Category: Wine

Vol. 6 No. 2 The Morning after the Night Before

Market Update (wine follows)

TB hopes that this will not become like so many New Years resolutions and fade after a week or so as it is a good exercise for him and hope you find it useful too. As promised, today will combine economy/market news with wine industry news and thoughts of the author. Here goes:

Yesterday, the markets had a strong rally, up about 6%, and based on the overnight markets which are up 2% now, but down from 4%+ earlier, we should have a continuation today. But what is of utmost importance/concern is that it closes up again today. Why? Because Monday’s strength only took us back to a week ago, before last Tuesday’s (3/31) gap down and collapse.

Since the selloff began, the VIX (options volatility index) surged from the low to mid-20’s (to simplify meaning 4:1 calls than puts) to the mid 80’s – a total reversal! Last Friday was options expiration and a triple witching (stock market index futures, stock market index options, and stock options), thus producing enormous volatility. Overall, the market did quite well  in the first test of an expiry at end of a quarter! Note that the 31st was last Tuesday and a bad day for stocks but better than it could have been.

Sri Kumar, of his eponymous global strategies group, in Santa Monica, CA. was on Bloomberg this morning and I always listen to him. He does not see the rally as sustainable, and the risk is now that people believe a bottom is in, which Kumar feels is too early. Contrast this to the great financial crisis of 2008-09, when the market bottomed on implementation of the bailouts that were only accomplished under the Obama Administration, whereas under Bush 43, who wasn’t proactive enough to push a GOP Congress to act. Thus beginning on March 9, 2009 a rally ensued, continued relentlessly until February 2, 2020! Heed! (note: in case you think TB is a guru, he missed most of the rally and went to mostly cash when Trump was elected. Note on the night of the election the overseas markets tanked along with U.S. futures but after selling off early in Wednesday’s session, resumed the rally…ugh!

Bush 43 also left running the government to the Cheney/Rumsfeld duo that Bush 41 loathed and tried to warn his son about to no avail. The duo convinced Congress into invading Iraq in what was supposed to be an ‘in and out’ operation and that convinced the Democrats who had voted against (and were proven wrong), to vote for it…to his credit Bernie nixed it. The result was the destruction of the first balanced budget in over a decade under Clinton (like him or not), and the beginning of the monstrous deficits we are running today…along with THREE tax cuts that gave most of the benefit to the wealthiest Americans thus widening the wealth gap. Note too, that we were promised they would only go into Afghanistan to get Bin Laden. These lies along with the one Colin Powell was forced to give to the UN that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD), have put us in the longest and most costly wars in our nations history. Think what that could have done for the economy, especially with the infrastructure spending that economists were calling for, and no, Trump’s ‘Wall” does not constitute infrastructure spending!

But I digress…TB is a fiscal conservative, former Republican but can’t call himself a Democrat however that is how he will vote unless and until both parties come to their senses…along with 70% of American voters who are split evenly and both sides are wrong (IMHO). Extremism is not sexy…or useful. On a personal note, we are in the process of selling our beautiful  condo home of nine years on Lake Minnetonka. We listed it just before the crisis and rather than be under the stress of living there with prospective buyers coming on short notice, moved to a beautiful luxury apartment in nearby Edina, MN. This puts us closer to our kids and grandkids! Would have been nice if we had decided on this earlier, but ya never know, do you?

Wine

As promised yesterday, TB’s thoughts on the state of the wine industry which was already having issues prior to the virus, and is having mixed impacts since. Here goes:

