the cask room's wine musings

Describing anything in life in a subjective way has always been an art. It’s human nature to adopt a generally accepted “vocabulary” to describe thoughts, impressions, and experiences in a way that different people can easily understand. Isn’t this the thought at the core of language itself?

The wine industry has its own language. It’s a set of adjectives used to describe a wine so that one person’s experience can be communicated to another person as a predictor of experience or as a measure of commonality. You all know of this language — it’s full of fruit flavors (crisp apple, bing cherry, kiwi), herbs (sage, dill, mint), earth (mud, barnyard, wet leaves), and a host of other adjectives ranging from dark chocolate to pipe tobacco.

But, the problem with this language is that it tries to be too precise in describing what is inherently a subjective & very personal experience. Instead of offering an easy-to-use system, what ends up happening is that people feel intimidated by trying to use it for fear of “having used the wrong term.”

There are very few people who could accurately decipher most of those aromas or tastes on their own. That is, without the benefit of seeing the fruit or enjoying its distinctive texture, very few people could actually tell you the difference between an asian pear and a bartlett pear, for example. So, why then do the wine snobs look so sure of themselves when they swirl a glass, capture the aroma, and so matter-of-factly state that they detect quince, petrol, and 10 year-aged edam cheese?

First off, they are cheating a bit. Every type of wine, whether varietal (like Chardonnay) or regional (like Burgundy) has a “subset” of known characteristics with it. That is, a very particular subset of the overall language of wine. Cabernet Sauvignon, for example, is very often associated with the following adjectives: black currant, black cherry, black berry, olive, leather, tobacco, and chocolate. You’re not likely to ever hear someone describe a Cab as having an apricot nose. But, the problem with this subset comes when you try to describe say, a merlot. You’re looking at almost an identical set of known adjectives. So, how then do you accurately describe any Cab from any Merlot when the overlap between the adjectives is so great? You don’t. It’s very hard to tell from the tasting notes what something is. But, when you taste those two wines, they are clearly very different animals.

The answer lies in the past. We’ve really only been describing wines in these fruit/herb/meat/earth terms for roughly the last 60 years. Prior to this, wines were described in very ethereal terms. Wines used to be described in terms of art, poetry, history, and music. Common wine reviews were “…like a Shakespearean sonnet” or “…all of the promise and none of the delivery of Handel’s Messiah.”

What I love about describing wines in this way is that you’re describing a “subjective” experience (wine tasting) with a subjective review.  That is, someone has to think about what you mean when you say “Handel’s Messiah.” It’s not meant to convey pretension, rather, it’s meant to say “remember the first time you experienced that piece of music? The choir singing in the “Hallelujah” piece? The goosebumps you had during the chorus? Well, this wine started off like that and left me flat.” Isn’t that exponentially more interesting & thought provoking than saying a wine has hints of raspberry, cinnamon, and anise? I think so.

One of my favorite ways to approach somebody at the bar is to say “… would you like to have a wine like Audrey Hepburn or Howard Stern.” This usually solicits a laugh, but my point in doing so is to ask somebody in a more subjective way, “do you prefer a demure & sophisticated wine, or do you prefer something big & obnoxious?”

So, much like I challenge myself to stop using the “crutch” of normal wine adjectives, I challenge you all to use your wit, experience, and intelligence when describing wines to friends. I think that it’s better in the end for discovery & communication. And ultimately, it’s the journey that we’re all trying to enjoy. As Paul McCartney sang on the Let It Be album, “the long & winding road, that leads to your door, will never disappear…” We should all be on that road to discovery, thumbing our noses at the currently accepted way in describing subjective wine tastings in absolute terms through absolute adjectives.

By the way, the wine I am drinking right now is a Napa Cab from the Spring Mtn. District. I could tell you that it smells of currants & dark chocolate. Or, I could tell you that it reminds me of the first time I heard “The Bends” by Radiohead (which, is one of my desert island five).

We just returned from nearly a week touring the windy roads west of Paso Robles in California’s Central Coast. Paso is roughly 30 minutes north of SLO — or described another way — about 1/2 way between L.A. and San Francisco on the 101.

Paso Robles was named for the large oak trees — literally El Paso de Robles, or “The Pass of the Oaks.” In terms of wine history, well those crafty missionaries planted most of the region’s original vines back in the late 1700’s, just like in most of California’s growing regions. Later, quite a few Europeans settled in the area and brought with them vine cuttings from Europe, including California’s first appearance of Zinfandel.

Zin is what Paso has most been known for but that has been changing quite a bit in the last twenty years. Cabernet Sauvignon actually accounts for 38% of the regions plantings — making it the most widely planted varietal. Just as exciting though has been the increased plantings of Rhone varietals. Syrah & Grenache on the red side, along with Viognier, Marsanne, and Roussane on the white side make up a pretty healthy chunk of the balance.

We had the amazing pleasure of staying amongst the vineyards of Halter Ranch Vineyard, about nine miles east of the ocean in the rolling hills. HRV has always been one of my favorites in the area, and after touring the property that first morning with sales manager Jim Witt and vineyard manager Mitch Wyss, that affection only deepened. We boarded a Mule ATV and headed from the Victorian farmhouse built in 1885 through the nearly 1,000 acres of hillside vineyards. They have 19 varietals planted, with Cab & Syrah dominating the mix.

