Honest Wines

The wine industry is a funny business.  Most wineries (the 99% if you will) aren’t necessarily in it to make a profit.  Sure, a profit is nice, and likely is a goal of most wineries, but think about all the startup costs for a winery.  Land.  Machinery.  Labor.  Time.  That’s a big investment for any would be wine entrepreneur.  I got to thinking about this after meeting the marketing and hospitality director of Ladera Wines the other day.  At dinner we began talking about the wine business and my parents mentioned a tiny winery they had once visited and voiced the question: how do they make ends meet?
The answer that we received from our industry insider surprised me slightly, but it also gave me hope for the industry.  He said that most people don’t open wineries seeking profit.  Most people open wineries because they want to make wine the way they believe it should be made.  I’m paraphrasing him here, but this caught my attention.  Most people open wineries because they want to make wine the way they believe it should be made.  An answer like this wouldn’t fly with the big boys of the industry that are out there to make a profit.  I also doubt that this answer would fly with the Robert Parkers of the world.  But, for me, your average enthusiast, I loved this answer and it immediately made think differently about the wine I was drinking.
I liked the thought that I was drinking a product that the winemaker designed for me based on his or her relationship with the grapes.  To me, this answer was a simple way of defining terroir and describing the winemaker’s relationship with all aspects of the wine making process.  From the land to the weather to the winemaker’s personal style and everything in between, making an honest wine so people can taste a winery’s personality is what wine making should be about.  These days where the mass produced wines are out there strive to be the same year in and year out, honest wines are hard to find.  I wish this weren’t the case, but since winemaking is still a business and because people like predictability, more and more wineries are making seemingly generic wine and losing some of that personality.
With my new goal of taking notes on each wine that I drink, I hope to be able to find some more honest wines so that I don’t find myself writing the same description each time I drink a Cabernet.  So, just a few weeks into my new mission, I have new ideas about how I will try to find honest wines.  I am going to strive to try multiple wines made by the same winemaker to see how his or her influence on wines varies from varietal to varietal.  I am also going to try to sample the same varietal from the same region made by several different winemakers in hopes of discerning style and trying to learn more about the terroir of a region.  I hope that taking these two steps will help me think about the process more and will help make me a more educated wine connoisseur.  I expect this to be difficult and I expect it to take some practice, but I also expect it to be more rewarding than the random approach to sampling wine that I have been taking.
My first test with my new approach will probably come in a few weeks when I make a visit to several wineries in northern California.  I also hope that I’ll get to try this approach out when I make it up to Napa again and visit Ladera for myself.  The wine we had the other night would have put Ladera on my list of places to visit by itself, but the insights into wine I received from our guest made it a must visit.
If anyone wants to take on this new approach to tasting with me, let me know and we will figure out ways to try different wines made by the same winemaker or we’ll start focusing on a region and see where that takes us.

New Year, New Goals

So, one of my goals for 2011 was to write 100 blog posts.  I started off strong, but wasn’t able to keep up the torrid pace that I set in February and March.  I got close but work got in the way and I had to scale back my writing in order to keep up with my job.  Another contributory factor in my falling off last summer and at the end of last year was the fact that I went through a phase where I just didn’t drink that much wine.  Sure, I had those times when I went up to the Malibu winery and tasted and had those meals with friends where we tried several different wines, but I just didn’t have any of those wine experiences that made me want to write about the stuff.  I’m still trying to figure out how to consistently find “post worthy” topics on the world of wine, so any ideas along those lines would be appreciated.

I’m writing this post because I’ve obviously found one such post worthy topic to write about, and that comes in the form of one of my goals for 2012: making tasting notes on all the wine I drink.  It sounds really easy, kinda lame, but I’m hoping that once I work at it a bit, it’ll turn into a valuable source of information for me.  I did something like this a while back but it didn’t gain any traction so hopefully this attempt goes better.  I’ve bought myself 100 note cards, and each time I try a wine, I am going to make my own tasting notes on that note card and file it away so that hopefully that card will help me remember what I like, what I don’t, and what I need to/want to try more of.

Here’s how I’m going to do this.  On the top of each card, I’m going to write the name of the producer (ex. Gallo Family Vineyard).  Line 2 will have the varietal, the region, and the vintage (Cabernet Sauvignon, Napa Valley, 2008).  Line 3 will have the date on which I tried the wine and the format in which I tasted it (1/6/12, standard 750ml bottle).  Lines 3- the end will have my tasting notes (Ripe fruit and spice smell, tannic taste that overpowers everything else, might need to breathe more, but a decent wine with a meal and a decent value when on sale).

