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« Jesse Kornbluth
Head Butler -- Books: The Wine Trials
Robin Goldstein has no use for wine snobs. To prove it, he invented a restaurant -- a chic place named Osteria L'Intrepido, in the great restaurant city of Milan -- and entered it in Wine Spectator's annual competition. Goldstein did more than pay $250 to enter. He created a menu. And he produced a wine list. Here he fairly announced his hoax: For the Osteria's high-priced "reserve" wine list, he consulted Wine Spectator and chose some Italian wines that the magazine had ranked as mediocre. His imaginary restaurant was named a Wine Spectator 2008 Restaurant Award winner. Needless to say, there was considerable publicity -- and delight -- when Goldstein revealed the truth. Because of that publicity, I learned that Goldstein has pounded wine snobs at greater length, in The Wine Trials: 100 Everyday Wines Under $15 that Beat $50 to $150 Wines in Brown-Bag Blind Tastings. The idea here is simple. Get 500 people who like wine -- some of them experts, some "everyday wine drinkers" -- and ask them to taste wines and champagnes. The tastings were "blind." That is, the bottles were wrapped in brown paper bags (I believe this used to be called "Gallo gift wrap") and numbered. The tasters thus had no idea if they were drinking Lafite -- or Two-Buck Chuck. The results were predictable. I mean, they were astonishing, and that was completely predictable. Dom Perignon ($150 a bottle) versus Domaine Ste. Michelle Cuvée Brut ($12) -- 41 of 62 tasters preferred the cheaper wine from Washington State. Tasters preferred a $9 Beringer Cabernet to a $120 Beringer. Asked to rate 27 sparkling wines, Dom finished 17th -- "behind 14 sparkling wines that cost less than $15, eight of which cost less than $10." The first 60 pages of the book deal with these tastings. Unless you're into sociology and statistics, you won't care much. The next 100 pages are smart profiles of the 100 inexpensive wines that beat expensive wines in Goldstein's blind tastings. These pages are the best reason to spend less than the cost of a bottle of wine in this book. The values are real. The choices are, in the main, sensible. I have some quibbles. Even with the killer Euro, I can buy French wines at these prices that strike me as far superior to comparable California wines. Example: See if you can find Chateau Fage, a white Graves imported by the ever-reliable Monsieur Touton; the 2006 vintage goes for about $11 a bottle. As for red wines, there are still second-growth Bordeaux for $15 or less that are far less meaty than the heavy, Parkerized California reds. It's the inclusion of Two-Buck Chuck that made me wonder about Goldstein's tasters -- and his bias. Trader Joe's has sold a gazillion bottles of this cheaper-than-Perrier wine, and it has a following among those who put value over taste. Goldstein raises warning flags: "medicinal," "almost syrupy," with "some chemical aromas." But then he endorses it. He has to. To call it plonk would be to cast aspersions on his tasters -- and their no-frills expertise. It is here that Goldstein and I part company, and I urge you to add a second book to your library, the totally accessible yet learned Oldman's Guide to Outsmarting Wine. Because while it's nice to know that experts can be fooled -- that experts can be "wrong" -- it does not follow that expertise is folly. Sure, drink what you like. But why not take the next step and find out why you like what you do? "I'm not arguing for snobbery, but I am arguing for standards," says Eric Asimov, of The New York Times, in his take on this book. "Ignorance is not a virtue, nor is knowledge the equivalent of being a snob. People who know something about wine have made a commitment to it, so their opinions ought to matter more." It is bracing to be relieved of the sorry equation between price and quality. But it's also savvy not to be fooled by an illogic that argues cheap and good are synonyms. As my immigrant Russian grandmother used to say, "You gotta know how to shop." So let Goldstein liberate you and give you a primer in wine shopping. Then let Oldman help you understand why. And then, please, open that much-considered bottle, let the wine breathe in your glass, and, as waiters keep saying to me, "Enjoy." -- by Jesse Kornbluth, for HeadButler.com Copyright 2008 by Head Butler Inc. Jesse Kornbluth 10/31/08
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