QOTD- Absolutely stick to tradition, it’s why I buy the wine. I want the wine to taste, good or bad, true to it’s area, no matter where it’s from.

Gary thanks so much to have a guest like Robert on your show, learned so much and really enjoyed his passion for the love of wine. Robert keep up the great work , can’t wait to go to NYC to visit you at CRU. I saw the show after hours on Mojo channel with Daniel Boulud when he was at your place.

I definitely want regions to maintain their character, or “typicity”. I think tradition is such a connecting and human component, and it’s great when you can relate with those from the past who tasted the exact same wine that you are tasting today.

Now, I also think that it’s fine for Winemakers to use their own skills to create a wine anyway they’d like. I’d just like it for there to continue to be the traditions that we see today.

Great show Gary. Good guest.
QOTD ; I like my wines to be representative of the region they come from. I like my wines to be varied …… sometimes this is good , sometimes there are bad wines. Really a loaded question, because if a wine is not good, no one will buy it , and that poor producing region will die out. I really think you need both to be successful …….. and as a drinker I demand both . Give me regional typicity, give me terroir (or whatever one wishes to call it), give me tradition (a Brunello is a Brunello …. etc.) …… but you also better give me a decent wine to enjoy as I sip through it or I won’t come back to that wine/area/grape etc.

ok gv, here i go, as a chef i definately want the wines to have a region behind them, its sort of asking a chef if he loves tomatoes or strawberries, yes , we do, but we only wanna eat them at their peak, i dont want them any other time, the expectation of waiting for them is so much fun. it’s like waiting for beauj, nov. yeah its ok, but the push and the press every year is so much fun. it makes it more than it really is, which is ok. i wanna taste pinot from burgandy and know it from burgandy, or reisling from alsace, or germany, i wanna taste it and say this is def alsace and this is def germany. what do u htink about this point?

Great show Gary! Loved the guest and looking forward to someday trying the restaurant. My wife will be up in New England for six months during the time frame when I get my two weeks of leave from being deployed overseas and making the trip down to NYC for a special dinner at Cru will be something to look forward to. Can’t wait to see their wine list!

QOTD: I love that fact wines from different regions, for the most part, hold true to their tradition and heritage. While I do get to travel around the world with the Navy, it is fascinating to be able to take a virtual wine trip anywhere in the world and taste the wine the same as you would at the vineyard. While you’re always disappointed when a wine doesn’t taste delicious, I’d rather be able to experience wine from around the world and contemplate the harvest, weather, and winemaker during that experience, good or bad.

Great show, the guy you had this time was 100 times better than the other one.

QOTD: I want to drink good wines, do not care where they are from. If one is lucky to live in a place where the vines give them great fruit, I would prefer that they keep things simple and let the fruit do the talk. But I am also open to innovation and technology. If one does is not lucky to have terroir that gives good fruit, but finds a way to make great wine, well, kudos! I will drink it and enjoy it. I am not ditching the question, but things are not black and white.

QotD: Definitely want the regions to stay loyal to themselves. Part of the fun of drinking wine is identifying the regions that suit my palate. Won’t be any fun if everything tastes the same.

QOTD: Both! However, one can argue that traditional is relative, that nothing ever really stays the same. Even amongst old families; The Dujac of 1980 is made differently than it is today, as Robert said. And if you start farming biodynamically, like Joly, your wine will tase different, too. The wine world will probably always have both, with some producers sticking with what they do best, and others blowing off their AOC and experimenting with different varietals and techniques.
Then there’s the business side of it. I get the feeling that, while most everybody is answering “traditional,” we don’t want to/can’t pay for it. Who can afford Dujac on a daily basis? I think most people drink everyday wine that tastes good, regardless if it’s totally traditional or not. And unless you’ve actually tasted a top traditional producer from a particular AOC, you don’t even know what that tradition is!
As the industry is largely market-driven, things change to meet demand. Hence, they’re tearing up old-vine Zin and Petit Syrah in CA and Syrah and Grenache in southern France to make room for Merlot. And 200 years from now, that may well be seen as traditional.

Any Vayniacs out there from SLC?

I personally would like to see wine makers stay true to their region. I?m fairly new to wine tasting and part of the fun is finding a region you like and exploring it.

Great episode …

QOTD: I want wines to express the region they come from even if they are bad. While many of the wines that are produced locally are unfavorable to me I still appreciate them because they are true expressions of the local tradition and conditions. Wine must maintain it’s identity in my opinion.

