needs to be done. Vineyards listen up! It’s in your best interest to do everything in your power to make sure that your customer service folks have a happy face on. Friendly, open, down-to-earth staff with the knowledge and engaging personality to sell your wine will go light years in the way of customer satisfaction. Terseness, dourness, and evident boredom are not good.

Good staff in our opinion gives at least the impression that they give a damn about your visit. You are not cattle, or worse, lemmings, to be shoved off the edge of the cliff (aka out the door) as soon as possible with as much high end wine as they can pawn off. With concessions during very busy periods, they should spend time on you, making sure that you have what you need and that your questions are answered satisfactorily. This does not, however, mean that they need to be glued to your face spouting off their memorized wine-specific knowledge like a Wine Spectator buying guide in the flesh. Although we tried not to noticeably cringe, there were several places where it felt like we were being read the rap sheet as the bottle was being uncorked. All we wanted to do was taste the wine, form our own opinion, and ask for clarification where needed. Customers are not inferior beings and are perfectly capable of piping up in response to something like “Do you have any questions about the wine?”

In general, we were amused to notice that younger women and older men made the best staffers (with exceptions of course). The openness of the women and their friendly, but not ditzy way of dealing with the public put us, and everyone else at those tasting bars in good spirits. With the older men, it was all about the charm. I don’t know what it is, but we met some gents who could give Sean Connery a run for his money in that department. Their knowledge, coupled with refined schmoozing capabilities, was tough to resist.

Overall the staff at the vineyards we visited were spot-on. Most either possessed personality, good retail abilities, or sound wine knowledge. A few combined all of these into a great package. Some, sadly, failed miserably (Lailey, Reif – I’m looking at you).

Even though these folks will be mentioned in our other trip posts, we really do like to highlight people who stood out and provided outstanding service. They deserve recognition for excelling in a job that would drive mere mortals crazy.

Hats off to:

• - First and foremost Janine, the fabulously helpful tasting guide at Thirty Bench Vineyard & Winery. She gave us the full tasting tour, complete with personal recommendations, off list samples, and a knowledge that came from passion, not pay.
• - Crown Bench Estates owner Livia and husband Peter, whose combined exuberance, interesting conversations and homegrown pride were more than welcome.
• - Industry veteran Frank Zeritsch, formerly of Thirty Bench, but now the creative genius behind newly minted Cornerstone, was brimming with good stories and bang on recommendations.
• - The lone woman manning the bar at the Royal de Maria, who talked to us about the various awards the vineyard had won and treated us to a bottle-by-bottle sampling of all the different icewines made on site. Knew her stuff and shared it in a very non-pretentious way.
• - Kudos to the entire Angel’s Gate staff, who although busy, never left us feeling forgotten. Plus they gave us Boursin cheese, which as a cheese nut, I appreciated.
• - A most honourable mention has to go out to Lakeview, Birchwood, Mountain Road, Fielding Estates and De Sousa, all of whom did a fine job of showcasing their wines.

Atmosphere

Atmosphere, naturally, overlaps quite a bit with staffing. Think of a vineyard visit as the ultimate in consumer branding. A well put together, cohesive presentation of your wines and the image you’re trying to achieve will leave a visitor with a much longer laster, positive impression.

Whether you’re a quaint, down-home stop on the map or a mammoth chateau with a fountain out front, stick to your guns and don’t mix and match your styles. Finding, for instance, that a modern architectural wonder of impressive size and an obviously attempted awe-factor has a tasting bar staff lounging below the level of the sleek granite counter in one of those folding canvas chairs ($15 Wal-Mart) reading a book is likely not the sort of impression you want to make. Especially if the wines, priced to finance your new building, are valued at four Wal-Mart chairs. Alternatively, for the rustic tastings, less pretention means a more relaxed, comfortable atmosphere and a looser wallet.

It’s really all about matching. Just as some people can’t put on two socks the same colour in the morning to save their life, some vineyards haven’t gotten their setting-staffing-service scales balanced. If you’re going swank, swank it up. If you’re going mom & pop, keep things simple. Brand, brand, brand. All you marketers out there know what I’m talking about. Clear, distinct, simple messages will net you an increase in recognition, brand loyalty and consumer awareness. And that, my friend, is worth it’s weight in gold.

