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The Wine Cask was sent this wine for review by the good folks at Sam's Club. It represents an embarkation to "Fair trade" products which purchases products from people who are committed to paying their workers in every step of the process a "fair wage."
This Malbec is from the Mendoza area of Argentina which is truly coming of age with respect to this grape. The 2005 vintage was a 90 point rated vintage according to the Wine Spectator. (The current issue of the Wine Spectator highlights Argentina and its forte with this grape.)
The wine is a hefty purple hue with room filling medium sweet aromas of dark berry jam and some pleasant aromas of a tinge of black licorice. This wine has plenty of life in it but is well integrated and drinking well right now. Palate is extracted with big dark fruit, some tarry notes and a touch of smokey or burnt wood--for the uninitiated, these are positives--and finishes with a lingering light plum ending. The reference price on this wine is $10 and for the price, this is a decent value so raise a glass and give it a swirl!
Medium ruby hue with nice tart pie cherry bouquet, earthy, pipe tobacco and some structure.
Palate--sour cherry with steely mid palate, black pepper and light sour cherry flavors--needs to breathe!
With 45 minutes of air, cocoa predominates over the sour cherry. It is still a bit out of balance with respect to its tartness but steely light fruit is okay drinking. You'll pay around $15 for this wine and a different year would probably prove to be more rewarding. Raise a glass!
A weekend blow through to (NW's) place had us drinking through a few bottles from his "informed" cellar. (NW) of this blog, picked this up several years ago and laid it down. It comes from the St. Julien section of Bordeaux and is noted as a premier great growth year after year.
Even before raising the glass to my nose sweet fruit filled the air. Luden's wild cherry cough drops (a fond memory from kid-dom came to mind)
Nose is big cigar box aromas with touches of leather and of course cherries galore.
Palate--even at 13 years old, this wine still has some maturing to do with slightly chewy tannins, which lay out the cedar foundation with bright red fruit, plum. (NW) paid around $50 this when he purchased it but you won't be able to touch it for that now. Raise a glass for sure!
I grabbed this for $9 as it was a "Best Buy" in one of my wine mags. It is light garnet in color with fruity, nice bouquet of black cherry.
Palate--Lt. bodied with initial spice, licorice, some wood and a smoke finish. Sounds better than it really is. I didn't care for it as an example of Syrah. It's okay but if you want Syrah, be willing to pay about twice what I paid for this. Check out Santa Barbara Syrah's for nice drinking and raise a glass.
This wine and its red counterpart are always nice values. This white blend from the Cotes Du Luberon is a light golden with sweet almost perfumy bouquet of vanilla, red apples and pears.
Palate--lively acidity, light citrus, pears and crisp clean finish. Blended from 4 different grapes, this wine is just a decent wine and drinks well by itself yet handles the right foods as well. I find this wine most everywhere in the $6 (when on sale) to $8 and again--this and its red version are writh keeping around for lighter drinking that won't break the bank. Raise a glass!
Finish of mixed berries, cassis, cedar, and tobacco
Good friends treated us to a couple of bottles of this wine. It's drinking really well right now and is enjoyable because it's so relaxed and polished. The flavors integrate beautifully, and the texture is nearly perfect.
To purchase this wine at auction or from the library collection of a fine wine merchant, expect to pay around $150 per bottle. As one of the Grand Cru Classe wines of St. Emillion, this wine has the reputation of aging quite well. Typically a Merlot-based blend, it has developed a strong reputation and a strong following for decades.
Its a struggle drinking Chianti without food; insufferable punishment on the taste buds in fact. That sharp, acidic, slightly earthy finish is how the wine is supposed to taste but it's a struggle to consume more than a glass. Rasping if you are subjected to a poor quality bottle.
Add food and it's like drinking a different wine.
But, I hear the masses yell, that is what Chianti is designed for - drinking with food. It is like a television without an aerial; you can use it but it just doesn't work very well. You know you are missing out on the bigger picture.
Two bottles of this rather decent Chianti have been consumed over the last few days. A Sunday roast of beef and Yorkshires was fine. Further complexity was revealed in the flavour but there remained something lacking.
What the roast lacked was the sweet acidity of tomatoes to balance. Step forward a superbly thrown together lasagne. Combining mince beef, plenty of fresh parsley, a splash of red and a tin of chopped Italian tomatoes the wine shone like a beacon . The wines refreshing acidity makes it all the more drinkable. (I'm also thinking lamb would have been a better match, over beef, with the wines acidity cutting through the inherent fat beautifully).
