May 13 2007
I was in Napa this past week for work. Well, actually, I’ve been in Napa for four of the last five weeks for work, this past week just happened to be the last bit of travel for a few weeks. When most people ask me about my trips out to Napa I would love for nothing more than to puff up my chest and regale them with stories of coming across that special Pinot, only 100 cases made, or bumping into a winemaking documentarian at a special restaurant, but the reality is much more like anybody else’s business travel--I work, and I sleep and that’s about it.
This week, though, I made rare exception to break out and do a couple of fun things in the evenings.
After a recent podcast in which Alan Baker (Cellar Rat and Crushpad Wines) joined Tim Elliott and me to talk some wine, I asked to join his Rat Pack group at Crushnet, a part of Crushpad Wine.
To see an introduction via YouTube:
Crushnet, for the uninitiated, essentially allows fractional ownership in the winemaking process—kind of a timeshare condo as opposed to buying the condo.
So, Alan, or anybody can make a barrel (25 cases) and then solicit friends to buy a case or more of wine to offset the costs.
Alan is making four barrels of Pinot—100 cases—from the Wentzel vineyard in Anderson Valley.
It’s a pretty good cash outlay for sure, for Alan and for participants in the Rat Pack. At $384 a case, or $32 bucks a bottle you hope for something more than simply taking a flier on a social winemaking experiment. According to Alan 82 of the 100 cases are accounted for and he’s hoping to sell the balance at retail.
82 people is a lot of opinion, especially when it comes to winemaking. Nothing good has ever come from committee decisions so the best you can hope for is an acceptable quaff.
Fortunately, after meeting up with Alan this past week at the new Crushpad Wine facility in San Francisco (just past Indiana street, adjacent to Illinois street, I should note for fellow Midwesterners) and doing barrel samples of the Pinot 2.0 project with his Rat Pack, I can say the wines are going to deliver … in a big way … far exceeding my expectations!
What’s really fun about this is the fact that wine is not only going to deliver in value but its going to have plenty of story behind it, as well. If the Crushpad story wasn’t enough it’s also organic, it has native yeast fermentation and there are only 100 cases of the stuff. It’s enough to not make you want to drink any of it.
In fact, Alan noted that one of the most crucial decisions came from a member of the Pinot 2.0 project—using native, ‘whatever is in the air is what’s going to ferment the wine’ yeast. So, perhaps some good does come from group dynamics.
Alan has made some really other interesting winemaking decisions including handling each of the four barrels slightly differently before they are blended together for a cuvee.
The first barrel is totally neutral in toast and is very silky showing a lot of cherry fruit flavors with a slight undercurrent of damp earth, and some light leather.
The second barrel of wine is in 100% French Oak. This barrel is a star showing fruit and integration that wouldn’t turn away anybody if it was fined and poured today. In a couple of months, as a part of a blend, this wine is going to be the backbone for the rest of juice.
The third and fourth barrel is a zebra barrel with 25% new French oak. This barrel shows a lot of zip with acids still rounding into form against the Dr. Pepper-like fruit background. Barrel three and four also show a little vegetal character based on the decision to keep 15% stems in each of these 1 ton containers during fermentation.
Zebra barrels are an interesting aspect of winemaking at Crushpad, too. Whereas traditional winemakers have the opportunity to put some fine into new French Oak and other wines into 2nd year or neutral barrels, Crushpad actually takes apart barrels and has a cooper reassemble them with pieces from different barrels so you can exert some new oak influence within the context of a neutral barrel—therefore you get zebra barrels with 25% French oak or more.
Overall, what a great experience—fulfilling my fascination with Crushpad wine by experiencing it in person, tasting wine in barrel, meeting Alan Baker, as nice and genuine of a guy as you’d hope to meet, a wine blogging/podcasting peer, and knowing that this juice was going to show up at my door before Thanksgiving ’07.
The only thing better might be to meet up and share some stories with a wine documentarian, which I did the next night. More on that in the next post.
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May 11 2007
Unfortunately, this post has very limited interest to those outside of the borders of Interstate 465 in Indianapolis, but I’ll write it anyway.
You see, I’m not a vindictive kind of guy, but I’ve had an axe to grind for some time and in a small way I feel somewhat vindicated.
I’ve alluded in very obtuse terms to a venerable Indianapolis wine shop that I felt was letting down its customers when it built a new wine shop.
You have to understand that when you think of wine shops in Indianapolis you think of Kahn’s. It’s the only place to buy wine futures and they have a great high-end selection of hard to find wines.
There is a responsibility inherent to being the best and when that trust is violated there are repercussions.
For example, the Star Wars prequels, to a large degree, have forked its fan base based on missteps with the most recent trilogy.
That’s how life is when you don’t uphold standards and you can’t at once remain true to your roots while being progressive.
