Wines For the Times

Today I found myself, for the umpty-umpth time, bending a wine merchant's ear about how the quality of red wine has suffered, it seems to me, over the past 10 years or so. It's as if chemists from Boone's Farm have taken over the industry. No matter whether you're spending $10, $20, $30, or up on a bottle (I'm talking about French and American wine because that's mostly what I drink) what you're likely to get has all the appeal of cough syrup. Cloying sweetness, big fruit up front, and necessarily associated with all that an increasingly high alcohol content. Letting the grapes ripen longer both increases sugar and cuts tannins, but as to the latter there's nothing wrong with a few tannins if you let a good wine sit around for a while and mellow. What's happened to wine that tastes like it was made from grapes that grew somewhere? Give me back those earthy flavors with a hint of fruit perfume! I've started to wonder whether the people selling wine have any palate or whether they're just pandering to what they consider popular tastes? Have the growers completely fallen under the thumb of the négociants? Who's to blame? I have no answers, alas — I'm just lamenting the fact that most red wine doesn't taste like it's supposed to anymore.