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I have to say I hope the wine industry goes the same way as the craft beer industry: towards innovative techniques to differentiate brands by distinct taste and

I have to say I hope the wine industry goes the same way as the craft beer industry: towards innovative techniques to differentiate brands by distinct taste and sourcing. Walk into any liquor store and half the store is filled with wine labels that most people can't differentiate. Compare this to the beer aisle: A wild yeast lambic is only similar to a Bud Light in that they are both beers. I'd be hard pressed to ever debate drinking one or the other because they are so distinct. Not that either of them are bad, but they serve different times and places. I'd love to see the same with wine. Give me bold, ambitious wines that either use long-forgotten techniques or pioneer new ones. Give me as much variety as possible, and hell, wrap it up in feel good micro-winery stories. Let consumers choose what they like, just like how the Craft Beer industry has done for the last couple of years. If there's one lesson to learn, it's that consumers love to try new varieties, and there's a lot of money to be made for being ambitious. For everyone in the Bay Area, it's worth your time to go up to Sonoma county and hangout at Lagunitas and Russian River Breweries. Both are famous for not holding back and brewing whatever beer comes to their mind, and it's delicious.

AndrewBissell 8y ago
Allow me to plug our winery here, only because I think we're aiming for just what you're asking :-) https://www.inconnuwine.com/ https://www.inconnuwine.com/
ebikelaw 8y ago
A lot of those innovative West Coast beers are, at best, hoaxes. I think maybe the craft brewers could swing back slightly to tradition. I seek out craft pilsners and lagers because a clear, tasty pilsner is very difficult to produce in quantity. It's a sign of a decent brewery, whereas a cloudy barrel-aged grapefruit sour is a sign of mental illness.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  What makes a beer a hoax?
  - cycrutchfield 8y ago
    Maybe not a hoax, but perhaps what the person above meant is “gimmicky”. How else do you explain beer that tastes like peanut butter or whatever other crap these breweries put out?
  - eric_h 8y ago
    Just a guess, but I think s/he means it's got more than barley, hops and water in it, given their stated preference for pilsners and lagers. Perhaps they're a proponent of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      In that case Miller, Coors, Budweiser, and friends are also all "hoaxes."
      - eric_h 8y ago
        I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that ;)
        emodendroket 8y ago
        I'll stand up for Miller High Life as a decent beer. It's not knock-your-socks-off incredible but it's a reliable choice you can find pretty much anywhere.
        eric_h 8y ago
        I mean I'd put all of the beers you listed under the drinkable category - with Miller High Life marginally more flavorful than its compatriots in that list. Nevertheless I wouldn't call any of them good beer. Impressively consistent flavoring for the volume they make, sure, but that's the only thing interesting about them.
        8y ago
- stagger87 8y ago
  Can you tell me who makes the barrel-aged grapefruit sour? That sounds good!
  - scruple 8y ago
    If you're ever passing through the California central coast area, I absolutely recommend a stop at the Firestone Walker Barrelworks in Buellton. They don't, to my knowledge, have a 'barrel-aged grapefruit sour' but they absolutely have very interesting small-batch barrel-aged brews on tap and my wife and I always stop in when we pass through.
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I like a good pilsner, but I really love the cloudy sour beers more than any other style.
barrkel 8y ago
Wines also taste completely different from one another. E.g. taste a vin jaune, a vin doux naturel, an eiswein, an orange wine - you'd never mistake any of these for one of the others, and none of them for any normal red or white off a restaurant wine list. Similarly, it's hard to mistake an aged Burgundy for a Cote Rotie, or a Sauvignon Blanc for a Reisling. Wine stores without Enomatic machines or equivalent are a mostly waste of time, IMO, unless you already know the maker's style and it's what you're looking for; or the owner has excellent taste. Dispensers give you the ability to taste a dozen or two wines with ease in a single evening.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  I don't think the variety in flavor is as obvious in wine as in beer. For someone with practice, the difference (and ability to describe the difference) between a Sauvingon Blanc and Chardonnay isn't difficult. I think anyone off the street can taste the difference between a chocolate stout, a hefeweizen and a pale lager. Sometimes I think wine could be dumbed down. My best example: Sauv Blanc tastes like grass and bell pepper. Is that universal? No. Does that capture every subtlety? No. But it is the defining characteristic.
  - jimnotgym 8y ago
    Try a Sauternes against a sauvignon blanc and you may change your mind.
  - typomatic 8y ago
    > the difference (and ability to describe the difference) between a Sauvingon Blanc and Chardonnay isn't difficult. I think anyone off the street can taste the difference between a chocolate stout, a hefeweizen and a pale lager. I'd like to observe that when you wanted to claim that wines were indistinguishable, you picked two wines that were quite similar. When you wanted to claim beers were distinguishable, you picked chocolate stout vs hefeweizen, which is clearly not the same sort of example.
