Santiago Rivas: "Tattooed sommeliers don't serve Bordeaux because they're posh wines."

BarcelonaRivas has very clear ideas and delivers bold statements: "You don't have the right to a Louis Vuitton just as you don't have the right to drink expensive wines" or "Wine is agriculture, not for speculators or rentiers. If you want to ruin it by drinking four-euro wines, I don't want you for the sake of wine, nor do I want you to drink from me."

Santi Rivas is a wine critic, educator through the Decantado Collective, and a serious drinker. We met at Público, a restaurant on Enric Granados Street, which has a good wine list, to talk about his book. He became interested some time ago in what he calls "gentrified wines," cult wines that are now unaffordable, and wrote a book about it: Gentrified wines (Muddy Waters Books), accompanied by the subtitle "Why you can no longer afford those bottles you loved so much." Rivas has developed a whole theory in which he breaks down what cult wines, gentrified wines, luxury wines, and the collective of the boring, the way he refers to people who are new to this world and who attend his tastings.

Rivas comes from the financial and mortgage sector and reminds us that something is worth what its peers are worth, not its replacement cost. "If you give me a wine that costs 1,000 euros, it should taste like a 1,000-euro wine. It's not about price, it's about comparison," although he acknowledges that blind tastings are full of surprises, and that many people find good wines that they would never buy once they see the label. Why?

The answer lies in what he calls cult wines. Also known in industry jargon as trading cards"Cult wine is what gives shape to parts of your ideology, social and environmental conscience... I'm telling you who votes for what they drink: natural wines. Just like someone who only drinks..." wines "Blacks," he says. And he brings it into the realm of culture: "If someone likes Lanthimos or Haneke, it's normal that they won't go see a Marvel movie. And someone who likes Massive Attack, Radiohead, and Björk won't be seen at a Chayanne concert. The same thing happens with wine." Seeing the reactions, Rivas responds: "Don't act surprised that there are wine pedants. But I don't know of any cult wines that aren't good."

Gifted wine and Russian oligarchs

The problem arises when cult wines become gentrified. The process goes something like this: "Below five or six euros, the people who make them suffer. If someone wants a million hectoliters of the lowest-quality Rioja Alta wine, right now they'll give it away. They haven't been able to sell it. Water is cheaper. But there are very good wines for 12 euros. Initially, it costs the same to drink well." This focuses on this sector. When you read that consumption is down, it's in the high-volume sector, not in conscious consumption.Otherwise, you'll never understand why some don't sell a bottle while others speculate on it. Wines that cost 30 euros when they leave the winery end up fetching 2,000 euros for intermediaries," summarizes Rivas, who insists that it shouldn't be confused with luxury. "Cult wines reject luxury. You don't want to drink like a Russian oligarch. Cristal and Dom Pérignon have problems because of that, because they've sold out to luxury."

But what are cult wines? To give us an idea, he lists some: "The wines from Burgundy, Jura, Piedmont. In Catalonia, there's Roc Gramona with Encluido de Peralba, Clos Mogador, everything Sara Pérez does Or Recaredo. Álvaro Palacios's case is ambivalent, but also," he says.

Gentrification arrives when the audience grows and the winery can't meet the demand. That's when speculation with the bottles begins. "An insider from Austria, Spain, Chile, or the US drinks the same in any country. They drink the same thing."

And if you want to invest, he advises that "you should look for wines that appreciate in value. There's a difference between expensive wines and speculative ones. There's no investment asset like wine right now." The question, however, is inevitable. And who's making a fortune? "It depends. It could be the distributor, or the restaurant. But wineries can also decide not to supply you anymore. There are people who will only let you buy a wine if you drink it there." "They don't even let you bring the bottle, to avoid this phenomenon." Rivas gives the examples of Las Esparteras in Toledo and Corcho Bar in Barcelona. "Some people tell me that those of us who consume these wines could fit on a bus, but if you add up the buses of Barcelona, ​​São Paulo, Berlin, Singapore... it's the most profitable. In fact, many restaurants are turning to this niche because that's where the margins are. Well managed, it generates a huge amount of money, if you start to have quotas [Right to buy wine] from gentrified wineries, you're hallucinating. One wine bar "It makes more money than selling croquettes."

Loser Gentrifiers

When a wine becomes gentrified, those who regularly consumed it, and who contributed to its gentrification, lose out. "Even if you have the money, you don't pay it, because you know what it used to cost," he explains. However, one shouldn't get obsessed because, according to him, "there's plenty of good wine, more than enough good wine," while denouncing that "there are businesses..." "haters""Intellectual pedantry" and "Nazi sommeliers." The latter expression terrifies the eyes of those he's speaking to. And he claims to have seen sommeliers turning away customers who don't understand or who have told them they don't have bottles that they do.

But before you can be gentrified, you have to manage to get into the exclusive club of cult wines. "Tattooed sommeliers don't serve Bordeaux because they're fascist wines. It doesn't reflect their intellectualism. A sommelier is like a DJ; the product is finished, but they serve you according to their taste. It has an artistic component," he explains, and gives the example of a group of people who, despite the prejudices of the world wars, can't overcome a sect. Bordeaux is sinking because a tattooed sommelier in a Lakers cap and jersey won't serve it to you.

All this cult is also transforming the territory, and Rivas likes to talk about numbers. The most expensive hectare of vineyard sold in Spain went for €600,000. In Piedmont, it's €4.5 million. In Burgundy, prices are reaching €40 million. "It's being bought by the big luxury groups," he says. "Imagine your father dies and you own 10 hectares in Piedmont. Do you sell them for €40 million or pay inheritance tax on €40 million? It goes beyond bottles and the fact that four posh kids We can't drink what we used to drink. The question is who will be trampled on and what model will remain. It's a recent phenomenon, and we don't know where it's headed." But even capitalism has its limits. "We've seen it with Champagne, the big houses They're screwed. They've reached their limit. A Ruinart can't be worth 80 euros. There's a certain weariness.

The bored ones

Meanwhile, Santiago Rivas continues to do outreach and tastings for the boring"I call those who are just starting out in the world of wine 'boring.' They're people who earn around 50,000 euros a year, have permanent contracts, demanding jobs. They earn well, but not enough to buy a house. They can afford the occasional treat and they won't be drinking cheap beer their whole lives. These people get into wine to do something with their lives, to buy some cycling shorts and a bike, or to try their hand at the wine world. The boring part is the initial stage; later they evolve and end up drinking the same things as everyone else." And inevitably, it's gentrifying.