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: San Felice Il Grigio Chianti Classico Riserva, 2004, Tuscany, Italy Stockist: Everywine £257 for 12, Italian Wine Society £15.19 £182.28 for 12 [More on Adegga / Snooth]
A richness of dark cherry fruit leads into a twist of acidic bitterness on the finish. Smooth and robust with hints of leather and mixed herbs. but shines with food. Shown to both Slavonian and French oak barrels which adds complexity. 100% Sangiovese. Alcohol 13%.
Andrew BarrowScribblings Rating - 90/100 [3.75 out of 5]
Social media is creating quite a long tail of industries - lots of software companies, consultants, new modes of public relations, etc, etc. Some of them focused on getting you into using social media, which is great, and many of them aspiring to help you “use” social media for your business. The latter point is what I find interesting.
I’ve spoken on the topic of social media before (with assistance from the self-proclaimed “Bonafide Marketing Genius” Marta Kagan - FYI, I’m glad she has the confidence in herself to tag herself that way b/c she’s one of the few I would actually agree with) and I think the biggest point from my talk and others that I’ve seen (like Marta’s deck) is that this all is an excercise in sociology. There are so many technologies that one could use, so many things that you could do, but in the end what is happening to the web is just another means of connecting, interacting, and getting to know people; not unlike joining a social club (like a sports team, a cultural center, or whatever). In fact, just as you have “different circles of friends” offline (work friends, drinking buddies, sports friends), you’ll develop the same thing online and your community will drive you to the tools.
That’s where the idea “use social media” sticks in my craw a little bit.
I’ve had this blog since 2004 and I’ve interacted with many many people thanks to it. It’s mainly an outlet for my thoughts, creativity, and passion (wine, technology, and marketing) and I’ve made a serious number of friends in the wine industry because of it. My goal was to do exactly that, get to know people in the wine industry. One of the major things its taught me though is that the only way to truly understand what this “social media” thing is all about is to get out and do it. BUT - do it with a genuine desire and understand that its a means to reach out to a community (blog in particular). Its not a sales tool and its not a PR tool for social media any more then going to a conference is a PR tool for you. What I mean is you can go to a conference, chat with people, network, find people that you can stay connected with. If you contribute to the conference (effectively contributing to the ‘community’ that the conference is bringing together) then you can get noticed and in that sense you get some good word-of-mouth publicity.
But here is how to think of “use social media” (Ugh!). Its a sociological, human based filter. Its not a broadcast engine like the “information super highway” or the “series of tubes”. Doesn’t matter what tool/site you use, first and foremost your community has to be on that site and/or using that tool. There is always a “critical mass” that needs to be achieved before the tool gets useful. Kind of like a party, its not really fun until there are a bunch of people you know there.
Once your community is there, interacting, chatting, whatever then the dynamics of what happens is facinating. Things start to get “useful” and the human filter is formed. It becomes a situation where the community is as close as a bunch of office mates even though they are all over the world. I literally consider the community I interact with on Twitter my “virtual office mates” and I genuinely like interacting with them. The reason is that you can contribute (chat, answer questions, and otherwise participate) just like you would any other office. In the case of Twitter, it becomes just like a hallway conversation in an office. You can ignore it for a while, pop your head in with a little bit of nothing to say, put out some information or useful tool to the community, or you can put out a serious question to the group and get some solid answers. Pretty much how you would for any office with cubilcles and hallways.
The best part of all this is that when the community reaches critical mass of people in a certain technology/tool who genuinely like to talk about a particular topic, forming an open community, thats when the best things come out. If you contribute something to that community that is truly useful, it will get passed on to everyone very quickly. People will decide if what you said is interesting, show their friends and, if its applicable, their friends may pass on the information to their other “open communities”. The network effect takes over and your information has just become “viral” (i.e. it will spread not only in the current ‘circle of friends’ but to other ‘circles of friends’). More importantly, the human filter took over and since that useful piece of information you generated is actually VERY useful, it will get passed on for a while (or very funny, or very interesting in some other way - the latest on Twitter was a streaming video of puppies, not useful, just very Zen).