The thing that initially struck me about the property, and of the western part of the region in general, is just how hilly it is. Not only does this make the property stunningly beautiful, it makes for better grapes. You see, when a vine is planted in really flat & nutrient rich soil, the grapes aren’t “stressed” and the end product grapes are uninteresting. Mitch explained to us that the grape is like a battery for the vine. That is, storing up energy in the form of sugar to help keep the vine alive. If the vines have it too easy, there’s no reason to keep your batteries charged, so to speak. It’s only when the vine is planted in an area where nutrients are harder to come by that the vine stores up energy in the fruit.

Of course, being in this vineyard in the middle of July means that the fruit hasn’t fully ripened, so you are left with a gorgeous canopy of trellised or head pruned vines basking in the warm days & cool nights of westside Paso. We were encouraged to try the grapes to test the acidity & flavor compounds. It was great to taste some great obscure varietals like Picpoul Blanc & Tannat, although at this stage of growth they are little acid bombs!

It was interesting to see what I always knew to be true of great vineyard managers — dropping fruit. Again, too much competition for scarce nutrients makes for uninteresting grapes. Mitch & Jim both dropped whole clusters every place we stopped. Mitch stated that 50% would be dropped during the growing season, and of that last 50%, another 50% would be dropped to leave only the best looking clusters.

The proof is in the bottle as they say, and not only do the wines of Halter Ranch Vineyard show that attention to quality, but everywhere we toured had this same excellent fruit.  Our favorite wines on the trip were from L’Aventure & Adelaida Cellars, as well as HRV.

My lasting impression of Paso Robles is that it’s one of the most beautiful of California’s wine regions. And, I believe that the friendliness of and camaraderie between the growers is so strong that the sky is certainly the limit. As I said to Stephan Asseo, the owner & winemaker of L’Aventure, he is not only making the best wine in Paso, for my money, it’s some of the best in the world.

It’s a short 5 1/2 hour drive to Paso — certainly a small price to pay to visit the Frontier of Amazing wines!

We all know that California is blessed for growing world class wines. From the Paris Tasting of 1976, where California wines bested the French counterparts in both white & red, to the foreign ownership of vines here in this state by some of the world’s oldest & most revered families like the Perrin family, the Frescobaldis, and the Rothchilds. We know that a lot of the wines being made in our state are considered to be at or near the top of their respective categories on the world stage. Sometimes success breeds ignorance, and sometimes, in the case of grape growing regions, it breeds xenophobia. I think both of these issues come to light when talking about Oregon & Washington wines. Not just to us spoiled California winos, but to the rest of this country.

Oregon, in my opinion, is making the best & most dependable Pinot Noir on the planet. People in some wine circles know this to be true, but try telling to that the average diner at a New York City restaurant and you’ll surely be met with a laugh. Oregon, and more specifically, the Willamette Valley, produces some of the most earthy & ethereal Pinots anywhere. The wines have the red fruit of the best years in Burgundy, France, along with the telltale barnyard/earthy aromas. The wines show beautiful minerality and purity of fruit — every year. Some years are better than others, but you are very infrequently going to be disappointed with a vintage to the point that you are often disappointed with the Burgundian counterparts. Domaine Drouhin in the Willamette stunned the wine world by taking first place in a 1979 Pinot Tasting in Paris. Of course, it only further underlines the point of Oregon’s potential when you learn that the Drouhin in said Domaine is actually the Drouhin family of Burgundy, France. They know a thing about terroir.

Washington is excelling at producing Bordeaux varietals, as well as Syrah, which if you remember my last mainfesto-er article, does well albeit differently almost anywhere. You may be surprised to learn that the center of Walla Walla is longitudinally the same as Bordeaux, France. But, much like California, Washington offers a much more consistent growing season than the French equivalent, resulting in wines that range from good to great between different vintages, instead of epic and terrible. The eastern high plains & near-desert regions show a different soil type than California as well — much more like the sandy/alluvial soils in France.

Here’s some interesting facts about Washington as well: Did you know that there are 300 days of sunshine? How about that the more northerly latitude gives the grapes almost 17 1/2 hours of sunshine every day? Perhaps the most interesting factoid is that the soils are very poor in Nitrogen, meaning that the vines have to work harder for their nutrients, and the resultant grapes therefore have the potential to be much more interesting. One of my favorite producers from Washington is L’Ecole 41. They make a dense & luscious Cabernet, as well as a lipsmacking Merlot, and my absolute favorite, their Columbia Valley Syrah. You may only know the Chateau St. Michelle’s and Columbia Crests of Washington, but there are over 600 bonded wineries in the state. Actually, Columbia Crest produced what Wine Spectator last year called the #1 wine in it’s top 100 issue — their 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve from the Columbia Valley. While a score from a magazine or a medal at a competition is no guarantee that you’ll love the wine, you can at least take away that the wine was interesting & unique enough to capture the hearts of those tasters at the magazine who taste tens of thousands of wines a year. And, you should take away that Washington may in fact be at or near the top of the world charts for Cab, Merlot, and Syrah.