  • First, the tariffs imposed on Euro countries who make parts for the Airbus (go figure on the relationship to wine), have impacts that are muted so far but have far-reaching implications:
    • the tariffs imposed were on all wines from some countries but limited from others such as Italy where only red wine with alcohol above 14.5% are subject…huh? Meanwhile, all French wines are with the U.S. being the top importer along with China,
    • one might think this would be a boon to U.S. winemakers, and you would be wrong. First, we are working off supplies of affected wines, and importers are reducing their markup on imports to offset the impact of the tariffs, thus no benefit to American producers…at least so far,
    • any benefit to luxury American winemakers is muted as demand hasn’t shifted (at least not yet), and worse, the Trump tariffs on China have increased the ones by the Chinese, thus drastically reducing the demand from China and TB is now being told that this has shifted foreign sales to South Korea which is not as strong a market, however.
  • Please note that tariffs are never a good idea: first, it isn’t the producer who pays it (except eventually in demand), but the CONSUMER..i.e. Americans! It causes enormous dislocations and now that we have the virus, shipping is being curtailed as dock space is limited and finding healthy crews is an increasing problem. No good will come from this.
    • speaking of crews, the actions of the Acting Secretary of the Navy, Thomas Modly, are inexcusable! First, he is a graduate of both Georgetown University (bet the Jesuits aren’t proud), second he is a former naval officer (helicopter pilot), and while criticizing Captain Brett Crozier, not just publicly but before the crew that respected him for his going out on a limb for them and the safety of the ship. Modly should be FIRED, just like his predecessor , who was fired for his handling of the Navy SEAL courts martial, and more importantly going against Trump, so Modly acted preemptively…and STUPIDLY. This from TB, a former Navy man.
  • There has been a ‘run’ on wine and hard liquor at stores due to fears of quarantine. This means that at least for one go round, retailers will have to restock. On a recent Sunday morning, a local wine shop TB buys from opened up and the first sale was $900 worth of assorted wines. The good news here is being offset by the slack in buying wine from restaurants who need to move that inventory due to the high carrying costs (note that they pay more than a retailer for wine)
    • some have asked states to allow them to sell cocktails and wine in bottles, but not hard liquor, to go. One innovative method is to take advantage of the law which allows purchased bottle leftovers to be taken home – perhaps take a little out of the bottle and recork it to go on demand? Hmmm. TB likes that idea and it should be allowed for the duration of the epidemic,
    • meanwhile wineries are concentrating on improving cashflow and reducing inventory in anticipation of the bottling and release of the new vintage by reducing price, offering free or $1 shipping, and even selling library wines, and donating all or part of the profit to efforts to eradicate the virus…very commendable…and wise!
  • TB is not sure where the big liquior retailers led by Total Wines & More, end up out of this. Both wineries and retailers are experimenting with virtual wine tastings…huh? How can you do this virtually There are two methods:
    • first, a somm or wine rep, or a wine lover can announce a virtual tasting where she describes the wines to be tasted, discusses them, and then goes through a tasting of them either blind or not. TB thinks there is little interest in this,
    • one idea that is gaining traction is to create a list of wines to be tasted virtually, either by a winery (their label) or a retailer who prepares a list of the wines to be tasted and allows time for those interested to pick up the wines and participate. One problem: let’s say there are six wines: what do you do with the leftovers?
      • you can drink all six bottles over the next couple of days ,or
      • you can drink them all and awake with an enormous hangover, or
      • pour them down the drain, especially if you don’t like them (not for TB!)

You decide, in the end YOU are the only one that matters, as always!

Best to all of you, and thanks for reading…if you are still with me.

TB

©traderbillonwine.com, 2020

Vol 5 No 1 Take your rating and shove it!

(Postscript added. Also correction on The Wine Gourd link. See below)

Okay, that’s a bit strong but what does a single point score (or from several critics) mean? That THEY liked or disliked it which doesn’t translate to YOU liking it! Why do Americans have so little confidence in their ability to discern quality in a wine while Europeans trust their palate? Have you ever bought a wine with a high (90) rating and just thought it was okay after plopping down $50 or more (since Parker left the Wine Advocate more 90’s are being awarded and for wine priced down to the $25 range). Then there is the WIne Spectator who recently listed 400 Oregon Pinot Noir’s with an amazing number at 90 or higher. TB won’t get into comments I have heard from several sources on how many of those ratings were achieved.

With so many raters, it seems that if you can’t get a 90 rating from one of them, you might as well get out of the business. TB has discussed ratings several times over the four years since he started the blog, and they have all been less than positive.

Did you hear about the guy who went into a wine shop during a tasting. He said, “this wine tastes terrible.” The clerk replied, “really? Parker gave it a 90!” To which the guy said, “I’ll take a case!”  While I haven’t experienced a terrible one, I have had some with that I regarded as mediocre. As an author friend titled one of his books, “you don’t have to be wrong for me to be right.” We all have different tastes. Do you prefer Coke or Pepsi? Seven-Up or Ginger Ale…you get the picture.

