Category Archives: Wine Culture

Give It Up Guys

31 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Food Science, Wine Culture

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female winemakerThere is a mountain of evidence suggesting that women have a better sense of smell than men. Julie Case takes us through a summary of the data.

Then, in the 1980s, Richard L. Doty, a professor of otorhinolaryngology and the director of the Smell and Taste Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and a team of researchers designed the Smell Identification Test, which asks subjects to identify 40 odors. When the test was later used in a study on sex differences and the ability to identify odors—the results were published in 1985 in the journal Neuropsychologia—women consistently outperformed men. The test has since been commercialized and used in a myriad of ways, including the study of air pollution and olfactory dysfunction and the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease.

Beyond merely identifying odors, however, Doty says women also seem to perform better than men in detecting odors at the lowest levels of concentration, and in tests of odor discrimination and memory. In the late ’90s, a research study used MRIs to examine the volume of the brain activated when men and women were subjected to olfactory stimulants The MRI activation maps for the women’s group showed up to eight times more activated voxels (by analogy with “pixels,” “voxels” are an element of three-dimensional space) than the men’s group in specific regions of the brain.

And so on. More studies leading to the same conclusion. But then at the end of this informative article she does what women too often do when male egos are at stake—she defers:

Does having more neurons and glial cells, and being better at detecting aromas, make one a superior winemaker or somm? Not necessarily. For some, all of the extra details and minute aromas are distractions.

Well yes but you can learn to manage the distractions. If you lack the ability to detect aromas there is nothing you can do. Is it better to have lots of money that must be managed or too little money with no recourse?

Unfortunately, we get more of the same lame excuses’:

Just as the fastest person in the world doesn’t make the best soccer player, or the strongest person in the world doesn’t make the best wrestler, [wine] tasting is so much more than just being able to taste the compounds,” says Rob Ord, prestige manager for Treasury Wine Estates in California and a former diploma instructor for the International Sommelier Guild. “It’s being able to put everything together in the puzzle.

Right. But is there any evidence that women are less adept at puzzle-solving?

Moreover, says Ord, it’s impossible to be able to smell something—or at least to identify a smell—unless it’s been described, defined, or imprinted in memory with a label attached. “It’s very difficult,” he says, “to be able to pick out those compounds and say, ‘Oh yeah, this smells like peach,’ unless you’ve actually spent time smelling peach and really defining that in your palate.” Even people with the most sensitive olfactory bulbs won’t be able to break down an incredibly aromatic wine if they can’t name or define what they’re smelling.

So is there evidence that woman lack the discipline to practice labeling smells? Of course not.

Obviously, a good sense of smell is not sufficient to make you a good winemaker or somm but without it you’re at a real disadvantage.

Give it up guys—they’re probably better than we are at the most important skill in the wine business.

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Missoula, Montana: Meat, Mead and Mountain Wine

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Restaurant Reviews, Travel, Wine Culture, Wine Reviews

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The vineyards at Ten Spoon Vineyard and Winery

Can they grow wine grapes in Montana? There are some hardy souls who try. Excessive cold, meaning sustained temperatures below –10 degrees, will damage the wood on all vitis vinifera varietals, the species of grape that includes the familiar varietals such as Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. For some varietals such as Merlot or Syrah 5 degrees above zero is risky territory. There are a few growers who persist with vinifera in Montana’s unforgiving winter climate but the consensus is it’s a losing proposition. So most growers are planting the cold hardy grapes—French-American hybrids and native varietals that are bred to survive deep freezes. Most wine drinkers have never heard of these grapes; many probably never will. The quality level of wines made from these grapes is, shall we say, improving. But you have to go to war with the grapes you have, and the allure of winemaking is so strong, many are willing to endure years when severe crop losses effect even the cold-hardy varietals.

Andy Sponseller, co-owner of Ten Spoon Winery in Missoula, went so far as to bring in helicopters twice in one season to blow frost off his vineyards, an expensive proposition for a marginal business. He started growing Pinot Noir in 2003 but has since abandoned it using fruit from Oregon to satisfy Pinot lovers and planting the cold hardy grapes for those seeking local flavors. It was actually cherry wine that got Andy and his wife Connie through the lean years; now since 2014 he is showing a profit making a satisfying St. Pepin (a aromatic white wine with a plump palate) and a field blend of 5 cold-hardy grapes called Range Rider that features a big, spicy nose and full body. And that Flathead Cherry wine? It’s delicious. Making wine in Montana is not for the feint of heart but with the right grapes and some non-grape wine to fill in the gaps it can be done successfully.

Ken Schultz of Hidden Legend Winery had a different solution. He was an amateur winemaker when he moved to Montana from Ohio in 1979, long before the more recently developed cold hardy grapes were available. But one thing Montana has in abundance—bees. And so Ken started to make honey wine, aka mead. You might think mead would be sweet and heavy, like honey. But not in the hands of a master mead maker. After all, mead is wine, you can ferment it dry where it becomes light and refreshing, age it in oak so it picks up caramel and coffee notes, ferment it with elderberry or chokecherry to add complexity, add carbonation for sparkling mead, or blend it with maple syrup which can be warmed and served for breakfast. He makes a line of traditional, i.e. sweeter, meads from clover honey and a line of contemporary meads, lighter and drier, from wildflower honey.

