Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

The Velvet Bite

I'm going to buy this wine...because I just think it's terribly cool that a winery would honor one of the greatest jazz vocalists in the history of the genre. (Have you ever heard Ella sing "mack the knife"?!!?)

However, I'm probably not going to drink this Domaine Carneros Sparkling Wine while listening to any jazz, including Ella. Here's why.

I've long believed that even given the range and the diversity of the Jazz genre, the absolutely most appropriate drink to accompany Jazz is something that attacks the senses, throat, palate and body with a Velvet Bite.

No pure wine I've ever consumed possesses this quality.

By "Velvet Bite" I mean, first, that sensation of a subtle sting that warms just as the sting diminishes when the liquid is poured over your palate. You need to feel the relief of the alcohol sting diminishing just as the alcohol also begins to warm the throat and stomach. 

There must be a soft clamping down on the palate that does not linger, but also is not escapable. The sensation alerts the senses in a momentary shock like no wine can do, yet fades away, relinquishing its bite in favor of alertness and warmth.

This state, I think, is best suited for listening to Jazz. Bourbon, Whiskey, Scotch and even cognac and armagnac are the proper drinks to pair with Jazz; best suited to provide a velvet bite.

Further, I believe the full affect of pairing the Velvet Bite with Jazz occurs when a shot of any of the above beverages is taken in advance of sipping on a second round of the same. And, how this shot is performed can affect the pleasure of the pairing even more if done right.

The shot, while it should be taken in all at once, should not be targeted at the throat so that it slips down past the palate with minimal contact. On the other hand, taking time to swish the beverage around the palate will also ruin the experience. Rather, the throat should be half to 3/4s closed when the shot enters the mouth. The partially closed throat will promote a slow movement of the bourbon over the palate, followed in quick order by it slowly sliding down the gullet. The technique delivers the bite, but does not sear the palate. And at the same time, a decent amount of alcohol enters the body and the blood stream in relatively quick fashion.

Yes, I'm suggesting that Jazz is best appreciated with a slight buzz. Not a "drunk". But a warm, comfortable, smirk inducing buzz.

It should be noted that after the initial shot of our preferred beverage, the second round can be sipped, and probably enjoyed even more due to the palate, body and mind having been properly prepared by the initial shot.

Wine is simply too week to stand up to the challenging nature of jazz; the subtle, complex and sometimes jolting nature of jazz rhythms require the body to be properly prepared with an anesthesia that both weakens one's grip on convention, yet provides a bite.

Thus, Jazz is best paired with beverage.

After Great Prodding

I was hesitant to do this. But after great prodding I decided to. It seemed fun.

As I've mentioned before, you won't find this sort of thing happening at FERMENTATION. But I can do it occasionally at other venues, including Wine Spies.

Damn nice wine, too. This particular wine had my most favorite characteristic in bigger reds: Licorice flavors. I'm a big fan of anisette also. I'm not sure what draws me to this particular characteristic but I do tend to look for it in wines. I'll find it most often in Cabs and Syrah.

If you buy or try this wine, do let me know if you detect that same flavor.

Didactic Marxist Ideas and Wine....Hmmm, Yum!

In the comments section of an earlier post this week about a new book on philosophy and wine, Richard from A Passionate Foodie made note that there was in fact a second book recently published that also deals with the convergence of wine and philosophy: "Questions of Taste: The Philosophy of Wine", Edited by Barry C. Smith.

I obtained that book and like the earlier one I posted about, "Wine & Philosophy: A Meritage of Ideas", it tills deeply into this topic with essays on is wine art, the objectivity of taste, wine vocabulary and language theory and "wine epistemology".

Two books in one year on what might be the most obscure wine-related topic that exists: wine and philosophy. The audience for these two books is small and as obscure as many of the points made in them. Yet, there they are. It borders on a trend.

What combination of forces would lead to this mini rush of wine and philosophy books?

I think it must largely be due to the huge increase in interest in wines, and wines from a variety of sources, as well as the increase in people working in a way that is connected to wine: it means more people are thinking about wine. And when more people are thinking, there are a portion of those folks thinking about things obscure.

Now, these two books, published so near each other, simply could be an example of chance, a coincidence. But it's not fun to attribute things to chance and coincidence if only because it offers no good reason to write about it on a blog. So, let's stick with: more people think about wine.

Let's be clear though. The publication of two books on philosophy and wine will not necessarily lead to any upsurge in the number of folks thinking about the meaning of wine.  Let's face facts, when you have the phrases "didactic Marxist or Christian Ideas of art", "a wine may 'speak' of terroir" and "it has no intellectual or cognitive content" all in the same paragraph you just aren't going to convince too many devotees of wine to read further. Where the hell are the wine ratings????

Nevertheless, I'm going to advocate that you at least try one of these books. After all, wine is too interesting to simply be a hedonistic pursuit. My argument is that the joy it brings is heightened if it brings you intellectual stimulation also and helps to further define the meaning of life.

A Meritge of Vintage Ideas...and Meaning.

Even before I review it, which I will be doing, I want to bring your attention to a new book that will be published on October 29:

Wine and Philosophy: A Meritage of Vintage Ideas
Editor: Fritz Allhoff

I was very excited to learn of the publication of this compilation of papers and essays that seek the nexus between wine, the experience of drinking wine and philosophy. I've come to believe that few pursuits are as ripe as wine drinking for helping us to think about our world, how we perceive it and how we interact with it. This book address exactly that issue.

Finding "meaning" in the appreciation of wine and in the ways we talk about it is probably not high on the list of those things that we are prompted to do upon opening and downing a bottle of Shiraz or Riesling. But I think it should be. I certainly think it is an event that is well suited to spur deeper contemplation of ideas.

We come close at times to doing just that on this blog and we see it on other blogs too. Consider the questions of terroir or wine reviews. What does it mean to insist that some wines have a "connection" with a particular place? Are we talking merely about those chemical elements that influence the character of the wine? Or are we, in the French view, exploring what "place" means not only in a geographic and geologic sense but also from a cultural perspective? And for that matter, how does own connection with a particular place influence our understanding of the meaning of a wine?

Consider the act of reviewing a wine. We know it is impossible for one person to sensually experience what another person experiences when they both drink the same wine. So, whatever common experience there is must be conveyed via written or oral communications. When we both declare the wine to be "full bodied" do we really mean the same thing? Are the words we use to communicate our experience clouded by unique experience or even by our social position?