So if you find an open community or want to know where there is critical mass already for a community you want to learn about (for instance - the wine community is embracing Twitter and Social Networks) on one of these tools the best way to “use social media” (I hate the term because it makes me feel like “use your friends”, but I guess there isn’t a better way to say it) is to contribute in significant ways. Add to the community but more importantly be YOURSELF. If people like you, they like you. If they don’t, guess what…they don’t. There isn’t alot of advice that can be given there that your parents should’ve taught you before Kindergarten. Thats the funny truth of this “social media” craze. The fundamental sociological point is that this is making friends. Because even if you contribute something that spreads from network to network like wildfire, when those people check you out and “follow you” on Twitter, or Facebook, or whatever, then they start to get to know you in a more personal way then anyone over 25 ever thought possible. If you’re obviously contributing to promote your business it will come across. If you genuinely approach this medium (regardless of technology) as “getting to know people” in the way you’ve always done then you’ll not only have that “viral hit” you won’t be an online “one hit wonder”, you’ll have friends who can help you when you’re down, connect you to others, help you build business, get emotionally invested in your brand…. i.e. you’ll be a part of a community and how you do that is something your Mom and Dad shoulda taught you.
FYI - if you’re doing it for a business/brand it doesn’t matter - if people don’t like your personality, they won’t like your brand. These things have a way of piercing the corporate PR veil. Want an example? Supposedly Cisco “gets” blogging. Read their blogs and you tell me what you think….
In 1964 the Beatles released Meet the Beatles in the United States, the first Ford Mustang was produced, Lyndon Johnson defeated Barry Goldwater for President and the grapes for the 1964 Gran Reserva Rioja of FaustinoI were harvested. They made 219,500 bottles and I drank one last night. I can?t help but be struck by history when I taste older wines. By the way, I just turned nine a month before they picked these grapes, which means I?m becoming part of history too.
To experience these wines is to touch a piece of history as no one makes wines in the same way anymore. Too much science has entered both the winery and vineyard and that?s a good thing. The great thing about an old Rioja Grand Reserva is that they were only produced from the best vintages and from the best wines, which means that you won?t find the faults you often see in older wines from lesser years and pedigrees. A wine like this lets you reach out to winemakers of the past and be touched by the way they thought.
The 64 Faustino Gran Reserva shows not a trace of cassis, raspberries, new oak or alcohol. Part of that is its age, but I?m willing to bet it never showed any of those things. Years in barrels (old) and bottle before release assured there was no baby fat on this wine when it was deemed ready for sale. The winery did the maturing for you.
The most striking thing about such wines are the aromatics. It is almost (almost) anti-climatic to taste them. The other is the finish, which is long and haunting. They are wines that invite you to think. Think about not only the way they taste and smell, but about the people and times in which they were born.
There is no such thing as great young wine. Very good, very enjoyable ones yes, but great ones no. Young wines only have the potential to be great. Drinking young wine all the time deadens the palate making it only sensitive to power and fruit. In today?s hedonistic market driven by immediate pleasures most of the greatest wines are consumed before they actually become great. It?s a terrible waste as today?s wines could be the best ever made and, in addition, never have there been so many wonderful wines designed to be drunk young. More often then not, these ?lesser? wines are more pleasurable to drink in their youth than more distinguished and pricy bottles.
For every wine there is a season, connoisseurs should be able to pick the proper season to drink wines made to age. Now we give potentially great, age-worthy (age-necessary) wines points at birth and that defines them forever. It is more important how a Bordeaux or Barolo tastes at two than how it tastes at twelve. That is obviously half-ass backwards. There are wonderful wines for drinking young and grand wines that don?t achieve their regal stature for years. Trying to make those wines ready to drink upon release denies their true potential. It is silly to think that a wine can become instantly profound. Like the people that make them, few wines become become complex as adolescents.
It would be depressing to think you achieved your intellectual peak at thirteen. Why do the same thing to the world?s finest wines.
Not something you read about much are the wines of Laithwaites, despite being one of the largest wine retailers in the UK. They offer wines under the laithwaites brand, The Sunday Times Wine Club, Direct Wines and the Nectar Wine Club amongst others. They delivered a mammoth 56 million bottles of wine across the UK during the last 12 months.
A little tasting a few weeks back (I'm falling behind with my note writing!), in the high Victorian Gothic splendours of Oxford Town Hall (such a welcome change from having to trundle all the way to the metropolis), offered a just under 30 wines from the companies range.
A vast majority of the wines offered are own label - just a smattering from well known names (Cloudy Bay, Royal Tokaji, Hunters for example) appear on their list. The company owns a Chateau in Bordeaux where many staff are sent to learn the intercacies of wine making. Visiting a vineyard and winery is an amazing experience and really brings home the connection between land and final product.
