And here we all thought that McCloskey - the founder of the Sonoma, Ca. company Enologix that was formed to help producers “understand how ratings are good for the consumer” - was the industry’s frontman in its quest to chase ratings. More specifically, the coveted 90-plus score that Americans seem to lean on for their buying decisions, like a marionette that relies on its strings.

McCloskey readily admits that what Enologix does and has been doing since the company was started is to collect data, beginning in 1990, on 90-plus scoring wines by certain critics; and to track the progress of a winery’s grapes from the vineyard to the bottle in order to advise it what to do in order to capture the holy grail.

Additionally, according to the company’s Web site, Enologix “offers quality metrics, software tools and consulting which allow wineries to protect wine quality …”

Naturally, he scoffs at characterizations that writers, and even those in the industry, have put on him such as calling what he does, “The Grapes of Math,” or “something akin to reducing love to an algorithm.”

When pressed to admit that he indeed promulgates scores, McCloskey answers, “No, no. I’m just not against scores. That’s a big difference. I’m for the wine farm. I’m for running it as a business. I’m for being consumer-action oriented. Scores are just a temporary thing to be against in a consumer market.

“It’s one of many features in the market. … I’m just saying, that to take a stand and talk all day against scores, and not be active in your wine property, I think that’s the problem in the American wine industry.

“…I think to have an open culture, a performance culture, is what it’s all about. If scores are being used by the consumer, I like to compete. I like it when people win. I wish well on my neighbors.”

When charged by this reporter that because of the quest for high scores , McCloskey is somewhat complicit in the trend toward homogenization and a culture of big wine, he answers:

“It’s so untrue… (But) I tend to agree with you (about these big wines), but for different reasons. … Don’t throw it at me. I would throw it at other malaise within the industry. Those are the forces of mass production. When you look at true homogenizers, it’s the people who voted for cross-blending between AVAs. It’s those people who want to use de-alcoholization. It’s those people who want to use concentration. It’s those people who are using oak chips. I could go on. (It’s) the addition of technology equipment and additives, which are not coming strictly from grapes.”

But Steve Edmunds, the winemaker for Oakland, CA-based Edmunds St. John, disagrees. In a response to a New York Times article about McCloskey a couple of years ago, Edmunds wrote, “I think (his) approach to winemaking is appalling. Whether it works for the wineries in question or not, it's not about making better wine; it’s about selling more wine.”

The Fingerprints of 50,000 Plus Wines

By having at his disposal the fingerprints of more than 50,000 wines, McCloskey insists that his raison d’être is all about quality. And as if to leave on the backburner the issue of chasing the score, McCloskey seems obsessed now with promulgating the efficacy of wine quality.

McCloskey, an extremely bright and affable fellow of 57, actually seems to relish the controversies he’s stirred up. But he’s cautious about the agenda of some writers who approach him. Before he would agree to my turning on a tape recorder for this interview, he asks if we could rehearse the gist of the questions. However, the topics settled upon were varied, and the discussion flowed organically.

“Wading into controversies that already exist in the wine industry is where I would like to position the discussion of Enologix,” he begins, as if by caveat.

But it seems clear that McCloskey is intent on steering our meeting in the direction of quality and how to ensure systemic controls; and that Enologix has the wherewithal to guide the debate that would be sure to ensue. Because, as he says many times during our time together, as if by a mantra, “there is a culture of cover-up” in the wine industry.

His lengthy explanation of the obfuscation goes thusly:
“What I have been presenting to the wine industry is a quantitative approach to appellations. What I can show you, consistently and routinely, is that data related to consumer purchases of wine, is related to quality in (a given) appellation.

“Let’s take Napa Valley. This is the walled city of wine in the new world. Napa is the only appellation that has turned into a brand. People on the streets of Paris know where Napa is. They do not know where Sonoma is or Lake County. Lake County could be in Minnesota, for a Frenchman.

“It’s the benchmark by which all the Cabernet Sauvignon within the U.S. is judged … because Robert Mondavi and the growers of Napa created the benchmark by which to judge wines in terms of bottle price, sales, appellation, and national critics’ scores.

“Within this brand, there is high and low quality,” he continued. “The highest quality certainly deserves a lot of recognition … (But) if you take the poor areas of Napa, they’re rejected as soundly as the poorest regions in Sonoma County. I would say the lowest quality regions of Napa have been covered up.

“The culture of the cover-up is the entrepreneur’s culture in America. American men have a kind of republican idea. They want unlimited freedom in business. They want to do what they want to do without governmental regulations; and without peer regulation. They are against having their peers out them for any low quality.”

Furthermore, “I believe that to strengthen Napa Valley is to point out where the poor quality Cabernet comes from in Napa. … So, I’m just proposing honesty.”

The Art and Science of the High Wine Scores

Toward that end, McCloskey is offering up Enologix, with its extensive data base, as the arbiter of rating quality in sub-regions of various AVAs. He wants to form an AOC-style system (the French call it appellation contrôlée), which would act as a cartel with its own ratings.

Enologix, which he said has 50 to 60 clients who each pay him an average of $20,000 a year to guide them toward higher scoring wines, is, incidentally, beginning to sell stocks seeking to raise capital, some of which no doubt would go toward its helping to form those AOCs.