Like wine grapes, mead’s flavor will depend on local characteristics, not the soil obviously, but the type of flower that the bees are pollinating. I lack the experience with mead that would enable me to distinguish Missoula mead from any other, but tasting through Hidden Legend’s lineup was eye-opening with regard to the savory complexity and multiple expressions of this ancient beverage.

Ken has not forsaken grape wine. He makes several Montana-grown, cold hardy varietals such as a scintillating St. Pepin, as well as Marquette and Marechal Foch. But the most surprising taste sensation was his crisp, light-bodied dandelion wine showing delicate herbal notes.  In a blind tasting I probably would have guessed Pinot Grigio.

There are only a handful of wineries in Montana but their definition of “wine” is as expansive as their Big Sky.

What does grow well in Montana is bison, elk and other game, which can often be found on local menus. Buffalo burgers have become a staple of some menus in the U.S. But what you’re actually eating is bison.  Buffalo as in “water buffalo” or “African buffalo” are native to Africa and Asia and are part of the same bovine subfamily as bison but are a different species. Early explorers in America called bison “buffalo” because of their resemblance and the name stuck.

Although “buffalo burgers” are reasonably common, I seldom see bison steaks on menus but in Montana it’s relatively easy to find. I found a bison tenderloin at The Red Bird, Missoula’s fine dining restaurant.   It’s leaner than beef with a milder flavor and a dense, yet delicate texture, but the accompanying shell filled with molten roquefort cheese to be lavished over the tenderloin was a bit much conquering the subtleties of the meat.

Another dish that Montana can claim as its own are elk meatballs, especially when served with a sauce made of huckleberries, a fruit grown in abundance here. Blue Canyon’s elk meatballs were slightly gamy, reminding me of ground lamb, but with a softly crumby texture like good sausage. The huckleberry sauce was perfectly balanced, slightly tangy with bright berry flavor.

montana-1And finally, Montana’s traditional comfort food is a dish they share with the rest of the upper midwest—a meat pie called a pasty (rhymes with nasty, although it’s not). Legend has it that pasties came to the U.S. via Cornish immigrant miners who needed a portable, hand-held lunch. They consist of cubed or ground beef, potatoes, and sometimes onion (in Wisconsin they add rutabaga) wrapped in a shortcrust and baked. Montanans, at least at Lisa’s Pastry Pantry, serve them with brown gravy. I’m sure if you grew up eating pasties it’s the bee’s knees but I find them a bit dry and uninteresting, a good vehicle for gravy but not something I would voluntarily seek out. However, I will be in the upper Midwest for the next several weeks and I feel duty bound to investigate pasties further.

Of course, when visiting Montana, even the most finely-honed food and wine obsession will be subordinate by the unsurpassed natural beauty of this place. My quest for the perfect Pinot seems trivial.montana-4

Thought of the Day

24 Thursday Aug 2017

Posted by in Philosophy of Food and Wine, Wine Culture

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winemaker at work 2Italian wine blogger Alfonso Cevola writes:

Red wine. White wine. Rosé wine. Orange wine. Sparkling wine. Dessert wine. There comes a point, when looking at all of this from the sky box of the Hindenburg, when one can see that every one of these wines matter. French wine. Italian wine. German wine. California wine. Texas wine. Virginia wine. Even the ones you don’t prefer.

I’m not sure that all wine matters. Some wine is just a commodity, a means to make money. It might as well be soy beans or corn. Yet, although the bulk wine market is huge it is dominated by a few firms. For the vast majority of wineries in the world every vine has to be carefully tended, every fermentation nurtured like a new born child, every barrel probed and contemplated until it yields some semblance of beauty.

Those wines, all of them, matter because they mattered to someone.

Hoist By His Own Petard

23 Wednesday Aug 2017

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conventional wisdomHippie punching has been one of the mainstream media’s favorite pastimes since, well, since there have been hippies. Now there is a  new subgenre of this tired work horse—hipster punching.

In an article entitled “The Perils of Wine Groupthink” Robert Joseph writing in Meininger’s Wine Business International seems to have lost his irony detector:

Despite many people’s belief to the contrary, the plural of anecdote is not data; it’s anecdata, a term that’s as helpfully meaningless as the kind of information it describes.

The fact that a vociferous group of people with hipster beards in New York restaurants are to be seen drinking natural wine does not indicate a fast-growing national trend for the style across the US.

When a specialist wine retailer says, “more and more of my customers are asking for wines with less alcohol” it does not mean that the average strength of the billions of bottles on supermarket shelves is visibly falling.

The tendency to extrapolate from one’s own personal observations – and more especially one’s own tastes and opinions – is widely recognised by statisticians and researchers, who’ve even given it a name: confirmation bias…. What has started out out as a partisan view now evolves into Groupthink. ‘What we believe and observe must be true of the wider population’.

It’s not at all clear how a belief that a trend which is clearly observable within one’s cohort might catch on with the wider population constitutes group think. Group think occurs when bad decisions are made because pressures to conform prevent the objective assessment of evidence. It’s hard to see how promoting unconventional wines or enclosures would count as groupthink since the aim is clearly to identity trends that currently fall outside the mainstream.

Apparently what Joseph would have trendsetters in the wine business do is look at aggregate data from supermarket purchases to find potential new trends. Good luck with that. By the time the trend is discovered it will be on its way out. That is the very definition of groupthink. Conventional wisdom isn’t always wrong but it is always conventional.

