For wine to be ethical, does it need to be expensive? One winemaker says yes

How much wine should cost has been on my mind lately.

It’s been impossible not to think about it during the pandemic, which has increased unemployment rates, forced small businesses into survival mode and exacerbated many of this country’s longstanding socioeconomic inequities.

In light of those circumstances, I’ve tried to emphasize affordable wines even more than usual in my writing. In September, I wrote about Kitson Wines, an East Bay label that produces shockingly low-priced bottles being a mom-and-pop operation. Last week, when we launched our new Wine of the Week series, I highlighted a $10 Valdiguie.

I got excited responses from many readers in response to these recommendations, and I hope that they were a helpful service to wine lovers who are on a budget right now. But let me be clear: Wine pricing in California is a complicated issue. There are scores of honest, hardworking, small-scale producers here who simply can’t afford to sell wines for $10 — who are doing everything they can to put out a good-value product while still eking out a living for themselves. I’ve heard winemakers in the Bay Area earnestly swear to me that after accounting for the costs of labor, real estate, grapes and more, they can barely make any money off a $50 bottle of wine.

A recent article by New York Times wine critic Eric Asimov addressed yet another aspect of the wine-pricing conundrum. Asimov considered the staggering rise of the prices of the world’s most collectible wines, like first-growth Bordeaux and grand cru Burgundy. Over the last few decades, the prices of these wines have skyrocketed at astonishing rates, much more so than other luxury goods. The current release of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti La Tache ($5,000), which might be the world’s most sought-after wine, is 18 times as expensive as it was in 1990, while an Hermes Birkin 30 bag ($11,000) escalated by merely a factor of four, Asimov wrote.

His argument — that something important is lost when non-wealthy wine lovers cannot afford to taste the classic wines of the world — struck a nerve. Some responses on social media echoed Asimov’s conclusion that it’s a damn shame these benchmark wines are out of reach for all but the 1% now. I also saw responses along the lines of: Who cares? There are a lot of other interesting wines to drink in the world besides grand crus — a fact that Asimov acknowledges in the article, suggesting that wines like German Riesling and Loire Chenin Blancs may satisfy someone’s white Burgundy craving.

To me, it’s clear that tasting La Tache or Lafite is a less crucial component of a wine education than it may have been for previous generations. I’m not sure I buy the argument that missing out on these wines is equivalent to a literary student never reading Shakespeare. The global benchmarks are shifting.

But the most provocative conversation I’ve had about wine pricing lately wasn’t in response to any of this.

It was a phone conversation I had with Laura Brennan Bissell, the winemaker behind the Inconnu label. I’ve always loved Bissell’s wines — so much so that I named her a Winemaker to Watch in 2017 — and have admired her commitment to affordability, turning out wines from expensive regions like Napa and Sonoma for under $30 a bottle.

Now, however, Bissell said she’s begun to think that maybe wine should be expensive. “I’m starting to come to terms with the fact that wine has always been a luxury commodity,” Bissell said. “Unfortunately, it’s a beverage of privilege.”

Bissell has been pivoting away from California and towards Washington state, where she now owns a vineyard in the Columbia River Gorge. She’s still making some California wine, but plans to make less. The main impetus for the move, she said, is climate change. And to her, climate change is inextricable from economic factors.

“If you’re committed to working against climate change, I think it might be impossible to make a $21 bottle of wine anywhere,” she said. It simply costs too much, in her mind, to farm responsibly, to pay employees a living wage, to buy packaging — like glass bottles — from companies that treat their workers equitably, too.

It reminds me of the argument mounted by some producers of humane, high-end meat, like Belcampo’s Anya Fernald: that beef should be ultra-conscientious, pricey and a merely occasional treat. Should wine be like that, too?

“There’s a big push to turn wine into this young, immediate commodity,” Bissell continued, citing the rise of early-release wines in vogue among the natural-wine set like nouveau and piquette. “To me that’s not what wine is.”

What is wine to her, I asked? “Wine to me is this quiet, long dedication,” she said, “a place of repetition and learning to make something beautiful.” That doesn’t come cheap.

Wine of the Week

Our sophomore edition of Wine of the Week returns to the Central Coast, where winemaker Gina Giugni of Lady of the Sunshine Wines has combined Sauvignon Blanc and Chardonnay to thrilling effect, in a wine inspired by the traditions of Loire’s Cheverny region. (And yes, it’s affordable, though it isn’t $10.)

What I’m reading

• Speaking of expensive wines: A couple ordered an $18 Pinot Noir at New York restaurant Balthazar but were accidentally served a $2,000 Bordeaux, 1989 Mouton Rothschild, instead, reports Decanter. Of course, that also means that someone who ordered a 1989 Mouton Rothschild got served an $18 Pinot Noir.

• Cecilia Chiang, a legendary figure in San Francisco’s food scene, has died. Here’s our obituary for this extraordinary restaurateur, who set off a revolution in Chinese food in America.

• Robin McBride and Andréa McBride John, who own the Oakland-based McBride Sisters Wine, have a pretty amazing life story. (The sisters didn’t know about each other’s existence for decades!) NPR has a two-part series about them that’s worth a listen, and MaryAnn Worobiec has a Q&A with the pair in Wine Spectator.

Drinking with Esther is a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle’s wine critic. Follow along on Twitter: @Esther_Mobley and Instagram: @esthermob