“I’m for those appellations that have organized themselves around the benchmarks by which we judge all appellations. Namely the European appellations (which are) more tightly legislated in respect to genetic material and rating the land,” he says. "I have a lot of experience working with appellations that shows that each is most suited to distinct and sometimes overlapping genetic material.”

When he’s asked what purpose his AVA rating system would serve, he replies, “…They won’t allow one neighbor in the agricultural system to be identified as the best. … And there’s a lot of pressure not to talk about who the D students are (the ones who didn’t get good scores).

“(But) let’s talk about AVAs. In the beginning. the idea was that AVAs would be a powerful idea that would create branding that the consumer could use instead of looking at ratings.”

He continues, making this accusation: “The producers weakened the AVAs. They didn’t change them and strengthen the AVAs and allow us to identify which varieties were the strongest in the AVA; and which pieces of land are better.

“When you hear AVA, you just think -- vanilla. It doesn’t have any color to it and depth. … The AVA won’t tell you where the highest-priced wines come from within the AVA because the producer of the lowest quality product in the AVA wants to cover up (that) fact. The true consumer information is always covered up by the AVA.”

McCloskey, who was born on an Edmonton farm, concluded, “My passion is the traditional wine farm of Europe. … They do a fantastic job of rating their land and self-regulating. That’s what interests me about appellations.

“… I’m a proponent of business principles for our industry. I do not think it’s art. I don’t think that wine is about fame. I think it’s much simpler than that. I think it’s an agricultural crop with people living on the land, and making enough money to stay there and keep it going and having an ecosystem that thrives. It’s a lot more than movie star winemakers.”

As example, he cites his treatise of two varieties – Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc – which he believes American winemakers have bungled.

“Those are two varieties (with which) American winemakers are in the midst of a massive failure and they don’t want to talk to the media about that, do they? They only want to talk about 90 points, winning, getting a straight A (from Davis) and getting all the money, and being media stars.

“I’ll go further in saying that American winemakers and entrepreneurs are not consumer advocates. They’re much more closely allied to salesmen. The American winemaker is more Hollywood. It’s a sticky wicket for them and nobody trusts them.”

Which relates back once again, to his culture of cover-up theory. “Of course that’s covered up. And that’s the crisis that winemakers create in the marketplace. It’s a small crisis. I’m grandstanding here with these words. It’s not really a crisis, but it’s just a culture of covering up and having an information void.

“ … The culture of the cover-up is well known, quite widespread. Ralph Nader’s about that, Consumer’s Union exists because of that, and the Wine Spectator and Robert Parker exist simply because of the culture of the cover-up by wine producers.”

Is McCloskey the Ralph Nader of Wine?

“All I have is my integrity and I’m a futurist also,” he replies. “When you look at strengthening the industry, it’s the protection of the small wine farm. There are standards by which we can judge these things. The standards are singular. There are no double standards. We can’t have one standard for Lake County and another for Napa Valley for the consumer. The consumer wants a single standard by which to judge Lake County against Napa against Sonoma against Temecula.

“If the American wine industry is going to modernize, it has to become altruistic. It has to become positive. It has to embrace change. It can’t be a culture of cover-up.”

Although it’s façile to rejoinder that he’s played a large role in promulgating the quest for those 90-plus scores, he also puts the blame for much of the problems that might exist today squarely at the feet of UC Davis; and in particular Roger Boulton, a professor of viticulture and enology. Boulton has taken swipes at McCloskey, accusing him, in essence, of practicing junk science because McCloskey refuses to share his information and thereby is avoiding peer review.

But, as expected, McCloskey parries with a jab at Boulton and at UC Davis, the leading oenology school in the country, responsible for turning out much of the U.S.’s winemakers.

“If you go to the university and hear somebody like Roger Boulton say, ‘Hey, have you decided to start giving to the university? Have you stopped ignoring us?’ It’s a negative that basically is a little redneck. The industry’s very agricultural, very provincial, very conservative, very laggard, and it’s loaded with a lot of self-proclaimed experts who start every single business or consumer discussion with a negative.”

Continuing the diatribe: “Today, we’ve had a period of time where Davis has not been the leader for the American winemaker. Yes, we educate our enologists there and we certainly need Davis and I don’t want to see it go away. But would I rather have had another era between 1972 when Maynard Amerine retired and the era that emerged next? It would have been more interesting and we wouldn’t have had to hear every Australian enologist walk through our laboratory and say, “what happened to UC Davis?’

“So, is it good to hold UC Davis to a high standard and demand high-performance? Of course it is. Do I want to hurt UC Davis? Absolutely not. I need them and I think they’re doing some interesting things now.

“Are they in front of the curve? Probably not. They’re probably pretty beat up from not being the leader. They probably lost touch about how to lead the industry. Do we need leadership? Yes. Are people going to other institutions for leadership? You’d better believe it. Are the methods we’re using coming from UC Davis? Absolutely not.”

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Read Part Two of APPELLATION AMERICA's interview with Leo McCloskey where Leo talks about the myth of terroir in this country; and more about how he feels about the very winemakers for whom he may be consulting.

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