Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

The Choices We Make

Most people understand the cost of smoking. These costs tend most often to be measured in years taken off a smokers life. For reasons I think you can understand, I prefer not to think of the costs of my 20+ years of smoking in these terms.

However, there are ways to appreciate the cost of smoking that not only I but my wine loving readers CAN appreciate: The financial outlay.

Let's assume I'm cheap and buy a pack and a half of cigarettes on a daily basis costing $4.00 per pack (and that is cheap her in California). This makes my annual outlay for smoking at $2,190.00. That number may or may not look like much to you. However, there are different ways of looking at what $2,190.00 represents to people like us:

1. Five Cases of 2006 Stony Hill Chardonnay
2. Two bottles of 1995 Chateau Petrus
3. Round-trip airfare to Paris, 7 day car rental, seven days in Bordeaux hotel
4. One VinoTemp 280-Bottle Wine Cooling Cabinet
5. Sixty one cases of Two-Buck Chuck
6. Antique Georgian Ship's Glass Wine Decanter c. 1795
7. Six Gifts of Monthly, 2-bottle Wine Club shipments
8. Two "All American Day Passes" to the Napa Valley Auction
9. 137 Shares of Constellation Brands stock
10. Two bottles of 1990 Krug Clos du Mesnil

I'm not sure which of these alternatives to purchasing 10,950 cigarettes I'd go for first. But at this point nearly all of them would do just fine.

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Quitting Smoking: Day 6 Update
I'm still a quitter. Though, I still think of myself as a smoker. That has to change. The past couple of days the cravings have gotten a bit more intense. Learning to embrace and feel the intensity of the cravings, observe them and watch them fade, giving me the strength to know I can overcome them when they return. Sleep is still not as sound as I'd like. Not too much weight gain yet. Becoming connoisseur of sunflower seeks. (prefer the larger variety).

The Wheels Fell Off The Wagon in Saint Helena

The city of Saint Helena in the middle of Napa Valley wants to prohibit tasting rooms in its city limits from tasting and selling any wines that do not carry the "Napa Valley" appellation or a Napa Valley sub-appellation on the label.

What I can't figure out is why the Saint Helena City Council doesn't just go all the way and prohibit the sale or tasting of any wines that don't cary the "Saint Helena" sub appellation on the bottle. With the approval of this new regulation, the Saint Helena City Council seems to want to appear as parochial and silly as they possibly can. Why take half measures? Why not jump the shark completely and appear completely nuts?

And it IS nuts to prohibit the sale and tasting of non-Napa Valley wines in it's city's tasting rooms. Is there really a danger that Saint Helena-based tasting rooms will degrade the Saint Helena or Napa Valley brands if they pour tastes of the wineries' Mendocino Pinot Noirs? Maybe there is.

I'm not a free market purist. How can you be when there is so much at stake where the environment and community planning is a critical part of the quality of life of any region. But actually dictating the appellation of wines that can and cannot be poured? When this sort of thing takes up city council time hasn't the moment come when the issue of disbanding the council for lack of legitimate things to do needs to be debated? Clearly the wheels have fallen off the wagon at Saint Helena's City Hall.

Hat tip to Marcia @ Cornucopia Creations for alerting me to the story.

Why Are America's Wine Wholesalers Giggling?

“We have a system set up in this country for distribution (of wine) that is designed to create accountability and responsibility. Amazon to their credit tried to abide by the laws that created accountability. When they found out they were unable to do so in a cost effective way, then they had to at some point bail out. The larger issue is if Amazon and its resources couldn’t do it legally, obviously these other companies aren’t doing it legally and taking advantage of the lack of state enforcement.”
Craig Wolf, CEO, Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association

Mr. Wolf should be extraordinarily proud of the success that he, as CEO of the largest wine wholesaler organization in America, and individual wholesalers have achieved in their attempt to limit as much as they can consumer access to wines. Their latest victory is Amazon.com's retreat from selling wine on-line. The inane, archaic, and wholesaler-supported regulations that define the three-tier system are what Amazon.com was up against. America's wine wholesalers support these anti-consumer, anti-competitive regulations precisely to be able to blunt and stop entry into the wine business by companies like Amazon who might be able to demonstrate the nonsensical nature of much of the three-tier system, not to mention the redundancy inherent in having state's mandate the use of wholesalers to get wine to market.