Shame then that the Laithwaite Sauvignon Blanc (£7.89) from this estate, Chateau La Clarière was one of the worst wines available at the tasting. Perhaps they should send me a bottle to try for the girls running the tasting were hugely enthused by it and their experiences of visiting the estate, but my notes read slightly over extracted, harsh nose, sharp acidic finish.
But other drinks were more palatable:
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Alessandro Gallici Prosecco Brut, NV, Vino Spumante, Italy. Price: £8.89 [More: Adegga / Snooth] Gentle nose, vibrant fizz (like you were expecting something else?), frothy, fun. Tranch of peachy, appley, fruit. Good price. Alcohol 11.5%.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Royal Tokaji Dry Furmint, 2006, Hungary. Price: £10.69 [More: Adegga / Snooth] An unusual wine with which to tempt the masses; I imagine trying is the best way to sell this (there was a wine club tasting, with the same wines as offered to me occurring simultaneously in an adjacent room) . No nose but an interesting array of flavours on the palate - clean, minerally, citrus, slightly honeyed, apricoty.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Rocky Rombola Rosé, 2008, New South Wales, Australia Price: £6.29 [More: Adegga / Snooth] Delicious looking colour, vibrant. Very Aussie in style, ripe fruit, full, good price. A freshness and vibrancy (that were lacking in a couple of other rosés at the tasting). Along with the fruitiness there is a nice, sharp berry edge on the finish. Alcohol 13%. £6.29.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Gran Valle de Niebla Pinot Noir, 2007, Rapel, Chile Price: £9.15 [More on Adegga / Snooth] From the reliable Cono Sur stable. Easy drinking, soft, but over-priced. Alcohol 13.5%.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Stony Creek Tarrango Shiraz, 2006, Big Rivers, Fleurieu & Gundagai, Australia Price: £7.39 [More on Adegga / Snooth] An interesting blend (70% Tarrango, 30% Shiraz) Light and fruity almost pinot in style. Tarrango on the nose, Syrah on the finish. Offers a juicy softness. Alcohol 13%. £7.39.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Tenca Tree Shiraz , 2007, Central Valley, Chile Price: £6.29 [More on Adegga / Snooth] Deep,almost opaque in colour. Good blackberry spiced nose and decent spicy finish. Commercial,soft but nice expression. Alcohol 13%.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: San Floriano Ripasso, 2005, Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Italy Price: £11.39 [More on Adegga / Snooth] The best red of the tasting - lovely palate, and rich, expressive nose. Plenty of tannins, concentration and ripe, stewed fruit. Good length. Alcohol 13.5%.
Review0.3 Cider Tasting Note: Cidre Artisanal Le Brun Brut, NV, Cidre de Bretagne, France Price: £4.29 Not really a cider fan but this is rather nice - not 'dirty; as some ciders can be on the nose, not to alcoholic either (which is the normal region I dislike cider). Alcohol 5.5%. Sweetish fruit, dry finish £4.29.
Review0.3 Wine Tasting Note: Miranda Golden Botrytis, NV, Riverina, Australia Price: £11.15 half bottle [More: Adegga / Snooth] A mix of Riverina Semillon and King Valley Riesling. Fresh, treacle and orange syrup nose. Rich, full, sweet, mouth-filling, ripe and good complexity for the price. Alcohol 10%.
Many years ago I was interviewed for a job at Laithwaites essentially writing the (prodigiously large and frequent) mailing material; much to their loss I didn't get the job!
Obama beat McCain by 53 - 46 percent in the popular vote. The logic of the electoral college broadened this to a 68 - 32 percent victory. But there’s one core constituency where Obama thrashed McCain by an even wider margin: the wine vote.
Obama took nine of the top ten wine consuming states (Texas, the fourth largest wine market, was red) as well as 17 of the top 20 (Georgia and Arizona are 13th and 14th) using 2006 data on wine consumption from Adams Wine Handbook. Those states alone would have been enough to win the electoral college with 276 electoral votes for Obama. Overall, blue states this year were thirsty for wine, putting back a total of 80.8 percent of all wine consumed in America.
McCain captured nine of the ten states with the lowest consumption (Vermont was blue).