Yes, there are domestic vineyards outside of California that matter to the wine connoisseur. Oregon & Washington are often surpassing California in terms of great wine, so open up your buying patterns a bit and prepare to be amazed at the stellar flavors & structures of these Pacific Northwest wines.

Do you know the trouble that USC has playing Oregon up in Eugene? That’s kind of what I’m talking about. California is not always & not even usually better than Oregon, or Washington, at what they do best. Go Ducks! & Huskies!

You would think that after five years tasting hundreds of wines per week that I’d never be in a position to drink crappy wine. And you’d largely be right. Because I regularly stock our home cellar with wines from The Cask Room’s regular list — we don’t frequently shop other places for wine. Why would we? Wholesale prices + the ability to weed out the crappy wines on someone else’s dime equals nothing but well made juice.

But, there always seems to be a day (or weekend) where I forgot to bring home enough to replenish the cellar after a rousing dinner party or two. Such was the case last weekend.

We had great plans of taking the kiddos out for pizza after a nice long walk, but Storm Watch 2010 changed our plans. We found ourselves phoning in a takeout order instead. I opted for a high-end grocery chain here for wine — figuring that I would maximize the chances of a warm pie + wine this way, versus the trek downtown to “borrow” from the bar’s inventory.

I like to tell our customers all the time that as long as you know the varietal and you know the region that you will be empowered to pick a good wine.

Well, I’m here to tell you that this tactic doesn’t always work.

I bought three bottles of wine to match our pizza & leftovers the next night: a Zin from a big name producer with a Lodi old-vine offering, a merlot from Alexander Valley/Sonoma, and a Napa Cab. None of these have I tasted before. These kinds of wines don’t come across my periphery too often at our establishment.

Nonetheless, I bought them and we drank them. Well, most of them. They all had a common problem: they were “thin.” That is, not enough fruit, not enough texture, not enough alcohol, and most appallingly, not enough acidity to pair with the pizza.

Now, why is this? They’re all smart grapes for the areas where they’re grown. What exactly is going on?

Overcropping. Blame it on the economy. Blame it on greed. Blame it on corporate decisions and not agricultural decisions. Grapes grown on any plot of land have an optimal “yield” that will produce the “best” or the “most interesting” wine. This knowledge comes with years of experimenting until you get it just right. But, one general rule is that the more fruit yielded per acre the less interesting the wine is going to be. Think about it — if there’s a set amount of nutrients & water given up by Mother Nature, the more fruit taking it will not get a measurable amount per berry to fully ripen and show the best version of itself that it can.

This is classic American farming. It’s not surprise that many of the state’s growing regions were once planted to lettuce, tomatoes, nut trees, apples, etc. The more you grew, the more you were paid. Grape growing is almost the opposite (for people who care). The less you produce, or the more you thin & prune during the season, the more interesting your crop should be, the more renowned your vineyard should be, and the more those wines will eventually sell for.

Well, there’s one class of winemaker who might just not give a damn, and it’s those making 100’s of thousands of cases of drinkable but uninteresting juice. Precisely the kind of wine you’ll likely encounter in your neighborhood drug store, liquor store, grocery store, or restaurant.

It really pays to find a retailer who gives a damn. Here in San Diego, I can’t recommend San Diego Wine Company highly enough. Places like theirs, and like mine, really weed out the wines you shouldn’t drink. We can make money doing the right thing, buying the right wines, from the people who care.

Of course, there are times when you need a last minute bottle. Well, between 3rd Corner up north, to SD Wine Company in the central, and our store downtown, or the many Costcos around town, you should be able to spend your precious dollars with someone who cares enough to help you enjoy your next bottle. That’s my dream anyway. Stop buying wine from the places who don’t care.

/m

One of the most wonderful aspects of California as a grape growing region is the virtually unmatched diversity in growing sites. From the cool coastal regions like Sta. Rita Hills & Sonoma Coast, to the warm valleys of Sonoma & Napa, to the hot areas like Lodi & Amador, and the higher elevation areas west of the Sierras like Eldorado. You would be hard pressed to find another growing region on Earth with both the climatic and geographical diversity of this state. (I’m sure the French may disagree, but they probably won’t read this anyway)

This incredible diversity means that not all varietals will ripen correctly in all areas. I don’t want to name names, but let’s just say that Cabernet from San Diego isn’t too good, and I contend that Sauvignon Blanc ripens so well that it almost has none of the Loire’s minerality or zestiness, leaving it as uninteresting as a Steven Seagal straight-to-dvd movie.

But, there is one group of grapes that seems to be incredibly adaptable to the different parts of this state, and there’s an advocacy group working hard to advance this agenda: The group is The Rhone Rangers, and I’m sure you can guess the group of grapes. The Rhone growing region in France officially has 22 varietals of grapes permitted for planting, with the primary four being Roussanne, Viognier, Syrah, and Grenache. And guess what? They all do amazingly well here in many parts of this state.