I hope that once I start writing down my impressions of each wine, I’ll become a better taster and better writer on the subject.  I expect my initial attempts at creating my own notes to be generic and kinda lame, but am hoping that this practice will help me become more specific and discerning when it comes to assessing, writing about, and ultimately enjoying wine.  I’d recommend anyone that enjoys wine but struggles when it comes to figuring out why or what they like in it to try this out for a while.  In this day in age of smart phones, pretty much everyone can make these notes on their phones rather than by carrying around note cards, so it should be a somewhat painless task.  I’ll be sure to let you know how it goes.  It is said that Robert Parker tries 10,000 wines a year and while I know that I’ll only be able to taste a fraction of that number, I’m hoping that this new practice of mine survives until I make my next trip to a wine region so that I can really begin to learn characteristics of regions and wines for myself rather than just reading about them and then occasionally trying them.

This may not be your typical new year’s resolution, but it should be more enjoyable than most that I’ve made because after all, that’s the whole point when it comes to drinking wine.

I was serious when I asked for ideas on potential post topics, but for now, I think I have the next few figured out.  Later this week, I’m going to take a look at advertising in the wine industry and how/why it lags far behind advertising for the beers/tequilas/etc. of the adult beverage world.

Temecula Tasting Trip

A few weeks ago, I made a wine tasting trip out to Temecula with several friends. A friend of mine lives out in Temecula and has wanted us to come down for a while. After missing the first group outing down there, I decided it was time to try it out for myself. I’m not gonna lie that I was had a snobby attitude when it came to Temecula and the wine they produce down there. Of course, I’d never had a wine from Temecula prior to my trip there so my prejudice was unfounded, but now I’ve had a few wines from there so I can say a bit about what they’re doing down there.   We went to a few wineries that our host had scouted out for us. To say the least, I was not impressed. The wineries themselves were beautiful and they were crowded with people so there was a good feeling there among the people doing the tasting, but the people conducting the tastings did not leave me with such a good impression.
At the first winery, the woman pouring our wine only gave us the time of day when we yelled at her telling her what we wanted and only gave us her attention long enough to pour our wine, tell us it was good (without any further explanation) and mark our tasting card saying we’d had the wine in question. Now a great first stop for someone looking to learn about the area. I didn’t need her opinion or insight though- the wines weren’t great. I don’t know if I’ve ever been to a tasting where I haven’t been the least bit tempted to buy a wine that I tried. This was the first. On the way out, we saw a woman passed out on a sofa in the tasting room. It was 1pm. The tasting room was beautiful as was the scenery, but the wine and the employees got a “F” in my book.
Tasting room number two was also beautiful. It was set on a gorgeous plot of land overlooking some of the vineyard, the tasting room was a little shack like building that was charming, and there was even a bocce court there! Also, the staff was friendly and helpful. Great start to the visit, but the wine couldn’t complete the picture of perfection. I tried the Sangiovese (I always try Sangiovese when I can). The Sangiovese was terrible. One of my friends accurately said that the wine smelled like urinal cakes. Picture it. Smell it. I tasted it. Luckily, the rest of my tasting was (slightly) better, but one of my friends tried a wine that was, without a doubt, the worst wine (or thing) I’d ever tasted. It tasted like grape juice mixed with gasoline. Not for me. On to the next stop.
Tasting room number three actually had decent wine. They made Italian style wine (that didn’t smell like urinal cakes). They had a beautiful set up (complete with big screens showing us college football). But, again, the staff disappointed me here. I tried the wines made in the Italian style, but was put off when the guy pouring my wine corrected me, not once, but twice on my pronunciation of Italian wine varietals. I speak Italian. I was saying the names of these wines correctly, and it may be snobby of me to say this, but that pissed me off and made me want to move on to the next one.
The last stop of the day was the one I was dreading. This last stop was one of those wineries that seem like they prey on suckers. They have wine tasting, but they are more a resort than anything. Complete with a spa and boutique hotel. Complete tourist trap wine establishment at its finest. I tried 8 or 9 wines here and was pleasantly surprised given what I’d tried up to this point. Still nothing that stood out to me as worthy of a purchase until I tried their desertish wines. The port was great. Maybe the best I’ve had from California. Their late harvest Riesling was also brilliant. I bought both, much to my own
surprise given the tastings I’d had that day. Still, I’m eager to try them and glad I found something other than the scenery and company to justify the trip down there.
With my day of tasting done, and after a few weeks of reflection, I’ve come to a few conclusions about Temecula. First, there is a reason that you don’t see wines from Temecula on the grocery store shelves. They just aren’t that good. Second, the wine world is small (but growing daily), but there is a reason that all the wine makers down there work in Temecula. They just aren’t that good at what they do. In an era where you can import grapes from hundreds of miles away to make wine with. In an era where you can make wine without growing grapes yourself. In an era that you can choose your ingredients from some of the best grape growing regions in the world, you still have to make wine from those ingredients. Making that wine isn’t easy even with quality ingredients, and they just don’t do it well in Temecula. Sure, this is a generalization, and a snobby one at that, but now that I’ve actually had a few wines from there, I can safely say that I will now avoid Temecula wine whenever possible.
I don’t want my negative post and view of Temecula’s wine to take away from my trip down there. It was phenomenal. My hosts were great. I had a wonderful dinner (orange chicken from a little outdoor restaurant while listening to live music). I got to experience the day with great friends, and I got to visit another wine region. All in all, it was a great day, I just wish the wines and the people serving me the wine were half as good as the company I had.