The underlying mistake that Joseph makes is failing to see that the wine business is actually two distinct industries. In the U.S., the top 30 wine companies account for 74% or all the wine sold. Those are the wines you find in the supermarket, essentially a homogeneous product differentiated by marketing and branding. That’s one kind of industry. By some estimates that leaves about 7500 wineries fighting over the rest. That’s a distinctly different industry. The wineries in this second industry won’t succeed by doing what the big guys do.  Why buy their wines if they’re identical to what I can get at the supermarket? Participants in this second industry succeed by selling to those “hipster beards” and others who exist on the long tail, the niches, or in other words, the anecdotes.

It’s Joseph who is guilty of groupthink by crediting only what has been normalized as real.

Idaho Wine: Will Work for Grapes

16 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Travel, Wine Culture, Wine Reviews

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The Snake River Valley

Idaho is probably not the first state that comes to mind when the topic of U.S. wine comes up. But if you’ve been paying attention to the wine press lately, Idaho, especially the Snake River Valley AVA near Boise, is beginning to get some attention. And for good reason. They make good wine here. After all, the Snake River AVA crosses the Washington border and Eastern Washington is, of course, a prime wine grape region. In fact, you can think of Idaho as Washington’s adolescent off-spring, still dependent on mom and dad but quickly gaining autonomy.

Idaho, like Eastern Washington, has a continental climate (6-8 inches of rain per year) with hot, dry summers producing concentrated fruit flavor and cold winters allowing vines to go dormant and killing off diseases that threaten the vines. Both occupy a northern latitude so they have summertime daylight well into the late evening, and both have strong diurnal temperature shifts with nighttime temperatures dropping into the 50’s for much of the summer helping to keep acidity in the grapes. The differences are primarily in the general soil types and elevation. Idaho has soils formed from volcanic ash; Washington does too but with a higher percentage of glacial deposits. Perhaps more importantly, Idaho vineyards  are generally much higher in elevation, reaching as high as 3000 feet above sea level which explains one of their biggest challenges—getting their vineyards to survive winter kill and early autumn frost.

Case in point—2017. While Washington vineyards suffered some crop losses from this unusually cold winter and as of this writing yields are uncertain, Idaho vineyards were devastated. The Boise area typically gets only 4-6 inches of snow per year.  The winter of 2017 dumped 37 inches of snow on the region with unusual cold snaps that extended for days on end. Extended cold weather destroys the fruit buds that had formed the previous summer sharply reducing yields. Only the vineyards with good air flow draining off the cold air will get much yield this year. Happily, since most of the vines are own-rooted and have no grafts exposed to the elements, the vine trunks and root systems survived and vineyards should be back to normal in a year or two. There will be plenty of grapes to make wine in 2017 but they will have to rely on fruit from Washington State where many Idaho producers have long term relationships and contracts.

There are now over 50 wineries in Idaho (up from 11 in 2002) and most are located in the southwestern portion of the Snake River Valley with a few scattered though the eastern part of the valley. The Snake River AVA became official in 2007 and now includes, as a sub-region, the Eagle Foothills AVA just north of Boise. The Lewis-Clark Valley AVA was added in 2016 and occupies the border of Idaho and Washington in the northern part of the state where the Snake River intersects with the Clearwater River. All of this activity is testimony to the enormous potential of this region. Although Idaho has about 1200 acres under vine, a recent survey concluded that theoretically there is the potential for about 50,000 acres.

The main difficulty is securing enough local fruit for the burgeoning wine business in Boise. As noted, most of the wineries here have a tradition of getting some fruit from Washington. Many wineries would like to make wine exclusively from Idaho grapes and they do so when possible. But the need for more vineyards was a constant plea we heard in talking to people in the Idaho wine business. As Moya Dolsby, Executive Director of the Idaho Wine Commission told us, “If we’re going to reach our potential, we need to get more vines in the ground.” Furthermore, when I asked one prominent winemaker if the growers here were grape growers or wine grape growers, he smiled and said “no comment”. The demand for quality grapes is outstripping supply even when the weather cooperates.

In Idaho, winemaking is a bit more advanced than the viticulture in part because lots of winemaking talent from Washington and California migrated here seeking the less crowded, less expensive, slower paced, yet nevertheless urban lifestyle offered by Boise. That probably also explains one of the really unique facts about Idaho—the high percentage of female winemakers. I don’t have comprehensive stats but, according to one count , 22% of the winemakers in Idaho are women including several of the top ten Snake River wineries. Melanie Krause, winemaker and co-owner of Cinder Winery, told me that she returned to her home in Idaho after working for Washington State’s Chateau Ste. Michelle because it was a better atmosphere for raising her family. Many women in Idaho’s wine industry have made a similar decision.

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Vineyard workers at Koenig Vineyards

Warm to hot, daytime, summer temperatures allow most varietals to ripen in Idaho despite the short growing season. Bud break is typically around the 2nd week of April and harvest is usually finished by Halloween. Riesling, Chardonnay and the Bordeaux grapes, especially Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot, have been the primary varietals but there is a lot of excitement about Viognier, Syrah, Tempranillo, Malbec, and even Petite Verdot and Petite Sirah, although plantings of the latter two are miniscule at the moment. My own personal opinion: It’s a bit hot for Riesling here. The Riesling we tasted  was acceptable but not special, although Cinder’s off-dry Riesling was an exception. The Chardonnay was mostly clunky with too much oak. Viognier, although a difficult grape,  is more promising and we tasted several brilliant examples that had the aromatic intensity and generous mouthfeel expected of that grape.  As for reds, the playing field is wide open although Cabernet Sauvignon gets sufficiently ripe only in the best vintages. I asked Earl Sullivan of Telaya if there was a distinctive flavor profile that distinguished Idaho from other regions and, he replied, “not yet”. “We’re still trying to figure out what Idaho wine is”. Melanie Krause of Cinder thinks Idaho reds tend to be more elegant with softer tannins than comparable wines from Washington. I agree with her observation but whether that has to do with the soil, the climate, or stylistic choices among winemakers, it’s hard to say. There are too many microclimates and soil types and only a few examples of some varietals being grown here to make generalizations at this point. Diversity may be their strength here.