    - unethical_ban 8y ago
mattmaroon 8y ago
The wine industry always was that way. It really took off in America in the 70s and the number of small craft producers has been on an upward slope ever since. While the beer industry consolidated into a small number of large producers, wine has done the opposite. There are trends (just as everyone in beer spent 15 years trying to make hoppier, higher ABV IPAs) but if anything beer is following wine, not the reverse.
- kd0amg 8y ago
  Just having a large number of small producers does not imply that the market has the amount of product differentiation GP is asking for. Wine I see on shelf does not make much attempt to distinguish itself stylistically from the other products sitting next to it. Going the other way, having a small number of producers does not imply product uniformity. A single brewing company is perfectly capable of making a wide variety of beers.
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  On the other hand, one could argue that the addition of American producers and American consumers has made wine significantly worse over the years as well. Robert Parker has been America’s worst wine export in the past few decades.
  - gerdesj 8y ago
    One could argue that but I wont. I recall what wine looked like in the UK 30 odd years ago. Nowadays we have an embarrassment of choice including some pretty decent wines from the US.
cycrutchfield 8y ago
>Walk into any liquor store and half the store is filled with wine labels that most people can't differentiate. Compare this to the beer aisle: A wild yeast lambic is only similar to a Bud Light in that they are both beers. I'd be hard pressed to ever debate drinking one or the other because they are so distinct. I would argue that this says more about you and the “canonical consumer” than it does about wine. If you don’t find anything distinct about an Australian Shiraz versus a German Riesling, then I don’t know what to tell you.
jakobegger 8y ago
I’m also a fan of the craft beer hype. I never really tasted a difference between all our local beers, they’re all the same to me... but an IPA, that’s something very different!
- emodendroket 8y ago
  I don't really care for IPAs and I am a little annoyed that making a beer as bitter as possible is now what constitutes making a high-quality beer for so many people. But I realize my own preference, really sour beers, isn't exactly pleasing to everyone either.
  - lutorm 8y ago
    I am a little annoyed that making a beer as bitter as possible is now what constitutes making a high-quality beer for so many people. Indeed, I'm right there with you. All these IPA's taste the same to me: incredibly bitter. There's no subtlety.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      I mean, prominently advertising their IBUs would suggest that's even what they're going for.
      - amyjess 8y ago
        Interestingly enough, some of the ultra-high-IBU beers come out the other end and don't taste nearly as bitter as mid-IBU IPAs, and they tend to have more actual flavor even. Something like, for example, Lagunitas Hop Stupid with 100 IBUs doesn't taste half as bitter as your typical 60-70 IBU IPA. Hop Stoopid is one of the few IPAs I can stand, actually, which I find particularly bizarre because I normally don't like hops (I normally go for thick malty beers).
        emodendroket 8y ago
        There is a limit past which you can't taste the difference (I mean like humans are physically incapable), I think.
stochastic_monk 8y ago
Rare Barrel in Berkeley is a worthy pilgrimage for any craft beer connoisseur.
- archagon 8y ago
  I'm not always a fan of sour beers — too many wild ale producers err on the side of vinegariness these days, IMO — but I think RB gets the balance right more often than not, and their adjuncts tend to be amazing. (Plus, great venue and excellent guest taps on most nights!)
- api_or_ipa 8y ago
  So I've been told! I need to commit to checking it out one weekend-- Berkeley as a whole is such a gem.
chiefalchemist 8y ago
Perhaps. Now pardon me for getting slightly off topic... But the craft beer saturation point can't be too far into the future. Same for coffee roasters. In the Boston to W DC corridor both of these are everywhere; points of differentiation fewer and further between. Like any fad, these things cycle and burst. Boutique beer and coffee are on that path.
- Niksko 8y ago
  Oh for sure, the current rate of aggressive expansion and new breweries both in the US and Australia is unsustainable. My armchair assessment is the Australia will start to see an uptick in small brands folding because they're unsustainable in the next 2-3 years
archagon 8y ago
Or go to Toronado in SF, which is basically Russian River Annex! I think I've tried pretty much every notable RR beer there since I started going in 2016, including things like Beatification. (Just know what you want to order ahead of time and always leave a tip. The place has a heavy local vibe and the bartenders can be a little scary.)
a_136_chiffa 8y ago
Hope not. In the US, at least, the craft beer came to be dominated just by a couple of types that are easy to make - notably the IPAs. Some other types are present as well, but the selection and the quality are nowhere near. While it is a welcome change from a quasi-universality of the American Pilsner (Bud-cough-weiser-cough), a bit more diversity and more forays into more technical and difficult to succeed wines would do a world of good. In the same way, I am just hoping that the transition towards Bio wines won't lead to a predominance of a new single style that would come to replace Bordeaux-like reds.