The discussion of wine can, and I think should, lead us to deeper explorations not just of meaning, but explorations of the meaning of our own experience with life and people.

This is one of those rare books that actually lead us down this path.

"First Big Crush"...Not Your Father's Wine Book

Eric Arnold once sold a joke to Jay Leno for $50. Oh yea, he's also an editor at The Wine Spectator magazine. He also happens to be the author of a new "wine book" (that's a loose explanation of what the book really is) that is about as different as  it could be from your typical book in the wine genre.

"First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine...Down Under" is a chronicle of Arnold's year in New Zealand as a cellar rat at Allen Scott Wines. There is an "On The Road.." quality to this chronicle of Arnold's year punching down, doing the dirty work and immersing himself in the ways of New Zealanders and their wine industry.

Arnold writes in no holds barred style with a stiff dose of modesty and regular self assessment. It's a refreshing style for a wine book and a wine writer.

Along the way we are introduced to various characters, some you'd want to know and others you are happy that Arnold took the bullet with the encounter. 

His section on experiencing the New Zealand wine competitions will be eye opening for every reader.  There are no dirty secrets in this book, just dirty revelations.

You are going to learn a lot about the wine business and working in the wine business by reading this book. In fact, anyone considering getting into the wine business, be it in production or administration, would do well to pick up "First Big Crush" and read it cover to cover:

"Vineyard work sucks...I have no idea why, but many people who drink wine think that making it is some sort of relaxed, cushy lifestyle. And I don't understand it , because I've never eaten a juicy steak and imagined how romantic and luxurious a life I'd have if I started raising cattle in Wyoming. Similarly, I've never met anyone who got a massage and moved to Sweden or shot heroin and moved to Afghanistan."

That's not to say that after reading "First Big Crush" you won't want to still be involved in the wine business, despite Arnold's warnings. In fact, I suspect a lot of folks will read it, smirk at the the various difficulties and odd experiences that he encounters during his year in New Zealand, and be even more inspired to join the ranks. Still, read the book if you fall into this category.

Reading Arnold's outstanding reporting for The Wine Spectator you wouldn't necessarily guess this kind of book was inside him. Arnold tends to report on the dollars and cents, business and industry issues that surround the wine business. This book is something altogether different, though it does include smatterings of that type of subject matter. But when it does show up it's much more of an aside.

I was struggling to recall something similar in the wine genre to compare to "First Big Crush". I couldn't find it. There is nothing pompous about the book, there are no endless lists of wines and reviews and there is very little formal educational lecturing. The only thing comparable to this work are those more recent books on what the popular wine regions are REALLY like. Like those books, this one relies on first person experience. However, Arnold's work relies even more on first HAND experience. And by the end of the book you'll note those are pretty dirty hands.

This is good, fun stuff!

"First Big Crush: The Down and Dirty on Making Great Wine...Down Under"
By Eric Arnold
Scribner, 2007

Meaninglessness

I've not commented on the recently announced alliance between Martha Stewart and Gallo, who it appears will make wine for the doyen of all things domestic under the new "Martha Stewart Vintage" line of wines.

It just seemed so obvious that this announcement had very little meaning. Who knows, maybe some meaning will emerge. Maybe that meaning will be the creation of a new wine brand that produces and sells over 1 million cases annually.

However, today in Dan Berger's weekly Vintage Experiences newsletter, we get a perfect explanation of the meaning of Martha's new line of wine. The meaning is meaninglessness:

"But how on earth can anyone take the MSV line of wines seriously? Why would an MSV wine be any better than a Gallo of Sonoma bottle? What bothers me most about this is that it is yet one more new brand that clearly has no particular meaning … except, perhaps, to Martha Stewart fans."

Of course the thing about Dan's interpretation of these new wines that I really appreciate his his emphasis on the idea that a wine should have meaning that goes beyond meaninglessness. This view, of course, really only has meaning to those who take wine seriously. There are those who will assess the idea that wines should have meaning will a big roll of the eyes and say, "yea, and my soap needs to have meaning too."

This should tell you a couple things. First, it should tell you that if you do believe that wine should have meaning then Dan Berger's newsletter is probably something you should be reading. It should also tell you that meaning is in the mind of the beholder. Dan knows this and he knows his audience too.

If you are so inclined, here is the best article that attempts to eek out some sort of meaning of the new line of Martha Stewart wines. I'll settle for Dan's interpretation of it's meaning: meaninglessness.

Gary Vaynerchuk Has Some Competition

Gary Vaynerchuk has some competition (though not much):

The Winemaker/Artist Rejoices

So it was French and Italian researchers who have assembled the first complete genome of the grapevine. That seems apropos to me.

It also seems to me that this kind of research will eventually lead to a variety of things. Not least among them is that in time grapes will be grown in more places than they are now as varieties are created to produce usable wine grapes. That means more books being published. More seminars on wine regions. More sections in the wine stores.

But most importantly, what this new breakthrough means is that the winemaker will in time become even more the "artist" as more tools will be at their disposal for the creation of the wine they have in their imagination. I can't think of a reason why this is anything other than good. The notion of the winemaker as the person who "is just a caretaker for what the land gives me" always struck me as modest, to say the least. While they can be this, they can certainly be more.

One wonders, however, if, down the line when so many new and human created varieties are in the market and proliferating, if there will be wineries that still use the old "heirloom" varieties that, they explain "once proliferated in California's vineyards way back in the 00s when winemaking was in its first heyday"?

Educating Winos

After I got my Bachelors degree in History, and even before that, I knew I would go on to get either a Masters or a PhD. I just liked school and college in particular. But I never once, ever, considered getting an MBA degree. I wasn't a business kind of guy. Also, those numbers? Not good. They tended to get big once you started working them and all sorts of fancy calculations and formulas got thrown into the mix; the kind of formulas that included letters in addition to numbers. Not good. I stuck with the letters and decided to get the MA in History.

However, had their been something like the new Wine Industry MBA now being offered by Sonoma State University I just may have put up with the big numbers and tried to use this degree to get a step up into the wine industry.

By all accounts the new WineMBA is the first of its kind in the nation. While Sonoma State University seems an obvious place for this new program to be offered, the actual program is not necessarily such an obvious thing. This is a pretty pin-point focused curriculum aimed at a very small group of people. It's the kind of program my father would have looked over and said in response, "do you really want to narrow your focus that much, son?"