With Boise’s rapid growth, a population increasingly interested in wine, available land, and its position as a gateway to markets in the the Mountain West, there is great potential here and I  suspect we will continue to hear good things about Idaho wines.

The largest winery in the state has long been Ste. Chapelle (est. 1975) which produces 125,000 cases per year. But they use mostly Washington fruit and have not as yet made a commitment to developing Idaho as a region. Moya Dolsby said most wineries produce between 3000 and 7000 cases per year so this is a region where artisan production reigns, and it is those small producers that we focused on in our tasting.

Here are the wineries we found to be most impressive:

Cinder Winery

All the wines from this urban winery near Boise hit my sweet spot. Winemaker Melanie Krause achieves an elegant, graceful style picking grapes at around 21-22 degrees brix to achieve great balance and freshness. Each wine in their lineup has finesse, pure fruit expression, and complexity. The Chardonnays (2015 and 2016) were head and shoulders above others in Snake River, largely because of Melanie’s deft hand with new oak. A gorgeous Viognier (their flagship wine), an intriguing blend of Sauvignon Blanc and Chenin Blanc called Laissez Faire, and an off dry Riesling that was the best of this varietal we tasted rounds out the whites. The Laissez Faire red (Sangiovese and Mourvedre) makes a fine table wine, but the 2014 Tempranillo, 2014 Bordeaux-style blend, and the 2015 Syrah were outstanding. See my review of their “foot stomp” Syrah here. I don’t normally assign points when making winery visits but all these wines are in the 90-92 point range and can compete with comparable wines from Washington or California.

Telaya

Winemaker Earl Sullivan is a stickler for cleanliness, perhaps a holdover value from his years in the pharmaceutical industry. As far as I know, his is the only winery that seals their production room and blasts it with ozone every night to kill any critters that might be lurking. Telaya uses about 60% Idaho fruit, filling in with grapes from Washington State when the Idaho fruit doesn’t meet Earl’s exacting standards. The results of his attention to detail are wines of great clarity and precision all with the silky textures that define his style of winemaking. A tasty Viognier, and an especially vibrant, textured  Grenache Blanc were the standout whites.  A Malbec featuring bright, bing cherry aromas and a luscious mouthfeel, a blend of Syrah, Malbec and Merlot called Turus (2014) which showed intriguing smoke and meat aromas, and the outstanding 2015 Red Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon (see my review here) completed the tasting menu. Telaya is one of several urban wineries along the Boise River just north of the city. They serve food and host frequent musical performances as well giving the burgeoning Boise population a full service venue in which to indulge their wine cravings.

Split Rail Winery

Every wine region needs a maverick to keep complacency from settling in. In the Snake River Valley that person is Jed Glavin. From his use of egg-shaped, concrete fermentation vessels to his attempt to market wine in cans for the hikers and campers who need their wilderness wine fix, Jed is one of those creative types who seem to have a new idea every minute: he’s interested in natural wines, is experimenting with a pet-net (a sparkling wine made by allowing the CO2 to develop from the first fermentation in the bottle), and wants to make a sour Chardonnay by inoculating the wine with Brett (a form of yeast that induces funky flavors often considered a flaw). It’s a good thing he makes good wine. The 2016 Exploding Mirror (Roussane and Viognier) was refreshing and full of flavor as was the 2016 Dry Rosé made from Cinsault. The blend of Mourvedre and Syrah was spicy with white pepper and a Rhone-like blood and iron flavor note. But my favorite was the 2014 Petite Verdot, a grape getting some attention here, despite being in short supply, because it seems to grow well in Idaho. Split Rail’s is floral, soft on the palate with spicy tannins providing structure. (See my full review here) Split Rail is another of the urban wineries just north of Boise.

 

The following wineries are in the Sunnyslope area west of Boise near the Snake River:

Huston Vineyards

Greg and Mary Alder grew up on an Idaho farm, but a visit to Napa and the opportunity to acquire land and vines at a good price convinced them to grow grapes. Their Huston label is 100% Idaho grapes; their Chicken Dinner label is table wine sourced from all over the Pacific Northwest. Maybe it was the vintage; 2014 was an incredibly good year. But these reds are lovely. A rich, earthy, Malbec, and a juicy, lush Cabernet Sauvignon with refined tannins impressed but the star is their Private Reserve Petite Sirah (2014). Rich fig, chocolate, and berry notes supported by fine-grained yet structured tannins. There is only about 1 acre of Petite Sirah in the whole state. More of this please.

