Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

The Internet & Giving Wine a Fighting Chance

A new website has opened its doors that reminds me just how extraordinarily empowering the Internet is.

Prior to the Internet's development it would have been impossible for a brick and mortar version of Israeli Wine Direct to survive anywhere in the United States. The focus and selection of wines at this new on-line retailer is so specific and exclusive it quite literally would have been passed by and perhaps glanced at no matter where in America it opened its doors.

On the Internet, however, it has more than a fighting chance.

Israeli Wine Direct works in a very similar way as WineMonger, Truly Fine Wine and Kermit Lynch (why Kermit Lynch is not selling on-line I do not understand). Richard Shaffer walks Israeli vineyards and wineries looking for small, undiscovered, high quality wines made in that country but which are not currently available in the U.S. The latter qualification is not hard meet since very little Israeli wine is sold in the U.S. Yet it turns out that Israeli vintners are churning out  delicious wines. Shaffer imports them, sells them at Israeli Wine Direct, but also distributes the wines in the United States.

While the current number of wines at offer at IWD won't come close to matching the number of wines offered at your local brick and mortar store, they do deliver more Israeli wines than probably any brick and mortar store anywhere has ever offered at any one time. And while the names of the vintners won't be familiar, the types of wines produced in Israel and sold at IWD will be familiar: Caberent, Pimativo, Merlot, Shiraz, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Riesling.

Israeli Wine Direct is the kind of on-line wine store that should attract at least a glance, if not an order, from all those wine lovers that fancy themselves wine explorers and who revel in the diversity of what different places and people can do with the grape.

What Makes a GREAT California Pinot Vineyard?

And your mission is, if you choose to accept it:

Create a criteria for choosing the top ten (the "Grand Cru") Pinot Noir vineyards in California.

Not Top Ten Producers, but Top Ten Pinot Noir vineyards.

This topic of building such a criteria came up today when I was speaking first with a pretty well known Pinot producer and it arose again when I was speaking with a very knowledgeable wine writer who has a real passion for Pinot.

All three of us agreed that the following criteria would be essential:

1. Wines produced from the vineyards should be highly rated, consistently, from a variety of critics.

2. The price of the wines produced from the vineyards should reflect the quality and demand.

3. The vineyards should be in production for at least 7 years.

But here's where we got stuck: Should one criteria be that the vineyard's fruit has been used by a variety of different winemakers? I personally say, Yes! In the first place, I think the endorsement of a vineyard by a variety of winemakers is an important indication of its strength and attraction. I also think that you control against a critic's potential bias in their ratings for a single winemaker's style of wine by demanding that the vineyard's fruit has been used by multiple winemakers.

Now, excluding vineyards from which only one winemaker has successfully produced wine is a problem. This, for example, means that Marcassin and Kistler Estate vineyards are both out of the running for Grand Cru status. That sort of strikes me as wrong, but there are still the issues I brought up above.

So, again, here's the question:

WHAT CRITERIA WOULD YOU USE FOR NAMING THE TOP PINOT NOIR VINEYARDS IN THE CALIFORNIA NORTH COAST?

This is of course a game, similar to naming your all time baseball dream team. But, just like this favorite pastime, trying to name the Grand Cru Vineyards of California makes one think about WHAT MAKES a vineyard great. And this is a question any self respecting wine geek must be attracted to.

Is Knowing More Important Than The Nose?

In a recent story in the San Jose Mercury News, Laurie Daniel explored a topic that remains very important to winemakers and wine geeks: The degree to which Pinot Noir currently does or is capable of exhibiting regionality in its character. Interestingly, the extent to which this issue is important to non-geeks seems to me to extend only as far as the occasional comments by casual wine drinkers that they "like California Pinot more than French" or believe "Oregon Pinot Noir is better than California Pinot."

Of course these kinds of general comments about the source of Pinot aren't exactly what the proponents of terroir and dedication to regionality are looking for.

They are looking more for the kind of schooled judgment that Daniels reported about in her story that looked at a seminar at the last World Of Pinot Noir Event where six Pinots from different parts of California all made from the 115 clone of Pinot were examined. The point of the seminar was to determine if regional difference could be determined between the wines.

Daniels writes:

"The wines had similar color intensity but otherwise did display big differences, but it was nearly impossible to tell whether those differences were due to vineyard location or to factors such as picking decisions, oak treatment or myriad other variables related to the hand of the winemaker."

Mmmm... this is of course the perennial problem: Are we tasting the hand of the winemaker or the hand of God.

I thought about this article as I had dinner on Monday with a group of fine folks in Nashville. In the course of the dinner we tasted a lovely red blend made by Kip Summers from Arrington Vineyards located just outside Nashville. Had I not known the wine was made from Tennessee-grown grapes I could not have guessed under any circumstances that it came from this state. And, I suspect that no one else, not even the most schooled and educated palate on earth, could either.

Houston...we have a problem!

Just how much tasting of wine must be done by an individual, how much competence must they possess in the field of wine before regionality in a wine even matters?

Of course the most interesting question of all is what makes the regionality of a wine matter at all...outside of course for folks like me who work to market wine on the basis of regionality: "This wine is brilliant expression of the unique terroir of X Valley".

I wonder if it's enough, even for the most geeky of wine geeks, to simply know the wine was made from grapes grown in Oakville or "Joe's Vineyard" or Greece or Champagne, etc? I wonder if the importance of the regionality or terroir that a wine expresses is really less important than the simple knowledge that one is drinking something from a particular area?

In the case of the Tennessee wine I was thrilled to know I was drinking a wine from this state that I truly enjoyed. I liked that I was partaking of a particular region's unique fare. It make me feel cosmopolitan and gave me the confidence to state that Tennessee is making some very fine wines.

Is that enough?

This Wine is Gay!

I've been thinking about what it means to be Gay.

It's not that the wives of my male friends have to start worrying about my charms. No, instead I've been thinking about the notion of marketing wine to the gay niche. It came about when the folks at the "Food & Wine For the Gay Palate" blog asked if they could post an old entry of mine about the subject of a gay-facing wine website. At this blog there is a truly fascinating post about a wine called "Pansy" that is produced for and marketed to the Gay community.

Now, marketing wine to the Gay community isn't brain surgery. You do it in the same way you'd market wine specifically to the Hispanic community or the Baseball loving community or the community of middle aged snake charmers: you simply speak to them directly in a voice, with an attitude and with language that they'll recognize. In large part it's about paying attention to them and their specific world view.

But what I'm really interested in and what I found fascinating about "Pansy" is the idea of producing a wine that is made for the "gay palate". According to Erica Crawford, Pansy's Co-founder:

"We didn't want to make a winemaker's wine. The first one we made was 4 grams RS (residual sugar); I'd like it bone-dry but it's important to make wine for your consumers, not for yourself."

