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May 17 2008
The day that a nation of passionate wine lovers feared, arrived yesterday morning as Robert Mondavi passed away at the age of 94.
It is incalculable to measure his influence. It is not without reason to include him in the same sentence with institutional change agents like Henry Ford and other scions of U.S. -bred leadership and vision that had a global impact.
If the wine industry stands on the shoulders of giants, Mondavi was our giant.
God bless him, his family and the future of wine without his presence.
May 15 2008
Published on May 1st and just delivered to my doorstep via Amazon.com, The Wine Trials by Robin Goldstein enlivened (inflamed?) the wine blogosphere before anybody cracked the cover.
The striker to the matchbook? Eric Asimov, a seasoned journalist for the New York Times, wrote a post based on reading a Newsweek article about the book.
You would not expect a journalist to comment on another piece of print media, especially without having read the book, but I guess this is the blogosphere and we are all guilty of seeking inspiration outside of traditional journalistic boundaries, but what ensued in the comments section of the post when nobody had read the book was truly sociologically interesting.
After a 65 comment explosion, Asimov wrote a follow-up after receiving a pre-release galley copy of the book and that post incited 31 comments.
Sequentially, the original post can be found here and the follow-up here.
Interestingly, the book is only, initially, available on Amazon.com. And, yes, you guessed it. Amazon is currently backordered on the book.
Somebody is interested …
Piqued by all of this, I did what anybody would do with all of that content on Asimov’s blog—I cut and paste into a Word document with .5 margins and 10 pt Trebuchet font.
36 pages and 17,000 words later I am more confused than before I started. And, with no small amount of irony, the 17,000 words has to exceed the actual content in the book, which is 2/3’s wine listings.
Here is the net-net version with this book: the author did a blind tasting of many wines with large number of tasters (some 500 +) and the result was that numerous inexpensive wines (under $15) bested wines that are more expensive ($50 +) based on the panel of judges.
Pragmatically speaking, you do not have a book if people preferred more expensive wines to the less expensive wines so there is some room for question because the study, presumably, was set-up with an end conclusion in mind and not a hypothesis, but just the same it’s a fascinating book that makes for good arm chair reading over the course of a couple of hours. With 58 introductory pages and the balance of the book being wine listings of the 100 wines under $15 that bested the $50 - $150 wines, it’s a light read.
The majority of the blog comments about Asimov’ posts on the book were centered on the division of small expensive wines and large grocery store wines. This is an old ideological argument and more analogies were employed to explain the difference in art versus culture. Variants cropped up about wine appreciation versus simpleton quaffers, etc.
Ugh, wake me when this tired old song is over with. We get it. Get over it. Yes, there is a cultural difference between NASCAR fans and those that attend the symphony. By God, both of these groups of people enjoy wine, too.
Nested within all of this debate is the essential truth by Asimov.
He states:
I am not saying wine is the equivalent of art. I do say that wine can be appreciated on many different levels, but that nobody should ever feel obliged to appreciate wine on any level. In the end, the book seems to divide wine consumers into the casual buyers who are pushed this way and that by forces they don’t understand, and the wealthy conspicuous status seekers who also are not quite aware of capitalism and marketing. Unacknowledged are the serious wine lovers who are knowledgeable, experimental and passionate, and who, yes, are in control of their own destinies. The book may speak to the first two groups, but not to the third.
As a member of the third group, the “serious wine lover” I can say unequivocally that I occasionally drink inexpensive wine and, natch, this book is an interesting take and a welcome addition to the pantheon of wine studies and a nice guidebook to the maze of choices at your grocery store for a through the week glass.
For additional reading at the source research study that led to the book, see this white paper.
May 14 2008
Here’s my news cycle from the last two days: Indiana University basketball continues to be in the news based on an NCAA investigation into alleged recruiting violations. The New England Patriots continue to be in the news based on an investigation of potential cheating. Senator Arlen Specter is on the case. Brunello wine imports may be blocked by the ATTB.
With all of these people spending time investigating things, who is actually doing any work?
Wasn’t my crisis in conscious against elected officials supposed to have occurred when I was in college, not half a life later?
And, for the love of pete, where were the gov’t officials a year ago when toys with lead and toxic pet food was coming from China?
Messing with wine ... sheesh. This is a pimple on the ass of life. As my 99 year old grandmother says as she looks off into the distance ponderously, “I worry ...”
May 13 2008
Our brains work in mysterious ways. Ever since I got my Fusebox wine blending kit from Crushpad Wine, all I think of when I think of the beautiful box of wine designed to create a custom blending experience is the notoriously sexual and metaphorical “The Who” song, Squeezebox. This, all told, is somewhat apt because if the Fusebox were not an inanimate object, I would want to make love to it.
I had the opportunity to join Indianapolis wine blogging pal Mark of winecanine.com and Renee, the doyenne of the Indianapolis food blogging scene from her outpost at Feed Me / Drink Me, along with a few other notables, including a wine distributor, on Saturday night. Couched in conviviality was the desire to put the Fusebox to work.
If you are interested in the Cliffs Notes version, I will simply say this—the Fusebox is incredibly well executed and an absolute smash for a party. At $120 bucks, it is well worth the money. In addition, the wine, six bottles of 375 ml blending varieties, is very, very good individually, let along as the sum of the parts. On top of that, the wine distributor in attendance wanted to distribute the Fusebox and Mark from winecanine.com, who works part-time at the best wine shop in Central Indiana, said the storeowner thought he could move an easy 150 units at the holidays. The Fusebox has my unequivocal Good Grape endorsement.