However, that said I think it's important to look closely at the statement above, made by Mr. Wolf in an interview with Wine & Spirits Daily.

“We have a system set up in this country for distribution (of wine) that is designed to create accountability and responsibility."
Even if this were true, what are the odds that a system designed in the 1930s, when there were hardly any wines being produced in the United States, when Americans rarely drank wine and when it was impossible to ship wine across the country without ruining it, would have any relevance to today's wine market? That's a rhetorical question. What was once a system set up to give states accountability and promote responsibility has turned into a welfare and bailout system for America's wine wholesalers. "Designed to create accountability and responsibility" is really just a euphemism for "a system that guarantees wine wholesalers control of the market at the expense of wineries, retailers and consumers".

"Amazon to their credit tried to abide by the laws that created accountability. When they found out they were unable to do so in a cost effective way, then they had to at some point bail out."
Wholesalers has spent millions and millions of dollars that only they in the middle tier of the three tier system could afford to spend, to influence legislatures to pass and keep in place laws that make it as difficult as possible for companies like Amazon to safely bring wine to the consumer; wines that the wholesalers have no interest in bringing to the consumer. What Mr. Wolf does not say is that there are any number of ways the regulations concerning the distribution of wine could be changed that not only allowed for accountability, but also provided consumers with real choices, created a fair playing field for all parts of the three tier system, promoted competition, and forced wine wholesalers across the country to actually work for the money they make rather than having it handed to them on a government issued plate.

"The larger issue is if Amazon and its resources couldn’t do it legally, obviously these other companies aren’t doing it legally and taking advantage of the lack of state enforcement.”
Mr. Wolf is making statements here about which he knows nothing. He doesn't name the names of those that he says are shipping illegally for a very good reason: he's a lawyer and knows better than to make that kind of reckless accusation. But more importantly, he gets the whole issue wrong. The larger issue is not about illegal shipping. The larger issue is why wholesalers spend millions of dollars to preserve a system that in states across the country produces terrible selections of wine relative to what's really available in the U.S. Market? Why do wine wholesalers ALWAYS oppose proposals that allow consumers to access the vibrant selection of wines in the U.S marketplace, forcing them to choose from the rudimentary selection that wholesalers want consumers to stick with?

The bottom line? Right now, across the country, wine wholesalers are jumping with joy, laughing and giggling uncontrollably because they were able to successfully thwart a program that would have given consumers better access to wine.

Yes, I know its just more bitching and moaning. Fine. If you want to do something about this there are some options.

1. Find out who your STATE legislators are and write them telling them you want to be able to have wine shipped to you from both wineries and retailers.

2. Educate yourself about retailer-to-consumer shipping laws and politics.

3. Educate yourself about winery-to-consumer shipping laws and politics.

4. Become a Facebook Fan of Specialty Wine Retailers Association

5. Write Craig Wolf and express yourself regarding wholesalers' agenda.

The Wine Of My Dreams

Dreams. The kind you have when slumbering.

I can say without equivocation that one of the effects of having quit smoking so very recently is an enhanced vividness of my nighttime dreams. I know they are vivid because even now, a couple hours after waking up, I can still recall the brand, varietal and vintage of the wines that were in my dream last night. This is for me, to say the least, unusual.

1997 Peter Michael "L'apres Midi"
1990 Foppiano Vineyards Russian River Valley Petite Sirah

I cannot recall ever remembering specific wines that appeared in my dreams. In fact, I can't ever recall wine playing a role in my dreams—though this may be a function of me simply not remembering my dreams usually since wine has been a fairly important part of my life.

I've drunk both these wines in my waking life. The Peter Michael "L'Apres Midi" is a Sauvignon Blanc" that I included in a tasting two years ago when I was investigating the aging potential of California Sauvignon Blancs. If I recall it was in fact very drinkable, but did not quite live up to a Mondavi SB from the same vintage with which it was paired. Foppiano Vineyards was my first client when I entered the wine PR Business in 1990 as an associate at a PR firm. Louis Foppiano was responsible for teaching me a great deal about the producing end of the business. I had the 1990 Petite Sirah on a number of occasions and it was included in a 20 year vertical tastings of Petite Sirahs we did for the media at one point.