I get the idea that a wine aimed specifically at the Gay community might naturally be a rose or pink wine. After all, trading on stereotypes that are adopted and even not adopted by groups is a standard method of speaking to a group in voice they will recognize as their own. The association of the color pink with the Gay community is an old and recognizable one. But here, according to Ms. Crawford, the direct implication is that the proper way to make a wine that will appeal to the gay community is to make the wine pretty damn sweet.

I can't figure this out. But I'm trying. A 4% Residual Sugar Rose borders on being slightly alcoholic soda pop. You really need to chill that thing down to make it drinkable. Personally, I'd be pouring it over ice and sipping it while floating on a lounger in the pool on a warm day. It's the kind of wine you give to someone who doesn't drink wine because, "wine's just too sour!". Consider that the vast majority of "White Zinfandel" on the market comes in at about 1% to 3% residual sugar. This one is 4%. A half of percent residual sugar is very noticeable.

Does one's palate become particularly attuned to sweetness once it is determined they are gay?

Or is this just another case of "speaking" to the Gay community in a liquid language that they would recognize?

If this is a case of speaking a liquid language recognizable by Gays then we are witnessing a really intricate form of marketing. It would be a case of recognizing that the sensation of sweetness on the palate is not just a physiological experience whereby sweetness is detected by "G protein" receptors found on tastebuds. It would also be a recognition that "sweetness" experienced on the palate can act as a language that gays can "read" and comprehend as specifically applying to them.

This raises a number of questions. Do gays acquire a taste for sweetness far beyond that of straights by virtue of consuming larger amounts of sweet foods? I don't think so.

Is there a genetic connection between the "gay gene" and a gene for appreciating sweetness on the palate. Who knows? At the least we know this hasn't been demonstrated and I'd be inclined to doubt it.

Instead I think it's a matter of again falling back on stereotypes that work as a form of communication that can be used in marketing. The stereotype of gay men being feminine, "light in the loafers", and drastically unmasculine seems to mesh well with the concept and associations that come with "sweetness". And this begs the question, could a wine made for the gay community be successful were it a big, brawny, tanic, dry Petite Sirah?

I don't know the answer to this question, but I suspect that one could just as easily make and successfully market such a wine to the gay community just by falling back on standard marketing techniques that have the marketer paying real attention to the community it is selling to and speaking in a language that is theirs and that they would recognize.

Still, I'm lead to wonder if their are styles (sweet, dry, big, alcoholic, fruity, earthy) of wines that one would produce specifically for another demographic or community. What kind of wine, for example, would one produce for Golfers or Fans of "Oprah" or Liberals or Rockhounds or Trekkies?

The analysis of the social and intellectual meaning of Sweet, Bitter, Tannic, Dry, Alcoholic, Fruity, Earthy and other wine styles is one that probably deserves some significant investigation. Yet I'm convinced that using any meanings associated with these characteristics of wine to sell more wine to a particular niche group will not work without a explicit pitch to the group through other, more direct means—such as speaking directly to that group and saying, "this wine is for you" just as the folks at Kim Crawford Wines have done with "Pansy".

And what of the name of this wine—"Pansy". Clearly it is a case of the now common practice of groups re-appropriating and embracing a disparaging term in order to diminish its usefulness as a slur—a tool I'm very much in favor of using in a world where language is too often used slap folks around with. Any marketer would have to be extraordinarily careful in using such a tool. Yet in this case it appears to not have caused any problems.

So, this has all set me on a mission: if a style of wine can be used to market that wine to the gay community, I want to try to figure out what style of wine needs to be produced to market specifically to the bland, vanilla, over-bite-while-dancing, wine-country-living, over worked, straight male niche.

It's (frog's) LEAP DAY!!!

Today is really a bonus, isn't it? I mean, is today an extra day? Are we living on granted time today it being Leap Day and all? I really can't figure it out. From what I understand, today—FEB 29—is added to the calender because we, as a people, choose to use poor mathematics in mapping out our calender. Today is like that little "R2" that that 1st graders use when learning division: Today accounts for the "remainder minutes" that are left over during the past 4 years.

Nevertheless and despite all that, It seem appropriate on this day to honor one of the cooler wineries in Northern California: FROG's LEAP.

There are a TON of things to like about Napa Valley's Frog's Leap besides their having the best label in the American wine industry. Among them:

1. Their wines are so well priced it's as though they never noticed that it's not 1990 any more.

2. They make an astoundingly good Rose.

3. Owner John Williams has presided over the creation of what might be the "greenest" winery in Napa Valley.

4. They are such die hard Giants fans they actually put the opening day on their events page on the web.

5. All their grapes are grown organically. I don't know if this accounts for the quality of their wines, but I do know it means they must pay much greater attention to the vineyard. That's a good thing.

In some respects Frog's Leap Winery is "old school" in that it has been around for over 25 years. So many wineries today are the toast of the town in part because they are new which means wineries like Frog's Leap don't get the attention they deserve. But today is there day. Today is Leap Day. In the wine business it really should be known as (Frog's) LEAP DAY.

Go visit their website. Buy a killer bottle of wine and celebrate this extra 24 hours you have been given by the time-keeping powers that be.

Very Quaffable Innovations

John Gavin, best known as the author of Quaffability Blog and popular web designer to the wineries is on a roll with two new and innovative websites that wine lovers probably should be aware of.

WEB TASTING ROOM

It's a video blog. It's a source of excellent deals. It's a message direct from the winemaker. What John has done here is create not just a web site the provides access to good deals on wines, but gives you much deeper insight than normal into who is behind the wine. One deal is offered at a time (right now it's an SB and Red blend from famed winemaker Mia Klein) that most often includes a fantastic deal on shipping. The current offered delivers two very rare wines with SHIPPING INCLUDED. In addition you not only get detailed info about the wine but a video interview with the winemaker. Pretty cool!

FREEWINESHIPPING.COM

While I like the WebTastingRoom concept, this particular website is the one I think will lead a number of folks to sign up for their mailing list and RSS Feed. John is regularly posting links to wineries and retailers who have a deal going that offers free shipping. How cool is that??? "Free Shipping" is the number one promotion that consumers want from wine sellers. Not 10% off. Not 20% off on a case. It's "free shipping" or its equivalent that is desired.  Gavin is searching the web and posting his finds, be they from wineries or retailers. If my wife finds out about this I'll need to raise my rates to Wark Communications clients.

Cheers to more very cool wine innovations on the web!!

A Spectator's View of 2005 CA Pinot

OK...more than likely we are all buying up 2005 California Pinots because they have largely all hit the market. At least those of us who enjoy experimenting with CA Pinot are looking to this vintage.