Did you just get schooled on the stinky-stinky Gary? You have often professed to enjoy it, but now you get told that it’s a product of bad wine making and suddenly off the poop train? Keep it real Gary; we’re watching.

QOTD: I do want wines to taste where there from, but I don’t want them to taste bad either. In the grand scheme of things, wine is about people, experience and enjoyment. Just like in food, sometimes you’re going for the experience of trying something new. Often though, you just want something familiar that tastes good. Can’t we just have both? Wine that tastes good AND has a sense of place.

Saturday. I’m amazed.
QOTD: I’m not sure what makes a regional wine a regional wine. But I don’t mind if they tinker with their formulae and come up with something a bit different like Italy’s IGTs. I’d prefer the distinctive to the generic if I’m answering the question at all.

The one tradition I would like to see changed about traditional wines, which by the way I would like to see kept tradionanl….. is their price.

Did you get that….???

But I do like my new world zins, and ya gotta love those cult wines too.

🙂

Grat Saturday show love the guests passion.
QOTD. I think that if the rigenal aspects of wine and the variety of wine doesn’t holed its ground wine will suffer greatly for it. I believe that there are thousands if not millions of people that liked the “idea” of wine for a long time but were afraid to step into the wine world, and sad as it is Hollywood gave people the opportunity to get in without already knowing a member, and hear we are. This being said there are a lot of new wine drinkers that need the fruit bombs and entry level wines however those of us that stick around will eventually get board and really get into the real sudlties of region, climate, and terwa and if all the wine tastes the same people will stop drinking “THE SAME OLD THING”. So fight to keep it the way it is pleas we need you to do it untill we get there.

QOTD: YES! I want traditional wines. That being said there is always room for evolution like dropping Trebbiano and Malvasia from the Chianti Classico reqs. I do want to taste the terrior, the differences in vintage, and maybe a little signature of the winemaker. I am willing to wait for some wines to develop in a cellar and love to watch them as they progress. I dread the thought of the homogenization of over-ripe, carbonic-macerated, micro-oxygenated, RO dealc’d, over oaked, drink within 2 hours of purchase wines.

Vive la Différence

QOTD: Guard the tradtion!

First of all… Cru, Veritas, Hearth, Terroir (and so many others who represent a new generation of eateries that give wine its deserved attention) are the reason I love my city. Not only we have the best food in the world, but we also have the best wine lists and, more importantly, the best wine service of any city on earth. I spend an enormous amount of time in Europe (France, Italy, UK, Spain) and Latin America, and can easily say that there’s no place out there like Manhattan. If only our Knicks were any good…

Robert – thank you for being one of the leaders of this movement. I truly love what you guys have done.

QOTD: Tradition and terroir are the key elements of wine. It is very important that each region and each producer keeps their identity and uniqueness. It gives me the chills when I see certain wine makers in Europe (and most in the new world) trying to jump on the fruit-bomb / high alcohol bandwagon that was (and still is) too appreciated in this country. I want to taste the cigar box in my Graves, violet in my Pommard, meat juices and lavender in my Chateauneuf and bell peppers in my Chinon. Each of these wines have their place… depending on the food, ambiance, etc. We don’t need 15.5% alcohol and skittles in all our wines!

On that front… kudos to Paul Grieco who’s a one of the biggest defenders of wine identity and diversity out there… and Gary, of course!

PS: Funk is good!!!! It’s too easy to get fruit and alcohol out of grapes. The balance with earth, tobacco, coffee and funk (as much of those as possible), is what it’s all about. The old world rules.

Mr. Bohr, your conversation with Gary was very thought-provoking, educational,and enjoyable to watch. Since I live in Arizona, the discussion of people and places in NY is not all that relevant to me personally, but I imagine many Vayniacs live in the NJ & NY area and find it fascinating. However, your discussion of wine brought the thunder for me.

Your passion for the integrity of wine is inspirational, and your question of the day is very challenging. At the end of the day, there should be room in this world for both types of wine — the “old world” traditional and the “new world” modern. Though that may sound like a dodge, I don’t mean it to be. On one hand, it is great to experince the historical and cultural aspects of a traditionally-produced wine. But there are times when I am not in the mood for the traditional. Whether I wish to drink an over-oaked California cabernet sauvignon or a terroir-driven French merlot will likely be determined by my mood or by the food that is paired with the wine. When I go to a restaurant, a wine bar, or a wine shop, I want that choice. If all wines were made in the traditional way, or in a non-traditional way, there would be less variety, which would make the world a little less interesting.

