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January 18 2007
I resisted for as long as possible. I did. I tried. But then it got to the point where I continued to see the blinking ads on Fermentation, I saw ads on Lenndevours, I saw ads on the Wine Lovers Page, I saw an ad on Wine Spectator, for pete’s sake.
I broke down. He’s everywhere.
I watched Wine Library TV with Gary Vay-ner-chuk—the now ubiqitious ‘net video log with the omnipresent wine blogosphere advertising where Gary tastes through a couple of wines a couple of times a week. Not only that, but I spent the better part of a recent evening watching A LOT of Gary Vaynerchuk. Hell, there are 169 episodes to work through dating to February of last year.
Watching the Wine Library video blog is kind of like your first beer, ironic as it may be. You don’t like it, but your friends seem to enjoy it so you keep trying. Eventually after five or six times you can get into it. It takes a while, though.
Vaynerchuk, an avowed New York Jet’s football fan, is like the allegedly dirty pro sports player that you absolutely loathe when he’s on the opposing team, and likewise love if he changes uniforms to play for your team. Dennis Rodman from mid to late 90s NBA basketball fame comes to mind. Or, he reminds me of the guy you hated in college because he was scoring a ton of dates with girls based on sheer joie de vivre. You’d think to yourself, “how is that guy doing it?” Vaynerchuk engenders that kind of polarization.
But, if you’ve ever done a Google search on perky Food Network star Rachael Ray then you know she similarly inspires as much hatred as she does legion of fans.
It makes for good tv, or a video blog, as it may be and I’d certainly trade checking accounts with her, and likely Vaynerchuk who is Director of Operations for Wine Library, a huge wine shop in New Jersey founded by his father in 1989 and developed significantly via revenue growth by Gary, if the news accounts are accurate.
Secretly, I think Gary knows the Rachael Ray polarization tactic. By personality type he cannot possibly be the frenetic, tightly wound ball of charisma and energy that he presents on the video log for 20 minutes or so at a time—I’m spent just watching it. And, like Rachael Ray, who turns into a whirling dervish spouting Rachael-ism’s, Vaynerchuk has his shtick, too—ending every show with the statement, “You! With a little bit of me. We’re changing the wine world.”
I don’t think he’s changing the wine world, but he certainly is bringing to bear a fresh and different voice. Check it out and draw your own opinion and tell me whether you love it or hate it.
Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
January 17 2007
If we find a mentor in this life, a trusted confidant that can guide us in matters great and small, a careful, unjudging, unflinching, kind and generous sort who is well-versed in numerous subjects then we have found a great gift.
Robert Parker is my mentor. No, not just a mentor in wine, but a mentor in a number of subjects. You see, he is causing me to look beyond the glass and do research into fields I would have previously considered uninteresting—the fruits of southeast Asia, botany, toast of French origin, and other vast fecundities of modern life …
As some matter of happenstance, similar to finding Parker as my mentor, my wife and I recently took a jaunt over to Cincinnati, OH to go to an International supermarket—emphasis on “super” as this place, Jungle Jim’s, is about 10,000 square feet and has just about every imaginable international food you can imagine and thousands that you didn’t imagine.
It was at Jungle Jim’s that I found canned lychees in the Asian section—my first time ever seeing this elusive fruit. It was kind of like seeing Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster or a Unicorn. I’ve heard about Lychee’s so often, seen pictures even, but they existed only in mythology, never appearing in a tangible form. I was familiar with Lychee’s because of my mentor, Parker.
I’ve had this mild pet peeve for years with some of the descriptors used in tasting notes that use reference points that border on the absurd. The Wine Advocate, in particular, is educational to me not for the insight into producers and wines that deserve my attention, it’s educational because I have to figure out what the hell some of the notes Parker picks up are and where they come from.
Lychee’s (or “Litchi’s” as the US FDA refers to the fruit) is a fruit that is native to Southeast Asia and is grown very selectively and rarely in California, Florida and Hawaii. In my estimation, maybe, at the best, 10% of wine drinkers have ever enjoyed a lychee in order to use it as a reference point.
Ahem. I’m cracking that club.
