Wine Clubs

Shortly after my 21^st birthday, I discovered Malibu Wines and their amazing tasting room/grounds.  Shortly thereafter, I joined their wine club, my first and only wine club.  I decided to join the wine club for several reasons, but mostly because of its proximity to home.  Most wine clubs offer free tastings and other on-site events to their members, but unless you live near them or are able to visit them frequently, the only perk of the wine club is the wine that you get in your “shipments,” ie. the wine you commit to buy.  Now, at some wineries, the wine that you get to buy is not available to the public.  And, at just a few wineries, the only way you can buy their wine is to be a member of their club.  But that is just a small percentage of wineries.

Back to the reason I joined Malibu Wines' club.  I live near there and their outdoor tasting room makes for a great afternoon/date/place to get away.  Unlike most tasting rooms, you can actually buy a bottle of wine here and have it with a picnic.  And, with tastings for $10, if you go twice every four months, being a wine club member pays for itself just in free tastings, and you still get the wine!

Malibu Wines is home to the Semler and Saddlerock labels.  The Semler label is named after the founder, and the Saddlerock is named for the AVA the vineyard is located in.  The Saddlerock AVA happens to be one of the smallest AVAs in the nation.  The winery focuses mostly on red wines.  In fact, on Semler, their premium label, they only produce one white, a Sauvignon Blanc.  Their concentration is with Cabernet Sauvignon, a wine they have been making for 10 years now, and one that is quite good. 

If you live near a winery, I highly recommend looking into their wine club because they advantage of proximity to a winery lets you take full advantage of all that the wine club has to offer.  Also, if you are in the Los Angeles area, take a trip up to Malibu Wines sometime.  It is a great place to spend an afternoon.

Mobile Wine

With the proliferation of smart phones, iPads, and other devices that give us access to information on the go, the general public has had more information about wine at their fingertips than ever before.  People can look up a wine before they buy it at the grocery store.  You can find the perfect pairing for your dinner while walking down the aisle in the store.  You can even compare prices of wine, vintages, and producers, all at the touch of a button, and do it from anywhere.

I already touched on this a bit when writing about the future of wine marketing and social media, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.  People are much more connected now than ever before, and while that is a bad thing in some ways, it does give us access to more information, which in the case of wine, is usually a good thing.  Using information on the go and while looking at wines can help us sort out the producers, vintages, varietals, and regions that can confuse consumers when thinking about wine.  For example, “Wine Spectator” has a mobile vintage app for the iPhone that gives users their region by region vintage chart for the desired region, so you are sure to pick up the bottle of 2007 Napa Cabernet instead of the 2006.  This doesn’t guarantee that you will pick up a better wine, but picking a wine from a vintage that rated 97 will generally be better than one from a vintage rated 87.  I’m not a big user of this particular app, but it is fun to have on hand when I’m trying something new and just need a bit of information.  I like to go by producer more so than vintage, so I find other apps more helpful.

Wine Notes is a free app on the iPhone that allows you to enter tasting notes and store them on your phone so that you always have them on hand and are able to recall them at the touch of a button when needed.  This application is limited in its capabilities, but it can be a useful tool to log tasting notes on the go and to highlight wines that you want to try again, stay away from, or to just build a general database for yourself.  The only problem is that you have to get in the habit of using it.

My favorite app for wine is the Cellar app that costs just $3 for the iPhone, but it worth every cent.  This app allows you to thoroughly catalog your wine collection, keep notes on bottles that you’ve had, keep tabs on bottles to try, and ones to avoid.  The app has 4 basic areas- your cellar (wines you currently own), your wish list (self-explanatory), garage (wines you’ve had but want to try again), and garbage (wines to stay away from).  The beauty of this application is that when entering a bottle into one of the areas, you put in all the general information (vintage, producer, varietal, region, etc.), but you can also take a picture of the label to add to the wine so you can see and remember it in the future, you can add a price, rating, drink by, notes, and pairings.  Again, this is something that takes some getting used to using, but it can definitely help you out and allow you to keep track of what you’ve had, what you liked (or didn’t), and why. 