I hope you will visit with Gary and his viewers again soon. It was a pleasure hearing your thoughts about wine. I hope to be able to visit your restaurant some day.

Great Part 2, loved this guest. Will be checking out CRU very soon.

QOTD: This will require a lengthier response than I usually give for the QOTD. I think there is a place in the world for both traditional and delicious wines. Yes, certain brunellos and Bordeaux’s taste like my gym sock, but that is what I’ve come to expect when I open those types of bottles. I would feel somehow misled if I opened those bottles and tasted juicy fruit that I’d expect from a $15 Barossa Shiraz.

I think in particular, when I’m out to eat in a restaurant, I want wines that challenge me to pull out their nuances and are versatile to go along with what i’m eating. I often want the food to pair with the wine rather than the wine pair with the food (if that makes sense). The wine, to me, is the main attraction to the meal.

When I’m at home watching WLTV, or eating pizza, or just relaxing in the summer on the porch. I don’t want to have to think about my wine. I want to enjoy the taste and the company of my loved ones or whomever I am opening the wine with. I guess this comes down to “food wines” vs. “drinking wines”.

In essence, there’s room for both, and I don’t think one will ever overcome the other. Tradition has lasted a long time and suited wine-drinkers well for centuries. What I have seen in the more recent productions is higher quality across the board which is good for wine and the wine drinker. cheers!

QOTD: I like for wine to express a sense of identity. sometimes that means tradition and place, sometimes that means an artful touch by the masterful hand of the wine maker. The best wines posses both.

There is certainly a place in the world for wines with a yummy factor. These wines lure people in to the wine world. On our journey as wine lovers we seek the uniqueness I speak of above.

Like anything, Tradition povides strong foundation while adaptation and exploration makes life exilerating and ever better. Wine potentially provides both simultaniously.

Good question.

Alright, I’m starting to think Gary is playing an elaborate, ongoing joke on us. Before every episode he tells the guest: “When we get to the part where I ask you to ask the Question of the Day, pretend like you’ve never heard of it before.”
QOTD: I prefer traditional/regional. There’s enough juice in the world that the anonymous, “delicious”, site-unspecific wines can come from somewhere else.

QOTD: Down with Parkerization! However, this is not completely a black and white issue. Let us not forget the winemakers of Tuscany during the ’60s and ’70s who broke the traditions to give us Super Tuscans such as Sassicaia. Also, this year growers in Bordeaux are petitioning to plant other grapes such as Chenin. So, yes tradition must be up held, but lets not be blinded by it.

Great Ep!

QOTD: I wouldn’t say I’m a fan of “tradition” for it’s own sake. For instance, when you said that Rosso di Montalcino isn’t Brunello and shouldn’t aspire to be Brunello, I disagree with that. It should aspire to be the best wine it can be. And if traditional procedures in a region mean that a wine is chock full of Brett, then maybe the procedures should be changed in order to make better wine.

Where the problem arises – and when we start losing diversity in wine – is when wines are manipulated so that they are no longer a genuine expression of the region and vintage.

To give an Australian example, shiraz from the Barossa is rich, generous and high in alcohol. That’s the nature of the region – it’s warm. While some modern wines are made even more like that with manipulation, if you make honest wine from the Barossa, that’s what you get. Shiraz from Heathcote or the Hunter Valley is not supposed to be like that. You can manipulate the wines – via extraction, picking at higher baume, boatloads of American oak, etc – so that they taste more like Barossa wines, but you will lose an honest expression of the region. That’s what I’m against. I would still be against it even if the “tradition” in Heathcote was to make wine that way.

QOTD: Being a novice in the wine world, I take what I get out of wine. Just being able to start to discern different flavors is a huge thing for me. To answer Robert’s question, stick to the same. It will give newbies like me a chance to listen and watch greats like Gary and Robert and help us aspire to get our palate trained to that level and take our appreciation of wine to the maximum. If wine is constantly changing, it makes it MUCH harder for somebody who is just learning to really grasp what wine is all about. Great episode.

QOTD: Being a novice in the wine world, I take what I get out of wine. Just being able to start to discern different flavors is a huge thing for me. To answer Robert’s question, stick to the same. It will give newbies like me a chance to listen and watch greats like Gary and Robert and help us aspire to get our palate trained to that level and take our appreciation of wine to the maximum. If wine is constantly changing, it makes it MUCH harder for somebody who is just learning to really grasp what wine is all about. Great episode.