Image via Adobe Stock.

“Any additional tariffs will basically put a nail in the coffin,” said one of the nation’s top French wine buyers in a text late last week.

“I have known Americans who lost jobs as a direct result of tariffs,” he told me. “But [I] have yet to hear of any French wineries letting people go due to tariffs. [Because of] COVID yes, tariffs, no.”

As the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) considers new, expanded, and increased tariffs on European wines, U.S. wine importers, distributors, retailers and wine -focused restaurateurs face the prospect of even more layoffs. And if implemented, the new round of tariffs would come at a time when they are already under extreme strain due to the ongoing pandemic.

Last year, the USTR imposed 25 percent duties on French wine in response to the World Trade Organization ruling that the European Union had violated the terms of its agreement with the U.S. when it subsidized the production of the Airbus.

On August 12, the USTR will announce its decision to augment the current tariffs. These could include tariffs of up to 100 percent and they could be expanded to include Italian wines as well (currently, only wines from the Airbus partner countries are affected).

The 2019 tariffs (still in place) have already had a devastating effect on the U.S. wine trade.

They were intended to impact European wine growers. Whether or not they have achieved the desired outcome is debatable. But anecdotally it seems that they have caused minimal economic pain in European wine country.

The economic pain inflicted on U.S. small businesses, on the other hand, has been acute.

The U.S. Wine Trade Alliance (USWTA), a consortium of small business owners formed last year in response to the tariffs, argues that the USTR duties are more harmful to American small businesses than they are to European wine growers. And the harm they do is exacerbated and amplified by the fact that closures due to the current health crisis (with no end in sight) has practically decimated a generation of U.S. wine professionals.

The USTR is currently accepting public comments on potential new and expanded tariffs (see below). The deadline for comment is July 26.

See the of possible new, expanded, and increased tariffs here (Annex II).

You can find the USTR comment portal here.

Before you comment, please be sure to read the USWTA guidelines for commenting here.

Beyond adding a comment to the USTR portal, here are some of things you can do to support the USWTA campaign as we await the USTR decision:

– become a USWTA member here (by filling out the form, you will be added to the mailing list);
– follow the USWTA Instagram and Twitter and please join the Facebook group;
– share, retweet, and repost USWTA media, and encourage your employees, colleagues, and peers to do the same.

Above: Petulantia meet Hybris.

Speaking Italian well can be a blessing and curse. Sometimes both at once.

The other evening, when an Italophone Houston-based wine professional led a virtual wine dinner for a local Italianate restaurant, he was dismayed by the sheer aloofness, arrogance, and downright rudeness of his Italian counterparts on the other end of the call.

During the pregame call, they insulted the owner and chef (before the proprietor and his colleague joined the meeting). And during the event itself, they practically refused to thank their hosts even though the latter were “moving boxes,” as they say in the trade, selling their wine.

Instead of heeding an appeal by the moderator to avoid overly technical language (this was a consumer dinner after all), the winemaker — the son of one of Italy’s most prolific enologists — literally recited the information from technical sheets. And what made matters worse was the fact that he doesn’t speak English. Not a sin in and of itself but why was he on the meeting in the first place? By the time he got to “cryomaceration,” said Houston-based professional was ready to throw his hands in the air!

And from the frying pan into the fire, the self-proclaimed “experienced wine professional” who interpreted for him (“I’ve done events like this a thousand times”), couldn’t even render the word argilla into the English clay, one among many of the lacunes and, dare I add, personal shortcomings in his professional formation.

At a time when wineries, their importers, and their distributors on the ground are struggling to “move boxes,” there is no time for such insolence.

At a time when restaurants, one of the top channels for selling wine, are scrimping to survive, it is no time for such impertinence.

The other day I moderated an Italy-American Chamber of Commerce webinar on Italian wine trends in the pandemic era. The panelists were two of the highest-volume Italian wine buyers in the state. They spoke openly about how we are in a “buyer’s market” when they are literally inundated by inquiries from Italian winemakers who hope they’ll sell their wine. They don’t even read the emails, they said. They go straight away to the attachment to see if the pricing aligns with the current market. If it doesn’t, they hit delete.

The restaurant that I consult for has been one of the survivors in a time when scores of eateries are closing their doors permanently in Houston. The owner developed this virtual dinner format together with the local distributor and it’s been highly successful for both. Because our otherwise myopic governor has decreed that restaurants can now retail wine, the restaurateur also sells the wine at his cost to the guests. It’s another example of creative thinking that has helped keep him and the distributor afloat in this Darwinian era for wine and food professionals.

Especially as the trade wars are about to be stoked up again by U.S. government, winemakers — and not just Italian winemakers — need to partner and cooperate with American wine and food professionals instead of undermining and demeaning them.

The age of arrogance is over and they need to check their hubris at the door.

Last week, leading California wine educator Deborah Parker Wong — and the new editor for the Slow Wine Guide to the Wines of North America — talked to me on Zoom about the guide and how she and her team of editors are putting the 2021 edition together even as they face the challenges of the pandemic era.

See the video of our Zoom chat below.

Deborah, above, served as a senior editor for the guide for the 2020 and 2019 editions (you can download a free e-book version of the 2020 guide here). And this year, as the new coordinating editor, she’s also overseeing an expansion of the book to include Washington and New York states.