I feel that in trying to be as attentive as possible in learning the ins and outs of wines, that I have lost some of the cheekiness that usually comes out in my writing. The old ‘wines are a serious matter for serious people’ seems to have bitten me at some point and I’ve withdrawn into a little writer’s shell where my self-assumed lack of knowledge and fear of being completely off base (and hence flamed from all corners of the industry) have kept the language and opinion of Grape Juice rather reserved for my liking. And if I, simple little me, have fallen into that trap, you have to wonder, when people begin making their livelihood off of what words they can spin together for wines, how many reviews that come out are true blue opinions on a particular wine and how many are carefully recycled snippets of terminology.

Here in Ontario, as I imagine it must be globally, there are THE wine people to whom every media source dedicates at least one rump-smooch an issue. It is not, essentially, in good taste to neglect mentioning their name at least once in the body of a written work. For Canada we have Tony Aspler, aka The Wine Guy, aka god if I see his name on one more thing I think I’m going to vomit. Not only do you have to pay in order to read his gems of oenophilic wisdom (seriously, his reviews are viewable on a subscription basis only), but he also surpasses most celebrities that I know in his tendency to self-promote. Take, for example, the 2006 Cuveé awards, the equivalent of the Oscars for Ontario Vintners. The only award not given to a variety or category of wine is, it makes me smile even thinking about it, the Tony Aspler Award of Excellence. And just in case you didn’t know that the Tony Aspler Award of Excellence had to do with Tony Aspler, it so helpfully tells you that the Tony Aspler Award of Excellence is sponsored by…le shock…Tony Aspler. He’s written books, he’s got a radio show, and who knows what else. He’s ubiquitous, like the Ebert of the wine scene in the Great White North. And while I have nothing personally against him I also don’t see how something so individually dependent as a wine experience can be so singularly attached to a personality.

I’d rather read a variety of reviews, get the full breadth of possibilities, and see some actual zest (not just flamboyancy). I want to read bad reviews alongside the good reviews. I don’t like when sites such as winecurrent.com (a site that I actually very much enjoy and appreciate) state that they won’t “waste time writing and reading about the others [that do not meet the 3-star threshold of excellence]“. Show me the ones you didn’t like. Tell me why they weren’t up to your standards. Fill the enormous information gap that exists for the less-than-fantastic wines. We all know they’re out there.

Aside from the obviously sub-par offerings, there is also a tendency to fall into flattery. A new wine comes out and everyone is all a-glow about its glory…really? Everyone in the entire wine-drinking community thinks this thing is the second coming? I find that very hard to believe. Have an opinion. Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to say you thought something tasted like nail polish remover even though everyone seems to be falling over themselves in a rush to fawn over it. And for the love of god, we all know that taste buds and preferences vary from person to person, so don’t insult us by taking whatever description was on the bottle label and reworking it to sound like your own words. You can’t tell me that all top level wine tasters will taste everything the same way, or that the characteristics they pull from the nose and palate will exactly match those detected by their peers…each and every time.

I want, I guess, some character. Perhaps then, I was a little hasty in criticizing Aspler, who obviously blends the skill and personality needed to become a successful face in the wine community. He’s got a bit of je ne sais quoi, and despite the presence of his name making me cringe, I have to give him kudos for that. He’s come from the sheep to become the shepherd, the guy that everyone knows and wants opinons from. I wish that there were more people willing to step out of the comfortable mold of saying nice things about wines that are supposed to be nice, and truly saying what’s on their mind. I know there are personalities out there, closet pot-stirrers who for whatever reason shy away from being more confrontational, but you really aren’t doing anyone any good. The media could benefit greatly from your spark and wine enthusiasts could use the presentation of unique, contrary perspectives before they drown in regurgitated garbage.

It’s all fine and well for me at Grape Juice, which has a readership roughly equivalent to a country church newsletter, to admit to being wrong, or being off, or to hold firm to the fact that the world’s hottest vin du jour tasted like wet dog to me…but it’s the big dogs out there that can really provide the well-rounded, informative experience that people like me are looking for. I’m no expert, so educate me. Use the wealth of your years of involvement to benefit all involved. That’s all I ask.

