(Sebastian Höpfner / Manfred Klimek – editorial team / animated pic: Rutz & runwayml)
I spent a long time wondering whether I should write this down at all. Because so much is happening right now. Because the wine world is changing more dramatically than it has in a long time. And because much of it is not easy to grasp.
Drinking habits are changing. Young people are drinking less wine and turning to other things. At the same time, everything is becoming more expensive, including wine. People are thinking more carefully about when and what they buy. Added to this are political tensions, economic pressure and a market that is rearranging itself. These are all major issues. But that is not the only thing this is about for me. What concerns me is something else. What concerns me is a detail.
The tone has changed.
Over the past few months, I have increasingly had the feeling that the tone in our industry is shifting. That we are no longer talking to one another, but almost exclusively about one another. That it is less about understanding things and more about categorising them quickly. Or worse still: devaluing them.
Theses are thrown out there that sound good, work quickly and attract lots of reactions. But they often lack depth. Or the willingness to really get to the bottom of things. And, to be honest, that worries me.
Talking about wine – or belittling it
Take someone like Milton Sidney Curtis, a wine blogger and wine futurist, about whom an article was even published in the Stuttgarter Zeitung, in which the copywriter was built up into a kind of voice of the young wine world. Is he?
Curtis stands up and says that wine language is not “elitist”, that old white male discourse dominates in restaurants – and is celebrated for it. It is easy to share, easy to like and easy to pass on.
But what is actually happening here? Generalisations are being made, things are being reduced. Nothing is being explained; it is simply being torn down.
Of course, the language of wine has often been difficult, and not infrequently downright stupid. Of course, there are things that must be criticised. But if the response is to reduce everything to an ironic level, then in the end there is not much left. Reducing things to a merely ironic level is taking the easy way out – not only in the Somm scene.
And yes, you can do that. But then you should at least honestly say that you are consciously choosing against depth.
Criticism is necessary – but it is not irrelevant. And cheap irony is and remains cheap.
But there are also voices like Eren Goemleksiz. And his criticism of the VDP. There is criticism there too, and it is sharpened there too. But you can tell that there is engagement behind it. That someone is trying to understand things, put them into context and perhaps also change them.
You may approve of that or not. But you have to engage with it.
And that is precisely what I often miss in the current debate: distinguishing between criticism that wants to achieve something – and criticism that simply wants to have an effect; criticism for criticism’s sake – and for the great feeling of having stepped on someone’s toes.
But we are all in the same boat
In the end, we all work with the same product. Winemakers, merchants, sommeliers, journalists, influencers – we all depend on this wine. And on it being understood. On it being drunk. On it remaining relevant. And that is precisely why I do not understand why we so often work against one another. Why we divide ourselves into camps, belittle one another, wear one another down, instead of working together on something. We do not have to agree. Quite the opposite. But we should know why we are saying something.
And for whom.
Less posturing, more substance
It does not bother me that people argue. It bothers me how they argue. Too often, it is no longer about the issue, but about attention. About the quick effect. About one’s own position. A comment that performs well. A pointed statement that brings reach. But what does it do for wine?
I do not want to go back. No old wine world, no closed language, no elitist spaces.
But I would like us to become more precise again. To take more time. To take one another seriously. And for criticism to go where it belongs again: to the people who can do something with it.
Not into the void. Not to the audience. Not as an end in itself.
In the end, it is all about the wine
We have an incredible product to represent. And we are currently facing major challenges – economic, social and cultural. The last thing we need now is to tear ourselves apart. We need collaboration. Not opposition.
And we need a discussion that does justice to wine.
Not a discussion about us. Even if that is where the most emotional engagement can be found.