Remember too that these ratings are not on how well they pair with food, and how many of you take the time to check what pairs well with your special eggplant? When we travel in Europe outside the major cities, we always drink the local wine. Several times I have bought the wine and later wondered what the hell was I thinking. In many areas of the world they have only one or two grapes varieties and thus can do little to the flavor of the wine, especially with primitive equipment and no temperature controls. If you can’t make the wine go with the food, make the food go with the wine. Adding certain ingredients, spices, and others can make most any wine go with it…well, usually.

Rather than rehash my prior articles on ratings, I would like to call your attention to a very different type of wine blog: The Wine Gourd (www.winegourd.blogspot.com). I highly recommend it. The author is very quant oriented but in a good way. His posts take a topic and then graph the variables to prove whether the reporting is accurate.

The last three posts have been of particular interest to me. The first discussed a fundamental problem with wine scores. To simplify, imagine a 20-point system (like UC Davis uses). The purpose of this is to break down the wine into characteristics such as color, clarity, aroma…you get the picture, with just two points for overall quality. Let’s say two wines each scored an 18. Doesn’t it matter which categories got the maximum scores? You bet it does. What if one wine had one point each for clarity and aroma but scored higher than another wine in two other categories? Now that we have seen it in basic form let’s consider the Parker created, but widely differentiated scales. Specifically, Parker has 20 points for subjective evaluation while some have 25. So just in this one category there could easily be a 10-20 point difference…let’s say from a 70-90!

Ah, but it gets worse. You can take your wine to a lab that specializes in telling what you have to do to make it a 90-point wine. Is that what you want? All cabs, chards, or pinot’s, to all taste the same? Not for me or the winemakers I admire. They want a ‘sense of place’ or terroir. Now it is different for a 2,000 case winery from a 100,000 case winery, the latter where people are expecting the wine to taste the same from vintage to vintage. But, as my friend, Carlos Pastrana of Priorat, says, “then why put the vintage on the bottle?” I, and many others feel the same. But for most, given that the average life of a wine is less than an hour: the time to get from the grocery store to the dinner table.

Now let’s look at the tastings held at state and county fairs with perhaps six tasters. The wines are usually tasted ‘double blind’. In other words, after tasting the all the wines of a class they are tasted again in reverse order and the scores of each judge are averaged. What could be fairer than that? Well, it is fair but it usually results in a wine of good overall quality exhibiting the characteristics of a given varietal getting the gold, while the outliers may have characteristics of the others may turn off some of the judges. Again, we would like to know how the individual wines did in each category scored. But get a gold and the world will beat a path do your door, so that is what you should shoot for if volume selling is your bag.

That is why it is important for a small winery to develop a group of loyal followers who will buy the wine for its merits and because of warm feelings they have for the staff, the winemaker, the blend, etc.

Next comes descriptors…something every somme can provide you in great detail. Some of them are freshly cut garden hose, cat pee, a broad range of fruits and berries (I don’t believe grape is one of them), and I have always been embarrassed that I can’t make those descriptions, but then I learned neither can a lot of winemakers. TB once took a winemaking course from a man who later became a Master of Wine…one of the few in America. We nervously brought our finished product to class, and if he liked them he would say, “that’s wine”, if not, he just passed on by.

In  1981, having recently moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, I was fortunate enough to attend a Bordeaux tasting at the Clift Hotel, hosted by Anthony Dias Blue, and “the maestro”, Andre Tchelistcheff. A fantastic experience for the paltry sum of $25! In every case, Tony’s comments were more elaborate than Andre’s. After tasting one of the wines, it was Andre’s turn to go first, and he said, “this wine is mousey”.  Tony quickly jumped in to add,”what Andre is trying to say is it smells like a room that has been closed up for awhile and a mouse was in it.” Andre immediately cut him off with “no Tony, this one had his whole family with him and stayed there for a long time.”

