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May 20 2009
This is part II and the final roundup of the wine bloggers who accepted the challenge and participated in Wine Blogging Wednesday, “California Inspiration” edition.
RJ at his eponymous wine blog noted that he has crossed over from being a Washington wine lover to the dark side, California, a natural given his current address in San Francisco. He tasted the 2006 Ghost Block Napa Valley Estate Cabernet. In doing so and in honoring the spirit of the theme he notes, “It’s what I’ve come to expect from a nice bottle of wine from Napa - a little mystery, a little marketing and a great bottle of wine. I think Robert Mondavi would agree with all three and the Napa Valley that he helped start, grow and nurture captures all of these things.”
Kori from Wine Peeps tells a nice story about a 2004 visit to Newport, Rhode Island to watch her childhood tennis idols inducted into the International Tennis Hall of Fame. Enjoying the Sebastiani Secolo Sonoma Red wine at a seaside restaurant with her parents, she revisits the wine that invokes fond memories of the occasion, food and family.
Over at Chronic Negress, the authoress writes a fascinating little post about St. Francis Winery Merlot – there’s too much going on in the post for a short, pithy summary, but it serves as proof that many of our moments have California wine playing a pivotal, memorable role.
The Corkdork goes on a trip down memory lane and looks back fondly on the first few weeks and months of living in San Francisco in the late 80’s. He revisits a favorite winery from those heady days of being young, and broke in the city and drinks the 2006 Chateau St. Jean Belle Terre Vineyard Chardonnay. It’s not a $3 wine as the Chateau St. Jean used to be back in the day, but a good wine with enough going on to keep his interest. Kudos and special mention also go to Corkdork who writes not just a tasting note – a few descriptors with a sprinkling of adjectives, but, rather, an informative narrative on the wine with food that embodies what is good about wine blog tasting notes.
Erika from Strumerika.com writes, quite literally, about a Mondavi wine and her experience coming to the wine business. In doing so, she went through the Robert Mondavi winery-training program for employees when she was just 20, learning all facets of the business and viticulture. The training opened up her capacity to appreciate the opportunities that were available to her in the family’s wine business with Wine Enthusiast, continuing a legacy with her own family. It is a tremendous gift she discovered and a credit to Robert Mondavi. Erika writes a great tribute.
Kevin from Under the Grape Tree provides the most evocative and well written post as he recalls the inaugural release of Verite, a ’98 (later called La Muse), that he tasted at the winery in 2006. Kevin says, “Tasting the 1998 was an ethereal experience. Time actually stopped. I know that sounds a bit dramatic, but it was simply just “wow!” I looked at my wife, and at our hosts, and it seemed as though the world outside just melted away. Layer upon layer of complex, concentrated red, black and blue fruit flavors, with a veritable pantry of spices dancing back and forth across the palate. It was sublime.”
I need to hang with Kevin more often.
Thea from Luciouslushes, the bubbliest personality in wine blogging, writes a nice narrative about her life around wine and her “California Inspiration” which is small vintners. Apropos to the theme, she reviews the 2005 and 2006 Los Carneros Pinot Noir from Inspiration Vineyards.
Finally, last but not least in this roundup is Megan, aka Sonadora, from Wannabe Wino. Megan wins the prize for best blog post for the May edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday and the subscription to Sunset Magazine.
Instead of summarizing, I encourage you to read the whole post in its entirety as it best encapsulates what I hoped to accomplish with the Wine Blogging Wednesday theme. Megan weaves a narrative about falling in love with her husband over wine, getting turned onto reds, honeymooning in Sonoma, and building her cellar and enjoying specific producers – essentially, the process, practice and evolvement in enjoying wine, primarily California or New World, has changed her life for the better with an appreciation for the grape as a core part of her being.
Of course, with her wine appreciation is the fact that you can draw a straight line from Mondavi to the ‘07 David Coffaro Estate Cuvée she tastes. A rising tide raises all ships and Mondavi’s influence was that rising tide.
Thanks to all who participated, if I missed anybody, please let me know and I will fix quickly.
What I blogged about a year ago: The Wine Book Leaderboard
Photo credit: allposters.com
May 19 2009
The May edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday was a rousing success with everybody writing a thoughtful, engaging post.
The May theme, California Inspiration, was designed to accomplish a couple of goals – first, honor and observe the one-year anniversary of the passing of Robert Mondavi and secondarily reflect upon a California wine that played a memorable moment in the bloggers personal wine history. Bonus points if the post was written in a narrative format, a story with some oomph—personal, emotional or with a moral to the story.
Mission accomplished.
