on greatness

A recent exchange in the commentary section of this blog got me thinking about the concept of Greatness in wine. It seems to me that many disagreements about wine might be reduced to differing ideas about Greatness.

In the exchange I mention, the owner of O Château Wine Bar, Olivier Magny, responded to my critique of his establishment by citing the Greatness of the wine on offer there: 

If people want a non distinct glass of wine for less than 5€, and a big crowd of arrogant bobos then yes, I'm not afraid to say that our bar is the wrong place... 

...Maybe Paris is not ready for [O Château Wine Bar], maybe in a few weeks, we'll realize that the project of a wine bar that serves only great wines is too ambitious and that we should do what Everybody else does: serving glasses of average wines in average environments for 4 to 9€ and make it sound like Good value because it's inexpensive.

Setting aside, for the moment, Magny's hilarious and completely unwarranted martyr syndrome, there are two substantial flaws in this argument, which was intended to counter, or deflect attention from, my assertion that wine at O Château is rapaciously overpriced. Both involve, I think, misunderstandings about Greatness.

The first argumentative flaw is the false dichotomy Magny proposes between serving "only great wines" and serving "average wines." Ditto the implicit either-or choice of a "non distinct [sic] glass of wine for less than 5€" and the steep pours on offer at O Château, many of which are priced comparably to short plane journeys.

The second flaw is the irrelevant conclusion embedded in Magny's claim that people who elect to drink wine glasses priced at 5€ or less are "a big crowd of arrogant bobos." People who drink wine for 5€ per glass is a demographic that includes almost all of Paris, as I pointed out in one of my responses. The fact is that the city as a whole is a major wine destination, and within the city there exist numerous internationally-recognized wine bars and restaurants, none of which, to my knowledge, routinely charge mark-ups of over 1000% on glass pours, as is de rigeur at O Château. 

More importantly: are drinkers of non-great wines necessarily "bobos"? The term "bobo," a portmanteau of "bourgeouis" and "bohemian," was coined by conservative columnist David Brooks; originally he used it to refer to a class of monied New Yorkers who self-consciously couched their expenditures in arguably more spiritual or utilitarian terms than previous generations: wheatgrass, professional hiking gear, single origin espresso, etc.

In the perhaps somewhat generous assumption that Magny was using the term in its intended meaning, then it seems fair to assume also that he was referring to the natural wines I espouse so frequently on this blog. 

Fair enough. It's true that drinking natural wine is a political as well as aesthetic choice for me, and therefore the decision is more or less open to the same charges of faddishness and false conscientiousness that follow the aforementioned "bobo" trends. But in my experience, I've found that for every merited accusation of sad insincere "bobo-ness," there are ten or a hundred that express merely an uncomprehending spiteful knee-jerk skepticism towards any sort of engagement on the part of consumers. And it's not as if hurlers of the B-word would prefer a total disengagement from consumerism at large; they would simply prefer to head off the implicit expectation that consumers ought to think independently,* probably because they themselves have never been very good at it. 

This brings me to where my idea of Great Wine differs from Magny's. He writes: 

Now, as per the price of wines thing, the concept of our wine bar (ah, concept, marketing, evil) is that it's a "bar à grands vins". So, the 3cl size has no other point but to allow people to try the most legendary wines in the world at the cheapest possible price: Pétrus 2004 for 49€ - sold at cost price by the way - Yquem 1991 for 18.5€ a glass... I would or (believe it or not) could never afford to buy a bottle of these wines, but i do feel like making mini glasses of them accessible to most is a Great thing. Now, i do thing our prices are extremely reasonable. [All spelling / grammar / punctuation sic sic sic]

Now, I have a random prejudice against those wine dispenser things O Château employs to dribble out their Great Wines. In the vast entropic randomness of the world, I just don't believe its possible for the delicate flavors and aromas in a bottle of Great Wine to remain unaffected by their vacuum-sealed environment and the effects of ambient light for periods of months or years on end until the passage of enough suckers willing to cough up 49€ depletes them, sip by sip. For me it is neither an edifying nor an enjoyable method of experiencing Great bottles. But this is immaterial to my larger point about Greatness and independent thinking, which is this: the Great Wines that make up the loss-leader** pours available at O Château are the same Great Wines habitually acclaimed by Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, Decanter, eRobertParker.com, Wine Advocate, and so on.  

There's nothing wrong with this: these wines are famous and considered Great for a reason. I would just submit that the term Great should not by definition exclude all that is not also Famous and Eye-poppingly Expensive. In his disparaging dismissal of the supposedly "average" and "non distinct" wines served at Paris' other, less profiteering wine bars, Magny is essentially equating money with taste and discrimination. 

Whereas, in my estimation, there are numerous other wine bars and restaurants in Paris who share O Château's determination to present exclusively great wines. But these wine bars and restaurants evince support of a definition of Greatness closer to my own, which demands only that a wine provide a uniquely pleasurable aesthetic experience that nevertheless remains an honest reflection of a particular region, a particular winemaker, a particular vintage, grape, and so on.

Why not demand more? one might ask. Shouldn't a Great Wine stop you in your tracks, leave you dead in your boots, gasping for air, clutching for the right descriptor? I would argue no, not necessarily. In my opinion, wines like that are fun sometimes in the way that theme park rides are fun sometimes. If you had to commute to work on one you would soon tire of the experience. The Italians have a nice word for wines that ask a little too much of one's attention: impegnativo.

It follows from this that, yes, I consider drinking wine to be more like commuting than a tropical Spring Break adventure. Mostly because a broad, rich understanding of wine doesn't arrive suddenly in a moment of epiphany; rather, it develops from attentive tasting, over time, of the kind of Great Wines I mention above. I'm talking about wines with typicity: something valuable to tell you about a culture, a tradition, a heritage. 

The good news is, Great Wines of this sort can be found for under ten euros a bottle at good cavistes in Paris.*** I myself drink this kind of Great Wine five nights a week. Here in Paris - outside of the alternate tourist universe represented by places like O Château - this kind of Great Wine can actually be had very easily, at minimal expense, without much fuss at all. 

* I do not mean to endorse the idea that wheatgrass consumption or Direct Trade coffee purchases in themselves are evidence of engaged consumerism or of independent thinking. But the former two practices indicate, at very least, a belief in the desirability of the latter two. 

** "Loss-leader" is a marketing term, referring to products sold at or below cost in order to rope in other, more profitable sales. In the case of O Château, the owners are evidently hoping to attract the customer who will sell a kidney to afford a single cost-price sip of a particular famous wine, after which he or she, reeling and still thirsty, will purchase larger pours of O Château's other, significantly less charitably-priced wines, at markups of roughly 1000%. 

*** Admittedly, they are found far more frequently in the 10-30€ range.

Related Links:

Ô God No: O Château, 75001