Did Action Bronson just tell Scotty Boy his wine smelled like varnish?

Continuing the discourse on flawed vs natty wine and the stories we really need to be telling.

Have you seen this episode of F*ck That’s the Delicious? At the very end of this episode (which I quite enjoyed!) Scotty Boy pours a final wine. I think it’s an older vintage of his, Large D’Or 2017 maybe; he described it as a Syrah Estrella-clone. Action Bronson proceeded to take a big whiff and proclaimed it reminded him of graffiti.

I literally laughed out loud when he described wine as “krylon”. I thought I heard some nervous laughter coming from the wine crew, but maybe not. My immediate thought was: I’m sorry, you are huffing chemicals my dude. I don’t think that’s what a Syrah should taste or smell like.

Screenshot from F*ck That’s Delicious, AB huffing…. Syrah?

I know I constantly say that wine is subjective— but there are some things that are just objectively incorrect. The more wine I drink (and the older I get) the more I feel like we need a hard line in the sand to determine correct and incorrect. As I type this, I know it’s a volatile statement. Nattyheads might bring their pitchforks to my door, but fuck it. Wine should at least be drinkable. Wine that tastes and smells like varnish, no matter how nostalgic the memory is, is a no for me.

This is why people don’t take natural wine seriously! “Champions” of natural wine like Action Bronson are gassing up wines that are mid or inconsistent (at best). As natural wine continues to gain momentum and popularity, there is a lot of misconception about the “taste profile” of a natural wine. Because of these hype/mainstream champions, natural wines are lumped into “funky” and “crazy” categories — rather than a real understanding and appreciation for the philosophy around natural winemaking. (I recently posted this video as a reminder) and then saw this reddit post. New wine drinkers are looking to people like AB and other influencers for wine guidance, but with little understanding or education around the differences between wine philosophy.

Personally, I find “funky wines” like Scotty Boy and co. to be very inconsistent. Some skus I can’t even stomach, while others have such extreme bottle variation I’m turned off from buying them because I don’t want to risk getting a bottle I won’t enjoy. I know he has a lot of fans and I won’t disparage too harshly because I do appreciate his commitment to his philosophy.

I’ll just say that a lot of you are acting like natural wine is the Wild West and anything goes and I don’t know if I can get behind that now that I’ve seen how glorious natural wine can really be when done well.

“Natural Wine” does not automatically mean funky, sour, acetone, stinky wines. Natural wines can also be clean and fresh. They’re not all hazy and thick either. Some natural wines can be racked until they are nearly sediment free. A perfect natural wine is expressive: expressing the terroir it comes from, the grapes used to make it, and the winemaking style. Multidimensional. Multiple notes layered upon each other to tell a story.

Anajak, the restaurant featured, is considered one of the best/most interesting wine lists in LA (which I believe to be true, even though I have never actually had the pleasure to eat there!)— so I find it an interesting reflection of wine culture that SB was mentioned in the same breathe as Anajak on such a reputable foodie/wine show like F*ck That’s Delicious. I guess that’s what networking is.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Action and appreciate him in the wine world— he is a bonafide food and wine influencer. But with that greatness, comes great responsibility. Someone with his platform has the power and ability to put people on to some of the most intriguing things happening in the industry, not just the hype-y friends of friend’s stories.

If you’re going to tell a story about natural wine, why don’t you share the stories of men and women up down CA who are single handedly shaking up what wine means in America like: Ashanta Wines (a 3rd generation zero-zero winemaker & vigneron in Sebastopol), Lady of the Sunshine (another woman in wine who is also a regenerative farmer) or The Two Eighty Project (a non-profit working to make the wine industry more diverse and inclusive by providing education and resources for viticulture apprentices in the Bay). Let’s talk about the producers in middle America who are championing a whole new wine region like the American Wine Project out of Wisconsin and the dudes at The Austin Winery, an urban winery who bootstrapped their way to the top of the natural wine scene in Texas, a place that is still, quite literally, the Wild West.

THESE are the stories we wanna know about! I’m done listening to stories about avant-garde French dudes with the same-background-different-wine-region narratives. I wanna know about the cool shit happening in our backyard. Someone tell Vice to call me. Lemme pitch them the Mas Vino Please show.