AndrewBissell 8y ago

Allow me to plug our winery here, only because I think we're aiming for just what you're asking :-) https://www.inconnuwine.com/ https://www.inconnuwine.com/

ebikelaw 8y ago

A lot of those innovative West Coast beers are, at best, hoaxes. I think maybe the craft brewers could swing back slightly to tradition. I seek out craft pilsners and lagers because a clear, tasty pilsner is very difficult to produce in quantity. It's a sign of a decent brewery, whereas a cloudy barrel-aged grapefruit sour is a sign of mental illness.

pavel_lishin 8y ago
What makes a beer a hoax?
- cycrutchfield 8y ago
  Maybe not a hoax, but perhaps what the person above meant is “gimmicky”. How else do you explain beer that tastes like peanut butter or whatever other crap these breweries put out?
- eric_h 8y ago
  Just a guess, but I think s/he means it's got more than barley, hops and water in it, given their stated preference for pilsners and lagers. Perhaps they're a proponent of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    In that case Miller, Coors, Budweiser, and friends are also all "hoaxes."
    - eric_h 8y ago
      I wouldn't necessarily disagree with that ;)
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        I'll stand up for Miller High Life as a decent beer. It's not knock-your-socks-off incredible but it's a reliable choice you can find pretty much anywhere.
        eric_h 8y ago
        I mean I'd put all of the beers you listed under the drinkable category - with Miller High Life marginally more flavorful than its compatriots in that list. Nevertheless I wouldn't call any of them good beer. Impressively consistent flavoring for the volume they make, sure, but that's the only thing interesting about them.
        8y ago
stagger87 8y ago
Can you tell me who makes the barrel-aged grapefruit sour? That sounds good!
- scruple 8y ago
  If you're ever passing through the California central coast area, I absolutely recommend a stop at the Firestone Walker Barrelworks in Buellton. They don't, to my knowledge, have a 'barrel-aged grapefruit sour' but they absolutely have very interesting small-batch barrel-aged brews on tap and my wife and I always stop in when we pass through.
emodendroket 8y ago
I like a good pilsner, but I really love the cloudy sour beers more than any other style.

barrkel 8y ago

Wines also taste completely different from one another. E.g. taste a vin jaune, a vin doux naturel, an eiswein, an orange wine - you'd never mistake any of these for one of the others, and none of them for any normal red or white off a restaurant wine list. Similarly, it's hard to mistake an aged Burgundy for a Cote Rotie, or a Sauvignon Blanc for a Reisling. Wine stores without Enomatic machines or equivalent are a mostly waste of time, IMO, unless you already know the maker's style and it's what you're looking for; or the owner has excellent taste. Dispensers give you the ability to taste a dozen or two wines with ease in a single evening.

unethical_ban 8y ago
I don't think the variety in flavor is as obvious in wine as in beer. For someone with practice, the difference (and ability to describe the difference) between a Sauvingon Blanc and Chardonnay isn't difficult. I think anyone off the street can taste the difference between a chocolate stout, a hefeweizen and a pale lager. Sometimes I think wine could be dumbed down. My best example: Sauv Blanc tastes like grass and bell pepper. Is that universal? No. Does that capture every subtlety? No. But it is the defining characteristic.
- jimnotgym 8y ago
  Try a Sauternes against a sauvignon blanc and you may change your mind.
- typomatic 8y ago
  > the difference (and ability to describe the difference) between a Sauvingon Blanc and Chardonnay isn't difficult. I think anyone off the street can taste the difference between a chocolate stout, a hefeweizen and a pale lager. I'd like to observe that when you wanted to claim that wines were indistinguishable, you picked two wines that were quite similar. When you wanted to claim beers were distinguishable, you picked chocolate stout vs hefeweizen, which is clearly not the same sort of example.
  - unethical_ban 8y ago

mattmaroon 8y ago

The wine industry always was that way. It really took off in America in the 70s and the number of small craft producers has been on an upward slope ever since. While the beer industry consolidated into a small number of large producers, wine has done the opposite. There are trends (just as everyone in beer spent 15 years trying to make hoppier, higher ABV IPAs) but if anything beer is following wine, not the reverse.