Andre hated descriptives…well, unless they related to the feminine. He once listened to a young well known winemaker describe a wine breaking it down into its components, and interrupted with “that is disgusting…who would want to drink that? When I taste it I think of the breast of a young woman in winter, surrounded in fur.” That, my friends, is sensual wine tasting, although few could get away with that today.

As for me, I love wines that bring back a memory of a dinner, event, or a great wine I once tasted. Isn’t that what we all want…really? Do you want a somme to tell you what you are about to taste? Doesn’t that just eliminate you? Perhaps you should just say, no thank you, that provided all I need from that wine.

The latest Wine Gourd ended with a survey of wine buyers on what influences their purchases. Basically, it asked what influenced their wine purchases the most on a scale of 1-7 . The results are the percentage in each category who gave it a 7:

Advice from a knowledgeable family member: 42%!; 90+ point score: 25%; recommendation from store staff: 31%; tasted wine in store 60%!; wine from a country or region they like 45%; positive review read in print or online: 21%; wine on sale for 10% or more off 13%; recommendation from a wine ap 8%; wine is on display 5%.

With only 25% relying on a 90+ rating, it seems like use of descriptors and numerical ratings might just be spinning wheels. TB will close with a comment from a wine retailer:” I can get all the 89 point wines but I can’t sell them, and I can sell all the 90 point wines but I can’t get them.” Are you capable of discerning a one point difference?

Whew…TB is exhausted…needs a glass of one of his 89 point wines. Maybe even an 88!

Happy Wine drinking…why taste when you can enjoy a glass instead?

TB

Update 1/30: Would you go to a museum with a pencil and paper and rate artists? Hmmm, Rembrandt is an 89; Picasso 92. Stupid, unfair, and downright silly. Yet, a small group of people believe they can do that with wine. So? There is a cost: do you want all cabs, or chards, to taste alike? Doesn’t technique or terroir matter? Perhaps not to you, but TB says: no, and hell no!

 

(c) traderbillonwine.com 1/29/2019

 

Vol. 4 No. 7, Judgment of Chaska 5/24/18

In Minnesota, and this may surprise you, we have a plethora of good privately owned wine shops, within the greater Twin Cities region. Among the ones that TB likes and frequents are  (in alphabetical order): Excelsior Vintage, France 44, La Dolce Vita, Solovino, and Wine Republic. All have their special interests. Note, TB did not include chains especially perhaps the largest in the U.S., which shall not receive mention.

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. Afterall, In I’ve Been Everywhere, Johnny Cash names Minnesota in the first verse and Chaska in the last. One email recently caught TB’s eye: a tasting based on the original Judgment of Paris tasting that elevated American wines to world class forty-two years ago. TB has written of this tasting and the book on it by George M. Taber, a journalist for Time magazine stationed in Paris  He, like other reporters received a notice of this tasting to be held at the Intercontinental Hotel, a short distance from Time’s offices. Having nothing better to do he wandered in just before the tasting was to begin (for more details read the post, Vol. 3, No 16).

The idea to ‘recreate’ the tasting was the brainchild of Troy Seefeldt, who along with his wife Jen, did an exceptional presentation at La Dolce Vita wine shop in…Chaska, MN…exactly forty-two years after the famous event!

It was a blind tasting, with no clues, other than I and a few others who knew of the tasting. We were poured blind tastes in pairs, a French and an American. First, Sauvignon Blanc, then Chardonnay, then Merlot, and lastly Cabernet Sauvignon.  To cater to novices (and I will be the first to state that I am not an expert on wine, but a lover and advocate of the noble grapes), a five category scoring sheet was provided, that made it fun for all with scores of 1-5 on each, and a 25 point perfect score:

CLARITY: All but Opaque; Polluted Lake; See Through; Translucent, and Sparkling

NOSE: Rotten Eggs; Vinegar Medley; Inoffensive; Impressive; Freudian Complex

BODY: Needs a Workout; Skinny & Flabby; Proportionate; Lean + Sinewy; Boldly Muscled

FLAVOR: Oenophilic  Ick; Too Sweet; Amply Acidic; Balanced; Romancing the Tongue

FINISH: Bitter Swallow; Callow Gustation; Small Parting Gift; Extra Stamina; Dream Worthy