We live in a world where everything is about narrowing focus, and this is particularly the case in Academia.  When I got my MA in History, my adviser in the History Department spent pretty much all his free academic time studying the the history of the way American Diplomatic History was written. This professor was the at the top of his field. Of course there were probably on seven other folks in his very specific chosen field. Suffice to say, a concentration in the "Business of Wine" isn't exactly THAT narrow, but it certainly is out of the mainstream when it comes to business schools.

Reading the article about this new program I started to think what kind of courses I would create for the new MBAWINE candidates who really wanted to learn all they could about the business of wine.  I most certainly would recommend these courses:

1. Internet Wine Marketing
2. The History and Workings of the Three Tier System
3. A Survey of Wine Brand Business Models
4. Compliance and Regulatory Issues in the U.S. Wine Industry
5. A Survey of Wine Industry Hospitality Issues

The Price of a Proper Match of Food & Wine

Last night at a dinner celebrating my father-in-law's birthday, a couple glasses of a nice, refreshing Vinho Verde quite nicely got me through a three course meal of Caesar Salad, a three meat stew which "clearly calls for a robust red, my good man," and dessert of Tapioca and sorbet. 

It was a nice restaurant in Sonoma: La Sallette. Had the wait staff been inexperienced or the company I was with any way inclined to "demonstrate" their gastronomic knowledge, I'd have likely been chastised for that second class to go with the meat stew. But it reminded me that even as a marketer of wine who uses allusions to food to help sell wine, I really don't know and am certainly not convinced that little notes here and there in different venues about the "correct" food to serve with wines is in fact a good idea at all.

First, let me tell you my personal strategy for picking wines-by-the-glass at a restaurants. The first thing I do is try to evaluate the talent of my server (let's leave the issue of sommeliers alone for the moment). If know the servers is really a talented and experienced connoisseur of food and wine, then I'll simply tell them to bring me something to go with each course. Let them pick it. However, in most cases I don't know this about my server and I don't want to distract my server from the task of bringing me my food while it's still warm.

But sometimes, if they they seem like experienced multi-taskers,  I'll talk to them briefly about the wines on the menu and what I'm having and ask for their suggestion. You can tell pretty quick if the suggestion is one that results from experience and a knowledge of the Food & Wine Sciences, or if they are just winging it.

If it's the latter, and the server looks a tad befuddled, suggests the most expensive wine on the list or, to their credit, says they aren't sure, then I'll simply pick the most interesting wine there NO MATTER WHAT food I've ordered.

I almost always do the same at home when I pick a bottle from the cellar to to have with a meal. I'll almost always choose a wine that I've been wanting to taste or drink no matter what is being prepared.  Call me lazy, but for me the cost in time and effort to pick just the right wine doesn't match the level of satisfaction of a good pairing. Furthermore, the pleasure of trying and drinking a wine that currently intrigues me almost always outweighs the satisfaction I get from a wine matched will with a a particular food.

I often wonder if the pre-occupation that the professional foodies of the world (chefs, servers, wine and food writers, wine and food marketers, etc.) have with calling out good matches of food and wine is in fact to most people's benefit. It has always seemed to me another layer of understanding that non-foodies feel they "should" know but, to their own personal failings, don't know.

I've written so many back labels of wines, products sheets, ads and other marketing materials that explain to the consumer how "this wine SHOULD be paired with" some specific food I can't even count them up. And yet I don't think I've ever seen any good confirmation that this approach to selling wine is any more useful for selling the wine than an emphasis on what the wine tastes like, a humorous anecdote or a  funny picture of an animal.

I'm in no way suggesting that there exists excellent theory on how to match the right food and wines together or that a really good match can improve both the wine and the meal. But I think I might be suggesting that most folks don't really care about this kind of alchemy and that it might be detrimental to the sale of wine when it is used on marketing materials.

My little Vinho Verde was entirely satisfying last night. So was Caesar, meat stew, tapioca and sorbet. Neither detracted from the other. Would my wine and food experience last night have been any better if I struggled to make just the right match of food and wine? Or would it have been one more thing to think about instead of paying attention to the family at the table, the importance of the occasion and the important discussion of what really good science fiction can be found on television today. I think the latter. (the answer by the way is Battlestar Galactica...served of course with a nice Caprican Red.)

Clowning Around With Wine Reviews

For the longest time I tried to wrap my head around a simple idea: reading wine reviews that don't include the price. I'd never thought about this until today when I came across two blogs that review wines, and do it well, but don't include the price.

There were descriptions of the wine including aromas, body, flavor. There were histories of the wineries included. There were ratings. And there were some pretty insightful ideas bandied about in these reviews that were inspired by the wine. But no prices.

Why did this offend me? I read reviews of books, movies, and music but never really care if the price to obtain these things is included in the review. But with wine, I need the price. It took a while but I figured it out.

Movies, books and music are never out of my price range. And unless it's a rare book or a rare old piece of vinyl, most people can afford them. So the only thing I need to consider when I'm reading these opinions of other products is whether they sound tempting to me.

But wine...well, wine might indeed be out of our price range. It's also important to note that the purpose of consuming wine is to eliminate it from existence. This is not the case with books and music. While we will have consumed them, they will still exist while the bottle we dropped $40 on is forever gone. This changes the equation, doesn't it.

There is also the very unique aspect of wine that while there are literally thousands to choose from, you can find any number of wines that will actually taste quite similar to thousands of others. Yet, they'll be priced quite differently.

This all leads us to the simple conclusion that no review of a wine can be even half way useful unless the price of the wine is included. The point here is driven home by noting that the same can be said of restaurant reviews.

Now, it is entirely possible that there are some connoisseurs of the wine review format for whom the price doesn't matter. They simple revel in the beauty of a well written description of squished grapes. I'll even admit to getting the occasional kick out of reading the review of a wine that is given 69 points. They can be terribly funny. But so can a clown...for a very short time.

So, here's a tip to those who would write reviews of wine: without the price you've produced nothing we can use except a good laugh.

Does A God Of White Grapes Exist?

What is moral?
Does free will exist?
Is there a God?
Why are there white grapes?

Thanks to geneticists it seems we have an answer to the last question. But I wouldn't be surprised if it was geneticists that answered the first three questions, with perhaps a little help from theoretical physicists.

According to research conducted by CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization) white grapes developed 1000s of years ago only after the rare occurrence of two genes having mutated to create a mother plant that produced white grapes.