These 3 apps are just a few that I use regularly, and while I’m sure there are more out there that are completely worthwhile, with all the information we have available to us, it is important to not overwhelm yourself with too much information.  I’d always recommend trusting your gut when choosing a wine or a pairing, but I’d also recommend using something like one of these apps to assist you in building your palate and appreciation of wine by helping you remember characteristics of wine that you’ve had.  Let me know if there is any app out there that I should check out, I’m always eager to find something else that can help out my own appreciation of wine.

Corks and Screw Caps

One area where I’m right in line with the industry tradition is the debate of screw caps vs. corks.  I’m so for corks that I’m not even all that crazy about the artificial corks that are pretty common nowadays.  I just think that there is something nice about using the goofy looking corkscrew to open a bottle of wine that makes it a bit more special than just twisting off a lid.

You twist off lids to soda bottles, water bottles, beer bottles, why does wine have to be like the others?  Shouldn’t all alcohol be more properly secured than just a screw cap?  Screw caps aren’t child proof at all, but a cork is.  A pretty weak argument, I know but it is something.  I just like the overly complicated old method of opening a wine bottle that involves cutting away the foil, inserting the corkscrew, and using the leverage on the instrument to pull out the cork.  It is so much more satisfying than just twisting off a cap.

I know all of the statistics that say that wine keeps longer with a screw cap than it does with a cork.  I know the statistics that say wine is less likely to have problems (ie. rot, over oxidization, or be “corked”) with a screw cap, and while it would be a bummer to have a nice bottle of wine go bad solely because of a bad cork, I don’t know how I feel about abandoning corks all together because of this little chance of failure because of the cork.

Corks are also more expensive than screw caps, and like I wrote yesterday, the wine industry is still a business, so I can understand why some producers have moved to screw caps, ditching the corks.  I understand all of the reasons for wine using the screw caps, but I still appreciate those that stick to tradition. 

I’ll admit that most of my attachment to corks is due to the fact that I like to keep my corks and would, someday, like to do something creative with them, so I’m biased there.  I’ll also admit that I like corks because I believe that if the industry is going to move to screw caps, they might as well go the whole nine yards and just move to boxed wine (which is better for keeping wine than bottles), and I just can’t support that at all.

Next time you’re at the store, notice how many wines are now using screw caps.  It’s a trend in the industry that is being backed by some pretty significant studies.  While screw caps do appear to be better than corks, I’m far from wanting to abandon corks.

White Zinfandel

I spent most of my weekend at the PGA golf tournament in near my place this weekend.  Apart from being amazed at how good pro golfers are, I was shocked that they only had one option when it came to wine at the concession stands, and that that options was White Zinfandel.  I stayed away from it, but I did see a bunch of people drinking the pink wine while I was on the course.  This got me to thinking why White Zinfandel would be the wine of choice for this event, and I came to the conclusion that it sells and that the event’s goal is to make money.

Regardless of how you feel about sweet White Zinfandels, buttery Chardonnays, fruit bomb Cabernets, or any other cookie cutter wine, wineries make wine in a particular style because that is what sells.  So, while I’d love to hate a particular winery because they produce predictable wine, I have to respect them as a business because they are trying to make money.  The quality of what is made doesn’t matter, it just comes down to will it sell, and for how much?

While I would have thought that something like Chardonnay or Cabernet would have sold better than White Zinfandel at the golf tournament, there are people at every turn imaginable that are out to forecast sales and figure out what wine will do well and why.  Restaurants follow trends to figure out how much people are spending on wine, and what they are buying when they figure out what to put on their wine lists.  Event specialists do the same thing, looking at everything from demographic of the target audience to their buying habits and preferences.  Grocery stores do the same thing.  So, next time you ask yourself why a particular wine is being served in a given situation, know that it was chosen for that exact situation by analysts, and it was determined that this particular wine varietal at the particular price would make as much money as possible for the event/winery/store, etc.  Wine is a business, and while it is easy to forget that sometimes, it is fun to think about to connect the dots and figure out how and why things are the way they are.

