The following is the (translated) text of a delightfully provocative speech given at this year's VDP Weinbörse by noted German writer Gero von Randow, editor of the Hamburg weekly Die Zeit, author of Geniessen (Pleasure) and winner of the second Euroscience Writer's Award in 2003. His professional speciality is the social effects of science but it is clear that he is a wine amateur wine too. Here he is particularly critical of the current German trend towards standardisation, both on wine labels and in the bottle. (The VDP is the association of Germany's top growers.) There is no record of the growers' reaction.
Ladies and Gentlemen:
I have decided to direct my remarks this morning explicitly to the wine-growers in the room. Everyone else can, of course, also listen in and either boo or applaud what they hear.
So, dear wine-growers...I was very pleased when I was invited to give the opening speech at your trade fair. I know many of you from wine events at which I was able to enjoy and admire the fruits of your labor. Many others I do not know personally, but I have “met you” via your wines.
All of you who are gathered here contribute to my personal happiness and to the well-being of my friends.
We wine drinkers are more interested in your work than you might imagine. We are interested in your work in the vineyard and in the cellar, as well as packaging and labeling. Those who drink your wines wish you ongoing success.
Karl Marx wrote about the fetishism of commodities, whereby the dominance of commodities and trade effects a set of relationships between things rather than people. He was wrong about that, but it was Friedrich Engels, not Marx, who was a passionate wine fan.
People like us are at the end of the food chain, nevertheless we realize that for ages, the wine industry has made great efforts to establish rules and regulations affecting viti- and viniculture. All of these commendable efforts have left their marks, not unlike the annual rings of a tree. Those who really want to understand this evolution are best advised to brace themselves...take courage, perhaps, from a glass of wine.
Particularly because the Germans, when they adopt new regulations, do not do away with the old. For this reason, I can still look forward to a wine labelled “2010er Klein-Kleckersdorfer Rieslinghölle Spätlese feinherb Tolles Gewächs – Selection –, kontrollierter Biowein, genfrei, leicht geschwefelt (alte Reben, bestes Fass, drei Sternchen) – VDP.” [Roughly, a wine from the 2010 vintage, from the village of Kleckersdorf, from the vineyard Rieslinghölle, of the ripeness level Spätlese, dryish in taste, great growth – selection –, organic wine, not genetically altered, slightly sulfured (old vines, best cask, 3 stars) – VDP.]
I’d say: this will all fit on the label. OK with me.
The successful viticultural “methods of confusion” (i.e. using pheromones to confuse male moths and prevent them from finding females, and reproducing), have definitely spilled over into the marketplace.
This is seen by pros and experts as a “deplorable state of affairs” with regard to label nomenclature...their slogan is: “stop the proliferation of permissible terms on labels.” Give customers a simple, clear vocabulary on the outside (of the bottle) so they know what to expect inside (the bottle). Such is the goal of current “official” propaganda.
Perhaps you will be surprised to learn that I am of a different opinion.
Indeed, I welcome all efforts to set up non-official, voluntary quality criteria. I’m also a great fan of certification. I’d love to “certify” myself.
When VDP is on a label, for example, then I know that VDP is inside the bottle and I can be confident about purchasing this bottle of wine. In addition, when “Grosses (or) Erstes Gewächs” is on a label, then I know that this wine was made from grapes grown in a top site and is a carefully handcrafted wine. Naturally, as a consumer, I can only welcome this kind of information. At the same time, as an editor of a liberal newspaper, I am of the opinion that wine nomenclature does not need all kinds of legal restraints...the laws governing deception are sufficient.
Above all, I would hope that all the cherished, confusing, delusive, and strangely old-fashioned 'language of the label' does not disappear. It reflects the tradition and diversity and regionalism of Germany’s wines. And it is an enigmatic language that doesn’t always disclose each and every detail about a wine. Take “Riesling Spätlese,” for example. In some regions it is typically much sweeter than in other regions. A quirk that doesn’t seem to bother our neighbors, the French. For them it is taken for granted that a Jurançon is a sweet wine unless it is labeled Jurançon sec. And why shouldn’t top winemakers in Germany maintain as much diversity as their Burgundian counterparts, who are masters of deliberate confusion?
It is not by accident that it was the Burgundians who set the tone for the concept “terroir.” And whoever wants to find out why a wine tastes this way, but not some other way, and why the label bears so many mysterious terms...he or she will have to come to grips with terroir – a unity of physics, chemistry, biology, technology, culture and history. Terroir is quintessentially a geographical concept. Geographers do not typically ask: why is something this way and not some other way, but rather why is something here – at this very location – this way and not some other way. As you see, a complicated question. It is a question of nature, culture and location in their entirety.
