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October 17 2007
I’ve been running crazy lately and should return to a normal five or more times a week post schedule after the weekend, but in the meantime it’s off to New York for some Harry Potter madness.
My wife, the lovely and dear Lindsay, was an English Lit. major in school, she is in book publishing and she actually considered becoming a librarian. Her love of books runs deep. We share an enjoyment of reading except I read magazines because my attention span taps out at about the 39 minute mark. That aside, we’re both kind of nerdy in a hardcore reading kind of way.
Her love of all things printed word runs so deep in fact that she has read the Harry Potter series and or listened to them on book-on-tape at least three times a piece. Yes, each book at least three times a piece.
She loves Harry Potter so much that is was actually a condition of marriage, as in: “You have to promise me that you’ll read the Harry Potter series.” This might have been shortly after she accepted the engagement ring, I don’t recall exactly.
I addition, I went to a perfectly horrible Broadway play (I didn’t have a choice) that had a very short run and starred Jim Dale, the voice author for the Harry Potter books-on-tape.
The point is she loves Harry Potter. Her fandom might exceed my wine enthusiasm.
So, she enters a contest run by the Harry Potter publisher, Scholastic. The prize is tickets to go to a book reading and autograph session by the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Um, guess who won? Alongside 999 of our closest Harry Potter fan friends; we’re heading to New York.
I have to wear a custom made t-shirt, too. My wife is crafty like that. Apparently it has something to do with Quidditch, which means something if you’ve read the books.
Now winning these tickets is well and good because I happen to love New York City, but this also puts me in a bind because I have to at least read the first book now. The reading with the author is on Friday night. My own reading commences now. Fortunately, the first book is geared towards kids, because I can do 300 pages of big print.
This whole scenario led me to ask my wife if there was anything wine-related in Harry Potter. Four minutes later I’m at my desk looking up Madame Rosmerta on the Internet.
For all other Muggles, Madame Rosemerta is the owner of The Three Broomsticks pub. The Three Broomsticks is one of the local pubs in Hogsmeade (Hogsmeade is the village outside of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school that young Harry Potter attends). The Three Broomsticks is known for its delicious butterbeer and they also apparently serve Mead there, as well.
See, throw in a little tavern action and I can get down with Harry. I do have to say, however, all of this Potter backstory stuff is a little forbidding. But, I do have a greater appreciation now for what it’s like to be a wine layperson. Just as my wife takes this stuff as assumed knowledge, I guess I do the same with wine …
Nonetheless, in the spirit of my trip to NYC to hear a British author and billionaire (who lives in Scotland) read a kids book to me while I wear a homemade t-shirt, I thought I’d offer up a couple of recipes found on the Internet for butter beer and mead.
Please pour a glass of wine in my name on Friday at 7:00 pm.
Butterbeer (excerpted from MuggleNet)
Ingredients:
• 1 cup (8 oz) club soda or cream soda
• ½ cup (4 oz) butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping)
• ½ tablespoon butter
Directions:
Step 1: Measure butterscotch and butter into a 2 cup (16 oz) glass. Microwave on high for 1 to 1½ minutes, or until syrup is bubbly and butter is completely incorporated.
Step 2: Stir and cool for 30 seconds, then slowly mix in club soda. Mixture will fizz quite a bit.
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October 10 2007
Normally in this spot, on the second Wednesday of the month or thereabouts, I would participate in Wine Blogging Wednesday, a communal exercise in online wine drinking around a theme. This month the featured theme from our gracious hosts, Catavino, is Portuguese wine.
However, unfortunately, sitting in the land of milk and honey, Napa, California, traveling for business, I’m coming up dry on Portuguese wine. Two stops in these parts yielded nada, so, alas, I’m sending good vibes in lieu of an actual wine review.
But, the good news about the trip out to CA this week is I got caught up on a bunch of reading on the flight out, including a couple of October issues of Wine Spectator. This marks the third time in the last three weeks that I have referenced Wine Spectator, easily a record here, the magazine receiving only grudging acknowledgement in the past.
As an inveterate consumer of wine information, it has been easy for me to take shots at Wine Spectator in the past—the content frequently seemed aimed at a fictitious, stereotypical demographic—the fifty-something male with more money than actual knowledge and a proclivity for buying wines by the point. Some of the articles bordered on the insipid explaining things that would seem to be a base level of knowledge for any wine enthusiast; the sole redeeming value being Matt Kramer’s always smart columns.