When Jim Arnold, the owner of Kahn’s, was planning a new wine shop just 300 yards from the old cramped, dusty store a legacy remnant of the 80’s, he opted to build an aluminum shed/liquor barn with bad fluorescent lighting and concrete floors. He could have gone one of two ways—the comfortable wine boutique, future ready, or the Costco model, uncreative but with the perception of value. I thought then, as I think now, that the Costco model was a horrendous mistake given all of the empirical trend data that exists for where the wine market is going, but that’s the decision he made.
My lingering vitriol was originally ignited by the fact that two years ago, in the midst of he and I communicating around a customer satisfaction issue I had with his pricing techniques, he told me that he would never apologize for making a profit. Um, okay. When a customer wonders why a wine is priced $9 dollars higher within the same year for the same vintage and you say that, “You’ll never apologize for making a profit” about all I can say is you have to be a pretty oblivious to what creates a good business. It’s the customer, it’s not the transaction. At that point I offered to buy him lunch because I had some ideas I wanted to run by him and he told me quote/unquote that he was “Too busy running his four businesses to take time out for lunch.” He did extend an olive branch by saying that I should say “Hi” the next time I was in the shop. That presumed that I would be in the shop again, cool guy.
One thing I would never do is pull the “I’m too important” card out, especially after you tell a customer that you’d never apologize for price gouging … er … making a profit.
At that point I decided that if he didn’t have time for lunch, I didn’t have time to spend money at his shop. So, I’ve taken my annual wine spending elsewhere—notably to the Cork & Cracker which knows a thing or two about building an amicable relationship with customers.
Now, I find out that not only does Jim no longer have four businesses (he now has one liquor barn), but his business partner basically was thinking the same thing I was.
I first got word when Jim sent an email out to his email distribution list on Saturday, May 5th. The email said in total:
Jim sells Carmel to Joe!
After 10 years of a great, growing partnership, Joe and I have called it “Splitsville”. As my Daddy always told me, there are two reasons you need a partner, you need their money, or you need their expertise. Well, it seems we are past that point, and we both have different ideas on what to do next. So we decided “what to do next”…split up as partners. I am selling Carmel, The Montage, and Kahn’s Katering to Joe. This is a deal we are certain is best for us, and we really think it will be best for you also. Effective immediately, the Carmel store is NO LONGER a “Kahn’s” (he hasn’t told me the new name yet) and will not be included in any Kahn’s advertising or buying effective immediately. It is still on the building, but I am sure Joe will change that soon enough. Joe and I hope to continue to do Wine Events together at The Montage in the future and to never let business get in the way of our healthy, though all too infrequent, golfing relationship. I wish nothing but the best for Joe in his endeavors and hope you will all wish him your best.
I thought then that there had to be something more to this, and it turns out there is more to it.
Joe Husar, his partner, has purchased Kahn’s in Carmel, Kahn’s Catering and Montage, their catering venue. The Indianapolis Star reports:
After more than a decade in business together, co-owners Joe Husar and Jim Arnold have decided to split up their holdings in what Husar called an amicable, if long-brewing, breakup driven by a differing vision of what the Kahn’s brand name should mean.
“We had been moving apart with that decision,” Husar said.
Arnold will retain control of Kahn’s Fine Wines & Spirits on Keystone Avenue. He also will own the Web site http://www.kahns finewines.com, which currently lists both the Carmel and the Indianapolis Kahn’s stores.
Husar, meanwhile, will own the yet-unnamed successor to Kahn’s Fine Wines Marketplace in Carmel. He also will own The Montage and Kahn’s Katering and the accompanying Web sites.
Kahn’s Katering made its name providing upscale, personalized high-end services. But the new Kahn’s Fine Wines & Spirits store on Keystone, which Arnold built recently to replace an older store just blocks away, didn’t reflect that image, Husar said.
Husar said Kahn’s Fine Wines & Spirits resembles a big-box superstore, with wide aisles, neutral colors and fluorescent lights.
“Catering has been growing for a long time, and my mindset had been to keep staying along the lines of the premium quality, high-end store, and I felt that the superstore was the opposite direction,” Husar said. “How do you tie in a superstore with premium catering?”
Despite the split, Husar said he and Arnold are still friends.
“Hopefully, we’ll continue to be golf buddies,” he said.
Um, yeah. Let me decode Joe’s comments for you: He is saying, “On the off chance that I get the chance to golf, I probably won’t be calling Jim, though if I run into him at the clubhouse at Hillcrest we’ll exchange pleasantries.” And, frankly, I can’t blame Joe. If Jim’s customer service bedside manner is any indication of what kind of guy he’s like as a business partner, then this was probably brewing for years.
I wish nothing but the best for Joe’s wine shop in Carmel, and in fact I feel like I can now go back to being a customer, but Jim, well, Godspeed to you brother and your aluminum liquor barn.