There is someone, however, who can offer wine lovers an answer to this question: the wine-grower.
There’s nothing like a visit to a wine estate. I know, visitors can be very annoying, particularly when they cannot accept the fact that there is a difference between an enterprise that produces wine and a restaurant or sociable “hangout” that serves wine. Nevertheless, it is precisely this encounter or relationship between wine lover and wine producer that unlocks the promise of pleasure behind all the designations – villages, people – mentioned on the beautiful labels.
Trade journals don’t see it this way. Indeed, one that I subscribe to sees this personal contact between wine lover and wine producer as “a basic problem for merchandisers of German wine on all levels, since the price of a wine sold directly to customers on the premises is often less than the price for the same wine being sold through commercial channels.”
Well...it’s pretty logical that the price of a wine purchased directly from the producer is going to be less than that of a wine that has to include compensation for transportation and other transaction costs, including the middleman’s margin. But then that is free-enterprise thinking, and not always deemed desirable by the German wine industry.
In reading on in the aforementioned trade publication, we come across advice to the grower in order to alleviate this “problem” – namely: to use a different label (for the very same wine) so that it is impossible for the consumer to compare the on-premise or direct-sale price with the commercial price. In other words, we simply do away with the possibility of price comparison – a classic marketing mechanism – and implement a tried-and-true modus operandi – deception. Deception that leads to a disposition of property or assets, lies at the heart of the legal definition of fraud.
But please don’t get me wrong. We all need the wine trade. In fact, one of my best friends just opened a wine shop around the corner from where I live and it’s become a neighborhood meeting place. And his concept? Wines from wine-growers...he personally knows them and visits their estates. In this way, he is the personal link between the growers and their wines and his customers. Americans know the expression “social drinking” – they mean drinking in the company of others. I like the term, but to me it means something else: enjoying wine together helps build social relationships...a relationship among all who are interested in or care about wine.
I’d like to mention that when I drink your wines, I think of you. You, who are as diverse as the wine designations and vineyard names on your labels...one is a bit drier, the other slightly sweeter, many are quite dry, sometimes with more and sometimes with less volume.
People are diverse; wines should also be diverse; and their appellations or designations can also be diverse.
As wine-growers you all are familiar with biology. Specific botanical or insect names have been handed down over time and are at least as traditional as those related to wine. This doesn’t bother biologists, because they have learned that what is considered modern today, i.e. the designations based on the latest findings, will be considered nonsense tomorrow. In other words, biologists do not engage in battles, or the evolution of semantics, they just get on with their work – studying the science of life.
Perhaps you find my words to be unreceptive to innovation. But not everything new is an innovation and not all innovations are practical or wise. “Alcopops,” for example, are an innovation; they’ve proved to be successful in the market; and the respective trade association has already called the federal government hostile to innovation because the latter wants to inform the public about the dangers of Alcopops. I’ll gladly contribute to this process of enlightenment and would like to suggest that every bottle of Alcopop bear a sticker that reads: “The federal cultural minister warns: Alcopops ruin your capacity for enjoyment.”
Did you know that there’s a company in Germany that sells a cola-and-wine mix named “Haubitze”? (The German word literally means ‘howitzer’ but it is used figuratively to mean ‘drunk as a skunk.’) Not every innovation merits applause.
The same is true of innovations in wine technology. With special, industrially manufactured enzymes and yeasts, it is possible to steer toward very specific aromas in wine, as precise as a computer program. There is no doubt that this technique is increasingly successful, day by day...but it will homogenize diversity.
I well remember the slogan “the proof of a wine’s quality is in the glass.” This sounds good and is also true, but it is also an ambiguous slogan, because it can be interpreted as “the end justifies the means.” And this is a way of thinking that is very dangerous, because ultimately, it can also corrupt the end.
Those who are competent in the vineyard and cellar can produce good wines – but can easily fall prey to the temptation to produce not the typical...what the geographer seeks, i.e. something inextricably linked to a specific location...but rather to produce what’s popular, i.e. that which the market is slurping down at the moment.
You’re probably thinking “he’s a fine one to talk...he doesn’t have to sell wine.”
I am fully aware of that. But I still have to drink what’s on offer.
And I would hope that my words will help a certain class of consumers comprehend that the diversity and typicity of German wines merit paying enough for them, so that we can enjoy drinking such wines for a long time to come.
The VDP is a small, radical minority. Yet its few member estates – and a few other friends who are not members of your association – represent a greater diversity than all the other estates of Germany combined. I congratulate you on this.
And if I had a glass of wine in my hand right now, I’d lift my glass and proclaim: “Long live the diversity of German wines!"