My Mini Media Tour, or How I Ended Up on Network News
My Mini Media Tour, or How I Ended Up on Network News
Old and new media collide as yours truly talks wine on both CBS News and the Disgorgeous podcast.
It’s been a pretty exciting week or so over here. It’s not very often that I get to appear on network television, but last weekend I appeared on CBS Saturday Morning to talk about about wine!
The segment is all about the rise of new wine regions across America, with a focus on in surprising places such Texas…and god forbid…NEW JERSEY. In fact, I was interviewed at White Horse Winery in my home state. (When I asked the owner if “White Horse” was named as a play on Cheval Blanc, the famed Bordeaux winery, he replied: “Oh no, we named after the White Horse Pike, the road.” RIP. )
During the segment, we discuss the generational shift in the American wine scene, how people love to be snooty about wine, and how winemakers figure out which grapes grow best. They give a nice shoutout to Godforsaken Grapes, too. Click to watch the clip!
But the first stop on my mini late-summer media tour was on the Disgorgeous podcast. I’ve been following Disgorgeous for a while, and I feel like they’re a kindred spirit to Everyday Drinking. So I was really happy to chat with host John McCarroll—whose own wine writing I really like.
On Disgorgeous, we talk foremost about the myth of “starter wine,” cheap bulk wine, the collapse of the American wine industry—and specifically about my recent piece from The New Wine Review, “Sorry, California. No One Wants Your Cheap Wine Anymore.” But of course, as podcasts go, our conversation wanders all over the world of drinks, from mead to sherry to literally pretensions to the future of wine. I think it’s pretty fun, so click below to give it a listen.
My latest piece for The New Wine Review looks at how a worldwide preference for white wine is remaking the world wine map.
The rise of white wine’s popularity—as well as the decline of red wine—is no longer anecdotal or apocryphal. The news, late last year, that white and rosé now surpass red in worldwide consumption may have surprised a lot of people, but the data is real. The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) reported that white wine alone now accounts for 43 percent of global wine consumption, up 10 percent over the past two decades. In the U.S., the world’s biggest consumer of white wine, consumption rose 65 percent from 2000 to 2021. Meanwhile, worldwide red wine consumption is down more than 15 percent since 2007, according to the OIV report.
How the industry, sommeliers, and collectors react to this new consumer reality will be fascinating, and we’re already seeing interesting moves in established wine regions. Look at what’s happening in Bourgueil. The prestigious Loire Valley appellation known for its ageworthy Cabernet Franc reds is now on its way to becoming a white-wine appellation. In July, Bourgueil winegrowers voted on a plan to allow dry whites made from Chenin Blanc…“At a time when the future of red is compromised, why compartmentalize us and forbid us from making white?” asks the former head of the Bourgueil appellation.
I also dive a little deeper into the rise of dry Loire Chenin Blanc with several bottle recommendations. Click to read.
Big Love For Portuguese Wine
I also recently published a feature on the new wave of Portuguese red wines.
Wine gatekeepers love to call places like Portugal “up-and-coming.” They also use that term for wine regions like New York’s Finger Lakes or South Africa or Catalonia—as if to keep them perpetually in second class. But after my latest trip to Portugal (trying my best to avoid the crowds) I can no longer ride along with the idea that Portuguese wines are up-and-coming. They have arrived.
Portuguese white blends, from indigenous grapes like Arinto, Encruzado, Viosinho, Alvarinho, and others have gotten more attention to date. Portuguese red wine, however, still has the lingering perception of big, oaky, high alcohol, and jammy from the Douro Valley or Alentejo—what many in the Iberian peninsula have taken to calling “Mediterranean” reds, as opposed to so-called “Atlantic” reds.
That perception is quickly changing, as Portuguese winemakers embrace the coast and focus more and more on cooler, fresher, lower-alcohol “Atlantic reds.” Whether it’s Baga from Bairrada, or Castelão and Ramisco from the coastal areas surrounding Lisbon, these wines are very different from the Portuguese reds that an American wine drinker likely encountered even five or 10 years ago.
As a bonus, I also published a travel guide to drinking and eating in Lisbon.
Top Summer Posts from Everyday Drinking
Finally, ICYMI, here my top five posts that I published this summer.
1. Seriously, are there any regions in the world more gatekept than Barolo and Barbaresco?
2. I wish I loved anything as much as people in the wine industry love to toss superlatives at grape harvests, years before anyone will drink the wine.
3. Reframing cantaloupe and Alsatian whites.
4. Apple brandy season is just around the corner.
5. Two vague terms get thrown around way too much in the world of wine. The first is value. The second is Burgundian.
Please send me a few bottles of endangered New Jersey Vino. Great to see you on the big screen. For those as impatient as I am, scroll to 4.52 minutes for Jason! haha
I watched the clip this morning! I especially enjoyed the "Ugh, you need some B-roll of me for a voiceover introduction so I guess I'll walk from here to there for you?" section.