I don't know that having these or any wines in my dreams have any real meaning. But then again, I know less about dream interpretation than I do about astrology. Luckily for me, the Internet is the great repository of expert information:

Dreammoods.com:
To dream of drinking wine, symbolizes festivity, celebration, companionship, satisfaction and success. You are content with the way your life is going. The dream may also be a pun on "whining" and how you like to whine about things. In particular, to dream that you are drinking red wine, signifies excess and sensuality. If you are drinking communion wine in your dream, then it represent some spiritual celebration or ceremony.

My Dreamvisions.com
If you dream that you are drinking alcohol, consider your feelings during the dream. Drinking can represent:
-A desire to numb-out and escape a problem or situation
-A desire to feel more relaxed or more interactive with others
-A desire to be accepted or go along with the crowd, especially to the detriment of yourself or your integrity
-Boredom or the need for more fun or excitement in your real life in general (totally separate from actual alcohol)

10,000 Dream Interpretations, by Gustave Hindman Miller
-To dream of drinking wine, forebodes joy and consequent friendships.
-To dream of breaking bottles of wine, foretells that your love and passion will border on excess.
-To see barrels of wine, prognosticates great luxury. To pour it from one vessel into another, signifies that your enjoyments will be varied and you will journey to many notable places.
-To dream of dealing in wine denotes that your occupation will be remunerative.
-For a young woman to dream of drinking wine, indicates she will marry a wealthy gentleman, but withal honorable.

At some point in my life I'm going to have to investigate the origin of dream interpretations; I'm going to have to investigate what must be a fascinating subject: how dream professionals can place such specific meanings on symbols, things and places that wind up in peoples dreams.

For now, I merely find it interesting that upon stopping smoking my dreams have become so vivid in every way, including allowing me to recall two specific wines that were in my dream and the specific setting where they appeared.

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Quitting Smoking: Day 4 Update
Cravings are still with me, but appear to be less intense than yesterday when upon finishing a meal the only thing I could think of was smoking. The distraction was so intense that it took me a minute to figure out that the reason I could not open my car door was because it wasn't actually my car i was trying to open. All in all, however, the cravings seem much less at this moment. No wheezing, either. And I can clearly take deeper breaths. The oral fixation remains with me and I'm starting to think that if it is going to be around for some time I'll need to figure out something to quell it with besides hard candy.

The Coming Taste of Wine

Over the years there were some people who, upon learning that I was a smoker, became very interested in getting me to quit. When they learned I worked in the wine business, they almost inevitably crafted a "stop smoking argument" that looked like this:

"Tom, you're in the wine business and really NEED to be able to taste and evaluate wine. How can you do that when you are layering smoke over your palate. If you quit, just imagine how much more sensitive your palate will be. Just imagine how much more you will get out of the wines you are tasting"

It's not a bad argument, but honestly my first reaction to it was, "hey, I can taste wine with the best of them. There's nothing wrong with my palate." The fact is, the most acutely sensitive part of my palate has always been its reaction to textures. I have long made determinations about wines based on the texture they deliver. Thinking about it now, this may be because my sense of smell and taste have been dulled by Pall Mall Light 100s.

That said, the anticipation that I will be opened up to a new world of taste sensations upon quitting smoking is a very strong motivator as I work through this transition from smoker to non-smoker. Unfortunately, by all accounts I'm going to have to work through a few other things first. Experts tell me that I'll experience the following:

1. Weight Gain
It's a result of feeding the oral fixation and, they say, the fact that foods now taste so good. I really don't want to gain weight.

2. Constipation
Wonderful!! Apparently, nicotine has a laxative effect.They say its a temporary condition. But that's all I'm going to write about this.

3. Withdrawal Symptoms
Yep. They nailed that one.

4. Irritability
I'm told I should avoid stressful situations for a couple weeks. Otherwise those close to me will be exposed to a touchy disposition.