But, something positive has happened in the last year or so—the Wine Spectator’s editorial coverage seems to have changed. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t think so. The writing is sharper, more insightful and SMARTER. And, it’s smarter at a greater level of accessibility, if that makes sense. It’s not smarter by virtue of casting a wider net to appeal to more people; it’s smarter by virtue of better insight and analysis for people that already “get it.”
More or less, Wine Spectator is more appealing to me, and since I’m my own baseline, I’m assuming it’s the magazine that has changed and I haven’t gotten dumber (or smarter) in the intervening 12 months.
So, to Wine Spectator, I offer up thanks for creating a more relevant magazine and competing against the intelligence and verve that Wine & Spirits magazine serves up.
A couple of notes and things that provoked thought from the October 15th and October 31st issues:
1) In an October 15th article on Napa wineries selling, including Stag’s Leap, there was a quote from Gladys Horiuchi, manager of communications for the Wine Institute. The following quote, in context, is related to the number of wineries that have sold since 2000 (50). She says, “These California wineries are finding they’re not competing against single companies abroad, but whole countries.”
Keep that quote in mind over the course of the next several years as California wine prices and consumption increases create demand fulfillment challenges that will be filled by high QPR Int’l wines at much lower price points. It’s a very prescient quote from Horiuchi, in my opinion.
2) Somewhat obscurely noted in the opening editorial by Marvin Shaken and Thomas Matthews, WS Executive Editor, is the mention that they have added new team members to the tasting team, noting, amongst other team members, that James Laube is getting some company in California tasting with the addition of two new reviewers who are now allowed to sign their initials to their notes. What does this mean? One could speculate about hegemony and house style in tasting, but it probably simply means that Laube needs some help tasting through the ever increasing pile of wine that shows up everyday. From the editorial:
In order to bring you comprehensive coverage, we train new tasters. It’s a lengthy process. They taste with our senior editors for three to five years, learning to write tasting notes and give accurate, consistent scores. They undergo blind tasting evaluations in our New York office. When they meet our rigorous standards for expertise and reliability, they are authorized to sign their initials to their reviews.
… joining Laube is Napa-based tasting coordinator MaryAnn Worobiec and associate editor Tim Fish.
3) One of the things that Wine Spectator HAS NOT done is back down from the point’s adornment to cult cabs. It’s another year and notch on the belt for many of these untouchable brands. From the October 15th issue comes ratings for the following: Harlan Estate – 97 points; Bryant Family – 96 points; Colgin – 95 points; Dalla Valle – 94 points; Paul Hobbs – 94 points; Joseph Phelps Insignia – 94 points; Araujo – 95 points; … let the games begin for those inclined to buy wines at $225 a bottle and up …
4) Another reason why Wine Spectator is becoming a better magazine has to do with more of a contemporary and culturally relevant take on things for people other then upper-middle class white guys that drive Mercedes. Case in point is a blurb in the “Grapevine” sidebar written by Eric Arnold and Heather Morgan Shott where they mention backstage riders for celebrities. Riders are the contracted demands for food and drink that needs to be furnished backstage in order to satisfy a performing celebrity. The rock band Van Halen notoriously requested a bowl of only green M&M’s backstage after every concert leading to an urban myth that green M&M’s are an aphrodisiac, as an example. Either Arnold or Shott went through thesmokinggun.com web site to find out that several stars have fun wine related requests. If you have some time to kill check out this link and search for Diana Krall, Amy Winehouse and others …
What do you think? Wine Spectator is the pillar of wine editorial and that hasn’t changed? Wine Spectator is improving their content and staying current, their blogs and online content is demonstration of that, in addition to the magazine? Wine Spectator is dying the death of a thousand cuts by the rise of community journalism and wine blogging?
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September 28 2007
Throw away the question of hereditary palate and being a super taster because the simple fact is that training your palate can be done just as you can learn to hit a 20 foot jumper off the dribble with a hand in your face.
Credit goes to Matt Kramer from Wine Spectator for highlighting the concept of 10,000 hours of training to be an expert in anything. He culled a couple of nuggets from a book called, “This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin. The premise of the book is more focused on a certain capability for musical genius, but it’s applicable to anything, including wine as he deftly points out in his column found here.