As a bonus, in consultation with Wine Blogging Wednesday founder Lenn Thompson, we reviewed all of the posts and we’re awarding a 1-year subscription to Sunset magazine to the the blogger that best embodied the spirit of the theme.
I’m breaking up the summary into two posts and all told about 20 bloggers participated. It is a smaller number than usual, but also a more difficult challenge. The winner of the subscription will be announced in part II.
Summaries are in no certain order:
Matt from A Good Time with Wine, a blog that nicely combines a narrative style with video reviews, recounts his recent trip to Sonoma with his girlfriend/fiancé Robin. Meeting up with the left coast crew of wine bloggers, he talks about the 2007 Chateau Felice Black Label Zinfandel, a favorite from his trip, and a wine that invokes fond memories of good friends and good times.
Catie from Through the Walla Walla Grape Vine got creative in order to maintain the focus of her blog with Washington wine while observing the theme. She chose the “Feather,” a Walla Walla wine made by Randy Dunn, a Californian, who is a member of the wine making super group, Long Shadow’s Vintners, a bold name with wines that live up to the billing. In her post, Catie also nicely ties in thoughts from her post on Mondavi at the time of his passing, including a quote from Allen Shoup, who credits Mondavi for Long Shadow’s inspiration.
Joe Roberts from 1WineDude, a blogger who writes every post as if he is doing a raucous stand-up comedy routine while sprinting on a treadmill, gets humor and style points for the anthropomorphism of my blog to Warren Beatty and for saying some really nice things about this site. More importantly, however, in matching to the month’s theme, instead of reviewing a single wine, he points to two recent wine experiences with Opus One and Penns Woods wineries that inspired him to continue on with wine blogging, a pursuit that in and of itself requires frequent inspiration akin to the spiritual compass that Mondavi provided to so many.
Tish over at Wine Skewer, eschewing his normal humor, gets semi-serious for a post and goes into the wayback machine pulling out a ’93 Zyrah red blend from his cellar noting the it has held up reasonably well over the years, though it has missed its peak. Kudos to Tish for being the elder statesman here and introducing a new phrase into my vocabulary – “splendid blendeds.”
Frank from Drink What You Like drinks the 2004 Paoletti Bella Novello Rosa D’Amore and reminisces about his trip to Napa in 2006 and a visit at Paoletti in Calistoga. Franks blog embodies what is good about blogging because he comes at wine with such a fresh-eyed zeal that captures what is magical about a glass of good wine.
Liza from BrixChicks waxes wistfully about the 2006 Hope & Grace Pinot Noir from Sleepy Hollow vineyards, a wine that gets her patented story treatment and is a fave of her and partner in crime, Xandria.
The venerable Dr. Debs, at her always wonderful blog, Good Wine Under $20, captures the essence of this Wine Blogging Wednesday as she reviews the 2006 Robert Mondavi Winery Cabernet Sauvignon. In the comments to her post she notes, “I just see this label and it reminds me of the beginnings of my wine journey!” Kudos to Dr. Deb for capturing what I thought might be a likely outcome for a number of bloggers as they reviewed the theme and the honoring of Robert Mondavi. I share her sentiments.
Elsewhere, Michelle from My Wine Education retells a delightful story and a visit to the Robert Mondavi winery as her and her beau, Kevin, shared a 2001 Robert Mondavi Stag’s Leap District Cabernet Sauvignon. Calling the evening at the winery, “one of the most perfect nights of my life. Vineyards, wine, beauty, music, history, and good company” she too captures the essence of the Wine Blogging Wednesday May mission.
Finally, for this half of the round-up, Randy from The Wine Whore talks about his wine journey that started with a visit to Napa Valley, thereby setting him down the path for his own wine journey. In the post he tastes the 2006 Grgich Hills Estate Grown Napa Valley Chardonnay and invokes Mondavi by sharing a favorite quote from the man, “Wine to me is passion. It’s family and friends. It’s warmth of heart and generosity of spirit. Wine is art. It’s culture. It’s the essence of civilization and the art of living.”
I’ll have encapsulations of the rest of the Wine Blogging Wednesday posts in a subsequent post in the next day.
Until then I bid you peace, love, happiness and wine.
Jeff
May 18 2009
More observations from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass …
Drinking Local, BBQ and Becker Vineyards
While in Dallas, TX this past weekend, I made a stop at a local wine shop where I picked up some wine to pair with catered Texas BBQ from Red Hot and Blue BBQ. The BBQ denoted Saturday as a food orgy day – an abundance of smoked sausage, brisket, turkey, and pulled pork with slaw, beans and potato salad.
