Some years ago, Steve was visiting his friend Adrian at his vacation home in Southold, in the middle of Long Island’s North Fork. One late afternoon, sitting on the veranda and sipping a local wine, the two fellows engaged in a hearty discussion about the value of Long Island’s experiments with wine production, still novel at that time.
Steve stated that the wines produced on the North Fork were nowhere near the quality of similarly priced wines from California, France or Australia. So what was the point of paying top dollar for poorer wines?
Adrian’s response was that it was worth supporting the local industry precisely so that the wine makers would have the opportunity to improve over time. At that point, many of the vineyards – and thus the vines – were ten years old or less. If no one bought their wines in their youth, the vineyards would never have the opportunity to reach maturity and potentially great wines would never be made.
As we say elsewhere in this issue, we are finding that North Fork wines are beginning to meet the test of time, albeit more so at some wineries than at others. But the question at the heart of Adrian and Steve’s conversation remains: if there are better wines at similar prices from the world’s great wine growing appellations, is there any purpose for drinking wines from “lesser” regions? What in fact makes one particular section of Wine Country better or worse? Is it not just a matter of what we’re used to?
The original subject was Long Island’s wines but the same can be asked of, say, Santa Clara vs. Napa, Puglia vs. Tuscany or Languedoc vs. Bordeaux. Why not limit yourself to the best? In particular, for those of us who enjoy traveling for the purpose of wine tasting, is there any reason to make a trip to any but the “best” regions. We have come to the opinion that yes, it does make sense, with some reservations.
As a general statement, these regions are lesser known, rather than simply of poorer quality. In any given year, there are some great wines made in vineyards that are unlikely to show up in the pages of Wine Spectator, or if they do they’ll be in the voluminous lists in the back not the news articles up front.
In our recent voyages, we have discovered wines from regions we had previously either not known of or had disliked, such as Minervois, eastern Sicily and California’s Central Coast. In most cases, there will be a greater concentration of top-quality wines in better-known regions, so with a little homework in advance you can raise your odds of trying the better wines and skipping the underachievers. But if you don’t go, you won’t know.
Moreover, who’s to say what’s better and what’s worse? Tastes, especially in wine, change over time. It’s not that long ago that no one cared about Pinot Noirs from the Santa Rita Hills, Ripassos from Valpolicella or Shirazes from the Barossa. Now these are highly prized wines, attracting buyers and visitors from everywhere fine wine is appreciated. If nothing else, taking a wine tasting trip to a little known corner of Wine Country gives you bragging rights when and if that area gets recognition.
“Ah, yes, I remember when the growers were virtually giving away the wine and it was just small producers serving wine in their barns”. That’s us, talking about Napa Valley a few decades ago. Who knew then what a big deal it would be today?