A couple of the excerpts from Levitin’s book, highlighted in Kramer’s article, are worth repeating here:
Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything.
In study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what you, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or twenty hours a week, of practice over ten years.
No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.
The ten-thousand-hours theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something the stronger the memory/learning trace for the experience becomes.
Additional credit goes to Kramer for not staking a pious point of view about his own expertise; it’s an integrity-based position, probably more humble than reality, though. He and his professional writing brethren all have an easy 10,000 hours in.
How is this related to wine blogging? Well, the short answer is very few people, chance are, that do wine reviews on a wine blog are qualified under the premise of having to have 10,000 hrs. of training to be an expert, particularly when you consider the diversity of wines tasted and the need to have an expertise not at a macro-level, but instead at a micro-level. Most of us are hacks. And, it’s us against them—the pro’s versus the blogs.
What’s the good news? Well, chances are if you had the gumption to start a wine-related blog, you have a long head start on the 10,000 hours and the next couple of years should be interesting as newly minted experts cross the 10,000 hour threshold. This wine blogging online thing becomes a whole lot more interesting when we overtake the pro’s in numbers and I’m guessing a lot of people are accruing their hours quickly …
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September 21 2007
It’s no wonder wineries are confused and immobilized with fear of new marketing practices and technology. Primary learning opportunities at seminars frequently fall into the category of gobbledly-gook babble.
If you get the occasional whoosh of air blowing upward, it was probably somebody pumping sunshine up your skirt.
If you can’t baffle ‘em with brilliance, befuddle ‘em with b.s., I guess.
Thankfully, some people speak in a language you can understand.
We have the makings of a speaker-based Wine 2.0 Marketing Battle Royale. In one corner is Gary Vaynerchuk, Director of Operations from Winelibrary TV and in the other corner is Google’s Kevin Kells, Industry Development Director of Packaged Goods, a title that in and of itself is pretty darn confusing.
You see, both gave remarks recently to winery audiences around the topic of wine and technology—what is popularly referred to as “Wine 2.0.”
Vaynerchuk spoke at the recent Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS) in July and Kells spoke most recently at the Wine Industry Financial Symposium that took place on 9/17.
Again, just to make sure we’re clear, they were both speaking about the use of technology in wine marketing.
Kells had the following to say, as quoted and excerpted from a Wine Business Monthly article posted today:
Kells contrasted the marketing approach used in traditional media, in which marketers “zap” advertisements where they think consumers will be looking, with what he called the “computing cloud,” an abstract place containing “all information: websites and all the findable, usable and more mobile services people use online.”
“capturing engagement in that cloud” is a two-way exercise. The Internet is a database littered with people’s intentions, he explained, and “you want to over-surf” the sites that matter as much to the consumer as to you. “While the cloud is abstract, the users are real.”
Kells provided a “brand steward’s checklist” with questions brand managers should be asking, such as: Is my brand missing out on engagement opportunities? In response, Kells said it was “physically, mentally and structurally impossible to do marketing that is sight-based anymore. You need to get your brand stewards more in tune with the instrument-based market. Just because you don’t always see it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”
Computing cloud? Brand steward’s checklist? Sight-based marketing? Instrument-based market?
Mind you, Kells was simply talking about using the Internet as a marketing asset for wineries.
Somewhere Jess Jackson was enjoying lunch and counting his money probably clairvoyantly picking up that somebody was blowing some sunshine up somebody’s skirt somewhere on the other side of the valley.
As a contrast to Kells, let’s take a look at a news report on Gary Vaynerchuk’s speech at the Wine Industry Technology Symposium (WITS) in July. Excerpts from the Santa Rosa Press Democrat:
The wine industry is missing a huge opportunity to build stronger relationships with its consumers using new technologies like Web videos and wine blogs.
That was the blunt message delivered to wine industry executives in Napa Tuesday by a young, outspoken New Jersey wine retailer who said the industry needs to embrace change or die.
“Ninety-nine percent of the people in the wine business are really blowing it,” said Gary Vaynerchuk, director of operations for the WineLibrary, a Springfield, N. J. wine store with a popular interactive Web site.