According to Dr Mandy Walker from CSIRO Plant Industry’s Adelaide laboratory, "Our research suggests that extremely rare and independent mutations in two genes produced a single white grapevine that was the parent of almost all of the world’s white grape varieties. If only one gene had been mutated, most grapes would still be red and we would not have the more than 3000 white grape cultivars available today."

The implication of this discovery is that the future creation of new grape varieties will be much more highly controlled. It appears we are moving closer to the day when geneticists and plant breeders might be able to create new varieties of grapes that can produce wines of very specific characters.

Again, Dr. Walker: "The discovery also has great potential for producing interesting and exciting new varieties with novel colours in the future, through genetic modification. One of the areas of future study is to determine if these two genes control the amount of red pigment made, so the colour of grapes can be improved.”

Wine drinkers and winemakers don't take too readily to new varieties. We have newer ones. Many of them in fact. But they don't really take off. Clearly this has to do with marketing. But what if plant breeders in league with geneticists created a grape that produced a wine with remarkably deep color, with the mouthfeel of Cabernet and the aromatics of Pinot Noir and that at peak ripeness delivered only 12% alcohol?

I'd like this! A lot!

However, one can't help but wonder if such a grape would ever make its way past the anti-GMO contingent. But that's another post.

Suffice to say, it appears we live in an age when the geneticist is the groundbreaker, the source of hope on many fronts. I'll be rooting for them to create me a 12% alcohol, full bodied red wine with the earthy, bacony, raspberry aromas I love so much. And along the way, if they help cure cancer or find a way to retard the progression of Alzheimer's, or confirm that there is or is not a God, that too would be very very nice.

Artist or Mad Scientist? The Folly of Label Disclosures

If it were up to me, I'd want no information to be required on a wine label except that which I deem useful. In particular, I would not want to have to disclose any particular ingredients or winemaking methods on a label. It's not that there's some stuff going in our wine that's harmful. It's just that some of the stuff that does go into the wine and some of the methods that are used to make wine don't sound good.

A new survey (PDF) by WineRelease.com confirms my suspicion that consumers don't like the sound of a the things winemakers do to wines. The survey asked both consumers and members of the wine trade to respond to various wine manipulation techniques by saying "those are ok", "those are ok, but need to be disclosed or those should not be allowed.

As you can imagine the consumers and wine trade folks had different ideas on these subjects, substances and techniques.

For example, 87% of consumers said that using oak staves (planks of oak basically) inside a stainless steel tank to give the wine an oaky character was OK to do. However, 52% of consumers said this practice should be disclosed on the label. What I find really interesting is that 13% of wine trade respondents also think it should be required to disclose this technique. Fully 13% of consumers believe that using oak staves in a tank should not be allowed at all.

This kind of result leaves me with a lot of questions. It appears that 52% of consumers believes there is something about using oak staves in a stainless steel tank that demands the practice be disclosed. You have to assume their view of this technique is so negative in some way that consumes need to be warned about it. Here I think we run into two things that are perceived as negative. In some case consumers must think something about this is bad for your health. That of course isn't true. This goes to why I'd like to see no requirement on the labels for anything. Many winemaking techniques are so misunderstood that they can only have negative connotations to those who don't understand them.

Meanwhile, there is so much misunderstanding of the use of oak staves in stainless steel among 13% of respondents that they don't even believe the technique should be allowed at all. Now it's possible that some of these folks are simply offended aesthetically by the idea that wine would be flavored with oak by staves rather than barrels that can't see their way to allowing such an anti-natural technique. These folks are crazy.

A variety of other techniques are examined in the WineRelease.com survey including the use of oak chips, the acidification of wine, the addition of sugar to wine, the addition of dyes to wine and the dealcoholization of wine among other techniques of winemaking.

I'd like to have seen more folks included in the study. The opinions of only 469 consumers and 123 wine trade folks were examined. However, the results in most cases  confirm my suspicion that putting many sorts of winemaking techniques on labels is likely to confuse consumers who don't understand the nature of the technique.

It's a pretty interesting survey that should give pause to those folks who make wine about various moves to require that more and more information be put on wine bottles.

A Winery Deserving of a Book

We PR folks are known for cooking up all sorts of wild things for our clients. Some ideas are better than others...to be sure. One idea that I've occasionally suggested to clients is the simple act of publishing a book about the winery's history.

There are very few California wineries out there that could pull this off and have genuinely good reason for doing such a thing. So, this kind of a suggestion is rarely offered up.

Recently I received a book from a winery who most certainly has great justification for publishing a book on their history and their influence:

Concannon Vineyards

The book is entitled "Concannon: The First One Hundred and Twenty-Five Years". It is written by Jim Concannon and Tim Patterson with photographs by Andy Katz.

My real introduction to Concannon came in the early 1990s when I was doing work with Foppiano Vineyards. In particular, I was working on an explanation for them of just exactly what "Petite Sirah" was...as variety. Petite was the Foppiano's specialty, and still is. Only a few other wineries in the world had as much experience with the grape called Petite Sirah. One of those wineries was Concannon.

An entire chapter in the "Concannon" book is devoted to Petite Sirah. Concannon was the first American winery to label a wine "Petite Sirah".

The Concannon's themselves have been at it making wine since 1883 in the Livermore Valley. Their story is more than one of longevity. This family created the Cabernet Sauvignon Clones 7 & 8, work houses of the industry.

The book, by the way, is beautiful. Stunning really. Andy Katz is a wonderful photographer and it shows in this work. The oversized book truly shows off his seasoned eye. The writing has a reverential tone to it that is appropriate. The Concannon's take their history seriously while recognizing that the industry has changed and they've had to change with it.

The "old time" California wineries don't get nearly as much attention as they should. Much of what is covered today in the wine media and much of what is interesting to wine drinkers is what's new. Concannon is one of those wineries that deserves much more attention.

If you are interested learning more about Concannon, my suggestion is buy one of their Petite Sirahs. Their two best Petites are sold out at their web site. However, they are selling a 1999 Reserve Petite for $29.00. Though I've not tasted it, my bet is you could lay it down for another 10 years before it peaks.

You Gotta Have "Palate Faith"

Have you noticed the sheer number of books that are written every year that are essentially there to tell you what you taste? Magazines too. Wine magazines and newsletters and food publications essentially exist to tell you what things taste like.

Sure, there's info on why things taste the way they do and what tastes best combined with what and how to make things taste a certain way. But in the end, food and wine writing is all about talking about what you taste.