Being a guy who appreciates statistics and being further a guy who understands that the Wine Spectator is an important trend setter for quality considerations, I decided to take a look at what the Wine Spectator has had to say about CA Pinots from the 05 vintage.

Here's what we have.

2005 CA Pinots Reviewed by the Wine Spectator
(Appellation, % w/ 90 Points or more, % w/80 pts or less, total wines reviewed)

California Pinots----26% w/90pts----(7% less than 80pts)-----417 wines reviewed
Russian River--------27% w/ 90pts----(6% less than 80pts)------179 wines reviewed
Carneros---------------14% w/ 90pts------(6% less than 80pts)......35 wines reviewed
Sonoma Coast-------30% w/90pts------(3% less than 80pts)------67 wines reviewed
Santa Lucia-----------41% w/90 pts-----(0% less than 80pts)-------34 wines reviewed
Santa Rita-------------30% w/90 pts-----(4% less than 80pts)-------55 wines reviewed
Anderson Vly--------42% w/90 pts-----(4% less than 80pts)-----24 wines reviewed

Interesting isn't it. Look at Santa Lucia and Anderson Valley.

Now, you can take this as an indication of what the folks over at the Wine Spectator like in their Pinot and what they think of the Pinots from these appellations OR you can take it as an indicator of quality from these different regions. This all depends on how well your palate matches up with the palate of the Wine Spectator critics.

That said, I'm pretty darn proud of my favorite little appellation that could: Anderson Valley. I did a similar comparison with the 2004 vintage that's a bit more extensive. You can find it HERE.

The Next Wine Movie (trailer included)

One of the two forthcoming films about the 1976 Paris Tasting, Bottle Shock, has made its debut at the Sundance Film festival. Below is the official trailer for the film. There are initial reviews of the film out too. Not many of them are terrific

FROM VARIETY: "A peculiar demand placed on the cast, from Farina in Paris to Pine, Rodriguez, Taylor and Pullman in Napa (and Rickman in both locales), is credibly reacting when tasting vintages, sending the visual clue that a great wine is at hand. Rickman plays the snob to human scale and never to exaggeration, while Miller lets Pine and Pullman go overboard with unevenly calibrated perfs. Taylor and Rodriguez, despite one ridiculous love scene, pull off big-screen charm. Production is slick on a budget (though using Napa spots as a location substitute for France is an obvious flub), and plenty of visuals serve as little more than commercials for California wine country."

FROM CINEMABLEND: " Is there room in the world for yet another movie about wine?  If the movie is Bottle Shock… then nope. Director Randol Miller has assembled an amazing and talented cast, but he uses them on a disjointed script which never seems to find its focus."

FROM FILM.COM: "With the runaway success of Sideways you just know the general public is ripe for a good wine movie. Even better, the concept here (at first blush) is even better than Sideways and the filmmakers have gotten Alan Rickman involved too. So how did things go so terribly wrong? Well, they violated rule No. 1 of storytelling: they forgot what story they were trying to tell."

FROM PHILLY.COM: "Director and co-screenwriter Randall Miller insisted in a phone interview that Bottle Shock is "as close to the truth as possible."

 

In that case, the screenplay from June that I read must have undergone major surgery before shooting started in August. Even so, big chunks of truth apparently have been jettisoned for wider cinematic appeal, and an invented love triangle has been added."

I for one plan to withhold judgment until I see "BottleShock". What I do know is that one more film about wine is nothing but good for the wine industry in general. 

Sugar and the Mental Gymnastics of the Wine Drinker

I often wonder about the personal dynamics a person undergoes when their prejudices bump up against a reality that puts the lie to those prejudices. It turns out I find myself in just such a position. What I've found is that it's best to embrace one's convictions and let go of long held prejudices if peace of mind is one's goal.

The prejudice: Simple Palates and Novice Wine Drinkers Like their Wine Sweet. Experienced Palates and Dedicated Wine Lovers Like their Wines Dry.

The Reality: Ive discovered that of late, no matter when I'm in the mood for wine, I find myself reaching for something sweet. And not just a slightly sweet Zinfandel, but a really sweet ice wine or dessert wine; Sauternes, Late Harvest Zin, Semillon infected with Noble Rot. The list is long, but it's sweet.

I've found myself of late sipping Austrian Ice Wine and Sweet German Riesling as I go about my business in the office in the late afternoon. It is incredibly pleasant and has the additional bonus of usually being quite low in alcohol.

Yet on more than one occasion I've got this image of myself in my mind of an old lady sipping her afternoon sweet sherry. I don't particularly like that image, I think because it doesn't square with my long held opinion that I'm amongst the wine loving elite that drinks "serious" wine.

I wonder to what extent expectations of what it means to be a "wine drinker" weigh on those who may not consider themselves among the elite, but really do like their wine sweet. I wonder if these folks simply don't want to be associated with the "Sweet Palates" and Old Lady Sherry Drinkers and as a result turn to drinking beer or bourbon.

I've always viewed sweet wines not only as being for those who aren't "SERIOUS" wine drinkers but also as a "gateway wine" that can draw the uninitiated into the "Serious Wine Drinker" fold. In fact, whenever I open a sweet wine I make sure I give my kids a sip. My hope is they'll grow up with good thoughts about wine running around their head.

My solution to my own prejudicial contradictions is to embrace them. I will drink these damned sweet wines as much as I want and I'll do it with a smile on my face. And if anyone wants to call me less than serious about wine I can just as easily pour them a glass and dare them not to like it. Getting to this place in my mind actually took some mental gymnastics. But I got there with my self respect intact and with my superior attitude intact too.

I wonder however if that superior attitude that many serious wine drinkers have doesn't too often drift out into the world of would-be-wine-consumers and turn them off.

I think it must.

On to the next Ice Wine....

Subliminal Wine Reviews

There is a wildly subversive and subliminal quality to this story.

The Office of Champagne, USA has issued a press release exalting the fact that "Belgian Customs       authorities seized and destroyed a shipment of over 3,200 bottles of André       sparkling wine. The shipment was seized at the port of Anvers, Belgium,       on Tuesday."

The Gallo-produced products were seized and destroyed because the wine carries the terms “California       Champagne” and “André       Champagne Cellars”. Using the term "Champagne" on a wine not from the Champagne region is a violation of       export laws that protect the place names of wine       regions.

What's really interesting is that the press release comes with a link to a video of the Andre Sparkling Wine being destroyed. The video itself is perhaps the best subliminal statement about wine quality I've seen in ages. Toward the end you see the once sparkling liquid now browned by its exposure to shredded cardboard wine cases, glass, label paper, bins and who knows what else, being drained into bins from the container in which the wines were destroyed. The brown, ugly liquid can't be any good to drink, now can it? It OBVIOUSLY isn't champagne. In fact, is this what most American wine that tries to sparkle really looks like???