And in case half-bottle sized Vermont raises the question of whether the data per capita (of drinking age) were different, Obama actually took all of the top ten thirstiest states per capita and 18 out of the top 20. McCain took 14 of the bottom 15.
Drink wine, vote Democratic? Forget Joe Six-Pack, this year the path to the White House was through the wine glass.
Finally, and prosaically, Illinois was the number two state (behind much larger California) for Champagne and sparkling wine. I’m sure that figure went up after last Tuesday night.
Total gallons of wine consumed in blue states: 228,563,000 or 80.8 percent of the total. The top twenty wine consuming states roll after the jump.
California Florida New York Texas New Jersey Illinois Massachusetts Washington Pennsylvania Michigan Virginia Ohio North Carolina Georgia Arizona Connecticut Maryland Colorado Oregon Wisconsin
Fellow wine blogger Jon Bonne crunched the numbers differently, looking at wine production and voting behavior, finding that states producing 99.6% of American wine were blue this year. [SF Chronicle]
Looks like a piece of news slipped by me a couple of months ago. Every year I look forward to a report, which more than any other single piece of news, speaks the truth about the state of wine in America. Restaurant Wine magazine commissions and publishes a report every year on the top 100 wines and top 100 wine brands sold in restaurants around the country, from family diners to fine dining restaurants.
Based on the simple measure of how many cases of each wine were sold at these restaurants, we get a picture of the most important person in America when it comes to wine: the average American wine consumer.
And why is this person so important? Because they are the bread and butter of the wine industry. They are the fuel for the wine engine. They are the bottom 95%, so to speak, whose spending habits make (or break) the market and who make up the pool of wine drinkers from which true wine lovers slowly graduate to more expensive wines and esoteric habits like...reading wine blogs.
I like knowing what the rest of America drinks when it comes to wine. Here at Vinography, here in San Francisco, here in my group of friends, I live in a bubble of unreality when it comes to wine. In this bubble, $40 bottles of really good wine are a steal and most everyone I hang out with knows how to pronounce Viognier ("vee-own-yay"). But that doesn't represent wine drinking America any more than San Francisco represents the political tenor of the rest of the country.
This is what wine drinkers in America drink:
1 Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay USA 2 Beringer Vineyards White Zinfandel USA 3 Cavit Pinot Grigio Italy 4 Sutter Home White Zinfandel USA 5 Inglenook Chablis USA 6 Ecco Domani Pinot Grigio Italy 7 Yellow Tail Chardonnay Australia 8 Copperidge Chardonnay USA 9 Yellow Tail Shiraz Australia 10 Franzia Winetaps Vintner Select White Zinfandel USA
Those are the top 10 wines consumed by Americans (by volume) in 2007.
And here are the top 10 wine brands sold in American restaurants in 2007:
1 Beringer Vineyards, Foster's Wine Estates Americas 2 Kendall-Jackson, USA, Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates 3 Franzia Winetaps, USA, The Wine Group 4 Yellow Tail, Australia, W.J. Deutsch & Sons, Ltd. 5 Sutter Home, USA, Trinchero Family Estates 6 Inglenook, USA, The Wine Group 7 Copperidge, USA, E. & J. Gallo Winery 8 Cavit, Italy, Palm Bay Imports 9 Woodbridge, USA, VineOne (Constellation) 10 Foxhorn Vineyards, USA, The Wine Group
For me and for the wine lovers that I hang out with (and no doubt the folks that read this blog) these are somewhat sobering lists, if only because for most of us, these are wines we generally don't, and wouldn't, consume given the choice. The average retail price of these wines is well below $8 per bottle, and the last time I asked you readers what you spend on average per bottle it was somewhere around $20.
And some of you probably didn't think that you were all that sophisticated when it came to wine, did you? Notice how the top 10 wines only includes a single red wine? If you're a Cabernet drinker you're a member of the wine elite. And I'm only partially kidding.
Here are some additional interesting facts about this year's list:
- White Zinfandel sales are down 15% - Chardonnay was more popular than Pinot Grigio for the first time - Pinot Noir sales were up (again) by 89% - Merlot sales were down (again) by 9% - Sauvignon Blanc and Sangiovese wines appeared for the first time on the top 100 list (bravo!)
So what to make of all this? I take a number of things away from this list every year. The first is appreciation for how lucky I am to be able to drink the quality of wine that I do regularly. The second is humility -- a reminder that while I may not choose to drink them, these wines, the companies that make them, and the people that drink them are what really make the wine world go 'round. And finally, I always finish my perusal of these numbers with hope. The amount of wine America drinks continues to go up, and slowly, but surely, the diversity of that wine continues to expand.
