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February 24 2008
… Gently I grasped and sweetly I whispered with a melody in my voice, “(If loving You is Wrong) I Don’t Want to Be Right.”
As a summary for a California Chardonnay, that song title, speaking to an illicit love affair, would be it for the ’06 Benziger Carneros Chardonnay.
My own palate and prevailing wisdom amongst the critical elite keep telling me that I should not like this wine.
We all know California chards are tropical fruit punch, butter bombs, and certainly not the food-friendly, acidic, and balanced whites from elsewhere; the Gruner’s, Gewurtz’s and Riesling’s that have turned outlying wine regions fashionable again.
Yet, this wine delivers. And, it delivers as a California Chardonnay—pleasing in that stylistic hallmark kind of way with its ripe forward tropical fruits and prevalent buttery toastiness, but not in an overwrought polarizing fashion. It is just a good bottle of wine. Double bonus points go for the neat trick of being fruit forward on the front and mid-palate with the zippy acidity showing up on the finish, enough to create the impression of balance and invite lingering sip after sip.
The Benziger family is notable for their green practices, as well. I am one person that believes that marketing and social responsibility are symbiotic in increasing accountability. So, to that end, I laud Benziger for their responsibility in green actions that leads to green marketing. If using the fact that they power their exterior winery lights with solar power as a public relations tool is hoary to some, I am okay with it because stating something as factual intent creates the need to deliver against that statement and managing to expectations is never a bad thing, especially around green practices. You can read about their involvement in green activities and biodynamic farming here.
You will find this wine all over the Internet at prices ranging from $9.99 to $15. It nearest competitor is likely the ubiquitous Kendall-Jackson Vintner Reserve. Both have similar philosophies, with the Benziger tagline being, “Farming for Flavors” with an educational bent similar to the K-J, “A Taste of the Truth.”
Regardless of your disposition on California Chardonnay, I would encourage you to try this wine. Challenge your own preconceived notions just as I did and see what you find out. You may be singing the same song I am.
My Review is found here: ’06 Benziger Carneros Chardonnay
February 22 2008
My wife likes to call me an “alpha consumer,” whatever that means. In her mind, I think it means that I buy too much stuff; usually books, music and wine. However, in my mind, I buy only the stuff that I want, which is well within the normal bounds of human consumption, and, frankly, I buy stuff that I use as relaxation tools—music, reading and a glass of vino all fit into that category!
However and perhaps more esoterically, I might actually be a demographers dream because I seem to have a sense for stuff that is way ahead of the curve. I recently bought a book on foraging and cooking wild plants. I have no idea why, but it is an interesting book and, heck, maybe I will want to make a dandelion salad someday. Or, perhaps, cattails will become a culinary rage in three years time at which point I will be well prepared.
Another notion that I have been having a re-occurring urge over is to find a little piece of property close to my house as an urban escape.
I have been living in our new house for about two months. It is the place we plan to raise the family and the place that is suburban replacing my urban first home. Better still, there is room in the basement for a cellar. Yet, I crave more.
Hmm … maybe that is what the wife means when she calls me the “alpha consumer.”
I am enamored with the idea of buying a small tract of land somewhere in the midst of trees, it does not have to be a completely wooded lot and it definitely does not have to be remote, because accessibility is actually the key. It would be near my house and like one of those little lots that pop up for sale that you drive by and are not sure what to do with it because it has been encroached upon by housing development, but is not developed itself.
On this small lot with some seclusion, I would put up a dwelling—not a house, but it would be heated, have running water and electricity; consider it kind of an urban decompression bunker.
Lo and behold, if you look for this on the Internet, there are answers to questions. On that small lot, I would drop one of these: a metrocabin; a metroshed; a shelter-kit; or a cabana.
I fancy this as kind of an escapist outpost and I keep coming back to this and coming back to his as almost a compulsive urge. So, color me surprised when I read an article in the New York Times a couple of week’s back that talks about a similar burgeoning trend called “condo storage.”
It is like a storage unit, but instead of renting, you own it and you can deck it out however you want—if you want to build a facsimile of a wine tasting room for your collection, put up the 52 inch plasma and hang out, then by all means do … and people do … (check out GarageTown USA here)
Maybe I am not so crazy.
I think I might opt for the more refined MetroShed, but just the same, my place (whenever I get a spare cash pile laying around to do it) is going to have the following: a kitchenette, a fold out couch and living area with a gigantic flat screen HD TV and a couple of built-ins for books, hot tub on the deck, a steam sauna adjacent to the hot tub, a nice recumbent bike, a computer work area for some undistracted blogging, and a temperature controlled 250 – 500 bottle wine storage area. Oh, and yeah, I would have a table to play some cards, too.
The key thing with this is the wine area. I guess I could do a full on renovation of my existing basement and have the cellar and everything, all the toys, at the house, but it almost seems like it’s better to have it as an escapist outpost, an oasis in our crazy world: a place befitting complete relaxation to open a bottle of something and contemplate it while taking a sauna and hot tub before blogging.
I think, at the end of the day, this urge is a response to environmental stimuli to create a proverbial shelter from the day-to-day storm, but just the same, it seems like it would be pretty cool.