When I expectantly opened the can I was somewhat disappointed. Lychee’s, in case you have never had one, look like oversized pearl onions with a texture that is similar. They taste, however, like pears … so this is what Parker is always referencing.
Mystery solved. Not that big of deal. Kind of like how frog legs taste like chicken. I might just say it has some pear notes and call it a day.
I had another epiphany, too. Parker, in addition to having one of the finest palates in modern wine history, also is something of a botanist. I mean, I understand the reference to pain grille—sure, if I’m a Francophile using a fancy word for toast makes some sense to me; same for camphor as a descriptor to describe some earthy sweetness. But, Parker described the Abreu Cabernet Sauvignon Thorevilos as having notes of Acacia Flowers.
Acacia Flowers, for the same uninitiated folks who have never had a Lychee, is, according to Wikipedia, a flowering shrub:
There are roughly 1300 species of Acacia worldwide, about 950 of them native to Australia, with the remainder spread around the dry tropical to warm-temperate regions of both hemispheres, including Africa, southern Asia, and the Americas.
Kudos to Parker for his depth of knowledge on all sorts of things scent related. Little did I know that Parker, in addition to educating me on wine, would also provide me a liberal arts education and mentorship delivered six times a year on parchment colored paper with black ink.
I’m still working on “forest floor,” however.
Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
January 16 2007
There’s a maxim by leadership guru John Maxwell about the “leadership lid” —the gist of the maxim is you can only be as successful as you envision for yourself. If you fancy yourself a CEO then chances are good that you know the steps to take to enable yourself for success towards that goal.
Despite this knowledge of self-limiting thought patterns, I still pause when I see a mention of a Midwestern winery or related news. It happened on Monday when I received an email from Appellation America and there was an article on Peninsula Cellars from Michigan. And, I remember being shocked (SHOCKED) a couple of years ago when an Indiana winery, Oliver, was named to Wine Business Monthly’s Hottest Brands list.
By now, I shouldn’t be surprised when wines of the Midwest get called out for special mention and I am officially pulling off my own “leadership lid” for Midwestern wines. God bless Illinois, Michigan, Indiana and Ohio because a member of our brethren had his number called this week.
Black Star Farms, something of a winery + agri-business in Northern Michigan is featured on the Wine Business Monthly (WBM) online site today as their Hottest Small Brand #9. They will also be featured in the February issue as a part of the Top 10 Hottest Brands article.
From the WBM article that can be found in its entirety here, and quoted below from Partner Don Coe:
“The one thing I know is it is not that hard to ‘make it’ when you have good land, good growers and with Lee Lutes, a talented winemaker,” he said. “It is hard however to sell it. The world does not need another wine and especially a wine from Michigan, which is only now evolving as a wine region. For that reason Black Star Farms delivers experiences.”
Black Star Farms bills itself as an “Agricultural Destination” and links its products to value-added agriculture and agricultural tourism. Its best marketing tool is word of mouth and personal involvement with its wine, brandy and cheese makers on a working horse farm. The approach has made it popular with tourists, attracting more than 60,000 visitors last year from 20 countries and 40 states.
Products include traditional table and dessert wines, fruit wines and cider, fruit brandies, preserves, syrup and toppings, a Bed & Breakfast, a creamery, orchards and vineyards.
“Our mantra is that successful agriculture is no longer just growing something but instead, growing, processing, retailing and marketing, all occurring on the farm,” Coe said.
Don is a smart guy: they “deliver experiences,” use “word of mouth,” and most important, they make good wine.
My wife and I along with friends of ours visited Black Star in the fall on a wine tasting trip through the Leelanau Peninsula in Northern Michigan. The tasting room on that Friday afternoon, at the peak of color season for turning leaves, was jammed. It’s a large tasting room to begin with, making many California tasting rooms that I’ve been to look absolutely pedestrian by comparison, and it was filled with at least150 people with two-deep lines at the tasting counter and a snaking line at the cash register.