It seems like a lifetime ago that my friend Giancarlo Gariglio, the guide’s editor-in-chief, asked me to help him launch a U.S. version. It was one of the most rewarding experiences in my career as a wine writer and I couldn’t be more happy that Deborah, one of the best technical tasters I’ve ever worked with and a true California wine insider, has stepped up to lead the team of contributors in these challenging times. Slow Wine USA couldn’t be in better hands.

Of course, Deborah and I weren’t going to waste an opportunity to taste some great wine together. Thanks to the generosity of the folks at Scarpa in Monferrato (for whom I do media consulting), we each had a bottle of Scarpa 2013 to taste. It was a thrill to get to open that bottle — however virtually — with one of my favorite people in the wine world.

What a wonderful wine, from a fantastic vintage!

Tracie and I paired it with her homemade focaccia (a Parzen family favorite) that night for dinner. Deborah checked in later in the day and said she poured with a salmon and spinach frittata. The wine, a current release, is showing beautifully right now.

Above: Tracie and her friend LaToya at the Saturday, June 13 protest of the Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas where Tracie and LaToya both grew up and attended high school together.

Despite threats of violence and rumors that “Antifa” would be at our Saturday protest of the Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas, our demonstration was peaceful and without incident.

You can watch footage of the event, including interviews, here on the local Fox affiliate.
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“NASCAR bans Confederate flag from all its events, including races,” reported the venerable news agency Fox News yesterday. News of the ban was also published by leftwing lamestream media outlets.

Here’s an excerpt of the statement issued by NASCAR, as published by Fox: “The presence of the confederate flag at NASCAR events runs contrary to our commitment to providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all fans, our competitors and our industry… Bringing people together around a love for racing and the community that it creates is what makes our fans and sport special. The display of the confederate flag will be prohibited from all NASCAR events and properties.”

NASCAR has banned all displays of Confederate flag. The U.S. Marine Corps also just banned all displays of the Confederate flag.

Is there any question in anyone’s mind at this point as to whether or not the Confederate flag is an offensive and divisive symbol of racism?

In case you’re wondering what the Confederate flag means in Texas, I’d like to share another statement with you, one that was published by the state of Texas in 1861.
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On Friday, June 5, the U.S. Marine Corps posted the following statement on its Twitter:

The Confederate battle flag has all too often been co-opted by violent extremist and racist groups whose divisive beliefs have no place in our Corps. Our history as a nation, and events like the violence in Charlottesville in 2017, highlight the divisiveness the use of the Confederate battle flag has had on our society. This presents a threat to our core values, unit cohesion, security, and good order and discipline. This must be addressed.

On that same day, the commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. David H. Berger, banned public displays of the Confederate battle flag in any form in “an order that extended to such items as mugs, posters and bumper stickers.”

Not long after the violence in Charlottesville, Granvel Block and Hank Van Slyke began displaying the Confederate flag on Martin Luther King, Dr. in Orange, Texas where Tracie grew up, where her family still lives, where we visit often with our children — and where half the population is black. The flag is featured prominently, within view of Interstate 10, on their “Confederate Memorial of the Wind.”

See their flyer, below, which they used to raise funds for the construction of the “memorial.”
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Please join us in PROTEST of the Confederate memorial in Orange, Texas (at Martin Luther King, Jr. Dr. and Interstate 10, north access road):

Saturday, June 13
location:
Confederate Memorial of the Wind
(Google map)
time:
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

WE ARE ASKING ALL PROTESTERS TO WEAR A MASK
AND MAINTAIN SOCIAL DISTANCE.

CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE REPURPOSE EMAIL NEWSLETTER
to receive event details and updates

CLICK HERE TO LEARN ABOUT
THE REPURPOSE MEMORIAL CAMPAIGN

Tracie and I were already planning a protest of the Sons of Confederate Veterans’ “Memorial of the Wind” in Orange, Texas when some young people from the city contacted us yesterday asking how they could help.

Initially, we had planned to stand up by ourselves. But after our call yesterday, we’ve decided to publicize the event and try to get as many people out as we can.

Thanks to our Martin Luther King Day 2020 GoFundMe, we also have enough money to raise another billboard across the street from the memorial which stands on MLK Dr. in eye’s view of I-10 — the eastern gateway to Texas.

We plan to have a new billboard up in time for the June 13 protest and Juneteenth (June 19).

The protest is focused on the newly erected Confederate memorial but we welcome Black Lives Matter and George Floyd justice protesters as well. Please join us. Any and all are welcome. We just ask that you wear a mask and social distance.

Not long after our MLK Day protest (January 20) but before the pandemic brought life in the U.S. to a halt, Granvel Block, one of the chief organizers of the memorial, appeared in my father-in-law’s church at Sunday services. He claimed that he wanted to change churches and that he was attending different services in his search for a new place to worship. Reverend Branch (Randy, Tracie’s dad) gave him the benefit of the doubt and welcomed him. But we all know what’s going on.

Like a pedophile testing the waters, Granvel was clearly gauging whether Randy would be a pressure point that he could use to make us stop protesting their insidious racist iconography.

We believe that Granvel was the author of an anonymous defamatory letter sent to Tracie’s then 97-year-old grandmother (you can read it here; be advised that it contains sexually graphic content). It gives you a sense of just how sick and cowardly Granvel and his partner Hank Van Slyke are.

I’ve only spoken to Granvel once by phone when he threatened to “kick my ass.”

BRING IT ON, GRANVEL! BRING IT ON, HANK!

Across our nation, Confederate memorials are being removed. Your days are numbered.