I'm a big supporter of this notion that integrity demands that place names ought to mean something. "Champagne" falls into that category. I'm unaware if Gallo had an exemption to the recently negotiated treaty concerning place names. Nor do I have any idea if this shipment had been in the pipeline for some time or if Gallo wanted to get away with something.

The point is that Gallo SHOULD be changing the label of Andre's so that it merely says "Sparkling Wine". It's not Champagne. It's wine that sparkles.

1956, 1961, 2001...What's the Difference?

I was watching the latest episode of, Mad Men, the best new drama on Television, and I swear I saw something very interesting and very wine related.

Toward the end of the latest episode, Mr. and Mrs. Draper are having a quiet late dinner together at home. Mrs. Draper, the consummate housewife, admits to having "thrown the dinner together with what's leftover." Mr. Draper assures her is a wonderful dinner.

On the kitchen table sits, I'm almost positive, a bottle of Chateau Lafite Rothschild. If anyone watches this great series take a look at the last ten minutes and let me know if I'm right.

One of the most satisfying things about this series is the authenticity of the set design and it's fidelity to the details of 1960. Did upper middle class couples drink Lafite with their dinner of leftovers in 1960?

I'm not complaining that the set designers got it wrong, and I might even be wrong about the identity of the wine. What it made me think about is the degree to which a wine can be used in dramatic productions to set the stage or the era.

We know that wine is often used in film and TV to tell us something about the characters. Most often a character's relationship with wine is used to indicate their degree of snobbishness or their socio-economic position or, in some cases, to indicate they are a poser. That use of wine is what it is, and hard to complain about. But I wonder if wine can ever be used as a prop to simply indicate a time period?

We most often see this done in the form of wardrobe, the cars on the streets, surrounding historical events or the type of popular entertainment the characters indulge in. It seems to me that wine is a very poor item with which to try to indicate the time period of a story. The reason is that the packaging of wine has changed so very little over the years. Take a look, for example at the difference between the 1961 and 2001 Lafite labels.

Tough to tell the difference. And this is par for the course with wine packaging. Now, there are exceptions. Mouton, with it's new art on each new vintage, would be a perfect example of defining the time, but only the most sophisticated wine drinker would notice the implications. Add to this the fact that you can't assume the vintage of a wine indicates the year it is being drunk and you see the problem with using wine to help set the era in drama.

This is all rather obvious, I know. But I can't help but think the wine for this "Mad Men" was surely chosen carefully by the set designers since every other item in the frames are very carefully chosen to recreate 1960. So, here is my question. If you did want to be really anal and choose a very specific wine to portray an upper middle class married couple eating a late night supper in their suburban home in 1960 east coast America...what would you put on the table?

First, I think it's clearly French. In 1960 California wine really hadn't penetrated the American culture. Second, I think the wine is probably from around 1953-1956. Let's face it, why would you have this couple opening a wine that is older, given the impression then and now that older wine is more special wine and this is not a "special" dinner. Third,  well, there is no third. There is not much else a set designer could do to use wine as a time indicator given the degree of interest in wine that existed in 1960 and given the degree of knowledge of wine that the average American currently possesses. They'd be wasting the nuance of using the 1956 Mouton with its Pavel Techelitchew label.

In other worlds, "Mad Men" set designers got it right again. Damn...those folks are good.
 

Pinot Noir & the Holy Grail

There seems to be no stopping Pinot Noir. Years after "Sideways" put the variety on the map for the average wine drinker and sales of the wine soared, we still are seeing healthy year over year increases in its sales. When Americans discover something new, and something they like, they tend to embrace it, don't they.

One of the better Pinot-centric events is "Pinot On The River". One of the ways by which one can be confident an event will be worth the money, is to look at who is organizing it and ask yourself, "do they really care?"

Greg Walters really cares. His Pinot Report, a newsletter dedicated the variety has won a number of accolades and a following among those who in particular want an early glimpse at what's new in the world of Pinot Noir.

Greg is the mastermind behind Pinot On The River, scheduled this year for October 26. 27 and 28. As with most events of this sort there will be a tasting of Pinots from a number of wineries. Over 80 Pinot producers have signed on to pour at the even that will be held in and about the Russian River Valley in Sonoma County. Among those wineries set to pour:

A.P. Vin
Annapolis Winery
Bien Nacido Vineyard
DuNah
Etude
Halleck Vineyards
Kastania Vineyards
Keller Estate
Kosta Browne
Lucienne
MacPhail Family Wines
Moshin Vineyards
Papapietro Perry Winery
Roessler Cellars
Sokol Blosser Winery
Tandem Winery
Testarossa Vineyards
W.H. Smith Wines
Windward Vineyards

While I love tasting wines, I tend to get so easily distracted at large tastings that my evaluative powers disappear fairly quickly. I've come to appreciate them mainly as a way of getting to know folks. What I really enjoy about these events are the seminars. Greg has put together some interesting ones:

SATURDAY OCTOBER 27
Seminar #1: Regional Focus: Russian River Valley
Seminar #2: The Rising Stars Of California Pinot Noir
Seminar #3: Vineyard Focus: Bien Nacido Vineyards.
Seminar #4: Winery Focus: A Tale of Three Verticals

SUNDAY OCTOBER 28
Seminar #1: Alcohol And Pinot Noir
Seminar #2: Small Winery Focus
Seminar #3: The Science of Pinot Noir
Seminar #4: Small Winery Focus:

There is a holy grail quality that propels the purchasing patterns of Pinot Noir lovers. There seems to be something about the variety that suggests just around the corner something will be discovered that overthrows our previous notions of what great Pinot can be. Today, the grail might be discovered not just in California and Burgundy, but in a number of other regions from New Zealand to Tasmania. This event seems to have attracted the best of the California lot, or at least many of the most sought after producers.

For more info on Pinot On the River: CLICK HERE or call: 707-922-1096

The Wierd Case of Palate Synchronization

I like counting. I like the simple, elegant, structured and definite results you get from counting.

Combine this counting fetish I have with my appreciation for criticism and you can understand why I like valuating various rating systems and results of wine rating systems.

Today for some reason I started thinking about the highest rated recently released wines in the world. That though brought me to The Wine Spectator Magazine where, using their database of wine ratings, I learned something I think is remarkable and that I did not know:

Kosta Browne is clearly one of the greatest wineries in the WORLD...according to the wine spectator. KB wines released from the 2000 to 2006 vintage have received 95 points or higher from the Wine Spectator no less than 13 times. 13 TIMES!! 13 DIFFERENT WINES

Only four other wineries in the world have achieve this or better: Chapoutier, Guigal, Kracher and J. Wegelen Erber.