When you consider that no two people have ever tasted the same thing with any guarantee they are experiencing it the same way, you realize that a great deal of "Palate Faith" is implied.

They may tell us that the 2000 Chateau Lafite has an intensity of blackberry aromas and rich, fruit forward flavors with hints of meat and sage. But what exactly is the writer talking about? My impression of the taste of sage might be entirely different than the writers. But I'll never know that for sure. I can't taste through his buds.

This becomes an increasingly problematic situation when you consider we read a number of folks using the term "sage" in relation to other wines, foods and ingredients...not to mention the actual sage leaf.

We simply trust that we are experiencing the same thing as the writers of recipes, reviewers of wine and friends with whom we share a meal with or for whom we prepare a meal.

Why, I think it is fair to ask of me, am I bring up this somewhat arcane observation? Well, I just tasted a wine that I loved. It was a Pinot Noir from California from the 1997 vintage. Upon tasting it, drinking it, and really liking it I started to look up other's observations of this wine. I found three recent tasting notes. None of them sounded like the same wine and worst of all none of the three described the wine I drank.

In fact, one reviewer described a definite bitter quality in the finish while another detected a sweet note in the finish

One writer described ripe strawberry as the dominant fruit aroma. A second writer described the aroma as primarily blackberry. Yet, I can promise you that the main aromas was CLEARLY Bing Cherry!

One writer described the wine having a robust, moderately tannic structure. Another described the wine as velvety and smooth.

There's a lesson here.

I think that lesson is that if you read wine reviews to get an idea of what a wine is like in order to decide what to buy, you are best off finding two or perhaps three reviewers who you can calibrate your palate with and not spend too much time with other reviewers. It will just complicate the process.

The other alternative is to simply assume that everyone's experiences the flavors and aromas of wine the very same way. This is sort of like the faith it takes to embrace religion. You need a lot of Palate Faith to take this route.

More...Great Underappreciated CA Wine Estates

In the voluminous amount of words that are dedicated to the conversation on wine both in print and on-line there is a tendency to focus on what's new, what's hot, what's cultish, what's fashionable. This makes sense. "What's New" is often what's interesting.

But in the process it's often the case that wineries that have been around a long time and consistently produce wonderful wines get overlooked.

Eric Asimov at his Blog "The Pour" makes just this point by listing his "Great under-appreciated California wine estates". His criteria is simple: Must be in business 25 years and must make consistently wonderful wine and he must like the wine.

It's a good list and I suspect he could have gone on to list a great many more, but simply didn't have the time and didn't want to create post of monumental length.

So, allow me to add my two cents to the mix.

FOPPIANO VINEYARDS
Great Petite Sirah...consistently

GUNDLACH-BUNSCHU
Talk about being around  long time. Wonderful consistent wine.

MATANZAS CREEK
Merlot! The original great American merlot producers

CONN CREEK
These guys made some amazing wines in the 1980s and 1990s

CHAPPELLET
Chenin Blanc...Really Really good chenin blanc year after year

Done with Animal Wine

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I had a long heart to palate talk with myself this long weekend and came to a consequential conclusion:

I'm done with cheap, cute-animal-labeled, wines.  I'm done drinking them. I'm done thinking about them. I'm just done.

I was in a grocery store with a pretty good wine department looking for something to drink by the pool. All of a sudden I realized I was in a zoo: Kangaroos, emus, reptiles, bears...I was surrounded by what seemed like scores of animals.

Now, I've had these "critter wines" before, just never on purpose. As I looked around I realized they were everywhere. It was a conscious decision to buy them this time. I wanted to test them out together.  Put them all in a pen, as it were, and give them a ride.

In front of me were 10 different, very very cutely labeled wines, none of which cost more than $10. I popped the cork on each of them and began to assault my palate.

Animal Dung!

Flat, simple, cloying, jammy, one-dimensional animal dung. All of them. Bad Aussie wine. Bad American wine. Bad Chilean Wine. Bad New Zealand wine.

Bottom line: I'm 43 years old. I don't drink enough wine to shrug off the bad ones. So, I made a pledge: for the rest of my life I will not buy a cheap wine with an animal label on it.

I suppose this kind of crap has been around for a long time. It has been labeled in a variety of ways too. But it seems now that there is a certain purpose involved in creating cute swill. That purpose is the American palate. Yea yea yea....it's a good thing that by caving in to mediocre cravings more people are drinking wine and being drawn to wine.

But the other revelation is this: Not only will I not every buy one of these Wallaby-Wines again, given the opportunity to work for a producer of one I will decline...no matter what the money is.

Life is just too short.

Wine Numbers

I just finished reading in California Grapevine an address that Dan Berger gave the Wine Press Club of New South Wales. You can also find it online HERE. (ATTN: PDF)

In it, he offers selected advice for the wineries and winemakers of Australia. One piece of advice was particularly interesting:  "Empower the consumer with factual data".

Specifically, Dan is talking about putting things like the Total Acidity and pH information on the label.

This is all pretty arcane chemical information. It's unlikely that very many people would have any idea what it means or what the difference is between a wine with a pH level of 3.55 and 3.8.  Dan understands this. He writes, "How many consumers can  interpret these numbers. This is not the point. Those who can interpret these numbers are the consumers you want to win over and hold on to."

I think he's absolutely right.

Even more than alcohol or the name of the appellation on the label, the pH level can deliver loads of information about the wine in the bottle, mostly about its structure and ability to age way. It's one thing to right on the back label, "this wine should age well for blah blah blah". It's another to write, "THIS is why this wine is more likely to age well" then offer up the number.

Wine Buying Guides: What Are they Good For?

I wish W.R. Tish would write more.

First, his wine experience is deep. For a decade he was the managing editor at Wine Enthusiast Magazine. Second, he's got a probing mind that combines with a great sense of humor. However, there is very little humor, but lots of probing, in his most recent article for Wines & Vines Magazine  that takes a fairly close look at the wine Buying Guides of three major American wine magazines.

Let's get to the heart of the matter. Tish says:

"the bottom line of my buying-guide analysis is this: While they purport to be consumer aids, they are actually far from that. As the buying guides continue to grow and grow and GROW, consumers are simply confronted with more and more homogenous-looking ratings and tasting notes of wines they will never see in their local stores or even their regional mar-kets. What these major buying guides have actually become is pure (or impure, depending on your point of view) marketing vehicles designed to raise both the stature of the magazines that create them as well as the wines they commend."

