Yesterday, I attended a symposium on Understanding Regional Identity through Wine Styles. Presented through the Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County and sponsored by several local winery and industry organizations, the program centered around Mary Ewing-Mulligan, MW and Ed McCarthy’s new book, Wine Styles. In addition to hosting these authors, the symposium featured Collin Alevas of The Tasting Room restaurant and Jean-Luc Le Du of Le Du’s Wines.
After a brief welcome and introduction by Larry Perrine of Channing Daughters, Mary kicked off the event with a discussion on the need to approach wines through a new lens. Previously, wine has been parsed by region, grape variety and score, but none of these options lends itself well to the average consumer. If, instead, we group wines by their overall style, such as fresh, unoaked whites or spicy reds, we can empower the consumer to trust his/her palate and encourage a diversity of wine tastes. Mary and Ed’s premise and fuller conversation bring up a number of important points, which will be examined further at another time. For now, it is sufficient to note the relevance of their remarks to promoting diversity in wine styles by giving people permission to like whatever style of wine their palate prefers, removing the element of judgement or a sense of right and wrong.
The program continued with a presentation by Collin on the selection of wines for his restaurant, which exclusively offers American wine. He provided the participants with an opportunity to taste two wines — a unique CA Pinot Noir, with a cloudy appearance and interesting story as well as a WA Nebbiolo. Overall, his message was that of the need to tell stories about wines to engage consumer interest and sell wine. After a lively interaction, the group broke for lunch, during which participants had the chance to taste through wines from Channing Daughters, Raphael and those poured during the earlier tasting exercises.
Resuming in the afternoon, Jean-Luc shared his experience in the wine trade, first in his role of sommelier at Daniel restaurant and now in the context of a wine shop owner. He spoke about the difference inherent in Collin’s life — the restaurant customer is a captive audience — compared to his, whereby the retail customer can comparison shop (moreso than ever with the Internet) and his inability to be there when they open the bottle.
As a final installment to the day, Ed led a roundtable discussion of the panel, with Collin replaced by Richard Olsen-Harbich of Raphael, given his early departure. The participants were eager to ask questions of all panel members and many interesting discussions took place regarding wine styles and other wine topics. Overall, it was a very productive conference, as the wine industry came together to both explore and share many ideas about the world of wine. All in all, a definite class act.