Let’s focus on Syrah. The mysterious, full-bodied, sometimes smokey, sometimes jammy wines are true chameleons. I don’t think there is a better wine example that truly shows its terroir while still being adaptable to many different climates and soils. The good news for wine lovers is that plantings of Syrah are on the rise in this state, and for that we can thank winemakers and growers in The Rhone Rangers. This group was formed in the eighties by Bob Lindquist of Qupé Wine Cellars, Randall Graham of Bonny Doon, and John Alban of Alban Vineyards. Their stated mission is “ADVANCING THE KNOWLEDGE AND ENJOYMENT OF RHONE WINES PRODUCED IN AMERICA.” John Alban was allegedly the first to plant Syrah in the Central Coast — arguably the state’s most revered region for the grape. The stretch of land between Santa Ynez/Santa Barbara, up through Santa Maria & Edna Valley, SLO, and finishing around Paso Robles might just be the epicenter of great Syrah. Yet, as I finish that statement, I can’t ignore the amazing Syrah coming from Monterey, or the amazingly Hermitage-like juice coming from Carneros & Russian River. What about those big brooding examples from Lodi, or the unfortunately under-represented ones from Napa? Lake County has some great examples too. This might surprise you, but the best Syrah I’ve ever tasted from California was from San Diego! South Coast Winery’s Wild Horse Peak vineyard at 2,400 feet produces a scant 1.5 ton/acre per winemaker Jon McPherson. Less fruit equals more interesting juice. The point here is that Syrah truly can grow anywhere in this state AND show well, albeit differently.

Syrah plays really nicely in the vineyard. It is late blooming, resistant to rot, and ripens early. This means that the grower can feel good about quality fruit every year as the blooming avoids Spring frosts, and it gets harvested early, missing the Fall rains. It ages well with the full fruit, medium-to-high alcohol, and firm tannins. It’s probably best aged in American oak (again, don’t tell that to any French people you know). Syrah pairs extremely well with food. It will stand-in for a Cab just beautifully when paired with grilled meats, and it will make your eyes roll back when coupled with some tangy Santa Maria Tri-Tip.

Who should be drinking California Syrah? You! Unlike some of the other red wines, Syrah is approachable when young, affordable, and very readily available. You can’t go wrong with any of the Qupé wines. Bob actually makes five or six different Syrahs depending on the vintage. They’re all from different vineyards, or different blocks in the same vineyard. Zaca Mesa in Santa Ynez has been committed to Rhone varietals since the eighties. Not surprisingly, many of the Rhone Rangers biggest advocates came through Zaca Mesa at some point: Bob Lindquist of Qupé, Ken Brown of Byron, Lane Tanner, and Adam Tolmach of Ojai.

And to go for the hat trick of sticking it to the French in this article, President Clinton served Zaca Mesa Syrah to French President Chirac when he first visited the White House. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but I would say that Syrah can’t be imitated. It’s far too unique to its site to be made to look like something else. Grab a bottle of California Syrah and have a one night stand with it. You’ll likely fall in love!

I had to respond to a critical review of our wine bar last week mentioning that we didn’t have a “great selection” of wines by-the-glass. This is essentially what I wrote, but I thought it worthwhile to talk about on my blog for education’s sake…

Any establishment that has more than 20 bottles of wine by-the-glass is playing games to be able to make money on those wines and to get them into your glass. The only problem is, they don’t care about “when” those wines hit your glass. Only, that they eventually will. And, many of them, or most, if we’re being honest, don’t give a shit about “how” those wines show once they hit your glass. Heck, one of my competitors once served me a glass of Pinot on a Tuesday that was opened on Thursday. When I asked the owner — not a server — to smell the wine, he couldn’t tell that the wine was oxidized beyond enjoyment. Many of these places will very gently put the cork in the bottle, with about 2/3 of the cork still outside the bottle, and simply leave them on the counter over night(s) until they sell. Some may stick those bottles in the refrigerator, bringing them out every day in hopes of selling them (warm/cold/warm/cold). Some still have paid tens of thousands of dollars for machines that continuously pump inert gas into the bottles to ward off oxygen, enemy #1 of wine.

They’re trying to steal another day of use at your expense. It doesn’t even have to be a place with 20+ wines on the menu. It could be your favorite corner bar with six wines on the menu to satisfy the occasional customer who doesn’t want a car bomb or a pint of Blue Moon. There’s a place in East Village that I love, but I’d never order wine there — they keep all of it in a commercial fridge at 38 degrees! In any case, if you’re not going to sell the wines the day you open them, and they’re truly not going to hold up until day #2 (which the vast majority won’t), then these establishments are either selling you wine that is already “gone” or they are selling you wines which are not showing the way the winemaker or Mother Nature intended for you to taste them.

In the case of the latter, think about it. The wine is aged in barrel/bottle (likely) in a controlled fashion until ready for release. The enclosure type (cork, screw cap, etc.) has a pretty predictable role in the aging of the wine. Once you open a wine, it begins its pretty quick degradation into oxidized grape juice (not even vinegar, even though that sounds romantic). You can slow that down by keeping oxygen, light, and heat away from it, but at this point, it becomes something different than what the winemaker wanted to show you.