Besides the winking compliment the wine shop owner gave me because I pronounced Viognier correctly, apparently an isolated incident, her low slung animal print clad cleavage vertically winking at me in an altogether different manner, I picked up a Becker Vineyards Claret, the aforementioned Viognier, also by Becker, lauded by Andrea Robinson Immer and Food & Wine magazine as one of the finest in the country, a subsequently unremarkable Rhone white blend, and a Ste. Chapelle Riesling from Idaho – the French Rhone blend being an outlier amongst the otherwise small, local wine pick-ups.
I know Zinfandel gets the barbecue pairing publicity, but I normally prefer a Coca-Cola over ice or an ice-cold beer with my ‘cue. Barring soda, as I mentioned, a Bud Light will do just fine. Though, this time I had my sights set on the local Claret pairing with the regionally indigenous Texas-style smoked meat smorgasbord.
Becker Vineyards is one of Texas’ best wineries producing an impressive line-up of wines across the varietal spectrum, quality-oriented and notable from stem to stern.
The Becker Claret is a Bordeaux style blend with 65% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 7% Cabernet Franc, 2% Malbec, 2% Petite Verdot and a wine, despite its international lineage, that seems pre-destined for a BBQ.
Fruit forward and ripe, but not overbearing, with structural integrity, this Claret paired beautifully with notes of raspberries, blackberries, sweet, dark cherry juice, toasted baguette (Parker’s so-called ‘pain grille’) and vanilla bean with an earth and nutmeg-like, spice box finish, this wine was a delight and revelation with BBQ.
I guess the, ahem, experts are correct; when in doubt eat what the locals eat with what the locals drink. Excellent.
Jess Jackson on Horses (and Wine)?
Congratulations to Jess Jackson, owner of Jackson Family Wines for his win at the Preakness Stakes this past Saturday.
Rachel Alexandra, a female, a filly, running against male thoroughbreds, won the race with jockey Calvin Borel, the Kentucky Derby Champion, at the reigns.
I have given Kendall-Jackson and their advertising a hard time in the past, mostly because their “Taste of the Truth” campaign seems a little overwrought and dissonant to the amount of production they do.
However, as I read a quote from Jackson about racing at the upcoming Belmont Stakes, I couldn’t help but hearken back to his roots as a steward of the grape and think about harvest when he said in reference to Rachel Alexandra and the upcoming purse at Belmont:
The horse will always tell whether they’re ready. We’ll wait for three or four days and see how she comes out of the race. Would we love to race? Yes. Could she win? We think so. We’ve already shown she can run with the colts.
Take out the word “horse” and and “race” and replace with “grape” and “harvest” and it’s almost a one-to-one translation.
Kudos to Jess Jackson for being a champion at everything he does.
Beer is the New Wine?
Oh the irony when somebody looks to wine as a model for product positioning innovation.
In Wine & Spirits Daily, reported on Friday, Jim Koch founder of Boston Beer Company, speaking at the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association, said (excerpted):
Brewers have been a little late to that level of appreciation and respect and dignity around their beverage…both these industries [wine and spirits] are good at trading people up and developing the high end. Beer didn’t follow that until recently, maybe 5 years ago.
With the emergence of the new mentality about beer driven by small craft brewers, America is starting to create a beer culture in the same way America has created a wine culture.”
“Beer is becoming the new wine. I had a beer dinner last night in Dallas that was very well received and we designed a special glass for beer like a good glass for wine. All of those things are very important in teaching people respect. To me, the rules are about having respect for your product.”
Back in November I wrote a post about exactly this subject, in fact I warned against the perpetuation of craft beer akin to wine. You can read the full post here, but in it I exhorted craft brewers to NOT go down the same path as wineries:
“We (speaking on behalf of the wine industry) have tried the tactics you are trying and the thing that we have found that works best is engaging with customers on a one-to-one basis, providing meaningful education, being accessible, but not goofy and, most of all, demonstrating our passion for creating a high-quality product with a compelling storytelling narrative that is authentic.”
Jim Koch is something of the craft brewer’s equivalent to Robert Mondavi. Koch can save himself a lot of heartache if he doesn’t mythologize beer.
The grass always seems greener, but if he only knew the ongoing consternation in the wine world about how wine marketing is affected with pretension …
I say to small brewers, “stop while you can …”
May 17 2009
More observations from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass …
Bottle Shock
I am in Dallas, Texas this weekend, visiting my Mom, celebrating with family, and finally watched the movie “Bottle Shock.”
After seeing it lambasted by wine enthusiasts, getting serviceable reviews from everybody else, and with actor Chris Pine, who plays Bo Barrett in the movie also playing Captain Kirk to good reviews in the current Star Trek movie, it was time to draw my own conclusion.