Baseball's Champagne Celebration

Tonight, 3 major league baseball teams clinched playoff spots.  One of those 3 teams was the Texas Rangers- my favorite team.  They clinched their second consecutive division title.  Needless to say I was excited.  And, after six months of hard work, these three teams were understandably excited.  And, how did they celebrate?  By spraying each other with champagne in their locker rooms.  Yep.  Sure, a few beers came into the picture after a bit, but the French bubbly was the star of the show in multiple clubhouses tonight.  America’s national pastime has a French flair when it comes to celebration.  Why?

Because Champagne means celebration.  It meant celebration for 3 teams tonight and has meant celebration for many teams for countless years.  It has also meant celebration for millions (if not billions) of people every new year, at every wedding, and at almost every other occasion for celebration imaginable.  Something about those bubbles means celebration.

Champagne has been the drink of kings since its inception.  Kings of the 14^th century used to drink it.  Perhaps even the Romans drank early forms of Champagne.  In the old days, Champagne was a signal of wealth.  How then did it make its way into celebration with sports?

Well, in 1967 Moet et Chandon gave the winner of the 24 hours of Le Mans race a bottle of Champagne and the driver sprayed the crowd in his jubilation.  Since then, Champagne has meant celebration in the sports world as more and more sports pop the bubbly to celebrate their achievements after months of hard work.  And, because of Champagne’s links to royalty, wealth, and celebration, fans in Milwaukee are trading in their beer for bubbly as the “Brew Crew” celebrates tonight.  Fans in Phoenix are toasting with bubbly as they celebrate their team’s achievement.  And, most certainly, fans in Texas (and California…) are popping the bubbly to celebrate the Rangers’ division title.

Champagne means celebration.  Especially so tonight for Diamondback, Brewer, and Rangers fans.

Back from the dead...

It’s been a long time since I’ve written about wine.  A bunch of factors have contributed to my lack of posts in the last six weeks or so, but for the most part, the reason I haven’t written about wine is that I just haven’t been drinking wine recently.  I think I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had wine in the last six weeks. 

The reason I haven’t been drinking wine is two-fold.  First of all, it’s been so freaking hot recently that red wine hasn’t sounded refreshing at all and I’m not enough of a white wine enthusiast to frequently choose to drink it over beer or soft drinks.  Secondly, I’ve been a little upset with wine since the heat ruined some of my nice bottles of wine before I could drink them.  That bitter taste in my mouth has taken a long time to wear off, but as cooler weather approaches (hopefully), my interest in wine is returning.

So, in the coming days, I’m going to write about my two interesting experiences with wine in the past six weeks.  The first of which was in Idaho where I tried local Idaho wine and got to enjoy several wonderful meals with great friends.  My second adventure was a tasting day in Temecula.  I know I’ll come off sounding like a snob in this post, but it was a good day and there were some good stories from the trip.

So, now that I’m officially back, look for me to post with regularity for the next few months.   

