Gary, how about giving us a vin jaune episode?

One of the major creepy things I am guilty of is begrudging Betts & Scholl their recent four million dollar windfall.

I don’t know the guys and have nothing against them. People make lots of money for doing truly repulsive things that belittle, hurt or kill innocent people and certainly these guys can’t be accused of any such thing.

What I object to is their pretending to be “winemakers” in Australia, California and Hermitage. C’mon….they are two guys with day jobs, one in Aspen and one in Miami. They are not “winemakers” and they are running on hype, pretense and posture. The crazy thing about America is they are being rewarded, rather than condemned, for their efforts.

We just went through an economic blow-up with people selling derivatives of derivatives of derivatives. All with no real product or value. The economy collapsed.

Isn’t it time to call a halt to such lunacy? Wine is rooted, an agricultural product, which was here before and which will be here after credit derivatives come and go. Wine comes from the earth, not a marketeer’s cynical playbook. The key to all great wines is the vines, not a business plan.

Betts & Scholl got the idea to create a label, plop that label on wines, and say they were the “winemakers.” Betts & Scholl then got lots of great reviews (Betts was already a well-known sommelier and had plenty of contacts) for the winemaking they never did. Their wines got critical praise and the next step was to parlay a virtual winery with no facility, no vines, no nothing into the big sale. They didn’t say there were importing wines or selecting wine, Betts & Scholl were winemakers.

This is not winemaking and it is not a négociant model. In principal a négociant buys grapes, must, juice or makes wines and then blends, bottles and then plops their label.

I import wine. None of the wines say Mis en Bouteille par Joe Dressner à East 4th Street, Dubai-sur-le-Bowery.”

For me, what is beautiful in the wine world is the seemingly lost world of growers who work their fields well, bottle their wines and then go out and sell them. Artisan has become a cynical term because everything is now working on an “artisan” basis. Even Aspen and Miami “winemakers.” But there are real artisans out there all over Europe and even here in America we have the beginning of a movement. Artisans who are in tune with nature, not Powerpoint presentations.

For me, what is cynical about Betts & Scholl is that they always knew they were not “winemakers.” Betts is a well known sommelier and no doubt a talented and charismatic guy. I don’t know anything about Scholl other than he is an art collector, seems to have money and has the same last name as the people who make the foot care products. The Betts who picked wines for Little Nell didn’t pick wines based on gimmicks or hype, but insisted on some honesty in the wines presentation and what was in the bottle. He knew what a “winemaker” is and is not.

I received a note today from a wine lover I respect thanking me for Ariana Occhipinti’s wine. I thanked the person, but noted that it is Ariana who deserves the thanks not me. I’m the importer, she does the work in the vines and the cellar.

I firmly believe “chacun son métier.”

Everyone has their craft, everyone has their place.

QOTD: I just got an excellent deal the other day when I got basically 3 bottles of wine free because of a great sale.

GO PACK, GO BUCKY, GO AMERICA

However, what is all this about wine being a grocery, not a luxury, then pricing most of the wines at 70 bones?