If that is not enough, Alder from Vinography is represented in the Fusebox with his Wine Aroma cards. It felt like a karmic match with the wine blogger representation. Though, as a sidebar, I will admit that I chuckled to myself at the end of the night, much drunken wine later, when I read “peeling willow bark” as a scent component on the wine aroma card from Alder. Ahem … note to Alder: stay away from your wife’s high-end, wacky-scented body lotion, my friend.
What transcends the Fusebox from the merely interesting to the compelling is both the organization and the quality of the wine. It is primarily comprised of six 375 ml bottles of blending wine including Cabernet Sauvignon (two bottles), Merlot, Petit Verdot, Malbec, and Cabernet Franc that top to bottom are of excellent quality.
The kit also contains a mystery wine for some palate testing and all of the accouterments necessary to blend to your heart’s content—graduated cylinder, pipettes (mini wine-thief’s) and some schwag like a corkscrew and some evaluation cards, etc.
As I noted, the thing that makes this kit sing is the quality of the wine and the fact that it works. With the ingenious recipe cards, you can custom blend your own wines adding a dash of this and a dash of that and it is a true aid in helping to understand how components add different qualities. We all know that Petite Verdot and Cab Franc are frequent blending partners, but if you have a bit of Cab and you add in the Petite Verdot and the Cab Franc it brings the whole picture together for your palate.
The other masterstroke of this kit is the recipe cards they include. They offer blending suggestions to mimic a 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia, 1996 Lafite Rothschild, 2000 Chateau Margaux, and a 1997 Opus One, amongst other things.
Those at our party all took turns creating blends from the recipe cards and sharing. It’s vicariously thrilling to put a blend together and imagine for a moment that it may approximate a wine that retails for $2000 +
If I had to give one recommendation for the kit, it would be to include tasting notes for the marquee wines on the recipe cards so users of the kit could subsequently take some of their own notes on the created blend with a baseline. I kind of want a little more context to why my blend is supposed to equate to a very premiere wine, but, in the end, that is just a quibble.
Next time, I am going to buy a kit to do on my own blending, at home, as a self-study aid, you will want to, as well. The Fusebox is fantastic for a party, but probably equally as valuable, in a different light, as a way to hone your palate chops in a more intimate setting. In fact, I hope and fully expect Crushpad to change it up every year to keep customers coming back and trying different things.
Either way, using the Fusebox in a crowd or in your kitchen with your significant other, it’s a smash hit. Make sure to turn on “The Who” and croon with me, “Come on and tease me like you do, I’m so in love with you, Mama’s got a Fusebox …”
May 11 2008
I am a fan of Spencer-Roloson winery, so I sought out Sam Spencer for our “20 Not So Penetrating Questions for a Wine Craftsman.”
Sam and his partner Wendy Roloson produce high-end, affordably priced, small lot Rhone and Spanish style wines, mostly reds and a couple of delightful whites.
Simply, these people get it.
They sell in Indiana, which always engenders a boutique producer to me, because most others eschew distribution in the state without understanding the opportunity. They sell Direct-to-Trade, a program that I helped initiate with Inertia Beverage Group; they are starting a blog and their positioning to market is, “Provocative Wines Evocative Dirt.” Oh, and this is on top of their wine line-up being fantastic from top to bottom.
But, Sam doesn’t stop there, in fact he has side projects, too. His most recent project is the current Cameron Hughes “Hughes-Wellman” Cabernet. As a wine club selection and a slight one-off from the CH model, the $50 Cabernet with just 199 cases produced should go extremely fast. Available now at this link.
Fortunately, Sam found a few spare moments to interview with us and our 20 questions … an economy of words and a spareness of detail makes this interview kind of like the subject—smart, to the point and without a lot of artifice. Though, as a child of the 80’s and a viewer of late night Cinemax as a young teen, I do have to chuckle at his favorite movie genre.
Which of the Seven Deadly Sins are you most guilty of?
Sam: Lust mostly, pride in the balance
What is your biggest pet peeve?
Sam: Poor diction and improperly spoken English. Although I speak Spanish terribly and mangle that language daily.
Sam: Failing to keep your area/station clean
What is on your nightstand?
Sam:
James Salter: Last Night
John Mcphee : the founding Fish
Luca Turin: Perfume: the Guide
What is in your refrigerator or pantry that you would not openly admit?
Sam: Nothing
What do you drink when you are not drinking wine?
Sam: Tecate, Campari or Patron silver-rocks and lime
What type of music or radio station is played most often in your car?
Sam: KQED for news and KCRW via satellite for the best music in CA
In what era would you live if you transport yourself?
Sam: 100 years in the future
What is the best wine-related book you have read?
Sam: The Emperor of Scent by Chandler Burr and Assembling California by John Mcphee
The former is about the science of olfaction, scent and the perfume industry the latter is about the geology of CA put into lay terms with explanations
What is your favorite movie genre?
Sam: 1970’s Soft-Porn
Is your desk messy or organized?
Sam: Both
Are you always early or terminally late?
Sam: Late
Whom would you want to play you in the movie about your life?
Sam: Jack Nicholson
What super-power would you most like to have, and why?
Sam: Super strength and endurance—Get more done with time to spare for hanging out with my family and friends
What do you do if you have a spare hour?
Sam: Ride my road bike
What was the last great restaurant you ate at?
Sam: Justus Drugstore in KC, MO and Momofuko-Ko in NYC.
What is your favorite ice cream flavor?
Sam: Coffee
What is the best compliment you have ever received?
Sam: You are doing good work.
For additional reading, check out Alder Yarrow’s post on Spencer-Roloson.
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