German Catalog 2006 USE THIS ONE.qxp - Michael Skurnik Wines

12
Principles of Selection in this Portfolio
Visit everyone, taste everything, select what I liked
the best, and then tell why. Nothing new or revolutionary.
The old broker-system is as good as dead now, and
most of you don’t remember it anyway. The marketing of
German estate wines has at last aligned with their smallbatch
production structure.
My own portfolio is slowly changing to reflect
changes on the “scene” and amongst the growers.
Generations change, a few people coast on auto-pilot as
they get older, new ones come along. I want to be loyal to
my growers, and I’m fond of many of them and friends
with quite a few. It always hurts to cut an estate, but the
person most deserving of my loyalty is you, dear reader
and customer.
At first I was deliberately ecumenical. I wanted to
show you many facets of German wine and many differ-
ent ways for it to be good. I still do. I am fond of the quirky.
But I’m also realistic about how the wines are sold.
You can’t visit each estate one-at-a-time like I do.
Such visits have advantages and disadvantages. You see
the wines in context, as they should be seen. But you
don’t see them in what Bob Parker likes to call “peergroup”
conditions; i.e., with a bunch of similar wines
from other growers. We show the wines in portfolio tastings
wherein a big ol’ slew of wines are lined up to be
tasted alongside one another, exactly contrary to how
they should be tasted or to any aims their makers had for
them. But what choice do we have?
The results are predictable. Some wines “show” better
than others. Fragrant wines with lots of primary fruit.
Spritzy wines. Even (ulp) sweeter wines. If your wine
has quirks or tics, if it’s asymmetrical, earthy and ornery,
it will be laid to waste in “peer-group” tastings. (What
actual consumer ever says “Let’s see, tonight we’re having
a big greasy pizza: let’s line up sixty-two Chianti
Classicos and see how they ‘show’!”)
From a zenith of over SIXTY growers this little family
has been reduced to barely under forty, and it might have
gone down as far as it should go. Demand is rising and one
remains alert to the eventual demise of estates with no visible
heirs. Plus I’m a curious cuss and don’t want to sit in
my house with the windows closed. It may look quixotic to
add agencies to a portfolio already numbering more than
forty, but I suspect many of us in the fine wine biz have to
struggle to reconcile our aesthetics with what passes for
“common sense” as, ahem, businesspersons. For me, unless
the businessman’s point is beyond argument, the aesthete
usually prevails. Somebody has to hurl beauty in the wan
face of common sense, and it might as well be me!
Selecting was easier in the old days. German wine was
unpopular and therefore inconspicuous, and it was a
buyer’s market. I was at liberty to take only what I wanted.
These days, we’re selling more and are therefore more consequential
to the grower; if I pass on a certain wine it can
play havoc with his plans. And bruise his ego. It’s all very
Realpolitik, I suppose, and I sometimes wonder why I care
so much about my precious “standards,” but always I
come to the same answer. It’s because I want to keep faith
with you. We may disagree, you and I, we may not like the
same wines, but you deserve to know that I like what I say
I like, and I won’t ask you to buy a wine I don’t endorse.
But how do I reconcile this with the political need to
placate a grower?
There are certain wines with what I’d call iconic
status. These wines belong in the market so you can
make up your own mind about them. There are other
wines with which I have some small aesthetic cavil or
other, some minor but discernible imperfection which
might bother me more than it would you. If the wine is
otherwise worthy, you should see it.
Thus I will make certain wines available which I do
not in fact select. These wines will not have my name on
the label, and will be clearly identified within this text.
Bear in mind I’m not trying to create a lower-class of
Theise-rejects. Yucky wine is simply yucky wine and
you’ll never be offered it from me in any form. I am
merely allowing you access to important wines with
either iconic status or with minor imperfections, and
identifying these wines for you.
A CAUTIONARY NOTE: one thing I will not do is
to try and seduce agencies from competing portfolios. It
isn’t right and it isn’t even necessary. This year’s Gault
Millau guide—a kind of classification of estates updated
annually—shows nearly 150 estates of “classifiable”
quality in the most important six regions ALONE who
have no American importer. Most of my competitors are
honorable people. One dude has been paying heavy
court to a number of estates in my portfolio. When he
can’t get the wines he sometimes gray-markets them. I’m
tempted to call such behavior evil, but it isn’t. It’s just
pathetic. Still, the man has taste!