The wine industry for too long has catered to a handful of critics whose opinion means nothing to the average wine drinker, Vaynerchuk said. What matters far more to most people are the opinions of other consumers, and wineries need to wake up soon to this new reality, he said.
“Now everyone has got an opinion. Everyone’s got their two cents. Every single person you cross paths with in this industry — whether at an in-store tasting or a stock boy — you need to fear, and you need to embrace,” he said.
Vaynerchuk agreed. Wineries that are complacent and unwilling to engage new consumers in their own language will soon find themselves left behind.
“Get out of your comfort zone and embrace change,” he said. “If you are scared, you are going to lose, and losing sucks.”
Same message delivered differently.
Now, who would you take wine marketing advice from? More importantly, if you’re a consumer who would you buy wine from? Google or Winelibrary TV? My advice to wineries? Listen to the guy that uses the word “suck” and try if you must, but lightly parse the wisdom from anybody that uses the phrase “Brand Steward Checklist.”
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September 19 2007
You’ll be glad to know that new word additions to the 2006 edition of the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary include “agritourism,” “ringtone,” “supersize,” “drama queen.”
I have a suggestion for entry in 2007: Spoofulate and its plural form, Spoofulation.
I’ve seen this word a couple of times on Josh’s Pinotblogger site. I fancy myself a man about town, in the know, hip with the current vernacular … except, in this instance, I had no idea what the heck “Spoofulate” meant.
Clearly, I can’t be the only one.
If you do a Google search for “Spoofulate” you get a mere 256 search items from Google and searching for “Spoofulation” returns a scant 362 items-this is almost, positively obscure particularly when you consider that the word “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” returns 316,000 search items. And, well, the search term “Jeff Lefevere” returns 28,000 entries. Clearly something is amiss …
I did some sleuthing on the word, and according to Joe Dressner, from his site, “The Wine Importer” the word can be attributed to Harmon Skurnik, a partner with his brother in Michael Skurnik Wines, a high-end importer and distributor of merit in New York. The term was popularized, apparently, by Michael Wheeler ex-employee of Michael Skurnik Wines and a principal in Polaner Selections, another meritorious importer and distributor of wines in New York.
Basically, Spoofulation means, according to Dressner:
Spoofulation is a form of manipulation which takes wine away from nature and into the technological world of fake extraction, fake aromatics, fake flavors, fake density, fake acidity, fake tannin levels, fake color and fake sugar levels. Basically, fake wines.
The source of the phrase is traced back to 1990 Chateau Montelena winery in Napa and Harmon Skurnik’s interaction with a tasting room employee. He explains in this excerpt:
The Year Was 1990 (give or take two years) - my wife Lori and I were traveling through Napa Valley and we stopped upon the tasting room of Chateau Montelena…as we tasted through their wines, the pretty young girl behind the counter explained to us how Montelena’s Chardonnay did not go through malolactic, and therefore retained some acidity and freshness, after which she uttered the famous words, “not like all those spoofulated Chardonnays being made in the Valley these days”.
I proceeded to ask her what she meant by “spoofulated” and she explained that she meant the new (at the time) style of Chard i.e. full malolactic, ultra rich, lees-stirred, golden, extracted, low acid Chards that were just starting to be produced by the likes of Helen Turley etc (and which Parker, incidentally, had yet to discover). She was passionately defending Montelena’s style of Chard, which was old fashioned (and frankly works quite well in the often torrid Napa
Valley)...
The word is broadened by Mike Wheeler when he says the word encompasses a much wider swath of wine to include:
These include: 200%+/- new oak, rottofermenters, micro ox, oak chips, de-acidifying, spin cone, reverse osmosis, adding nontraditional/not approved grapes to blends ... also spoofed wines are wines where enzymes/yeast/flavors are added to “create” a wine etc.
Spoofulation nowadays, I think, refers to a “New World” style of wine, high fruit, low acid and something that Parker might like hence Josh’s in-joke reference to the style as he tries to balance elegance and fruit in his own winemaking efforts.
If wine bloggers start using the word enough we might have enough influence to have it included in a future dictionary—right after “soul patch” and before “unibrow.” But, you’ll have to excuse me now. I need to do some more “Googling” on “Parker Points.”
For more reading on Dressner’s site please see these two links—the original post and a follow-up post.
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