What would you have in your MetroShed?
February 20 2008
Tom from Fermentation has announced the 2nd annual American Wine Blog Awards.
Celebrating excellence in 2007, the American Wine Blog Awards are accepting nominations in the following categories:
Best Wine Business Blog
Best Wine Blog Writing
Best Winery Blog
Best Single-Subject Wine Blog
Best Wine Review Blog
Best Wine Podcast of Video Blog
Best Wine Blog
Best Wine Blog Graphics
It is a yeoman’s effort to coordinate and organize this, so regardless of whether your site is nominated or wins, we should all thank Tom for being the driving force behind pulling this together.
These awards bring a whiff of legitimacy to wine blogging, a medium that has increased its exposure level and its influence immeasurably in the last two years. The profile of wine blogging has increased so much so that I now believe that some of our premiere wine bloggers like Vinography.com, Drvino.com and Good Wine Under $20 have an influence commensurate or exceeding those of many newspaper wine columnists.
I don’t mean this to be a polarizing statement, and it’s not scientific fact, just my hunch that a Tom Wark, Alder Yarrow, Tyler Colman or Dr. Debs (her blog nom de plume) have an engaged and passionate audience that is equal to or greater than that of a wine columnist from any mid-major daily newspaper.
Consider that, as a baseline, if a major daily newspaper has a circulation of 400,000 and 5% of the audience read the wine column, than you have reached about 20,000 people. Do we think that Vinography.com gets 20,000 visitors to his site? Undoubtedly. Does Tom’s opinion act as an influencing agent equal to that of a newspaper columnist? Arguably so.
The smart newspapers like The New York Times and the Dayton Daily News incorporate columnist blogging, yet many others are still very afraid to engage online.
Now, this argument on reach and influence is apples and oranges to a large degree, but it is what my instinct tells me. If my hunch is correct, this is a major re-setting of the dynamic in wine media and even more reason to nominate your favorite blog and vote at Fermentation. Help act as a change agent in the evolution of wine media!
Every group of friends has that person that is the “straw that stirs the drink” (I know Tom will appreciate the somewhat obscure reference to baseball with that). Tom is the wine bloggers straw. In “Tipping Point” terms, Tom is a “connector” and a “maven.”
Wine blogging is at its “tipping point,” lets get the nominations out there and then vote for our favorites.
February 19 2008
So, I am minding my own business, flipping through a People magazine at the local haircut emporium, when I see, nestled in between an article on the latest comings and goings of Nicole Ritchie (without baby) and the latest Britney meltdown, an ad for Welch’s grape juice that has a removable peel in which you are actually invited to LICK the magazine page for an approximated taste of grape juice.
Can you say interesting? Lickable ads. Who would have thought?
Fortunately (or, unfortunately) the magazine had already been through a bunch of other hands and whatever you are able to lick had been licked.
The back-story, as featured in a recent Wall Street Journal article, is that Welch’s worked with a vendor to put an approximation of the flavor of the grape juice in a flavor strip sealed within the magazine and presented in ad form.
Think Listerine breath strips affixed to a magazine page with a grape flavor and you get the gist.
Immediately, my mind is thinking about this as an opportunity with wine.
I wrote about wine and scent marketing (found here) some time back and anything that is pretty far out there on the edge in terms of real marketing, I find interesting. This qualifies.
There are some inherent drawbacks. Obviously, the first is that only one person can lick the ad. But, it certainly got me talking about Welch’s grape juice without licking, so there is tremendous value in that from a marketing perspective.
However, as a marketing possibility for wine you would have to say this has some real interesting possibilities.
You can already do scents for just about every scent there is. Related to wine, you need black pepper, no problem. Strawberry, yes. Fresh cut grass, absolutely. Any scent that is a flavor component in wine, you can find as purchasable scent for scent marketing. Yet, nobody has really seized the opportunity to translate that capability to wine marketing whereby you could break down the flavor components of your wine into some sort of scent-based promotional offering—either in the tasting room, online or in a magazine as an ad.
However, this lickable stuff might be different.
Can you imagine opening up Wine Spectator magazine and seeing an ad for the J. Lohr Merlot and having three lickable strips with flavor strips for redcurrant, chocolate and earth?
Do you think that might absolutely create some mental stickiness with somebody the next time they were in a restaurant gazing at a wine list?
Realistically speaking, nobody (read: nobody) in the wine industry would do a marketing tactic like flavor strips. It is too far out there, too much on the bleeding edge and not nearly safe enough. It seems like nobody does anything in the wine world until their neighbor does something, which, of course, creates a little bit of a problem in terms of progressiveness. Safe, yes. Progressive, no.
However, here’s some food for thought related to the world of wine:
Wine is one of the HOTTEST verticals in consumer-packaged goods. Hot, hot, hot. However, the wide gulf that exists between new people coming to wine and the enthusiasts who have always existed is primarily around experience and palate training.
