March 3 2007
One of the things that really keep me engaged in the wine blogosphere is the level of immediacy and intimacy that can be conveyed. If I were alive in the depression era, I would liken it to FDR’s old Fireside Chats.
Late last summer, others likened blogs to porches; about as good of an analogy as I can think of.
According to Josh at Pinot Blogger, reporting on this porch phenomenon back in August:
Just like a porch, a blog post is an informal visit where you can share gossip, talk about the weather, ask for feedback, or bounce opinions off your neighbors.
When I started at my employer in September, I spent most evenings of my first week on the job socializing with my new colleague, a guy I would be working with significantly to get our initiative off the ground. As gracious of a guy as you would hope to meet, he gave me a bottle of 2003 Hourglass Cabernet as something of a parting gift. Hourglass is a client.
This past week, Alder at Vinography gave his first person account and tasting notes from the 11th annual Premiere Napa Valley wine auction event held by the Napa Valley Vintners Association.
The barrel auction is something of an insider’s networking love-in where premiere wine retailers come to mingle with Napa winemakers, bid on exclusive barrels for their own personal or business use and support what the Napa Valley Vintners association calls their equivalent of a bake sale.
Alder scored the 2005 Hourglass “36 24 36” Cabernet Sauvignon, St. Helena in between a 9.5 and a 10—his highest mark given to a wine at the show and shared by two others.
As a brief aside, kudos goes to the Hourglass team for clever naming of their beauty with an hourglass figure.
Then, separately, being a member of the Hourglass email mailing list, I received this note from Jeff Smith and his wife Carolyn, Co-Owner’s of Hourglass.
Dear Jeff,
Carolyn and I would like to extend a sincere thank you for your tremendous support and advocacy over the years, as it is your patronage and “word of mouth” that has helped propel Hourglass.
Over the past weekend we submitted our first lot to the prestigious Premiere Napa auction. Premiere is a wine trade only auction for purveyors to purchase unique lots of Napa Valley wines for resale. Not knowing what to expect, Carolyn and I were floored when Hourglass finished the day as the 2nd highest grossing lot out of 200 lots submitted. At $42,000 for 5 cases of 2005 vintage wine, that equates to $700 per bottle! (In case you are now wondering, no, we are not going to go crazy with our pricing next year, but this does indicate healthy market value). We would like to extend a thank you for your support in creating so much interest in Hourglass in the past few years.
We also owe a great deal of our success to Bob Foley. If you recall, 2005 was a cooler vintage, and we were not satisfied with the flavor development late in the season. As October rolled on, I began to get quite nervous. The radar indicated a series of storms off the Pacific, yet Foley remained committed to waiting for the flavors to arrive. As the storms rolled through and the weeks passed, I was preparing for the worst. Bob, in his eminently calm manner, explained that heat is not the only trigger for physiological ripeness. He went on to tell me that what we needed was a cold snap, or hard cold rain to trigger the vines to ripen their fruit. Damned if he wasn’t right. On November 17th, after the fourth hard rain, the flavors arrived!! ‘05 turned out to be a spectacular wine, due to Bob’s steel nerves and intuition for the vineyard.
Once again, Carolyn and I greatly appreciate your support in building such a wonderful story out of this little hillside vineyard.
On my blog front porch, I received Alder’s take on the event and his scores, including the Hourglass. Later, down at the proverbial digital supermarket, I ran into Jeff Smith from Hourglass where he shared his excitement from the same event.
I feel like I was there, certainly I feel intimate enough to share the story. And, if I wanted to buy some of this wine all I would have to do is look up Gary from Gary’s Wine & Marketplace.
From San Francisco to Napa back out to New Jersey, via Indianapolis, that’s a pretty cool front porch.
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