After daylight savings ends, my thoughts turn increasingly to red wine. Once I set the clocks back, it gets dark faster than I expect. I start cooking dinner. The heat comes on. I wonder "is there a red wine in the house?"
And then there are the winter foods that start sounding just perfect right about now: beef stew, chicken chile, and soups made with late fall vegetables.
If this sounds like you right now, I've got a red that will knock your socks off and have you praising the wine gods. It's from Chile, which (like Argentina) produces some excellent value wines. This one is no exception, and it's made by Veramonte, the winery that also makes exceptionally good value Sauvignon Blancs.
The 2005 Veramonte Primus represents the best of what Chile has to offer to people seeking great value and great taste. This excellent QPR red wine drinks like a wine that's two or three times the cost. It's big, bold,a n balanced. Made from a mixture of 51% Merlot, 32% Cabernet Sauvignon, and 17% Carmenere, the first thing that will strike you if you get your own bottle is the beautiful, dark plum color. Then you will be bowled over by heady aromas of plum, blackberry, spice, and plum blossom. I loved the way that the promise of the aromas was delivered in the flavors, which echoed the smells beautifully--although the plummy notes did take center stage. The wine had rich, satiny texture that seemed more opulent than a wine with an under $20 pricetag deserved--but I'm certainly not complaining. Well-integrated tannins and a taste that reminded me of the spicy smell of my mom's cedar chest rounded out this nicely made, well-balanced wine. It's drinking very well now, but if you find some for a good price I think you might want to buy a couple of bottles and put them away for drinking between now and the end of 2009.
I received my bottle as a sample, but you should be able to find bottles of this wine all over the US for between $14 and $26. And they bottled some in 375 ml bottles, as well, which are retailing for $7-$14.
Enjoy the change in seasons. Get some red wine, snuggle with the one you love, and catch up on your movies and TV now that the election is over. Long winter nights can be a good thing, after all.
Perhaps I'm just getting too old, but I can't for the life of me really understand what San Francisco Wine Week is all about.
Here we are living in one of the greatest wine and food cities of the world. We're spoiled rotten when it comes to our wine and food. We expect, and regularly receive great local ingredients in our food, an incredible selection of wines from California and around the world, and completely take for granted the fact that we can bring a bottle of our favorite wine to any restaurant we like.
If there was ever a large city in America that might have a week long celebration of wine, San Francisco would certainly be at the top of the list. And here we are beginning just that sort of celebration, except....
It seems completely, and utterly lame.
As far as I can tell, San Francisco Wine Week is simply six nights of open bars in various venues around the city where you can taste as much wine as you want, no doubt to the soundtrack of thumping electronica.
Come on people. That was the best you could come up with?
Granted, this event is supposedly aimed at the young, urban, hip crowd of Millenials that make up the largest wine drinking population that America has ever seen. But I've got to believe that there's a better way to celebrate what the promoters rightly identified as one of the Bay Area's most defining cultures.
And just to make sure I've exercised my complete curmudgeonly rights, let me just say that the web site and all the marketing material I've seen are horribly unhelpful at getting any sense of what these nightly events will be like. For instance, Wednesday night is the "Sommelier Party" hosted by sommelier Mark Bright.
OK. So what does that mean? If you wanted to find out, say, the difference between that night and Tuesday night, which is the "Import Party" you would be shit out of luck, as they say. Nothing on the web site provides any indication of what is actually going on that night, or any other night, for that matter, other than "wine tastings." Hell, it's not even clear whether there will even be food at these things, except for "San Francisco restauratuers" being mentioned somewhere as some of the sponsors.
And if you want to know what's going to be happening at the ultimate end of week party, the Red Gala, you'll find yourself similarly screwed, except, of course for the dress code, which is supremely, unhelpfully described as "red attire encouraged but not required." So would that be red t-shirts or red ball gowns?
It's quite a shame that a city so steeped in wine and so populated with smart, talented hospitality folks couldn't come up with something better for the first Wine Week than this. As far as I can tell, we've got nothing educational, nothing uniquely Californian, and nothing really fun, except, perhaps if you're a young guy who knows a thing or two about wine and wants to go meet chicks that will be impressed with your knowledge. Sounds more like "party with alcoholics" than it does "celebrate wine culture."
