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Comment by runxel | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting how different the experiences can be from one continent to another. But then again, who cares for American wine (certainly not the Euros).

Coming from Europe I'm used to see that every vineyard makes their own wine. Seeing grapes become such a commodified thing is a bit weird, I must say. Buyers of these will probably by definition make blended wines, which are not really held in high regards. People who drink wine are usually quite demanding about their drink.

So yeah, I'm surprised the farmers just let go of their produce instead of making a wine themself, if they think the vintage is so great.

It is true tho that regular wine has been in decline; nobody (aka the younger folks) wants that Monsanto-flavored and sulfured wine anymore, so natural wine has been a big craze and also more funky flavours are swiftly taking ground. Sure, the quantities are different, for many reasons - having less money in the pocket being one of them.

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> But then again, who cares for American wine (certainly not the Euros).

Which is of course its own interesting thing given that almost every European vineyards is grafted from American vines following the wine blight. Like the number of vineyards in Europe that aren't grafted from American vines can be counted on one hand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_French_Wine_Blight

This is not particularly relevant to the wine. The rootstock may be from American vines, but the vines grafted on (and thus the grapes) are still European varieties.

Interestingly, the blight itself was introduced into Europe through importation of American vines.

American vines being the cause and the "cure".

America in a nutshell (or a wine analogy).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daktulosphaira_vitifoliae#Biol...

This organism is practically hacking the plant in a multiphase process. It is interesting how selection forces are working at every stage, hardening the hack.

> Coming from Europe I'm used to see that every vineyard makes their own wine.

This isn’t strictly true. Europe has négociants, who buy grapes from smaller growers to make wine from (to be fair, often alongside their own vineyard holdings).

> But then again, who cares for American wine (certainly not the Euros).

Huge fan of Old World wine here. With that said, the Americans are producing remarkable wines these days. For my palate, I enjoy Sonoma and Willamette Valley. Even tasted blind, top critics have preferred California to France — look up the Judgment of Paris!

> Buyers of these will probably by definition make blended wines, which are not really held in high regards. People who drink wine are usually quite demanding about their drink.

The highest regarded wines are blended. Bordeaux wine makers that have large estates may only use their harvests (still blending varietals from year to year), but many Burgundy wine makers will buy harvests from different parcels and blend. There are exceptions but that is not the norm.

That is true, the French (as opposed e.g. the Germans, they blend different varieties much less) in particular do this, and they do it well. So yes, strictly speaking these are blended wines as well. But seldomly any wine maker in France would buy them; it all comes from their own parcels, and these blends are well established flavor profiles. They know their own grapes and what they can do with it.

If you do really high volumes you buy, sure. But again, it's of no surprise if these manufacturers experience a decline of demand.

Actually that is one of the big criticisms of French wine, blends are regulated by the AOC system where as California is more free to experiment. but any gross generalization of American wine is probably wrong. Plenty of wineries blend, plenty don't. Doesn't take much looking to find wineries that make wine from only grapes they grow...

Having grown up in California, we thought the same for European wines. Why bother when they are no better than the local swill. Though I'm not sure how true your conjecture is as my family was in Amsterdam a few years ago and eating at a fancy french restaurant got talking to the sommelier and mentioned we now lived in Oregon which turned in to a conversation about Pinot Noirs of the Willamette valley. He knew all about them...

But more to the point, all the top french Champagne producers have large holdings and production in and around Napa. They probably care...

This comment is extremely ignorant across several of its statements. Ignore.

You clearly don't know anything about American wine but just want to spew stereotypes and ignorance.

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