See…that isn’t so hard is it? Scores came in amazingly similar! This happened to TB when he took people whose idea of wine was followed by ‘cooler’, when he moved to Reno – the same year as the Judgment! Using the UC Davis 20-point Scoring System , they were amazed at how well they did, as was I, although the overall winner was a ringer I put in: Gallo Hearty Burgundy, but you can’t deny it was well made wine. Contrast to the 100-point system created by Robert Parker, which may have done more than anything else to improve the quality of wine than anything else I can recall. The downside to this was conformity for those coveted 90 point ratings, eliminating the artistry of the winemaker, and destroying any semblance to terroir. Note also that there are literally dozens of 100 point systems, having from 25-30 subjective points. Parker is very clear in what he likes: huge fruitbombs with tannins (yes, even for the subtle Pinot Noirs, which is why he was banned from Burgundy tastings). Others not so much and many of them promoting wines they are directly involved in or being compensated to evaluate.  Let’s banish ALL 100 point systems…period! As a San Francisco wine critic once wrote: how can you trust my ratings if you don’t know what I look for in a wine? (For more on ratings see Vol. 3 No 6).

Lastly, note that the actual Judgment used 20 point scoring, however there were no rules on how those points were to be calculated. Since all ten judges were French, (sponsor Steven Spurrier, and his pupil, Patricia Gallagher scored the wines too but they weren’t tabulated…wouldn’t you?)  there was a huge variation, much more than one might expect from experienced wine evaluators, since several tried to ‘game the system’ and mistook the French wines for the Americans, causing one judge, Odette Kahn, who gave obscenely low scores to the French wines to demand that her scores be removed…they weren’t! Also, I had the country wrong on one of the four pairings…and felt lucky on that.

Back to the wines for the tasting (of course, the cost of the original wines would have been prohibitive – if you could find them), so proxies were provided as follows along with my total points:

Sauvignon Blanc: Coteaux Du Giennois, 2017, 18; Grgich Hills Fume Blanc, 2014, 19

Chardonnay: Ch. Montelena, 2015, 17; William Fevre, Chablis, 2015, 18 (I did really bad in this category!)

Guillemin La Gaffelieere Grand Cru St. Emilion 2010, 16; Freemark Abbey Merlot, 2013, 20

Chateau Aney 2015, Haut Medoc, 22; Stag’s Leap Cabernet Sauvignon 2014, 23

So, for better or worse, those were my scores. Like the original Judgment, it was a great experiment and loads of fun! Try it, you’ll like it!

©Traderbillonwine.com 2018

Vol 4 No 6 What’ll you have? Red, White…or?

Oldtimers like TB recall Boone’s Farm which probably got more people interested in wine than anything else. Credit Ernest and Julio, Gallo that is, for that. Then they came up with Madria Madria Sangria. Nobody had had sangria at that time and suddenly it was all the rage. But here’s the thing: Cesar Chavez was leading the farmworkers protests at the time, so what did Ernie and Julio do? They ran commercials with a latina spouting on the wonderful sangria “my hussband and his oncle” made.  One has to wonder how many people who supported the farmworkers were duped into buying it.

One year, watching the World Series, I saw several commercials for Carlo Rossi Wine. Huh? Never heard of it…how can they afford to do it. Well…Carlo was a distant cousin and voila! Gallo paid for the commercials and of course owned the winery (?) – probably made at the Gallo winery.

Lastly, they came up with Bartles & Jaymes wine coolers. They even had a phone number you could call and hear the boys talking to one another…and a house with a sign out and two guys rocking on the porch. At the time, Gallo owned the largest intra-state trucking company.

They were nothing if not innovative and once you got past the ‘pop’ wines, dollar for dollar they made the best wine in the U.S., dollar for dollar. Hearty Burgundy was the best of the bunch…even though it contained no burgundian grapes!

Then Julio died in 1993 in an accident when a vehicle (jeep?) he was driving veered off a farm road leaving it all to Ernest to run the company. About this time, Gina Gallo bought land in Dry Creek Valley and wanted to make a premium wine. The catch was she had to use the Gallo name. Now imagine an enophile having a dinner with a bottle of Gallo on the table! BUT, she overcame that and produced a respectable table wine.