Koenig Winery

Using all local grapes, this winery does an excellent job with Cabernet Sauvignon. This is a difficult grape to get ripe in Idaho at least in some vintages. Koenig deals with this problem by making a more European style Cab—earthy, structured with high acidity. Their Hell’s Canyon 2014 Cab needs more time to settle down but it’s a serious wine. The Fraser Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon is softer and more accessible. They also feature a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah blend called Cuvee Alden 2012 that was drinking well, showing berry and chocolate notes with a lush mouthfeel; and an accessible 2014 Syrah with ripe berry notes and sleek minerality. Among the white wines, the 2014 dry Riesling was impressive–delicate but textured with lovely lime and apricot on the nose. Their 2016 Viognier was fresh and crisp showing floral and tropical notes.

Fujishin Family Cellars

Sourcing almost all their grapes from within a 20 mile radius of their winery, Fujishin’s flagship Viognier from 2016 was definitely impressive. Pear and floral notes introduced the lovely, textured mouthfeel and long mineral-driven finish. (See my full review here). The Cabernet/Syrah blend was rich with berry and earth notes and offered a smooth midpalate with a long, somewhat rustic finish. But the red wine that attracted my attention was their 2013 Petite Sirah—lots of berry, smoke, cocoa and tannins under control from 2 yrs. in American oak

Fake Wine, Fake Food, Fake You

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Wine Culture

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our brains are sickAs I noted in previous posts, our hi- tech overlords are busy trying to invent fake wine and fake food. Now they’ve turned their attention to inventing a fake you.

Instead of drinking lots of wine to find out what you like and using your wine knowledge and sense of adventure to expand your palate, a company called Helix will analyze your DNA via saliva samples to discover what you should like.

Silicon Valley is always trying to one up itself in helping us improve our daily lives. This time, with the launch of Helix, the tech geniuses believe they can enable us to make better choices – including better wine choices – if we have a better handle on our own DNA.

Wine Explorer by the Healdsburg, California-based Vinome, which currently costs $29.99, is currently Helix’s only wine-focused app partner….When you go to the Vinome site, there’s a basic survey that new customers can do online, discussing if they enjoy blackberries or black coffee and that results in an initial taste profile. It is reinforced by the all-powerful saliva test, which should be able to skillfully delineate which of eight flavor profiles will work for each consumer.

According to CEO Ronnie Andrews, if you like black coffee you will like big, red wines.

Swing and miss, strike one. I love coffee. I’m not crazy about big, red wines. If you like sweets you’ll like Gewurztraminer and Viognier, according to Andrews. Swing and miss again. I love a good Gewurz or Viognier. I’m not crazy about candy.

Of course, their business model is to tell you what you should like and then sell you the wines that conform to their prediction. That’s a pretty good racket. If they develop a personality test for science envy they can predict which consumers will fall for this scam.

“Trust Your Palate” is Bad Advice!

07 Monday Aug 2017

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I can't hear youI feel a rant coming on.

Probably the most ubiquitous piece of advice offered by wine educators and wine writers to novice wine lovers is “always trust your palate”.

This is the worst piece of advice you could give anyone. Would you tell a med student or a freshman engineering student to always trust their instincts? Trusting instincts can be a good thing but only after the “instinct” has been honed to something worthy of trust.

Now granted mistakes in wine tasting don’t have the dire consequences that medical or engineering mistakes have. The worst that can happen if you’re a novice wine drinker trusting your palate is that you will learn nothing from more experienced wine drinkers. It’s your loss; no one else is put at risk. But it is a loss nevertheless.

“Always trust your palate” assumes your current preferences and abilities are fine as they are and need no improvement. It assumes there is nothing to be learned from anyone else, no wider perspective to be achieved, no patterns out there to be discovered. Whatever it is your feeble powers of discernment reveal they must be correct just because they’re yours. That’s not only dumb; it’s arrogant.

None of the people giving this advice really believe it; if they did they would never have acquired the wine expertise they are so diligently preventing others from acquiring.

When I began to be fascinated by wine, my consuming thought was that  others were getting so much more out of a wine than I. While others were reporting heady aromas and textures and fine distinctions between varietals,  I was tasting a generic grapey flavor with all wines tasting basically the same. Had I trusted my palate I would have been forced to conclude they were hallucinating.

So do not trust your palate. Instead, assume that people with expertise might actually have something to teach you.  Assume your abilities are too unformed to deserve your full trust. Recognize that the more perspectives you gain on something the better you will understand it. Trust the learning process, not your palate.

Yes, You Can Judge a Wine by the Size of the Winery

31 Monday Jul 2017

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bulk wineryWall Street Journal wine columnist Lettie Teague recently posed the question “Can You Judge a Wine by the Size of the Winery?” Her answer was “no”, and when I’ve come across comments on the Internet about this article, most people seem to think her answer is obviously true. I want to push back against this conventional “wisdom”. I think the question is ambiguous and once we get clear on what is being asked the answer is “yes , at least most of the time, you can judge a wine by the size of the winery”.

The article is behind the WSJ’s paywall but I will briefly summarize it. Teague claims that “wine snobs” think “big is bad; small is good”. According to “wine snobs”, wine made by large wine companies “must surely be the work of a machine and a marketing team and not a sensitive and caring family.” But this is not true according to Teague:

There are many good, even world-famous wines made by big wineries and some real dreck turned out in tiny amounts by winemakers who are a one-man or -woman show.

I’m not sure who the “wine snobs” are she is referring to but I know lots of sharp, well-informed, wine lovers with strongly held opinions about what’s good and bad, and I’ve never heard any of them say that all small batch wines are good and all large production wines are bad. Her entire article is based on a classic strawman argument. (A strawman argument is a logical fallacy in which someone misrepresents an opponents argument to make it easier to attack.)