I'd had Kosta Brown wines before. I just never formed an impression about them. So I went out and bought one: 2005 Kosta Browne Amber Ridge Pinot Noir--Russian River Valley. This wine as ranked 95 points by Jim Laube, who wrote:

"Dense and backward, this is tightly wound and structured, yet the core of earthy cherry and wild berry is deeply concentrated, and the flavors keep unfolding on the palate. Ends with firm tannins, but also a burst of espresso-laced fruit. Drink now through 2011."

Now, I don't know about 2011, but this wine tastes EXACTLY like Mr. Laube describes it. I wouldn't have given this wine 95 points. But as many of you know I don't review wines on this blog. So my score is another matter.

But what's really interesting is this: Upon writing down my notes for this wine in my handy-dandy notebook, I went to the Wine Spectator site to look up the review printed above. Then I went back to my review in my note book. Check this out:

"Dense", "Tight" "heavy earth notes", "ripe cherry", "blackberry shell", "Tannic", "Coffee-finish"

Now compare those snippets from my notes with Mr. Laube's....Is that weird or what?

I've actually never noticed my notes being SO perfectly aligned with those of any critic. Frankly it startled me and I started to consider notions of "base flavors", palate synchronization, and coincidence. I've met and spoken with with Jim Laube a number of times, but it's not like we taste together on a regular basis, something that can result in palate synchronization.

I'll be going back and looking at the notes I've taken for a number of other wines I've reviewed  and compare them with reviews for the same wines by Laube and other critics. My initial suspicion is that I won't find anything like this kind of identical description. But imagine if I did.

How amazingly useful would it be if one's palate regularly tasted the exact same characteristics in a wine that a particular wine critic  tasted? It would not matter at all if you APPRECIATED the same characteristics. Just being able to read a critics review and understanding it completely would be an enormous advantage when it came to buying wines you've never tasted yourself.

The Most Recent Best Moment of Your Life

Some time ago, and I can't quite recall when, I posted about the pleasure of finding just the right place to drink wine. I'm sure I stated unequivocally that the best place to do so was in laying in my hammock, in my back yard, with a glass of Rose on a warm summer evening.

It turns out there is a contender for the crown.

In the middle of Emerald Bay on Lake Tahoe, on a warm summer day with good friends.

This weekend I did some boating up on Lake Tahoe with my good friend Jeff Mayo of Mayo Family Winery, his lovely girlfriend Laura, Sarah Donnelly of William Selyem and of course with my beautiful bride Ginny. We were drinking an 05 Donnhoff Riesling while drifting in Jeff's vintage craft. We got in the bay when it turned out few people were around. It was quiet. We were full from a nice lunch of Kobe Beef Burgers with Rose and Sancerre.

There was a strange moment as we drifted in the water and stared up at the emerald island in the bay, listened to the calm of the water and felt the sun and took in the towering mountains that surrounded us. Out of no where Jeff declared, "I don't think I've ever drunk a better wine in my life!"

Now, I know Jeff has had better wine. I've served them to him. But with his remark what he got was an immediate acknowledgment from everyone in the boat.

It was not only the best wine Jeff had ever had in his life, but it was the best wine I and everyone else had ever had in their lives. There was quiet agreement among us. But of course the agreement had nothing to do with the the quality of the wine.

The best wine you've ever had in your life must surely be the wine you're drinking during the most recent best moment in your life.

There I was, Minding My Own Memorial Day...

So there I was, minding my own Memorial Day by the pool, reading an old copy of the New Yorker (1963: a story about the Clay/Jones fight at Madison Square Garden), when all of a sudden I poured a  Cabernet down my throat that my wife put in front of me. The sun had just fallen below the tree line so the Rose had been put away.

At first I was startled. "Hmmm....I've already had a single sip of this stuff and I'm not drunk!"

Still surprised at the wine's balance, finesse, forward fruit notes and lovely hints of herb, I ask my bride, "what the hell is this?

"It's a Cabernet I picked up," she said

"Where's the bottle honey," I said as I took another swig.

As she approached me with bottle in hand, I noticed I still wasn't tipsy even after taking two good sized swigs of what had to be a California Cabernet--it's almost all she buys.

I moved aside the laptop (which held roughly 80+ years of New Yorkers on it....Amazing) and watched the wife swagger over toward me. She has a smirk on her face, a bottle in one hand and a half full glass in the other.

Upon sitting the bottle in front of me I could see it was a familiar brand, though nothing that would be called coveted by any wine lover or wine snob. It carried an Alexander Valley appellation and a 2004 vintage.

Before investigating further I took another good swig just to make sure the long weekend hadn't gotten into my head.

Even after the third gulp I felt no heat on the palate and no alcohol-induced fuzzy-headedness, yet the same sweet berry center, it's herbal note, the nice structure and medium tannins and a lovely balance struck me.

"How much was it, Darlin?"

"It was much more my price range than yours."

That meant somewhere in the neighborhood of $10-$14.

I had to look.

There it was. Staring me right in the face. I couldn't believe it. I hadn't seen such a thing in years:
TWELVE POINT FIVE PERCENT ALCOHOL.

I immediately felt the urge to blog. Then I thought better of it, remembering that only a couple good hours of Memorial Day daylight remained. Plus, the wine was very good, the air clean, the New Yorker story was humming right along in beautifully written prose and I just didn't want to think about typing. I'd leave it until tomorrow morning.

So what do you know. A 12.5% Alexander Valley Cabernet. I thought them extinct. I thought them, if they did exist, to likely be an experiment with water gone bad. But this wine didn't taste that way and even if it was an exercise in stretching a vintage I didn't care. Of course I secretly hoped that a winemaker had decided enough was enough of the 15% CA cabs and was trying to make a point.

What worried me more was that we would not be able to find any more of this. The wife is on it.

I suppose I've written about my fatigue with high alcohol wine enough to bore a number of readers. Usually it's a "complaint post". You can file this one under "revelation post" or "discovery post". However, since I do not review wine, this post does not include a wine review on any kind of the 2004 Laurier Cabernet Sauvignon.

The Problem with Viognier

I tasted six different Viogniers yesterday accounting for 4 different appellations. They represented three different recent vintages. Not a single one delivered anything that could remotely be considered "crispness" on the palate and in most cases the best description of the texture of these wines was "flat".

In my mind this is unacceptable. In fact, it leads me to the point of not even considering the varietal when I contemplate which white wine to buy or drink. I felt like I was drinking flat Mountain Dew.

I believe the problem might lie in the winemaker's desire to draw out as much of that "tropical" character that so many people look and hope for in Viognier. It means they try to get their grapes as ripe as possible before picking. This in turn often leads to diminished acidity, higher alcohols, and a palate feel that is more akin to worn satin. "Smooth" is nice, but it doesn't help when confronted with a cream sauce.