What next? They decided to buy up wineries around the world. Do you like Albarino? Martin Codax. Rather than list them all consider Apothic, Edna Valley, William Hill, and a flock of others. Here is a link: Gallo portfolio You will be amazed as TB was. They are now the largest wine producer in the world.

Now back to the winery. The great Andre Tchelistcheff’s son, Dimitri, went to work there. Why? Because he couldn’t stand the way Madame treated his father at Beaulieu Vineyard. He then hired Richard G. (Dick) Peterson as a chemist, introduced him to Andre and eventually Dick left to work under Andre. Then, when Heublein bought B.V., Dick ascended to being winemaker with Andre leaving to become a consultant. Note that Heidi Peterson Barrett, his daughter, became one of the top winemakers in America.

TB refers back to his early comment that Gallo made the best wine in America, dollar for dollar. Don’t underestimate them…many have and were proven wrong.

So why all this about Gallo? Because they were single-handedly responsible for introducing young people to wine coolers, pop wines, and finally table wines. Finally, we are back to the title of this edition. There has always been, and continues to be a ‘logical’ (?) progression from sweet white wines to dryer whites, to rose’s and lighter reds to full-bodied reds. Here is a link to a new study that confirms this:  WineBusiness.com   Note that the study also shows a preference for organic, sustainable, and biodynamic wines but a willingness to pay a few dollars more for it.

TB has to end this now…off to a tasting of organic, sustainable, biodynamic wines!

(c) traderbillonwine.com 2018

Vol 3 No 11 The Best Wine in the World!!!

Let’s face it there is way too much wine in the world…way too much to consume and consumption is declining in Europe due to driving laws, flat in U.S. being again replaced by beer…due to those new craft breweries not Bud or PBR.

The wine industry too follows fads: who can forget the Sideways effect on Pinot Noir and Merlot – both on demand (price) and store placement (Merlot went from eye level to the bottom shelf, replaced by Pinot Noir…and not all of it good…as was the majority of Merlot). Of course there is the rating ‘fad’ (?), such as this scenario:

Guy in tasting room: This wine is awful!

Salesperson: Really??? Parker gave it a 90!

Guy: I’ll take two cases!

You laugh but that is what happens. As TB has stressed here many times: you are your own best critic! …and guess what? That guy will probably serve it at a dinner to his friends, and guess what? Most of them won’t like it! TRUST YOUR PALETTE, it is the best wine critic in the world…for you…and will likely be in line with most people.

Most wine is drunk within hours of being purchased…not even long enough for the wine to get rested and refreshed, especially if it is a red! How about laying it down for a week or two (at least), oh, and if you can pace yourself, when you serve it, keep a little to try the next night…most likely it will taste better if it is good wine! Far too many times I have loved a wine then found out it was only going to get better…patience is a good thing, especially with wine.

There is a wine blog: thewinegourd

You should do yourself a favor and check it out. Pretty interesting and sensible: unless you KNOW what a wine critic looks for in a wine (i.e. Parker and high tannins), and that meshes with what you like, look for tasting ratings of groups. As Wine Gourd shows graphically, you want the one that more tasters like…if you want to please the most people at say a dinner you are hosting (also note: just because you bring a bottle of wine to a dinner, unless requested that is up to the host…in other words it is simply a gift), go for the broad ratings. Here is an excerpt of a letter to a local wine maker I wrote to today on the subject:

As a winemaker you want to appeal to the broadest base of buyers for two reasons: one you want the buyer to like it; secondly, when that person pours it you want the majority of those at the table to like it.
When I was a wine snob I bought Parker 90+ wines until I realized I didn’t like these high tannin monsters that you have to hold decades to enjoy, and noted guests reactions and wine left in glasses to learn the lesson. Also, the vast majority of wines, sadly, are drunk within a week of purchase which fails to allow the wines to develop or even recover from their journey.
I see Parker as a paradox: he improved the quality of wines globally; he has contributed to the homogenization of wines trying to weed out terroir which I firmly believe in…as does my friend, Randall Grahm and other Rhone Rangers.
I also subscribe to Mike Veseth’s Wine Economist blog. If not familiar, Mike saw Sideways and was shocked to see the effect on Pinot Noir and Merlot prices and placement on shelves. You might want to look at back issues of The Wine Gourd fro further study.
This winemaker, discussed in an earlier post, won two golds in their respective classes at the San Francisco Chronicle’s Wine Tasting in January. No mean feat! As mentioned in the post (Vol. 3 No 9), there were 60 – count them sixty – judges, meaning these wines appealed to the broadest range of wine professionals.
By the way, both of those wines were in the $25 class…so you don’t have to pay an arm and a leg for quality.
Twenty-eight years ago TB read a book that changed his outlook on wine, Kermit Lynch’s Adventures on the Wine Route…kind of a bible for Rhone Ranger, Burgundy, and Loire oenophiles. Couldn’t put my hands on it the other day and was angry with myself since it changed my view of wine and introduced me to so many wines I have come to enjoy over the years (decades?). So I went on Amazon and lo and behold there is a 25th Anniversary Edition, published in 2013, and I bought it in hardbound edition for less than the original list price too. Here are three things he did and didn’t do that make this edition the one to buy:
1. He added an epilogue rather than make changes to the original text…it is relatively short if you already read the first edition,
2. He tells what happened to some of the personalities in the first edition,
3. He lists the 25 favorite wines he has ever tasted, including the vintage (i.e a 1929 Chateau Y’Quem.
That’s all for today, folks…live, love, enjoy good wine…life is too short to drink plonk.
TB
©2017, traderbillonwine.com

Vol 3 No 8…a ‘sideways’ look at the Central Coast – prelude to a guide

Back in March, TB wrote a series of posts on his trip from the Central Coast up to Washington (Vol 3 No. 2.0-2.5). In light of all that has happened since I thought I would provide some ideas if you are making a trip there soon. This was prompted by a chance meeting with a friend…in a wine shop of course (Wine Republic, Excelsior MN), and promised to provide the names of some wineries to visit. Given the way the harvest is looking September would be a much better time to go than August…as always!

Let’s recap the weather in California (or the entire West Coast for that matter), over the past decade. Until 2016 it can be summed up in a word: drought!!! Not just drought, mind you, but the equivalent of right before the Great Flood. Imagine, a 900 year record drought…not just in one area of California but the entire state and much of the rest of the West Coast too!

TB grew up in Southern California…Santa Monica to be exact in the early years of surfing…although he was really a body surfer. In those bygone days one would go to the beach and spend a day – sans sunscreen, get a bad sunburn that peeled and then have a great tan for the rest of the summer…fortunately no melanoma so far!

About the time TB got married in 1969, he noticed a change. It didn’t take all afternoon to get burned…in fact he had it happen in about an hour at the beach one day! Rains? We always had a wet rainy season…can’t recall a dry years. Oh, and fires…Malibu, one year, Mandeville Canyon the next, Bel Air the next, then the San Fernando Valley…like clockwork. TB recalls being at school and knowing there was a fire starting: Santa Ana winds, a dryness in the hair, above normal temperatures and finally the sun would turn orange and the temperature would soar into the hundreds. Later, the destruction on the evening news…but it was simply a fact of life in Southern California.

So what happened to the weather? Dare I say climate change or the dreaded ‘global warming’? The naysayers…of which I have never found among winemakers…say it always changes…yes it does but over much longer time periods and we have, through burning fossil fuels destroyed the ozone layer which is our insulation from ultra violet rays, and in a nutshell, that is the argument for why we must change our ways or leave our grandchildren in a very precarious position. Take a look at Burgundy, where the weather is becoming more extreme, or Bordeaux where winemakers say there will be no more merlot in a decade or so. Alarmist? Hell no, that is their livelihood. Now you know.

To those who think we can relax again…think about the fires so far this year, following that incredible rainfall (except in the Central Coast between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria. Lake Cachuma provides the water supply for Santa Barbara and it was virtually empty at the start of the season and unlike the other dams in the state is the only one that isn’t full to capacity. Note that is the lack of rainfall that stresses the vines and produces rich, intense fruit, but this is ridiculous. As of yesterday, Cachuma is at just 49% of capacity! That is not much margin for error…or another dry year.