Under normal circumstances, that kind of overwhelmingly busy situation can be off-putting to customers, particularly for people looking for a more quaint experience, but somehow, because the folks at Black Star are very friendly and cordial and the wine quality is high, very high for a Midwestern winery, you end up rooting for them, happy to take your wallet from your pocket; not coincidentally many people were joining me that day with the Black Star credit card machine humming.
The majority of their whites really shine—particularly their Rieslings across a sweetness spectrum from dry to a semi-sweet late harvest aperitif style wine. Their Pinot is well-made and a definite winner for a Michigan Pinot and their dessert wines are all excellent without cloying sweetness. I have a bottle of the Cherry dessert wine that’s made in a Port style, though a touch lighter in body. I’ll likely move that bottle up in the drinking queue now.
Congrats to Black Star Farms for their inclusion on the WBM list. Despite their obvious progressiveness if we could now just get them to take a momentary focus off of delivering experiences and word of mouth marketing to selling online, others might be able to experience their wine, as well. Unfortunately, you have to download and fill out an order form off of their web site. No ecommerce. Hmm ... in this regard, I hope they take off their leadership lid. Based on the crowds I saw, it might be a good idea. Check them out at: www.blackstarfarms.com and see the future of Midwest wine.
Posted in, Appellation Watch: Midwest Regional Review. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print |
January 15 2007
I could start this post off a million different ways. Really, I could. I think the best way is to just lay out the circumstances.
James Laube of Wine Spectator, writing on the subscription-only area of their web site, had three posts last week.
The first post on January 9th gave an overview of TCA—which is the chemical abbreviation for 2,4,6-tichloroanisole. The post explains a couple of key points:
1) TCA is a chemical so powerful that even in infinitesimal amounts it can cause musty/off aromas and flavors in wines
2) The taint most often comes from natural corks, but can also be a systemic problem in wineries where damp places and chlorine based cleaning agents are common
3) TCA poses no health risk, though it can ruin a wine by inducing “off” flavors and can strip a wine of its fruit characteristics
4) People vary widely in their ability to perceive TCA and some cork producers claim that 6 to 10 parts per trillion is acceptable as most people won’t notice it at this level.
4.1) There are, however, some tasters that can detect TCA at 1 to 2 parts per trillion.
This is all well and good, and relatively unexciting. Many people are familiar with corked wines.
But, what happens next, after the TCA baseline has been laid, is where it gets interesting.
Later that day, on January 9th at 5:17 pm ET Laube in a second post that day publishes a post on Pillar Rock wines with the headline: Pillar Rock Battles TCA-Tainted Wine
In summary, Laube indicates in his post that all four bottles he received last year of the ’03 Pillar Rock Cabernet were corked. He gave it a score of 55 points that was recently published on the Wine Spectator web site. Laube explains that his suspicion is that the winery is tainted, and it’s not merely corked wine. Obviously distressed by the score, the winery owner Cary Gott reached out to Laube after the scores were released in December of ’06 and asked him to re-taste the wines while at the same time he sent them to a lab for analysis.
The wines that Gott sent tested with low levels of TCA—1.4 and 1.6 parts per trillion, respectively. Then Laube re-tasted and he thought they were corky again. So, Wine Spectator sent them in to be tested and they tested at 1.2, 1.4 and 1.9 parts per trillion, respectively.
Gott said Tuesday of last week that he was going to continue to sell the wine, which retails for $125 a bottle with production limited to a mere 357 cases because, according to the quote from the post, “We don’t see the wine having the apparent taint of TCA.”
Laube finished his post with the following riposte: “You may or may not be able to taste the TCA in Pillar Rock’s 2003 Cabernet. The question is: Do you want to take the chance?”
Still with me? Good. This is where it gets interesting. The comments section on the blog post contain all manners of accusations and defenses—many lambasting Laube for his self-righteousness with his palate and others still defending his journalistic integrity for making this information public.
It’s helpful to know that chemical tests can pick up TCA at 1 part per trillion. So, the levels that Laube supposedly picked up the TCA notes are equivalent to machine level chemical testing. Wikipedia gives an analogy (found here) on “Parts per Trillion” that equates that level of chemical to: one particle of a given substance for every 999,999,999,999 other particles. This is roughly equivalent to one drop of ink in a shipping canal lock full of water, or one second every 320 centuries.