Those wine bars popping up with machines are showing you these types of wines: wines with a bit of softening from initial open, then you not only are not getting the freshest just-out-of-the-bottle flavors (because oxygen has softened the flavors between the time the enclosure is opened and the time the inert gas starts pumping into the sealed bottle), but you are getting an almost “mummified” version of that wine with no predictable aging, but rather, kind of a state of suspended youth, in a place somewhere between “fresh” and “dead.”

I believe that having a glass or bottle of wine is a journey that you take. It’s an implicit contract of sorts, between you & Mother Nature. When you start to prolong the life of a bottle of wine, you start to see different things, most likely not intended, than you would if you simply open a bottle, have four glasses, and then recycle the bottle.

Remember that Stephen King novel called Pet Cemetery? If you don’t, the theme was that if your pet (or friend) dies, take them to this special cemetery & they’ll come back to life, only slightly different. In the novel, they become homicidal. I’m not saying these wines will try to kill you, but why take the chance? ;)

That is why we don’t have more than 15 wines on our list at any time. 75% of the wines we sell would not last to Day #2, and so those wines go home with the owners, employees, or they go down the drain at night’s end. The other 25% that do last to Day #2 may in fact be better with some oxygen, and we’ll tell you in detail why that is. Heck, we’ll even pour you a new bottle versus Day #2’s bottle so you can see for yourself.

As I said to our reviewer referencing us not having a “great selection” of wines: I’d rather showcase 15 wines that show as well as they possibly could, than to sell 50 wines living on borrowed time: flat & soft, and without all that Mother Nature has put into those grapes. I believe we owe it to the folks who work their butts off working the land, gently processing the fruit, and then waiting for those wines to mature to the point that they’re ready to be shared with the rest of the world. You can decide for yourself. Swing by tomorrow night (Thursday, Feb. 3rd.) & I’ll pour you, for free, a Napa Cab that was opened immediately versus one a few days old kept on gas, and one kept in a fridge. You tell me what experience you’d rather have.

/mike

Well, I couldn’t say “idiot” or “dummy,” could I? Let’s just leave it at that. Yes, this is a wine blog, but I’m going to pull out my trusty soapbox to weigh in on the Conan vs. Leno battle. Let’s just say this has been an entertaining couple of weeks for monologues on all of the shows. I am a Conan guy, but I always thought it was a strange thing to pull Leno off in his ratings prime and shoehorn in the wonderfully lowbrow humor of Conan. Actually, the only thing I liked about giving Conan the Tonight Show was that maybe I could get up to Universal easier than way back East to see the show live. Looks like I won’t have the chance. I think Leno didn’t orchestrate this. It was the NBC executives. The loser here is Conan, who looks to have truly wanted to honor the Tonight Show legacy. But, we’ll see him on Fox or some other network soon. I hope he didn’t sign away his right to call the NBC executives out for perpetuity for being such knuckleheads. Well, let’s get on with this entry all about your favorite fortified wine from northern Portugal.

As I write this, the rain is streaming down in San Diego — and a perfect excuse to bust into the 20 year Tawny sitting on the shelf.

What’s the difference between Ruby & Tawny, Vintage, LBV, Colheita, and dated Single Quinta Vintage Port? Well, fresh off our tasting/education with Taylor Fladgate last week, I thought that I’ll spell out the process in a very concise format so that even a moron could understand it and use it to impress their friends & family!

What is Port wine? Easy. Port wine is a fortified wine from the Douro region of Portugal that has been “shipped” through the city of Porto or Oporto, depending on your language.

What does fortified mean? Well, Port wine begins just like any regular wine. The grapes are grown, harvested, pressed, and allowed to “macerate” with the skins (unless it’s a white port) for just a few days. The wine begins its initial fermentation, only to be stopped quite abruptly by the additional of a distilled spirit, which most of the time is a brandy. When you add something with the high level of alcohol like a brandy, the first thing to happen is that the yeast doing its work on fermenting the sugars to alcohol are instantly killed. Most ports are allowed to ferment to about 5% alcohol before the 40% brandy is added. What you’re left with is a wine with high alcohol (~20%) and a good amount of residual sugar (r/s, if you want to sound cool).

Why the hell would you want this? Who thought this up? Very simply, it was the English. During their long war with France, England looked to their seaport allies for many things, including wine. Unfortunately, the wine didn’t have great closures and would spoil before making it to England. Thus, the idea of “upping” the alcohol to protect the wine on its voyage. A happy accident — much like Champagne. 

Alright, now that I understand Port wines, what are the differences between the different styles? At this point, nothing. All port wine is finished in the same way. Much of the pressing of the grapes are done by foot. This is because much of the Douro was without electricity until 1979. The juice gets a little taste of fermentation, then it gets punched in the face with the addition of brandy. Where then does it go? Wood vats called “pipes.” All port wine stays in these wood vats until the second spring after harvest. It is at this point that each individual port house makes the decision to…

Declare a Vintage!

That’s the goal with all of your port. Declaring a vintage means putting the year of harvest on the label, waiting for the scores from Parker & Speculator, and then jacking up the price to get the most from your juice.

But, the better houses only declare a few vintages per decade, and even when they do, they pick only the best juice, sometimes a fraction of their entire harvest.