5. Insomnia
A little bit of this has already kicked in. But there are good drugs for this, so I'm not worried.

After the constipation and irritability are gone, I should be in a good position to start to evaluate whether a smoke-free palate is indeed a better palate. As I type, I'm formulating a plan whereby I can test the idea that food and drink will taste better and be more intense once the smoke and nicotine no longer inhibit communication between my taste buds and my brain. I'm imagining putting wines of supposedly complex flavors in front of me and pairing them with foods that are said to both contrast and compliment the wines. I'll need to rely on palate memory to determine if there is a real difference.

I'm looking forward to this experiment

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Quitting Smoking: Day 3 Update
The mind still imagines a cigarette between my lips and smoke rushing into my lungs. These are real, vivid images that turn into compulsions as quickly as the snap of the finger. Have consumed two small lollipops already this morning in fighting off these desires. Regular and very deep breaths help too, as does the consumption of copious amounts of water. So far, concentration is good this morning. Need distractions. Good ones. Really good ones.

Wine Tools and Otherwise

The implements and tools associated with the simple act of drinking wine are so varied and so numerous, you'd think it a complicated thing, when in fact, it's merely a matter of opening a package, pouring a liquid into a vessel and lifting that vessel to one's lips. A simple corkscrew will do. A glass of any kind will hold the wine. And any functioning mouth and throat will deliver the wine to its destination.

Still we apparently need 600 different kinds of corkscrews. We need different glasses for every different kind of wine. We need stain resistant drinking shirts. We need aerators to assure the wine is properly jostled before being poured into the glass. We need a secondary vessel to pour the wine into before pouring into the glass.

To get a real sense of the varied implements that have been developed for the simple act of consuming a liquid, go take a look at Wine Enthusiast's Catalog and at the IWA site. 

I couldn't help reflecting on these tools for drinking as I put together the appropriate collection of tools necessary for the simple act of not putting a cigarette in my mouth and smoke into my lungs.

This too is a pretty simple act isn't it. In fact, it amounts to doing nothing at all. And yet, as you can see, the various things I've collected that will help me do nothing are really amazing. To say the least, I'm armed for the non-smoking battle:

Sunflower Seeds
Candy Cigarettes
Altoid mints
Life Savors of various types
Tic Tacs
Nicoderm Nicotine Patches
Chewing Gums
Various lollypops
Fruits of various type
Anti-depressant Budeprion.

Clearly we are dealing here with more than a nicotine addiction. There's  also an oral fixation of 25 some odd years to overcome.

The implements of wine drinking are far more fun to display and use than the implements that go into stopping smoking. That much I know at this point. However, If anyone needs any hard candies, I'm your man.

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DAY 2 UPDATE
The feeling of a tightening of the chest is severe. I'm also very twitchy and not a little hyper. It's hard to sit behind my desk. Powers of concentration are lessoned but have not completely left me. Concentrating on activities of any kind help dismiss cravings for a cigarette that can come and go and come and go in incredibly severe ways. Steps are being taken to rid my home of all aspects of smoking, including a complete cleaning of the office and the installation of pumpkin scented candles. I have enormous thanks to give for the desmokification of my home. And they will be getting those thanks!!

God Bless Those of Mighty Wills

For 28 years my sensual relationship with wine has been marred by a self inflicted handicap. I smoked. Cigarettes, Cigars, and Pipes.

Not any more.

Yesterday at 8am I stopped smoking.

I've done this before. Successfully too. I've successfully stopped smoking four different times....The joke is old isn't it? So has the smelly clothes, ashy desk, bad breath, sneaking out of events to secretly smoke, offending friends and lovers, and shortening my life become old.

This won't be easy. That's why I'm corralling my readers to go along for the ride. Share the pain, if you will. See, here's how I look at it. Being someone who has a certain aversion to both embarrassment and failure, I figure If I'm relating what this process is like to my readers, then there will be a a greater motivation for me to be truly successful this time: You all will know what I'm doing, how I'm doing, whether I'm succeeding..and whether or not I fail.

So,what's it like to quit smoking?

Imagine you are asked to take 2/3 less breaths when you breath. Imagine when you inhale oxygen, you require of yourself that your breaths delivers only 1/3 the oxygen to your lungs than they did the day before. Think about this. Imagine this.

