Bring Back Wine Snobs!

Why the hyper-accessibility trend is bad for the wine industry

This week I posted the quote below on my story, sourced from Feed Me’s Instagram page. I was shocked at how many of you reached out in my DMs to voice your agreement.

I’ve also had a number of interactions recently with people who assume that, because I post about wine on social media, I am in favor of making wine as accessible, fun, and low-stress as possible. So I want to follow the story I posted this week and make my position clear - in case it wasn’t already from my content - that I am not. Or at least not exactly. And I want to explain why.

I firmly believe that anyone can develop their taste in wine and become a wine connoisseur, and that we should create a welcoming environment for people to do so. However, I also believe that there is a huge difference between empowerment and enablement, and that if the wine industry continues to do the latter, it will be its demise.

Here’s why what I call the “hyper-accessibility” trend in wine - the message that “whatever you like is right” - is detrimental to both the consumer and to the industry, and what I think we should be doing instead. While I focus on wine here, I believe the below could easily be true of other industries as well.

(P.s. - If you’re wondering why this isn’t our usual newsletter format, that’s because I’ll be upping our newsletters to a weekly cadence due to popular demand, and they’ll now go out at the beginning of every week!)

Hyper-accessbility is the real gatekeeping.

I was introduced to wine through Apothic and Yellowtail, both sub $10 wines you can buy off the shelf at CVS. Because I didn't know any better (I was a college student who didn’t grow up with exposure to good wine) and because my Dad liked them, I genuinely thought these were good wines. Seriously. Anyone who knew me at 21 will tell you that Apothic was “Pilar’s wine.”

There’s no shame in starting off like I did. But if someone had told me “whatever you like is right,” too afraid to tell me that there was a better world of wine out there for fear of coming off snobbish, I’d still be exactly where I was. I’d be drinking bad wine without knowing it. I wouldn’t have gone through the incredibly rewarding process of developing and improving my taste. I wouldn’t be able to fully appreciate wine because - while, yes, the main point of wine is enjoyment - it’s a product that does get exponentially better the more you study and understand it. I also wouldn’t have been able to leverage my wine knowledge for career success. Fine wine is a topic that comes up constantly in elite academic and professional environments (the inspiration for my “Name-Drop Wines” series), and I was able to use the fine wine knowledge I had developed to help me nail interviews and impress at client dinners (which was invaluable to me as a young, female lawyer). I can guarantee you that if I had instead ordered a glass of Yellowtail, I wouldn’t have gotten the same results.

It’s only because someone extended the real kindness of saying to me: “Hey, I want to let you know that these wines are actually quite shitty. There’s a big, rewarding world of quality wine out there that you’re missing out on. It requires a bit of effort on your part, but you can do it. Here are some books and other resources you should look into to develop your taste in wine and understand what’s actually good,” that I am at what I consider to be a very fulfilling and rewarding phase of wine consumption. The person who told me that my 21 year old taste in wine was, in fact, bad, and that I could get better, empowered me.

The person who would’ve told me, as many seem to today out of fear of being tagged with the “snob” label, that I was right - that I should keep putting jalapeños in my wine and that, if I couldn’t already taste the difference between Apothic and a Second Growth Bordeaux, I’d probably never be able to, so why even try - is the person who would’ve enabled me. That enablement is what would’ve kept me at the other side of the gate.

That’s not to say that there isn’t merit to the “high-lows” or to breaking the rules. That’s where the real fun often is. I don’t know a single person in the wine industry who doesn’t love fried chicken and Champagne. I have discerning wine collector friends who are on the mailing list for Kongsgaard but who also enjoy the occasional tumbler full of boxed wine on a camping trip with their college bros. Some of the most interesting dining experiences I’ve had have been the result of wine directors breaking the typical rules of wine pairings. The difference is that these people got a foundation in wine first, and then were able to make a fully informed and empowered decision to break some of those rules or enjoy a high-low moment.

I believe that the wine industry should be empowering consumers. Saying “OK, there is a baseline level of understanding and quality that’s required to really unlock wine and you’re not quite there yet, but let’s get you there,” as opposed to saying “keep doing what you’re doing,” and, by default, gatekeeping the full experience of wine.

Eliminating barriers to entry is great. Eliminating hierarchy is not.

I’m going to use a legal industry analogy here, since I was a lawyer.

I firmly believe that becoming a lawyer is not that hard, and that anyone can do it. I believe that we should increase scholarship and financial aid resources at law schools, particularly in the United States, to eliminate unnecessary barriers for those who want to put in the work to become great lawyers. I believe that anyone, lawyer or not, can have an intuition or opinion on what is right and wrong with our legal system, and should be welcome to voice that. I also hate it when lawyers use legal jargon to obscure fundamentally simple topics and create an “in-group” signal (one of my pet peeves in law school was that everything was in Latin. Why?!).

I do not, however, believe in telling anyone with an opinion on the Constitution that they are a legal authority.

So many people would be getting bad or completely invalid legal advice, and it would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible, for those who actually wanted to obtain good legal advice to differentiate between legit and non-legit lawyers.

Wine is similar. I’ve noticed that when many people these days seem to talk about “eliminating barriers to entry” in wine, they seem to imply that that means telling consumers that they’re always right and removing any hierarchies of expertise.

To me, that’s not what “eliminating barriers to entry” should mean. It should mean empowering everyone to understand that, with effort, it is entirely possible to become a true connoisseur of wine. It should mean lowering costs or at least offering more scholarships for the (incredibly expensive) wine certification programs like WSET and CMS. It should mean knowing how to recommend wines that retain their quality at a more accessible price point, so that curious consumers can start developing their palates without spending a fortune. It should mean greeting a consumer with warmth at a wine tasting and ensuring that they feel comfortable telling you what they taste in the wine. It should mean not using useless industry jargon to shut others out.

