Freedom of [Wine] Choice: An American Illusion?

I'm still recovering from various things that have ailed me.  When I haven't been staring dully at the wall, I've been staring dully at the screen, processing the inundation of comments to the latest Eric Asimov entry on The Pour.  (And the one before that as well.)  There are 86 now, with more to come, no doubt. 

A few of the main points I've taken away:

1. The quality/price ratio of most US (read: California) wine is out of whack.  To get something decent from the Golden State you have to spend a lot or, rather, too much for what you get.

2. The Old Europe still knows how to produce good, solid wines at reasonable prices. We likee.

3. Fruit bombs that taste of oak chips are produced everywhere, although not as pervasively or monotonously as in California.  (We always have Australia to kick around.)

4. This is still a benighted land of sody pop and Kool-Aid, not to mention oceans of weak beer.  A wine-drinking culture exists only in a few ethnic enclaves and sophisticated urban centers (present company included :-DD).

As always in discussions of this sort, people zero in on Robert Parker, score-o-mania and winemakers' manipulation of wine to suit what they deem to be Parker's taste in order to win a high score and hear the cash registers ring.  There is a (reactionary?) tendency to pin the blame on him for all the world's oaky, high-test fruit bombs, at least by wine blogging gens comme nous.   

Leaving aside Mr. Parker's vast influence, and his initial motives as a Ralph-Naderish "wine advocate," I suspect that he is successful less for his highly insured schnozz than for his typicity.  I mean that his taste profile unites two divergent strands in American society; it reflects an ancient tendency for Americans to like sweet, harmless drinks...and strong drink that has the mellow tang of wood.

Consider. Soft drinks became popular here first and for a reason: they were sweet as all get-out, and they were alcohol-free. Coke appeared as the Temperance Movement was gaining real clout -- forget about that early cocaine thing.  A hundred years ago, you could drink the stuff and feel both virtuous and au courant.  And Coke-drinking brought the sexes together to flirt in a respectable setting.  The old ice cream parlor didn't have a "No Unescorted Ladies" policy or a bouncer.

As to the tangy wood-flavored drinks, look at America's early love of rum (stored and shipped in barrels) and continuing love of bourbon and other brown goods.  Strong stuff, woody as all get-out.  Manly drinks, too.  The Temperance Movement was about getting Daddy back into the hovel with his pay packet intact. Prohibition didn't change things much -- when I was a kid, men still drank mostly whiskey in one form or another.  And like their forebears they pretty much drank to get drunk in a tavern, away from the demands of the family.

So Parker's genius, which may be fortuitous, was to unite these two often warring strands of American taste.  Our youthful addiction to sweet liquids combined with our manly model of knocking back the hard stuff.  A high score (and paying a lot of money) --> a justification of our choice in wine.  (And you can get your lady drunk too.  No wonder Parker's wildly popular in aspirational circles.)

OK, my little dissertation is over.  However...

My problem with all of this is about choice.  Walk into an ordinary supermarket or liquor store.  Observe the wine section.  You go, "Wow!  Look at all the wines!"  The apparent choice is illusory.

The shelf space and end caps are devoted exclusively to sweetish, ultra-fruity wines that reek of oak (or oak chips or oak extract).   Plenty of depth, very little breadth: twenty brands of Shiraz and Merlot, twenty of Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, almost all of it in that dosed style, all tasting about the same.  There isn't a hell of a lot else to choose from -- you know, besides maybe a tired old Beaujolais or a decidedly minor Chianti from a bad vintage.  And it costs far more than it should. 

I don't blame Parker for this state of affairs.  He's part of this culture just like you...and me.  Isn't it merely a matter of "we have met the enemy and it is us"? 

Comments

[Alfonso]

well said.

"Never, never, never give up." - Winston Churchill

[Terry Hughes]

Thank you, commendatore.

Not to get too Deep Thought-y over it all, but I do feel that so much of our "freedom of choice" is fictitious. We read breathless articles about the "choices" in wine, car models, health plans, educational or shopping opportunities, whatever -- and the choice is between minor variations on the same theme. Usually one that doesn't truly please any of us.

Or am I just being an old curmudgeon again?