kd0amg 8y ago
Just having a large number of small producers does not imply that the market has the amount of product differentiation GP is asking for. Wine I see on shelf does not make much attempt to distinguish itself stylistically from the other products sitting next to it. Going the other way, having a small number of producers does not imply product uniformity. A single brewing company is perfectly capable of making a wide variety of beers.
cycrutchfield 8y ago
On the other hand, one could argue that the addition of American producers and American consumers has made wine significantly worse over the years as well. Robert Parker has been America’s worst wine export in the past few decades.
- gerdesj 8y ago
  One could argue that but I wont. I recall what wine looked like in the UK 30 odd years ago. Nowadays we have an embarrassment of choice including some pretty decent wines from the US.

cycrutchfield 8y ago

>Walk into any liquor store and half the store is filled with wine labels that most people can't differentiate. Compare this to the beer aisle: A wild yeast lambic is only similar to a Bud Light in that they are both beers. I'd be hard pressed to ever debate drinking one or the other because they are so distinct. I would argue that this says more about you and the “canonical consumer” than it does about wine. If you don’t find anything distinct about an Australian Shiraz versus a German Riesling, then I don’t know what to tell you.

jakobegger 8y ago

I’m also a fan of the craft beer hype. I never really tasted a difference between all our local beers, they’re all the same to me... but an IPA, that’s something very different!

emodendroket 8y ago
I don't really care for IPAs and I am a little annoyed that making a beer as bitter as possible is now what constitutes making a high-quality beer for so many people. But I realize my own preference, really sour beers, isn't exactly pleasing to everyone either.
- lutorm 8y ago
  I am a little annoyed that making a beer as bitter as possible is now what constitutes making a high-quality beer for so many people. Indeed, I'm right there with you. All these IPA's taste the same to me: incredibly bitter. There's no subtlety.
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    I mean, prominently advertising their IBUs would suggest that's even what they're going for.
    - amyjess 8y ago
      Interestingly enough, some of the ultra-high-IBU beers come out the other end and don't taste nearly as bitter as mid-IBU IPAs, and they tend to have more actual flavor even. Something like, for example, Lagunitas Hop Stupid with 100 IBUs doesn't taste half as bitter as your typical 60-70 IBU IPA. Hop Stoopid is one of the few IPAs I can stand, actually, which I find particularly bizarre because I normally don't like hops (I normally go for thick malty beers).
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        There is a limit past which you can't taste the difference (I mean like humans are physically incapable), I think.

stochastic_monk 8y ago

Rare Barrel in Berkeley is a worthy pilgrimage for any craft beer connoisseur.

archagon 8y ago
I'm not always a fan of sour beers — too many wild ale producers err on the side of vinegariness these days, IMO — but I think RB gets the balance right more often than not, and their adjuncts tend to be amazing. (Plus, great venue and excellent guest taps on most nights!)
api_or_ipa 8y ago
So I've been told! I need to commit to checking it out one weekend-- Berkeley as a whole is such a gem.

chiefalchemist 8y ago

Perhaps. Now pardon me for getting slightly off topic... But the craft beer saturation point can't be too far into the future. Same for coffee roasters. In the Boston to W DC corridor both of these are everywhere; points of differentiation fewer and further between. Like any fad, these things cycle and burst. Boutique beer and coffee are on that path.

Niksko 8y ago
Oh for sure, the current rate of aggressive expansion and new breweries both in the US and Australia is unsustainable. My armchair assessment is the Australia will start to see an uptick in small brands folding because they're unsustainable in the next 2-3 years

archagon 8y ago

Or go to Toronado in SF, which is basically Russian River Annex! I think I've tried pretty much every notable RR beer there since I started going in 2016, including things like Beatification. (Just know what you want to order ahead of time and always leave a tip. The place has a heavy local vibe and the bartenders can be a little scary.)

a_136_chiffa 8y ago

Hope not. In the US, at least, the craft beer came to be dominated just by a couple of types that are easy to make - notably the IPAs. Some other types are present as well, but the selection and the quality are nowhere near. While it is a welcome change from a quasi-universality of the American Pilsner (Bud-cough-weiser-cough), a bit more diversity and more forays into more technical and difficult to succeed wines would do a world of good. In the same way, I am just hoping that the transition towards Bio wines won't lead to a predominance of a new single style that would come to replace Bordeaux-like reds.