So, moral of the story, while I wasn’t thrilled with the tournament’s choice of wine, I do have to applaud them for apparently doing their homework and figuring out what would sell and sticking with it, even if that choice did raise the eyebrows of some people in the crowd.

Glassware

Glassware is an interesting subject for me because I jump on and off of the bandwagon so often.  Like other wine gimmicks (aerators, fancy decanters, wine preservation gizmos, etc.), I think the difference is purely mental.  Much the way that someone would be scared to call a $5 bottle of wine better than a $50 bottle, I think that drinking out of fancy glassware opposed to a paper cup just compels people to think that nicer=better.  My thoughts on glassware are simple- it is still what’s in the cup that counts much more so than what the cup is.

I think that some of the premium glassware companies that have developed cups specifically for certain varietals may be onto something, but I’m not entirely sold on the idea.  I think that wine, being a drink that inspires some thought, definitely benefits from a nice presentation, but are the glasses worth the often high price tag?  These glasses, designed for a specific varietal, say Pinot Noir, are shaped in such a way to accentuate the aroma and bouquet of a wine, and to allow for optimal air flow.  I’m sure that there are differences in each grape varietal that justify the different shapes in glasses, but I am still unsure that Mr. Reidel’s ideas of optimal shape, air exposure, etc. align with mine.

To test the merits of glassware, I am going to sample a Pinot Noir out of two different glasses.  Glass one will be the Reidel glass designed for Pinot Noir, the other glass will be just your standard red wine glass.  Because the two glasses are shaped differently, I won’t be able to conduct this test blind, but I’m going to trust my own impartiality on the matter (you should too). 

The wine that I will be trying is a Frei Brothers Pinot Noir Reserve from 2008.  I pour myself half a glass into each of the glasses and begin my tasting.  I start by looking at the wine in each glass and it looks the same.  I then swirl the wine around the glass and go in for a sense of the smell for each of the wines.  The standard glass has a bright, fruity smell, mostly berries, but that was all that I got out of it except for the standard alcohol smell.  Now, onto the Reidel glass.  I immediately smelt the difference between the two glasses.  It smelled like an entirely different wine, but this wasn’t necessarily a good thing.  While I got the berry smell the same as the other glass, I was overpowered by alcohol from my smell here.  I had to recover a bit from the sting in my nose and then decided to look at the bottle to see if it was a high alcohol content wine or if the glass was just accentuating the smell for some reason.  Turns out this Pinot was a 14.5% wine, meaning it has a pretty high alcohol content.  I was now kind of impressed with the glass being able to tell me about this aspect of the wine’s character, but I wasn’t blown away by the overall difference between the two.

Onto taste.  Simply put, the same wine tasted the same out of the two glasses.  Honestly, had the glasses been the same shape and I had been blindfolded, I would not have been able to taste a difference.  I’m sure Mr. Reidel would say my palate isn’t sophisticated enough and I was doing it wrong, but no matter his opinion, I know what I tasted.  I let the wine open up a bit and after a half hour I sampled each again and still found no difference.  I wasn’t surprised; I was a bit disappointed to be honest.  After my modest discovery in the scent department, I had high hopes for the taste difference but was left with nothing (except the wine which was quite good regardless of the glass). 

So, my moral of the story from this single test: the glass can have an effect on the way we smell wine and what stands out to us, but as far as taste goes, the difference is nothing (or if there is a difference, it is so small that it isn’t easily detectable).  If you have the means to buy nice glass ware, consider it a luxury and something that is nice to have, but don’t think that you are missing out on anything special if you are just drinking out of the standard wine glasses.  Maybe I’ll try to track down a glass designed for a different varietal to see if my findings are consistent across varietals.

Wine: A Very Brief History

Most people know that Jesus turned water into wine sometime in the early years A.D., and some people may even know that Dionysus/Bacchus, the ancient Roman/Greek god was the god of wine, but that only gets us back to 1000-2000 years B.C.  I’d wager that most people don’t know that wine originated a few thousand years before that.  The best guess is that sometime between 5000 and 8000 B.C. wine became a staple for the people living in what is present day Georgia (Middle East Georgia, not “Devil Went Down to Georgia” Georgia).  From some evidence there, and from some found in Greece and Macedonia, it is likely that wine first made/seen in Europe maybe a thousand years later.