After a while, and it won't be a long while, you are gong to CRAVE oxygen. After a few hours of this self deprivation your chest is going to get tight. Your skin is gong to get tingly. Oh, you'll survive. You'll live. But you'll probably spend your waking hours thinking about those breaths you no longer have; thinking about that oxygen you no longer get to have in your lungs. Odds are after a while of this, maybe 2 days or even two weeks, you'll give in and inhale that luscious, creamy, brain stimulating oxygen, because it feels so damn good in your lungs. Eventually, the pain caused by the deprivation will tighten your chest just enough, will cause enough anxiety, and will distrupt your concentration just enough that you'll say, "screw it!" and take in that extra breath.

That's what its like to stop smoking.

I imagine that an alcoholic trying to stop drinking experiences something similar. I've been blessed with only possessing one real addiction in my life, so I can't say with any first hand experience what stopping drinking is like. But if I'm right and if it is like stopping smoking, then you can be sure that my own measure of empathy for alcoholics has increased.

Why stop now? There is one good reason: The pain of quitting can't possibly be as bad as the pain and consequences of not quitting. It's a simple equation that only very recently was driven home by events and circumstances.

I've got some help with this in the form of patches and pills. And my motivation for stopping this time seems mightier than it has ever been before. I'm smarter today than I was the last time I stopped smoking too. All this bodes well for me. But something else has changed. I've decided to do this in front of an audience.

This means that if you read FERMENTATION on a daily basis, then you will read what I'm doing about staying smoke free, what I'm feeling as I experience a smoke free life, and what it feels like to move from horrific withdrawals to what I know will eventually be a more even keel. This won't replace my ruminations on wine and politics and culture. But for a while it will augment it. 

So, as I hit the "publish" button on this post, I am smoke free for 24 hours.

God Bless those of mighty wills!

Amazon and the Three Tier System of Wine Distribution

When a company of the size, power, influence and lawyering capacity of Amazon.com can't figure out how to get into the wine business, you have to ask yourself, what's wrong with the wine business?

Let me tell you what's wrong: It's the death grip that is the Three Tier System. It's one thing to have each and every state deliver different regulations for the sale of wine. But it's an altogether different thing to have that regulation be in the form of the  stifling, archaic, competition dampening, discriminatory, corrupt and barely useful of the Three Tier System.

I have no insight on the deliberations that went on inside Amazon.com that would lead to them scrapping their program, but I'd bet case to bottle that it had everything to do with the over-regulated structure of the three-tier system that serves the purpose of propping up by state mandate the profits of a tired wholesale tier at the expense of entrepreneurship, consumer access to wine, economic development and the entire wine industry in general.

Take for example the case of shipping wine. Only 13 states allow out-of-state wine retailers to ship wine to their residents, making real access to wine for consumers a joke. And why do most states prohibit this activity? There's no policy basis behind the prohibitions. There is only an obstinate, slavish, pandering dedication on the part of politicians to the money that wine distributors give them in order to keep their out-dated place as the bottleneck inside the three tier system from collapsing under the weight of the reality of a modern communication economy.

Had 50 states allowed direct shipment of wine to consumers from retailers, Amazon would have been in business a year ago and states would have been shoveling tax dollars into their coffers. But no. We need to make sure this doesn't happen. You see, wine is a "special product", as America's wholesalers like to call it. We can't just be carding people at their home then give them the wine they ordered and paid for. UPS and FED-EX drivers are just too dumb to read a drivers license. It's too dangerous.

Another example of the absurdity of regulation in the wine business is the determination by the California Alcohol Beverage Commission that a company that takes a "commission" on the sale of a winery's products for having found and delivered the buyer, is committing a crime. Rendering clarity from that bit of interpretive leap frogging demands the services of a sophist.

There is a wine industry in the United States despite the fact that the three tier system still exists in most states.  The fact that Amazon appears to have dropped its plans to enter the wine business in the United states likely happened because of the Three Tier System. The fact that many states will and are foregoing significant tax revenue is due to the Three Tier System. The fact that consumers can get some of the wines they want happens despite the three tier system.

How Not To Do A Walkaround Wine Tasting

I remember being very, very new to the wine industry. Fresh with a graduate degree and recently hired at a wine PR firm in Santa Rosa called Gracelyn Associates, I knew just enough about wine to get myself in trouble. And of course I did just that.