I think you have to start with the assumption that reviews are a legitimate sub-genre of the larger wine writing genre. No one will argue with this. Furthermore, I think you have to accept the notion that reviews can be very helpful to consumers now confronted with such a huge boatload of choices that it boggles the mind. This is not to say that all review of wines are equal. Some are clearly more useful than others. But in general I think it's fair to say they are generally very useful.

So I guess this puts me at odds with Tish insofar as I think Buying Guides and their reviews are "consumer aids" (I hate being at odds with Tish...he usually bests me in discussions of this sort)

However, I can't disagree with him that Buying Guides at wine publications are INDEED "vehicles designed to raise the stature of...the wines they commend". And in that sense wineries and PR types view them as marketing vehicles. The question in my mind is can a Magazine's wine buying guide serve legitimate and above board purposes of being consumer aids as well as marketing vehicles for wineries? I think again the answer is, yes.

As Tish points out in his this excellent Part 1 survey of American wine buying guides, we can take issue with the way wines are tasted and presented, if we are so inclined. And most of us usually are. Critiquing the the critics is a blood sport in this industry. But when I think about the value of the Buying Guides to the person with a budge to spend maybe $200 to $500 a month or more on wine and who is still learning about the product, I think these guides serve to pique interests, deliver discoveries and "guide" the buyer.

READ this piece. It's important.

Red State V. Blue State Wine

I fell into a "Red State-Blue State" wine discussion the other day with a friend as we opened a few bottles of wine to try. When we opened and tasted a 1996 Sonoma Cabernet I was provoked to state, "Now, this is serious wine!" To which my tasting mate responded: "Serious? Where's the fruit? Where's the strength?"

Indeed: Red State V. Blue State.

To so many people today a wine is "serious" only when it delivers strength,   girth, power, massiveness. They are wines that overpower you.

If you want to question whether a simple drink such as wine can be "serious" at all then you probably don't want to concern yourself with anything more than whether the wine in your glass is wet. However, if you can wrap your mind around the idea that wine can be "serious" then you will eventually face the stimulating task of defining what "serious wine" really is.

1. Serious Wine engages your intellect as much as your palate.

2. Serious Wine can be "big", but it shouldn't be Big and Massive for sake of being big and massive.

3. Serious Wine has structure derived from acid and tannin because it should because the tongue is able to detect weight as well as flavor.

4. Serious Wine should tell a story of something, be it about land or the curious mind of the maker.

5. Serious Wine is different from simple wine in the same way that Oscar Peterson's piano is different than Marvin Hamlisch's piano: There is something below the surface.

Does one need a certain disposition to be attracted to real, serious wine? I think they do.  I know this might evoke some to respond, "Why can't wine just be something you drink and enjoy without taking it so seriously?" It can be. And it usually is. But I'm reminded that some people take quilt making very seriously. They understand it's history, the movement of patterns and designs over time. Yet frankly, for me, my only request of a quilt is that it keep me warm.

I think there is special disposition that exists in the those that take wine serious. They seem to have the ability to turn a sensual experience into an intellectual encounter...and vice versa. These types will normally be in the minority.

So to return to the "Red State-Blue State", is there hope that one day the idea of girth, bigness and massiveness will no longer overwhelm our discussion of what makes a wine serious as it does today. I'm absolutely positive it will. I'm absolutely positive that in time the idea of nuance and complexity will overwhelm the minds of those who think about what serious wine is. When this happens it will mark an intellectual renaissance among wine drinkers. And it will mean a great deal more too. It will have implications for the importance of terroir, for the way in which people buy wine and for the way in which people recommend wine.

EncycloWine

I'm a fan of Wikipedia. I like the idea of a constantly updating encyclopedia at my fingertips, despite the rap that it gets from some (traditionalists?) that it's not accurate. While my go to source for general wine info is still the Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Jancis Robinson, as well as a few other atlas', Wikipedia has begun to take over some of my mindspace.

It has its downfalls for sure. For example, it can't come close to Appellation America as a reference for North American wine growing regions or for information on grape varieties. Where Appellation America's cataloging of North American wine growing regions is broad and deep, Wikipedia's wine section is merely broad while the Oxford Companion is deep on only certain areas.

So, I was very intrigued when I saw Encyclowine.

Encyclowine has only launched in the past week. It is, essentially, Wikipedia for wine...a user-created and edited encyclopedia for wine. It is not filled out as yet. Also, I've noticed over the past  couple of days that the site has been both up and down at times. So what we are talking about here is potential. However, the potential IS exciting.

As with the Wikipedia, Encyclowine is meant to offer deep content on everything as long as there is someone willing to write it and others willing to edit it later. Like Wikipedia, the hope is that a collaborative effort will help create an Online index of everything-wine.

There is a great deal already on Encyclowine for the person researching varieties, regions, wines, production, etc. The question that Encyclowine has to answer is why create such an open-source encyclopedia of wine outside Wikipedia or try to compete with Appellation America's headlong dive into deep/broad info presentation? One answer, which seems to be a regular refrain among optimistic web developers, is "because we can"

If you visit Encyclowine give it a chance. Surf around. Explore the potential. Because it is there. If you are very knowledgeable on a particular wine subject, register and write an entry. This is how this source will grow. It could, if they play their cards right and spend their marketing dollars and time correctly turn into the kind of source that replaces the print world's Companions.

The Demise of Mystery & Anticipation in Wine

Mystery and Anticipation. Surely these two characters are the Imps of our soul. The constant dance they do at the outer edge of our thoughts is the jig that can lead to an outer life of searching and exploration, two pastimes that can lead to trouble as well as revelation.

Nevertheless, it seems these two troublemakers cause more good than bad.

Mystery is that circumstance of information and events that present questions needing answers. We tend to be drawn to mysteries. And the answers are always more satisfying for having been mysteries first, rather than simple questions.

Anticipation. Here’s a devil that does its dirty work slow and regular. Though we know it's coming, sure as dawn, anticipation keeps us wondering just exactly what it will be. It keeps us thinking but eventually trips the wire on us and forces our hand. We have to know.

It’s no coincident that Mystery and Anticipation are two sides of the same coin. When asked if we want to know the name of our future child, some love the mystery and choose accordingly. Others, pushed harder by the pressure of anticipation, need to know right now.  Those inclined to either response both want to know. They just revel differently in how they get to the answer.