I don’t make any bones about the fact that I really enjoy Ontario wines. Looking at the tastings listed in Grape Juice, you would think that’s all I drank. While that’s not really that far off the truth, there are several factors that bias me in that direction. First and foremost is proximity. I’m less than half an hour (my driving speed mind you) away from Niagara-on-the-Lake, where dozens of vineyards are just sitting waiting for you to drop in and try things. As a result I often have such an enormous list of Ontario wines that I would like to try that everything else gets pushed to the backburner. You know, for that never-going-to-happen point in time when you’ve tried all the local wines you wanted to and your tasting list stands empty…

Another part of the problem is that Ontario wines, in my opinion, are second to none. They always taste very well at competitions and people who try them for the first time are more often than not very pleasantly surprised. There’s a great variety available to try, and some of the most dedicated cool climate wine makers in the world. How then, could I not be all ga-ga for provincial vintages?

Despite the draw of proximity, quality, and the idea of promoting of Canadian products, I have had an absolute bugger of a time trying to get Canadian wines to accompany my dinner is some of Southern Ontario’s restaurants. Unless you’re right in NOTL, where it would be commercial suicide not to offer local wines, it’s no easier to find canuck offerings on our own wine lists than it is to find them down in California. Except for icewine. To which I only have one thing to say really: we make more good wine than just icewine. A lot more. I feel like I should caps lock that statement, or splash it all over every post I make until people take the hint. Enough with the icewine. If I walk into one more establishment and find that the only Canadian on board is Inniskillin ice wine (no offense to Inniskillin, just seems to be the way it goes), I’m absolutely going to walk out and go elsewhere.

I’m not saying that Canadian restaurants should be shackled into only serving Canadian wines as some sort of cultural obligation, but hey, it would be nice to see one red and one white on the list. Keep the ice wine, the ice wine is superb, but there are those of us out there that don’t particularly care for it (I’m working on this), and may want to try some of the other things available from just down the road. I wouldn’t be so liable to push this if I thought, in any way, that I was endangering the reputation of these restaurants by recommending bottom tier wine. There’s nothing worse than a frothing yokel who stomps around squealing the virtues of local products. I feel confident that I’m not one of those people, and that we could benefit from a little patriotism in this case.

Have a little pride folks.

Billed as ‘an important environmental initiative’ the government organized Bag It Back (Ontario Deposit Return Program) system will see a price hike of twenty cents on every bottle of wine sold in the province. Consumers can recoup this extra cost by returning their empty bottles to The Beer Store.

The LCBO, which sells wine and spirit out of a separate retail entity, is trying to increase recovery rates on alcoholic beverage containers, 80 million of which, the Board estimates, end up in Ontario landfills every year. The separate program is designed to ‘free up’ room in our Blue Boxes, thus maximizing recovery of all recyclable materials, not just bottles.

Great! I’m all for enviro-initiatives really. But I do have to scratch my head at the implementation of such an expensive system in the Ontario of 2007.

Ever since I was a child, I can remember bringing in 2-4’s of empty beer cans and bottles that my parents had saved up over the months, for a measly nickel or dime. This initiative was in place well before the Blue Box recycling program hit its full stride, and was a great way to collect recyclable materials before they were shunted off to landfills for lack of a system to prevent it.

With the recycling program now in full force in most cities in Ontario, I find it odd that some 20 years after the beer initiative, the government has seen it necessary to head up a similar system for wine and spirits. Both Michelle and I are avid/rabid recyclers. Anything that even looks like it might be able to go in the box, goes in the box. All wine bottles are tucked in with everything else after I strip the labels off, and they happily truck off to the recycling facility with the rest of our glass items.

We, I’m glad to report, are not an anomaly. Most people around here take full advantage, particularly in this time of growing awareness and concern over the impact of human activity on the environment, of earth-friendly programs to reduce waste. Recycling is neither an inconvenience nor an expense as it is currently set up, leading me to question whether the Bag It Back program will end up being more of a bother than a boon.

We as consumers are now forced to pay more for a product’s container with the intent that the increased cost will act as a motivator to return the empty vessel for some pocket change. It may not sound like a lot, twenty cents, but I’ve got thirty empty bottles of wine waiting to have their labels removed at the moment, amounting to six dollars in deposit refunds. Since I already recycle, I’m just plain paying more, unless I also take on the added responsibility of taking the bottles back to the store. On a slightly ironic note, I do wonder whether the gas burned driving to The Beer Store with these bottles, particular from rural areas into urban centres, won’t offset a great deal of the good intentions shown by the provincial government.