The Poor Wine Collector

One week ago, I traded in my shared bedroom in an apartment less than a mile from the beach for an empty house in Suburbia, USA.  Suburbia, USA is still just 10 miles or so from the beach, but the difference between my new home and my old ones couldn’t be more drastic.  Most notably, the average temperature during July at my old house would be less than 80 degrees on a hot day.  New home: over 100.  Sadly, my new home doesn’t have an air conditioner so I’ve been sweating my way through the late afternoons, praying that the sun will set faster so the cooling night will come to my rescue.  I’ve managed to survive thus far but today I realized that my wine collection might not be so lucky.

I was trying to select a bottle to open with dinner tonight when I realized that several bottles in my collection showed the unmistakable signs of heat fatigue.  Extreme heat can cause corks to dry up and wine to seep through them, leaving the top of the bottles a bit sticky.  Luckily, I only have 8 bottles from the collection here with me.  Unluckily, they are 8 of the best I own.  These bottles will now likely have to be opened in the very near future so I’ll get to actually enjoy them before they prematurely age and turn to vinegar. 

This unfortunate event made me realize one thing: it sucks to be a poor wine collector.  I have no temperature controlled cellar to house my wine, even though I’ve got several bottles that deserve that degree of attention.  All I can manage is the bottom of a closet and all the cooling that the shade can provide.    So, instead of the temperature and humidity controlled environment that cellars provide, all I can offer wine for a home is a rugged environment that is unstable, frequently hot, dry, and overall unfriendly.  The environment I can offer is one that would be nice if I were growing wine but one that is horrible for aging it. 

So, what’s a poor person to do?  And, by poor, I mean the 99% of us that cannot afford a temperature controlled wine cellar.  Well, there are mini fridges built especially for wine that control the temperature and humidity for 8-20 bottles of your favorite wine.  Bad news here is the limited space that they offer and the cost of the power it takes to operate them.  Still, I may have to invest in one of these little units to protect the prizes of my collection.  Ideally, a poor wine collector would live in an air conditioned house in a moderate climate that will provide a stable condition for wine storage.  I used to live in such an environment and have crashed back to reality since moving away from it.  It just isn’t fun to see your prizes, prizes that you might have been saving for special occasions in the future, take a turn for the worse just because of the climate.  Such is the nature of wine.  Old wine can be an incredible asset (both in terms of taste and monetary value), but it is a fickle one.  Wine is only as valuable as the life it’s lived.  Most of us cannot provide wine the life of luxury that it requires to age gracefully so we are ill suited to be collectors.  Those poor wine collectors among us must evolve into consumers.  99% of wine is meant to be consumed within a year of bottling.  What I now realize is that the 99% of us are too poor to have a wine cellar of our own, so we should buy the 99% of the wine not meant to be aged 99% of the time.  Did I lose you?  If so, ready that over again. 

Faced with my current situation, I’ve decided to buy a little refrigerator that will house 10 bottles of my age-worthy wine, I will fill said refrigerator with my 10 bottles and will only buy bottles meant for immediate consumption from thenceforth.  If I stick to my 99-99-99 theory, my little 10 bottle cellar will be able to last me 1,000 bottles, or more than 5 years (that’s a conservative estimate).  While I don’t like my situation, I’m glad that I now accept it and have a plan that I can move forward with.  I think that most of us hold onto wine longer than we should so I would encourage all of my readers that store wine to really think about what they are saving and why.  Without a doubt, we all buy wine to drink and enjoy, not to see it turn into undrinkable vinegar, so we might as well err on the side of caution when it comes to aging wine and drink it when it is too young rather than risk it turning into an undrinkable bottle of expensive vinegar.

I hope that no one else has the same experience that I have just had.  Remember, it is easy to want to hold onto wine and amass an impressive collection, but that collection is worthless unless you can enjoy it.  Wine is meant to be enjoyed.  Luckily, 99% of us are poor enough to be buying wine that we can immediately enjoy.

Contest Winner!

There was some stiff competition among the 3 entrants in my guest post contest, but FAUribe and his car-blog buddies emerged victorious.  I kinda thought that ERA or REW and their well-read blogs might pull it out but I was dead wrong.

FAUribe, I’ll get you your prize next time I see you.  You might want to thank your car buddies for all their help.  Also, as promised, you are welcome to write another post anytime you want. 

I think that I’m going to have to do something like this again, I had a good time reading what others had to say, and I hope that you guys did too.  That being said, I’m glad to be done with this contest so I can get back to writing posts that no one reads.

One last congratulation to FAUribe!  You wrote a great post arguing that Merlot isn’t a loser (something I don’t think I’d have ever done).  I hope you enjoy your prize.