Yes, you read that right. If you were in crystal clear pure drinking water the size of a shipping canal lock and one single ink drop was put into the water that is roughly the equivalent of the 1.2 parts per trillion that Laube picked up of TCA taint in the Pillar Rock.
The 61 comments (and counting) themselves run longer then the actual post, with one commenter, Tim Long, noting:
“James - You astonish me with your hubris! First you highlight just what an ace taster you are, able to ID TCA virtually with the sensitivity of “one of the most advanced wine-analysis laboratories in the world.” Next, though “any TCA is a defect”, 1.2 or 1.4 ppt are “low levels” of taint. Defective wines, but only on a low level? OK. Next you move on to blatantly insult the winemaker(s); “I’m not surprised that Gott and other winemakers didn’t pick up the flaws in this wine. The TCA levels in the tested bottles are below the threshold of many tasters.” Cavalierly lumping Mr. Gott and the “other winemakers” in with those other “many tasters” who are mostly not, incidentally, successful wine professionals, is an insult in my book! Oh, and “a person can be a great winemaker without necessarily being a great taster.” Please tell us who these great winemakers are whose palates, you have no choice but to inform us, are so obviously less great than your own? That way we can all work together to put them out of business, at least unless we are certain that you have tasted and anointed their wines with your amazing (only slightly-mythologically “super sensitive”) palate! Since you are “not sure where the industry would be if issues such as this weren’t addressed,” this has nothing to do with vanity? Wow. I think I’ll have a beer.”
Brian Loring, himself a winemaker who makes some Pinot of merit, was on the board commenting in response to the Tim Long comment above and he said:
“Tim Long - I’ll step up and admit I’m not a super taster. I’ve never been able to taste all of the nuances that Jim and his felloow WS editors can detect in a wine. But I am very sensitive to TCA. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve sat at a table with a bunch of winemakers when I was the only one to initially detect a corked wine - only to have many others eventually come to the same conclusion. But there are always a few that will never detect the presence of TCA - and actually like the wine. But that doesn’t mean that TCA wasn’t present.
I would imagine that it’s really difficult for Jim to write these types of reports. And all of us in the wine world dread having something like this written about our wines or winery. But Jim has a responsibility to report what he knows… otherwise he loses all credibility. WS already gets way too much conspiracy theory type stuff written about them… could you imagine the outcry that would occur if they covered up information like TCA in a winery? They’d be crucified. It’s really a no win situation… but presenting the facts is always the most professional way to go. And as much as it pains me to see such a report - if it’s true - I can’t see any other option than to report it.”
To his credit, Laube doesn’t shrink from the flames and rants on the comment board, answering most that issue a challenge or require a rebuke. On Friday, Laube issued his final salvo with an oblique post that seems one part haphazard apology because TCA taint in a winery is something of a victimless crime and a reach-around pimp slap to the commenters dosed with some (slight) humility when he says,
“I knew early on that there would always be someone who knew more about wine than I did, and I tried to learn from them.
I also knew that there would be better tasters and better writers, too.”
In my scan of this situation, it’s hard to get a read on the motive behind Laube and Wine Spectator going public with this. Generally speaking the wine industry is genteel without a lot of malice. Laube hides behind journalistic credibility which is a paper thin excuse because he is hardly a journalist and more a writer—big difference. Laube does no investigative work that I am aware of, nor is he paid to seeing as how he works for a lifestyle/affinity magazine. Really, in my estimation, the situation seems to be about power and power summed up by the fact that the winery is not pulling the wine off the market, and I’m guessing that Laube, with his super-palate, thought that it should have been pulled. Had it been taken off the market, if the winery owner, Cary Gott, acquiesced to Laube’s palate, I have a $100 bucks that says the story would be a non-starter and might have never seen the light of day—digitally or otherwise. But, really, from a business perspective, with a virtually imperceptible amount of TCA in the bottle and with a production of just 357 cases priced at $125 a bottle with the assurance that the owner of the winery hadn’t detected it, would you have pulled it from the sales channels? Leave a comment.