Of course, that may just be the target audience for this whole debacle. The saving grace of which may be that the entire week's events cost a mere $75 bucks. Which means, no matter how bad the event ends up being, a motivated barfly will at least be able to drink their money's worth if they go every night. With only 44 wineries participating, you might also be able to get through every single one over the course of the week. In fairness, it must be noted that some of the wineries pouring at the event are quite good.
I'll leave it to the most adventurous of you readers to go check it out and look forward to happily being proved wrong. But I don't expect to be. San Francisco, you can do better than this.
Love it, hate it, or indifferent about it, Beaujolais Day will be upon us in less than two weeks. While the young wine isn?t particularly good, its release is a great excuse for a party, and millions of people celebrate the event by drinking about 49 million liters (or, if you prefer, 13 million gallons) of Beaujolais Nouveau annually. (To put that volume in perspective, consider that a typical tank truck of the type you see making deliveries to your local petrol station has a capacity of about 9,000 gallons.) That?s a lot of wine, and in fact it amounts to nearly half of the Beaujolais region?s production.
This year, Boisset Family Estates will ship its Mommessin Beaujolais Nouveau in lightweight PET bottles. The 100 percent recyclable bottles reduce shipping weight by 42 percent, and cut freight costs by one-third. PET bottles have a smaller carbon footprint than glass bottles, and are calculated to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent.
Boisset is no stranger to alternative packaging. Its French Rabbit brand wines are sold in Tetra Pak containers, and its Yellow Jersey wines come in PET bottles.
Yesterday, at an event for the local farmers and winemakers, there were a few Texas wines at the tables. One particularly appealed, insofar as it corresponded with what I have been thinking about in terms of what American terroir is.
First the wine. Cabernet Sauvignon from the High Plains of the Texas Panhandle. High acid. Very High. Almost to the point of being volatile. Naturally. Tender tannins. Harry Waugh of Latour would have loooved it. A creamy, almost uncanny, balance. I talked to the winemaker about the wine and related an earlier tasting of grapes from the same vineyard, but made by a different winemaker. The earlier wine had been taken through Reverse Osmosis almost to the point of stripping certain fleshy parts of the wine out, making the acidity factor even more stark. The earlier winemaker told me he had done that (R.O.) because the wine naturally had this aspect of what some folks would recognize as volatile acidity and he tried to ?work it out.? It didn?t work for him and in the process he removed some of the buttresses that held the wine up, resulting in a wine that tasted as if it had had plastic surgery that had gone bad. Fortunately the second winemaker knew what the characteristic of the vineyard was and didn?t fight it, but rather let nature be. I don?t even like Cabernet for the most part, but this was a lovely drink.
Which is a very long introduction to something I have been talking about to wine folks across the country lately. This idea of American terroir.
It started with thoughts about California terroir (where I lived for half my life, growing up there) and feeling something in my environment before I knew the terms. In those many trips from Southern to Northern California going back to school and stopping in Templeton or Paso Robles, Gilroy or the many little vineyard plots along the way, I would taste a Zinfandel or a Charbono and note something that seemed oddly familiar. Something I couldn?t quite pinpoint. But it was concrete. Real.
I know there are critics who think "California wine" is big and bold and ripe and, well, immense. And other than those creeping levels of alcohol, I really am having a hard time understanding what their frame of reference is. Certainly not from growing up drinking the wines of Italy. Or France. Or Virginia, for that matter.
Yesterday, I also went into a natural foods café and ordered a gla
Tecnorati
Love it, hate it, or indifferent about it, 
Yesterday, at an event for the local farmers and winemakers, there were a few Texas wines at the tables. One particularly appealed, insofar as it corresponded with what I have been thinking about in terms of what American terroir is.
It started with thoughts about California terroir (where I lived for half my life, growing up there) and feeling something in my environment before I knew the terms. In those many trips from Southern to Northern California going back to school and stopping in Templeton or Paso Robles, Gilroy or the many little vineyard plots along the way, I would taste a Zinfandel or a Charbono and note something that seemed oddly familiar. Something I couldn?t quite pinpoint. But it was concrete. Real.
I know there are critics who think "California wine" is big and bold and ripe and, well, immense. And other than those creeping levels of alcohol, I really am having a hard time understanding what their frame of reference is. Certainly not from growing up drinking the wines of Italy. Or France. Or Virginia, for that matter.
Yesterday, I also went into a natural foods café and ordered a gla