Ah, but there were few vineyards in the 1960’s…although there was one just east of Los Angeles that went back to the days of the Spanish explorers…Virgina Dare – now gone and the site was between two freeways (San Bernardino and Riverside). About the only other ones were in Livermore, where Wente, the first, and Concannon reigned supreme. Today there are about a dozen.

Moving north to Napa Valley there were also perhaps a dozen…mostly In Napa, such as Beaulieu (aka BV), Beringer, Inglenook, Charles Krug, Christian Brothers and a few others, until 1966 when Robert Mondavi built his beautiful winery and that kicked off a surge in winery openings. His was the only one that looked like a winery, sleek, and reminiscent of the California missions, instead of an industrial warehouse. That was all about to change. In 1969, vineyard land in the valley was $5,000 an acre…but you had to buy a minimum 20 acre parcel. Compare to today’s $350-450,000 an acre going price, and you cannot make money at that price…so more McMansions of the wealthy, producing their 50-100 cases of wine a year, getting 90 point ratings and selling for upwards of $150 a bottle. Still not profitable…but they don’t care…they call it passion but is it really? Not unless you do the grunt work yourself and few do (Rupert Murdoch bought one of the two in Los Angeles (Moraga), a second one is in Malibu…which also provides the name. Not recognized as great growing areas….unless the terroir is smog? But who cares?

Moving back to the north again, Contra Costa County had a few small ones, bulk producers where you brought your jug to the winery in those days. There are now even some in Orinda where TB lived before being transplanted to Minnesota (Lamorinda AVA…huh?). Oh, wait. Lake County had Konocti Winery and Sonoma had Buena Vista and a couple of others that went back to the 1800’s.

Ah, but the Central Coast? Nothing, nada, zip, zilch…not until 1978 when six investors took a chance and started Zaca Mesa in the belief that good wine could be made there. How right they were, especially when a young Ken Brown was hired as winemaker. Ken in turn hired numerous luminaries to work for him including Adam Tolmach, Jim Clendenon, Bob Lindquist, Lane Tanner and others. A ‘who’s who’ of the Central Coast!

Still, even as the winemakers above started their own wineries, the area was virtually unknown except to locals and people from Los Angeles. However, they started a project that continues today: the Central Coast Classic and Wine Auction organized by local radio personality, Archie McClaren. Only because we had friends who moved to Santa Maria did we learn of it in its infancy in about 1989…it began in 1986 and is a charitable event second only to the Napa Valley Wine Auction, but to TB a lot more fun. It became and remains the second largest wine event in California!

Still, it was pretty much virgin territory except to locals but that event started a change. This was augmented and superseded in notoriety by the movie, Sideways, which while fun, gave a distorted view of wine, denigrating merlot while elevating pinot noir to star status. Within weeks, merlot moved to the bottom shelf, replaced by pinot at eye level there is a certain irony to this as protagonist Miles’ favorite wine was Cheval Blanc which is…primarily merlot (by the way if you decide to read the book, you will find that Miles is really just another wine snob and it gets disgusting in the sequel – avoid!).

It also created so much demand for the grape that Napa vintners were buying it and driving the price up to where many of the locals couldn’t compete. Wait…what about Paso Robles?

There are two initiators of the fame of Paso: Gary Eberle and Kermit Lynch. Eberle was the first to plant syrah and also provided the shoots for Randall Graham who was called the ‘Rhone Ranger’ in an article in Wine Spectator and the name stuck for the region. However, he, Bob Lindquist and others traveled to Berkeley, California to talk to a budding wine importer with a penchant for Rhone style wines. After tasting them, including Vieux Telegraphe, Domaine Tempier, August Clape, and more.

Kermit’s book Adventures Along the Wine Route is a fantastic addition to anyone’s library and love of wine…highly recommended…it was a game-changer for TB!

All of the names in the previous paragraph our passionate about wine and winemaking…it is not a rich man’s hobby for them…respect that! Besides they make some of the best wines on the planet!

Wow…talk about a diversion from my original outline…so I will follow this up with suggested wineries to visit on the Central Coast.

Back soon.