So we’re not off to a very good start here.

When she asks “Can You Judge a Wine by the Size of the Winery?” what sort of judgment does she have in mind? Are we judging how delicious the wine is, how consistent, original, or distinctive? Are we looking at price/quality ratio, story, social impact?

She never clearly articulates what standards of judgment she has in mind but her examples are telling:

Kim Crawford is the bestselling New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in the U.S.; the winery produces some 1.5 million cases a year. It’s consistent and affordable–about $14 a bottle–and well made. It’s also easily found in wine shops and grocery stores. I have friends who swear by the brand. And as the venerable English wine writer Hugh Johnson observed in his book “On Wine,” “To give pleasure to a huge numbers is itself a virtue.”

Well. No doubt. Kim Crawford makes consistent, affordable wines. Is that what the column is about? Can you judge the consistency and affordability of a wine by the size of the winery? Indeed you can. The whole raison d’etre of big wineries is consistency and affordability. That is what they are designed to deliver and they do it rather well. 90% of what you find on the supermarket bottom shelf is consistent and affordable if you stick to the best global producers of which Kim Crawford is surely one.

But everyone knows this. It’s not in the least controversial.

Her second example is the Burgundy negociant Louis Jadot. Of Jadot’s winemaker Frédéric Barnier she writes:

Mr. Barnier works closely with hundreds of small growers all over Burgundy to produce wines like his village Meursault and Pouilly Fuisse, to ensure both quality and consistency. Indeed, when I purchased a bottle of the 2014 Louis Jadot Pouilly-Fuissé from a wine merchant last week, the salesperson said, “Jadot is a very consistent producer.”

There’s that word again—”consistency”. Apparently that is what this column is about. And again she’s right. Big wine makes consistent wine.

But those “wine snobs” she despises don’t care so much about consistency, at least that’s not the primary standard for quality. They look for vineyard expression, winemaker’s vision, distinctiveness,  originality, complexity, mystery and all the other elements that constitute a worthwhile aesthetic experience. Will you find them in wines made by wine conglomerates?

The answer turns out to be complicated. There isn’t anything about a large annual case production that precludes a winery putting aside their best barrels for special bottlings that provide transcendent experiences. Many wineries do just that—Mondavi comes to mind. They occasionally still make wines that impress despite corporate ownership.

But the larger point is that all the economic incentives work against large wineries taking the time and care to produce wines of genuine quality that are distinctive.

So indeed you can judge a winery by its size. Large wineries tend to produce consistent, affordable wines without distinction. Small wineries have little going for them unless they produce wines of quality and distinctiveness. So they have the incentive to do so, although if the talent or terroir is wanting it will remain an aspiration.

Of course at the end of the day it’s what’s in the bottle that counts. But knowing the motivation behind the bottle is central to grasping quality and the size of the winery tells you a lot about what their motivations are.

Here’s a hint. If it’s a small winery the motivation is likely not exclusively to make money, since for the vast number of small wineries in the U.S. profit is only an occasional luxury. (And yes, there are exceptions to that as well)

I guess it’s not surprising that a column in the Wall Street Journal is urging us to drink corporate wine.

Oregon’s Umpqua Valley

27 Thursday Jul 2017

Posted by in Travel, Wine Culture

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umpqua-reustle

The whimsical outhouse at Reustle Prayer Rock Vineyards

In the wine world, there are advantages to being less well-known. There are fewer expectations so you can focus on what you want to do rather than what is conventional or popular. There is no basis for pretension so being down-to-earth is second nature and there are lots of incentives to be welcoming to anyone who takes an interest in what you do. That innovative spirit and welcoming attitude are on display in Oregon’s Umpqua Valley.

Even the bulls were friendly in Umpqua.umpqua-bull

The Umpqua Valley AVA is part of the Southern Oregon AVA which also includes the Rogue Valley. I wrote about the Rogue Valley recently and much of what I said about the Rogue holds true of Umpqua. Most of this AVA (excluding Elkton) has a semi-continental climate with significant rainfall in the winter but hot, dry summers. It’s warm enough to get most varietals ripe, but the growing season is relatively short due to late spring frost and early autumn rains so varietals that ripen quickly do best. Also on the plus side, the mountainous topology creates a wealth of microclimates for winemakers to play in.

However, Umpqua has unique characteristics that make it worthy of its own post. It is smaller in terms of area under vine than the Rogue—2856 harvested acres in 2015 vs. Umpqua’s 2443. But there are many fewer wineries—50 in the 3 Rogue Valley sub-regions vs. 27 in Umpqua and Elkton. Because Umpqua Valley is roughly 100 miles north of the Rogue Valley it gets a bit more rain and more marine influence and so temperatures are more moderate than in Rogue Valley. The culture of the Rogue Valley is influenced by the popularity of Ashland as a tourist destination. Umpqua, although a gateway to some great hiking and camping in the nearby mountains, is anchored by the smaller, less tourist-centric town of Roseburg, for years a logging town until the wineries arrived. Rural and untamed but gracious and civilized describes Umpqua Valley—its wines and its people.umpqua-river

At the north end of the valley, especially in the Elkton area which is now a distinct AVA within Umpqua Valley, vineyards are only about 25 miles from the coast and thus enjoy significant marine influence and about 50 inches of rain per year, helping cool climate varietals such as Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer to flourish. The area northwest of Roseburg is higher in elevation at about 1400 feet and has a warmer, drier climate with about 33 inches of rain per year. Thus, a mix of cool and warm climate varietals will thrive including Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The area south of Roseburg is even warmer and more arid, similar to Rogue and Applegate Valleys, making irrigation necessary. Warm-climate varieties, including Tempranillo and Syrah thrive in the South. Unlike the Rogue Valley, the vine louse phylloxera has a presence so most vineyards use resistant rootstock.