I was pleasantly surprised. As an hour and 50 minutes of entertaining confection with good cinematography, it’s not a bad movie.
“Bottle Shock” is, however, definitely not a serious wine movie or biopic.
If anything, the screenwriting was a touch formulaic. Nor is having the director with a co-writing credit on the screenplay ever a good sign. However, I thought Alan Rickman as Steven Spurrier was great and I thought Chris Pine was horrible – acting a bad cliché of an already bad cliché as a young mid-1970’s slacker.
Rickman and Pine each star in dual narratives that collide and run analogous and the difference in weight and talent each brought to the screen was palatable.
Throw this movie in the same category as a summertime beach read and appreciate it for what it is.
On a separate, but related note, thanks to the Time magazine archives, you can see the magazine article from George Taber that started it all. Hard to believe that 395 words and a largely unremarkable article incited such a revolution.
Fred Franzia
The current issue of the the New Yorker includes a piece on Fred Franzia and it is a very good article. Surely, it breaks no new ground. It’s essentially the same shtick that several writers before Dana Goodyear have written, an exercise in overt mythmaking and caricature development perpetuated by Franzia, a whip-smart man who reveals exactly the amount of his intellectual iceberg that he desires.
It is as if Franzia knows his ultimate legacy will be decided post-mortem and as such he wants to build a body of work. These articles always highlight his personality to a greater extent (or at least commensurate) than the business aspect, isolating the crassness, the oblique misogyny, the disdain for the high-end of the wine industry. Nonetheless, it should be required reading for anybody that cares about wine – not to incite the passionate, which a profile of Franzia always does, but for some of the inherent wisdom that it reinforces.
Like it or not, acknowledged or not, Franzia does good for the wine industry, even if his perspective punctures wine lifestyle thought bubbles along the way. In my opinion, Charles Shaw wine, the movie “Sideways,” and the coming of age of Generation Y have had the greatest impact on increasing wine consumption in the U.S. in the last decade, an opinion that is virtually empirical based on divining the major, omnipresent consumer trends.
It is inevitable that people graduate from Charles Shaw wine, and if you’ve ever shopped at Trader Joe’s you quickly realize that the stated Trader Joe’s demographic of the, “over-educated, underpaid” is precisely who buys “Two-Buck Chuck.”
It’s the culturally literate, budding wine curious, who are demographically above buying wine off the bottom shelf.
Drinkers of Charles Shaw and many other Bronco Wine Company wines graduate to higher-priced wines, and it is precisely that rising tide, when coupled with Generation Y’s penchant for mid-priced imports, that creates health in the U.S. wine business today and in the future.
Karen MacNeil has a telling and wise quote in the article, saying:
“There’s a phrase in wine education—there are Wednesday-night wines and then there are Sunday-night wines. They may Sunday-night wines in the Napa Valley, but every vintner in this Valley would argue that we all need Wednesday-night wines, Franzia should just leave it at that – say, ‘I make Wednesday-night wines. I’m not going to make the Armani suit, I’m going to be the clothes purveyor to Target.’ Instead, he suggests that somehow there is no valid premise for expensive wines.”
To me, the notion that Franzia wants to grow his business from 20 million cases of wine a year, to 100 million cases a year, virtually ensures a future where wine is included on the table of a vast number of Americans, cementing the development of the U.S. as a country of wine lovers. There will always be a place for wines of place, a Sunday-night wine, but increasingly, it looks like Franzia has his sights set not just on a ‘Wednesday-night’ wine, but a Monday through Saturday wine, as well.
May 14 2009
For non-football types, a “Hail Mary” pass is a desperation pass to avert defeat, with a narrow chance for success, the losing team has a so-called “prayer’s chance” at victory. National Wine & Spirits, a regional distributor of some size, operating in Indiana and Michigan, has just heaved their attempt at the end zone.
Several weeks back, I detailed Southern Wine & Spirits attempted entry into Indiana; they filed a lawsuit against the state to repeal a silly, but long-standing residency law. In writing about this, I gathered perspectives from a couple of different sources – two independent retailers, a small distributor and an off-the-record employee from a large distributor.
In that off-the-record conversation, I gleaned and paraphrased the following from the conversation:
… the shift in large wine companies from one book to another has the largest opportunity for impact. If Terlato moves and Icon Estates moves, Southern may gain. Yet, other businesses lose on a grand scale. Now, one can argue that if those large books move it gives an opportunity for them to pick-up new sku’s for the market. Yes, that is an argument, but not a very valid one, particularly when you consider that large-scale wine distribution is not about the end-customer, it is about velocity of inventory.
