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Vino Myths Busted by the Vino Vixen
Supermarket Wine Aisle – It Ain’t the Ketchup Aisle
Once upon a time, the wine section of your supermarket carried about five wines – Gallo, Inglenook, Almaden, Carlo Rossi, and Sutter Home White Zinfandel for those special occasions. With wine now surpassing beer in consumption, those days are thankfully long gone.
Now there are more wine brands, labels, regions, and wineries today than ever before. Just take a stroll down the wine aisle of your local supermarket and notice the difference from that same aisle 20 years ago or, say the ketchup aisle today. You have maybe three ketchup choices: Heinz, Hunts, and probably the store brand. Same for orange juice: Tropicana or Minute Maid. But, the wine aisle is at least an entire aisle long, six shelves high, and filled with a dizzy array labels – with new ones coming in daily. And they are all competing for your cash and attention
There’s One Born Every Minute…
All these wineries and labels are pulling out all the marketing stops to entice you to plop their bottle into your cart. And here are some of the ways they are fooling you into doing that:
The Reserve Wine
Reserve is a sexy, catchy wine term that means absolutely nothing. At one time it did mean something, and for some select wineries it still does. But, for the majority of wines you see on your supermarket wine shelf that carry this illustrious word – it is purely a marketing word to make you think the wine is something special. Reserve is not an official classification, not regulated, nor is it a defined wine term. Reserve is simply a word that makes you grab that $9.99 bottle of wine and feel like you are sipping a very special wine.
Estate Grown
Estate Grown simply means that the juice in that bottle of wine came from grapes owned by the winery. For some estates that are simply phenomenal wine sites, like Harlan Estates or Hedges Red Mountain , this term is meaningful. But, for the majority of wines that slap this term on the label, it’s a silly marketing ploy. What if the vineyards and grapes grown on the property aren’t all that great? I’d rather sip a wine made from a selection of the best-sourced grapes from the best vineyards. A great example of wines sourced from the best vineyards are Four Vines Vineyards and the vineyard designate series of wines from Ravenswood .
Organic
Organic on a wine label is absolutely no guarantee of quality or even being organic. The organic rules for the wine industry are still evolving and there is no one certifying authority that is the final word on the organic designation for wine. According to the USDA’s National Organic Program (NOP) , an “Organic Wine” can have absolutely no added sulfites. But, the truth is sulfer dioxide has been added to wine for thousands of years – it prevents organisms from growing in wine, allows the wine to age (without them, wine would be vinegar in no time), and maintains wine quality. There are MAYBE 5 commercially available wines today that are made without added sulfites and comply with NOP’s definition of “Organic Wine.”
Gold Medal Winner
You’ve seen the little tags that go around the neck of the bottle declaring the wine “Best in Class” or “Gold Medal Winner.” They do a great job selling drawing your attention to the wine – next time your attention is drawn, read the tag carefully. Often the accolades are for a different vintage or from a wine competition in Bumblebrook, Idaho and the challenging wines were Idaho’s finest. Often the wines sporting these tags are big, corporate wineries with budgets to match. The small, family owned wineries that I am drawn to can’t afford these marketing campaigns.
Cheers!
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