Simply put, people that HAVE NOT undertaken wine as an avocation yet enjoy it as a beverage think wine snobs are wine snobs because they talk a bunch of gobbledly-gook about wine and wine flavors that does not make sense. In addition, the only way that it ever starts to make sense is to educate yourself and your palate, mostly by drinking wine, but you can also do so by scent and taste training. Gary V. at WineLibray TV gets this and is working his audience this way in 2008.
So, here’s the net: If the wine industry wants to curry favor with this new generation of wine drinkers, taking the lead on helping them train their sense of smell and taste is a fantastic way to build an incredible amount of brand equity. Maybe it’s not scent marketing, maybe it’s not taste marketing. Perhaps it’s not $300 Le Nez du Vin kits. Yet, the wine brand that cracks this code holds the keys.
Ignore it, or embrace it. Either way wineries are making a decision about the future of their business.
For Additional Reading:
Welch’s Salivates Over Lickable Ads
Marketing with Taste
February 16 2008
It has been nine years since being introduced to A. Rafanelli wines and I owe it all to friends and friendly acquaintances.
In ’99 I was in the Dry Creek area visiting a friend, Ed, and his then girlfriend Jen, while he was acting as a caretaker to a friend’s house and working the Sonoma coast as a lifeguard.
We did a couple days of tasting in the area and hit some of the typical highlights—Hop Kiln, Lambert Bridge, Dry Creek Vineyard, a couple of quirky stops: F. Teldeschi, where the winemaker was pouring from scientific beakers and a little winery that Ed knew about that required an appointment—A. Rafanelli.
Met by Tony Rafanelli, the Jr. to the passed Senior Anthony Rafanelli, if I am not mistaken, we proceeded to chat and take in the facilities while my buddy Ed painted the edges on a potential abalone for vino deal. After an incredibly generous tour of the facilities and the caves, we tasted through a couple of the wines. The tasting portion didn’t take real long as, at the time, I believe, they just did the Zin and Cab., adding Merlot a bit later.
Completely stupefied at how incredible the wines were, but being in my mid-20’s at the time and not a spendthrift, I picked up just two bottles of the Zin at the then price of $24 a piece. Ed did the same.
Those were precious bottles—wine to be held and not meritorious of opening up for any simple occasion, or date.
A couple of years later, 2003 I think, Ed and Jen were getting married with a no gifts policy. Hmmm … what to do … I decided to give back one of the bottles of the A. Rafanelli Zin to Ed, and I had the bottle engraved at a local trophy shop with some occasion appropriate sentiment and wrapped it up. It was a hit—nicely thoughtful and not consumer or consumption-oriented, a Buddhist-like ethos that Ed follows.
That same year, as best man in my brother’s wedding, I put together a wine flight as his wedding gift—a bottle of wine for anniversary year 1, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25. While I purchased all of the wine, except for year 1, I thought paying-forward the other bottle of A. Rafanelli was appropriate. So, I stuck it in the slot for his 1 year anniversary.
This left me with a little problem, however. I was out of A. Rafanelli wine with no immediate prospects for getting back out to Dry Creek to buy more. They don’t sell online. They don’t have a club. They don’t sell via the phone. You were either on the list, or you bought it at the tasting room. And, not only that, but I had not had any since I sipped a humble pour in the tasting room four years prior.
Nectar of the gods this is, out of wine I was.
Flash-forward to 2006 and I am at about the year seven mark in a Rafanelli dry spell and I make acquaintances with Josh from pinotblogger.com. I forget exactly how the circumstances played out, but I think I hinted at, and I think he magnanimously volunteered to pick up some A. Rafanelli on my behalf at the winery. I was in business! He booked an appointment, picked up three bottles of Cabernet and three bottles of the Zinfandel sometime in the late spring of ’06, and shipped them off to me, a favor that, without being overly maudlin, I really, really, really appreciated.
I was back in business.
I drank one bottle of the Zinfandel with my brother at the start of Notre Dame’s football season in ’06, a close win over Georgia Tech, and I gave a bottle of Cabernet to a friend who had just taken a new job that was a significant step up the ladder. Left with four bottles, precious commodities they still are.
However, having kind of glossed over celebrating Valentine’s Day with my wife on Thursday for a host of valid reasons, we decided to have our NY strips in a béarnaise sauce last night. I pulled the A. Rafanelli Cabernet.
It was delicious, as was the food and the company of my wife. So, you see, this is what wine means to me, it is not just the actual occasion and the quality of the wine with the food; it is also the back-story that goes along with it. To me, A. Rafanelli represents a great visit to Dry Creek Valley, a visit with my dear friends Ed and Jen, two weddings, one of which is one of my best friends and the other is my twin brother who is my best friend. Wine is also the kindness of friends made digitally with a generosity of spirit that exceeds normal convention, a ND victory, a celebratory job occasion and Valentine’s Day with my wife, who gives me far more grace than I deserve. These are all brilliant memories, framed by a wine from a winery that doubtlessly threw away the visitor log long ago—the one that said: Jeff L., Indianapolis, IN. “Great wine. Thanks for the visit.”
That is why I love wine.
And, hell, all that aside, the A. Rafanelli is damn good by itself—you know, if you happen to be in the area without any mental baggage for this and that and want some good vino.
My review can be found here.
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