From Bon Appetit, August 13:
A sommelier opens up about the shady business practices that are behind the rise of watery, terrible rosé.
Here’s a snippet of an email I got last week:FROM: Wine account salesperson
TO: Victoria James, Cote Korean Steakhouse
Subject: Opportunity?...I wanted to see if you were around next week to try some wines and see if there is any opportunity for our brands in Cote. It would be my pleasure to put together a proposal for you that includes funding for the location…Do you see what’s happening here? If not, it’s okay. The world of wines in restaurants is not a very public one. This dude is slyly offering me the possibility to get paid to place his company’s wines on our restaurant wine list. It should be the other way around: I pay the winery for cases of wines I can’t wait to share with diners. But when it comes to rosé, sneaky deals like this have become par for the course as the wine becomes more and more popular. We call it pay to play, and it’s caused an outbreak of shitty rosé on wine lists everywhere. Specifically on by-the-glass lists, which sell the highest quantity and where diners are more likely to order based on name-brand recognition.As a sommelier, I know I am spoiled, but when I see big-brand pink swill on otherwise nice restaurant menus, I get furious. You might know which brands I am talking about, the ones that sponsor huge parties in the Hamptons. They masquerade as luxury goods, with fun bottle shapes and cutesy names, but are simply bulk wines.But Wait, What Is Bulk Wine?When I say “bulk,” I mean rosé that might be made from rotten or low-quality grapes, underripe fruit, or red wine by-products. It relies on mass-produced laboratory yeast that's advertised as “full bodied, fruit/lush blush wines, to enhance white country fruit and flower in wines.” (Yeast not only converts sugar to alcohol but also contributes to the final flavors. These commercial yeast strains attempt to mask subpar grapes by adding unnatural aromas to the wine and speeding along fermentation.) Bulk wine is often treated like a lab formula, with chemicals, dyes, and additives that chase that desired light salmon color. Since an ingredient list isn’t required on wine labels, the average shopper might not realize that their go-to grocery store wine has up to 75 ingredients other than grapes. These wines come from huge swaths of land, particularly in California and Provence, with “terroir” barely suitable for even vegetables. Bulk wines—and there are hundreds of them—are owned by large companies with deep pockets, with big marketing budgets. Money is channeled away from the high-quality grape production and toward massive advertising campaigns coupled with paid inclusion on hot restaurant menus.The Shady Dealings...
...MUCH MORE