If I’m only one household, imagine the cost to commercial entities such as restaurants, hotels, and yes, wineries, who go through dozens of bottles in tasting rooms and at events. Restaurants and similar venues are able to have LCBO operated trucks pick up the bottles for return during normally scheduled deliveries. Let’s hope deliveries are frequent and that the trucks have lots of extra space. I would imagine that the Fairmont Royal York in Toronto would have a fair amount of glass waste come delivery day. Companies not receiving deliveries? Well I guess it’s up to them to hire their own driver to haul their stash back. It then becomes a weighing of cost-benefit. If transporting the bottles costs more than what would be recouped in returning them, I don’t think there’s any question that the bottles would end up in the normal recycling program (a scenario that nets the provincially controlled LCBO a pretty penny on deposits), or worse, if no such program existed in that area, in the bin.

Wineries certainly aren’t exempt, even though the bottles opened on site never see shelves at LCBO stores. Retail openings for tasting bar stock and event pouring are still subject to the deposit fee, which must be paid to the provincial board by the company. These bottles, which at Creekside do get recycled anyway, must then be properly sorted, and somehow transported to the nearest Beer Store for refund. It’s a bit of a logistical nightmare, frankly, while everyone tries to get their head around it.

Rumour has it that the logistics at the organizational level are spotty at best and if I were The Beer Store employees, I’d be a little frightened by the potential tidalwave in bottle volume headed my way. It could be a rough ride for the next few months, while the bumps are worked out and the potholes are filled. Personally, while I’m glad that pro-environmental policies are coming into play, I can’t help but feel that I’m being penalized for already recycling, and I truly do wonder if car emissions produced in transit offset a large part of the good that the Bag It Back program is trying to accomplish.

Mark Fisher’s post over at Uncorked about a study that examined how restaurants can entice diners to buy more wine to accompany their food couldn’t have come at a more timely moment for us Grape Juice folk. We had just had dinner at one of the uber-restaurants in Toronto, recognized as a fab wine place by the Wine Spectator no less, and received some of the worst wine service we’ve ever had (more on that later). To top it off, the bottle of Burgundian red that we selected was later found in a retail store for not half, not a third, but a quarterof the price that was charged at the restaurant.

Does the study address this issue? Oh it certainly does. It’s sage advice is to promote ‘higher margin’ wines while avoiding pesky little cash inhibitors called promotions. It boggles the mind from the consumer’s point of view. I want value from top to bottom on a wine list; I want recommendations based on suitability, not profit (I know that’s a lot to ask); I want to be treated as something other than a walking, oinking piggy bank.

Restaurants: making it expensive doesn’t make me want to buy it. Honest. I’m past that whole wine stage where more expensive simply must be better. Show me value, show me that you appreciate your customer by having a reasonable profit margin on your bottles. You forget that I shop at the LCBO too. It’s the only place we can get our wine in this lovely province, and that means I know what all the price tags are just as well as you. When I see a $15 bottle for $50, you’re lucky I don’t smack you upside the head with the wine list out of righteous indignation. I’ve turned down wine with dinner on several occasions because the list prices were outrageous for solid, but not spectacular wines.

Care to know what your eye for profit have done? I’m seriously considering eating only at fine dining establishments that allow BYOB and I’ll gladly pay their corkage fee. It’s still cheaper than buying it on site, I get to have what I like, and I don’t run screaming through the liquor store like some sort of oenophilic poltergeist three days later when I find retail values in the teens.

There is a big difference between a $40 margin on a $100 bottle of wine, and the same differential on a $20 offering. Showing a little ingenuity with your wine list (and charging an arm and a leg for it) will win you repeat business, as you are offering a rounded, innovative experience, rather than shoving pricy sparkly things under my supposedly dazzled nose.

Break new ground, get off the beaten path. You upper-enders…you have a sommelier, I know you do. I’ve seen them cackling madly in your cellar trying to come up with improbably delicious pairings. Make use of them! The article mentioned the attractiveness of tasting sized samples to accompany meals (here here!), which allows the on staff wine freak the opportunity to be a little creative and suggest a variety of affordable pairings for each course and dish. Better yet, if you’re petrified of letting even a penny of money get away, offer wine pairings with dinner and allow the sommelier and his/her staff to serve the wine with each dish. Charge as much as you would for your cheapest bottle and for three 2oz. pours, or a whopping 6oz of wine, you’ve made a whack of money.

Stop moping about margins, price accordingly, and find other ways to wring my hard-earned cash from my account.