One of the best places for the wine neophyte to get in trouble is at a large walkaround tasting. That's where I chose to embarrass myself; at my first, large, walk-around wine tasting. I blame my boss and more experienced colleagues. They should have warned me.

I recall walking into the cavernous ballroom and being shocked. All I saw were suits, countless tables manned by more suits, the flash of glasses and wine. Lots and lots of wine. The only thing I knew was that my badge allowed me access to all of it.

This sunday I'll be attending what, by all past accounts, is an outstanding walk-around tasting. It's the Grand Tasting of Pinot On The River at Rodney Strong in Healdsburg. More than 100 Artisan Pinot Noir producers will be pouring multiple bottles of their best. Here's the things I won't do at the Grand Tasting of Pinot on the River because I have the capacity to learn from my mistakes:

1. Swallow
2. Wear white of any kind
3. Carry anything in my hand but a glass
4. Attempt to sound smarter than I am.

So picture this: A drunk wine neophyte wearing a wine stained white shirt and no jacket, holding a glass in one hand and fumbling a bevy of brochures and dropping them on occasion while I explain to Paul Draper of Ridge Vineyards why his Lytton Springs bottling would have been better if it had a higher percentage of Petite Sirah in the blend. What made this impromptu lecture at one of America's greatest wine producers a piece of art was the slurring.

The walk-around tasting gets a bad wrap by many wine professionals primarily because it often means crowded rooms, not enough time to talk to the producers pouring the wines and because it's difficult to really assess individual wines when sampling so many in a milieu not best suited for serious evaluation. There's something to be said for this criticism. But the criticism really only applies if you are looking to use a walk-around tasting to seriously evaluate wines.

Don't do that.

Use the walk-around tasting to do three things:

1. Acquaint yourself with wines with which you are not familiar.
2. Network
3. Learn from the folks behind the tables pouring

This is what I'll be doing on Sunday at Pinot on the River's Grand Tasting. This must be one of the most impressive gatherings of serious, truly artisan Pinot producers anywhere. The line up of wineries is ridiculously attractive. There are more than 100 of them including AP Vin, Ahh, Failla, Halleck, Hirsch, Kanzler, Keefer Ranch, Morgan, Peay, Roar, Sea Smoke, Testarossa and The Donum Estate, to name only a few.

Returning to the scene of my first real wine crime, I was finally led away from Paul Draper by a colleague while in mid-lecture. Based on future meetings with Mr. Draper, he appeared not to recall the incident. I was guided into the foyer of the ballroom, sat down on a bench and lectured by my more experienced, unstained colleague. Nicely. It wasn't a fall down drunk or anything. But just enough to teach me the benefits of spitting and keeping my mouth shut most of the time. 

Pinot on the River will be my first walk-around tasting in a while. It's conveniently located in my home county, produced and sponsored by The Pinot Report and has the endorsement of one of the legendary Walk-around Tasters in our business, Alder Yarrow: "Pinot on the River...is one of the best wine tastings I've ever attended."

If you are looking for me, I'll be the guy in black.

Gary Vaynerchuk and The Cult of Passion

Gary Vaynerchuk is coming to Napa Valley.

I'm not sure this is news. He's been in Napa Valley before. This time however he is coming to promote his latest book, "CRUSH IT: Why Now is the Time To Cash In On Your Passion."

Where: V. Sattui Winery, Saint Helena, Napa Valley, CA
When: Saturday, October 24
When: 11am to 1pm
Who: Open to the Public
Price: Free

I don't often mention events on this blog, but I make the exception in the case of Gary Vaynerchuk because frankly, he's remarkable. He's remarkable for the well of passion he possesses for life, family, and work. His rise to phenomenon status has been a remarkable thing. More remarkable is how he has used his knowledge of wine, technology and his passion to rise above wine and move into the realm of inspirational personality. This kind of transition has never occurred with any wine personality that I know of.

CRUSH IT is described as a book that explains how to deploy modern Internet strategies to turn your passion into a business. Gary is correct about one important thing: if you want to use the Internet as the primary tool by which you succeed at what you love, then you better have LOADS of passion  (and not a little personality: read "charisma" that can be translated to an electronic environment.)