Day 16: Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc
Guest Post by Maeve Pesquera, Director of Wine at Fleming’s Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar
I’ve been thinking about the disconnect between the wine elite and actual wine consumption, and that reminded me of a scene from the 2000 film High Fidelity. An indie music store owner and his two know-it-all yet endearingly geeky employees are called out by their customer, Louis:
Louis: You guys are snobs.
Dick: No, we’re not.
Louis: Yeah, seriously, you’re totally elitist. You feel like the unappreciated scholars, so you sh*t onto people who know less than you.
Rob, Barry, Dick: No!
Louis: Which is everybody…
Rob, Barry, Dick: Yeah…
Louis: That’s so sad.
(Click here to watch the clip on Music Snobs.)
What’s sad, for me, is the realization that becoming an “expert” so often means losing touch with the magic that caused us to fall in love in the first place — with music, wine, or anything else. In the real world, notice how often a particular bottle evokes an emotional response that’s completely distinct from the substance of the wine flowing into the glass.
My childhood best friend regularly reaches for Kim Crawford Sauvignon Blanc at her local grocery store in Texas. Despite her technical status as a “soccer mom,” she chooses it not because it’s “the favorite wine of soccer moms everywhere” but because it takes her back to our first catch-up visit after several years apart as we watched the sun go down over the Pacific. Also, in her opinion, it’s predictably damn tasty.
And that’s the thing when it comes to Blue Collar Wines and to the Fleming’s 100 wine list at the restaurants. Predictability is not at all a bad thing. Nor is surprise. Nor is discovering the next new “big thing” before everyone jumps on the bandwagon.
But the poles are not mutually exclusive. Recognizing the value of the ordinary and the good doesn’t have to mean compromising the search for the unique and the great. In fact, both can exist side by side, and maybe at their best, both exist in one.
High Fidelity ends with Jack Black’s Barry singing a surprisingly inspired cover of Marvin Gaye Let’s Get It On. A song that evokes universal emotions that are unique to every listener becomes a classic because it’s both accessible and great. And that, my friends, is a worthwhile lesson for us in the wine world.
Quick Background Note: The Blue Collar Wine Guide is a 30-day, 30-wine experiment that looks at some of the world’s most popular, consumer-friendly wines. The idea is to take off my wine-writer shoes and stand instead in the shoes of Jane-and-Joe-in-front-of-a-wall-of-wine. Thank you for reading today’s post!