From there, it is pretty easy to connect the dots to see how wine because a staple in life across the world.  We have the Greeks and Romans to thank for the first real effective barrels for storing wine and the first wine presses.  We have the Romans to thank for our confusing wine classification systems.  As far as I know, they were the first to create appellations as they discovered that certain regions produced better wine than others.

As you move from ancient times, into the dark ages wine became a staple in much of Europe.  While wine was common across much of Europe at this point, it was probably around this time that many of the famous varietals from Europe found their modern homes.  Think Champagne, Bordeaux, Tempranillo, Riesling, and likely others.  Wine in Europe thrived for a few hundred years until the mid-1800s.

In 1855 wine’s greatest tragedy struck much of Europe.  Phylloxera (little bugs that eat and kill grape wines) descended upon the wine industry and destroyed nearly all of the vines in Europe.  From what I’ve read, we can blame an English scientist for bringing the bug from America.  Because of the different resistances and genetic structures of the grape vines in America and Europe, the American vines had a defense for the bug and the European vines didn’t.  So, if you’re keeping score, Europe brought diseases to the new world that killed people, and, a few centuries after that, the new world gave European wine a disease and sent them back to square one.

Also in 1855, France instituted their classification system for Bordeaux, ranking producers of wine in different tiers.  While many things about many of the vineyards ranked in this classification have changed, the tiers have remained nearly identical, opting for tradition and consistency over movement up and down the ladder based on merit.

By the end of the 1800s, European growers began to graft their native vines to the bug resistant vines from the new world and they were back in business.  Flash forward to the 1970s (this part will be familiar to you if you’re seen “Bottle Shock”), an English wine connoisseur living in France organized a competition between California and France to see who had the best wine.  California beat France in both the red and white competition.  While the results of that competition are undisputedly significant, on the whole, France was still producing higher quality wine on the whole.  In the states, we had our “good stuff,” but we were still mostly drowning in the cheap stuff that was horrible.

Moving along to today… wine is made in every corner of the planet.  More wine is being produced by more different countries than ever before.  What’s next for wine?  I’ve written some about that (see posts on wine marketing, Chardonnay vs. Riesling, Parker’s downfall, etc.), but for the most part, the wine world’s next great thing is still out there waiting to be discovered.  I hope you enjoyed this very brief history on wine.  I know I ran through 10,000 years in just a few paragraphs, but hopefully some of this was interesting, and I'm hoping that I didn't miss anything too important.

Sulfites

Sulfites have been added to wine for hundreds (if not thousands) of years.  They are added to preserve wine and protect it from oxidization, among other ailments that can destroy wine.  The problem with sulfites is that some people are allergic to them, and people tend to experience these allergic reactions in the form of headaches.  Since red wine tends to be aged longer than white wine, red wine generally contains more sulfites than white wine to protect the wine during its aging.

So, why then do the sulfites in wine occasionally give people an allergic reaction when sulfites are commonly found in other foods that we eat every day without experiencing the same reactions?  This is because that most of the sulfites that we consume on a day to day basis are natural sulfites and because the sulfites added to wine are generally artificially added in, causing our bodies to react differently.  Some bodies just can’t process the sulfites added into wine in a natural way, thus causing the reaction that turns some people away from red wine.

Wine needs sulfites to be able to age.  Without sulfites, wine would not be able to age for more than about a year before turning to vinegar.  So, while this might work for a Chardonnay or any number or white wines, red wines like Bordeaux that generally require some aging would be lost without these little additions.  It is possible to find red wine without sulfites, but if you do, be sure to note that it is a “drink immediately” bottle and don’t let it hide in your collection for too long.

Just look at sulfites as a necessary evil for wine to age and mature.  And, if you are part of the unlucky portion that has a reaction to the sulfites in wine, just know your limits and you should be fine.