Maybe… I think there has definitely been an upsurge in quality domestic (US) wine in the past thirty or forty years.
IIRC, sometime in the very early 1980s some California wines beat out the top-rated French wines, and showed that the California wine industry had improved quite a bit. What I remember from the mid-90s on was that American wine was competitive at the lower price points and the very high ones, but the best mid-range/mid-high range wines were all European.
Then starting sometime in the early 2000s, we started seeing a lot of imports from places like Chile, Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as a real step-up from domestic wine makers.
So now, if you want a mid-range bottle of wine, you’re not really buying French, Italian, NZ, California, or Washington wine because of where it’s made and any sort of intimation of quality that comes with it, you’re buying it because you like that specific style/varietal that they make there.
I feel like that probably really torpedoed the lower-end European brands that previously traded on the idea that they were imports and just a bit better than the domestic plonk.
Same thing happened about the same time in the beer world, FWIW. European brands that were always just a hair better and imported withered and dried up overnight in the glare of the craft brewing industry. When was the last time you saw Lowenbrau, Grolsch, Amstel Light, etc…? I’m sure they’re all still out there, but you have to hunt them down (with the exception of Heineken and Stella; they figured out the marketing quickly), instead of being able to find them in every gas station.
AND…the stuff we get is a step or two above the average plonk produced in those countries, because it doesn’t pay to export trash. You sell that locally.
Yep. Luckily, the next town over has a boutique beer cellar where I can find all sorts of imported goodies. But everybody should be so lucky.
That reminds me of one of the most fascinating graduate business school experiences I had. On my study abroad in the UK, one of the women in our group had a friend whose husband was the director of marketing for E&J Gallo, and she got her friend to have her husband give us a talk about his job and how that worked.
I have to hand it to him, he put on the dog for us- full wine tasting of everything E&J marketed in Europe, as well as a formal presentation and a pretty extended Q&A afterward.
The most interesting part was that they were definitely bringing their A game from what I could taste, because they already had a reputation to overcome, as well as the obvious “How do you sell American wine in Europe?” challenge. I don’t know how they ended up doing, but it was definitely true that the stuff they were selling over there was a cut or three above the stuff in the gallon jugs you buy here.
Once Gina got involved and started Gallo Estate, Gallo Signature and Gallo Family Vineyards, the rep of the organization took a big step up. They still sell the plonk (under the brands Carlo Rossi, Paul Masson, Vella and Taylor.) They also own a couple dozen other wineries around California to get to the “Not Ripple but I’m not made of money” market niche (Alamos, Barefoot, Black Box, Ravenswood, William Hill, etc.) I miss the old “Gallo Hearty Burgundy.” Great BBQ/camping/doing shit outdoors wine.
We’re in a pretty great era of good, cheap wine right now. At Costco I can get a good Marlborough white for $8 and a 91 point Wine Enthusiast Portuguese red for $7. Hard to beat and a big step up from Carlo Rossi. Box wines have really upped their game, also. We have to throw glass away here, so box wines are pretty attractive.
When I lived in Germany I loved the wine. I hate sweet wine. There was no problem finding a good trocken or halbtrocken wine there. In the US it seems like everything they export here is sickly sweet.
I remember getting Schmitt and Soehne, American Marketed, Christmas Giftboxes back in the Early Nineties. It had, like, a couple of .5 liter bottles of Riesling or Gewuerztraminer and " Two collectibles" - a unique style of German wine goblet typical to the Rhein Weinstrasse. They were in grocery and liquor stores during the holidays.
…oh, I just remembered what the glasses were called. “Römer”. Roman Style, under the Empire’s taming of the Germanic Tribes.
This is what we call a Römer. It’s the kind of wine glass my grandparents used to have, but they have gotten totally out of style and I haven’t been served wine in a Römer for 35 years at least (if ever).
My friend has held a fancy dress party every summer for about 15 years. The prize for best costume is always (as a joke) a bottle of Mateus Rose.It always gets left behind by the winner, so is recycled for the next party. The same bottle has been used every year for 15 years.
We visited my wife’s brother in Germany in 1990 while he was in the service there. He and his wife were big into Volksmarches, so one Saturday afternoon we went with them. The reward for finishing the 5k stroll was one glass for each participant. If we were like the Germans there, we would have filled them with wine and spend the rest of the afternoon having a grand old time (their ice wine was just being released for the season). We still have the glasses here somewhere.
Ice wine is a specialty, but not to my taste nowadays, it’s just too sweet (I liked to take little sips of ice wine as a child, though, when my parents weren’t looking ). Germany is divided into beer and wine regions. Everywhere where wine is cultivated, the typical bar is a wine tavern, while everywhere else it’s a beer pub. It’s perfectly possible that in those wine regions, especially the ones with many tourists, wine is still served in Römers, because of their old-timey German kitsch charm. I live in a beer region and here it would feel tacky, quaint and cheap to get served wine in a Römer in a bar or restaurant.
I feel the same way about the 70’s, American, Old-fashioned revival of Jass Bands, Penny Farthings, handlebar mustaches, and Giant Pizza Place, ice frosted large stemmed goblets for draught Beer (Schooners, maybe. I Think?). Also Passe’.
Straw Boatman-Skimmer hats also came back briefly in the 70’s with the thick and large, long stemmed, glass beer goblets here at O-I, Libbey Glass back in the 70’s. I had some green glass schooners with the vintage smiley-faces imprinted.
I guess that was pre-emoji, with the Forrest Gump Yellow Smiley Faces, all over a matching 6 piece set of Green Glass Goblets (hefty, at least 16 ounces) imprinted with this . Got them from the Libbey Glass Outlet. As kitschy as some glass designs seem, between a glass manufacturer and a local Museum (TAM) there is a collection and catalog of styles that have come and gone, and seem classical. It would be interesting to see if my Local Musseum that has a glass history would have any ancient Roman Glasses that resemble the “Roemer” Barbarian style. Coiled glass stem…
Yes, my favorite “Swag” in Germany, were- city, or region “Schilder” for my Black Forest Walking Stick. Embellished and commemorative of event or winery, Roemers. And Platten, or Loeffeln, or Stein, or Boembelchen.
They were all the German version of the OG T-Shirt, or coozy, or Collector’s Plates of comemmeration or celebration.
). Germany is divided into beer and wine regions. Everywhere where wine is cultivated, the typical bar is a wine tavern, while everywhere else it’s a beer pub. It’s perfectly possible that in those wine regions, especially the ones with many tourists, wine is still served in Römers, because of their old-timey German kitsch charm. I live in a beer region and here it would feel tacky, quaint and cheap to get served wine in a Römer in a bar or restaurant.
. Got them from the Libbey Glass Outlet. As kitschy as some glass designs seem, between a glass manufacturer and a local Museum (TAM) there is a collection and catalog of styles that have come and gone, and seem classical. It would be interesting to see if my Local Musseum that has a glass history would have any ancient Roman Glasses that resemble the “Roemer” Barbarian style. Coiled glass stem…