The other distinguishing feature of 4 of the six Viogniers was a clear bitterness and metallic quality in the wines. I don't know what causes this feature. But I don't think it's something that is natural to the variety.

What I'm wondering is this: Perhaps Viognier might be better utilized as a blending grape. I'm not talking about the traditional practice of tossing in single digit amounts of Viognier into otherwise red Rhone varieties. I'm thinking of a blend of Viognier, Chardonnay and and riesling. I'm thinking of the idea of using Viognier to deliver a hint of tropical-ness to to a blend of other whites, rather than trying to get as much "Tahiti" out of Viognier delivered all alone.

There are not that many varieties that disappointment nearly across the board as Viognier does. For years Sangiovese from California truly disappointed me but it seems that glitch has been taken care of due to more years of experience. I'm hoping CA vintners find a better approach to Viognier.

Zinfandel vs Diet Pepsi

It's only a about a month away from the start of summer and that can only mean one thing: it's time we start seeing zinfandel recommended to go with barbecued foods.

How Zin became associated with barbecue I don't know. But it is. This is both a blessing and a curse as far as I can tell. One the one hand, lots of people love barbecue and need a wine to go with the various styles of grilling, slow cooking and searing that falls under the "barbecue" heading these days. That means more zinfandel sells. One the other hand, associating Zin with Barbecuing sort of relegates Zin to a second tier status as a wine since this style of cooking is not associated with high cuisine.

I personally don't often drink zinfandel with Barbecue. If I am going to drink wine with my famed "Caramelcued Beef Ribs" rather than Diet Pepsi on the rocks, it's almost always going to be a cold, dry rose or a sparkling wine of some sort. I like the extra traction my palate gets from the fizz and the acid.

So, now's the time of year I start looking for good buys on good rose and good sparkling wine. I'm going to quaff and swill the stuff, drink a lot of it, and I don't want to deal with much alcohol. I really don't care what country it comes from as long as the Rose is dry, fruit forward, isn't high n alcohol and has good acid, while the Sparkler needs only be dry, yeasty and under $25. Any suggestions are appreciated.

I suspect that it will be long after I'm gone when Zinfandel breaks out of its somewhat "pedestrian" box and is considered a noble grape, something recommended to be served with haut cuisine and other fancy foods, if it ever does. Perhaps to speed that along their needs to be some sort of concerted effort to get folks to age Zin (it can age beautifully), which automatically raises its stature or to get chefs and sommeliers to pair Zin with very small amounts of foods carefully presented on large white plates in restaurants where presentation competes with satisfaction. 

My Version of "Spring Cleaning"

For those of you who live in the Northern climes or in regions where the snow still sits on the ground and the temperatures hover around 10 degrees, this post might appear a case of rubbing it in. That's not my intention and I apologize for any distress this post might create for you.

It's March 12 and here in Glen Ellen it is 78 degrees, not a cloud in the sky. It may as well be spring. My trees are budding. My perennials are pushing. Barry Bonds is hitting home runs in spring training. The only thing that would make this more spring like is the opportunity to dwell on Dry Rose.

But wait.....in steps Kermit Lynch:

2006 Gris de Gris-Domaine de Fontsainte--$12.95
"Value of the Month? Value of the Year? Of the Decade?
And I don't single out Fontsainte 2006 for special honors. Every vintage I have tasted is right on the market, deserveing a Value of the Year award....This rose speaks aromatically, and it seems to say, 'Live it up, pleausre is good for you, too."

Leave it to Kermit Lynch to confirm that, yes, it may as well be officially spring.

I used to be a "Fall Guy". It was that season that most took my breath away. In this neck of the woods we had everything in the fall: warm weather, cooler weather, color in the vineyards, harvest. But over the past few years I've replaced Fall with Spring as the time of year I most look forward too. I'm not sure why this is. Perhaps it has something to do with aging. "Hope", always more associated with Spring, seems a commodity more appreciated by us as we age.

It may also be that I LIKE to drink light whites and Rose more than any other wine. It didn't used to be that way, but it is now and Spring facilitates good drinking weather geared for these wines.

Upon seeing the new Kermit Lynch newsletter this weekend and seeing this amazing bargain on the Fontsainte Rose I made a point of looking through my wines to see just how many whites needed to be drunk up now, rather than later. I set them aside and plan on going through them one by one. This will be pleasurable, but also offer the added benefit of making way for the Fontsainte. My version of Spring Cleaning.

An Oscars Wine Surprise

Were there any surprises at the Oscars this year? I don't thinks so. Pobably because there was no single film that so towered over the others in hype and talk. When you've got those in the mix there is a real opportunity for upsets.

This was the first year in 10 that our house was not the scene of a multi-TV Oscars party. Instead we went to the home of a friend with about 8 others for a wine and Oscars party. Really it was a chance for him to break out many wines he'd been waiting to share with others.

While there was no upset at the Oscars, among the 15 or so wines we tasted there was not just an upset but a wine moment that was unexpectedly startling as to cause silence and a pause for a moment of reflection.

This moment came when two dessert wines were brought out right around Best Editing:

2000 SINE QUA NON "MR.K",  THE NOBLEMAN, BOTRYTIS  VIOGNIER (375ml)

NV YALUMBA MUSEUM RESERVE MUSCAT (375)

Two dessert wines from regions as far as you can get from each other. The 2000 SQN hails from Edna Valley here in CA, the Yalumba Muscat from Australia. On the other hand, they are both that rare breed of wine that Robert Parker Jr., estimated to be rated in the upper 90s. The SQN got 96 points, the Yalumba got 98 Points.

By my estimation the Yalumba was the better wine. It is intensely flavored, rich and filled with fig, chocolate, coffee, maple, prune and spice flavors. And it goes on and and on. The SQN is more medium bodied and delilvers carmelized apple, ripe pear, apricot and marmalade flavors. A beautiful wine, but I'd drink the Aussie Muscat first...any day.

The real interesting difference between the two wines is price:

Yalumba Muscat: $25
SQN Viognier: $180

Now, these are aftermarket prices, both wines being purchased at auction. I don't think we are looking at prices that reflect a huge demand for Botrytised Viognier from California. What we are looking at is what happens when one wine and one winemaker are so valued by the market, so hyped, so in demand that the price of the wine has no relationship to the rest of the market. This is not a judgement. Just an observation.

But here's the bottom line: If you are a person who enjoys dessert wines, you have at your disposal a wine so amazing and so well priced that you really are obligated to buy the Yalumba Muscat. Share it witih friends if you must.

The Wine Stained Teeth Are Worth It

The folks over at PS I LOVE YOU, the Petite Sirah Appreciation organization sure do know how to put on an event.