Is it possible that the mystery of a new wine and the anticipation we feel for the next wine is being ruined by the certainty and omnipresence of numerical ratings?

I think maybe it is.

I like those songs where you can sort-of-a-little understand the lyrics, but can’t quite understand them completely. You have an idea what the song is about, but it’s not quite clear. Every time I hear the song, I listen closely. I enjoy the mystery. I enjoy the anticipation the next set of garbled lyrics and the chance of figuring it out. So there’s nothing worse than having someone shove the lyric sheet in front of you. It spoils everything.

That’s sort of the case with wine ratings. Isn’t it?

Yet somehow this casting off of mystery and anticipation isn’t the same when it comes to, say, a movie review. We can read a good movie review and still want to see the film, or not at all. But not because we now know for certainty what awaits our $10 and two hours of stale popcorn.  Rather, movie reviews offer a quick lifting of the veil and a good description of the size, color and pattern of the veil. But we don’t really know all of what’s underneath it.

Wine reviews pretty much yank off the veil from a wine when they come with a strict numerical rating. The mystery is gone. There’s no anticipation.

I think this is all a tad sad. However, ratings are a fact of commercial life. They sell wine. They put roofs over peoples’ heads and they take the onerous weight off consumers’ shoulders that comes with spending $40 on a scant 750ml of a liquid that will be gone in only moments.

I think a lot of people would argue that were ratings to go away tomorrow that we’d sell a lot less wine in this country. I’m with them on this assessment. However, my advice to those who needn’t work with wine to survive, but only to enjoy, is try to ignore numerical ratings. Keeping the mystery and anticipation in your wine makes the sip the best part of the experience, not purchase.

The Dehydration of Napa Valley

Andy Beckstoffer is a pretty astute guy.

Andy is one of the largest growers in Napa Valley and maybe the most respected. And it was Andy who last year initiated an inter-industry discussion on the affects of long hangtime and hyper ripeness on the vines and on wines.

This is a  touch subject for a number or of reasons. Over the past decade or so vintners have been asking growers to let the fruit hang on the vine much longer than in the past. The idea is to get the grapes much more ripe in order to make a...a what...a "blockbuster", high alcohol style of wine that seems to be in vogue. The problem is that to achieve this level of ripeness, the grapes are forced to dehydrate. This means less tonnage and less money for growers.

Beckstoffer also wanted to make the case that this might also so stress the vines as to shorten their lifespan.

But as I said, Beckstoffer is pretty astute, not just a grower bemoaning a loss of income because his grapes are shriveling. Beckstoffer makes the case that if Napa Valley continues to make wines in this style, the region will get a reputation for making one kind of wine...high alcohol monsters:

"Napa wine is getting the reputation of being high alcohol and people are saying they're hot," he said. "Even the Wine Spectator used the term high octane Zinfandel. Why anybody would put anything in their mouth that said high octane, I don't know."

Beckstoffer may be ahead of the curve on this one. But his point is a good one. Napa Valley is becoming known as a source of "high octane" Cabernet. However, I'm not sure those drinking Napa Cabernet are quite finished with this style of wine. Furthermore, those who only began experimenting with and regularly drinking this style of wine in the past 10 years probably don't know anything different.

In casual conversation journalists and winery owners and retailers we usually come to the question of when will this high alcohol style of wine begin to lose popularity. Beckstoffer puts this issue in context:

"Right now the retailers seem to be following Parker and the Wine Spectator and telling people to drink those wines," he said. "But, you get a tipping point. If we have the situation where the retailers start telling people not to drink wines that don't go with food, where do we go?"

John Intardenato has a good story in the St. Helena Star in which Beckstoffer is interviewed on the occasion of being named Grower of the Year. It's a peak into his insightfulness and well worth a read.

Travel...Leisure...Wine..HUNGARICUM!

"Hungaricum"

A term, that after nearly 20 years in the wine industry, I'd never come across.

It refers to the native and now terribly obscure grapes of Hungary, a country that is just now beginning to export it's 2000 year-old winemaking heritage to the West, and the topic of Bruce Schoenfeld's latest article in Travel & Leisure: "Wine's Next Frontier".

Travel & Leisure Magazine isn't The Wine Spectator. And it surely isn't Robert Parker's Wine Advocate. Yet it is the source of one of the best first person wine articles I've read in some time.

Schoenfeld is on a quest. He wants something different; something very far beyond the monochromatic Chardonnays, Cabernets and Syrahs that seem to come from a single tube, regardless of the country or appellation on the bottle. That took him to Hungary where he took to searching out authentic "Hungaricum", the heirloom wines of that country.

Along the way the reader meets the "wine archaeologist", learns that communism may have been better for Hungarian winemaking that the newish free-market, and that this free market might spell the demise of the country's native grapes.

This is great wine writing; a kind of prose that you rarely get inside the wine magazines of the U.S. or England.

Read it...

Then...learn more about Hungarian wines and grapes HERE.

A Great Wine Can Still Be A Great Value

I find myself, every day, becoming more and more anamoured with Sauvignon Blanc. And this goes for well aged Sauvignon Blanc too (let's not get carried away: well aged usually means 6-10 years old)

I was surprised to learn that of all the mainstream varietals, Sauvignon Blanc is one of the few that has never attained a perfect score from Robert Parker. I can't speculate why this would be other than, simply, he's never tasted a perfect example. I don't know why this is, but I do find it unusual.

The beauty of this grape is its versatility and the way it responds so dramatically to different climates. Rochioli's beautiful tropical accented Sauvignon Blanc, compared with with the rich magnificence of the Mondavi To-Kalon I Block, compared with the hayfield aromas you find in the Dry Creek Fume Blanc compared with the gooseberryish and lean New Zealand examples. There's a lot to choose from here.

The versatility of this grape is made even clearer when yo consider that unlike so many other varieties, Sauvignon Blanc has found no real home in the United States. Cabernet has Napa, four or five regions are associated with stellar Pinot Noir, Zinfandel from Dry Creek Valley is often spoken of, Chardonnay and Carneros are closely linked, while Gewurztraminer and Riesling seem to be the rising starts in Anderson Valley.

Yet Sauvignon Blanc really doesn't have a home that everyone agrees is it's natural location in California.  It seemed in the mid 1990s that Sauvignon Blanc and Dry Creek Valley would find a favored association, but that movement and the interest behind it appears to have puttered out.

Of course, this is actually a good thing for wine lovers. The best American Sauvignon Blanc remains one of the best deals in wine. It is hard to find great SB above $25 a bottle, while it can often be had for under $20.

