Having enjoyed a career in the wine world for about 30 years now, I’ve been thinking about what a truly fascinating ride it’s been. Thirty years ago, the wine scene was literally exploding with personalities and events that would make dramatic impacts on how we, as Americans, make wine, buy wine, drink wine and even talk about wine.
While I was graduating from high school in Louisville KY in 1974, Tim Mondavi was graduating from the University of California at Davis, the place to go, then and now, to become a winemaker. It had only been eight years earlier that his father Robert, at the age of 54, started his own winery. Together, the two of them would literally put Napa Valley on the map.
After high school, the “wine bug” bit me while I was working in a couple of nice restaurants in Louisville. Names like Chateau Lascombes, Pouilly Fuissé and Piesporter Goldtropfchen, along with their fancy labels and foreign origins, intrigued me. California wines were practically nonexistent at the time, but names like Jordan, Joseph Phelps and Duckhorn would emerge as the first wave of “boutique” wineries. And then companies like Coca Cola, Nestlé and Pillsbury started buying large California wineries (Sterling, Beringer and Chateau Souverain come to mind) and the French began building California wineries—like Domaine Chandon and Opus One. Full speed ahead!
In the ‘70s, wine was positioned as an elitist beverage, difficult to pronounce, intimidating to purchase and impossible to open! The average household did not own a corkscrew, you didn’t go to a conveniently located grocery store to buy a good bottle of wine and if you were an American woman, forget it. Women were never handed wine lists in restaurants, women didn’t work in the wine industry and women didn’t buy wine. What a difference thirty years makes!
As a matter of fact, it was precisely thirty years ago that California made an indelible mark on the wine world. What started out as an interesting comparison tasting organized by a London wine retailer became an international challenge between the reigning wine champions of the world—the French—and the newbies across the pond—the Californians. When the judges (mostly French) turned in their votes and the results were revealed, tradition turned somersaults. A California Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon (a 1973 Chateau Montelena and a 1973 Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars) crushed their French counterparts, as did a number of other California entries. It was a gasp heard ‘round the world as California wine suddenly became a player.
But it was a slow acceptance. I can remember routinely defending California wines to customers and clients as late as the mid 1980s. Wine has been a symbol of some of our most ridiculous stereotypes.
Case in point. My first job in wine (a wine shop within a gourmet food section of a large department store) did not come easily. I had to start in the deli. My boss later confessed that his boss had insisted that he hire a “middle aged distinguished looking man” to run the wine shop. But as wine deliveries literally piled up, and no one matching that description appeared, I put myself to work in the wine shop and was eventually transferred there. The corporate guys upstairs warmed up to me once they realized I had direct access to great wines at great prices.
Now? Somersaults again! Women buy most of the wine in the U.S., most of it from grocery stores. The screw cap is replacing the cork. The French are losing market share faster than you can say “adieu” and countries that had no presence in the wine world twenty years ago (like Australia and New Zealand) are suddenly major players.
It’s been a great ride. But hang on, there’s more to come.
