Trump Doesn’t Drink — and He Doesn’t Want You to, Either
On tariffs and terroir
My roommate and I set up a little game to accompany President Donald Trump’s “Liberation Day” speech: I would purchase a bottle of wine, cover it in a sock, pour it for him to taste blindly, and he would guess the grape, region, and producer.
It was a sunny Wednesday, light in temperature. We drank a white the night before so we opted for a red — something bright and lively to complement the early spring weather yet deep enough to mellow our sorrows in case the tariff announcement turned sour.
I rang in 4 p.m. by turning on the news, uncorking the bottle, and pouring two glasses. My roommate guessed the wine was a Gamay from western France. I removed the sock — it was a total mutt from California.
This may read like I am arguing in Trump’s favor. I am not.
We finished our glasses as Trump teed up his announcement with a 25-minute speech about the history-book glorification his groundbreaking plan would receive. I wasn’t surprised that my roommate suspected it was a French wine — it was good and interesting — but after a glass, we needed something better. There was still over half of the bottle left, but we knew there was better.
My roommate walked to the fridge and took out a bubblegummy Gamay from Beaujolais, France. We each had a glass. It was stellar — fruity and easy and complex. We drank through the bottle as Trump de-socked his plan, which included a 20% tax on EU-hailing products.
Sure, we enjoyed the Californian wine. I’d buy it again. But we had better.
I am right to compare apples to oranges here. Comparison is the purpose of drinking wine, testing out a vast ensemble of different expressions from different parts of the world of (essentially) the same fruit. Terroir, the geographical identity of a wine (climate, soil, topography — or, the exact reasons why wine is so heavily dependent on where in the world it comes from), is one of the most important aspects of the global wine market.
Terroir separates a French red from a Californian red. It distinguishes an Austrian Riesling from a New York Riesling. It makes each unique expression — from a big-name Napa to a small-town Ardèche — special. There is no replacing that.
Many U.S. wines are spectacular. California beat French wine in a 1976 blind tasting and, since then, the region has proved itself as a viable contender. But these differences are all thanks to the infinite intricacies of the regions in which wine is produced.
Winemakers are artists, and they don’t paint on blank canvases. Each of their canvases is pre-coated in a unique terrain over which they have limited control. What they do with — and within — those limits makes the global quality of wine shine.
Wine is not steel. If you stood before two slabs of steel, one from the U.S. and one from China, you could not tell which slab comes from which country. Give them a knock, look at your face in the distorted reflection — no difference. Cover a California red and a French red in a sock — maybe you can’t detect which country each wine is from, but you’ll sense a world’s worth of differences. Like steel, wine is a product of the earth, but it is immensely more reliant on the physical world — different from steel, that reliance is at the forefront of the finished product.
“You’re not manufacturing paper clips,” Trevor Kellogg, general manager at Discovery Wines, an East Village wine shop, said.
Trump doesn’t understand that. Of course he doesn’t — he doesn’t drink.
Like any form of art, wine does not converge with capitalism. I am not saying I am anti-free market, but we are experiencing the direct side effects of trying to fit products rooted in artistry within the capitalist system. Currently, producers, importers, distributors, and retailers are discussing who will absorb the extra costs: One? All? Consumers? There will be no one-size-fits-all answer. Each company’s decision will depend on how they want to (or have to) conduct their business.
Personnel in the alcohol industry are playing with dominoes, and they’re deciding which tile to tip. Rightfully, their focus is less on the sheer quality of and appreciation for the product and more on figuring out ways to make ends meet.
Trump’s cohort doesn’t understand that. Of course they don’t. They’ve got enough money to pay an extra 20% for European alcohol.
Tariffs, no matter their value, make products more expensive. No one wins. They are turning wine production, an art, into a capitalist game. No longer will it be a way to celebrate the fruit of the earth. Now, it’s a matter of pure strategy to keep shop open. Wine isn’t a strategy. It isn’t an economic tactic. It’s a celebration.
Wine carries a pretentious connotation. Since the 1980s, the wine community has sought to revert that image. Tariff-induced rising prices will amplify wine’s elitism — once-reasonable bottles will no longer be in reach. “Wines like grand cru Burgundy, which used to be an affordable splurge, are now out of range for all but the wealthiest,” Times columnist Eric Asimov captioned an Instagram post.
In principle, what Trump fails to understand about tariffs in modern society and the trade war (that he instigated) is that we live in a globalized world. Nationalism and patriotic pride are, in some cases, important — but no longer are they, nor should they be, at the apex of our hierarchy of needs. With improved transportation, democratized travel, and digital communication, our world is as blended as ever. A country composed of immigrants should be able to access the products from their countries of origin at a normal cost — likewise, a country that represents worldwide cultures should help its consumers interact with the rest of the world. That is one of the immeasurable pleasures of food and drink. They can transfer you to another corner of the world through a whiff, a sip, a bite.
The wall at the Southern border isn’t the only barrier he aimed to build. Look around — he’s crafting more walls everyday.