If they declare a vintage, the wine goes into bottles for aging & eventual sale.

What happens to all of the juice not included with the vintage, or all of the juice in a non-vintage year? Well, one or more of the following happens:

1. Wine is bottled and offered for sale. This is called Ruby Port. Hey, isn’t that the same as vintage port? Yup, except that the date can’t be put on the label. It’s non-vintage vintage port. This is usually the least expensive port.
2. Wine is bottled & held back for a few more years (4 to 6 total years) and sold with a date on it. This is Late Bottle Vintage, or LBV for short. The idea here is to offer a non-vintage expression of one vintage with proper minimum age on it to enjoy on release. These wines sell for a fraction of a normal vintage year with the benefit of being ready to drink.
3. Wine is bottled, labeled with a vintage, but not from a vintage year. This is Single Quinta Vintage Port. The house wants to showcase their best wine from the single estate and designate it with a vintage year. These wines typically sell at a steep discount to vintage years, but can be the 2nd most expensive of the ports.
4. Wine is put in small barrels for some time. If the wine from one year’s harvest gets mixed with one or more other harvest years, this is what is known as “Tawny” port. The age on a bottle of Tawny represents the “average age” of wines in the mix. A 10 year tawny would have an average age of 10 years, and a 40 year would equal an average age of 40 years. We tried a 40 year tawny at the Taylor tasting that had its oldest harvest year as 1909!!! Tawny ports usually have a brownish tint and are much lighter in fruit and much more pronounced in nutty, butterscotch, and marzipan flavors.
5. The last port, and one of my favorites (other than the first 4 favorites) is kind of a cross between #2 and #4. Colheita ports are those from non-vintage years that spend the first few years with all of the wine, but when a vintage doesn’t get declared, the wines go into barrel — for a long time! The amount of time is determined by the customer. The wine doesn’t get bottled until a customer orders it. Don’t think of the customer as an individual, but more likely an importer of wine from another country. They’ll bottle it, put the date of the harvest year (not a vintage), and ship it. These wines to me are the best example of one harvest, along with barrel aging, making it a cross between ruby, tawny, and vintage, all in one!

Are we clear on all of this, or did I just confuse the hell out of you?

Oh, one more thing. I posted a question on Twitter about the difference between Ruby & Tawny port — in one word. Nobody got it right. This is right from Robert Bower, 7th generation of the Fladgate family. The difference is: Air. Ruby’s are bottle aged, Tawny’s are barrel aged. The slats in the barrel allow oxygen in to accelerate the “aging” of the ruby ports. This softening would roughly equal in a very short time the aging you’d see in a bottle over a very long time.

So, there you go. All port starts out the same. All ports start out as Ruby ports. The path after the first two years is where things get different.

And, this entry is done, the rain in East Village, at least, is looking biblical in its rate of speed, and my glass of wine is empty. I think it’s time to steal another pour ;)

/mike

While the politicians and policy makers figure out how to fix the economy, it should already be quite apparent to everyone that times are a bit tighter than normal. Of course you don’t want to stop drinking your favorite wines, beers, and cocktails, but you’ll need to be a bit more shrewd in order to help offset the rising costs all around you.

One of my favorite adages about wine is from Napoleon: “In victory, you deserve Champagne, in defeat, you need it.” Therefore, with the spirit of that saying, you either need wine more now than ever, or you deserve it. Or both. Let’s talk about some of the best values out there right now.

Everyone has their favorite producers, but I like to empower my friends & guests to start thinking in terms of “region” & “varietal.” That is, once you know for example that you like Pinot Noir from Santa Barbara, but not so much from Santa Monica, you’ll begin to unlock the treasure trove of wineries waiting for you to discover.

I am defining a wine value as a wine that retails in the $8 - $15 range.

I’ll say right now that if you’re looking for value from California, you are going to be sorely underwhelmed. Land prices, insurance prices, distribution margins, and a host of other factors conspire to keep the wines from our state at a pretty high baseline price. I would say that for most of what is coming from a defined AVA in the state, not from a more generic appellation such as Central Coast or California, those wines are priced north of $20 — not the value that we are looking for. There are some anomalies: Paso Robles puts out some nice blends in the $15 range. Same with Amador & Lodi up near the Sierras. Lots of Italian heritage means plenty of Zinfandel, Barbera, and Sangiovese. Actually, anytime you follow the Italians as they made their way around the globe, you will almost always find some great wines with some great values.

Probably the best place in the world for value right now is Argentina. I’m sure you all know that Malbec is the adopted red grape of Argentina, but have you ventured out to taste the incredible Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, or Charbono from there? How about the incredibly aromatic and refreshing Torrontes? You’ll easily find incredible wines in this price point. And lest you think that this is some johnny-come-lately wine region, you should realize that they’ve been making fine wine down there for far longer than we have here in America.

Chile also offers an incredible bang-for-the-buck, with the star varietals being Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, and Carmenere. Chilean wines have a distinct “funkiness” to them (for lack of a better word) — almost a weed or wet earth nose. Some people love this funkiness. I would just decant the wine a bit and enjoy the incredible fruit & structure left behind. And, if we’re talking “funkiness,” I’d be remiss to not mention South African wines. Chenin Blanc is what they do best, but the Shiraz and other reds are incredible values if you can find them. And decant them — to take off that funkiness. Pinotage is the premier grape down there, but I find it to be almost always awful.

