Are they graduating?

What an interesting comment I heard from one of my top clients last week...

We started talking about the wine regions most of his clientele were drinking. A couple of years ago I remember him having a huge Marquis Philips, big spoofulated, Shiraz crowd. "What happened to that business?", I asked.

"They've moved to Southern France. The Languedoc. They want village wines from there."

Yes, if 2008 couldn't get more bizarre. But, now that I'm thinking about it this was actually my own path. The first great great wine I ever remember tasting was the 1998 Dead Arm Shiraz by D'Arenberg. Freaking huge ass wine. Walloped me over the forehead and I loved it for that. I remember staying in Australia for quite some time continuing to love the fruit bombs and the 'smoothness' of the wines.

Then I remember tasting a Faugeres. Then a Fitou. A Corbieres. There was a similar darkness in the wines. A raisination. Prunes. They had all of that over the top fruit, but it just wasn't fake. It was natural...like a child discovering that candy is too much, but dried fruit can deliver a similar sweetness, but without the nasty back-of-your-mouth sugar thing.

Where did I go from the Languedoc (which I still love)? Well...New World Spain. Than Southern Italy. Than Central Italy. Than Bordeaux. Than Burgundy. Once you're in Burgundy, it's over.

However, you can never truly get to Burgundy directly- you can never really appreciate it by starting there...You have to go all the way through the rest of those... So, maybe there's hope for the masses yet!