Well, the chickens are coming home to roost in this distributor game of consolidation, and for every winner there has to be a loser.
If this were a football game, handicapping becomes easy when the team that is facing 4th and 20 on the 40-yard line, with seconds on the clock, signals their play …
Is National Wine & Spirits standing pat and running out the clock? Kind of, I think, well, actually, no, they are writing letters (throwing Hail Mary’s) to the editor of our weekly business journal. The below is the unedited version of a letter that appeared in the Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ) for the week of May 4th.
Last Call for National Wine & Spirits?
Printed in 5/4/09 Edition
Southern Wine and Spirits has applied for a license to do business in Indiana and it has been stated in the IBJ that Southern will stimulate competition. Everyone should understand that Southern does not enter a new market to stimulate competition. Their strategy is to buy out or force out of business the existing distributors until the market has only two primary distributors, with Southern controlling it. The Chairman of Southern has made the objective clear: “I’d like to see two distributors in every market. That’s our goal.” One only needs to look to Kentucky, where Southern has an 80% share of the liquor business and a 70% share of the non-Gallo wine business.
Because of their size (>$12B with their Glazer partnership), Southern has a commanding share of three-out-of-five of the major suppliers that sell 80% of the liquor in the United States. Those same three suppliers represent 90% of the spirits business and 70% of the total business of National Wine and Spirits, the only Indiana-owned wine and spirits distributor in the State. It is now National that is the target for Southern to buy or force out of business.
National has been told by some of its major suppliers that it should sell to Southern. Not for performance reasons, but because it’s time to consolidate. That may be the only decision. However, we do believe there is much more at stake here - for the welfare of our business, employees and community. The situation, though, can be defused by the Governor and the Alcohol and Tobacco Commission (ATC).
This story can have a different ending than a number of other headquartered Indiana companies that have sold, thanks to the 21st Amendment – it gave the State of Indiana the right to regulate the Alcohol Beverage Industry. The legislature has given the Governor broad powers to regulate beverage alcohol through the Indiana ATC and consider the public interest in their decision-making. With its general purpose being “to protect the economic welfare, health, peace, and morals of the people of this state,” the ATC has just-cause to deny Southern’s application for a license.
What is best for the people of Indiana? Does the Indiana community want National to become another “branch office” - exporting profits and jobs out of State? Or is keeping professional spending, investment and robust philanthropic contributions local important? At least it is for Hoosiers to decide.
John Baker
COO
National Wine & Spirits, Inc.
Besides being poorly executed in terms of persuasive quality, the letter does raise some interesting questions.
When you consider that the other large distributor of wine in the state, Olinger, is affiliated with Glazer’s and Glazer’s is affiliated with Southern, you begin to see that if Southern did come into the state and did consolidate books on large wine companies, National Wine & Spirits might immediately lose a significant portion of their portfolio. In fact, the Southern quote about wanting two distributors in every market might become manifest destiny with numerous smaller distributors riding the large distributor’s flank, while not leaving a seat at the table for a deposed National Wine & Spirits.
To me, this issue of Southern coming into the state suddenly becomes a gray and difficult situation to draw a conclusion.
On the one hand, I want Southern in the state as a consumer because I think we would have more product availability. On the other hand, losing headquarters for mid-sized businesses is never good for community economic growth.
However, it is hard to rationalize preventing Southern in the state because that means our Alcohol and Tobacco Commission continues to keep arcane protectionist laws on the books. Yet, if Southern does execute their two distributors per state model, they will wield so much national influence that even thinking boutique wineries will have access to the market via spot distribution is a pipe dream.
Finally, in this age of bailouts, my capitalistic, free market thinking is clouded by the Keynesian economic world in which we live. Maybe the “winner takes all,” “count the bodies after their dead” model is not an appropriate model …
Alas, this would make for a fantastic high school debate topic because both sides can be argued in equal measure.
Ultimately, however, if you separate the issues, the greater loss in this conundrum is the continued protectionist laws that serve just a few, while lining pockets and locking out access to the market.
If you look at the long road, this isn’t a Southern vs. local National Wine & Spirits issue. This is about access to the market by many distributors, not just Southern, which ultimately can lead to more consumer choice.
While the National Wine & Spirits plays to local hot buttons of headquarter locations and philanthropic engagement, their “Hail Mary” pass will likely fall short of the goal line. While unfortunate, I think it is in the best interest of the most people, even if it hurts a few.
Uttering words I thought I would never breathe, I must now say, “Welcome to Indiana, Southern Wine & Spirits.”
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