Moving more to the old world, Spain and the south of France are still pumping out incredible values that defy the Euro/Dollar conversion. Tempranillo is found in almost all regions in Spain, and you really can’t go wrong with it. From the meaty & dried fruit versions in Rioja, to the huge lipsmacking bombs coming out of La Mancha & Ribera del Duero. Wine values from France, you say? Sure! Once you get outside the Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne, and Alsace regions, many incredible values show themselves. The Languedoc region in the south of France is the world’s largest growing region (700,000 acres). They produce everything from Chardonnay to Syrah there, and the nice thing for American consumers is that the wines typically are labelled by varietal so you know what you are getting — no Little Orphan Annie decoder ring needed. These wines are frequently sub $10, so take the time to explore what is available. One of my “go to” wines before I was in the business was a simple Cotes du Rhone. While the press really loves the wines of Chateauneuf-du-Pape, Hermitage, and other notable sub-appellations of the Rhone, very similar aromas & flavors can be had for under $10 from the more generic Cotes du Rhone appellation. This region is where Grenache & Syrah marry into something so wonderfully flavorful and sublime, but with enough character to stand up to most food dishes.

In fact, if you’re looking for a magical dinner under $20 for you & your sweetheart, swing by BevMo or Trader Joes for a CDR, and use the rest of the money to buy mussels & french bread. Steam the mussels over some of the wine with some shallot & garlic, and use the bread to enjoy the remainder of the broth. You’ll be transported to a French cafe without the hassles of passports & Euro conversions. 

Of course, there’s plenty of other great stuff out there from the likes of Australia and Italy, but we’ll talk more about those next month.

You can absolutely find & enjoy some incredible wines without letting your wine budget go the way of the gas budget. Cheers!

Labels: cask, room, wine

POSTED BY THE CASK ROOM, MIKE KALLAY AT 10:30 AM

1 COMMENTS:

Michael said…

Hi Mike - you asked me to check into the ‘funkiness’ of Chilean wines when I visited there recently, and I have two interesting hypotheses as to the source of this funkiness. 

#1 is simple: pollution. The Maipo valley is right outside of Santiago, and some of the wineries (especially in the ‘high’ Maipo) are just up the hill from downtown. Nothing’s more than 45-60 minutes away from downtown. And Santiago is *worse than Clairemont, CA* for smog. I have pictures to back up that statement, and I’ll show them to you next time I’m in.

#2 is less insidious: according to the Wikipedia article on “Chilean wine”: ‘The soil of Maipo Valley is noted for it high salinity steaming from irrigation from the Maipo river and low potassium level which has some impact on the grapevines. Vineyards in the Maule also suffer from low potassium as well as deficient nitrogen levels. Advances in viticultural techniques have helped vineyards in these regions compensate for some of these effects.’ 

So there ya go - the answer to the funkiness, at least from the perspective of Maipo is presence of bad chemicals and absence of good. 

Not to mention that they probably mix in a lot of Carmenere with everything just to get it out of the country. I agree with your opinion on that varietal: it’s weird. I had a few (like 2) good ones while I was there, but I had lot (like 10) bad ones. It’s about as smooth as cheap chianti.

In my blog last month, I talked at length about the 100 point system used to rate wines and its impact on the wine industry. If you recall, the point system essentially puts a numerical score that is absolute and static on a product that is constantly changing from minute to minute. It’s also representative on one person’s sole subjective opinion. It’s dumbing down the appreciation of wine for the attention deficit connoisseur. Most of all, the point system has indirectly created a monster: wines being created to attain a score, not to be the expression of the grape or the vineyard from which the grapes came.

Wines with a score of 90 points or greater can sell for hundreds of dollars a case more than wines with scores less than that. It is in the best interest of wineries trying to move product to have that magical score — because it’s instant credibility and creates a vortex of demand. But, how do you get a 90 point score?

Enter Enologix, a Sonoma-based firm whose client list includes a virtual who’s who of the wine industry. Founder Leo McCloskey used his doctorate in chemical ecology from UC Santa Cruz to identify about 84 chemical compounds, 32 in reds and 52 in whites, that account for the majority of aromas and flavors in wine. Knowing how these compounds interact with each other, and knowing what kind of resulting wines come from those interactions, McCloskey started to feed a database with the recipes for different wines. Once this data was compared to the scores from Robert Parker, you could easily chart the type of wine that scored highly with Parker, and unlock the quantities of those chemical compounds that comprise high scoring wines. Voila! He’s reverse-engineered winemaking!

Enologix runs a very secretive shop — bordering on Dr. Evilish paranoia. Clients sign a NDA for the privilege and presumably very costly process of working with McCloskey’s firm.

The process begins in the vineyard. While most wineries use hydrometers to measure brix (sugar levels) to time harvest, Enologix customers deliver grapes once a week to the lab where the grapes are pressed into a quick “laboratory wine” which is then analyzed with a liquid-liquid chromatograph connected to a spectrometer to measure those 84 chemical compounds. The lab reports back to the winery letting them know when to pick.