Among the better Sauvignon Blancs under $25 a bottle are:

Flora Springs Soliloquey
Rochioli Vineyards
Chateau St. Jean Fume Blanc "La Petite Etoile
Honig Vineyards
Matanzas Creek Winery
Chalk Hill Estate
Mason Cellars

Aged Sauvignon Blanc is something few people delve into. Yet if the wine starts its life with good acid and the kind of rich, sweet citrus and tropical flavors that come from perfectly ripe, yet not over ripe Sauvignon Blanc then the wait is worth it. At ten to fifteen years of age Sauvignon Blanc can take on a much more creamier quality than you find it younger bottles. The citrus mellows but tends to stay in the bottle to offset the burnt orange and caramel I associate with well age versions.

The problem is that it is very difficult to find older Sauvignon Blanc. Rarely can it be found in retail shelves. and only occasionally does one find it at auctions. Your best bet is to buy and be patient.

The message is this: great American Sauvignon Blanc is still relatively inexpensive. "Relatively Inexpensive" and "great American wine" are two phrases one rarely finds in the same sentence these days.

State of the States: Money, Wine & Politics

Continuing FERMENTATION's look at money, wine and politics, we turn in this post to the money spent on political campaigns at the state level. It is here, in the individual states, where nearly all legislation and regulations concerning alcohol, its production, its sales and its distribution is undertaken.

Between 2004 and 2006, contributions to state level political campaigns from beer, wine and spirit concerns totaled $21,362,727.

The overwhelming majority of this money comes from distributors and wholesalers of alcohol.

This fact makes sense. Wholesalers and distributors have more to protect in terms of wealth related to alcohol than any other industry, including producers. They are also concerned with protecting their privileged place within the 3 tier system, that model of sales that exist in most states that mandates nearly all alcohol sales, including wine, go through the hands of a wholesaler.

In addition to cash contributions to political campaigns in the states, many of the wholesaler organizations retain lobbyists and lawyers to represent them in the legislatures. In nearly every state, less California, wholesaler influence from campaign contribution outnumbers contributions by wine producers by many fold.

Below is a chart of the amount of campaign donations from the Beer, Wine and Liquor industries given to state political campaign between 2004 and 2006.

STATES: They are listed in alphabetical order
CONTRIBUTION: The total amount given by the beer, wine & liquor industries, 2004-006
PER CAP CONS: The per capita consumption in the state
POPULATION: The population of the state in 2003
$ PER PERSON: Amount of contributions per capita for that state.

The above figures were culled from The Institute on Money and State Politics

Does Global Warming=Homegrown English Claret?

When considering the apparent rise in global temperatures, wine types tend to ask, what will be come of my Bordeaux or Napa Cab or German Riesling as the temperatures continue to rise? There is a worry that these wines, forced to be produced with grapes asked to thrive in warmer temperatures will just not be the same.

Decanter Magazine has an article concerning just his issue and how it was addressed at the recent World Conference on Global Warming and Wine held in Barcelona  on March 24-25. Here is an interesting conclusion from one of the presentations:

"Taking the Mean July Temperature of various regions he showed how their viticulture character would change if you add 2degreesC.

Santa Maria, with a MJT of 17.3C would become Napa, at 19.3, St Helena at 21.7C would become Stockton at 23.5C, Healdsburg would become Modesto, and Fresno, Bakersfield."

If you know anything about the California grape growing industry you know that the last thing you want is to grow just about any grapes meant for fine wine in the areas Modesto, Fresno or Bakersfield.

What intrigues me more, however, is not what will be come of the current top wine grape growing regions as the temperatures rise over the next 50 years, but rather which areas will be transformed into winegrowing meccas as a result of the temperature swing.

I wonder, will the rise in temperature finally give the English what they've always wanted, the perfect climate for producing claret on their own shores? Will German Pinot Noir break out of it's also ran status as these wines become richer and more endowed as a result of more heat? Will Oregon Pinot no longer be an "on the edge" sort of endeavor but rather a sure thing as in Russian River Valley?

The possibilities are endless.

In the end, if the warming trend continues, I suppose we will see our traditional growing regions slowly switch to more appropriate varieties for the hotter climate.

50wines/50states/50weeks

Nothing like a man on a mission!

Lenn of LennDevours Wine Blog has announced his mission of tasting and reviewing 50 wines, one from each of the 50 states, in 50 weeks.

It makes sense that Lenn would be the man to do this. His championing of NY wines, and his ability to stay on message at his blog makes him the rare wine blogger to focus on wines outside the major wine producing states of CA, WA and OR.

However, he does have a challenge. My guess is he'll have to have at least 40 or 45 of the wines shipped to him or he's going to have to go on a serious road trip.

What I'm looking most forward to his the review of wine from Alaska. I've never seen one or tasted one (how fascinating would it be to visit those vineyards and wineries). I've always wanted to try Sparkling Rhubarb wine.

Screaming Eagle Cabernet OR The Island?

Yes, it's true. Napa Valley's Screaming Eagle winery has been sold. It is, perhaps the most iconic of California's Cult Wineries and likely the inspiration for a number of new Napa Winery owners who both wanted the kind of prestige that this operation brought its owner and who also eyed the kind of cash it generated.

Think about it: 500 cases of wine annually. $300 per bottle. That's $1.8 Million. That's some inspiration.

There was a time, however, when Screaming Eagle made lots of money not only for its owner, but for a huge number of people on its mailing list.

Back at the turn of the decade, Screaming Eagle was the most sought after wine made in America. If you were on the mailing list you could buy it for $75 to $100. However, if you wanted to purchase the wine and were not on the mailing list, that was a different story. The "aftermarket for Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon was running in the neighborhood of $300 to $400 per bottle.

So, imagine you are on the mailing list and you bought six bottles. You could put the wine down and look forward to popping the cork one day at a future anniversary or special event. Or, you could sell the wine immediately at auction and take a Caribbean vacation.

I've had the opportunity to taste Screaming Eagle on a number of occasions as well as several vintages. It's proto-typical modern California Cabernet. Dense, Rich, powerfully perfumed with moderate tannin and actually very drinkable when young. Yet, having experienced both the wine as well as a Caribbean vacation, I'd take the latter.

The fact that a number of people on the the Screaming Eagle mailing list had the same addresses (the Winebid.com or Christies' auction houses, wasn't lost on th