LIke all wine regions, Umpqua Valley has some great stories. Against all advice, a young horticulture student Richard Sommer first introduced vitis vinifera to Oregon in 1961, planting Pinot Noir and Riesling on an old turkey farm near Roseburg. He later established Hillcrest Vineyard, the state’s oldest continuously operating winery, thus launching the modern Oregon wine industry. That legacy of innovation is now carried on by Dyson and Susan Demara who purchased Hillcrest in 2003. Dyson has been in the wine business all his adult life having made wines for Mondavi in Napa and Wiengut Heinz Schmitt in Germany’s Mosel, among others. From his patented fermenters, dry-farmed vineyards to 30-60 day skin contact on some of his red wines, Dyson continues to chart his own path in the spirit of Richard Sommers.

As Dyson told me “Umpqua is a land of individuals” . That about sums up this region.

Again, against the advice of people who claimed to know, Earl and Hilda Jones, owners of Abacela winery, although lacking any winemaking experience, came to Umpqua in 1994 specifically to test the hypothesis that Tempranillo can be grown here. That hypothesis has been confirmed over and over. According to some, Tempranillo is now destined to become Southern Oregon’s signature grape, and Abacela has turned their attention to proving Albarino can flourish here as well.

Another regional innovator Reustle-Prayer Rock Vineyards, Northwest Winery of the year according to Winepress Northwest magazine, was the first U.S. Vineyard to plant the Austrian varietal Grüner Veltliner in 2003. They now make several stunningly successful cuvees of this grape including a reserve and a smaragd-style sweet wine.

A few years ago Dyson Demara invited his old friend Scott Kelley, whom he met while working at Mondavi, to come to Roseburg to make wine. The result is their joint project, Paul O’Brien Winery, an urban winery sitting on a busy intersection in downtown Roseburg. Dyson and Scott are unique because of their experience. Most winemakers in emerging wine regions got their start in another occupation and gravitated toward the wine business only after becoming established elsewhere. By contrast, Dyson and Scott have been at it their whole adult lives making wine all over the world. With those contacts they could have put down roots anyplace but cast their fate with Umpqua largely because of that freedom to be themselves (along with ideal weather, good soils, and cheap land). All that worldly winemaking experience combined with the successful pioneering legacy already in place here is helping the Umpqua Valley achieve their aim of producing world class wines.

Situated on Interstate 5, the main north/south corridor in the Pacific Northwest and with lots of inexpensive grape-friendly land to entice winemakers fleeing the expensive, crowded regions to the north and south, Umpqua is a region to watch.

Dining in Roseburg

As expected of a town of just over 22,000 people, dining options in Roseburg are limited but promising. The Parrot House, a fine-dining option housed in an attractive, renovated historical building has been open for a year and will satisfy wine lovers’ cravings for contemporary American cuisine with a European twist. The Calabrian-style meatballs served over grits and a sun dried tomato sauce were delicious, as was the “whole hog”, pork shoulder, grilled pork loin and pork belly served over polenta. True Kitchen is a more casual contemporary American option with a modern vibe, interesting menu and well-designed dishes although the execution was problematic on the night we visited. And if you’re heading into wine country northwest of Roseburg don’t miss the Lighthouse Bakery. Wonderful breads, homemade soups, and vegetarian cuisine that will make you forget about meat rule here. Even carnivores will love their Rueben made with tofurky. No, it isn’t authentic but it’s only modestly hyperbolic to say it’s as good as it gets west of New York.

Here are the best wineries we visited in no particular order:

Abacela Winery

The earliest Tempranillo pioneer in Southern Oregon and winner of many awards, this long established winery is the largest producer we visited with an annual case production of 12,000. Their several bottlings of Tempranillo are very good (see my review of their 2013 Barrel Select here). The Albarino, Syrah and Malbec are all excellent. But I was most intrigued by their Graciano (a Spanish varietal seldom seen as a stand alone bottling) and a beast-like, soul-stirring Tannat that needs time to soften but will provide much satisfaction. Abacela is well-established but are not resting on their laurels, always pushing the envelope with new varietals showing the versatility that defines Southern Oregon.

Hillcrest Vineyard

As noted above, this is Oregon’s oldest continuously operating winery now owned by Dyson and Susan Demara. One of the attractions is Dyson’s outsize personality matched only by his robust wines, the result of his many decades in the wine business. There are lots of unusual bottlings here (see my review of his Umpqua Ribera Tempranillo and his Bull’s Blood) but the whole lineup is interesting and delicious. Dyson takes great pride in making wine using very traditional methods but of course supplemented by his comprehensive knowledge of modern winemaking and ceaseless striving for originality. Lovely Pinot Noir, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Tempranillo plus a variety of interesting blends, and a gorgeous Tawny Port just scratch the surface here. Wines that Dyson makes in Germany and Spain are also available in the tasting room.

