Heroes and villains of the wine trade

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. When push comes to crunch you see people for who they really are…

The older I get the more I blow to extremes. On the positive side I find myself empathising with dedicated, passionate people and admire generosity, courtesy, humility, integrity and respect. I deeply value intelligence but deplore petty-mindedness, shallowness and greed, and I find rudeness unforgiveable.

The wine trade, like any business, attracts a wide range of personalities. Those who regard themselves as hard businessmen (or woman) are often self-aggrandising, venal, ignorant chancers rolling with the good times, disappearing with the bad. Theirs was never a crusade for quality or even permanence. These entrepreneurial types, feted for their acumen during the boom period, have thus been exposed as hucksters; many are grimly scrabbling for their financial lives, screwing their suppliers to the last penny on margin, and a fair few have shuffled off their mortal coil leaving toxic debt behind them. Those who rely on such tactics are not just morally bankrupt, they are likely to become financially bankrupt, because their business empire has been built on a sham.

Restaurants need subtle nurturing; they do not easily provide short term gain. A true restaurateur will understand every aspect of the business such how their suppliers operate and the rationale behind discounts and price rises. They will strive to build relationships and recognise the importance of mutuality, and, as a result they will gain the loyalty of suppliers and customers alike. They will invariably work in their own restaurants, refuse absolutely to compromise quality and get on with the job of providing hospitality. That word is important – deriving from the notion of giving succour and pleasure to weary travellers. None of us are working for charity but we are in a service industry and if we think purely in terms of profit rather than passion and spirit we ultimately devalue the offering. Restaurants that deliver a strong personalised experience have the best chance of thriving during a recession.

Les Caves is a small business. Some people make assumptions that wine companies are cash cows to be milked. We give what we can in terms of time, dedicated service, training and involvement. All of us are devoted to the job and it is a pleasure when one deals with like-minded professionals. We are still idealistic even in these relatively mercenary times; we want to sell good, honest terroir wines and we want the widest number of people to taste and enjoy them.

Quality, however, is put on the back-burner when restaurateurs talk about the discount before the wines. Such cart-before-horse negotiation is regressive and myopic. To perceive wine purely as a function of profit is to lose the fact that quality is synonymous with pleasure and pleasure drives spend. When wine is reduced to a blank value we might as well be a million miles away from the country of origin or the grower. What is inside the bottle becomes irrelevant; the label and the price (point) is everything. It may be cynical to treat wine as a generic (like lemonade) but it happens too frequently. This is the gross profit culture, one which does not relate in any meaningful way to people’s experience of wining and dining. In many establishments wine qua wine is regarded as the simplest means to protect the margin. Which begs the question: why would anyone pay exorbitant prices for sheer mediocrity?

If bean-counters and their squeakily reductive viewpoints make me bubble and boil I can understand that their misguided notions are because they are briefed to run a business at a profit and quality and customer satisfaction is not in their remit. On a different tack the quality of wine lists is dependent on many bar managers, restaurateurs, and self-styled consultants (I absolve the genuine ones) who wrongly believe that they can taste perceptively. Some people have natural palates and some people can learn how to taste whilst others bring prejudice and confused knowledge. What they taste, therefore, is not the wine in front of them but the reflection of their bias. I have done tastings with wine buyers who would assert baldly: “I don’t like white wines” and rather than disqualifying themselves from venturing an informed opinion, proceed to criticise all the whites shown. I’ve been told that wines were oaky that had never strayed from a stainless steel vat, that “all French wines were over-rated”, that “the best cheap wines in the world were from Australia”. If you contradict the dozens of misapprehensions you make the perpetrators lose face and this is socially unacceptable. One should taste with a bit of humility and respect and be prepared to learn. I may not like fish, but I know if it’s fresh, properly cooked and appealing. Wine attracts ridiculous snobbery and inverted snobbery. A little learning is truly a dangerous thing.

My other villains would number wine merchants who pander to the ridiculous demands of potential customers, who source for price point, who give extended credit terms to obtain business and who would buy market share by prostituting quality. There is a desperate business culture, wherein deals are sealed with chunky cash incentives. Some of the biggest contracts are effectively poker games with big companies upping with ante to such an extent they can’t hope to make a sensible profit on the account in question. This business model mirrors the supermarket “loss leader”, where wines at sold below cost price by means of creative cross subsidies.

The villains of the wine trade are not concerned about wine or encouraging customers to drink anything which is remotely interesting. But then business is business is business and wine has become a commercial commodity.

My other heroes? Vignerons, of course – particularly those who respect the environment, always feel that they are learning from nature and who make unpretentious wines for drinking which are an expression of their home rather than being concerned with impressing imaginary consumers or gaining medals. They are both artisans and artists (or scientific artists). For all the politics about how much a bottle of wine fetches up for in a restaurant, we should always cherish the growers.

Wine writers are more important than ever; those who display their love of the subject are in a unique position to enthuse a mass-audience, to demystify but also educate dynamically and lead people to discriminate in their choices.

There is a virtuous chain in the wine trade which traces the journey from the vine to the glass and is mediated through the passionate grower, the idealistic wine merchant and the conscientious and clever restaurateur. I would like to think that this journey is increasingly being recognised by customers as one marked by quality in every link of the chain. By getting people to understand that the liquid in the bottle is part of a wonderful, transformative process, we will also hopefully get them to challenge what they normally drink.