Ginny and I skidded through the rain this evening to check out the variety of Pets at Rosenblum Cellars in Alameda, California where the "Dark & Delicious" tasting put on by Jo Diaz and PS, I Love You was held. It was a feast...in every sense of the word.

You really have to gear up for a Petite Sirah tasting. This is a varietal that is very unforgiving in its youth. It is so often a hugely stuffed, substantial wine with rip roaring tannins and teeth staining density of color. The only way to mitigate this character is with food. And that's something they had a lot of at Dark & Delicious. I ate lamb fixed five or six ways, pork delivered in numerous styles, beef on a variety of skewers and other edible delivery vehicles, a couple types of prawns, 14 different types of cheeses, one great Shepard's pie, and chocolate in more ways than I can count.

There was lots of mitigation goin on.

My preference is to drink Petite Sirah at 10 years of age. It could be that I'm just a tannin wimp. But I don't think so. Petite Sirah ages so damn well that at ten years you still tend to have great dollops of fruit left, softer tannins, a color that puts most 10 year old CA wines to shame and that a somewhat heightened, though much better integrated pepper character that sometimes it is a bit too upright in the wine's youth.

MY PETITE SIRAH REVELATION
My real Petite Sirah Revelation was a 25 year old Foppiano Petite that we served at tasting I put on the for the media in 1994. It was the oldest wine in what I recall was a 15 or 20 year vertical tasting. We wanted the media to walk away thinking Petite Sirah = Foppiano Vineyards. I knew that wasn't going to be a difficult sell. At the time there just weren't many wineries devoted to the grape and perhaps only 4 or five wineries that had made anywhere near  the number of varietally marked Petites as Foppiano had.

My main concern was the current vintage and the barrel sample. Those were the wines I wanted the Foppiano and the media to focus on. In my mind, the 1969 Petite was on the table for retrospective purposes only.

Well, damned if that wasn't the wine everyone was talking about. I should have known. But I didn't. But I understood when I tasted it: Fresh, exotic, staying power in the glass, tannin fruit.

Today there are many more Petite producers. It works well for todays I-love-them-big drinkers. The cool thing about Petite is that it's big NATURALLY. Tonight I enjoyed the Rosenblum Rockpile, Foppiano Estate, Biale, Harrington, Stags' Leap, Concannon and Ripken.

Try this varietal. Explore it. It's not the amazing value it used to be but you can still get outstanding Petite Sirah at a price far less than outstanding examples of most other varietals.

Savoring the Green

I had a very interesting wine this weekend that, happily, made me think.

It was a "Sonoma County Merlot. Vintage 2003. Price: $32.00. It was a wine that stood out for one main reason: It had noticeable "herbal" qualities in the nose that was followed up by the same slightly "green" character on the palate.

These days there seems to be very few rules in the winemaking business. But there is one steadfast rule: AVOID GREEN HINTS IN YOUR WINE LIKE YOU WOULD AVOID THE PLAGUE....and for the same reasons. It can kill you...or at least a brand.

I'm not exactly sure how this anti-green rule came to reign. Maybe it has something to do with all those VERY green and herbally cabernets that were once produced in the Monterey area some time ago and that led to great disappointment in the potential for that region (of course they overcame that disappointment and the herbal/tomatoey character of those earlier wines).

Maybe the anti-green rule is simple the result of powerful critics criticizing this character in a wine.

Maybe the anti-green rule is merely a reflection of the domination of the American sweet tooth.

I'm not sure why winemakers must expunge any hint of 'green" or herbal character from their wine, but there is no question that this character is undesirable.

I happen to like it. Not as a primary characteristic, but as part of a mix of character in a wine. I recall when  there was a "grassy" style of Sauvignon Blanc often coming out of the Dry Creek Valley region. It was thought by many at the time that this was a part of the Dry Creek Valley terroir expressing itself through the Sauvignon Blanc grape. You find this character in  DCV SB far less often these days. SB is supposed to be tropical!

If I was in the mood for a Monday Morning Rant, I might be inclined to suggest that many of us who criticize over saturated and over extracted and over alcoholic wines these days are actually criticizing a lack of complexity in too many CA wines. But it's Monday and I'm not sure a rant is in order.

Suffice to say, I got a kick out of sticking my nose into a glass of blueberry, sage and mocha Merlot. There was a lot more to think about, to appreciate, to savor.

Wine Blogs Into the LIght?

Maybe Wine Blogs are moving out of the realm of relative obscurity and into the light.

The Q&A linked to above ran in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat here in the heart of Wine Country, a locale that probably has more interest in things wine than other area's of the country. Yet as we know, folks around the America are thinking more and more about their home towns as "Wine Country".

While I didn't pitch the idea to the newspaper of having this Q&A, I can see wine bloggers around the U.S. making contact with editors at their local daily and letting them know that a member of a growing sub-group of bloggers is right in their back yard. Wine Bloggers: Consider reaching out and help raise the tide.

A Colorful Display of Wine Extravegance

Last week many of us read about the sale over in London of an extraordinary collection of wine: A 135-Bottle Vertical Collection of Chateau d'Yquem ranging from 1860 to 2003.

First off, if you don't salivate at the very thought of obtaining such a collection of wine then, well, then I question your status as even a semi-wine geek.

Steve Bachmann over at The Wine Collector Blog, a member of the board of directors of the society for wine geeks, has a very interesting post on the collection, including thoughts on the $1.5 million price paid for the wines and the custom cabinet it came in.

What interest me about this episode in wine geekery and wine collecting is not so much the price since I'm not in the wine investment or collecting business. Rather, I'm fascinated by the appearance of the youngest and oldest bottle next to each other.

The impact that the appearance of these wines has on someone looking over the collection critically or casually is much more than if we were looking at an ancient bottle of claret next to a new bottle: You can actually examine in detail the change in the liquid that occurs over time. This can't be done with colored glass. And I suspect this unique aspect of d'Yquem has a real impact on its cache, particularly older bottles. I don't care...that's just pretty damn cool.

You can check out images of all the bottles in the collection HERE.

Those interested in a good analysis of the sale and the price should read Bachmann's post at The Wine Collector Blog

Covering all the Champagne Bases

I was thinking about naming this post "The Difference Between Forbes and BusinessWeek." But after thinking about it, I don't think that makes sense. The readers of both Forbes and BusinessWeek articles probably belong in a similar demographic.

So, let's call it..."Covering Your Bases on All Fronts".

Nick Passmore has certainly done this.

For Forbes.com Passmore penned "The Most Expensive Champagnes of 2006," an interesting piece on the prestige Champagnes that will set you back upwards of $750 per bottle. The take away line in this article, for cynics, is this:

"For many of the top-of-the-line bottles here, the price is controlled not so much by the production cost as by what marketing executives believe the market can bear."