But none of this involves eliminating hierarchy. There are a massive number of aspiring wine connoisseurs out there who do want to learn more about wine and develop their taste, and want to know where to look to do so. When we attempt to eliminate hierarchy, rather than barriers to entry, we alienate and confuse them. If one person’s opinion is as valid as the next, how does anyone learn? How can anyone grow as a wine connoisseur if they don’t know where to look to for legitimate sources of growth? We need a clear hierarchy of experts. Otherwise, the initially wine-curious consumer will just move on to something else.

Going back to the legal analogy for a minute; beyond the lawyer vs. non-lawyer distinction, there is also a hierarchy within the legal profession that is extremely useful both to clients and to the lawyers themselves. As a mid-level associate at a law firm, my opinion carried a decent amount of weight. I even occasionally caught things that my seniors didn’t, or could propose a novel approach, because I was able to lend a fresh perspective. The opinion of the law firm partner, however rightfully carried much more weight. Between the two of us, it was clear who the expert was.

I’m noting this to clarify the fact that, while I tout in the value of experts and hierarchies for the wine industry, that does not mean that I see myself as the expert here. While I’m relatively new to the industry, I have a very high level of wine certification (as I write this, I hold my WSET 3 with Distinction and have passed 5 out of the 6 levels required to obtain my WSET Diploma - wish me luck on that last one) and have gotten a lot of exposure to wine over the past eight years since I started really dedicating time to it, so my opinion does carry some weight. It does not and should not, however, be viewed in the same vein as say, the opinion of a Bobby Stuckey or Victoria James. Not even close. I’d be lucky if I got to their level in 40 years.

I’m along for the ride with you guys. I still mispronounce regions, and hear about famous producers that I’m not familiar with all the time. In a law firm, the mid-level associate is essential to bringing the junior associate up to speed. They have a bit more experience and expertise, but, more importantly, they can bridge the gap in knowledge and role between the junior associate and the partner, since the mid-level still remembers what it was like to be a brand new attorney just a few years ago. That’s where I see myself. Not as an expert. Rather, a someone who can meet the developing wine connoisseur where they are and help bridge the gap between them and the expert a bit, because I was in the beginner boat not too long ago.

Effort = Retention

When did we get the idea that the consumer is lazy?

It seems that so many in the wine industry are afraid to tell consumers that truly appreciating wine does take effort, for fear that the consumer will be scared off wine entirely. But going back to my college self - the girl drinking Apothic and Yellowtail - that doesn’t ring true. When someone told me that there was effort required to appreciate wine, that made wine more exciting to me. The idea that I would grow and develop through studying wine, and that my studies would unlock a new level of wine appreciation, was aspirational and motivating.

It’s also very much the opposite of what I’ve seen with our Bar Pilar community. When I threw in person events in New York and London this past summer, so many of you told me how you had started with your WSET courses and were planning on continuing them. Everyone seemed excited about the growth and discovery that came from studying wine.

Even examining other wine communities, consumers are very clearly signaling that they are enthusiastic about the idea of putting effort into wine appreciation. Cokie Ponikvar (@cokiesworldofwine) is one of the largest, if not the largest, wine influencers on the internet. Some of it is probably due to the fact that she breaks down complex wine topics in her charismatic, high-energy style. But I think much of it is due to the fact that people have really loved following her wine studies. She brought her community through her journey of getting her WSET Diploma and becoming a Certified Sommelier, and she’s now bringing them along for the ride as she makes a run for her final level: Master of Wine. The work that she’s put in, and the way that she has grown through her wine studies, is something that hundreds of thousands of people are excited about.

I’m not saying that all consumers will want to spend the time and money on formal wine courses, or even that they should, but I do think that anyone will be willing to pick up a book or spend an afternoon learning from a expert at a tasting.

Nor is the idea that wine consumers are lazy at all in line with what we see in comparable industries. Food is a great example. A quick google search or spin on social media will reveal countless articles about Millennials and Gen Z competing for top restaurant reservations, seeking more and more information about the quality and provenance of their food, starting supper clubs, spurring the popularity of farmers’ markets and cooking classes, and driving the (impressive) growth of culinary tourism and agrotourism.

I believe that the desire to differentiate oneself through knowledge of food, wine, textiles and more will continue to rise in popularity as young people seek out new ways to signal status in an increasingly competitive society. But the desire to learn and better oneself is also just human nature. We should assume that consumers are happy to put in a little bit of effort, if it leads to real reward.

All this is to say that the fact that wine requires effort is a core part of what makes it an aspirational product. When you remove the aspiration, you’re just left with alcohol. A more expensive, less potent, less readily consumer-branded form of alcohol at that. So why would anyone drink it? The wine industry might get some short-term growth with the hyper-accessibility approach for now, but it will be from the consumers who are going to jump to hard seltzers or canned cocktails the second another form of alcohol feels less effortful.

As noted above and as I think our community has proven, there are a truly huge number of aspiring wine connoisseurs out there who want to learn more about wine and develop their taste, and who want real, honest feedback on what they need to do to get there. These are the best consumers the wine industry could possibly ask for. The people who are willing to put the time and effort into the study of wine are the most likely to be sticky, loyal wine customers for the remainder of their life because they’ll want to enjoy the fruits of their investment and will associate their wine consumption with personal growth.

We should be making wine accessible, without removing the aspiration. This means greeting curious wine connoisseurs with warmth, and empowering them to develop their taste and make informed decisions about their wine journey and wine consumption with honest feedback and expert guidance.

What do you guys think? As always, let me know your thoughts in the comments and/or in the group chat.