{"id":6290,"date":"2012-12-31T11:11:44","date_gmt":"2012-12-31T11:11:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/?p=6290"},"modified":"2012-12-31T11:11:44","modified_gmt":"2012-12-31T11:11:44","slug":"beauty-ugliness-and-branded-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/uncategorized\/beauty-ugliness-and-branded-wines","title":{"rendered":"Beauty, ugliness and branded wines"},"content":{"rendered":"

[A post prompted by a twitter discussion with Robert Joseph and Tim Atkin.]<\/em><\/p>\n

It is great for the wine world when big brands do a good job. Examples that come to mind: Jacob’s Creek, Brancott, Concha y Toro.<\/p>\n

It is hard for big wine brands to be good. This is because making authentic wine requires attention to detail. Lots of little details make a good wine. It’s hard for wine to be scaleable, because it’s an agricultural, not a manufactured product, and you only get one vintage a year. Take short cuts in the vineyard and the wine quality will suffer.<\/p>\n

Of course, some of the most successful wine brands are what I would describe as bad wines. Sweetened up, aiming at the lowest common denominator. They are ugly, and I realise that by saying this I am making an aesthetic judgement.<\/p>\n

We all have enough ugliness in our lives, and we need more beauty. More authenticity.<\/p>\n

Good, authentic\u00a0food and wine can be a source of beauty and interest in our lives. Its pursuit and consumption can provide a shared pleasure, because eating and drinking are eminently sociable activities. It is a shared beauty accessible to all.<\/p>\n

But the problem is that in our modern society, it is not accessible to all because of the modern retail environment.<\/p>\n

I wouldn’t force my tastes on anyone. I just want everyone to have a chance to experience the authentic and beautiful. If they then reject it, fine. But for them never to have the chance is sad.<\/p>\n

Everyone should have a chance to fall in love with\u00a0good wine. That so few rarely get to experience the real thing is a shame. That’s what we should try to address. Some will respond, and their lives will be enriched by it. That’s why good, big wine\u00a0brands are important.\u00a0They give people a chance to experience good wine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[A post prompted by a twitter discussion with Robert Joseph and Tim Atkin.] It is great for the wine world when big brands do a good job. Examples that come…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6290","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6290"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6295,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6290\/revisions\/6295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wineanorak.com:\/wineblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}