How Gavin Newsom’s Favorite Wines Reflect A Deep-Seated Industry Problem

Gavin Newsom’s Favorite Wines Reflect a Deep-Seated Industry Problem. On Tuesday night, during an event at the California Museum in Sacramento, California governor (and possible future presidential candidate) Gavin Newsom was asked what prized bottle of wine he has set aside for an extra-special occasion.

“Newsom—ever cautious to avoid being labeled elitist—was initially hesitant to answer the question,” according to Politico. First, the governor named a bottle of mass-market Robert Mondavi Coastal Chardonnay, which retails for under $10, and which he told the audience was “my political answer.”

Then, Newsom told the audience that his real answer was a 1947 bottle of Cheval Blanc, the legendary Bordeaux blend. Decanter called that wine “not only the finest Cheval Blanc of the 20th century but one of the finest clarets of that century.” It sells for over $20,000 per bottle (and was even name-checked in 2007’s Ratatouille by the animated film’s brutal food critic Anton Ego). Of course, Newsom—wary of being painted as an elite caricature by conservative media—immediately downplayed his Cheval Blanc, saying he’d bought this bottle almost two decades ago, for “a tenth of the price.”

Politics aside, Newsom’s answer arguably defines the wine industry’s identity crisis in a nutshell. Does the answer to the wine industry’s woes lie in becoming more populist? Or should it lean into high-end premium wines and accusations of snobbery, elitism be damned?

As I wrote about two weeks ago, the complex problems facing the

This Article was originally published on Wine Enthusiast