Once the juice is pressed and in the barrel, Enologix continually monitors the fermenting juice, measuring those key compounds, and recommending changes to the winemaker to get the wine to match those magical profiles.

McCloskey defends his work as being a 21st century solution to centuries old farming methodologies; however, he is cognizant some may wave a finger at him and call him a heretic.

The irony in all of this is that Robert Parker thinks great wines are made in the vineyard. They are expressions of the place where they grow. Expressions of the terroir. He believes in using natural yeasts for fermentation. He believes in not fining and not filtering the wines — those processes rob the wine of its character — its soul. Yet, winemakers the globe over are violating all of these centuries old tenets of winemaking in order to get a better score from Parker.

They are making wines in the lab because they have to.

Ignore the scores and discover the mystery of wine for yourself. You’ll be amazed, delighted, disappointed, and horrified. But, what a wonderful journey it will be!

Wine ratings. Are they good for the us, or are they taking the fun & discovery out of wine drinking? Yes to the latter.

You have seen them: Wine Spectator gave this wine an 88, Robert Parker gave that wine a 93, Wine Enthusiast gave another 92 points, Stephen Tanzer rates one at 84, and Wilfred Wong gives everything 88+ points (he does work for BevMo — of course they want you to buy everything — why would they let him rate lower than that?).

So what? What does the rating really tell you? It’s a snapshot of what the wine critic thought of the wine, in a familiar 100 point scale. That’s it. It doesn’t mean that you’ll like the wine. Unless you know that your palate is exactly the same as one of the critics (very unlikely), the score should mean as much to you as your unused stock options for pets.com

Let’s back up and talk a bit of history. Wine critics have been around for centuries — writing guides, newsletters, and hosting classes. But it wasn’t until the 20th century that any kind of “grade” was given to a particular wine. Those grades took the form of stars (one to four, usually), or more commonly a 20 point rating system.

It wasn’t until Robert Parker burst onto the scene in 1982 that wine writing would be forever changed. Robert had correctly identified a fundamental problem with wine writers: they were so tangled with the industry that you couldn’t trust their reviews. They were accepting dinners, and trips to wine country, and free bottles so often that you had to question their objectiveness.

Parker started his “Wine Advocate” newsletter with the explicit intent of becoming the Ralph Nader of the wine world. He would not accept any of these gifts, and he would pay his own way through the wines he tasted. His reviews, often occupying pages for each of his reviews, became the gold standard for wine reviews. Along the way, he added the 100 point scale, meant solely to use as a quick comparison to like wines. And in doing so he forever changed the way people buy wine.

Having done a lot of research on Parker, I know that he never intended for the score to be the focus. We are kind of an ADD nation — looking for the quick answer or the bottom line, rushing to the next shiny object to focus our attention. Parker still writes his ultra lengthy reviews for The Wine Advocate, and is a very successful author as well: He penned the definitive guides to Bordeaux, Burgundy, and the Rhone. But most people likely have never read any of that. They just know that Parker gave this wine a 92, so it must be worth buying.

His 100 point system became so popular and so powerful that prices started to move up or down instantly after review. The other players in the wine writing world had to co-opt it. Now, everyone has a 100 point system. The only difference is that Parker still writes exhaustively about the wines he tastes, while the others throw a Zagat-type paragraph with 3 or 4 adjectives to accompany their score. Sadly, the score has become the focus.

This column is too short to go into all the reasons why the scoring system is bad, but suffice to say that scores can’t be compared to one another; that is, a 90 point Cabernet is not the same as a 90 point Chenin Blanc (the first a good score for a Cab, the latter a great score for a Chenin). And, a Parker 90 is not the same as a Wine Spectator 90. Certain grape varietals never achieve the classic scores of 95+. You won’t see a Pinot Grigio there or a Zinfandel. Why? If someone makes a perfect example of a Zin, shouldn’t it warrant a score of close to 100? Only the premier grapes or regions get to play in that exclusive sandbox. Which begs the question, “if certain varietals have a handicap, how useful is a global scoring system for comparison?”

Everything is relative. Relative to the person tasting & his/her palate, relative to expertise, relative to the implicit benchmark used to grade against. Everything is subjective. There is no piece of paper you dip into a wine that gives you a reading of the score. Even the scoring system has changed. Parker used to give points for color, for balance, for bouquet, etc., adding all the parts to get the final score. Now, he magically pulls the number out of the air and with the stroke of his pen (or mouse) he makes or breaks a wine.

I’ll go into more detail about scoring and show you all some interesting data behind it next month that will make you question motives and usefulness. I humbly suggest you ignore the score when looking at these publications and focus on the tasting notes. That’s where you will start to realize whether or not a particular wine might be a good match for your palate. Better yet, temper all of that and explore some new wines yourself. The more you drink, the more you’ll know your palate. You’ll know whether you like or despise Pinot from Oregon, and whether anyone can make a great Cabernet in Paso Robles. Once you start to unlock those skills, you’ll never need the score crutch again.