Yet for those wondering what the qualitative status is of these upper echelon sparklers, Passmore makes that clear too:

"But make no mistake: This doesn’t mean that the champagnes included here aren’t good--they are; in fact, they are all superb and utterly delicious examples of the winemaking craft."

But then, in BusinessWeek Online, Passmore writes the article meant for the rest of us: "Most Affordable Holiday Champagnes".

These are the wines, sourced from all over the globe, that most of us will be drinking come December 31. They range in price from $15 to $43 and many of them are in fact very good bottlings.

Here at the end of the post I'm again tempted to consider why Forbes.com gets the "most expensive" champagnes and BusinessWeek Online gets the "most affordable" versions. That's another subject. For now it's enough to take these two stories and consider which sparkler best suits us for the upcoming celebration of one more year in the bag.

The Sparkling Wine Post

I love sparkling wine.

If it weren't intoxicating, I'd keep a mug of it on my desk while I worked.

Folks are beginning to think about their annual foray into the world of sparkling wine as New Year's Eve approaches and it's for this reason that Charles Olken has written what must surely be an annual column for him as well as other writers about the various sparkling wines on the market.

Olken, the publisher of Connoisseurs Guide to CA Wine and a regular contributor to a variety of Bay Area newspapers has focused his annual Bubbly column on California-made sparklers as a substitute for Champagne. His main point is gracious and true:

"while our bubblies will still take a back seat to France in terms of cachet, it is no longer true that we are outclassed when it comes to quality for the money."

Olken names a number of outstanding CA sparkling wines but I'm wondering why he didn't include what I think is by far the best value in sparkling wine in California: Roederer Estate from Anderson Valley. You can get it for about $19.00.

LIVING RIGHT WITH SPARKLING WINE
Every now and then you meet one of those folks who ALWAYS have a bottle of Sparkling Wine in their fridge, read to go. There's a certain message sent with this practice that may or may not be true of the person: "I'm ready to Party"...or, alternatively, "Life is short and it's best to have the best on hand." I've found that these ready-to-party/just-the-best folks are not often posers, as you might assume. They are what they are.

EDUCATE THE KIDS
Sparkling wine is one of the best wines to use introduce wine to your kids. I've written before on this blog that at our house our kids get to taste the wines we open. They are now 13 and 11.  It will be a familiar experience for them if they drink carbonated drinks. One very nice way to lessen the chance you'll see a turned up nose when you do let them try sparkling wine for the first time is to pour a small portion into a flute, then add a touch of grenadine to sweeten it up for them. Show them what it looks like before the grenadine but color it up. Not too much. Just a nice dark pink. While they sip it you have the perfect opportunity to explain to them the difference between "Champagne" and "Sparkling wine", a bit of information that will aid them in years to come.

BEFORE YOU DIE
Before you die, saber a large bottle of Sparkling wine. This is a must. Yes, it's dangerous, but so is skiing and driving a car. The experience is exhilarating. Here are instructions on how to Saber a bottle of  Sparkling Wine.

A GREAT SOURCE FOR SPARKLING WINE
You need a great source of Sparkling Wine. Not just a place that has 8 or 10 choices. If you are really going to explore the world of Sparkling wine, and there is a world beyond Champagne, you need real selection. One of the greatest sources of Sparkling Wine is D&M Liquors in San Francisco. They specialize in th stuff. Check them out.

More About Spakling Wine

A Great Day for Winemakers/Bloggers

Regular readers of Fermentation will know that I've enjoyed following the exploits of Amy and Matt, the proprietors of Domaine de la Grameire. I get to do this via their fine blog.

Amy and Matt basically bought a vineyard in the town of  Saint Quentin la Poterie in the Rhone Valley, set up shop, and went about making wine they like. A dream for many of us. They've been working hard and from the looks of things having a good time of it too.

But I wondered how I'd ever taste their wine.

Then, today, the Kermit Lynch Newsletter arrives and what do I see? An entire page devoted to the 2005 Domaine de La Gramiere Cotes du Rhone Rouge.

Now, Amy used to work at Kermit Lynch which leads one to think, well maybe Kermit is just throwing some good will at a former employee. Clearly Kermit is aware of this perception. He explains in his prose that he "made an effort NOT to import this red Rhone."  The problem was, he liked it. So, he decided to get an outside opinion of the wine from Daniel Ravier of Domaine Tempier...yes, THAT Domaine Tempier.

"That's great Cotes du Rhone...It has character and it is a wine of pleasure."

Clearly Mr. Lynch was won over.

I don't know what kind of accolades Amy and Matt were hoping to receive for their efforts. I do know this. There are very few third party endorsements in this business that mean more than inclusion in the Kermit Lynch portfolio. I'm guessing they are happy.  Well, actually, I don't have to guess.

The 2005 Domaine de La Gramiere Cotes du Rhone Rouge is $14.95 per bottle,   and $161.00 per case. The contact info for the Kermit Lynch retail operation where you can order this wine is HERE.

Congrats to a couple of great wine bloggers/winemakers.

The Most Magical Vineyard in the World

Jack at Fork & Bottle tipped me off to this very interesting tidbit at Dr. Vino's Blog (leave it to the good Doctor to find the really magical and fascinating things about the wine industry).

Apparently Gallo is marketing a wine in Europe, Asia and Canada that appears to come from the "Sierra Valley" appellation here in California.

What's really cool is that Gallo is the first winery in America (the world?) to actually get the trademark for a specific appellation. This means that no matter who uses grapes from the Sierra Valley appellation, they can't use the name of that appellation on the bottle the way Gallo has.

It's almost as though it's a phantom appellation.

But...This reporter has actually been to "Sierra Valley" and can report that it really is an amazing and unique terroir:

To get to Sierra Valley you have to travel down the Deep End Road in the Central Valley. Eventually you have to go off of the Deep End and follow Cockamamie Street. That will take you directly into the heart of Sierra Valley.

There is really something magical about this appellation. I was particularly taken with one vineyard that is identified as The Emperor's Clothing Estate. The vineyards were perfectly manicured. In fact, the vineyard is actually "sun drenched"; that is, the sunshine ACTUALLY drips off the leaves on the vines. I know this sounds miraculous, but I read it myself.

Now, if you follow Cockamamie Street and go Around the Bend, you'll find another vineyard site in the Sierra Valley: Farciville Valley Vineyards. Most remarkable about the Farciville Valley planting is that in between the rows of vines they have planted Beanstalks. Jack, the caretaker of Farciville Vineyards, explained to me that the grapes, when harvested, each weigh over 20 lbs, all because of the special beanstalk cover crop planted between the rows.

For more information on this wonderful California appellation, check out Dr. Vino's Blog.