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (3) | Print |
January 13 2007
Is it possible to get a wine education in 28 days as Food & Wine magazine suggests in this article from the current February 2007 issue?
Surely, they’re having fun with it, so I won’t take them to task for the absurdity of the notion.
The article lists actions and activities to engage in over the course of February’s 28 days that will take you from zero to sixty in wine education. And the cost? By my calculator, including some spot airfare to NY and a $2000 budget for a Sonoma trip, it will only set you back $4042 dollars—a relative bargain considering how much more expensive it could be to spend a lifetime accumulating such knowledge. Of course, most of these wines won’t be available in your geography and shipping costs will add at least another 1/3 of total cost if you want to follow their regimen.
But, if you were going to ask my opinion, I’d suggest taking the Oxford Companion to Wine and reading its 840 pages at a 30 page a day clip over the course of the 28 days while drinking two mixed cases from your local wine shop with the best VALUE wines from all major areas at the best value price point—you could probably do that for $250 a case. And, after buying the Oxford Companion to Wine off of Amazon.com (used) for $35 bucks you’ll be $3407 ahead of the game and can then start a cellar with the savings.
It makes no sense to me to start out with the best expressions of a varietal to baseline. Most of the fun in wine is letting your palate develop so that a Chateauneuf du Pape can knock your socks off later on down the road. The Food & Wine method is like losing your virginity and then having a greek orgy. Take it slow, my friends. Queue up Meatloaf’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” or Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” and ease into it by drinking inexpensive representatives of their region before blowing your wad, metaphorically, on $70 Pinot Noir.
Herewith, the list of wines from the magazine for kicks:
Day 1: 1996 Taittinger Comtes de Champagne ($140)
Day 2: Canyon Cellars Shadow Canyon Vineyard Syrah ($40)
Day 3: Angelo Ganja 2004 Promis ($38)
Day 4: 2002 Montagia Cabernet Sauvignon ($80)
Day 5: 2004 Louis Michel Chablis Montée de Tonnerre ($42); 2004 Concha y Toro Amelia ($35)
Day 6: Taste a 2003 Bordeaux from the 2003 vintage Robert M. Parker, Jr., at New York’s Executive Wine Seminars. $670 + airfare $250
Day 7: 2005 Guilhem Durand Syrah ($12)
Day 8: 2004 Terrazas de los Andes Reserva Malbec ($16)
Day 9: 1994 Foxen Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir ($70)
Day 10: Flat Creek Estate, 2004 Super-Texan Sangiovese ($20).
Day 11: 2005 Charles Joguet Chinon Cuvée Terroir ($17).
Day 12: 2005 Bodegas Nekeas Vega Sindoa, a blend of Tempranillo and Merlot ($7).
Day 13: 2005 Rudera Chenin Blanc ($22)
Day 14: 2003 Aalto ($60)
Day 15: 2004 Nalle Dry Creek Valley Zinfandel ($30)
Day 16: 2005 Lawson’s Dry Hills Gewürztraminer ($17)
Day 17: Plan a wine-country weekend to Sonoma County this spring ($2000)
Day 18: 2001 Pertimali Brunello di Montalcino ($65).
Day 19: 2005 Patient Cottat Sancerre ($25); Roederer Estate NV Brut sparkling wine ($24); 2005 Elk Cove Pinot Gris ($18).
Day 20: 2004 J.J. Prüm Wehlener Sonnenuhr Kabinett ($25)
Day 21: 2002 Beringer Knights Valley Cabernet Sauvignon ($27)
Day 22: 2005 Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc ($22)
Day 23: Inniskillin’s 2005 Vidal Ice Wine ($60 for a half bottle)
Day 24: 2000 Cuvée des Seigneurs de Ribeaupierre Gewürztraminer ($38)
Day 25: fruity 2005 Sofia Rosé ($15)
Day 26: 2004 Domaine Tempier Bandol ($32)
Day 27: Baron Philippe de Rothschild with a glass of his 2003 Château d’Armailhac $35
Day 28: 1996 Château Léoville-Barton $90
Grand Total
$4042
Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
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