Paul O’Brien Winery

Co-owned by Dyson Demara and Scott Kelley who met while both were working at Robert Mondavi, this is an urban winery housed in the building of an old Chevy dealer. Sourcing  grapes from local vineyards, Scott Kelly makes very modern-style wines with lots of polish and fruit power (see my review of his Cask 11 Tempranillo and his skin contact Riesling .) The Sangiovese, Syrah and Tempranillo marry elegance and power, while several Pinot Noir cuvees show classic velvet textures and intense aromatics. The white wines are equally compelling—a scintillating bone-Riesling, Gewurztraminer, a food-friendly Pinot Blanc/Chardonnay blend in addition to that outstanding skin-contact Riesling.

Girardet Vineyards

The oldest continuously owned winery in Southern Oregon, Girardet was founded by Swiss rocket scientist Philippe Girardet in 1971 who toured the U.S. in a Volkswagon bus with his wife Bonnie to fine cuttings for their new vineyard. Philippe has turned winemaking duties over to his son Marc but he can still be found regaling customers in the tasting room with stories about his family’s tradition of making wine in Switzerland. Bush-trained vines and varietals seldom found in Southern Oregon such as Baco Noir, Seyval Blanc, and Marchal Foch are among the charms of this small production farmhouse winery. The Baco Noir was a revelation, but their conventional varietals including Riesling, Sangiovese, and Tempranillo were wonderful as well. Rustic wines but with lots of flavor and personality.

Reustle Prayer-Rock Vineyards

Lovely views and a charming, whimsical winery atmosphere welcome visitors to Reustle. The tasting presentation was designed to highlight this charm. Tasting flights were served while patrons are seated on the patio overlooking the valley and accompanied by well conceived food pairings. We were able to taste their Rosé, their flagship Gruner Veltliner of which they were the first in the U.S. to plant in 2003, a Pinot Noir, and Malbec. All were top notch. The Pinot Noir was among the best we tasted in Southern Oregon and the Malbec was certainly the best. Their several signature Gruner Veltliner bottlings  deserve the many accolades they have received. (See my review of their Gruner Veltliner Reserve here.) They bottle 12 varietals from all estate-grown grapes.

Spangler Vineyards

A bit of an outlier in this group because they source a lot of fruit from the Rogue Valley, tasting through their lineup shows why. These are big, bold wines that require the warmer weather in the south to get the grapes sufficiently ripe for this style. The spicy, smoky Cabernet Franc, the Bordeaux-style blend called Claret, and the Cabernet Sauvignon were highly extracted and richly oaked. The Tempranillo, Malbec and estate Syrah were slightly more reserved but still full of flavor. Petite Verdot, Dolcetto, Petite Sirah and Alicante Bouchet (from California’s Amador County) round out the lineup. The Dolcetto was especially noteworthy. In Italy this grape often makes a thin, forgettable table wine. Spangler’s version is rich with mint and earth notes supplementing the fruit. For these wines, sufficient age is essential and many of these wines are given extensive barrel and bottle age prior to release.

 

Elkton AVA

For fans of cool climate winemaking, Elkton AVA situated northwest of Roseburg and part of the larger Umpqua Valley AVA is worth visiting

The highly acclaimed Brandborg Vineyard and Winery makes several outstanding, spicy, silky Pinot Noirs including a pretty, floral white Pinot Noir. But for me the show stopper was their gorgeous, richly aromatic 2013 Gewurztraminer. Riesling, Pinot Gris, and Sauvignon Blanc round out the whites. Sangiovese, Syrah, and surprisingly a Gamay were the additional reds available. But really you come to Brandborg for the Pinot Noir and Gewurztraminer.

Elkton also features Bradley Vineyards, a small, farm winery featuring 100% estate grown fruit from vineyards first planted in 1983. Their Pinot Noir is excellent but especially noteworthy was a skin-contact Gewurztraminer called L’Orange and an outstanding Reserve Baco Noir 2015. This grape, a hybrid of the French grape Folle Blanche and an unknown North American varietal is rich and full bodied with meat and caramel on the nose but very soft tannins. The hybrids can be a challenge for those of us raised on vitis vinifera but Baco  Noir has great potential.

A Skirmish in the Battle for Millennials

26 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Wine Culture

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say no to beerWell this is interesting. Wineries have been fretting for years about the competition from craft beer especially with respect to millennials. But, as reported by CNBC, the investment firm Goldman-Sachs has downgraded Boston Beer Company and Constellation Brands because millenials aren’t buying what they’re selling.

“We view the shift in penetration and consumption trends as driven by a shift in preferences in the younger cohorts,” added Zhuo. “The youngest demographic (<35 year olds) overall penetration rates are not increasing. The 35-44 year old cohort shows a shift away from Beer to Wine & Spirits.”

I wonder why? Might it be because craft beer increasingly tends to taste like grapefruit juice? (Sorry IPA fans but let’s be honest.)

But another reason might be the one I wrote about on Monday. Industry consolidation is putting pressure on the craft beer market. With 5 companies tallying 80% of the beer sales in the U.S., and trying to market their swill as craft beer, the whole craft beer movement is losing its credibility and cachet.

If there is a single thing millennials want it’s authenticity—a real connection with the people who produce their consumables and a real distinction between products that is more than marketing hype. They’re not getting that from “big beer” so they find something else to drink.

Of course, the wine industry is suffering from consolidation and homogenization as well but apparently the  roughly 9000 wineries in the U.S. that are not controlled by “big wine” are having some success persuading consumers there is something distinctive about their product.

For those of us partial to small, independent wineries that is good news.