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May 9 2007
My monthly podcast as Ed McMahon to Tim Elliott’s (Winecast.net) Johnny Carson is posted. It’s a good listen. Paul Mabray, CEO of Inertia Beverage Group, provides excellent insight and Mark Fisher brings a fresh perspective as a wine journalist for the Dayton Daily News --plus, Mark’s a real good guy, even if he’s an Ohio State fan.
Check it out at the link below
http://winecast.net/podcasts/Unfiltered_20070422.mp3
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May 9 2007
Instead of long, analysis based post, I will keep it short and sweet and simply draw your attention to something that at once seems interesting and curious—curious in terms of marketing in the wine industry.
The wine blogosphere should soon be ablaze about Secret Salmos. Maybe.
I saw the ad in Wine Enthusiast magazine, intrigued enough to rip the page and check it out online.
Found at www.secretsalmos.es, an author named Javier Sierra has created a mystery game online, replete with impressive graphics that takes readers through an adventure game/viticulture learning adventure.
Created for the Spanish wine company Torres, Secret Salmos is a clue based game that seems to be intended to draw consumers in and engage them around understanding the Priorat wine region.
The entreaty to begin goes,
Brother,
A long time have tarried to get here, but you have given proof of merit to begin the path, since you have wisely passed the test of contemplation
I’m going to spend some more time on this, in greater detail, but in the meantime check it out and leave a comment. Is this cool, a wide miss of the mark on what wine consumers would find interesting or is the jury still out?
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May 6 2007
In this part of the country ‘A Taste of the Truth’ can usually be had after enough drinks at the recreational occasion of your choice. The start of the party season usually begins in the month of May--beginning with a bang with the Kentucky Derby taking place about two hours south of Indianapolis, in Louisville, KY and ending with a roar with the Indianapolis 500 at the end of the month over Memorial Day weekend.
May is one of the nicest months of the year in the Midwest—temperatures are moderate, the humidity doesn’t cling in the air like a thick, choking water blanket and bugs are refreshingly limited. May also happens to be a great time to sit outside and drink some wine--or some mint juleps, the signature drink of the Derby. Though, perhaps, grabbing a Budweiser if you go to the track for 500 is your best bet.
What, you ask, is my drink of choice for this 31 day precursor to the summer months? Generally speaking, in lieu of a mint julep or a cold, frosty one, I prefer a nice Riesling or a Chardonnay; perhaps some Kendall-Jackson Vintners Reserve—a tasty, reliable quaff.
Speaking of a K-J quaff, congratulations are in order for Jess Jackson, a horse lover of some repute and owner of Kendall-Jackson, for his third place finish at the Derby this past weekend. Though, if you asked him for a ‘Taste of the Truth’—the signature tag line to his K-J wine advertising campaign, after his defeat, you may not care to hear the response.
Curlin, Jackson’s horse acquired in February for a reported $3.5M, was the odds on (7-2) favorite to win the race according to an article in the Santa Rose Press-Democrat found here.
Third place, by all accounts, however, is a respectable job.
Despite the crushing defeat at the Derby, Jackson still has a lot to be proud of. In fact, May ’07 represents the 25th anniversary of Kendall-Jackson. Their onslaught of advertising continues, as well, touting “A Taste of the Truth” becoming near ubiquitous.
Two interrelated facts exist that link good wine and good horses and that’s provenance. Wine must come from good vines in good soil and good horses come from a line of good horses.
Jackson seems to understand the essential truth of provenance for both of his passions in spades
Trading California wine country “terroir” for Kentucky bluegrass seems to suit Jackson, but he doesn’t seem to have forgotten what helped him find such success.
Open any food and wine oriented magazine and you’ll see the aforementioned Kendall-Jackson advertisements—most of the ads center on the unique or interesting aspects of the land from which the grapes come for Kendall-Jackson.
One recent ad from K-J regarding terroir says:
Terroir can be defined as that mystical melding of light, water, soil, air and human touch. It’s is a definition I often use. The simple fact is, you must have a world-class grape in order to make a world class wine. And when it comes to grapes, their source, the land is what matters.
In fact, in support of this, a member of the K-J team published a book called “The Art of Terroir” off press just the other day, May 3rd, which highlights photography of the K-J vineyards.
In addition, Jackson is quoted in a recent Appellationamerica.com article saying
“We have to bring each generation of American consumers up to the knowledge and ability to make their own choices and accept responsibility for what they’re choosing. Unless they know where the good grapes come from … consumers should be educated to know that wines from Mt. Veeder or Howell Mountain are where great grapes come from.
“Terroir cares.”
Terroir may care, but a whole lot of consumers do, as well. K-J is one of the few nationally distributed brands (Bogle being another) that I pick up with some regularity. Congrats to Jess Jackson for understanding quality and provenance and a commitment to excellence—a commitment that yielded the valiant effort at the Derby and has sustained his growing wine business through 25 years of success. That’s ‘A Taste of the Truth’ we can all appreciate.
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