Never Buy a Bad Bottle of Wine Again

[Don Giovanni]

Never Buy a Bad Bottle of Wine Again

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Slate proudly unveils its wallet-size Foreign Wine Cheat Sheet listing importers whose wines can be depended on to deliver pleasure.

Generally speaking, being an importer sounds about as sexy as being an accountant. In wine circles, however, importing is actually a very glamorous pursuit—nearly as exalted as winemaking itself. That's because importers have played a central, even defining, role in the emergence and growth of American wine culture. Combining impeccable taste with evangelical zeal, people like Kermit Lynch, Robert Chadderdon, Robert Haas, and Terry Theise have not only introduced Americans to many of the greatest wines that Europe has to offer

Indeed, David Schildknecht, a former retailer and importer who now writes for Robert Parker's Wine Advocate, fears that with the changes now sweeping the business, there may not be much of a future for specialty importers in the mold of Lynch and Dressner and America's blossoming wine culture may suffer as a result. Like independent booksellers, people who sell boutique wines tend to be driven by passion above all else, but enthusiasm doesn't cover the rent, and if the economics of niche importing continues to deteriorate, there are going to be fewer players and less diversity on offer to consumers. "Unless the price is paid for the value the importer creates in ferreting out and promoting the wines of perhaps heretofore little-known vintners," Schildknecht said in an e-mail, "there will be fewer discoveries made, or at the very least, far fewer American wine lovers will become aware of or be able to enjoy them."